The Crush of Dusk | Michaela Evanow
It’s nearly dinnertime. The dusk begins its quiet descent. I’m not ready for my crying household so I walk further into the seaside graveyard, hoping to spot the new nests of buttery daffodils, hoping to sit with you.
We both emerged from the orb of pregnancy; you, sucking earth for the first time; me, undone. Two and a half months of unhampered pleasure. Then, the crude arrival of pain. Your fat newborn legs paused their kicks. I drew my pinkie nail across your soles, hoping for the reflex, the spring upward. Your body stilled, dangled, drooped. The ripple effect of time and disease progression even took your cries. It took too much energy to cry. Just small mewls that my husband and I recorded on our phones while we squeezed each other’s thighs, hands, wrists. Whatever was within reach. What a good girl. She’s so well behaved, the grocery store clerks would say. Then, even the cat cries left, until it was just frothy bubbles at the corners of your lips and those strawberry splotches appearing on your damp body. Then, the rumble of a machine sucking you back to life.
I picture your soft, scared face as I look down at my ungloved hands mottled with white and purple from the cold. They worked so hard to save you, again and again. I wanted you to age. I wanted the patina of five years, twelve years, thirty-three years.
But you’ll always be her mother, they say.
I don’t want to be that kind of mother, I reply.
I’m startled back by the crunching of leaves. The deer notice me noticing them. Their rumps twitch as I walk toward them. They are banal in these parts, swallowing every tender bloom except the daffodils scattered generously through the graveyard.
Stop being so alive in this dead place, I want to yell. My lips purse with the words. Stop eating all the flowers, stop breeding so carelessly. They spread to the edges, ravishing seedlings and lopping heads off memorial carnations until all that’s left are the faded, nylon flowers in gaudy carnival pinks and greens, until all that’s left is ugliness. They watch me, ears fluttering. I am the threat, and though I want to be gentle with all living things, I pick up a stick as they resume eating. They are not afraid. I’m enraged at their invasiveness. Their wet noses tilt back to the earth. I throw it, just to see them scatter.
Stop being here, I whisper angrily. It’s quiet again and I hear the whooshing of blood in my ears, a constant companion since I birthed my last baby. Past threats that have not yet been quelled linger in the canals of my body. This pulsing never leaves; a diagnosable, benign reminder of my aliveness and alertness.
Nature has yet again unearthed the roots of me. She is keen to repot. I find a damp, green bench and sit heavily on a piece of cardboard someone left behind. It’s never about the deer. I cannot control their razing. My shoulders drop into the sweet pit of grief. I came here to cry, after all.
It is good that you are here. You are allowed to be alive in this dead place. I tap on my chest bones, slowly and steadily, until I’m able to walk again.
An arc of purple dusk thickens above the house. A window is cracked open, and the house reveals what’s inside: the cries and laughter of small children, the hoots of my husband as he chases them. I hang up my coat in the mudroom, leave the memory of you curled in the pocket. I ease my stiff hands under hot water, warming to the noise in the house. My smallest daughter comes to me crying. I cup her cheeks with blanched hands, press my lips to taste the miraculous brine. She slips between the gap of my knees as I salt and boil water. I have three small mouths to feed, after all.
More about the author:
Michaela Evanow lives, writes, and gardens by the sea in British Columbia with her husband and three small kids. Life makes sense in the garden, so on a spacious day, her fingers are covered in dirt, and she’s collecting things to dry and hang in a dark corner. Her work has appeared in Hippocampus Magazine, Five Minutes, and elsewhere. You can find her on Instagram at: @michaela.evanow and on her Substack, Tender Realm.