Page 83 of Thursdays at Orange Blossom House
It’s so weird, having another person alive inside her. She’s seen that movieAlienwith Sigourney Weaver and now thinks the alien is a metaphor for childbirth. It incubates then it explodes out of its host. Lovely.
That’s what going to happen to her: she’s cooking this little person who is then going to emerge from her, probably destroying everything in its path, and her GP doesn’t really want to talk about it because that’s ‘ladies business’, and it’s too expensive to see her obstetrician just because she wants to talk about her fears of being ripped open, and she doesn’t know who else to ask about it. Even if she did, it’s not something that’s discussed a lot in chitchat between women. Not the women Dorothy knows anyway. It’s as if none of them has ever had a period and none of them has ever given birth, just like none of them has ever had a miscarriage. Even with Ruth, there are some conversations they’ve simply never had.
Dorothy hasn’t tried to talk to Grace Maud yet, but maybe she should, because Grace Maud is a sensible type of person and she might have some good advice.
She hasn’t tried to talk to her mother about it either, but nor has her mother offered any advice. And shouldn’t she? Isn’t that what mothers are for? Isn’t that what Dorothy will have to do one day?
Oh, great. Now she’s breathing more quickly. It’s because she’s thinking too much. Thinking about becoming a mother. Not just the childbirth bit but the actual mothering bit.
Dorothy’s going to have to be wise and composed and competent. She’ll have to know how to guide her child’s upbringing so they grow up to be responsible and caring and decent. How can she do that when there are plenty of days when she feels she’s none of those things?
‘Listen to your breathing,’ she hears Sandrine say.
That’s right.Breathing. Focus. Listen.
And what happens if her child is naughty? Are they born naughty? Do they become naughty? How’s she going to cope with a naughty child?
And what if … what if … what if …
This is the thought she doesn’t like to have, but she has it. She can’t help it. What if the child has something wrong with it, like Cornelia? Would Dorothy manage as well as her parents have? She doesn’t have a big sister or brother for this baby, the way Cornelia has her. Dorothy loved playing with Cornelia when they were little, because even if Cornelia was upset she tended not to cry. She was a little built-in audience for everything Dorothy wanted to do. That helped their parents manage, no doubt. But what if Dorothy finds herself in that situation and it’s just her and the baby?
It will be all right, she hears Frederick saying in her head. He’s been saying that to her a lot lately, when she has these little whirlwinds of worry.
‘Become aware of your surroundings,’ Sandrine is saying. ‘Some of you whose thoughts have taken over, you may need some time.’
Is Sandrine talking to her? Does she know? Dorothy is a bad meditator. She can’t do this one simple thing right. Bad meditator. Bad mother. That’s her path. She doesn’t know how to change it.
‘Slowly open your eyes.’
Dorothy opens them, and sees others emerging as if they’ve had a restful sleep. Lucky them.
‘I think I prefer a relaxation lying down,’ says Grace Maud as they roll up their mats. ‘Meditation isn’t for me.’
‘It isn’t?’ Dorothy feels not pleased exactly, but reassured.
‘Oh god, I can’t switch off in either one,’ says Patricia. ‘My brain just goes round and round and round.’ She shakes her head. ‘Hopeless.’
‘You too?’ Now Dorothy is relieved.
Patricia shrugs. ‘I think it’s normal. How are we meant to switch off our lives?’
‘We’re not,’ Grace Maud says definitively. ‘And it’s not like anyone can make us.’
‘I felt like Sandrine was talking to me when she said people’s thoughts were taking over,’ Dorothy says sheepishly.
‘She’s talking to everyone,’ says Patricia.
‘Really?’
‘Why do you think she says it every week?’
‘She does?’
Patricia laughs. ‘Maybe you’re usually more relaxed and you don’t hear it.’
Dorothy considers this. ‘No, I think mainly I’m worrying about so many things that my brain is too noisy to hear it.’
Grace Maud frowns, just a little. ‘What’s worrying you tonight?’
