Page 79 of You Weren't Meant to Be Human
Crane watches her. He’s waiting for worms to crawl out from under her skin, for her to open her mouth to show festering rot and putrid meat. But there’s none of that. He presses his nose to her temple and she smells like salt and insides. Like a human. Not a worm. No distinct stink ofdead.
There has to be something. He smooths back her hair, inspects her tiny face to find it: some sort of horrible transmutation, a physical manifestation of why she’s here. But Hannah’s baby had nothing wrong with it, and there’s nothing wrong with this baby either. She’s just a baby.
“Looks healthy,” Tammy says, checking his daughter’s fingers, counting to make sure she has all her toes. Levi can’t look away. Stagger leans over Crane’s shoulder to peer at the fragile creature he helped Crane birth. “Sounds healthy, too.”
Oh, little one.
The towels and blankets make thick wet sounds as Crane tries to find a more comfortable position. He is exhausted. He is ripped-open and sore, he wants to sleep for a thousand years, and she’s so warm against his bare chest.
She is alive and she is not a maggot or a beast or—or—
She keeps moving. Waving her tiny arms, bright-red feet tuckingup protectively to her belly. Opening and closing her weak-muscled mouth. She’s so much bigger than he thought she’d be. How did this come out of him? He puts a hand over her ears to keep them warm, but his hands tremble. He’s shaking. He didn’t realize he was shaking so bad until Stagger reaches up to hold his jaw.
“He okay?” Levi asks.
“Happens sometimes,” Tammy replies plainly. “Get over here, help me cut the cord.”
Crane wants to give her a name but can’t come up with one that isn’t tainted somehow. He wouldn’t be able to tell it to anyone anyway. Levi will probably name her without him.
He hates that.
Tammy is tying things around the umbilical cord, telling Levi to make sure Crane doesn’t accidentally nudge her while she has the scissors.
This little girl isn’t the one who did this to him. None of this is her fault. It would’ve been a kindness to excise her from the body months ago instead of letting her be yanked from oblivion to end up here. She didn’t want this, she didn’t ask for this. She deserved to be born to someone capable of loving her, defending her, making the world better for her. Not him.
She’s so helpless and it’s not right.
She is perfect.
“Crane,” Tammy whispers. Crane barely manages to tear his eyes away from his baby.Hisbaby.His.The brain has latched on to that word and won’t let it go. “You did good. You hear me? You did good. There’s gonna be a few more contractions, though, yeah? Have to get that placenta out of you so it don’t rot in there.”
Crane’s head swims. There’s more? He has to go through more?
“It won’t be as bad,” she assures him. “It’s just an ugly jellyfish.A big clot. Ain’t no head or shoulders to push out, so it should be a breeze. Just rest.”
He nods. Behind him, Stagger makes an animalistic snuffling sound.
“There a name yet?” Tammy asks.
“Still working on that,” Levi answers for him.
Levi is getting close now—the first time he’s gotten this close since this all started, almost stepping into the mess of amniotic fluid and whatever mess of liquid comes out during birth. Stagger growls.
“Fuck,” Levi says. “She’s tiny.”
Apparently that’s the only thing either one of them can think. Levi skims his fingertips over her dark hair. It has the tiniest hint of a curl to it, a wave. Like Crane’s hair. Crane wonders if he was born with a full head of dark hair. Or if Levi was. Thinking of Levi as a baby is so deeply, heart-shatteringly depressing that he can’t hold it in his head for long. Levi’s thumb brushes her little nose, then the divot that makes up her spine. In response, the baby just makes that same choking sound and struggles against Crane’s chest, as if gaining control of her limbs is painful. Crane imagines it’d be like pins and needles all over, after being cramped up for so long.
“Is she hungry?” Levi asks. “Is that why she’s crying? Do we have to teach her or—” He looks to Tammy. “Does she know?”
“No need to rush her,” Tammy says. “She’ll figure it out. But if you want to try…”
Tammy shows Crane how to position the baby against his breast so her mouth can find the nipple, but she isn’t interested. She’s upset and tired and getting used to breathing air. Tammy says that’s normal. Give her a bit.
Eventually—Crane doesn’t know how long it takes—the placenta comes out too. It doesn’t hurt nearly as bad, and Stagger and Levi and Tammy help him sit up, make sure gravity does most of the work.When it comes out, it looks like a slab of raw meat, or an excised deer liver. Levi wraps it up to stick in the cooler, to give it to the hive later.
And then it’s done. It’s really done.
Tammy says, “Hey, baby. You okay?”
