Bird box

Malorie is rowing very slowly now. Less than half the speed she was going ten minutes ago. The water, piss, and blood slosh at her ankles. Animals or madmen or creatures move on the banks. The wind is cold. Tom is not here. Shannon is not here. The gray world behind her blindfold begins to spin, like thick sludge inching toward the drain.

She throws up.

At the last moment she worries if it’s a terrible thing, what is happening to her. Passing out. What will happen to the children? Are they going to be okay if Mommy just passes out?

And that’s it.

Malorie’s hands fall from the oars. In her mind, Tom is watching her. The creatures are watching her, too.

Then, as the Boy is asking her something, Malorie, the captain of this little ship, passes out completely.

twenty-seven

Malorie wakes from dreams about babies. It is either early morning or very late at night, she guesses. The house is silent. The farther along in her pregnancy she gets, the more vivid her reality becomes. Both With Child and At Last . . . a Baby! briefly discuss home deliveries. It’s possible, of course, to do it without help from a professional, but the books are wary of this. Cleanliness, they say. Unforeseen circumstances. Olympia hates reading those parts, but Malorie knows they must.

One day, the pain your mother and the pain every mother speaks of will come to you in the same form: childbirth. Only a woman can experience it and because of this all women are bonded.

Now that moment is coming. Now. And who will be there when it does? In the old world, the answer was easy. Shannon, of course. Mom and Dad. Friends. A nurse who would assure her she was doing fine. There would be flowers on a table. The sheets would smell fresh. She’d be doted on by people who had delivered babies before; they’d act like it was like removing a pistachio from its shell. And the ease they’d express would be exactly what calmed her impossible nerves.

But this isn’t the answer anymore. Now the labor Malorie expects sounds like that of a mother wolf: brute, mean, inhuman. There will be no doctor. No nurse.

No medicine.

Oh how she imagined she’d know what to do! How prepared she thought she’d be! Magazines, websites, videos, advice from her obgyn, stories from other mothers. But none of this is available to her now. None! She’s not going to give birth in a hospital, it’s going to happen right here in this house. In one of the rooms of this house! And the most she can expect is Tom assisting while Olympia holds her hand and looks on in horror. Blankets will be covering the windows. Maybe a T-shirt will be under her ass. She’ll drink from a glass of murky well water.

And that’s it. That’s how it’s going to happen.

She shifts onto her back again. Breathing hard and slow, she stares at the ceiling. She closes her eyes, then opens them again. Can she do this? Can she?

She has to. And so she repeats mantras, words to get her ready.

In the end, it doesn’t matter if it happens in a hospital or on the kitchen floor. Your body knows what to do. Your body knows what to do. Your body knows what to do.

The baby-to-be is all and everything that matters.

Abruptly, as if they’re imitating the sound of the baby Malorie prepares for, she hears the birds cooing outside the front door. She withdraws from her thoughts and turns toward the sound. As she slowly sits up in bed, she hears a knock come from the first floor.

She freezes.

Was that the door? Is it Tom? Did somebody go outside?

She hears it again and, amazed, she sits up. She places a hand on her belly and listens.

It comes again.

Malorie slowly swings her feet to the floor and rises before crossing the room. She stops at the door, one hand on her belly, one on the wood of the frame, and listens.

Another knock. This time it’s louder.

She walks to the head of the stairs and stops again.

Who is it?

Beneath her pajamas, her body feels cold. The baby moves. Malorie feels a little faint. The birds are still making noise.

Is it one of the housemates?

She reenters her bedroom and grabs a flashlight. She walks to Olympia’s room and shines the beam on her bed. She is sleeping. In the room at the end of the hall, she sees Cheryl on the bed.

Malorie walks slowly down the stairs to the living room.

Tom.

Tom is asleep on the carpet. Felix is on the couch.

“Tom,” Malorie says, touching his shoulder. “Tom, wake up.”

Tom rolls to his stomach. Then he looks up, suddenly, at Malorie.

“Tom,” she says.

“Is everything okay?”

“Someone is knocking at the front door.”