The Irreversible Reckoning

  ***

  When the monstrous cramp ripped through my lower belly like a deep slash from a burning blade, I assumed that my mind returned for some reason to mine and Rachel’s many conversations about baby-making and her attempts to conceive and my attempts to not conceive from a year and a half earlier. But then, before my sleeping mind had even resurfaced into consciousness, I had fully convinced myself that this pain was the same terrible sort that I had felt that night with my first Rachel, when we had been sitting on the couch, her drinking wine, and me drinking water, both of us with our eyes fixed to the film we had been watching, when all of a sudden, I had felt a distinctive drip down below, and then, as I ran into the bathroom, the drip turned into a stream, and the stream turned into a gushing flow of bright, angry red…

  “Adam!”

  I cried out his name before I had even opened my eyes, before my hand had even come down to grasp my lower stomach.

  He sat up, so awake and alert that I wondered if he had been sleeping at all.

  “What is it, my beauty? Are you alright?” He asked me as he took the hand that was not on my stomach.

  “Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, God, Adam, oh God… Oh, my God… Oh, my God… No, no, no, no…”

  I threw the blankets off of me to look, but my eyes squeezed shut by their own will before my bare legs could be exposed to their sight. My body was shaking so badly that the mattress beneath me was vibrating, and my hands reached out and grabbed onto Adam’s because though the pain was significantly less severe, I was remembering how Rachel had been holding me from behind, keeping a bath towel pressed between my legs, telling me that everything was going to be alright, everything was going to be alright, everything was going to be alright…

  “There is no blood.” Adam told me softly, reading my mind as always, though I did not know if I had accidentally pushed those old memories into his mind. “Sweetheart, look.” His finger rested under my chin, and I opened my eyes, shaking still, to see that my legs were clean. My lungs expelled a huge breath I hadn’t realized I was holding, and my body lost all of its tension to slump against his as the tears took me. Trembling violently, I reached out to hold onto him, and he whispered to me her same words almost exactly, saying everything was alright, and I was safe…

  “You had a nightmare, Brynna.” He whispered, “It was only a bad dream.”

  “No. I felt it.” I told him, so softly that I swore he would not be able to hear me.

  “Are you due?”

  “No. But it felt like… It was like a really bad cramp, but I rarely get cramps, because there is hardly anything to cramp, because it does not work so well down there, so…” I looked up at him, “Janna told Rachel that with both Idan and Caspar, she felt this one huge, terrible cramp, and Dr. Miletus said that it was her very first sign of…” I stopped, and immediately, I felt the color drain from my face.

  “That did happen. I remember her waking just like this when it was Caspar stirring within her for the first time, and I remember her grasping our dining room table to keep herself upright when it was Idan.”

  “But it’s impossible, Adam. You know it’s impossible. You felt it! You said you knew I couldn’t. So, it is just… It is just… Tell me that this is nothing, Adam.”

  I took his hand and rested it on my lower stomach, looking into his green eyes as he pushed very gently. The pain was subsiding, and I realized that it had really been one very severe burst of pain followed by several small aftershocks. It was nothing like what I had experienced that night with Rachel.

  “Lie down for me.” He said, and I did. Both of his hands ran over my stomach, feeling it from all different angles, pushing very gently still. “Any pain, my love?”

  “No. What is it?”

  “If ever there were a moment that I needed Luciana Miletus, this is it…” He murmured, more to himself than to me, “Brynna…” He grasped my hand, “You are still damaged, but…”

  “But what?”

  “I do not understand it…”

  “But what, Adam?!”

  “There is life.”

  “What?!” I exclaimed, sitting up and turning on the light, and then laying back down. I ran my hands slowly down my stomach, turning them this way and that, like I was searching through sand for some lost treasure. When my hands were turned downwards, in the direction of my feet, and tucked into the hemline of my shorts, I felt it. She was too small then to kick or to move, but she was there. I couldn’t picture her, because the idea of her was just so abstract to me. But regardless, I felt her. This warm little light, this baby, this little girl, this life.

  “Adam.” I whispered, and I looked up at him, my eyes wide, and my body shaking even worse now. “Adam, oh my God. Oh, my God!” I sat up, but then I could not feel her, so I laid back down. “Oh, my God, Adam. Feel! Feel!”

  He laughed, kissed me, and rested his hand in between both of mine. I laughed, somewhat hysterically, wanting to cry because I was simultaneously so terrified and yet so elated suddenly. I had sworn that I did not want children of my own, and yet now, as I laid in bed with Adam, feeling my belly, feeling her there, feeling that life inside of me, I wondered why I had not wanted her before. How could there be any other thought in my head or feeling in my heart but longing for this life now inside of me, for this life that Adam and I had made? Part of it was my defense mechanism, because I had been told that I could not conceive, and part of it was my fear of treating a child the way that I had been treated, which was irrational, certainly, but I could not put that fear to bed for the life of me.

  But now that she was there, now that I could feel her, I wanted her, more than I had ever wanted anything in my life.

  “Oh, Brynna… My love…” Adam said, as he adjusted his hands, “She is strong. I am…” He smiled, but it vanished suddenly, “Oh, by the One God, she is going to want to keep the company of young men when she is of age, and I am going to lose my hair from worry.”

  I burst out laughing, grasping my stomach even harder.

  “She is going to be beautiful like her mother. I am going to keep a sword on hand at all times.”

  “Oh, stop!” I said, laughing, “She will be smart like her mother, too, but not afraid. She is going to love and be happy, hopefully more than she is hurt, but she will be hurt, and it is all going to be alright. We will be right there for her. Oh, my God, Adam, she’s there!” I laughed again, and then I threw my arms around him and kissed him. The tears came finally, streaming down my face quick and fast like a heavy rain, and two streamed from his eyes as he kissed me back.

  “You have my love more than anyone ever has, Brynna Elohimson. You and this girl and Idan and Penny… You are my light. By the One God, you have my love, Brynna.” He kissed me, “You have my love.”

  I smiled, laughing, keeping one hand on my belly, to feel her there still, and one hand on his face, to feel him.

  “And you have mine. All of mine, Adam.”