The twinge she felt in her abdomen was just from laughing. She didn’t need to get up. It wasn’t a cramp. Katie was sure it was nothing. But the pain worsened as she sat there, and the light she had felt so briefly shining inside of her was just as suddenly snuffed out. Her elegant smile went plastic.
Between her thighs Katie felt wetness. Sitting on her brand new couch, surrounded by the company wives, she knew that she was bleeding.
Tea was coming to an end, but Katie couldn’t stand up to politely see out her guests. Blood would be on her pink skirt, and on the patterned couch beneath. As they began to say their goodbyes, she sat on the couch like royalty as her subjects left her presence, letting themselves out of her house.
When they were gone, she finally stood up. On the center cushion miscarriage blood stained her ‘majestic grace.’
In the bathroom, she pulled her panties down and found a glob of red tissue cradled there. She removed it carefully and placed it in the drinking glass that Jackson used when he was brushing his teeth. Katie lay on the bathroom floor, as she had when she was a much younger woman, stared at the red blob at the bottom of Jackson’s glass, and wondered if it were her baby.
At the hospital, Katie sat propped up in bed and listened as Jackson cross-examined the hospital staff. He talked about embryos and chromosomes and vaginal bleeding.
When they were alone he sat beside Katie, letting her stare out the window at the construction site next door. He poured water into a styrofoam cup from a vomit pink pitcher, and held her free hand as she drank. He made sure the pitcher was always full, and that her sheets were always straight and tucked. It was as if he wanted to do anything but look at Katie, or talk to Katie. Katie was happy to oblige him, staring out the window, letting him think about embryos, chromosomes, and vaginal bleeding.
When Jackson brought Katie home from the hospital, he didn’t stay long to get her settled. He kissed her on the cheek, a habit he had been getting accustomed to, and then returned to his office.
In the day she had been gone, Jackson had cleaned up the tea service with its used cups and saucers and cookie crumbs. But the blood stain was left untouched. The blood stain on her brand new couch had turned brown.
When she finally got around to scrubbing the couch the stain had firmly, stubbornly set in. On her hands and knees she worked, but there was no change. Once the cushion dried, she flipped it over to reveal the untarnished side.
Katie was already in bed when Jackson came home that night. The heat of his body woke her as he slipped in beside her. “You got the stain out.” She wanted to speak, but there were no words for her. “We’ll try again.” Jackson rested his hand on her womb, the most important part of her, and held her through the night.
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