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“Wait,” I yelp, in between my groans. “I said, wait!” I repeat, louder.
Three, four, five. I count my breaths because breathing is important according to those books. Those dumb books with those stupid mothers, who think they have it all figured out. So perfect, so natural— as if they can’t fuck up their children.
I wipe away the beads of sweat on my forehead with the back of my hand.
“Miss Frost, you have to push—“The Doctor’s intern tries to remind me why I’m in this room with my legs wide open.
“I know what I have to do,” I say, between my teeth. “In a minute.”
“Babe, she’s just trying to— “
“Scott. Water.” I’m not thirsty. I just need everyone to shut up.
It’s not that I’m not aware I’m being difficult.
I’ve been so bloody difficult throughout this entire pregnancy, ever since I felt her stirring inside me. (I wonder how Scott put up with me, to be frank.)
We weren’t trying to have a baby. We weren’t protecting either, but we weren’t trying. I wasn’t trying to have a baby. I wasn’t trying to have her.
I thought this feeling would go away. I thought the fear would be overshadowed by joy. I thought the worries would leave to make room for love.
I thought I’d be ready for her.
But I’m not ready for this, knowing how easily a mother can mess up her daughter. I’m not ready for her, because I'm still my mother's screwed-up daughter. With each kick I felt, there was that bitter question— How can the screwed-up daughter become a mother? How can she not ruin the most precious thing she’ll ever have in her entire life?
When I was a girl, I envied how carefree my friends sounded when they talked about their mothers, like they never had to worry about them. I envied how casual a kiss on the cheek was to them. I envied how normal it was to them that their mothers had taught them how to insert a tampon, not the maid. I envied all the small things they took for granted.
I envied them so hard, I hurt— I couldn’t even get her out of bed some days. I couldn’t get her to like me without being her therapist. I couldn’t spend a normal day with her unless I acted like her friend.
How can a daughter who wasn’t allowed to be a daughter grow into a mother?
“Em,” Scott mutters, pressing a kiss on my forehead.
I gulp. “Yes?”
“It’s time.”
“No,” I shake my head uneasily, trying my best to ignore the new contraction hitting me. “Not yet.”
“Honey.”
“No, not yet. I’ll do it soon. Just let me rest for a while darling, okay?”
With another contraction, I cling to the sheets and look up at the ceiling, just to avoid him. I can’t believe I’m breaking now. I had nine months to sort this out. But no. I have to break in the fucking delivery room.
Emma, he thinks at me.
A. Minute.
You don’t have a minute.
He offers his hand for me to squeeze.
Are you saying I don’t know my own body?
Scott begins to chew on his lower lip. Now I know he’s getting impatient with me. The last time he did this, we were working on the nursery and I made him redo the crib for the eighth time because it didn’t look right.
Scott isn’t stupid. He knew how utterly terrified I was from the start. I always changed the subject whenever he tried to talk to me about it. I wanted space to figure this out on my own. I pushed him away. He was willing to give me space, even though it bothered him, and I appreciated that. So that’s what he did, throughout the entire pregnancy—because it’s what I wanted. But he probably thought I wouldn’t fail and have an internal panic attack in the delivery room.
The doctor says now.
Tell her to come and push it out for me then deary— because I want a fucking breather.
Damn it, Emma—
“I can’t,” I blurt out. “I can’t.” The words merely come out as a whisper.
“Honey…” He wipes my forehead with some tissues and cups my cheek.
“I can’t do this. Why did I think I can do this? Why did you let me think I can do this—Fuck, that hurts,” I end up letting out a loud groan. It sounds worse than it already is because I try to conceal it.
“Emma, you’re just panicking—”
“I’ve been panicking for months!” I exclaim, ignoring the nurse's awkward glance. I continue telepathically.
Why isn’t it going away? I don’t know how to… Why don’t I feel like I’m supposed to? Why am I more scared than happy? What if this never goes away and I end up despising her for it? What if I screw everything up beyond repair?
You’re not going to screw anything up.
What if I do even worse than her?
Your mother?
His voice echoes in my head, shocked. I nod, defeated. Even when Hazel is buried in the family graveyard, under the olive tree, I feel like the little girl waiting under the doorframe again when my fiancé mentions my mother.
His thumb caresses my cheek.
I’m so sick of waking up every day and being scared of my unborn daughter, I think. Scared of what I might turn her into. How many firsts I can miss. How many small things I can screw up. I’m so sick and tired of making a list of reasons why she can rightfully hate me. I don’t know how to be a mother, Scott, because ruined daughters don’t get to grow into good mothers.
Scott doesn’t think at me, or speak. He just stares.
I feel selfish.
The delivery room— out of all places. I’m having a mental breakdown in labour.
I feel selfish for not giving in whenever he asked me what was wrong with me. Selfish for not sharing all of me, with the man I keep no secrets from. He has been trying to reach me for months, before giving up and giving me space. I tried to act like nothing bothered me the entire time, but who was I fooling, really? Scott wasn’t buying any of it. The only person I was fooling was myself.
“Emma, we don’t have much time,” He says, pressing a light kiss on top of my hand. “So let’s just talk, okay?”
“Do you think they can carve it out?”
“We can’t opt for a C-section, right now, actually,” One of the interns butts in.
“I don’t remember talking to you!” I snap.
Sweetheart, look at me, Scott thinks.
Sorry.
It’s okay. I know you’re in pain. I know this is all too much. Look, all I’m going to say is…
I raise one of my eyebrows.
... Do you seriously think if your mother feared all these things that you’re scared of… She’d do a terrible job?
A moment of silence, in both our heads. Mine, processing. Scott’s, expectant.
“…”
When I was six, I used to creep into my mother’s walk-in closet and pretend to be her. I’d wear her furs, her shoes, use her hair rollers, her makeup, perfumes… And I’d look in the mirror, expecting to feel pleased to look like my mother.
But I never was. When I was young, I didn’t get why, but I understood later.
Hazel Frost wasn’t a bad woman. She wasn’t necessarily good, but she wasn’t bad either. She was a good enough wife to a terrible husband. But she was not a good mother.
And I didn’t want to be like her.
She wouldn’t fear anything I’m scared of— she simply wouldn’t care if the entire world came crashing down unless it was about her. That was her problem.
No, I think.
But it’s not my problem. Because I care.
I care about her. I’ve cared about her ever since I took that test. I care about her when I sleep. I care about her when I’m awake. I care about her when I wake up in the middle of the night and stare at the empty nursery. I care about her when I think of holding her. I care about her when I find myself staring at the ultrasound picture on my office desk while I’m grading papers.
I’m scared, but I know this girl is the most important person in the entire world even though I haven’t met her yet.
So, what does a daughter do now, to meet her own?
“I think I’m ready now,” I breathe out. “I’m ready.”
She sucks it up and comes to terms with the fact that she’ll just have to try not to mess it up— and hopes that’ll be enough.
“Can you tie my hair again?”
“Yeah,” Scott redoes my ponytail and wipes away some sweat from my neck and forehead. When he offers his hand again, I take it.
I love you, he thinks.
I love you too.
“Alright, from 1 to 10, how much pain are we having?” The doctor asked.
“I think about six— Ow,” I shut my eyes with the impact of the contraction.
Sorry.
Emma, don’t worry about my hand while pushing out a baby.
You’re right, darling— I’ll squeeze harder the next time.
“Six and a half,” I answer.
“Six and a half?” The doctor scoffs. “I hope you’re aware how many people would kill to be you, Miss Frost.”
Hear that, sweetness? Even in the delivery room, I’m the trendsetter.
He grins.
“You can start pushing now.”
“Here goes nothing, I suppose,” I take in a deep breath. “Oh, wait.”
“Something wrong, Em?”
“No, no, I just have to sneeze.” I sneeze twice. Scott passes me a tissue. “Thank you, darling. Alright, where were we?”
The doctor stares at me awkwardly. In fact, so do the interns.
“Uh…” The younger intern starts. “It’s out.”
“Wait, what?” Scott tilts his head.
“It’s out.”
No way.
“That's it? Are you trying to tell me I sneezed out my baby?”
I barely felt a thing. Sure, it was painful, but not as much as I thought it would be. Just some contractions. Enough to make me groan, but not enough to make me scream. I know how lucky I am, I've watched too many birth videos online in the last six months.
“That’s one way to put it,” The doctor chuckles and turns his gaze to Scott. “Mr. Summers, you’re expected to cut the cord.” Scott gives my hand a reassuring squeeze and walks to them.
She’s not crying, I think at him. Why isn’t she crying? Is she okay?
She’s okay, Emma. I think you could tell if she wasn’t, you’re a telepath.
Shut up.
The next two minutes feel like the longest two minutes of my life but finally, my fiancé comes back to me with a tomato-faced infant between his arms, wrapped in the lilac blanket I picked for her. When I see Scott’s smile up close, I don’t have to read his mind to know she has him wrapped around her finger.
She lets out a tiny coo.
“Quiet girl,” He says, softly. “Or at least she was until we got here. Someone’s eager to meet her mom.”
Gently, I pick up my quiet girl for the first time. The prettiest little girl I’ve ever seen.
“Scott,” I say. “Look at her nose.”
“I know,” He grins. “Tiny. Cute. She has your nose.”
“I know. I love it,” I sniffle. “I love it.”
I just had a mental breakdown in labour and she has my nose. Let me have the ego boost, at least for now.
A distant memory creeps up to me as I stare at her face.
Perhaps my happiest memory of me and mother. I barely even remember it unless I use my powers to reach the depths of my mind, I was only four or five. But it’s there. I focus, and I let myself live through it again.
Cordelia wasn’t born yet— So I was her youngest back then, which meant she usually picked me to tag along with her. We were at the beach in the early morning. We swam in our clothes, built castles from wet sand. She taught me how to write my name by showing it on the sand.
"E, for elegant. M, for marvelous. Another M, for magnificent. And an A, for adorable. See? That spells Emma."
We raced to the end of the beach after that. If I think really hard, I think I can feel how the wet sand between my small toes felt. How the wind brushed against my tanned skin. How salty my brown strands were. How euphoric I felt when we rolled in the sand together after I tripped.
Before I speak my first words to my daughter, I want to project it to her mind. Not just the memory, but how it made me feel. I want to project the emotion. The euphoria of a daughter when she sinks her head onto her mother’s bronzing oil and Chanel No.5 smelling skin. When she chases after her not because she has to, but because it’s fun following her mother around. When she thinks she can follow her around forever until she graduates to motherhood.
My memory of the beach comes to an end, I can only remember so much, after all. The palm trees, the sand, and the ocean; all fade into thin air. It’s only me and Mother left under the sky until she fades into nothingness as well. Then I, a daughter with no mother to follow anymore, keep walking. I walk and walk until I reach the door at the edge of the memory. I turn the knob and step into unknown territory.
My hair, no longer brown. My toes, no longer small. Nail polish, no longer chipped. I enter her mind as the Emma of today. As her mother.
My daughter’s mind is white— no ink has been spilled here, yet. I don’t intend to spill any either. I leave the tiny blue box of euphoria in the middle of her subconscious, with a note attached to it.
Dear Megan,
You have been in this world for three minutes. You spent two of it between your father's arms, and one of it between mine.
Please accept this gift as a thank you for making me the happiest mother in the world in sixty seconds and know that for having the chance to make you feel like this every day until the day I die (which I intend to), I am also the luckiest.
All my love,
Your mother
“Hello, Megan,” I speak my first words to her into existence upon exiting her mind. “Hello, my darling.”
And then what happens, you ask?
My quiet girl smiles at me for the first time in her life.