Borrowing
She
sleeps noiselessly in her bed, pristine Egyptian cotton sheets shrouding her
frame-- bony knees and small feet and breasts like cotton balls. She sleeps alone, her toes pointing toward
the middle of the bed where she dreams her daughter is curled up. A new pile of folded tissues is carefully
placed on the nightstand close to the woman’s head, and a few tiny white pills are
scattered next to their opened orange bottle.
The shadow from a polished table lamp veils the contents of a journal
the woman received as a Christmas gift; it is one of those with the inspiring
quotes at the bottom of each page. She
thought it too sentimental, so she never wrote in it. However, last night the woman weepily pored
over the quotes and tore out one that especially resonated.
When
the woman wakes up to January early-morning chill, she pulls her feet onto the
cold hardwood and sinks down immediately, hands tracing the small crevices
between floorboards. She imagines her
life starts moving backwards, and that twenty-four years from now she will be
just a dot, small enough to fit comfortably through the cracks.
“We
do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors,” her timid voice echoes in the
otherwise soundless room, “we borrow it from our children.”
When
it was July and sweltering the woman wore sunhats; she had one for every outfit
and she liked the way they shaded her face and made her look mysterious to
passersby.
The
city streets were ragged, deeply scarred by millions of heels walking the same
route to and from work, or shopping, or a night out.
“Why
do you only hold my hand when other girls walk by?” the man asked her one
syrupy humid day when she wore her sunflower-yellow hat.
She
felt threatened, sometimes, by the girls’ curvy figures as they cascaded down
the road, but she didn’t want to admit that.
The woman leaned down to pick a dandelion weed from the gap in the
sidewalk and saw her boyfriend pause to examine his reflection in the glossy
glass wall of a law building.
“Because
I like to show you off, of course,” she laughed, “and because I can’t have you
running away from me at the sight of another beautiful lady.”
At
that she skipped forward and turned around so that he could look at her smooth
legs and flat stomach. When the man
caught up, he grabbed for the dandelion and tossed it into the road.
“Other
women are beautiful, but you are my sunshine,” the man chuckled, eyebrows
raised. He tugged at the brim of her hat
and circled her slight waist with big, mannish arms.
In
the suffocating nights, they would both cling to each other like two Eskimos in
a blizzard of white sheets. Their toes
would point toward one another until the sunrise, when they would wake up and
step onto the morning- cold hardwood, cursing at the same moment and walking
together to the bathroom.
She
was sitting on the porcelain toilet of their bathroom when she found out. She had just returned from an early-morning stroll,
and was still wearing her sea-green sunhat.
A shopping bag draped over her elbow with three tests concealed inside,
hidden between the shampoo and conditioner she bought. He was reading the Sunday paper on their bed,
black and grey letters masking his boyish face.
“Hottest
weather we’ve had all season,” he grumbled.
She
agreed and retreated into the bathroom, wiping a line of sweat from her upper
lip.
As
she waited for the results of the first test, the woman thought about what the
baby might look like, if it existed.
Surely it would have his strong hands, and her perfect posture. Positive.
She opened the second test, still splayed on the toilet, underwear
around her ankles, having saved some urine just for this event. Surely it would be a girl, so she could dress
it in little sunhats and teach it how to be a strong woman, eventually. Positive.
The woman pushed her sunhat lower over her eyes, pulled up her
underwear, and walked out of the bathroom.
She saved the third test, maybe in case there was a mistake.
When
she walked out, she stood next to him to touch his strong hand; her other hand tensed
behind her back, holding the test.
“Did
you fall in?” he asked devilishly, folding the paper and patting the space next
to him.
She
took her hat off and dropped the test into his palm. When his big fingers closed around it, she
thought he might snap it in half.
“We
could have a beautiful little girl,” she exhaled, smiling at him timidly.
He
carefully placed the test on their nightstand, and lowered his head to examine
his hands, which were illuminated by sunlight spilling in through the window.
When
he looked up, his face was all shadow—the face of a man.
“Can I make love to you?” he murmured into her
ear, and she fell into him.
Afterwards,
he pulled up his pants, grabbed the Sunday paper again, and turned toward the
door.
“I
don’t think I’m ready yet,” he said earnestly, eyes still dark, “but it’s your
choice. Really it’s your decision
because it’s your body,“ he managed to smile solemnly, “and I’ll be here to support
you no matter what.”
“O.k.”
“O.k. I’m going to let you think about things; you
can call when you make a decision.”
Support
me? What does that even mean? The woman pulled on a different hat and
stepped outside, the alarmingly bright sunlight casting dark shadows all the
way to her neck.
For
weeks, she would cradle the cell phone in her hands, but would not call
him. She spent hours in her scant yard,
picking dandelions and blowing the seeds into space.
“They
may be considered weeds, but I just think nobody gives them a chance to be
flowers,” the woman told an onlooker beneath her fuchsia sunhat the morning
that she made her decision.
When
she walked in, the woman told herself the clinic was friendly and very
clean. Sterile, she thought. The best way to be under the circumstances.
“Perhaps
you should take your hat off while you’re inside,” the doctor leaned sideways
to get a look at the woman’s shadowed face.
She
smiled, and tugged the brim down to her nose.
All she could see then were the white, crumply sheets beneath her, and
when it was done, the red blood trickling hotly down her legs.
Months
pass, and the winter is frigid and welcoming to her barren body, and the snow is
so white it is empty. All of the
dandelions have been frozen in the ice, out of sight.
The
woman slips two white pills out of the orange bottle and lets them sit on her
moist tongue. She reaches under her bed
for the sunflower-yellow sunhat and tugs it down to her nose.
When the bedroom is especially quiet, the
woman wonders who she’s borrowing her Earth from, if not her lost child.
