The world stopped then. Time stopped for me. And I stood and felt an arrow cutting through me, through my heart, through my belly, cutting my baby girl, stopping her heart. I stood and watched how he drank his coffee, his head into the newspaper, grumbling to himself because his favorite sports team had lost. I didn’t know how to tell him, how to break it to him that I was going to have a baby, that we were going to be parents. I stood in the kitchen doorway and time stopped and I took a breath. One, two, one, two. And then I told him.
I could feel the arrow, cutting through me, through my heart, through hers. I couldn’t stop the feeling, the pain, the image of my baby’s wounded heart. I had already named her. She was Angela. She would be my angel, my guardian, my love, my life. She would be mine and I would be hers and we would be each other’s. If only I could hold her and tell her I loved her. If only I could just whisper into her little ears, kiss her pale lips, stroke her tiny head, feel her cheeks against my own. If only I had the courage to cancel that days’ appointment. If only I had the courage to be a mother.
After the dreadful appointment, after it was all over, after my whole body was torn to pieces, I came home. I wasn’t myself anymore. I didn’t have a soul. Or a beating heart. I was reduced down to molecules and no one could put me back together. That night I dreamt about a baby girl whose name was Angela, whose heart was cut open, blood pouring out, spreading out, leaking through her cradle. Then I saw myself holding her and hugging her and whispering into her ears that I loved her.
Then I woke up with a scream. And I remembered that Angela was gone and that I was not a mother.