SHE, THEY

by Katelyn Deng, 27'

Artwork by Yilin Chen, Westview High School, 27'

SHE is exhausted. She can’t even stand up after the operation, so the hospital prepares a wheelchair for when she goes home after proper observation. She asks for one more of those painkillers, just to numb the pain of the stitches. She tosses away the PPD pamphlet, clutching only onto the Infant Care one as she hugs her doctor goodbye. She ignores the overpowering urge to just cry. She forces a cheery smile across her face as they wheel her out because this is what she should be: blissful and blessed to be a mother at last, to cross this important milestone in her otherwise useless life.

She says goodbye to her in-laws after three days, thanking them for ‘helping’ her when all they had done was criticize the way she held the baby, scold her for her rumpled appearance, and lecture her about her inexperience.  She is by herself because her husband’s company does not offer the option for employees to stay home and take care of their newborns. She is drowsy from sleepless nights when she wakes every three hours to soothe the baby’s wails and to avoid her husband lacerating her new motherly spirit. She is wearied from rushing between rooms, checking on the nursery, and preparing her husband’s steak dinner alternatively while her stitches throb. She wants more time, but the days are ticking by. She checked the calendar this morning, and her three weeks are almost up, yet the clothes still haven’t been washed, the baby still needs to be fed, and she needs to clean up the living room for the dinner party her husband is hosting that evening. She wishes someone – anyone – would come by to ask her how she is doing. She wishes someone would hold the baby for just ten minutes so she can at least take a goddamn shower.

She will go back to work soon. She will remain silent as her balding, fifty-something boss scolds her for missing a month of work (it was only twenty days) when she was supposed to be “pretty much healed” one week after she left the hospital. She will drive home during fifteen-minute lunch breaks because her breasts are swollen and tender, because her office does not have any lactation rooms for her to use. She will watch as her childless coworkers get promotions while she is forgotten. She will see her supervisors roll their eyes when her scar begins to ache and she needs to sit down. She will edit her articles while changing diapers because her husband reluctantly tried to do it once and then never even offered again. She will sit at the kitchen table on Saturday nights while her husband is out with his friends, downing whisky shots and ogling twenty-year-olds who have no stretch marks, no waist fat, no cellulite. She realizes that she is completely, utterly alone. She is desperate, and so:

THEY visit her. They whisper to her. They prey on her weakness, on her inability to fight back or shield herself. They are maniacal wolves, snarling, snapping, savage sadistics ready to taste her flesh and devour her blood. They tear her apart, then sew her together again with threads of gentle tenderness. They murmur comforting words into her heart while digging their sharp claws into her skin. They force her to stare in the mirror, and they writhe in malicious glee when she cannot recognize the lethargic, exhausted woman who looks back. They heal her, then they hurt her; they make her calm, then they make her cry. They create a silvery fog that hovers around her, blinding her eyes and numbing her mind as they place a bottle of pills into her palm. They push her toward the bathroom.

She is not a bad mother. She loves her son. 

But SHE is also tired. THEY let her rest.