The Red
Tasha Kelly
"Watching" by Haily Wilson, Charcoal
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White light from a closer-than-usual fluorescent moon glows in the shallow puddles of a Pizza Hut parking lot. I try to keep my focus on the glistening wet pavement as I attempt, one step at a time, to make it to the front entrance. The light sprinkle of a chilled rain, the one that comes just before a winter’s downpour, dampens my long auburn waves. Strands of hair cling to the sides of my face as the rain has now begun its unsympathetic plunge into the earth. The icy chill freezes my fingers as they death grip the door handle to my pine colored ‘91 Plymouth Voyager. I try to let the cold comfort me, but my contractions are like razor sharp knives thrusting into my pregnant belly, stealing my breath and debilitating me where I stand. Already at the front doors of the pizzeria, Stuart, the father to my soon-arriving-baby, shouts words of encouragement in my direction. I have yet to let go of the door handle, but I know I cannot make us stand out here all night.
I am nine months pregnant and only four nights away from my predicted due date. I have been bedridden, sick and in monstrous amounts of pain since the first trimester. However, it was during my seventh month of pregnancy that the most severe complications began. On a cold and gray winter morning I had gone into preterm labor after experiencing a massive fight with Stuart. I do not recall the topic in which we had disagreed, but it soon went from a minute difference in opinion to him screaming uncontrollably and punching the dashboard of our van as I drove him to work. I had suffered these emotional outbursts of Stuart's quite frequently, but this one sent me into a panic attack, which then escalated into preterm labor. I pulled over to the shoulder of the highway and climbed into the passenger side as Stuart hurried around the van and into the driver’s seat. Instead of continuing the drive to work, he drove me to the hospital. The doctor who had seen me that day was not my primary doctor whom I had been seeing throughout my pregnancy; nonetheless, he was kind hearted and had gentle eyes toward me. While he gave me a steroid injection to stop the contractions, Stuart confessed to him the previous events that had happened. I watched the gentle twinkle die in the doctor’s eyes as if they were two stars that burned out and fell from the sky, the ones that children cast their wishes upon when they shoot across the blanket of night. The doctor, staring hard at Stuart as if he had meant to turn him to stone, said to him, “This is your fault.” He then walked out, leaving his anger to linger in the room, to linger in the distant spaces that separated Stuart and I. To make matters more concerning, I was never supposed to have children, or so claimed my doctor. If I ever became pregnant, I would be at high risk for miscarriage and would need to constrain myself to the bed, only getting up to eat and to use the bathroom. Now here I am, nine months after writhing in agony and after one tremendous scare, getting ready to give birth to a child I was never supposed to have—getting ready to be the mother I was never supposed to be. All I have left to do is to keep myself and my son alive during labor. Finally letting loose of the door handle and taking my first step away from the van, a contraction bolt of lightning shoots through my body and immediately drops me to the ground. There is an annoyingly heavy ringing in the back of my head, followed by disorientation, followed by darkness. I awake, snug in a cozy hospital bed, encompassed by deep taupe colored walls, room darkening curtains, and a sleepy dim lighting that creates a serene atmosphere, meant to relax panicked mothers and fathers. A sweet, soft spoken nurse fluffs my pillow while she asks me if I would like the epidural. Stuart stands next to the bed, holding my hand and speaking for me. He tells her I am ready for the epidural and I think his gumption to get me out of pain as quickly as possible is endearing, however, I tell the lovely nurse that I do not wish to take the epidural. She seems somewhat startled by my decision and looks up at Stuart for confirmation or a possible protest, but instead she emulates his smile as if to say, “Oh you poor thing.” I refuse the epidural, not because I have some instinctual need to be an unbreakable woman who can push a child out of her body without the assistance of drugs, but because I am afraid. I am afraid that if something goes wrong, as has been expected, that I will not be able to force my now motherly body to do what it is meant to do and save my baby. I must be here, complete in all of my senses. I can hear the delicate footsteps of the nurse as she walks out of the room so quiet, as if she were floating. Stuart lets out a sigh of defeat as he flicks on the small T.V. that is mounted high on the wall in front of us. There are machines next to me that are monitoring all sorts of things: my blood pressure, my contractions, mine and my baby’s heart rate. The noisy beeps coming from the machines are steady and dependable, until they are not. The same calm and sweet nurse who seemed so light that I thought she had floated out of the room just moments ago, rushes back in with a doctor I have never seen before. He is examining the machines, examining me, and he is saying something to me that from what I can perceive from the expression on his face, is quite important. However, his voice sounds like an echo traveling down a long abandoned tunnel and all I can hear are the nurses at their stations, talking about the different coffees they had earlier this morning. Then, a booming explosion of words that are spewed in my face, “We can’t find his heartbeat! We need to get him out now!” The same warm and soft bed that I was finding so much pleasantry in, is now filled with a sense of harsh urgency as it flies down the hall, surrounded by people in long white coats on both sides of me. I am pushed into a spacious light blue room that smells like a mixture of cleaning products I store underneath my kitchen sink. I do not have time to further assess my new surroundings before a metal bar is placed, horizontally, a few inches above my chest and the bottom of my gown is thrown over it to block my vision. In the blink of an eye a scalpel makes its incision deep into my skin, gliding as smooth as glass across my abdomen, from hip to shaking hip. Once again I feel an indescribable pain throughout my body followed by a well attempted scream, then by disorientation, and lastly by darkness. Lost now in the deep trenches of my subconscious, unaware of the outside world around me, I find myself entering a welcoming and familiar room. I recognize it as my living room in my childhood home that my grandmother raised me in. I feel safe here, too safe here, like I have been tricked somehow into feeling the security of home. The only difference in this room is all of its contents are plastered in red, from floor to ceiling. The red consumes the room in its entirety, the same way death consumes the body, leaving not a sliver of white and not a sliver of life left to tell. I notice the red couch and I am collapsed by a great wave of exhaustion. The need to sit down, the need to rest, overtakes me with such force that my body glides involuntarily toward the couch. My grandmother, although I cannot see her, is in the room with me. I can feel her presence and I can hear her voice as she yells to me, “Do not sit down, Machelle, do not touch that couch! You won’t get back up, you still have work to do!” “But Grandma I am so tired, please, I just need to sit for a moment.” I am but mere seconds from reaching the couch when I hear my baby’s first cry. It rolls like thunder into the most hidden places of my mind and draws me from the red. Whooshing me out in a tornado wind, I awaken back to reality. I am in a new and much lighter room. The shades are open and the sun is peering through the clear window. I struggle to ground myself, but I can hear familiar voices around me. Friends and family gather, oohing and aahing over my baby. My very healthy and happy baby. Stuart walks up to me and places our son in my arms. Tunnel vision takes its effect as I stare into the curious eyes of my tiny child, who I am not supposed to be here to hold. I have been rescued from the red and given birth to the child I was never supposed to have. I have witnessed the red and have become the mother I was never supposed to be. |
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