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Sunday, July 18th, 2010
She had seen that clouded look before, a determined mix of pity and revulsion and something else she could not define. It was there and then gone in an instant, like that first surprising zing of life she had felt in her belly all those months back. She had seen that expression nine times in her thirty-one years, and every time, it meant one thing: that he was leaving. Now, with that little grim-faced gangster squalling in the bed next to her, crying for the milk that seeped from her swollen breasts, she knew that she had never deserved it more.
Michael had promised he would stand beside her, and never go below the waist. There would be tearing and stretching and blood, and she was afraid he would never want to touch her again. He had kept his word during twelve hours of labour, holding her hand as she cursed and wept with the rolling of the contractions. He fed her ice chips and mopped sweat from her brow when she vomited into the plastic bedpan. But when it came time to push, he had grabbed the camera from his overnight bag, and stationed himself beside the doctor at the foot of the birthing table.
The baby was fever-bright and ugly, and reminded her of a shrunken squint-eyed zayde or a tomato can boxer who’d taken one too many lumps in the ring.
Through the uprights of her numbed legs, she could see Michael reaching out for the thing, scissors in hand to cut the cord. And then she saw it, as the sustaining jellyfish of her placenta slid onto the table, behind the sympathetic glow of his smile, something ever so subtle changed in his face, the shift just long enough for her to register.
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The baby had fallen back to sleep as suddenly as it had woken, and through the hum of the baby monitor, she could hear the static-crossed conversations of neighbours on their cordless phones, whispered ghosts reaching out from an undertow of darkness. In the empty place in her belly, she felt the undeniable truth that while she had been sleeping, her husband had left her.
She called to him, but was answered only by the swish of broken souls crackling through the monitor on her dresser. “Michael!” she called, louder this time, her rising voice tossing the baby in his fragile sleep. She climbed out of bed, pulled her robe tight around her, and went downstairs.
The living room was empty. Through the bay window, she could see that bright snow was falling in the street. She stood for a long time, desolate, her face pressed to the cold glass as the snow fell before her. She felt a familiar sense of anger, shame and loneliness, but she would not let herself cry. Not again.
The TV was on in the basement, tuned to a hockey game. She unlatched the baby gate and crept down the carpeted stairs. Someone was sitting on the couch. He looked familiar to her, but had changed over the years. She considered the mathematical possibilities that Daniel would show up in her basement after all this time, and her jagged formula only increased her certitude that it was him.
“Amy. What are you doing out of bed? Where is the baby?”
One time, they had kissed in the falling snow, a fat flake melting on his long eyelashes as he told her that he’d found a real girlfriend who was prettier and would do more than just French kiss him.
“Did you leave the baby alone on the bed?”
He had sat behind her in history class and kicked at her chair whenever Mr. Gillick faced the blackboard. He looked so old now, his face creased with concern, his hair greying at his temples. What sweet revenge that he had aged while she had stayed the same.
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