Excerpt from: Postpartum

By Dominique Wilson

“I was sick every day I carried her. Everybody said it was morning sickness. Said it was normal. But I knew better.”

Her voice dropped.

“I knew my body was trying to get rid of something that didn’t belong.”

Hope stared back at her. All those years of calculating every side eye’d look and having to swallow down every correction.

“Don’t wear your hair like that.”

“Stay out of the sun.”

“You’d be so pretty if you’d just lose some weight.”

All the things Mama had said and then denied ever saying in the first place. All the things Hope eventually tried to convince herself she’d misunderstood.

“And when they laid her on my chest,” Mama whispered, “I looked down at that ugly little baby and knew God hadn’t listened to a single prayer I’d made.”

Hope’s eyes burned. Mama stroked the other Journay’s cheek with one impossibly long finger.

“But then He gave me you.”

Mama shuddered with pleasure.

“You. You came out perfect.”

The room seemed to shrink around the pair sitting on the edge of the bed. Mama’s shoulders had risen in crooked arches. Her arms grew into elongated sticks. Her fingers curled around the edges of the album resembled pale spider legs.

“You became my little Hope.”

“Mama.”

Journay tugged harder.

“Please, Mama. Please.”

Hope couldn’t look away.

“That’s not me,” Journay whispered behind her.

Hope swallowed.

“Huh? What?”

“That’s the me she wanted.”

The other Journay sat perfectly still beside Mawmaw.

“She came out of me.”

Hope turned toward her daughter. Journay was crying harder now.

“She started growing when I stayed here. My back got itchy after every night. Mawmaw changed the sheets twice before giving up. Then a lump grew. I hid it best I could until I couldn’t hardly walk Mama. Then the itching stopped and I didn’t feel anything on my back anymore.”

Hope’s mouth was agape in complete horror. Journay continued.

“At first she’d only come out at night. She stayed under the bed. Then sometimes I’d wake up and she’d already been awake for hours, down with Mawmaw.”

Her voice shook.

“She knew how Mawmaw wanted me to talk and how she wanted me to sit. She know what Mawmaw wanted me to say.”

Hope looked back into the room. The other Journay was still smiling that horrible obedient smile.

“I sent her home with you a few times,” Journay whispered.

Hope’s blood went cold.

“You what?”

“I’m sorry.” Journay covered her mouth to keep from outright sobbing.

“I didn’t wanna go home. I wanted to stay here. I felt bad. I wanted it back how it used to be when I visited. Just me and Mawmaw. So I sent her home instead.”

Hope remembered the quiet drives. The child staring through the passenger window. The one-word answers.

Yeah.

Stuff.

Silence.

“Oh God.”

“I’m sorry, Mama.”

Hope grabbed her daughter’s hand. She was finally getting her head straight.

“But then Mawmaw started getting bad.”