A predictable phenomenon expelled you from the womb, and you were placed on my chest before I could bring my arms up to catch you. The universe had done the math and solved the equation to fit your round head into my cubital fossa. I already knew what you looked like—as if we had done this before in another time or dimension. The fluorescent assault kept your eyes closed but I waited for them to open. Will they be blue? Brown? Your face, a deflated purple balloon, slowly pinkened and grew to suit gravity. Around me machines shrieked, jubilantly shouting, “You’re alive!” The feminine gushes of enthusiasm poured out from all over the room while beneath my legs the business of restoring my fertility began.
It wasn’t like they said it would be, the other mothers. I was told a
feeling—one they couldn’t quite explain—would overwhelm me once you were
brought to me. But it didn’t happen that way. I should have known it would be
like this for me. The off switch my trauma impregnated at age four was
triggered. The signals were always delayed, held hostage by the invisible
anxiety that my gut flora delivered to my brain in its own time.
But your smell was familiar. Your cells called out to my cells—a warning
signal that soon they would be severed. I looked away from your eyes to observe
the fantastic execution of the process and wondered why you didn’t scream in
response to this violent kidnapping from your dwelling. Maybe your inherited
trauma package included an off switch, too. I looked up to your father and saw
his strong, sobbing face and, still, I didn’t feel the jolt I had been told
would declare me a mother. I asked my body to bypass the off switch just this
once.
Somewhere in the chasm of the hospital room I heard an instruction:
“Place her on your breast and see if she will latch.” My elbow dropping slowly,
your head slid down to where you had already been targeting, and you latched. Somehow
it all functioned exactly as it was supposed to despite my indifference. The parallel
reservoirs of my lips accepted the salty influx, and I licked away the proof
that I did love you.
