Hard Labor
Rebecca Sturgeon
December 2005
December 2005
She wakes up between contractions, alarmed by the absolute stillness of her body. She tucks her notebook and pen under her arm and stumbles into the bathroom.
Dear Jean, she begins, settling down onto the floor, it has been too long.
She pauses to let her next contraction rumble across her abdomen. As the pain grows, she bites off tiny chunks of air. With her left hand, she traces circles above her pubic bone. The muscles beneath clench tighter. She leans forward over the toilet bowl and vomits.
So sorry for the mess of this letter. You would not believe where I am right now.
Her husband taps at the door, calls her name so softly she barely hears it over the sound of her water breaking.
Jeannie, I don’t have much time to write. Just know I think of you.
Her husband opens the bathroom door, his face equal parts worry and resolve. He lifts her to her feet and drags her to the car. She trails amniotic fluid like a snail. In the car, she begins again, tracing letters across her arm with her fingernail.
Forgive me, dearest daughter, that you died so young, and that we so soon replaced you.
Rebecca Sturgeon works for a teeny-tiny nonprofit in the Chicago area, trying to make the world more age-tolerant.