Marie’s body whipped around in a circle. Faster and faster, she turned. It felt as if the air were pressing against her. Then the ground beneath her feet crumbled away. She shrieked so hard she thought she’d taste blood on her tongue. Then just like that, the ground was solid again, and her body was still.
She found herself staring at her own reflection in a darkened subway window. The subway car jerked around a curve, and she stumbled. When she regained her balance, she realized that she was on a full subway car. Her head was pounding, her throat felt raw. She checked her cell phone. What time was it? Where was she? Where had she just been? Where was she going?
The subway slid to a stop, but Marie was frozen in a sea of amnesia and indecision. She could not muster the mental strength to decide whether or not she should exit the train. Through the subway window, she saw a hooded figure sitting on a bench at the station. A dark vision ruffled its wings within Marie’s subconscious. She blinked and leaned toward the window, struggling to remember. But then the doors closed, and the train took off before the memory could make itself whole in Marie’s mind.
Labor was hard, much harder than they said it would be, and much longer than Marie and Steven had planned. After a day at home and a day and a half in the birthing center, Marie’s baby still had not crowned. Marie was so worn out by her unproductive labor that the words “birthing plan” lost their meaning. When she heard Steven asking the midwife for a few more hours at the birthing center, she squeezed his hand and whispered, “Let’s go to the hospital.”
In the hospital there would be syringes and scalpels, exactly the instruments she had intended to avoid by choosing a birthing center and midwives over doctors and their medical approach, but after 36 hours of labor, Marie had reached her limit. Getting into the wheelchair was torture, but being wheeled past the bulletin board with snapshots of smiling parents caused a more haunting pain. Despite putting in so many hours of labor, Marie and Steven would not succeed at natural childbirth. They would have no right to count themselves as a birthing center success story.
As she rode to the hospital, all she could think about was holding her child at last. She imagined sobbing, kissing him softly, and scolding him for being so stubborn and shy about coming into this world.
The nurse who greeted them at the hospital was old, older than Marie thought nurses were allowed to be, but she could not dwell on that thought or any other. There were just too many distractions. There were the persistent but ineffective contractions that she had brought with her to the hospital, the cries of strangers that surrounded her as she rolled through the emergency room, the swarm of residents in white coats that moved around her room with clipboards in hand. Time was galloping by in odd, uneven clumps. A nurse wearing a shirt with bunnies and balloons printed on it seemed to be checking her blood pressure for hours, while another nurse attached a fetal monitor to her stomach so quickly it seemed as if it had always been there.
In the sea of white coats and pastel cartoon prints, Marie could not see Steven anywhere. Just after an IV port was stuck into the back of her hand, Marie felt her abdomen tensing again. When the next contraction hit, a high-pitched beeping sound exploded from one of the machines.
“What’s happening?” Steven asked.
His voice, thick with worry, cut through all the noise in the room.
Marie winced, smothering her groans, silently willing the doctor to answer. The doctor felt the sides and the top of Marie’s swollen belly with deft hands. He leaned over and pressed a stethoscope to her navel.
“We shouldn’t push this any longer,” he said to no one in particular.
When the contraction had passed, the beeping sound quieted. All the medical personnel turned their eyes to the fetal monitor.
“The baby is stable,” a nurse with a high-pitched voice squeaked.
“What’s… happening…?” Marie muttered through her exhaustion.
“The baby’s heartbeat stopped, but it’s back on track now,” the midwife said patting Marie’s leg.
“I’m going to set up an OR,” the doctor said and shot the midwife a decisive look.
The midwife nodded to him ever so slightly.
“Does this mean…?” Marie trailed off.
Steven was finally by her side. He grasped her hand. “Don’t we get to decide?” he asked.
“Something is happening during the contractions that is putting the baby in distress,” the midwife said. “I promised we wouldn’t put you on a timetable, but this isn’t about time, this is about your child’s life.”
“Are you sure…”
“The only thing we’re sure about,” said the midwife, “is that we don’t want to risk your baby’s life.”
Another contraction rolled through Marie’s pelvis. Marie gritted her teeth and threw her head back. The fetal monitor squealed again. Steven threw his hands over Marie’s ears. Even with the sound muted by her husband’s palms, it sounded to Marie like it was their child squealing, like they were torturing the baby before it had a chance to be born.
“The OR is ready,” Marie heard someone announce. The gravelly tones in the person’s voice shot straight through her and stripped away everything else in the room. Marie looked up and saw the old nurse standing in the doorway. Her gnarled hands rested on the handles of the wheelchair. She vaguely heard the word “epidural” and felt hands on her body, but nothing could break Marie’s fascination with the old nurse.
She didn’t hear the rip of the wrapper as a nurse unsheathed a needle. She didn’t feel the grip of Steven’s hands on her shoulders as he engulfed her in his embrace. The pinch of the needle sliding into her spine barely registered. She heard her heartbeat thudding in her ears, she even heard her baby’s heartbeat fluttering rapidly next to her own, but she was completely estranged from the goings-on in the room.
Two nurses eased her legs off the bed. Holding tightly onto Steven and the midwife, Marie pulled herself to her feet. She leaned on Steven as she hobbled to the wheelchair. There was another contraction or two in the hallway, but they had been dulled by the epidural.
Marie began to lose sensation in her legs while she was being rushed down the hall. Although she had been unhooked from the fetal monitor, she could still hear it screeching in her ears. She could feel her body contract, but was unable to lift her knees or wiggle her toes. Panic pounded her ribcage. Pure terror invaded her.
“Steven!” she yelled, and twisted around in the wheelchair. She was frantic to find Steven, but all she could see were harried nurses in quiet shoes.
“You poor dear,” the old nurse said. The wheelchair made a sharp turn, and soon Marie was facing a set of gray double doors. The doors flew open on their own, and the nurse pushed Marie through.
Marie gripped the arms of the wheelchair and looked back at the nurse. “Where is my husband!?” she asked.
The nurse smiled. Up close, Marie could see that the nurse’s eyes were not symmetrical. One gleamed and reflected light, while the other gobbled it up, hungry as a black hole.
“Where is Steven?” she asked again.
The woman did not answer. She simply smiled. Her grin gave Marie chills.
Marie tried to stand, but when she pushed against the armrest of the wheelchair, she remembered that her legs were dead weight. She fell against the backrest.
“Don’t be difficult,” the nurse said, and the room went dark.
The sound of the nurse’s breathing became amplified. Marie was—briefly—in three places at once. She was tearing through the bushes, yelling for her daddy as a lost three year old; she was standing barefoot and dusty-toed at the crossroads; and she was here now—at the hospital, her fears and history reverberating through her mind.