pair of pin-striped trousers. Shirtless, he bent over a bureau and jotted a note, a reminder to himself. His naked back formed a lean bridge of muscle. Erika smiled because he was hers, her lover. Others might admire his moustache or the tan calfskin shoes he’d purchased in London, but she had rights nobody else had: she could rise from the bed, walk over and bite his shoulder like an apple, rub her nose against his flesh and take a sniff if she felt like it.
In the middle of the night she could not understand why her eyes had come open in the dark. She lay there, then felt it: someone gliding through soft waters within her.
During those sleepless spaces in the night, she was no longer alone. With her palms placed against her midriff, the unknown creature’s stirrings soothed her. She had never had a companion like that, so close and silent in the night.
Her fingers parted in order to catch every rippling under the bones of her hands. All she knew of her child were these vigorous wanderings, not the face, nor the sex, nor the voice. Only the movements hinted at what this secret person must be like.
One evening in Magdalena’s parlor, as Erika gave a private recital for a small circle of friends, the silky billows of her magenta dress began to move. She wanted to pause—mid-aria—and hiss down the front of her dress, “Behave yourself! Not now!”
When viewed against the long sweep of a woman’s whole life, these were rare months, and she told herself to notice everything. So one morning, trying to savor the otherworldliness of it all, she reclined on the chaise near her bedroom window. She’d just finished bathing.
Light circled her belly as she pulled open her dressing gown and peered over the horizon of her midriff. She had to wait a long time before anything moved. Quivers came near her navel—what caused those? A punch? A foot? She studied her belly like the pure curve of the earth. The motions could only be observed the way one stands in a field and knows, in retrospect, that one has just seen a white dart of lightning.
Then something rolled like a ball under a rug. She gasped. A head. A human head, inside her. Shock slapped her heart. Then it was gone, submerged. During the rest of the pregnancy she never saw that head again.
Regarding the baby’s gender: she savored the mystery and was glad not to know. For much of her life, she had longed for a daughter as a confidante, but ever since the pregnancy began, perhaps as a means of preparing herself, she had imagined it to be a boy. She envisioned sniffing his damp, salty scalp after a bath, her boy swaddled up and clean as she carried him from room to room. Her visions of him grew so real that she wondered at the loss she would surely feel if Doctor Ravell handed her a girl after the delivery: “But where is my son? That son, my son?”
Not knowing, she held all possibilities in her womb. To know would be a loss of something.
She grew fond of them both, the dream son, the dream daughter.
In her seventh month, a flicker of concern traveled over Doctor Ravell’s face.
He touched Erika’s abdomen tenderly, and with a shrug of dismissal he started to stroll off, but then he stopped, uncertain about what he had just seen. “Let me measure you again.” Since her previous examination, whatever was inside her had not grown.
“Unless you’re hiding it—” he said doubtfully.
Curving his palms around her belly, he kneaded a bit. “It feels like four and a half pounds, but I can’t quite tell how much the baby weighs by feeling.” A triangle of worry formed between his brows.
He suggested that Erika keep a record, a precise count of how many times the baby moved inside her during a given hour every day. Although Ravell did not speak his fears aloud, she knew that a baby could languish, fail to grow, or even die inside a mother.
At home she locked her bedroom door and stood in front of a full-length mirror, her clothes removed, and looked at
In the middle of the night she could not understand why her eyes had come open in the dark. She lay there, then felt it: someone gliding through soft waters within her.
During those sleepless spaces in the night, she was no longer alone. With her palms placed against her midriff, the unknown creature’s stirrings soothed her. She had never had a companion like that, so close and silent in the night.
Her fingers parted in order to catch every rippling under the bones of her hands. All she knew of her child were these vigorous wanderings, not the face, nor the sex, nor the voice. Only the movements hinted at what this secret person must be like.
One evening in Magdalena’s parlor, as Erika gave a private recital for a small circle of friends, the silky billows of her magenta dress began to move. She wanted to pause—mid-aria—and hiss down the front of her dress, “Behave yourself! Not now!”
When viewed against the long sweep of a woman’s whole life, these were rare months, and she told herself to notice everything. So one morning, trying to savor the otherworldliness of it all, she reclined on the chaise near her bedroom window. She’d just finished bathing.
Light circled her belly as she pulled open her dressing gown and peered over the horizon of her midriff. She had to wait a long time before anything moved. Quivers came near her navel—what caused those? A punch? A foot? She studied her belly like the pure curve of the earth. The motions could only be observed the way one stands in a field and knows, in retrospect, that one has just seen a white dart of lightning.
Then something rolled like a ball under a rug. She gasped. A head. A human head, inside her. Shock slapped her heart. Then it was gone, submerged. During the rest of the pregnancy she never saw that head again.
Regarding the baby’s gender: she savored the mystery and was glad not to know. For much of her life, she had longed for a daughter as a confidante, but ever since the pregnancy began, perhaps as a means of preparing herself, she had imagined it to be a boy. She envisioned sniffing his damp, salty scalp after a bath, her boy swaddled up and clean as she carried him from room to room. Her visions of him grew so real that she wondered at the loss she would surely feel if Doctor Ravell handed her a girl after the delivery: “But where is my son? That son, my son?”
Not knowing, she held all possibilities in her womb. To know would be a loss of something.
She grew fond of them both, the dream son, the dream daughter.
In her seventh month, a flicker of concern traveled over Doctor Ravell’s face.
He touched Erika’s abdomen tenderly, and with a shrug of dismissal he started to stroll off, but then he stopped, uncertain about what he had just seen. “Let me measure you again.” Since her previous examination, whatever was inside her had not grown.
“Unless you’re hiding it—” he said doubtfully.
Curving his palms around her belly, he kneaded a bit. “It feels like four and a half pounds, but I can’t quite tell how much the baby weighs by feeling.” A triangle of worry formed between his brows.
He suggested that Erika keep a record, a precise count of how many times the baby moved inside her during a given hour every day. Although Ravell did not speak his fears aloud, she knew that a baby could languish, fail to grow, or even die inside a mother.
At home she locked her bedroom door and stood in front of a full-length mirror, her clothes removed, and looked at
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