“Everything will be okay,” he said. My husband reached to take my hands but I held them curled around my belly.
“They can’t get me in until tomorrow.” Just saying it ached.
Tomorrow. 10:45 am Tuesday, otherwise known as an eternity away. An eternity of tenuous trips to the bathroom, each time with my breath caught in my throat. Fearing for the inevitable stain that marked the end of another pregnancy.
“Was there a lot of—” and there he paused, held the word out as if on tongs at arm’s length. “Blood?”
Guys can’t deal. They just can’t. And he should know that any is too much. And waiting twenty hours for an appointment is too fucking long. Especially when you know at the end of it lays the inevitable news: You’ve lost the baby. Again.
<—>
“Everything is okay.”
Dr. Zhang smiled and handed me a printout. I took it with both hands and stared: my baby. Dancing. Heart rate 149. Tae-Bo-Baby caught mid-stride, giving the ultrasound a thumbs up.
“It’s going to be okay,” I whispered. Pulled the paper to my chest, carried it to the car, smoothed it against my cheek. Slept with it on the nightstand and reminded myself: It’s going to be okay. Said it daily. Hourly. Sometimes minute-to-minute and every second as needed. You can’t take these things for granted. If I’ve learned anything in life, I learned that one cold.
Thirty weeks later, my son made his squalling entrance. “Winner baby,” they called him. Sunny nurses passed him around maternity and smiled. My miracle.
Flip through the deck of years, past the three days in the hospital at eighteen months with that nasty virus that ravaged his belly and left dark circles under his eyes for weeks. Past that frantic trip to the ER in Jackson Hole, hotel towel pressed to his forehead to stanch the bleeding. Past that day I heard the terrible crash and ran to find him wailing at the bottom of the stairs with one crumpled forearm. Past kindergarten, that first boisterous sleepover. That dastardly riding tractor with the glitchy go-pedal. Training wheels off and full speed ahead and now he’s thirteen and towering over me.
“Six months, twenty-three days and four hours until I get my learner’s permit,” he says.
My kid. Grinning and dark. Sarcastic and bright. Poised on the brink of greatness or disaster. Don’t think I don’t know–I was thirteen once. And fourteen. And dear God, seventeen. I know well the peril coiled inside every possibility.
I wonder at the cards still waiting in the deck.
“Don’t worry Mom, I drove the golf cart in the Bahamas. I’m a really good driver. Everything will be okay.” He pats my head. He thinks it’s cute, that he can do that. That Mom is little, past is past, and his whole future lies ahead.
Everything will be okay.
I will believe.
I must.
k. Rawson 
This is just fantastic. Vivid and poignant. The voice and style are top notch. Bravo.
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this is perfect. Balanced, tight, compelling. It is a story that is very familiar in all its particulars, but still you make it your own, unique. The deft handling of the opening, which could have been overdone but was drawn with such care…the little printout from the sonogram on your nightstand… this especially: “I know well the peril coiled inside every possibility.”
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I’m really touched by your kind words. Thank you.
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Great story of a mother’s constant worry for a child as he grows through the years. I was on tenterhooks during the pregnancy phase, then terrified something fatal was going to happen to him later on.
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Isn’t that the truth–the worry never goes away. Thanks for reading!
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Bravo. It sounds much too real to be fiction . . . . . Love you! Mom
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you know it’s not!
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Wonderfully told.
Time flies. Kids grow up and moms remain moms.
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So true! Thanks for reading 🙂
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