puff of clouds, and I sip lukewarm orange juice out of a plastic cup. I like the way my auntâs spoon rests against my thigh. Aunt Sylvia used to laugh at my knock-knock jokes and hang my art projects on her fridge and look the other way when I pinched pieces of meringue from the top of her icebox cake. I feel more hopeful than I have in weeks.
The plane is hovering over the Potomac when I kiss Dannyâs cheek, breathing in the familiar scent of Dial soap. âLetâs name our baby Sylvia.â As soon as these words leave my lips, I want them back.
Danny gives me the wan smile heâs cultivated. âLetâs just see what happens.â He strokes my arm.
âOh God, Danny. Donât tell me youâre too superstitious to name the baby,â I say, when in fact I cling tosuperstition like Velcro. I lean my head back and close my eyes, signaling that the conversation is over. My hand rests on my mildly distended belly as I daydream about my little Sylvia. It will be a warm spring day, and sheâll sit on my lap licking vanilla icing off a cupcake, wiping her sticky fingers on my knees. Sheâll smell like baby sweat and sugar. Iâll smooth her tangle of ringlets â auburn like Dannyâs â away from her eyes. I can practically hear her giggle. Fear forms in the back of my throat and swells into my esophagus like a hive, as it always does when I allow myself to hope that this baby will survive.
Later that night, shortly after eleven, I feel like someone is yanking my abdomen shut with a drawstring. Shit. Cramps turn into nausea, and I beg my baby to stay put. Danny pages the obstetrician while I stumble to the bathroom, clutching the spoon. Talisman in hand, I negotiate with God. No deal. Before the sun rises, I deliver my baby.
I rest my head against the side of the toilet and gaze at the emptied contents of my womb. I try to capture the clump of blood and tissue with my auntâs spoon, but my efforts only loosen it into a spray of red and greenish gray that dissolves into the bowl. I let my fingers linger in the cold red water before I close the lid. Aunt Sylvia appears to me: the slightly bulging gray eyes and the lisp and the sad smile pasted on soft, pink lips.
Danny mops my forehead with a washcloth. I stand up slowly and rinse off the spoon, turning the faucet on full blast in a futile attempt to drown out the sound of the flushing toilet.
One week later, Danny lounges on our bed staring slack-jawed at ESPN, as he has done for each of the past six nights. Who gives a damn about the Cardinals?
I forage in our pantry for Tylenol. Weâre out of cereal. A jar of homemade raspberry jam, our annual holiday gift from Robin, sits next to a bottle of capers; the colors remind me that I did get to see my actual baby, instead of just a black sonogram screen devoid of the pulsing light the size of a thumbtack. We disposed of those babies during tidy office visits followed by written instructions to call if there was too much blood. Thereâs always too much blood.
I dump four tablespoons of jam and eight capers into a bowl and then retrieve the spoon from my purse; I use it to mix the concoction and ladle it into a small Ziploc baggie. Sylvia.
By the time I return to Danny, baggie and spoon in hand, heâs asleep on our bed, his face bathed in the blue TV light, his mile-long eyelashes, blond at the tips, fanning the tender skin beneath his eyes. He looks like heâs eleven years old. A fresh soul. The foot rubs and the phone calls from the office arenât working, but at least heâs trying. I canât muster up the energy to comfort him. Before the miscarriages, I would have cheered him up by taking him bowling or seducing him or renting a Monty Python movie; weâd sit in front of the television drinking cheap beer and eating potato chips, laughing â Danny at John Cleeseâs ridiculousness, me at Danny â until we could barely
Tabatha Vargo, Melissa Andrea