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You begin your life abruptly at the age of twenty-eight lying down on a bed, a man in a suit and a woman in a suit looking down at you. Your voice refuses to produce noise through your confusion and terror. You’re wrong and bloated which you later come to understand is because you’re pregnant. Or she’s pregnant. Either way you move slowly through your first conversation.
“We would have liked to wake you sooner, to explain,” The woman says. “But the baby was a wonderful surprise!”
You can only nod in frantic agreement.
When you use the bathroom later that day, your trial day before you go full-time, it still smells like vomit where she must have thrown up that morning.
You know, somehow, what vomit smells like. The things you know, you will come to find out, are inscrutable and stupid.
You sit on the toilet staring at the wall until the man in the suit, who is the father, comes to retrieve you. He pulls your underwear and pants back up while you flinch but can’t seem to manage words. Words seem useless here. What good would no do.
I want you to think about it like a gift, the person with your face, Gabby, says on the television screen. We’re helping each other. I’m sure you’ll be amazing.
Then you're gone again.
x
When you come back, you think the father was wearing the suit to make a good impression. At home, when he’s home, he wears white button downs and slippers. His name is Angelo, and he’s a politician. You worry about what he might want from you, now that his wife is gone, but he remains a gentleman. He’s paternal, almost. He still makes your skin crawl.
You suffer the confusions of the hospital and learn that the baby is a girl. Everyone thinks they know so much about the life you’re living, about Gabby’s life. They tell you facts about her by accident, and you can feel Angelo’s smile tightening.
In your head the baby is called Mabel. It’s your baby, you decide. Anything else would be somehow much worse.
You write Gabby a letter, put it in the dresser of the room that you occupy in the guest-house. In it, you write that the baby’s name is Mabel. The letter isn’t there a few days later when you’re looking for a hair tie. You think Gabby might have come back, but you didn’t notice missing any time. You decide she must have, and she must have read it. Anything else isn’t worth thinking about. Still, you imagine the father looming over your bed while you sleep, rummaging through your meager belongings.
x
You are alive for thirty-one weeks and three days, the first pregnancy, and every day the baby is yours and is inside your body, which is also in some respects, yours.
You were prepared for the worst, really, when it came to the birth. You expected pain, and maybe that you’d never be back again, or that she never read your letter, and wouldn’t ever attempt to communicate with you. Somehow, you never expected them to switch you the moment Mabel was to be placed in your arms. You never got to hold your child in that moment. This deprivation, and not anything else, is why you will never forgive Gabby for bringing you into the world. You hold Mabel later, much later, when Gabby’s nipples, your nipples, are chapped and bleeding, and she doesn’t want to nurse anymore. You suggest formula to Angelo, and he laughs.
You’re too happy to see your daughter to really complain. Your whole life has been uncomfortable, anyways. You didn’t get any drugs for the birth. Gabby wanted it that way. Healthier.
You watch your daughter. “Hi.” You say, and your voice cracks. She giggles.
“Declan,” Angelo says, “her name is Declan.” It’s a warning.
“Hi Lannie,” You say, smiling down at her. You can feel the father’s reproach, but you must have something that is your own of your own daughter.
You take care of her in tiny spots of time that slowly become more and more distant from each other. Then you are gone again.
x
You are alive in increments. There is nothing to do except be pregnant in these increments, and sometimes act as babysitter and nurse to your own child. You read and watch television. You are afraid to ask for more freedom because you aren’t ready to face the apparentness of your own imprisonment. You don’t want to see how far your leash will go, you’d rather forget you had one in the first place.
The second pregnancy is better. She stuck it out for about four months before handing you the reins. This time it’s a boy. You’re still in the guest house, in the beginning you only catch glimpses of Lannie. The first time you see her, how old she is knocks the air out of you. You cry immediately and without warning, apologizing furiously as she asks you what's wrong. What’s wrong, Mommy? You cry until Angelo comes and physically lifts you out of the room.
“You have to get a hold of yourself, or you’ll upset her, okay Gabby? You’ll confuse her.”
You nod. The baby inside of you is named Richard, you think they will name him something awful.
Richard is born and they name him Kai, confirming your suspicions.
x
Last one, okay? Gabby promises over the television screen. Really, you’ve been such a help.
Your stomach is huge when you name the baby William. You almost decided not to give him a name, but in the end it seemed wrong, it felt like you weren’t claiming him as your own to save yourself more pain. And you’re good at pain, by now. William is a lovely name for a boy.
x
The kids don’t know the difference yet, between you and Gabby. While you’re running around grabbing bottles and changing diapers they call you Mommy. You don’t know whether that makes it more painful, or less. You think they might figure it out someday. You must sing them different songs, talk to them differently, have their true secret names tucked inside your chest.
You think that maybe they’ll be curious about you, even when you’ve been gone for years. That they’ll figure it out, or the father will slip up. That they’ll pester Gabby about you with their kid questions or later in their teen years rebel and somehow want you back, want to meet you, the woman who gave birth to them. In these fantasies Gabby relents, throwing up her hands. What can you do? Kids want what they want. And maybe she feels a bit jealous or hurt by her children’s desire to meet you. If you’re feeling greedy.
Then you’re let out again into the world to meet your children. Then you give them their true names.