GRACE AND GRAVITY

by Kara Kinnamon

it isn’t safe. Apparently nothing is safe for pregnant women. Including the love of my life— queso blanco. But sacrificing soft cheeses and hot tubs didn’t protect my baby. 

The blood hasn’t dried yet so I wear my ex’s sweatpants with a diaper-sized pad stuck on the inside like a Band-Aid. The worn-out elastic doesn’t squeeze my hips, and I figure he should be involved in some way. I pop a few ibuprofen and ready my supplies I bought at the hardware store under close supervision and much mansplaining.

I’ve never seen hawks this close before. I’m transfixed by their speckled wings and bright yellow claws. They swoop and glide across the puffy white then blue. My eyes take photographs. Click. I’ll sift through my captures later, plastered in bed, bleeding alone. 

I push my recommended one-inch roller through a thick puddle of paint in the flimsy pan and apply it to the cinder block retaining wall. Back and forth. Back and forth. Droplets spray onto the grass, the sweatpants, too. I tell Lotus to stay back. 

After the first coat, I take a break with my tequila and a bowl of queso on a towel in the grass. Between spoonfuls, I watch the sun push past a cotton ball cloud, eager to be seen. Lotus rolls onto his back and lets the sun wash his white belly golden. He stays like that, eyes closed, as I get up to refresh my drink. His underbite sparkles in the sunshine. Click. 

I haven’t lived in the house long. Alone or otherwise. I bought it covered in snow and now it drips with dew. The projects stacked up after my ex left since they’d been his part of the arrangement. I was the cash; he was the labor. Even though—never mind. It doesn’t matter now.

Neither of us wanted what happened to us, but we didn’t know that until papers had been signed. And we only signed the papers because a few cells had multiplied into a heartbeat that left us spellbound. 

As I place the tequila bottle back into the wonky cabinet, I make a mental note to return the blue paint. To cancel the furniture shipment I knew I ordered too soon.

That’s how the suburbs are—tedious. Always something to keep you distracted from the fact that you live in the suburbs. I want to crawl back to the city—back to my cage where I belong. Where single, childless people blend into the backdrop. 

As I walk back outside, I switch my glass to my left hand because my right is already sore from gripping the roller. My eye is drawn upward as two hawks gather in a nearby barren tree. There isn’t enough room, so a dance ensues. Fly, circle, land. Fly, circle, land. On the limb, they spread their wings out wide like how I would fling my purse and coat across the empty seats at the movie theater. Don’t come close, we say. Click.

My ex didn’t like my mind pictures. He said they were silly. I think he didn’t trust them. It’s hard to trust intangible things especially when they live inside something else. Maybe he didn’t believe me. Even though he liked to quiz me after movies. “What color was her shirt?” His eyes glimmered with the answer. Click. 

I tried to explain that they weren’t always voluntary. My eyes take pictures of terrible things. Images that haunt me as I try to fall asleep. 

I watch a hawk swoop down into our patch of yard. I think he might land, but no. I take a burst of pictures. Click. Click. Click. As fast as my eyes can go. His shadow rolls across Lotus’s white belly like a canvas. I capture that shot, too. I wonder why I assume the hawk is male. 

The first layer of paint has already dried in the sun. So I go at it again. Back and forth. Back and forth. I get some paint on my shoe. I try kicking it off, but it clings to me like a koala. Paint starts to build up at one end of my roller, and as I swing the roller over the wall, a glob lands in the grass. I look down. The glob is moving. I’ve covered a grasshopper white. I think it might die instantly from the fumes. That’s what the pregnancy blogs were concerned with, the fumes. But it moves. Back and forth. Back and forth. 

All I have is tequila. I’m scared to leave him alone to fetch some water that would probably drown him. Again, I assume the grasshopper is a boy. I stand there and stare. Back and forth. Back and forth. 

That’s someone’s baby on the ground. 

He stops moving. Click. 

I feel a wetness on my thigh. In the house, I change my pad and refill my drink again. I exhale. It’s just a grasshopper. Through the sliding-glass door that needs a new latch, I survey my work. The wall is too white. Click. Too bright against the backdrop of lush greens, browns, and dull yellows. I’ll have to paint it again. Maybe cream. Or terra cotta. Or go-kill-yourself. 

Back outside, Lotus is gone. I scour the yard, panic rising. Around the side of the house, I see the hawk. Then Lotus. A stand-off. His little underbite cocked in an Elvis snarl. Click. I take a swig of tequila and let the glass drop. I walk slowly at first, then run with my arms flailing like a big, dumb bird. Elbows wiggly, arms askew. 

The hawk takes off. Quite dramatically. He circles the sky above and swoops back down just above Lotus. Lotus barks like mad. I run to him without the wings, just arms, and scoop him up. I hold him against my chest. Our hearts pounding in time. Blood rushes from the excitement. 

The other hawk hovers now, too. I feel ganged up on, and that’s the worst part. Couples make me crazy. Even when I was part of one. Especially when I was part of one. So I scream. No words, just the sound. Abruptly they change direction and head south. Click. 

Every ounce of blood left in my body surges until I’m nothing but a throbbing, pulsing blood tornado. I want the hawks to return. To try and try again. I want a fight. So I can scream and clutch Lotus to my chest. The dead grasshopper, too. 

So I can prove I am mother material. Despite the bleeding and ugly paint job. Despite the half-baked house. Despite the pictures in my head.

---

Kara Kinnamon is a writer in the DC metropolitan area. Her work has appeared in The Roadrunner Review, Baltimore Style, East by Northeast, and Betches. She’s currently working on her first novel.