Beauty from Ashes

by Alana Terry

  Part of me feels sorry for her, truth be told. She’s not even my age, hardly out of her teens by the looks of her. I’m pretty sure she doesn’t have kids. I can’t be positive, though. She might have a baby she drops off in the nursery or something, but she seems like the type of mom that would keep her brood close by. One on the hip, one in a front pack, and a third in the oven.

  That kind of mom.

  Which means she doesn’t have kids. Not yet. I’m sure she will soon. Those razor-straight hips will broaden out, and that flat chest will miraculously fill with milk. She could afford to gain a good ten pounds, pregnant or not. I wonder what the pastor thinks of her. Skinny’s all the rage, but that doesn’t mean men have stopped appreciating curves.

  I stare down at the front panel of my maternity pants. I don’t have to wear them anymore. I could fit into a few of my pre-pregnancy clothes by now. God knows I’ve been trying hard to lose that last fifteen pounds. With Jake’s mom moving in and taking over the cooking, it’s a wonder I’m not anorexic-skinny. That woman cooks the same way she doles out affection — sparingly. I thought hospitality was a big stinking deal in Asian cultures. But every night when I reach for a second helping of whatever stew or casserole she’s constructed, I feel her iron gaze of disapproval. I should be used to it by now. I’ve seen it every day since she barged into our home.

  I think deep down she’s probably like “Elder” Tom McMahon, probably secretly convinced that what happened to Natalie is my fault. Of course, Patricia isn’t religious, so she doesn’t have misogynistic Bible stories to back her up, but she’s spent the past year telling her son he could do better than me.

  Every once in a while, I wonder what would happen if I just leave. Patricia is so stoked at the chance to play house in my kitchen. Change the bandages on my baby. I can’t even pump breast milk anymore without giving Natalie colic, so she’s on a totally synthetic diet. Straight up amino acids poured directly into her feeding pump.

  The family would be just as well off without me. Maybe even better. Patricia’s the one with all the medical experience, and she and Jake never fight.

  Ever.

  Maybe I sound like a martyr, but isn’t church the place to be honest with yourself? Jake doesn’t need me. He’s got Mama there to do all the cooking, all the cleaning, and to do it better than I ever would. Patricia made that clear the day she pulled fuzzy leftovers out of the fridge, narrowed her almond eyes. I swear that woman’s fifty-five if she’s a day, but her complexion is nicer than mine will ever be. But she gave me such a snotty look when she tossed the moldy Tupperwares into the trash, so disapproving. As if she’d forgotten I’d been in the hospital for months. As if she thought I had nothing better to do once we brought Natalie home than clean out the grody food left in my fridge.

  I know Patricia wants me gone. She never says so, but those glares make it perfectly clear. I don’t even have to be looking at her to sense the hot disapproval boring into me, right between my shoulder blades.

  And she’s always there. I mean always. I’m already four months postpartum. It’s high time Jake and I had the chance to enjoy a little alone time in the bedroom, but we can’t because that woman never leaves. Man, I wish she were the religious one so she’d go to church once a week and at least give us a few hours’ privacy.

  I should be grateful for Patricia and everything she’s done. Jake reminds me of that all the time. Patricia does too, come to think of it. Of course, she never comes right out and says so. That woman has mastered the art of the haiku insult. So understated but with that bitter twist at the end.

  Kind of like her cooking, now that I mention it.

  “Tiff,” she’ll say, “were you sick often as a child?” As if Natalie’s problems could get passed down from your genes. Because nothing like this has ever happened on the Matsumoto side of the family, she points out every few days. Then she wants to know if my mom had any issues delivering any of her babies. As if she’s forgotten that I’m a foster brat. As if Jake hadn’t already told her that my mother was a crackhead and hooker who abandoned me in a high-school bathroom stall and who I’m sure is rotting away right now. Whether in jail or the grave is anybody’s guess.

  Patricia knows all this, and she still asks. It’s always when she’s doing something with Natalie, too. Those physical therapy stretches that are supposedly going to keep my daughter’s muscles from decaying from lack of use. Rubbing her cheeks in a vain attempt to wake up damaged nerves in hopes that she might one day learn to smile. Changing the bandages around her G-tube site, still tender from surgery. I can tell Natalie hurts, because she scrunches her face up in such a gut-wrenching way that even someone as cold as Patricia should feel sorry for her. But Patricia had training as a nurse, as she tells me at least a dozen times a day, and she’s used to this kind of work, which means she doesn’t have an ounce of empathy left for my little girl. A whirlwind of efficiency. That’s what Patricia is. Or maybe a monsoon.

  Natalie’s making some progress, though. The pastor’s talking about thanking God during hard times, and I know I’ve got plenty of reasons to be grateful. I mean, she wasn’t supposed to make it out of the NICU at all. The hospital social worker even scheduled a meeting for us to talk with this lanky man in a drab suit about funeral arrangements when the time comes.

  That’s why I don’t need a pastor to remind me to count my blessings. Because in spite of all we’ve gone through, Natalie is a blessing. She’s a blessing, I would remind myself back in Seattle when I woke up at five in the morning to pump a couple ounces of breastmilk and make it to the NICU by the time the night nurses went off duty. She’s a blessing, I told myself when the neurologist showed us the hemorrhages on the scans. Who would have thought there’s an actual difference between brain-dead and vegetative? You learn something new every day, right?

  I’m staring at my fingernails, trying to remember the last time I had them done. I wasn’t in the third trimester yet. Funny, isn’t it, that when the doctors put me on bed rest, all they worried about was whether or not Natalie’s lungs were developed enough to breathe outside of the womb. They gave me tons of fluids and set up nurses who looked like Olympic rugby players to guarantee I never got out of bed. Everyone was shocked that I didn’t go into labor until thirty-six and a half weeks. I was so sick of hospitals by then. Which is ironic if you think about it now. I was so ready for Natalie to come out, ready to take her home.

  Man, what a fool I was.

  I glance from my grubby fingernails to Jake. It’s still so hard to think of him as my husband. We haven’t even bought rings yet. He’s fidgeting more than usual. I can tell he’s bored with the sermon. Which I guess is a good thing, since it means he probably won’t haul us here next week, trying to appease God just by showing up. As if we could trick him into thinking of us as devoted believers.

  I’m staring at the pastor now, distracted by the way the purple stripes on his tie clash against the maroon base of his shirt. But he finally invites the congregation to bow their heads in prayer, the sign that it’s almost over. I should get home, go check on Natalie. This is the longest I’ve been away from her since we came home from Seattle. But part of me wants to ask Jake to stop somewhere for lunch. Of course, he’ll be thinking about his mother, who by now has a dish of something or other browning in the oven.

  I ask him all the time how long Patricia will stick around, but he never gives a definite answer. I swear that woman treats us like we’re a couple of twelve-year-olds. I’m sure she’s convinced that if she were to leave now, Natalie would starve to death by sunset. As if Patricia is the only one in the family who knows how to dump a bottle of formula into a feeding bag.

  The pastor says amen, and I realize I forgot to bow my head. It’s just as well. There’s no fooling God. He already knows how pathetic of a Christian I really am.

  CHAPTER 4

  “Greet one another on the way out,” the pastor calls to us, and I’m glad Jake and I are in the back row. No time for
overzealous church ladies to make meaningless chitchat or impose their uninvited hugs on either of us. I clutch my phone, wondering if we should call Patricia to let her know we’re on our way. If we don’t, she’ll politely complain that she had no way to know when lunch should be ready. If we do, she’ll pitch a very understated fit about how we shouldn’t expect her to rearrange her schedule to cook for us, because don’t we know she has a sick grandchild to look after?

  Trust me, Patricia. We know.

  I’m ready to leave, but Jake hasn’t moved. Neither has anyone else, I realize. Nobody except that old lady sitting next to the pastor’s wife. She’s standing up now, leaning forward, asking the preacher something. What does she think this is? A question and answer session? Who ever heard of a church service going past noon? We’ve got places to go. Diapers to change. Casseroles to choke down.

  I’m about to nudge Jake, but the pastor’s holding out the wireless mic. Not a good sign. “Real quick before we dismiss,” he begins. I know better than to trust a preacher who begins any sentence with real quick. “Grandma Lucy has asked for the opportunity to close us in prayer today. Grandma Lucy.” He hands her the mic, and I roll my eyes. This lady is way too white to be the pastor’s grandma, which means she must be related to his wife. What kind of sap calls an in-law Grandma? There’s no way you’d catch me acting that familiar with Patricia. I can barely claim her as my mother-in-law without wanting to puke.

  Grandma Lucy is a petite little thing, not quite as wispy as the pastor’s wife, but now that she’s standing I can detect a hint of similarity. She’s wearing this gaudy blouse, salmon-colored, the kind of nylon that’s got that old-school sheen to it. The collar alone is the same size as some of the cuter tees I used to wear before I got pregnant. There’s something familiar about her, but I can’t place exactly what.

  All right, I think to myself. Let the old lady pray, and then we’re out of here. I’ve already decided it would be stupid to ask Jake out for lunch. Not only would it start World War III with Patricia, I don’t even want to be with him. I mean, I know he’s trying to be a better person and everything. We both are after what we went through. But come on. Church was two hours if you count the drive. We could have gone to the movies. We could have walked the mall. We could have thrown in some Christmas shopping, at least if we had any money to spend. It’s our first time alone together in months, and he wastes it all on a boring sermon.

  Sometimes I wonder if this is the same man I met at the convenience store. Could he have changed that much in a year? Things were so carefree back then. Carefree if you don’t count everything that led up to me quitting my job, at least. But good came from that too, I suppose, just like the pastor was talking about. It was when I was dead broke and unemployed and had no chance to make rent that Jake showed up.

  We’d hung around each other a couple times before. Every so often it worked out where I relieved him at shift change, and he’d stick around for a little while afterward. Especially at night. Cracked a few jokes about making sure I didn’t let any creeps into the store. It was kind of touching really, the way he wanted to keep me safe.

  Too bad it didn’t work. But that’s another irony for you. If I hadn’t been working alone that night, I wouldn’t have been forced to quit my job. And that’s what got me so broke I had to move in with Jake when he asked. I didn’t have any other options. It makes me sound desperate when I put it that way, but that’s not how it was. Jake was fun. Cute. Sort of quiet in an endearing way. I liked him.

  If it weren’t for the attack, I might have never ended up with Jake. Or maybe we’d still be a couple, but we would have taken things slower. Wouldn’t have so much baggage now.

  You can never know for sure, can you?

  I find myself wondering what the pastor would think, what he’d say if he knew the half of it. Why did you let someone in after closing? I can almost hear the disapproval in his voice. He’d probably want to know what I was wearing that night too. Well, it was summer. I was hot. The store didn’t have any AC, and the air from the fan never reached behind the register.

  Did you drink with him? That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it? Because obviously, if I drank with a dimpled stranger in the store that I was supposed to have locked up fifteen minutes earlier, that automatically means I was asking for it. Right?

  I couldn’t work there afterward. I didn’t even give my two weeks. Didn’t try to go back. Sent Roberto a text, and that was it. I didn’t think I’d see Jake again. But then he popped up, right when I needed him.

  He doesn’t even know about the attack. I mean, he knows, but we’ve never talked about it. When he asked me why I quit, I just told him some guy had been bothering me and Roberto wouldn’t let me switch my shift to days. Jake didn’t press for any more information than that, and I didn’t offer it. I honestly didn’t expect the two of us to get serious at all. I wasn’t looking for anything long-term. From everything I understood, he wasn’t either.

  And then Natalie came. Man, I was so sick at the beginning. Even before I missed my period, I knew it either had to be pregnancy or the flu. I lost so much weight. I wish I could go back to that size now. Fit into that little backless tee.

  Just a fling. A few weeks, a month or two at most. That’s all either of us expected. But Natalie changed all that, just like she changed everything else. Some pee on a stick, a teary-eyed conversation at two o’clock in the morning, his promise that I could do whatever I wanted and he’d support me all the way.

  It’s funny. I thought he’d want to get rid of her. That’s what I would do if I were him. Even with the positive test, neither of us expected to stay a couple for the long haul. Jake was young. Working a nine-dollar-an-hour job. But there he was, telling me I could do whatever I thought was best. We didn’t talk about money, not early on, but I knew I’d get child support out of him if I asked.

  And then it came out that I couldn’t make rent, so he suggested I move in with him. I was sick from the beginning, puking all the time. And Jake was there to make me some peppermint tea, pass me the paper towels so I could clean up after myself.

  Man, he’s changed so much. Now I can’t even get him to clean up after himself when he leaks all over the toilet seat.

  Good thing Mama’s there to do it for him.

  CHAPTER 5

  So Grandma Lucy’s done praying, but she’s still got the mic, and now she’s droning on about the day of salvation. I can tell she’s super spiritual because she’s using all the right phrases, the kinds of things Sandy and her women’s Bible study ladies used to gab about. Redemption and sanctification and glorify this and magnify that. Some people really need to get over themselves, know what I mean? I’ve been staring at the time on my phone now for seven minutes straight, and Jake hasn’t made an attempt to move. Seven stinking minutes, but it feels like an eternity. And after an eighty-six-hour long labor, I know what an eternity feels like.

  I’d already been in the hospital on bed rest for four weeks. I was so stoked when I finally went into labor. I couldn’t get her out fast enough. Deliver the baby, wrap her up in a blanket or two, and finally go home. Home, where you can watch whatever shows you want instead of giving yourself carpal tunnel clicking the hospital’s stupid remote looking for something decent. To binge-watch a whole season of CSI in one sitting, no commercial breaks. No interruptions from well-meaning nurses jabbing their fingers inside to check your cervix and see if you’re dilated.

  I knew it wouldn’t be easy with a newborn. I wasn’t that naïve. But Jake and I had been getting along ok. It helps that I wasn’t so hormonal toward the end of the pregnancy. I was actually looking forward to being a mom. I mean, you already know about the woman who brought me into the world. It’s not like the bar was set uber high.

  So I was going to push out my baby, and I was finally going to leave that stinking hospital. Breathe the fresh air again. Urinate without having to measure it down to the cc. Man, I was ready to go home. Jake was too.
I mean, he stopped by the hospital every day, but there’s just not that much to do there. I mean, what do you even talk about?

  “How was your day?”

  What would I have to say? “I peed out 400 cc’s this morning.”

  Looking back, I can see that our relationship was getting a little strained during that time. Whose wouldn’t be? I just figured we’d get home, we’d have our daughter to take care of together, and life would go back to normal. Or maybe even better than normal, because all that extra time on bed rest got me thinking. Imagining. Planning. I was never much of a reader, but the hospital had this crazy huge stack of pregnancy magazines to flip through. I swear there must have been a whole decade’s worth or more, a long enough span that the newer ones started contradicting the older. The Baby’s First Step cover might have an article that tells you to nurse your baby right before bed so she’ll sleep through the night and won’t wake up hungry, but then when you get to the Taking Time for Mama issue, it’s all about training her to go to sleep on a slightly empty stomach so she doesn’t have to feel full to get rest.

  I wasn’t looking forward to breastfeeding if we’re going to be totally honest. I’d read enough about sore nipples and mastitis to realize it would be uncomfortable at best. I figured I’d try it out for a few weeks, see how it went. But it’s not like I had this romanticized notion of smashing my baby against my boob and falling in love and nursing her until she started kindergarten. I guess I was curious, though. Wondered what it would feel like.

  Natalie’s sixteen weeks old, and I still don’t know what it feels like to nurse a baby. I’m positive it’s more comfortable than a breast pump or else the human race would have died out before we ever evolved past living in caves. I hated pumping, but at least it was something I could do. Something that only I could do is a better way to say it. I swear her grandmother jinxed her or something, because the whole time Natalie was in the hospital, she handled my breast milk just fine. Then we took her home, and within twenty-four hours, Patricia showed up on our doorstep, suitcases in hand. Four days later, Natalie was so uncomfortable the pediatrician told us to take her off breast milk completely. Natalie takes this predigested formula now, nothing but nutrients and amino acids with this sickening sweet vanilla scent. You know what it smells like? Those disgusting diet drinks I used to take in junior high. The thing about formula is that anyone can prepare it. You don’t even have to mix in water. Just open the bottle, measure out the right amount, and dump it into the feeding pump.