Page 12 of Totally Shipped
“You get it when you have a baby,” she’d sighed, obviously not happy about it. “It’s fucking ugly.”
She didn’t explain any further, and for a while I thought maybe it was some kind of zipper, and that’s how the baby came out.
And then I learned that it was definitely not how the baby came out.
“GRAY!”
I went running into Mom’s room. My parents slept in the only bedroom in the trailer. I had a cot mattress squeezed into the closet in the front room. When I ran in, Mom’s face was white and scared, she was groaning, clutching her stomach.
“Find your Dad, he’s at Billy’s…”
Billy’s? I wasn't allowed to go to Billy’s. His trailer was at the other end of the park. People were always coming and going from Billy’s.
“Hurry up! Having kids will fucking kill you. You nearly killed me, Gray. This one is going to kill me. Never get someone pregnant, you’ll be killing them. Do you want me to die, Gray?”
I ran.
It took ages for someone to open the door, maybe they couldn’t hear my soft, six-year-old knocks. Finally, Billy opens the door. He smells of rotten eggs, and even though it’s cold, Billy isn’t wearing a shirt. Billy hardly ever wears a shirt.
He wipes his nose with the back of his hand. “Hey Pete, it’s your spawn.”
“What the fuck you want?”
“Mom said to get you.”
One of the men made a whipping noise. “Better hurry along there, don’t want to keep your lady waiting.”
The rest of them laughed, calling out things that I didn’t understand at the time.
“I’ll come when I’m done here,” my dad said, shutting the door on me.
By the time I got back to mom, she was already miscarrying. Our trailer usually stank of stale beer and body odor, but now there was another scent overpowering everything: blood. Blood was everywhere. Mom was moaning and not making sense.
It had been drilled into me that I was never to call 911, but it suddenly went quiet. Mom passed out, and there was so much blood.
In the end I went and fetched our neighbor, Mrs. Kennedy. She called an ambulance.
Mom survived, the baby did not.
I survived the beating Dad gave me when he eventually returned.
There had been so much blood.
So much.
What if that happened here?
“Having kids will fucking kill you.”
I look back on the shore. Killian and Daisy are huddled together in the gloom. It’s too late for what if’s. We’ll just have to coddle her, not let her lift a finger, and really hope for the best.
Even if my gut fears the worst.
REX
“No, this is not happening. No fucking way.”
“Swear.”
