Delivery

What have I done to deserve this? This pain, this burden?

As he is held aloft for the first time I know God has cursed me more than I had thought.

I did not want this child.

When I was a young girl, I dreamed, as all girls do, that the linen rag doll with a calico dress and thread hair was exactly like the child, the sweet tender baby, that would one day be my very own. The porcelain doll I painstakingly wrapped in a makeshift sling made me yearn and long for the day the china would be warm smooth skin and the glass eyes would be bright blue ones full of youth.

I wanted a baby.

I did not want the one I got.

As he is cleaned with a towel I shut my eyes and imagine he will vanish into thin air because he is so small and devilish red. His eyes are closed too so I pray he doesn't want to see me either.

When I was a bride, I smiled, as all brides do, because I was the prettiest, luckiest, most enviable woman on the entire earth because I was married to the kindest, noblest, most ravishing man in the entire world and together, we were perfect. And as we kissed on the first night of our marriage, I knew all I wanted was to stay in love forever, with my lord, my land, and the family we'd create.

We wanted a baby.

He will not share our home.

As the feebly smiling midwife offers me the bundled up infant, I turn away in repulsion, unwilling to believe that I birthed a demon but also refusing to relinquish my reward for my waiting and dreaming.

So I take him in my arms.

Despite the fact his left arm is still deep, deep red with dry, chaffed skin and there's a mark on his puny hand. He's cursed and God sent him to me.

I want to throw him down on the wooden floor because I have not sinned.

I want to pull the blanket over his face and bury him in the ground and tell the relatives he died.

His eyes are bright gray and bigger than I thought they'd be. His head is perfectly round, his cheeks softer than flower petals, his fingers reaching, reaching.

I draw back my hand.

He makes a soft gurgle, the first noise. Not a scream.

But the left arm.

I can't love this cursed whelp.

I can't kill this precious infant.

I nurture him until he can walk and then we take him into town and leave him.

We have a funeral.

I had always wanted a girl.