Walking on Broken Glass - Christa Allan [79]
“Carl.”
“Louder.”
“Carl!” I shouted.
“Well, he's still not here. Guess you’re not loud enough. Maybe if you stretched your arms out while you called him. That way maybe he’ll see how much he's needed.”
I stared at him. A rolling heat traveled through my body. I felt anger and shame and confusion everywhere at once.
“Go on. We’re waiting.”
I reached out my arms into the empty space in front of me and shouted, “Carl!”
He made me call Carl three more times, each time louder and louder until, with the last scream, my throat burned. Tears streamed down my cheeks until my neck was wet.
Time four.
I stood. This time, my now shaking arms were straight against the sides of my body. I looked at Dr. Sanders. I channeled every ragged piece of rage and humiliation left in me into what I hoped he saw reflected in my eyes and face. Fueled by a current that surged through my soul, I told him, “I’m not doing this anymore. Carl's not coming no matter how loudly I scream. He's not coming. And I’m not going to do what you’re asking me to do just because you think you have power over me. I’m not going to do it.”
The room gasped.
Dr. Sanders walked over, gently placed his hands on my shoulders, and said, “I’ve been waiting for you to do exactly what you just did.”
I shuddered and sucked in air.
Old things pass away. All things become new.
A new life. Not just a new life within me. A new creation.
“Don’t compromise yourself. Don’t ever, ever, ever compromise yourself. You’re all you’ve got.”
Journal 11
My life changed the instant Alyssa was placed in my arms. I gazed at my daughter through my mother's eyes and my grandmother's eyes and all the eyes before who held their children before me. Linked by the maternal cord of knowing how my mother felt holding me. The link of truly understanding how absolutely you had been loved.
Two days later we were home. A family.
Carl adored our daughter.
And he adored me for giving her to him.
I knew that for at least the first month, the doctor didn’t want us to have sex. That freed me to be affectionate, to remember the times when every touch did not have to consummate itself in the bedroom.
Carl was patient.
Until he wasn’t.
The last night of week four, Carl expected me in bed.
I was. So, when Alyssa awoke, I brought her into the bedroom.
At the end of week five, Carl expected me in bed every night. When Alyssa awoke, I’d stay in her room and nurse her. Some nights I told Carl I heard Alyssa, and Carl would find me asleep in the day bed of the nursery. Carl didn’t understand and would ask me why he didn’t hear our daughter cry. I’d tell him mothers are wired that way.
At the end of week six, when Carl expected me in bed, I expected to be just drunk enough to be there. When Alyssa awoke, I threw back the covers to get her.
“I didn’t hear her cry,” Carl said and wrapped his arm around my waist to pull me back into bed.
“Of course not,” I said. “You’re a man.” I put my hands over his to move them, so my body could catch up with my heart, which was already walking to her room.
“If she was that upset, we would both hear her. She can cry for a little while. She’ll be fine. You need to pay attention to me for a change.”
Carl never heard Alyssa cry. I heard her cry from the first time she whimpered. Carl touched me until Carl finished. I was just enough drunk to fall asleep.
The next morning, Carl went to work. He thought I must have checked Alyssa during the night.
I woke up very late that morning. I thought Carl must have checked Alyssa before he left for work.
I opened the door to Alyssa's bedroom. Laura Ashley wallpaper. Handpainted murals. Pink and delicate and exquisite. Just like their daughter.
I tiptoed to the white spindled crib. “Good morning, princess.” I picked up my daughter. Her body wasn’t warm. Her face was blue. Her breath was gone.
Alyssa was dead.
My scream reached into hell, and the devil laughed.
My scream reached into heaven. God grieved.
I couldn’t stand,