TEETHING
By
Daniel Skye
Bonnie Wheeler had stopped at Sunrise
Mall that afternoon, looking to satisfy her latest craving for a churro. She
really wanted a waffle cone of frozen yogurt, but the swirly treat had become
too much for her ultra-sensitive teeth to handle.
She was also there to do some
last-minute shopping for additional baby clothes. It had been a lonely,
agonizing eight and half months of gravidity, and Bonnie wasn’t going to miss
it for a second.
As Bonnie entered through the
glass automatic doors, the sound of children’s screams and laughter filled the
food court. It was a public spectacle she used to dread, but she was starting
to accept it. These were sounds she had to be accustomed to if she was ever
going to raise this baby on her own.
Halfway through the food court,
Bonnie’s water broke. One of the mall patrons summoned security, and a tall
guard escorted Bonnie outside and helped her get seated on an adjacent bench.
Bonnie didn’t want to take the
risk of driving herself to the hospital, so the tall guard stayed with her
while one of the other guards phoned for an ambulance.
Her primary doctor, Ken Dodge,
was alerted as Bonnie was en route to Saint Anthony’s. He was there ten minutes
after Bonnie arrived.
She had obvious concerns about
premature labor, but Doctor Dodge assured her that babies are often born two
weeks before the delivery date. He made her believe everything was going to be
okay.
Eight and half months ago,
Bonnie had met a tall, lean, handsome stranger. She spotted him sitting alone
in the darkest corner of the grimiest watering hole in all of Greenville.
Max.
His name was Max. An
out-of-towner, Max had claimed to be from Tampa. He was just in town on
business and happened to wander in late for a drink. He never specified what he
did or who exactly he worked for. But that didn’t matter to Bonnie at the time.
After a few rounds of drinks
and some exquisite conversation, she was already hearing the chime of wedding
bells in her head. She had tried her luck with all the available men of
Greenville, and she had yet to discover Mr. Right. Instantly, she sensed
something was different about Max.
He was cool, witty, and
charming. His responses seemed genuine and sincere and he had a solid answer
for every question she could throw at him. In the midst of their conversation,
she subtly inspected his fingers for a wedding ring, or a tan line that would
indicate one. Through this sneaky tactic, she was able to confirm Max was still
on the market.
Bonnie knows every bar fly that
frequents the Greenville Pub. And this guy stuck out like the proverbial sore
thumb amongst the other drunken slobs that serve as the bars clientele.
By last call, they were back at
Bonnie’s place. What ensued was a steamy night of lust and burning passion that
Bonnie fooled herself into thinking was real love.
The next morning, Bonnie awoke
and rolled over to an empty bed. The other side was vacant, but still warm as
she ran her hand across the mattress.
Max was gone. No number, no
note, no nothing. She had never felt so used in all her life.
A few months later, Bonnie was
carrying Max’s child. Her belly had swelled like crude wood exposed to constant
moisture. Her back ached relentlessly and the irregular cramps made her not
want to leave the bed every morning.
She tried on several occasions
to track Max down and give him the big news. But every attempt was
unsuccessful. Max wasn’t in Tampa. Wherever he was, he didn’t want to be found.
And so Bonnie left it that way,
determined to raise this child on her own. Her friends and family were all there
to support her, and she had come to the realization that the love of a child
was all the love she really needed.
The prospect of motherhood had
given her a new zest on life. This baby was going to give her life the purpose
it desperately required.
She didn’t want to know if it
was a boy or a girl. She wanted to be surprised. If it was a girl, she decided
she would name it Frances after her grandmother. If it was a boy, she would
name him Max after his father.
Bonnie spent hours in the
delivery room, panting, moaning, occasionally screaming from her contractions,
which were now twenty minutes apart. In between, she read magazines to help
pass the time and she sucked on ice chips, the only thing Doctor Dodge would
allow her.
As she sat there, she couldn’t
help thinking about Max. Thinking about how it felt to wake up alone that next
morning. About how used and abused she had felt. About that embarrassing hickey
Max had left as a parting gift. The hickey she had to cover with makeup to
conceal from her coworkers. Hickeys are
cool when you’re in high school, Bonnie thought. Not when you’re single and thirty-three.
And she thought about the
changes her body had gone through after being with Max physically. Her body had
undergone a radical transformation that seemed occur within the first week she
discovered she was pregnant.
Her once enthusiastic taste
buds were now indifferent to every flavor they came in contact with. She only
ate what her body craved for the sake of the body. Her teeth had become
unusually sensitive, as did her eyes. She wore dark sunglasses everywhere she
went after that night as sunlight was now blinding to her. But she chalked
these strange changes up to the pregnancy.
It helped to think about Max. Thinking
about Max was the only thing that distracted her from the pain.
There was a dull ache that
started in her lower back. In a wavelike fashion, this ache spread around her
body and reached her abdomen, causing tremendous strain and discomfort.
As the hours passed, the pain
grew more intolerable. Her contractions had decreased in duration, but
increased in frequency.
By the twentieth hour, her
contractions were thirty to forty seconds apart.
By the twenty-first hour, she
was begging Doctor Dodge to perform a C-Section.
Towards the end, she was ready
to perform the operation herself. She just wanted the pain to cease.
Twenty-four hours later, her
cervix had finally dilated ten centimeters. The baby was ready to be delivered.
Doctor Dodge was summoned immediately and the hard part began.
“You’re doing great,” Dodge
encouraged her. “Keep pushing Bonnie.”
Bonnie wailed as she pushed
with all her might. The pain was more intense, more extreme than her friends
led her to believe. It felt like squeezing a wide couch through a narrow
doorway.
“That’s it, Bonnie,” Dodge
continued to drone on. “Keep pushing. Just a little more. You’re doing fine.”
Bonnie dug her nails into the
mattress and pushed harder, the pain growing more unbearable with each passing
second.
“Almost there, Bonnie,” Dodge
shouted. “I can see the head now. It’s a boy! I can see… fangs?”
Ken Dodge swallowed the air and
all Bonnie could see was the white of his eyes as they rolled in the back of
his head. A nurse tried to catch him as he tumbled to the floor and a soft pink
lump slid from his mouth. Dodge had bit down on his tongue when he fainted… and
severed the tip in the process.
One of the nurses winced as she
snipped the umbilical cord and wrapped the baby in a crisp blue blanket. The
nurse passed the baby along to Bonnie as if she was passing uranium off to a
terrorist, then tended to a fallen Dodge. A second panicked nurse was already
phoning for help.
Bonnie marveled at her
beautiful new baby. All her friends were going to be so jealous. She was
pleased to see the boy had Max’s dark eyes, and his sharp teeth.
Now, the toughest part was
figuring out how she was going to breastfeed.
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