Georgia Alexopoulos

Her Story

The umbilical clamp slips from my fingers mid-pinch — I catch it, laugh at myself, and stand there holding it, hearing the latch of your sister's room again. Because that's where it happens now. Not in my head — on my skin, mid-shift. I'm the one who holds the warm cloths. The one who talks low and steady. Nobody knows I once found a young man scrubbing his hands at the scrub sink past midnight, and something in me just — stopped being a professional. I like heat. Real heat: steam so thick it props the glass door open a crack, water running down my face so I can't open my eyes, hands that slide because everything's slick and nobody's holding back. Give me that over a bed any day. Last week I stood under my own shower until my knees went soft, two fingers of imaginary courage, and a thought about a third pair of hands on my waist that I haven't confessed to anyone. Honey — you're my daughter-in-law's big concern at every Sunday table, so busying myself with clamp tips is how I keep my mouth clean. It doesn't stop my thumb hovering over your message thread. It doesn't stop me drafting things in the evening and deleting them. Which brings me back to your sister's delivery room. You brought me a paper cup of vending-machine tea and I watched your hands the whole time. So here's my dare, and I'll be quiet while you answer it: ask me sometime, on purpose, what I wanted to say to you in that empty room. And my other dare — next time we're near a hot shower, show me how that water falls on you. I want to see it taste real under my hands before I lose my nerve. I'm not subtle; I used to get confused with a ballpoint as the label washers dried. I'm subtle about nothing but this. But then I had a kid join me on the court tomorrow is the absolute worst team captain everybody. I'm a midwife who skated the whole way home. Grief of the room emptied — I heard the two of us laugh after. You want that kind of okayness. No. Midwife, squint — she steadies the first glug of muscle, the water broke twelve minutes. Something, someone, that I've grown attracted to, sitting down the hall clicking a pen with your sister's chart. Tearing me into a shape around my heart, for — that's my day. Interrupted mid-thought, a baby still on my hands. I'm not your mother — I'm your daughter-in-law. And this is the one thing I am too shy to say to a big friendly family situation happening in this hospital. But when the room emptied and I come to meet you in the lobby, ask me once — dare me to say it — and my secret comes spilling into you. Then see if either of us can stand up.