Warnings: birth trauma, events that could be construed as reproductive coercion
Carmen's eyes sagged shut, and she leaned her head against the headboard. Jotaro kissed her forehead, adjusting the pillows behind her neck. "Eat your dinner, then we'll go to sleep."
He steadied the plate, which was propped across her immense belly. Pancakes, her favorite meal, which he'd learned to cook after her ankles had started aching so badly that she couldn't stand for more than a few minutes at a time.
Carmen took one more bite, then handed the plate back to Jotaro. He sighed. She'd barely eaten anything. He took the plate back to the kitchen, then got her nightgown out of a drawer. Pulling back the covers, he unbuttoned her shirt.
"You're staring," Carmen laughed, as he helped her get her arms out of the sleeves. He gave a small shrug, watching her bulging belly, admiring her breasts, full of milk, with a deep satisfaction. Life had so much in it.
"Stop rubbernecking," Carmen moaned in jest, "I'm cold."
Jotaro kissed her, on the lips this time, then delicately pulled her nightgown over her head.
"Jotaro," Carmen cried out, "Jotaro."
He blinked sleepily, then felt Carmen's elbow in his side. He quickly turned on a lamp, then pulled back the covers. The sheets, and Carmen's nightgown was drenched. She tried to sit up, but she stopped part way, wincing. Holding his arm out to steady her, Jotaro froze time, and reached in his mind for the baby. She was miffed, aghast, like someone had pulled off her jacket in cold weather.
"Let's get to the hospital," Jotaro said, throwing on the closest clothes in his closet, a dark tracksuit. He moved to help Carmen, but as she got to her feet, she froze, then whimpered,
"It hurts, Jotaro."
He quickly wrapped her in a robe. Her breath hitched as she wobbled to the car, Jotaro steadying her. By the time she was seated, she was outright sobbing.
Jotaro tried to focus on traffic, but every gasp and cry cut through him. He'd never been so relieved in his life as when the hospital came into sight. Soon they were in the delivery room, Carmen on a bright metal table, bawling, screeching. She gripped his hand so hard her nails cut though his skin.
Jotaro wished he could take her pain away. Fight through it himself. But all he could do was stand and watch, stroking her hand.
When Holly visited for his wedding, Jotaro had learned that father hadn't been present at his birth.
"They didn't do that back then," she'd laughed.
"They didn't allow men in the delivery room at all," Mr. Nakamura had confirmed, "I spent the whole day my daughter was born pacing around the office." He smiled, "But I was there for the birth of my granddaughter."
Jotaro was glad that things had changed, because he didn't think any force could have moved him from Carmen's side. After holding her hand for what seemed like several centuries, a doctor appeared.
"Can you give her something?" Jotaro huffed.
"Epidural," the doctor said, motioning to some nurses. He peered into Carmen's terrified eyes, "Let's gas her too. She's nervous." He looked at Jotaro, oddly, almost like he knew, "It will make the baby dopey. But she'll snap out of it fast."
A nurse looped a tubed mask over Carmen's face, and in an instant, she was calmer. Her eyes still scrunched with every contraction, but her grip loosened, and the fear in her eyes dulled into determination. The nurse returned with a needle she injected into her spine.
"Looks good, let's give it an hour," the doctor said, leaving a single nurse behind. Stopping time, Jotaro felt for the baby. She was relaxed now. Ready to ride the wave of life, open to whatever was to come.
Jotaro's shoulders slacked. It was just a matter of waiting. An hour passed, then another, then an entire day.
"First kid always takes forever," the doctor reassured him several times. But as time wore on, Carmen became more exhausted. Her clammy skin became grey and dull. When he squeezed her hand, it took far too long for her to give a weak squeeze back.
He searched for the doctor, then suddenly, he was slammed by a force. He felt like he'd been hit by a pile of boulders. The baby. He hadn't even stopped time, but she was in such distress. He stumbled towards the nurse, unsure what to do, how to explain, then an alarm blared.
The nurse rushed towards Carmen, then three more nurses entered the room, then the doctor. He pulled up his mask. "Let's get her under."
A nurse wrapped her arm around Jotaro, leading him away. He broke her grip, staring back at Carmen. Her hair was matted over the band of her mask, her eyes were squeezed shut. The doctor already held a scalpel. A curtain closed, and the nurse's arm became tighter."You're going to have to wait outside," she murmured, her watch scraping his back.
Jotaro paced out the door, thrusting it open and letting it slam shut. The people in the crowded waiting room stared at him like an audience. He could feel the baby's desperation surge in his throat, then vanish. He heaved. He hoped it was the anesthesia, but he knew it wasn't. Carmen and the baby were going to die because his entire fucking life was a joke, a play put on by fate for entertainment.
He stormed down the aisle between the waiting room chairs, feeling the floor beneath his feet. Why did this have to happen to him? He formed fists and punched the air, then felt a lurching in his stomach. He'd been such a greedy fuck. He'd taken life and drunk and drunk. He tried to push the thought away, but it was crawling in the gut alongside the deep dark fear. Carmen was going to die, of course she was going to die, because he could never have what other voracious, wanton creatures had. He'd flown into the sun and it was all his fault.
He tried to squeeze the memory back, but it poured out, into his mind, like toothpaste leaking through the cracks of a tube. He'd been out of floss and started rifling through Carmen's bathroom drawers to find some. He sorted through palettes of eyeshadow, tampons, hair ties, then saw them. The pills, a flat pack of 28, partially consumed. He grabbed it with a tight grip.
Jotaro didn't call Carmen, but waited, breathing, until she came into the bathroom to get ready for bed. He dangled the pills in front of her face. "I thought you wanted children."
She stammered. Her cheeks were pink. Jotaro had always wished that she would delight in sharing their love, in sharing their bodies, but she was ashamed. It was against her faith. The pills doubly so.
She stared at the floor. "I- I'm not ready. We haven't been together for that- that long."
"It's been a year." Jotaro was tired of always being on trial. Of never being good enough. He threw the pills to the floor and stormed off.
She hadn't stopped right then. It was a few months later when he smelled it on her. She was more responsive. Somehow more enticing than usual. And she hadn't got pregnant until months after that. But still, he'd done this. He'd done this.
Jotaro looked out into the waiting room. A grandmother was showing a candy-striper a glossy photo. A father was trying to keep two toddlers in tow. A man in a faded army shirt read Modern Parent with a carseat by his feet. A couple left the delivery room, cradling a baby, their smiles so wide, so deep.
Jotaro wanted to obliterate those faces. If something happened to Carmen, he was going to do it. His stand stemmed from an evil spirit, and every day, he controlled it, kept it down. But he was losing will. He was losing strength of spirit.
Of course, everything was different in America. The man in the Army shirt had put down his magazine, and was watching Jotaro's every move. He had a gun, of course he had a gun, as did the uniformed security guard who stood outside the waiting room entrance. Army guy's hand was resting a little closer to his holster than was necessary. It didn't matter in the grand scheme of things, Jotaro could pull bullets out of the sky, but it sobered him, knowing that man was ready to do whatever it took to protect his family.
Jotaro continued pacing, up and down the aisle, his breath audible, until a nun approached him. She was short and elderly. "Can I pray with you?"
"I don't believe that shit," he huffed.
"What does your wife believe?" the nun asked, far more kindly than he expected. She took Jotaro's arm and guided him towards a seat, gaining the tone of the cop who had once forced him, handcuffed, into a police car. "Let's pray for her."