Something Extraordinary

Naomi could feel nothing extraordinary as she curled a hand against the delicate skin beneath her bellybutton. She was hoping for a miracle, a sign that might help make the decision for her. But there were no miracles beneath her palm. Choices still hovered over her, expanding like wet cotton, filling every space of the waiting room with their presence until it was hard to breathe.

It had been five days since she’d found out.

July had unleashed a furious heat that day as Naomi sat on the side of the road in her rusty, overheated hatchback, waiting to see if there were two pink lines instead of one.

She’d bought the test as an afterthought. She’d spent her last twelve dollars on Sour Cream Pringles and Dr. Pepper. As she’d passed the aisle of taboo feminine products, she thought: Maybe I should take a pregnancy test. It wasn’t that she worried she might be pregnant, though there was a small chance. She just liked the idea of taking pregnancy tests. She’d bought it and forgot about it. Until her car overheated.

As Naomi had pulled off to let the engine cool, her bladder reminded her that it was full. Behind a decaying pear tree where no one could see, she peed on the stick. She threw it on the passenger's seat and sat down behind the wheel to wait.

When the smoke was but a wisp, she filled the coolant reservoir with a water jug she kept in the trunk. She started the car and reached for her sunglasses, and picked up the pregnancy test instead.

There were already lies between her and him; lies and secrets and those things that build indestructible walls between people. The lies and the secrets were all his. The walls were Naomi’s. Until now. She looked at the test again. Now she had a secret of her own; hers to bear for the short time she might endure it.

Maybe she made the appointment because she knew she couldn’t offer a baby any kind of stability. She told herself that, but maybe she made it because some secret part of her hoped she could undo her mistakes and go back and find her innocence and naiveté.

Now Naomi sat in the closet-sized waiting room. The wallpaper had maroon-colored berries that fooled you into thinking they were cherries. But they weren’t. They were something poisonous. Sickly sweet berries that filled you with false hope. She moved to a chair closest to the outside door, where the wallpaper had ceased to exist.

Her own shame sat low in her belly like dirty rocks. She was sacrificing a life to make her own life easier. The selfishness of it lodged in her throat, until it erupted as a cry that echoed in the empty spaces.

The receptionist did not look up. The nurse didn't call her name. The silence in the waiting room was deafening. She was alone, quarantined with the life inside of her—alone with her thoughts, her decision, her guilt.

In the clinic’s single-stalled bathroom, she washed her face. She was still crying when the door opened.

When the nurse gestured wordlessly, she followed.

The room was small, paneled with dark-oak wood walls and decorated with bright, pastel paintings. There was a medical table with stirrups and a small monitor on the counter. In the corner, a room divider gave a patient privacy to change into the tissue-paper thin gowns provided. When the nurse left the room, Naomi stripped, naked in more ways than one, and put on the gown. It felt scratchy against her body. She left her socks on, a small gesture of comfort in contrast to the cold sterility of the clinic.

She tried to swallow but couldn’t breathe. Two nurses walked in. They wore white masks and rubber gloves—as if she was a germ; as if an unplanned pregnancy was contagious.

“Shouldn’t you give me something to make me sleep first?”

The nurses looked at one another with an unspoken message.

“You will need to have a viability sonogram before anything can be done. Once your pregnancy is deemed viable, we’ll give you literature to aid your decision, should you request it. If we find you’re viable, and you choose to go through with the procedure today, you will be given a local anesthetic prior to surgery and be ready to leave within two hours afterwards.”

With those words, they took away the finality of her waiting-room decision and left her once again with choices. If there was no viability, the choice would be decided for her by fate. But if she was viably pregnant, she was again left to play god with her own body.

She lay back, her feet wedged uncomfortably in the stirrups as the nurse invaded her body with the long probe. The image on the monitor danced, crackled, and then rested on what looked like a packing peanut. Swooshing sounds pulsed from the speakers; a quick, feathery thump-thump.

She tried to ignore the sound as the nurse moved the bulbous object around. She squeezed her eyes closed, her throat raw, and did something she wasn’t likely to ever do again. She prayed. She prayed to a god she’d never known, to a god she wasn’t sure existed, but one she hoped would hear her prayers.

After a few minutes, the nurses looked at each other. Neither of them spoke.

“What? What’s wrong?” she asked.

At five weeks, she knew it was not possible to feel the baby move, but in the midst of her prayers, she thought she felt tiny hummingbird-wing palpitations. It was not just a thing that could be extracted from her womb; it was life, breathing beneath her skin. A part of her soul nestled deep in the lacuna of her femininity. She began to weep.

When the nurse spoke, telling Naomi what they’d found, she cried. Again, her chest constricted, her body hiccupped, her heart burned white hot. Instead of shame and guilt, there was an eruption of love so strong and pure that Naomi was weakened by it.

Two hearts beat beneath the rhythm of her own; two instead of one.

Twins.

Afterwards, as she sat in the parking lot contemplating life and its strange gifts and burdens, she touched her abdomen. Life moved. Butterfly wings pressed upwards, against her palm, fluttering earnestly. This time, she did feel something extraordinary.

.