Ellen sat in the bright hygiene of the hospital
ward with its neatly ironed sisters and starched hospital corners. There was no
soft spark of comfort here. Iron bedsteads lined the walls like fallen
monoliths, jagged teeth in the jaws of healthcare, while the sisterhood of
nurses circled and swooped checking temperatures, marking charts.
Ellen was grateful for the stiffness of it all.
She could not have born pity or kindness. The propriety protected her,
discouraged unlocking the hurt at the heart of her, but it did not stop the
sprockets in her mind from turning: cast on, Knit 2 (ten little toes,) knit two
pearl two, (blue tinged skin,) four rows, return. The needles blurred as she
wondered what colour her baby’s eyes would have been.
Ed would be here later, his hands
deep in his pockets, worrying at the lint hidden deep at their seams. He would
stand and make polite enquiry, pointedly not look at the other new fathers on
the ward. What else could he do? They have both been rendered impotent by
circumstance. They had invested in a nine month truth, only to be told it had
become a lie. They were not to become parents after all.
You have to hold on to truth,
believe in possibility. But when it all unravels and we cannot bear it, then
what do we do? We lie to ourselves, lace our conversations with little
platitudes that we know make things worse not better.
“There’s always next time.” Next time? It makes Ellen shudder. Dear God let there not be a next time she
prays, I couldn’t bear to go through this
again.
She lies under the glare of strip
lights hoping that she will disappear, recede, melt away into the white light
and starch. The possibility of being asked to go through this again filled her
with a hot terror. It is a double edged knife: a life line, a curse, an
expectation, a wolf in sheep's clothing.
She would at least have Ed at her
side. They had each other, to have and to hold, in their fragile papier mâché
lives; at least, until it proved to be a lie.
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