Love Invents Us - Amy Bloom [29]
Hear Me
Thanks to Mrs. Hill and her daughter, I knew as much about cholesterol levels and heart disease as any elderly cardiac patient. I made casseroles with a skim-milk white sauce from a recipe I found in an American Heart Association pamphlet, and skinless chicken breast with tomatoes and mushrooms sautéed in a half teaspoon of olive oil. Sometimes I substituted turkey for chicken and potatoes for tomatoes. The pork rinds were long gone, as were the palm readings. Now we were serious; Mrs. Hill was seriously ill and I seriously loved her.
Mrs. Hill was having a pretty good day. Her skin was its normal coffee color, not overcast with greyish yellow tones, and we had spent some up time before her nap, clowning around while the radio played a tribute to the Supremes. Mrs. Hill and I could do all the appropriate hand gestures for every song, and we agreed that Diana Ross was too skinny and bossy for her own good. We preferred Flo Ballard, who looked a little like Vivian, or even Cindy Birdsong, who was obviously dumb as a tree but good-natured.
I was skinning the chicken breast and then I was not.
Huddie made his deliveries and found me curled up on the floor, my cheek on the red and grey speckled linoleum, my hands pressed to my belly.
“Are you okay? Liz, sweet, I’ll take you to the clinic. Elizabeth?” I could hear him and I could smell him and the pain was not so bad but I couldn’t speak. A cold rising river closed in on me, running through me, carrying only me and my baby—all of a sudden my baby, wrapped in my arms. Naked, swept over sharp, half-hidden rocks, stones scraping my feet, icy grey sprays chilling our cheeks, stiffening her soft body, pulling her fine hair with rough fingers.
My baby is dying, I thought, and I pounded on the floor, terrifying Huddie. The blood had begun to seep through my jeans. I reached inside my underpants and looked at my red-streaked palms. I crawled to the bathroom, and he pulled off my jeans and my underpants and sat at my feet, crying for me.
Cry for her, I thought, and I told him to leave me alone. He looked at my smeared hands and legs, my bared teeth, the bits of blood drying in my black hair, and he sat down outside the bathroom door and waited.
I sat and sat, feeling clumps of blood and tissue sucked out of my bright veins, pulled out of my young body, into nothing, leaving nothing. I would be old when this was over, a shell scoured clean by the waves. Huddie would be young and I would be old, as tired as Mrs. Hill. Just lay me down next to my little baby, leave us be. I’m sorry, baby, I will never think of having an abortion ever again, no matter what, I’m sorry, God, don’t take my baby, don’t take my baby. The cramps were almost gone, just the smallest waves now.
I asked Huddie to bring me a pair of his jeans and to take a box of sanitary napkins from his father’s store. I stood up to wash myself off quietly, amazed that my banging and crying hadn’t woken Mrs. Hill. I didn’t recognize my own face, smudged with bad Halloween makeup, my hair twisted into dry red tips, my cheeks chalk grey. I looked away, down into the toilet bowl, and fell back on my knees, my spine broken one more time. Little curl, little baby bud, floating in our blood. I couldn’t go outside in only my spattered T-shirt, and I couldn’t flush the toilet. I would never flush my baby away.
Huddie came back, and I finished washing myself and put on his faded jeans, smelling of Huddie and the industrial detergent Mr. Lester used on everything. We started cleaning up the mess, Huddie wet-wiping