need?”
“Underwear,” Nadya whispered. “That was my last pair.”
Alex wheeled up and down the aisles, buying T-shirts and socks and panties and pajamas for Nadya; pants and coats and hats and gloves for her boys; boxes of Goldfish crackers and saltines and canned soup and pasta and Devil Dogs. Desperate, she did what she had to do at that moment, although it was exactly what the public defender’s office counseled their lawyers not to; but she was entirely rational and aware that she had never done this for a client and never would do it again. She spent eight hundred dollars in the very store that had pressed charges against Nadya, because it was easier to fix what was wrong than to picture her own child arriving into a world Alex herself could sometimes not stomach.
The catharsis ended the moment Alex handed the cashier her credit card and heard Logan Rourke’s voice in her mind. Bleeding heart, he’d called her.
Well. He should know.
He’d been the first to rip it to pieces.
All right, Alex thought calmly. This is what it’s like to die.
Another contraction ripped through her, bullets strafing metal.
Two weeks ago, at her thirty-seven-week visit, Alex and Lacy had talked about pain medication. What are your feelings about it? Lacy had asked, and Alex had made a joke: I think it should be imported from Canada. She’d told Lacy she didn’t plan to use pain medication, that she wanted a natural childbirth, that it couldn’t possibly hurt that much.
It did.
She thought back to all those birthing classes Lacy had forced her to take-the ones where she’d been partnered with Lacy, because everyone else had a husband or boyfriend assisting them. They’d shown pictures of women in labor, women with their rubbery faces and gritted teeth, women making prehistoric noises. Alex had scoffed at this. They are showing the worst-case scenarios, she’d told herself. Different people have different tolerance for pain.
The next contraction twisted down her spine like a cobra, wrapped itself around her belly, and sank its fangs. Alex fell hard on her knees on the kitchen floor.
In her classes, she’d learned that prelabor could go on for twelve hours or more.
By then, if she wasn’t dead, she’d shoot herself.
When Lacy had been a midwife in training, she’d spent months walking around with a little centimeter ruler, measuring. Now, after years on the job, she could eyeball a coffee cup and know that it was nine centimeters across, that the orange beside the phone at the nurses’ station was an eight. She withdrew her fingers from between Alex’s legs and snapped off the latex glove. “You’re two centimeters,” she said, and Alex burst into tears.
“Only two? I can’t do this,” Alex panted, twisting her spine to get away from the pain. She had tried to hide the discomfort behind the mask of competence that she usually wore, only to realize that in her hurry, she must have left it behind somewhere.
“I know you’re disappointed,” Lacy said. “But here’s the thing-you’re doing fine. We know that when people are fine at two centimeters they will be fine at eight, too. Let’s take it one contraction at a time.”
Labor was hard for everyone, Lacy knew, but especially hard for the women who had expectations and lists and plans, because it was never the way you thought it would be. In order to labor well, you had to let your body take over, instead of your mind. You revealed yourself, even the parts you had forgotten about. For someone like Alex, who was so used to being in control, this could be devastating. Success would come only at the expense of losing her cool, at the risk of turning into someone she did not want to be.
Lacy helped Alex off the bed and guided her toward the whirlpool room. She dimmed the lights, flicked on the instrumental music, and untied Alex’s robe. Alex was past the point of modesty; at this moment, Lacy figured she’d disrobe in front of an entire male prison
“Underwear,” Nadya whispered. “That was my last pair.”
Alex wheeled up and down the aisles, buying T-shirts and socks and panties and pajamas for Nadya; pants and coats and hats and gloves for her boys; boxes of Goldfish crackers and saltines and canned soup and pasta and Devil Dogs. Desperate, she did what she had to do at that moment, although it was exactly what the public defender’s office counseled their lawyers not to; but she was entirely rational and aware that she had never done this for a client and never would do it again. She spent eight hundred dollars in the very store that had pressed charges against Nadya, because it was easier to fix what was wrong than to picture her own child arriving into a world Alex herself could sometimes not stomach.
The catharsis ended the moment Alex handed the cashier her credit card and heard Logan Rourke’s voice in her mind. Bleeding heart, he’d called her.
Well. He should know.
He’d been the first to rip it to pieces.
All right, Alex thought calmly. This is what it’s like to die.
Another contraction ripped through her, bullets strafing metal.
Two weeks ago, at her thirty-seven-week visit, Alex and Lacy had talked about pain medication. What are your feelings about it? Lacy had asked, and Alex had made a joke: I think it should be imported from Canada. She’d told Lacy she didn’t plan to use pain medication, that she wanted a natural childbirth, that it couldn’t possibly hurt that much.
It did.
She thought back to all those birthing classes Lacy had forced her to take-the ones where she’d been partnered with Lacy, because everyone else had a husband or boyfriend assisting them. They’d shown pictures of women in labor, women with their rubbery faces and gritted teeth, women making prehistoric noises. Alex had scoffed at this. They are showing the worst-case scenarios, she’d told herself. Different people have different tolerance for pain.
The next contraction twisted down her spine like a cobra, wrapped itself around her belly, and sank its fangs. Alex fell hard on her knees on the kitchen floor.
In her classes, she’d learned that prelabor could go on for twelve hours or more.
By then, if she wasn’t dead, she’d shoot herself.
When Lacy had been a midwife in training, she’d spent months walking around with a little centimeter ruler, measuring. Now, after years on the job, she could eyeball a coffee cup and know that it was nine centimeters across, that the orange beside the phone at the nurses’ station was an eight. She withdrew her fingers from between Alex’s legs and snapped off the latex glove. “You’re two centimeters,” she said, and Alex burst into tears.
“Only two? I can’t do this,” Alex panted, twisting her spine to get away from the pain. She had tried to hide the discomfort behind the mask of competence that she usually wore, only to realize that in her hurry, she must have left it behind somewhere.
“I know you’re disappointed,” Lacy said. “But here’s the thing-you’re doing fine. We know that when people are fine at two centimeters they will be fine at eight, too. Let’s take it one contraction at a time.”
Labor was hard for everyone, Lacy knew, but especially hard for the women who had expectations and lists and plans, because it was never the way you thought it would be. In order to labor well, you had to let your body take over, instead of your mind. You revealed yourself, even the parts you had forgotten about. For someone like Alex, who was so used to being in control, this could be devastating. Success would come only at the expense of losing her cool, at the risk of turning into someone she did not want to be.
Lacy helped Alex off the bed and guided her toward the whirlpool room. She dimmed the lights, flicked on the instrumental music, and untied Alex’s robe. Alex was past the point of modesty; at this moment, Lacy figured she’d disrobe in front of an entire male prison
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