Elisa Albert - After Birth

Fo sho, I reply, but autocorrect turns it into Go who.

New Year’s isn’t Paul’s “thing.” I used to fight him on it, force festivity, but after a few years of winding up in tears while the rest of the world kisses and hugs and shouts and dances and sings, I decided to disregard him entirely, cranky old man. So far, so good.

I direct Bryan to Crisp’s top-shelf if stale ecstasy, which is in an industrial-sized pill bottle labeled Wellbutrin, over which there’s a purple permanent-marker happy face.

Gonna sit this one out, kids , Mina says.

I take spontaneous pity and text Cat. She is dressed and on her stoop to meet us twenty minutes later.

This is Bryan , I tell her.

Hey.

Hey, back.

The night is pure ice. Naomi’s savings bank is adorable, just me and Bryan and Cat and a few hundred Utrecht and Bennington and Bard and Vassar and Skidmore students dressed up like me in the ninth grade. Combat boots, Jessica McClintock dresses, glasses, the works.

Cat’s displeased with the crowd. She sets about getting us drinks like she’s on a cheesy scripted CIA drama. She is too cool for school. I don’t even want a drink.

She does not fuck around , Bryan observes.

Indeed she does not.

I dance a little, slowly, takes time to get into it. Bryan dives right in with some self-conscious robot moves.

Lights turned off for maximum relief , Naomi’s invites say at the bottom.

Just because they cut that kid out of me doesn’t mean my hips are good for nothing. I can still swing them okay. I’m not dead yet.

Bryan’s game. We’re getting into a bona fide groove when Cat returns.

You don’t have to be stoned or psychic to see that Cat is plainly shit-her-pants terrified of dancing. She just stands there holding three beers. She hands them to me and scurries off to find a bathroom. I hand one to Bryan and two to a passing undergraduate in fishnets.

Cheers , Fishnet screams, keeps moving.

I’ve never actually laid eyes on your husband , Bryan yells.

I’ve never actually laid eyes on your cock , I yell back.

What’s the deal with you?

The deal?

Are you happy?

Am I “happy”?

Yeah. Happy.

Shrug. Let’s puzzle that one out, shall we? Happiness.

I dunno.

Is there someone else who would know?

Point taken.

There is the most adorable girl nearby, six feet tall with short hair, like nineteen. In love with herself, dancing. I study her, and begin to copy her.

How do you feel?

High!

Aside from that!

How does one know how one feels?

One feels and then observes one’s feelings.

What if one doesn’t know how one feels? What if one has no fucking idea what feeling is even fucking supposed to feel like?

Then one might not be happy.

I stop dancing, hold out my hand for his beer, and suck on it. Fresh, sweaty flesh moves all around us. They are so lovely, these girls. When the time comes I hope they will avail themselves of all the biological-feminist childbirth literature they can get their capable hands on. May they attend one another’s births in full bloom. I hope they worship the moon in sisterhood. Bryan is staring at me.

Do you think your husband’s happy?

Probably not. I lean in real close so I don’t have to yell. I’m kind of a bitch.

His smirk is the most genuine thing about him, the cutest. This is a terrible sign in a person, and most irresistible. Or used to be.

You’re beautiful , he said. You know that.

My response to that kind of thing has always been mortified disbelief and a pathetically thrilled shut the fuck up. But I let it stand. Who is he to me? Maybe I am beautiful. Maybe the scant light is hitting me right, maybe my hair is falling nicely. Maybe my shirt is draping well, maybe my ass angles high and round. Maybe some hint of lipstick still remains. Sure, that’s right: beautiful.

It’s a stupid dare, Bryan’s stare. Cat’s back and he’s still looking at me, but I’m out. Bye, little boy. I am a grown-ass woman. Faced down death and lived to tell the sorry shocked stitched-up tale, and here is an overgrown boy standing here trying to use me for some game. Who am I to him?

I disappear into the crowd, lose myself in all the sweaty young.

Omigod! Naomi almost tackles me. You came!

On the car ride home Cat is in the front seat positively purring. Bryan has his hand on her thigh, and now that we’re out of the party she’s jumping around to the music from the radio. She’s been liberated. Maybe she got high. She is not herself. I’m stretched out in the back, still sweaty from all that dancing. I danced hard. Everything is dreamy.

Donut drive-through , Bryan points out.

Omigod should we? SHOULD WE!? Cat is out of her mind, and I kind of like her this way.

New Year’s Day. I make dinner for Mina and Bryan. Paul goes to the gym.

He’s good people , Mina tells me.

I know , I say, sounding defeated.

We have good chocolate and hot buttered rum and lentil stew, not in that order. We have a stack of recent tabloids, a vaporizer, Bryan as acting DJ, and two sleeping babies. We have a fire in the fireplace. Other than Bryan’s constant photographing and posting of everything, it’s nice.

I’m going to barf , Mina says. She throws her tabloid at me. Cover story about a celebrity hospitalized after her fourth C-section in five years. All those incisions. Uterus covered in scar tissue. Placenta had nowhere to attach.

Don’t blame the victim , I say.

Cool, let’s be victims and no one can ever blame us for anything.

Maybe you should try to, like, really stigmatize surgical birth , Bryan says. Like a guerilla PR campaign about how weird and dangerous it is to have your baby surgically removed. That’s good stuff , he says, reaching for his machine.

You know why I hate women?

No, doll, tell us , Bryan says to me. Why do you hate women?

Because they didn’t prepare me. Because they didn’t help me. Because they let me do this alone. Because they avoided knowing, mostly, themselves. How could they let me fall down this rabbit hole? They knew what was going to happen. Every woman who’s ever lived is supposed to know.

Thank goodness we don’t have daughters , Mina says.

Thank fucking God we don’t have daughters , I agree.

Sheryl told me she played cards in labor. Reported it without affect. Beep went the machines. Beep beep beep. And I said, oh look I must be having a contraction. She giggled when she said it, like she was talking about someone else’s body, someone else’s birth.

Maybe having given birth, you don’t have to fear death anymore , Mina says.

Bryan is typing. My mother leans over and squints at his screen, her arms crossed.

We’re as fearful of childbirth as we are of death , I say. Why else do we do everything to try and numb and control it? Why else does no one like to talk about it? Everyone’s scared. They’re so scared they don’t even understand they’re scared, that everything’s about fear.

That’s good , Bryan says. “Everyone’s so scared they don’t understand they’re scared.”

My mother rolls her eyes.

People have always feared childbirth , she says. And people have always feared death. Since always and forever. There’s nothing new under the sun.