Before . . .
Jocelyn had been out of her mind now for quite a while. Out of her mind and out of her body. It was probably just as well. She couldn’t tolerate pain. Really. She knew people said that all the time, but in her case it was true. The mere thought of pain was enough to make her break out in a sweat, so she was grateful when she just drifted off. It didn’t happen all at once, of course, at first she just drifted in and out. She’d panicked when the first contractions came, gripping her like a vice, and she almost wet herself. She would have bent double had she been able, the pain was so intense, but she couldn’t, her belly had been in the way, the baby had been in the way. Once the pain dissipated, she moved awkwardly to the living room and sat heavily on the sofa. She was doing fine for twenty minutes, until the next contraction. This one felt like she’d been punched in the stomach with an iron glove, the air whooshed out of her lungs and tears sprang into her eyes. She moaned lowly to herself. Only to herself, of course, there was no one else was there? Peter was off some place, she didn’t know where, he could have been off having an affair for all she knew. He wasn’t, the rational part of her was aware; he loved her so much she knew he never even looked at another woman. He was a wonderful man and she loved him back every bit as much as he loved her, more if it were possible. But right now he was a bastard. Right now, she wanted to hurt him, punish him. He should be here, with her, instead of wherever it was. It wasn’t fair. HE SHOULD BE HERE.
The next contraction came and she blanked out for a while, all there was was pain, she did not remember anything else. She wiped her hand across her forehead, it came away slick with perspiration, sweat beaded her upper lip and she grimaced in pain.
There was a knock on the front door and the bell was pushed rapidly, three times, four. Jocelyn started at the sound. The rap rap rap of knuckles on wood seemed to thunder throughout the house and the normally pleasant chime of the doorbell grated on her nerves. She looked out the window from where she stood. Stood! She’d been sitting down, she was sure she had, when had she struggled to her feet? Struggled was the right word these days, the sofa was low and soft and comfortable. She used to have trouble getting up out of it before, but since she’d begun to get big rising from the sofa had become a major production. She loved that sofa though, even if it was the cause of all her pain right now. She remembered the night that she and Peter had spent… . Rap rap rap.
“Mrs. Rappaport?”
Jocelyn saw the large white van outside the house. When had she rung the ambulance? She had no recollection. The chiming came again and a horrible shiver ran down her spine, she imagined a piece of broken glass jabbing into the flesh of her back as the bell faded away. She felt nauseous.
“Mrs. Rappaport?” The paramedic suddenly appeared in front of her, hand cupped to his eyes as he pressed his face against the outside of the window and peered into the living room. She cried out, startled.
“Mrs. Rappaport, are you alright?” She couldn’t see his features properly, the day was bright and sunlight lit him from behind, his hands shaded his face, but his voice was friendly, reassuring.
“My water broke,” she told him and wondered when the hell that had happened.
“Uh-huh,” he smiled at her, “do you want to open the door?”
Jocelyn nodded blankly at him.
“Then we can get you to the hospital,” the paramedic prompted.
“Sorry,” she apologised and turned towards the front hall. Another contraction squeezed a cry from her before she got the door open. A second paramedic was waiting at the front step.
“How do you feel?”
She glowered at him.
“Silly question, sorry.”
The first paramedic joined them. “Do you have a bag?”
Jocelyn was light headed, sure she was going to black out again. “On the kitchen table,” she managed. Paramedic Two took her arm and led her towards the ambulance. Paramedic One disappeared inside the house to fetch her bag. That was how she thought of them, One and Two. She liked One, he had a nice smile, he was dark and handsome, like Peter only his complexion was darker, almost Mediterranean. She wondered if he was Spanish, he didn’t sound Spanish, but you never knew. Maybe his name was Juan. She laughed at this. Yes, it seemed to fit, she would call him Juan.
She was in the ambulance, lying down. Funny, only a second ago she was on the path in the front garden with Two. Never mind, she was here now, with Juan and his dark skin and bright smile. He had a needle in his hand, some clear fluid in it. She didn’t like needles, needles hurt.
“Just a little something to relax you, help the pain,” Juan said as he swabbed her arm.
But I don’t like needles, she wanted to tell him and then it pricked her skin and it was too late and then… it wasn’t too bad after all.
She was in the operating room, no, she was outside looking down into the operating room. No, that wasn’t it. She was both. She was looking down and seeing herself and she was calm. She saw the green clad figures as they moved calmly and easily around her. Masks covered the lower half of their faces and she saw them nod, saw their heads move and knew they were talking but she couldn’t hear what they were saying and she thought that strange. She looked at herself and saw that she was relaxed and calm also. I don’t know what was in that syringe, Juan, but it sure worked, she thought, I mean, look at me. She took her own advice and really looked at herself. Her hair was damp, her dark blonde locks stained by sweat to a much deeper hue. Sweat coated her face and she could see damp circles at the arms of her gown. Stress and strain had contorted her face but that must have been earlier, she had no memory of them and all that remained were ghost lines of her efforts across her usually smooth brow. Her eyes were closed.
Lower down, she was exposed for all the world to see. Her swollen, distended belly rose from up from the table like a large white moon, the flesh stretched tight like a drum.
Hers was to be a breech birth of course, nothing simple for her. She wondered how long she had been in the room, hours or merely minutes. More to the point, she wondered how long she had been out of her body and how long it would be before she returned. The thought that she might not return did not occur to her, she was just happy to be away from all the commotion, and all the pain. It was amazing to her that she had ever allowed herself to become pregnant, just hearing other women talk of the pain involved in bringing another person into the world was enough to terrify Jocelyn. But then she had met Peter and knew that she would do anything for him, suffer any pain, and now, here she was, and there she was and everything was alright, because there was no pain.
A glint of light caught her attention, the doctor had picked up a scalpel. The shimmer of light from the large overhead lamps reflected brilliantly off the sharp blade for an instant before the doctor shifted position and lowered the blade to her. A moment of panic caused Jocelyn pause in her thoughts and then, calm again. The baby was a breech, the doctor was going to perform a caesarean, that was all, there was nothing to worry about, there was no pain. She watched as the medical team performed what was to them just another routine procedure.
Her baby. There he was. She felt her heart well up inside of her at the sight of him. He was gorgeous. Her baby! She could barely believe it. But… Something was wrong. She couldn’t tell from up here, couldn’t hear what was going on, but something was wrong and she had to know. She had to be with her baby. Now. There was a great rushing sensation, as if she were suddenly moving at great velocity, but the scene below her was unchanged, she was still suspended up here above the operating room, out of reach of her newborn son. The rushing continued and she felt the sickening sensation of vertigo, mixed with the desperate need to hold her son. Please, she willed, let me hold my son.
Chaos.
Intense pain. Jocelyn bolted upright from the bed. Jesus, didn’t they use drugs! The sensation of being above the room dissolved immediately, together with any sense of calm she had been feeling. A blinding, white hot pain speared her abdomen and she saw herself more vividly than she could ever have imagined from up there, wherever there had been. Colours, harsh and acute, swam before her eyes. The white of the tiled walls was blinding. The green gowns worn by the medical team brighter and more brilliant than any green she had ever known. And blood. So deep and rich and above all, red, so very, very red. Her blood. And it was leaking out of her. Leaking, pouring, gushing out of her. Her eyes bugged out and she opened her mouth to scream. Her voice mingled with the wailing cries of her son, echoed and rebounded off the walls of the operating room, adding to the chaos all around her. Her mind turned to mush, she was unable to comprehend the cries and shouts of the doctor and his nurses. She thrashed about on the table, arms flailing in wild abandon. One of the nurses, reacting quickly to the doctor’s screamed orders approached her with a hypodermic. Jocelyn did not see her, all she could see was the red as it sprayed out of the open wound from whence had come her child. Her fist struck the nurse in the face and the woman slipped, her arm skidded and the needle plunged into her own arm. She cried out and staggered back from the table, arm held out in front of her, staring, eyes wide at the broken needle of the syringe sticking out of her forearm.
“Hold her down, for Christ’s sake!” The doctor shouted. The mewling child was clutched to his breast, slippery with blood, umbilical cord still linking mother to son. Another nurse, large, with big, powerful shoulders, stepped within the circle of Jocelyn’s pin-wheeling arms, grabbed her, held her and then pushed her back down, pinning her shoulders to the operating table.
Jocelyn was weakening rapidly. She had lost an awful lot of blood and her responses were slowing down. She offered little resistance when a third nurse approached, cautiously, with another syringe, barely felt the sting of the needle as it was plunged into a vein and everything went black.
The nursery was in darkness, only a faint glow from dimmed lights shining through the observation window. Eight newborn babies occupied cribs in the warm, sterile room. Jocelyn’s son was in the crib to the left at the end of the second row. His was a sleep disturbed by vivid dreams, scattered images flickering past his closed lids and he moaned quietly. His moans became cries and his cries spread like Chinese whispers around the room, picked up by the child in the next crib, passed onto the next, becoming a plaintive wail uttered by the fourth baby. The other children took up the cry, a chorus of despair. Their cries became screams that bounced off the walls of the nursery, their misery multiplicating, growing, almost a physical thing.
In the middle of the cacophony, Jocelyn’s son suddenly stopped his howling, breath hitching in his throat, tiny chest rising and falling rapidly. His skin, mottled red, almost purple from his bout of hysterics, began to soften, return to its natural hue. Lying in his crib, the boy began to relax, sleep capturing him again while the other babies continued to wail. His arms moved, tiny fists rising up towards his head as if to cover his ears and shut out the noise. A small plastic tag was tied around his wrist, exposed now as his arms stretched up. Too small for the nurse to write his full name, the label read Alex Rap. His lips brushed the circlet of plastic and stayed his rising arm. He fell asleep, dreamless and undisturbed, pacified by the ring of plastic and comforted by the cries of babies.