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Date: Sat, 02 May 1998 13:49:55 -0400
From: alexis massie <alex@afterdinner.com>
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To: pleine peau < edite@pleine-peau.com >
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> i'm thinking of publishing all our "scars" on may 10. I hope you can make
> it... but i'm not rushing you, i still don't know what a dimple is!
A dimple is a crease on the cheek caused by smiling. Usually found on
people with rounder faces. Teehee.
She was expecting a boy. "A boy?" She asked the doctor, containing her disappointment. Her feet were swollen, and aching. She clutched at the sides of the metal table, barely covered with a thin tissue like cloth that shifted when she moved.
The doctor sighed. "Well, I don't want your hopes to get too high, Mrs. Massie. This pregnancy still has a high probability of not coming to term. I'm surprised, frankly, that we've made it this far."
"I may miscarry? Still?" She moved her legs around the table, and sat up, with some difficulty. Visions of the floors of her house came immediately to mind; bathroom tiles, bedroom carpets. She'd grown to know them all since she'd become pregnant. Now she envisioned them with blood. Blood, so much blood. Blood everywhere, jetting down her legs.
She felt it drain from her face.
"I'm afraid so." The doctor touched her shoulder.
The year was 1970. She'd been taking vitamins, pills that smelled of horses, pills the size of centipedes, and choked them down every morning for months. She'd cry on the kitchen table, waiting for her child to die. Her husband insisted that they go to Europe, and the doctor grudgingly agreed. They were afraid of what would happen to her if she went, when she miscarried, but they were more afraid of what would happen to her if she stayed, waiting to miscarry.
She moved with difficulty. She returned to Italy, and lectured her husband on ancient Roman civilization over red wine. In Spain, she allowed the clucking women to fuss in liquid words around her. They were talking about her size, and shaking heads of concern. She was always small. Short, thin, frail. The baby grew to ten percent of her body weight in Greece.
"Alexander." She told her husband. "We'll name him Alexander."
They returned with the baby, still resting in her belly. The doctor was not relieved. "It's still not in the right position." He explained.
"You're due soon. We'll have to C-section."
She smiled, and waved him away. "We'll see."
I woke up with a cramp. Something hurt. A small silent moan, a quiet anger. A kick, two kicks, a tempestuous effort. I was shaking, but willful.
"Oh my God, honey." Her husband stared, alert and afraid. "We have to go to the hospital." My mother hissed. "NOW."
An hour past the cusp of Scorpio, the cramp went away.
"He's too big." The doctor warned. "You cannot possibly imagine that I'm going to let you do this naturally." My mother grabbed the bottom of his blue plastic tunic and hissed.
"Oh yes you will. I've come this far and God damn it I'm going to see this baby born."
Later, they placed a bundle on her heaving chest. "There were some complications." They explained. The bundle was soaked in blood. My face was swathed in bandages.
"What?" She cried, weakly. "What have you done?"
"Her hips were damaged by the position she was in during gestation."
"She?"
"Yes."
"He's a girl?"
"Er, yes."
"And her hips?"
The doctor smiled, warmly. "Nothing to worry about, mind you. She'll be fine. Just not a professional ballerina."
"But what happened to her face?"
"That baby is twelve pounds, Mrs. Massie. We had to extract her from you, forcibly."
"Let me get this straight." She was pale, shaking, but willful.
"You're telling me that the baby boy you predicted, the one who was going to miscarry, is now a girl with stunted hips and a bloody face?"
"Relax, Mrs. Massie. Your baby girl is fine. She'll be fine."
"It was the damn vitamins. After all that, the very thing that kept you alive was the same thing that marked you." She explained, gently touching my cheek, where the slightest hint of a scar remained.
"They said it would heal."
"Well, it healed on the other side." I offered.
She smiled. "Funny how that happens.