When Gray Skies Turn to Burgundy
by Rita Jain
It is a few weeks away from our anniversary and I’m standing on the twelfth floor of the Millennium Hilton Hotel in Manhattan! I can see the people walking in the streets, the tourists are busy snapping away with their cameras and I’m here with my boyfriend of almost one year. It still feels weird saying it aloud. One year. We’ve spent the day fighting over silly things like the laundry and what restaurant we should go to for dinner but what were really fighting about is the fact that we’ve both fallen in love with the wrong person and neither one of us has the courage to walk away. Our room is beautiful and expensive. This could be the perfect moment but I can’t stop the tears. He’ll be leaving tomorrow night and than it’ll be months before I even see him again. In the beginning I used to try to memorize everything about him like his smile, the way he laughed and the way his voice got really rough whenever he’d get mad at me. I want to tell him to stay. I want him to wrap me in his arms and tell me that this is all just a joke and he’ll be here forever but he doesn’t and when I walk into the bedroom he’s already lying on the king sized bed, staring into the ceiling and talking to his friend on the phone. I sit at the edge of the bed waiting for him to hang-up and when he gets off the phone he crawls over to me and leans over to kiss me on the neck. He puts his arms around me and I’m waiting for the moment but instead he answers with “So how about some Chinese?”
All throughout dinner were laughing and talking about the crazy semester we’ve just had. Underneath the table my foot rests against his and its like I never left him or Chicago. We both walk back in a daze. It feels like the city has become one person and his eyes are all on me tonight. In the morning before he’s even woken up, I’m already gone. I can’t say good-bye again.
A few months go by and I’m stuck at home with the flu in the living room watching reruns on VH1 with my best friend. My body is aching and the floor is spinning. My grandma on the phone tells me not to eat anything and my mother is getting ready to leave for her trip to Brazil. My uncle is outside in the car waiting to drive her to the airport and she walks into the living room worried about me and tells me to call her (for the hundredth time) if I need anything. She kisses me good-bye on the forehead and I watch my uncle helping her with her suitcase before they drive away.
The next few days drag on and my uncle offers to take me to the doctor but I barely have the strength to sit up in the waiting room. When they call my name I walk into the last room at the end of the hallway and the doctor begins to examine me. He begins by asking me why I’m there and listening to me as I breathe in and out. I’m in so much pain and my body is freezing despite the warmth of his office. He begins by gently poking my abdomen and I can’t help but cry out because it hurts. He checks my eyelids and starts rolling up my sleeves to draw blood.
“You should really go to the emergency room.” He says.
“I’ll be fine. I just have a virus. It’ll be okay.” And while saying this I sit up a bit higher in my seat as though this will make it seem more authentic.
He hands me a small plastic cup and tells me to pee up to the blue line. I close the door of the restroom and in the mirror I can see that my face is pale and weak. I look awful. As I pee into the cup my urine is a tangy combination between a deep red and dark yellow. My body feels shaky and I wish more than anything that someone could be here with me to tell me it’s going to be okay. I walk back into the examination room feeling nervous and embarrassed with the warm cup of urine in my hands. I hand it over to the nurse and wonder how much she must hate her job.
The doctor starts making small talk and asking me questions about whether or not I’ve ever played tennis (I haven’t) and what my favorite subject is in school. He asks me questions about my boyfriend and when was the last time I had my period. I hate that he’s brought him up because right now he’s the last person I want to be thinking about. I try to imagine what it’d be like if he were here right now he’d probably be telling me that I’ve been overreacting. “The difference between men and women is that REAL men can handle their pain.” The nurse walks back into the office and whispers something into his ear and points to a page in my file. When he finally faces me to speak he looks confused and says, “I don’t know how to tell you this but you don’t have the flu or the stomach virus… your pregnant.”
In that instant my mind goes blank… pregnant? I can’t be pregnant and than I start thinking about my mom and how she’s going to kill me when she finds out.
“But I have my period, I can’t be pregnant.”
My doctor walks over to me and rests his hand on my shoulder. “You really need to go to the hospital. I think your having a miscarriage.”
I start thinking about the whole week and how I ate next to nothing. I start thinking about the weekend at the bar with my friends as we took turns buying each other shots and pitchers of beers.
“If you won’t go to the hospital, then at least go to the gynecologist. I can recommend you to one of my colleagues who can see you as soon as possible.”
I get up and start rolling down my sleeves but before I leave I ask him for a doctors note for school.
“I didn’t go to school yesterday. Can you give me a note?”
He looks worried and says “Sure.”
I hesitate asking him how I’d explain this to my professors. He pauses for a second before he begins writing and than hands me the note. In bold script the note reads “Stomach virus” I slip it into my bag, giving him a quick good-bye and I leave.
In the parking lot my uncle is waiting for me in the car. “You ok? What took you so long?”
“Sorry the line was long.” I answer feeling exhausted.
We drive back to my house and talk about work and the jerk that cuts us off on the expressway. My uncle is one of the few people whose approval means more to me than anything else in the world. It’s been that way ever since we were young. I remember when I was first learning how to walk, I’d use up all my energy to stand up and than he’d come and knock me right back down. He says he did it to toughen me up and that’s all I’ve ever wanted to be.
He notices that I’m quiet and reassures me that I’ll be feeling better soon. As we drive down my street, he pulls up in front of my house and gives me a kiss on the cheek.
“Call me if you need anything. You know the number.”
I give him a forced smile and tell him that I love him while closing the car door. I’m too afraid to tell him. If he asked me why I needed to go to the hospital what would I say? He’s already got a million things to worry about and the last thing he needs right now is another problem. I walk into my house and its empty. I feel numb and confused. I still can’t believe that I’m pregnant.
A few weeks ago I had a dream about open windows and a house that felt familiar. I was in the hospital with a man who gave me the bronze in my wedding ring and a son who drove me home to rest. I sat on the sofa looking at family photos and drifted off to sleep. He came in and draped a blanket over me and just as quickly as he appeared, he was gone. My son. I met my son.
I walk over to the mirror but nothing looks different. I place my hand on my stomach just like I’ve seen them do countless times in the movies and think “my god, what have I done?”
It’s at this moment that womanhood becomes defined to me. Womanhood is our ability to hold a life in our bodies, to truly become two with another person. There is an existence in our bodies that depends on every step we take to the foods we even eat. It’s a mind-blowing reality that made me feel like a combination between God and Alien.
I call my best friend, the first person I can think of. I can tell that she’s really worried and doesn’t know what to say. The news comes out in broken sobs and I’m so scared I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to make this better. She tells me I’m too young to have a baby and that this is a good thing. “Your in college! How can you have a baby now?” I feel torn. I know I don’t want a baby now but a miscarriage feels hardly like a miracle. I’m sobbing into the phone until it hurts to breathe and my stomach feels sore. I can feel that I’m pregnant as she tries to comfort me. I think the worst part is knowing I would say the same things to someone else if I hadn’t been going through it. Everything that she is telling me I’ve already convinced myself of. I don’t want the missing pieces to make me feel better. I know there is no magic solution but I feel so alone and that makes this whole thing feel unbearable.
She wants to know if I’m going to tell my boyfriend and a million fears take over. What if he doesn’t love me anymore? What if he blames me for this miscarriage? I know that if I don’t tell him he’ll never have any way of knowing and I try telling myself that what he doesn’t know couldn’t hurt him but it feels wrong. I’d want to know. He is a part of this too. I get off the phone with my friend and she tells me that I can email her later if I want. I go into the bedroom and lay on the bed staring into the ceiling. I don’t know how he finds this so fascinating. This feels so surreal.
I don’t get out of bed until the sun has already set and it’s close to midnight. I grab my towel and turn on the warm water in the shower. My body hurts. I notice the blood leaking heavily down my thighs. There is a dark red and grayish matter that leaks with it that I’ve never seen before and it hurts. I kneel in the tub and wrap my arms around my stomach sobbing and apologizing. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know… I didn’t know…” I watch as the matter flows into the drain and disappears. I think of my friend telling me that I wouldn’t want a baby right now and how much it would’ve interfered with my future… these are the thoughts of the modern every day woman but what they forget to tell you is that when you watch a piece of yourself die, part of you dies along with it.
The next few days pass by and I don’t get out of bed nor do I leave the house. My bedroom becomes my world along with every Laverne & Shirley rerun.
When my mother calls I tell her that everything is fine. She’ll be coming back soon. I call my boyfriend after he gets home from work and he sounds exhausted.
“I went to the doctor’s office today…” and I hesitate before I can tell him what I really called to say.
“How did it go? Are you feeling better now?”
“Well I will be but I don’t have the flu… I’m kinda pregnant.”
For the next few minutes there is silence and I wonder if the phone got disconnected or if he didn’t hear me. “I said I’m kind of…” and before I get the chance to finish my sentence he cuts me off.
“Kinda? How can anyone be kind of pregnant?”
He sounds distant and unemotional as though I’ve just told him I’ve slept all day.
“I started bleeding and he thinks I’m having a miscarriage…”
“See I told you! You hangout with those friends of yours and see what happens!” he is angry and his voice sounds even more rough than I had remembered.
“But its yours… how can you talk to me like that?” He’s silent before I hear his voice breaking.
“I’m sorry. Are you ok? Is there anything I can do?”
Growing up he never had much of a real family. His mother put him up for adoption even before he could form any memories of her and he’s never even seen a picture of his father. Sometimes when I catch him staring into the ceiling and spacing out, I wonder if he ever thinks about the brother and sisters he could’ve had. I try to imagine him as a child bouncing back and forth from foster home to the adoption agency and think how much he must have needed someone to need him.
“I’ll be alright but this is scary. I don’t know what to do.” We don’t say anything. I know he’s imagining himself as a father. After I get off the phone I crawl back into bed and hide underneath the comforters. The loss of blood leaves me dizzy and light headed and before I go to sleep I wrap a large bath towel that is soaked in my loss the next morning.
I end up sharing my news with friends who never call back and when I go to the library or the nearby bookstore to get some more information there is little if anything available for women who miscarry. The definition of a miscarriage is easy to find but the emotional damage it causes is nearly impossible.
I’ve always considered myself an environmentalist but when I realized that my body couldn’t even hold onto a child, when I realized that I couldn’t even do what women for centuries have been doing it nearly destroyed me. My heart mourned but my logic couldn’t. How do you mourn for something that technically isn’t even real?
There is no empathy or happy ending. There is no burial. There is only silence.
You may reach Rita via email for comments.
© May 2007 by Rita Jain. This work is protected by copyright and may be distributed or published only with the express written permission from its author. You may, without permission, publish or otherwise provide the URL (web address) of this page.
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