GENEVIEVE HILTON (JAN LEE) &
VIANEE FERNIE
DEAD MAN'S CURVE
“Another wreck.” My mother slowed the car. The stone retaining wall at Dead Man’s Curve was again in disarray, a pile of rocks scattered across the asphalt, the yellow and black warning signs hanging askew. It happened once a month, under the gloom of the silver maples. I wondered if the little girl in the serpentine stone house above was awakened by the midnight screech of brakes and crunch of steel.
The surrounding green of ivy and moss set off the deep scar of russet earth. The workers always cleared away the twisted metal by morning.
“They must spend a lot rebuilding that wall. Why don’t they make a stronger barrier?” I remembered the terrible cost of repairing our own house’s walls. The traditional serpentine stone of the area, beautifully green from seeping copper, is weak. Night after night, my mother tried to soothe my father’s fury as he blamed her for the inherent expense of a crumbling home.
“It may cost a lot, but it’s a kindness,” she explained. “Stone against earth provides a kind of cushion. People don’t really die at Dead Man’s Curve, but they would if that wall were concrete. As it is, it’s late, they’re speeding back from a night at Brandywine Tavern, they forget about the curve – and they crash, but they walk away.”
“So only the wall gets hurt.”
“A wall can be fixed.”
“Not forever,” I argued. “Sooner or later, the stone itself will crack. And the drivers will just keep on drinking, and hitting it. Why should they be protected?”
“That’s enough,” she snapped. We rode on in silence.
At home, I tiptoed past the heavy-booted, sleeping form on the sofa. My mother pressed the car door closed as quietly as she could. Her hands shook as she stole into the kitchen to prepare dinner.
Only in my room under the slanted roof, behind my locked door, could I exhale.
ANGALGESIC
It was the most beautiful sleep in the world.
Before: the cramping, the gush of clear fluid, the rush to find a taxi, the fear that we would hit someone in the fog of 5 a.m., the pain, the terror when the pulse on the fetal monitor dropped without warning. The haste to sign release forms for the operation. The injections, the unnerving numbness, the impertinent jostling around my innards. The presentation of a wholly new creature: with hair! And a tiny face I’d never seen! The awkwardness of the sponge bath, of one leg waking up before the other, feeling like someone else’s dead limb in bed with me, the pain returning, slowly, but worse than I’d thought it would be, wrenching, gut-deep, calling out in desperation for something to kill the pain.
Panadol won’t be enough. Would you like to try something else?
After: total peace. Warmth. Refreshing, glorious sunshine. Viridian leaves and branches outside the window. Gorgeous, holy optimism. A vow never to touch morphine again, because it was the most wonderful thing I’d ever experienced.
After that: the angry itching of the pink wound, the fear of a visible scar, the unexpected, rusty blood, but most of all, the fear that I might kill this child with my inexperience. We were weeping together that first night at home, with no idea on earth of what to do.
Later: the relentless, pushing, demanding need, the keening wails, the sharp pain of mastitis, the shame (Are you breastfeeding? How’s his latch? Oh, I see!). The nights. The horrible nights. Please, I said. I want to sleep for an entire hour, all in a row.
Advice that started with: “If you find yourself crying uncontrollably –”
Still later: on Christmas Eve, I collapsed just after midnight, unable even to wonder if I would be roused within minutes, because my brain could not function at a level sufficient to engage in higher operations like “imagining” or “wondering”.
But that night, for the first time, you slept like a baby: for seven hours straight. It was the best Christmas gift I have ever received (although you did not repeat the miracle until the following March). I awoke confused, amazed, grateful. Your little face was the most wonderful thing I’d ever experienced.
It was the most beautiful sleep in the world.
