Page 21 of Never Have We Ever
“It’s fine.” Valeska brushed Lena off. “Leave me alone.”
She intended to go to her room and rest, but her irewas so great that she went back into her daughter’s room and began picking things up.I can’t stand to have things looking like this!Marlene muttered on her way by that Valeska was nesting. Valeska almost had the courage to tell her mother to fuck the hell off.
I’m so over this.She picked up plastic and wooden dolls and tossed them into a hand carved toy chest from Switzerland.My husband,my daughter, my own mother… next the nanny will turn on me.Valeska grabbed her stomach as a cramp overcame her.Look at my baby. Already turning against me, and he hasn’t been born yet!She stood up and stretched her back. Her humongous bulge punctured the air.
Something wet hit her feet.
Oh. God. No!
Valeska convinced herself that her water had not broken. Not with this mess unfolding, andnotwith her husband away on work. André was due home the next day, since Valeska’s due date was two weeks away, but who said a big baby would arrive on time?
“Scheisse!” Valeska fell forward on her daughter’s queen-sized bed, clutching her stomach and holding back the next groan to accompany the massive contraction clocking her in the side of the head. “Ma!Ma!”
“What is it?” Marlene took onestep into the room when she realized what had happened. “Valeska! Ah!” She popped back out into the hallway and yelled at Lena to call for the family driver. It would be faster than an ambulance. “Hang on, Leska. It’ll be over soon!”
She grabbed her daughter’s shoulders while Daniela screamed from her bedroom doorway. “You’re ruining everything!” Daniela wasn’t a teenager yet, and Valeska wasalready ruining her life by having contractions all over the place. Blood. Fluids. The head was probably already crowning and afterbirth would soon follow on the Turkish carpet.
You’re a little spoiled brat, yet you didn’t hurt nearly this much!Valeska screamed into her daughter’s blanket while her son threatened to tear her in two. Marlene fluttered about like a useless hen spooked in its pen.Lena was the only levelheaded one to run back into the room and try to get Valeska’s attention.
“We’ve got to get you down into the car!”
“You’ve got to get my fucking husband, is what you’ve got to do!”
Except André was in Moscow, and wouldn’t even check his messages for another two hours. By then, his wife would be half-dead on a hospital bed while his son screamed his first few breaths.
The only reason Valeska pulled through was because she would be damned if she died without that bastard by her side.
***
She awoke to the harried sounds of two men speaking in incomprehensible French. Even if Valeska were fluent, her brain was so shot that there was no way she would ever in a million years understand her husband demanding more information about her condition.
Give itup. At least I can die now.Valeska was still in pain even with the medicine dripping into her veins. Everything from the waist down was a barren wasteland. Probably literally. She overheard the doctors discussing whether or not she could ever have children again. Her darling boy had almost destroyed her. Too fast, they said. He came out too fast and upside down. He breached the unprepared gatesbefore the doctors had the chance to cut his mother open and take him out the safer way.
Or something. Every time Valeska thought about it, she started to cry.
“Leska.” André grabbed her hand and shook her awake. Her IV flailed, and the nurse on duty not-so-politely told him off in French. He wasn’t listening. “Are you okay?Mon chou…”
Her eyes fluttered. “No. I’m not okay.”
“I’m sorry. I’mso sorry.” He pressed his head against her bruised arm. “I did this to you.”
“Yeah, you did. You weren’t here for me to scream that at you, bastard.”
André lifted his head. “I came as soon as I heard. When they told me you weren’t going to make it…”
“I’m here. I’m alive. Shut up.”
“I did this to you.”
“Ja.Now get out of my face.”
He did the exact opposite. André covered her sweaty, grimy,greasyface with the kinds of kisses he gave his daughter when they were reunited. Last Valeska saw Daniela, the littler girl was screaming in fright that her mother was dead.Only half dead.In time, she would regain her strength, but some things would never be the same again.
“Where is my son?”
André pressed her matted hair away from her forehead. “I have only seen his picture your mothersent me, but he is beautiful.”
“Go see him and let me rest.”
