Meg Elison - The Book of the Unnamed Midwife

He rolled off the couch and knelt, fastening his pants and straightening his shirt. He glanced nervously down the hallway.

Dusty lay on her back and zipped her jeans. Done cannot be undone, and there was nothing either of them could say.

Honus walked down the hall and closed his bedroom door. Dusty did the same, and slept better and deeper than she had in months.

January 5

We keep saying that it can’t happen again, that we shouldn’t and she’s going to know. But we do and I don’t know if she does. We are assholes.

After the first time I wasn’t sure what was going to happen, but he comes to my room most nights around midnight. Talk and fuck and talk again. Never had anyone teach him anything. Never even done it any way but missionary. Fucking a missionary. Joke funny hahaha. Loves when I show him something new but his guilt just gets deeper. Don’t know what to do about it.

Jodi is not getting better. Refusing to eat. Healing slowly, not like she should. Doesn’t want me looking. Won’t let Honus touch her. Woke us both up screaming the other night that the baby wasn’t dead but we had hidden him from her. Inconsolable = had to knock her out.

Still want to leave but the snow doesn’t let up and Honus says it will break his heart. Don’t know that I have a heart to break. Don’t love him, just something more along the line of a need. Somewhere to pour all the things that I feel besides this book. Relief. Is that so bad? Would Jodi be angry if she knew it was only a comfort? Rationalizing. Of course she would. Betrayed. But at least I have no intention of stealing him.

Why steal men these days? Men = dime a dozen.

They always were.

* * * * *

Fuck, Jodi. I’m sorry.

The snow stopped and rain took its place. Downpour washed away the white and dripped off every edge of the house. A small leak started in the kitchen and Honus patched it with plastic as best he could. They still had to keep a pan in the place where it dripped.

Jodi came back slowly, but preferred to watch her movies all day. She didn’t want to speak or eat with them. She put up with small hugs from Honus, but she would not allow Dusty to touch her. Her eyes were large with dark circles beneath and she grew thinner by the day. She did not get out of bed.

Dusty and Honus lay in her bed one night listening to the rain pattering on the roof. Some nights it was loud, like living inside a drum. Tonight it was milder, but enough that they couldn’t sleep. She had fucked him four times, each time thinking he would wear out and fall asleep. He didn’t.

“What’s going to happen?”

“Happen to what, Honus?”

“To us. To you and me and Jodi and everybody in the world. What are we going to do?”

“I’m going to move on in the spring to somewhere I can settle down permanently. Somewhere safe with less snow and maybe where I can grow things. You two will probably go back to Huntsville, since it’s what you know.”

“So that’s it, then?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You won’t stay with me? We could be married. All three of us.”

“Oh god.”

“What? It’s not that bad. I love you, you know.”

“I know.”

“That’s it?”

“What do you want me to say?”

“Say that you love me too, Dusty. Jeez. I know you do. You wouldn’t be with me like this if you didn’t.”

She stared at the ceiling. She thought about Jack, who she had loved. The way they had treated each other, how they had known each other. This was not that.

“Well?”

“You don’t even know my name. Look, you love Jodi. You two can have a life together. We… all three of us, we got stuck together. If things hadn’t happened this way, we probably never would have met.”

“But we did meet. I believe that God sent Jodi to you for a reason.”

She sighed. “Maybe I kept her from dying in childbirth. Maybe. But your reasoning sucks. God killed most of the people on Earth with a plague so that we could have all this? God sent you here to sleep with me and ruin your marriage? God set you up to burn the body of your first child?”

He didn’t answer.

“Not everything has a meaning. Maybe there is no plan. Maybe there’s no reason we met, and we’re fucking because we were both really frustrated and lonely.”

“I can’t believe you think that way.”

“I can’t believe you still think there’s a plan.”

“So what if you get pregnant? We’ve been making love for a while, without any… protection.”

She got up off the bed and grabbed her old pack. She ripped it open to show him her cache of pills and rings and patches.

“This is my plan. This is what makes sense to me. Not dying while giving birth to a dead baby. I’m going to try and give them to your wife before I leave, because without someone to attend her, she might not get through this again. So there is no ‘what if.’ Don’t worry about it. What you need to worry about is that your wife may be the only woman in the county or in the state after I leave. That should worry you.”

“What do you think will happen? Someone will—“

“Kill you. Rape her. Maybe make you watch. Maybe you’ll go back to Huntsville and you’ll have an accident so that someone else can marry her. I’ve seen what it’s like out there. As long as you’ve got her, you’ve got trouble.”

“Then you’re in just as much danger. Why not stay and let me—“

“Let you protect me. While your wife hates my guts because I let her baby die and then fucked her husband. That sounds grand, when do we start?”

“Why are you being like this?”

“I don’t belong here. I can’t stay. Just please let this be what it is. Don’t try to make it last forever.”

They lay and the sound of the rain talked over them.

“What is your real name?”

“What did you name the baby?”

Honus got up and left.

January 10

Want to leave in the middle of the night without a word. Don’t owe anything. Not even an explanation. Want to run the fuck away from all of this. From everything. Toward nothing. Where do I go? For what, to who? Honus isn’t an answer, this doesn’t fix anything. Honus = placebo.

Grow carrots. Eat carrots. Shit carrots. Die. That’s the best thing I can imagine. And the last generation of humanity winds down to zero. Got into the wrong business after graduation. Profession is doomed.

Can’t leave without a word. Can’t leave them raw like Roxanne left me. Can’t be a mystery like Jack is a mystery. Make them hate me, or leave with grace. Hate is easier.

Get her to take the shot. Give her enough to share. Tell her not to give it to that Patty kid until menarche. Not sure she can handle it, or will do it at all. Have to try. Prolong life preserve quality of life fight for life FOR WHAT FOR WHAT FOR WHAT

If I do it now, there won’t be any snow to show it. Get away from the house, let the rain wash me away. They’d never find me. Leave without my pack and they’ll know. Leave with only the gun and they’ll know. Do it with a needle and they might not know. No. No. No.

Not gonna do it. Can’t come up with a good reason except the awful fucking awful way I feel, but not gonna do it. Fuck a reason why. There never was a reason why. Making copies is not a reason why. Now until the end is mine, and I won’t spend it in misery/boredom/terror.

Gonna leave. Soon. But won’t punish them with it. Don’t deserve that.

* * * * *

Dusty woke up in the morning and the two of them were crying in Jodi’s room together. She walked to the door. It was open, but she stood in the doorway without entering.

They sat together on Jodi’s bed, sobbing. It took them a while to notice her. Honus stood up when he did, rubbing his hands on the legs of his pants.