Page 129 of Catch a Kiwi
“Ninety percent sure,” the technician said.
“Ninety percent,” Felipe said. “Not so sure.”
I barely heard him. I was thinking,A girl. I have a little girl,and the warmth that washed over me was like nothing I’d ever known. My baby girl, here for me to love. I’d be so stable for her. I’d be her rock. When she hurt, I’d be down on my knees, holding her. Loving her.Believingin her. And when she was happy, I’d share that, too. We’d plant flowers. We’d blow bubbles. We’d read books. We’d …
The paddle started moving again then, the technician pointing out what she was seeing. Felipe wasn’t saying anything, but I barely noticed, because there were her arms, and her hands like starfish. Her beating heart. Her head.
Herhead.
The technician’s hand slowed on the paddle, then stopped. She’d been clicking and typing, clicking and typing,but now, she just sat there. Not for long. A few seconds, but in those seconds, my world stopped, too.
She said, “I’ll be back in a moment.” Then it was just Felipe and me. He was holding my hand, and I thought,He knows, because his hand is shaking.Then I realized it wasmyhand that was shaking. That he still didn’t understand.
I said, “Something’s wrong.”
“No,” Felipe said. “A girl is OK. A girl is good. We’ll have a son next time.”
“No,” I said. “Something’s wrong with her head.”
“What? No, it isn’t. I could see her face.” He laughed. “A baby.”
No time for anything else, because the technician and another woman were entering the exam room. Why hadn’t I realized before how cold it was in here? I was shivering with it. Why didn’t anybody notice? Felipe seemed oblivious, and so did the new woman. Who was wearing a white lab coat.
“I’m Dr. Marchand,” she said. “The radiologist. Let’s have a look.” She didn’t meet my eyes.
I wanted to say hi, but I couldn’t talk. I was still shaking, and I was so cold.
More seconds ticked away as the technician maneuvered the paddle. The crackle of the paper under me, and the tickling slipperiness of the paddle on my barely convex belly.
When the radiologist opened her mouth, I knew what she was going to say. “I’m very sorry,” she began.
And I fell into the pit.
Roman
I’d known what was coming. It couldn’t have been anything else, because Summer had been made to love, and to be loved. The knowledge still hit me like a shot to the gut.
“What was wrong?” I asked.
No tears now, just Summer’s clear gray eyes looking into mine. “Anencephaly. One of the most common serious birth defects. When the fetus has no brain.”
Now Ireallyfelt sick. “You mean …”
“I mean,” she said, “no brain. Nothing. Most babies with anencephaly are stillborn, if they make it that long. If not, they die within hours, because there’s nothing to keep them alive. They’re blind. Deaf. They can’t think, and they can’t feel pain. There’s no … person there.” She breathed in, breathed out. “I wanted to mourn a person, and she wasn’t. She was just … the idea of a person. She’d been my dream, but it was a mirage. I saw her, and then I lost her.”
“Summer,” Roman said.
If she heard me, she didn’t give any indication of it, because she was going on. Nearly robotically, laying the words down like tiles. “I didn’t even go home. We went straight to hospital, and they took her. It was early enough that I didn’t even have to heal much. My body barely looked different, and I wasn’t sick anymore. I had some cramping and some bleeding, and that was all. I shouldn’t even have been tired, except that I was. I was so tired, I felt … dead inside. Felipe got over it, and I couldn’t, and when I tried to tell him that, he … he didn’t understand. So I stopped trying. The trial started, and I sat through it like it was happening to somebody else. I knew it wasn’t going well for Felipe, and maybe it wouldn’t go well for me, either, but it was all at a distance. It was just … landscape. And then it was over, and I was out. I was free. Felipe went to prison, and I handled the bankruptcy. I moved out of the house with one suitcase in the back of my little car, because they’d seized everything else. I thought, now it was over, that I could go home and tell my mom. I could let it out. But when I went home …” She swallowed. “My mom was gone. It was one more thing, but it should have been so much more than that. It should have shattered me, but all it did was make me more frozen. More numb. It was like I was watching myself through soundproofed glass. I could see, but I couldn’t hear, and I couldn’t feel. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever feel again. I kept going because I didn’t know what else to do. And then I came here and started waking up. Delilah is …”
“Delilah,” I said, “is hard to ignore.”
Summer smiled. Her eyes had tears in them, but still, she smiled. “And you,” I said, “are a warrior. You’re a champion. And I love you.”
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BREATHE YOU IN
Summer
