AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I want to know everything.”
“It’s a lot, at first. Eventually it slows down, but it lasted for about eight weeks. And you have to take extra care when you get an episiotomy.”
“A what?”
“The cut they make to, um… enlarge the hole enough for your baby’s head to get through.”
“Fucking hell, they do that?”
“Yeah, it’s common. They numb you so you don’t feel it, but I could hear them cutting me. Like, cutting through leather or something,” I tell him, still shuddering at the memory. “Anyway, after I repacked, I woke Willa to take me to the hospital. Mom and Dad met us there. Sadie was still taking her time though and after a few hours of not enough progress, they broke my water. She came about two hours after that.”
“Her delivery went okay?”
“Yeah, Cillian. She was great, healthy and loud. I was really weak and passed out every time I tried to get up, but that stopped after the first night. Dad almost passed out too when I delivered the afterbirth. We were quite the pair.”
“The afterbirth?”
“They don’t teach guys shit, do they,” I tease. “The placenta. It pretty much just falls out onto the floor of the delivery room. Mom had C-sections with us, so Dad had never experienced it like that before. We still tease him about it.”
“How long did you stay in the hospital?”
“They only let you stay one night unless you have a bunch of complications or whatever.”
“You’re fucking kidding me?”
“No.”
“I know professional hockey players that have had less trauma to their bodies than producing a whole new human being who had longer hospital stays.”
“Yeah, maybe. But that’s the way it works,” I dismiss. There is little I want to talk about less than the time after Sadie and I went home. I’m no longer depressed but I still have moments where I feel that guilt for not being strong enough to combat Post Partum Depression. Even though I know that isn’t how it works. Since the day I decided I was going to stay pregnant I wanted to be the best mommy to my child. For a few months there, I wasn’t.
Cillian hasn’t earned that story from me yet.
“Do you have pictures from when you were pregnant?”
“Some,” I hedge.
“Will you send me some?”
“No.”
“Please? I won’t say anything about how big you got,” Cillian begs. That’s the thing, though. I didn’t ever get very big because I was always too stressed out. He repeats his plea, “Please.”
“Hang on.” Pulling up my photos, I find the right album and send a few, select ones through. Cillian doesn’t say anything right away. I imagine him studying each one, seeing my gaunt cheekbones but swollen pot belly. Does he see the same things I see when I look at them? The pain, the sorrow, the pure anxiety written on my face because I didn’t understand then that I wouldn’t be raising this child by myself. Or does he only see Sadie growing and none of what surrounds her?
“Thank you,” he eventually says without any judgment. “Tomorrow, the guys are having a going away party for me. I’ll leave the following morning to drive back. Won’t be stopping more than necessary so it shouldn’t take too long.”
“Okay. Drive carefully.”
“I will.” Silence descends again, conversations between us are always awkward like this. Neither of us knows exactly how to navigate the other anymore. What used to be so easy and natural is now jagged and hard to traverse.
“I’m sorry about your grandmother. I wish…” I wish I could have been there for her funeral. I wish I had known. I wish for too much but none of it should be said. Not to him, anyway.
“I know. Thank you,” he says, giving me my out. “By the way, I named my cat after my favorite pussy.”
Cillian hangs up before I have the chance to formulate a response.
* * *
