April 17, 2010
He is staring at me, eyes wide.
I have had a baby.
I have had a baby.
Living with my mother and my brother, but no father, nor the father of the baby. The house is like the one I grew up in on Regent Street, tan, warm, dangerous. I don’t want to raise a baby here, but I have no choice. How am I going to raise a child? Why do I have a son? A son.
My days are left mostly to myself, to take care of my baby. There is a hospital nearby, one requiring taking a trolley and walking a few more blocks, that is beige and Catholic and 1974, so similar to the hospice where my grandmother spent her last few days. At the hospital, the doctor prods his little legs, tickles him, draws blood and I shh and rub his back. My son, in pain, crying, as the doctor presses a band-aid to his arm. My son, hurt. My heart breaks in half.
