flash memoir
The One Thing I Never Told Her
by Timothy Perez
The first time my wife gave birth I almost lost my cookies.
***
I looked down between the sheet, between legs splashed with orange Betadine and watched the doctor pull things out of her the way a magician pulls rows and rows of colored scarves out of a wide brimmed hat. I witnessed the doctor pull and pull and pull black sopping fleshy tissue from her; I witnessed her blood flowing into a blue pan, the kind mechanics use when changing a car’s oil; I watched as it filled to the brim.
I watched as the doctor dipped two fingers in a white tub of antiseptic lubricant and began stretching the blood-drenched womb of my wife; it was as if he were putting a rim on a tire. He pulled and stretched her like pizza dough. I was expecting the doctor at any moment to fling my wife into the air and my son come tumbling from her like a yo-yo, but then he did something unexpected and took out a pair of surgical scissors. They shined greedily in the bright light. I looked at the doctor and he winked at me. A five gallon white plastic bucket with a biohazard sign half filled with blood and bits of red meaty tissue. I turned to my wife said, You need to push. Now.
Too late. I heard the first meaty snip. Okay mom, push on three. One . . . two . . . three. My wife’s face puckered, and then a breath, and then another meaty snip. Sally, I whispered, he’s cutting you now, you need to push him out. Let’s go.
Okay mom, one more time. One . . . two . . . three. My wife’s face turned inward, the nurses oohhing and aahhing in unison like backup singers. Then, another meaty snip. That’s three. I tell my wife, a fourth one is the point of no return Sally.
And before she could be asked to push, my wife pulled herself up and grunted like a wildebeest And then the doctor’s final tug and in his hands he held a bundle of bloody phlegm screaming and wriggling and the placenta dropped and there was a slight splash and I imagined if it had been an Olympic diver it would’ve been considered perfect. And I choked back whatever was coming up and the doctor mistook my nausea for emotion said, birth is a beautiful thing.
My son: an otherworldly beached jellyfish, a fresh bruise, a chemical spill floating in a gutter, pale yellows, and dark purples, dashes of crimson, peppered with pink flesh, and then he began to unfurl like the petals of an Iris.
I don’t cry much, when I do it’s usually by myself in the dark or in a corner if others are around. And when my first born showed up I had a knob in my throat that dissolved like a cube of sugar when I saw the buffoon huddled in the nurse’s palms. I dried them up by staring at the halogen lamp, then at the doctor sewing up my wife commenting on the bucket of blood he had collected.
This is nothing, he said handing me the scissors the same one used to snip her wider with and it was then that I looked at my son for the first time and the doctor motioned to the umbilical cord the color of tripe. I took in a deep breath, bit my lip and cut. It had the texture of a garden hose, blood spurt from the kinky pale tube dousing the doctor’s blue gloved hand. My son yawned, sniffed the air, clambered between his mother’s breasts and began to feed.
And I stood there knowing I cut him from her staring into eyes that couldn’t yet see and the doctor looked up from the blue oil pan filled with my wife’s blood and the pan wobbled slightly and blood sloshed over and onto the floor in a pattern that would soon be swirled by a janitor’s mop only to be mixed in the detritus of other mothers wombs and the doctor winked at me one last time, said, good job, dad.
Read more by Timothy Perez in:
The Savagery of Bone (Moon Tide Press, 2013)
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