Lungs Full of Noise

Six Sisters

81 Six Sisters 6 When the morning sickness subsides, I crave canned peaches, slippery fat on my tongue. Pits cored out of their bellies. Bodies embalmed in juice. The skin so supple my teeth sink all the way through, hewing the fruit again and again. Nothing sharp to pierce the palate or scrape the throat. So the bits slide down leaving a sticky sweet film. So the mass of it settles in the sling of my stomach. So my lips meet the edge of the can and my head tilts back and I swallow the fluid in hungry gulps. I drink so fast I miss the thing floating deep in the syrup. A tiny 82 S i x S i s t e r s fetal girl disguised as just another scrap of peachy pulp. I swallow her with the rest. And only realize that a girl is falling down the deep dark hole of my throat when I feel the syrup swirl over her head. The syrup catches on her peach fuzz hair, and I know it’s Estelle. Estelle who grew as big as a cherry, then let go of the womb. That was a year ago. Maybe two. She let go and slid into an airplane toilet. I was on my way to Phoenix to visit my parents after my father’s stroke. On the phone, my mother said he spoke now with a lisp and couldn’t balance fruit cocktail on his spoon. I stayed with them for a month. I called Carl once a week. I had never told him about Estelle. And she knew. Estelle knew lots of things. She knew how the thought of taking care of people made me sweat. She knew I only stayed with Carl because my house had shitty pipes, which he had the patience to unclog, and I didn’t. She knew that I douched with bleach after the pregnancy test turned pink. She knew that before my father’s stroke, I hadn’t spoken with my parents in over a month. And still another week went by before my mother told me the news. She waited until he left the hospital and was home in his bed. Why should you worry? she said. We’re managing fine. When I hung up the phone, my underpants were spotted with blood. I changed my clothes. I booked a flight. I chose a seat over the wings in case the plane came apart in the air. I read an article once about a crash. Two survived. The wings protected them in the fall. But on the trip to Phoenix, the wings didn’t make a difference for Estelle. She fell into the toilet, that tiny metal bowl. I flushed fast, and the suction changed the smell of the air. It felt like losing a tooth, like a gaping hole in the gum. The plane trembled, and I worried the wings would let go. Then the wheels slammed down, and only relief was left. Now she’s come back. She somersaults through my intestines and then is still. She rests, and I say, Little girl, why are you here? Did you come because there’s a baby growing inside me again? Did you come to see if I would want a boy more than a girl? Carl says it might not be a boy. It’s only week six, too early to tell. But the vomit that rises in my throat each morning smells male. Like raw onion sweat and that yeasty semen smell. The smell fills me up. It spreads to my fingers and toes. I can taste it in the skin I bite S i x S i s t e r s 83 from under my nails. That smell finds Estelle through the tiniest of pores. And I say, Don’t you wish you had stayed in that can, burrowed deep in a den of fruit? Syrup is sweeter than blood and so much softer than love. 5 Week eight. Cold feet. Cold despite the thickness of August air, the tautness of heat suspending saliva and mud. It’s never heartburn . Never tender breasts. But every time. Week eight. Cold feet. Carl sleeps in the guest room now with the window unit on. He’s left me the big bed and flannel sheets and windows wide, breeze pressing in like warm breath. This morning, he brings a cup of tea and a printout of the cell counts in...