Monochrome by H.M. Jones

seated where she was until she realized she really needed to pee and should wash up.
    “Fine. Might as well,” she conceded.
    Ishmael unlatched the door and gestured for Abigail to go ahead of him. He locked the door behind them and they walked down the hall towards the bathroom. The wallpaper in the hall was rust-brown, peeling like it was in the room. The carpet was a dark green, mottled with red and black stains. I don’t want to know. She took her eyes away from the stained carpet.
    Ishmael walked by her side, peering suspiciously at the rooms they passed on the way. They split up when they got to the bathrooms.
    “I’ll wait for you out here, if I get done first,” he said.
    She turned towards him. “Don’t bother. I’m going to wash up and I might be a while. I’ll meet you in the room.”
    He shook his head but didn’t argue with her.
    The bathroom was more dingy than their room, if that was possible. She wondered when it was last cleaned. Judging from the grime covering every surface, she didn’t actually want an honest answer. After hovering shakily over a disgusting toilet, she observed a lone shower stall in the corner. She hated not having a shower and felt the day’s dust on her skin acutely.
    She pulled back the black shower curtain and wasn’t surprised to see cobwebs in the corner of the dirty stall. She twisted the stubborn shower nozzle on, and the showerhead sputtered out orange water. She twisted the showerhead towards the cobwebs and watched as they were washed down the crusty green drain.
    The water eventually cleared from orange to a light yellow, which Abigail figured was as good as it was getting. She jammed the knob towards “H,” and was dismayed to find the water didn’t get any warmer than air temperature, which was growing cooler every moment.
    “Oh well,” she muttered to herself as she removed her coat and scarf and slipped the long wool dress over her head.
    She wasn’t giving up on showering no matter how cool or uncomfortable it was. Once undressed, she stepped hesitantly into the shower, letting one side of her body get used to the chilled water before submerging herself in the cold. She ran her fingers over the faded stretch marks on her belly and thought of her baby. She let her mind wander as she rinsed the day’s dirt from her hair.
    She thought of how quickly the body heals itself, though she was still in the process of healing and losing her pregnancy weight. The extreme physical changes her body underwent deepened her already unbearable depression. Her stretch marks and wide hips now marked her a mother. But she also knew she’d do it again. She thought of the night of her labor and how she felt when Ruby was placed in her arms, wet and screaming.
    Her little face went from terrified to pacified, like magic, when Abigail said her name and snuggled her to her chest. Ignoring the mess and the crowd, she placed her new baby at her breast. It was the best morning of her life even though she was torn from the inside, empty and emotionally drained. She fell asleep that night with her new baby on her breast, breathing her first tiny breaths of life.
    Jason had been great, staying awake while Abigail and Ruby slept, touching them both, by turns, smiling as if he were the happiest person in the world. Yes, the body healed quickly, but her head had been a muddled mess ever since then. She and Jason were strained, too. Ruby refused to nurse, and, hungry, fussed instead of sleeping.
    They couldn’t act angrily towards a baby, so they were angry with each other. There was so much happening to Abigail inside she felt physically distant and sick. Warm tears mingled with the cool water from the shower, and she wondered how to make it work. How does a person fix something this intangible? How was she to heal the invisible wounds she inflicted on her child and husband?
    Abigail was shocked out of her reverie by the sound of someone entering the bathroom. She hadn’t seen any