Waking Orchids
By: Amy L. Eggert
Last night, finally, the fever broke. After nights of crib sheets drenched in sweat, the baby shivering under the ceiling fan. This morning, relief. Her skin feels cool. The poor baby, exhausted from so many days of sickness. I slip her, still sleeping, into her stroller. She needs the rest. A quiet walk to the park, our favorite place, her giggling, happy place.
The breeze picks up, lifts dark curls from the back of her head. Today, the first chance in over a week we’ve gotten out into the air, a sunny morning in early summer at our favorite spot. She’s propped in one of three black barreled baby swings at the playground, one hollow and lifeless, sagging between us and another mom with a talkative toddler. I push gently. The poor thing, still so lethargic from the past week.
Embracing the sunshine on my skin, I push away irritated thoughts of documents and signatures, my refusals to sign, so many forms, to acknowledge the separation until he gives me a clear answer why. I push away thoughts of illness.
So many days of sickness, of cuddles, of forehead kisses and blankets despite the scorching skin. So many days of pacing the perimeter of the apartment, plastic syringe forcing Tylenol down the throat every four hours, every four hours, every four hours. No help from him. Not answering his phone. So many voicemails. His child needing him. For days, the fever teetered at the brink of alarm, common with young children, sure, but temperatures soaring to frightening heights before dipping before scaling back toward searing. The tottering indecision over taking her to the hospital. But I’m her mother; I can care for her. Sweat-slick limbs slippery to the touch. Damp washcloths doing little to chill the forehead. Only whimpers, never wails from the poor baby, proof, I know, of a little one feeling wretched.
I’d felt helpless, my sweet girl in such pain. I’d felt useless, alone in my convinced attempts to heal her. But she’d come out of it, I knew.
Two small kids, maybe four or five, stand facing the baby swings, staring, before scampering off. I don't watch where they go, just keep pushing, keep watching brown coils of fine hair flutter in the warm air.
Pushing away thoughts of separation, I think of phalaenopsis orchids. Gifted after we announced the first pregnancy, the lost pregnancy, they bloomed, purple petals vibrant for several months. The next year, though, regardless of how much I fertilized or adjusted air circulation or pruned or watered or withheld, they wilted. Arched stem yellowed, then browned, then split. I left the pot on the sill for months more as the plant dried and drooped and dropped its fragile leaves that shriveled in the dirt, and he kept telling me to toss it. “I can bring it back," I assured him over, over again. I watered, kept watering, too much water, until diluted sludge stained the window ledge.
A pair of joggers move in practiced unison around the path that circles the park. The woman feet away gasps before prying her toddler from the nearby swing.
My sweet girl slips, slumps a bit in the swing. She's asleep, I know, but still I push, comforted by the solid weight of stiff plastic, its release from my fingertips, its sure return to my grasp. She'll wake soon.
When the swing sways back to me, I smile down at my girl, so calm after such a terrible week, caress brown wisps of hair before pushing her away, tears dowsing my cheeks. In the distance, sirens break the stillness of the morning. She floats away for a moment, and something flutters in the depths of my abdomen, but she returns, always. The monotony of my motion, arms thrusting forward then suspended until the retreat of the catch before thrusting forward again, invites my mind to wander, and I imagine her growing larger, taller with each ascent against sapphire sky. She's nearly one, then three, then six, and then ten as I watch her curls straighten and lengthen and her torso extends upwards and her legs draw longer, her bare feet stretching closer to the ground. And as I await her return, I notice my own arms reaching for her, yearning to grab her, pull her back into my desperate grasp, a bursting dread of loss, orchid petals plunging. But every time I catch her, I let her go again and she ages another year, another year.
One dad snatches his son from halfway down the slide, and as the boy protests, the man whisks him away, leaving behind a small velcroed shoe that drops from an angry, kicking foot.
I think of her growing up and away, and something cracks inside of me. My precious baby becoming a little girl, a young woman, her own person. I mourn.
So exhausted, drained from so many days of sickness, poor tired thing. I push her, let her rest.
Parents, some clutching children to their chests, others muttering to each other or into cellphones, stand in a loose circle around the playground. I push the baby, who floats away; I catch her again, keep pushing. I’m her mother. I’ll take care of her.
Sirens sound closer. In my periphery, through the trees and bristling leaves that separate the park from the road, I almost catch a glimmer of light, the strobing of blue like rippling sun scattering the surface of a wave, so bright and there and blinding that you’re forced to look away.
The swings are her favorite. She'll wake soon, and we’ll play on the slide, in the grass. We’ll blow dandelion clocks to disperse into the wind, and she’ll laugh. One arm slips to her side like a wilted stem, her small hand limp and blue and dangling from the swing. I'll push her for as long as I can, for as long as they'll let me. She'll wake soon.
Amy L. Eggert is a writer, a teacher, and a mom. She is the author of Scattershot: Collected Fictions (Lit Fest Press 2015), a hybrid collection that re-envisions the trauma narrative. Recent publications can be found in Book of Matches, Del Sol Review, Unlikely Stories, Halfway Down the Stairs, Beliveau Review, and Verse of Silence. Eggert teaches for Bradley University in Peoria, IL.Website