Sixteen Going On Seventeen

The night the baby began her descent, there was blood on the bathroom floor.  I stood unmoving, one hand clutching the sink, the other pinning a towel to my cold body.  He came and knelt to look at the red pool blooming, like a faint flower, between my feet.  He told me to wait, and hurried off to get his father.

His father took in the sight of me, heavy and unsure.  He nodded kindly and told me to wash up and get dress.  It was time.

I remembered having the sense to braid my hair and to pack a pair of socks.

At the hospital, the nurses fussed over me because of who my father-in-law was.  Past midnight, there was still little progress, so I asked him to go home and get some sleep.

Late in the afternoon of September 19 1996, I kept my eyes shut to still my fear, and did what the doctor said to do.  I parted my legs without dignity.  I pushed three times.  In between waves of sickness and dull pain, the baby came, a perfect creature, my body part expelled, mine.


***
She wasn't expecting anything special for her birthday this year.  She has of late, begun her first steps into adulthood- a new school, a new country, a new group of friends.  She calls me to read her teacher's comments on her recent English Oral Presentation.  She calls me to tell me the grade she has received for her biology test.

Before the end of her school day, I take a train out to the countryside.  I go to her house and place a small gift and a birthday cake on her desk, in her room.  I note that her room is kept very neat.  The neatness is a new trait.  I feel my heart leap.

I leave her room and go for a long walk.  I am not expecting to see her as today is a regular day at school.  She is busy.  I have come unexpectedly and unannounced.

When she finds the cake, she knows how to locate me.  When she sees me, she runs and flings herself at me.  She is taller and bigger than I am now.  But when she holds me, she likes to shrink and hunker down, to make herself deceptively smaller.  I think she feels safer with this illusion she creates.

There are tears that fill my eyes just seeing her run, run, run to me.  Then her engulfing of me- one body part eclipsing the other to create a new whole.  She has so many things to say, to share.  She is constantly touching me and hugging me.  Her happiness is like a hot air balloon, inflating.  We ride it together, up, up, up, and peer at our separate selves, below.