The Fracture

I wake to find my arms aching; I’ve been fighting my mother in my sleep again. I stretch and see the hole in the plaster where my fist is, and then the pain really starts. It’s sharp and very hot, and when I carefully pull my fist from the wall there is a grinding inside my bones that makes the world go blotchy.

I manage to turn over enough to be sick on the floor, mostly, and when I look up the hole is level with my eyes. It isn’t so much a hole as a depression, a crater, the plaster warping inward with spiderweb cracks stained pink with blood.

It takes me fifteen minutes to lever myself to the edge of the mattress and sit up because the baby doesn’t like me inching along on my side any more than my hand does. It twists inside me, trying to find a comfortable position, and kicks at me resentfully. “I know,” I mutter. “I know. If you have any better ideas, feel free to share.”

I stare at the closet. I should just put my coat over my jammies, slip into a pair of flip-flops, and take the subway down to nyu Medical. But the train takes forever this late at night. And it’s too cold for flip-flops. “Normal people ask for help,” I remind myself. “Also, Jerry will freak out if he wakes up and finds you gone.” The closet has a sliding door that keeps catching on the rug. I can see it’s lopsided, where it’s fallen out of its groove. My hand throbs. The door is not going to open unless I yank it.

I waddle blindly into the living room with my left arm propped on my belly and my right arm skimming along the walls to make sure I don’t trip or walk into anything on my way to the blanketed lump curled up tight on the couch. “Jerry,” I say, then louder, “Jer.” He doesn’t answer.

I shake him and he comes awake like a swimmer coming up for air, arching his spine as he breathes in sharply through his nose. He looks around, confused, sees me, and pulls the headphones out of his ears. “What is it? Is it time? It can’t be time.”

“It’s not the baby,” I say, and I show him my hand.

He frowns, turns on the lamp next to the couch and reaches for his glasses. When he stretches, his bicep peeks out from the sleeve of his tee shirt, streaked with yellow-gray bruises. He looks at my bleeding knuckles, the swelling that is already distorting the shape of my hand. Gentle as he is, cupping my hand between his large ones, it still hurts, hot and queasy pain shooting up my arm until I whimper.

“Shh, I’m sorry.” He rubs my back, my shoulders, pulling my attention away from my hand. “Lemme leave a message for Dr. Lucas and I’ll call us a cab.”

“I’m not taking a cab.” My throat clenches up. Why am I crying? This is ridiculous; I’ve got a booboo and I’m acting like I’m five. Freaking hormones.

Jerry digs his cell phone out of the tangle of his pants on the floor.

“I hate cabs. I’d feel better if we took the subway. They always take the most congested streets and then pretend there’s nothing they can do.”

He holds the phone and watches me with sea-gray eyes. “Kate?” he asks me. “Do you think there’s going to be congestion at this time of night?”

The cabby is very excited to be taking a young, pregnant couple to the hospital in the middle of the night, and I force myself to ask him if he has kids, how many, what they’re up to. I don’t remember the answers, but he’s smiling and he keeps talking, so I must be doing okay. My hand is a bright ball of pain and I keep talking through it, keep...