After
You have to understand that the universe is imploding, the planet is dying, we’ve been told this so many times and I know I know I know that this is the end because surely, at the end there is so much blood. Surely at the end I am on my hands and knees cleaning, trying to gather it all, put it all back but I’ve killed her, there’s no reversing this. Hell and brimstone, cleansing and renewal. This is what was preached to me. And briefly, I promise it is briefly, I think: What would have happened if we hadn’t had a baby? What would we have done, who would I have been? If this hadn’t been a thing, if this hadn’t been an aim? What else. What else. I don’t take it back, but I want to know the other possibilities, how else could this have ended?
The planet is dying and if you look at my Instagram, if you check my stats, you’ll know I did my best to reverse it all. I did my best to be honest and true, to prevent Armageddon, but I have been alone too long. I have been struggling too long, and I don’t know how I am supposed to keep this planet turning. No man is an island.
I scoop and I scoop more blood than you have ever seen in your life across the floor, gathering it into my arms. It is dark and sticky and viscous, exactly like the corn syrup they use in the movies. I like the movies because in the end, you always get a summary. A tidy bow you can tie it all up with. In the end, the guy gets the girl and they have a baby and live happily ever after. In the end there is resolution, time is linear: then to now.
You have to understand that I am a person who likes rules and guidelines. Give me a path I can follow into goodness and I will take it. I built myself, brick by brick, after I left my mother’s house, exchanging one set of rules for another, the ones I crafted. I didn’t know the rules were actually threads across something else, across a vast interminable space that can unravel all at once.
The blood is soaking my sweatpants. It is on my face in my hair under my fingernails, I want to scream but I try to stay calm, I try to clean. Blood in vast quantities is impossible to gather, it adheres to whatever you use to clean it, a guilty conscience come to life. Perhaps if other things had happened, if we had been other people, I would never have known just how difficult blood is to get out, how it collects between your fingers, congeals into the setting of your wedding ring, how it permeates your cuticle line. I would never have known what it felt like to kill, to stand over someone you knew and realize what you had done. To push up against a hard wall, finite, fin.
I focus. Fatigue has been a constant, it has been so long since I slept but sometimes even in the depths of this sleeplessness, I can sharpen my attention like the twisting of a camera lens to see the minute details of any moment, like looking through a magnifying glass at the fibers of a carpet. I do that now, twisting within myself to look around for what is needed. I get a bucket from beneath the sink; I get newspaper and the most absorbent towels in the house, this large house that we bought before knowing what would happen here, who I would become. I soak up the blood and think of bread being wiped along the inside of a half-finished bowl, sopping up sauce.
The knife is still slippery. I cannot gain a purchase on it, it slips from my hands and I have to jump my bare, red feet out of the way to
avoid it. I look up at the camera in the corner of the room and I find myself smiling at it, caught red-handed, red-footed, no denying this, no covering it up. Acceptance finally begins to cool my clammy body, my breasts slick with sweat and milk. A noise from the corner of the room, voices like distant drums, and the dark figure I have been living with appears. Even after all I have seen it watches me, shimmering in the doorway, as if trying to tell me something more, something I have missed. Its mouth (or where its mouth should be) is moving, but I cannot hear its sounds. For the first time in three weeks, I am not afraid of this thing.
I think back to being a child on summer days when the sun would stretch my shadow out in front of me, making me tall as the trees. I would try to hop into it, wanting to meet it, to align my body with its shape. The figure in the doorway is a shadow, an absence of light, hypnotizing—I can’t help but stop cleaning, even though stopping seems ridiculous, like a meteor headed straight for me as I twiddle my thumbs. But what else is there to do? What else can I do but listen? My mother was right, it took me a long time to hear her but she was right, and here I am standing in front of a universe’s worth of history. Nothing left to do but confront it.
Perhaps if I stretch out my hand like I did as a child, I can touch it. Perhaps I can finally bring my body against its body, both of us an outline of secrets jigsawing neatly into each other. A testimony, a confession. But I should take you back to the beginning, I want you to understand.
The floor is still wet with her blood, the whorls of the wood panels visible through a shallow, red lake as I hear the sound of keys in the door. I finally get a grip on the handle of the blade, I stand and turn like Lot’s wife, bracing myself in this pool, bracing myself for my husband, who will come home now, finally and too late, and he will see what has been done.
*
between a land and its people, a tethering like the navel string from a newborn baby. Any midwife worth her salt will tell you, you don’t cut the navel string right away, you let it pulse, you let the beat of the mother’s heart join the beat of the child’s heart so that all the goodness can flow. But sometimes it is severed, and we must deal with the consequence, or as my mother used to say, hataclaps, because there are always hataclaps, even if it is not felt for hundreds of years.
Many years ago, before you or I were born, a ship crashed somewhere off the coast of Jamaica. It was a ship full of the enslaved, taken from their homes and led to an unknown place. Many perished, smashed against rocks, a mercifully quick death. Some drowned in the salty waters of an ocean they had never before tasted but filled their bellies until they sank to the bottom, heavy like stones. Some still were said to have found land, found mountains, found saviors there among the trees. And because we were in desperate need back then, because hope was hard to come by and harder to hold on to, tales also prevailed about the ones who Mami Wata kept, whom she took down to the depths, whom she gave fins and gills and homes in shells, because the fish are her children and the rivers and oceans her home.
Perhaps all of this is true, perhaps none of it. But if you can believe it, if you can find faith among the intangible, perhaps you can also take a step into the unknown, where all things are possible.
Before
1
I have been a mother for approximately two weeks. It is not what I imagined. When I was pregnant and thought of this postpartum time, my mind conjured myself in a sheer yet somehow demure, impeccably white linen dress, kinky hair still full and luxe from all the promised pregnancy hormones, skin shining, moisturized and rested, holding a baby who would sleep dreamlessly against my chest. I would imagine my husband, Emil, desperate to help, attentive and natural, preempting my every move, urging me to rest, canceling work to be with me. Doting and starry eyed. My boobs would go from Bs to DDs, but would remain pert like perfect fruit, grapefruits or, dare to dream, honeydews. Instead, I am feeling old and lackluster in a new bed with new sheets in our new house in a new neighborhood. The baby is screaming and I am desperate to hush her. I smush my breast into her open mouth just how the nurse practitioner taught us in prenatal classes: Use a tight grip on baby’s neck while using the same arm to hold baby close against your chest, keeping him (or her!) perpendicular. Try holding your breast like a messy hamburger!
As hoped, my pre-partum breasts have filled out and sit precariously on my chest, although the nipples are raw and wounded, the skin chapped. I wonder, idly, through the pain, if my own mother ever experienced this, if maybe her mother told her of some remedy from back home that would soothe the agony, calm the baby. But I will never know this, because my mother and I haven’t spoken for years. Neither of us seem eager to rekindle what was an all-consuming toxic fire. After I left, she never reached out and we let whatever remained of our relationship die, unstoked and unfueled. This new chapter of my life feels fresh and new and unblemished. I am putting a period at the end of the sentence that is my family. I am starting over. I can do this.
The baby is not latching and I try to swallow my frustration. My breasts are turgid, vascular melons; it is probably like trying to latch on a basketball. In all the breastfeeding classes I was a studious notetaker because I have always been a good student, good with workbooks, good with towing the line. A monogrammed Smythson notebook is sitting somewhere on my desk at this very moment, filled with detailed instructions, but the idea of picking myself and this infant up, dragging my still-sore body through this huge house to retrieve it, feels entirely ridiculous. I would laugh at the aspirations of pre-partum Sofia, if this wasn’t all so agonizing.
The baby’s tiny mouth searches, eyes closed, for the helicopter landing pad that used to be my areola. Once again, I mash my breast tissue, pinpricks of blood and milk appear simultaneously, and I wince, hold my breath, realign the baby’s mouth. The voice of the instructor rings again, a sharp little bell inside my head. If it hurts, you’re doing it wrong, mamas!
She latches. Relief and a searing pain overcome my body, but the relief wins. The pressure that was mounting in my boobs begins to wane, and an unquenchable thirst fills my body. The bedroom door opens and I hope for a huge icy pail of water that I can glug like an Olympian, but Emil walks in disappointingly
empty-handed.
I swallow down an anger I dismiss as unfair (He didn’t know! How could he have known? He’s not a mind reader) and force a smile like the flick of a switch. I am dressed in an old zip-up hoodie, sun-bleached and worn at the cuffs, and the mesh panties the hospital handed me in bulk. The effects are a far cry from the Calvin Klein commercial I had envisioned when I thought of this moment, and for a second, sadness enters my brain. I know I should do better. I should try harder. I’ve seen enough Instagram posts of new parents to know that it is possible to put an outfit together, to brush your hair, or even just your teeth. One of the accounts I follow, a gorgeous brunette mom of two, had a collage of pregnancy photos. In each photo slide her tiny frame blowing up like an elegant balloon, like the white dress around Marilyn Monroe, chaste yet sexy. The next post was her post-pregnancy collage, deflating with grace, coming back down to earth, smiling in natural light with a baby on her washboard abs. Flawless. I glance over at Emil, who also looks flawless. He is wearing the Sandro shirt bought on a work trip to London, his dirty-blond hair is swept back and still wet from the shower. He looks like he smells good. He sits down near me, rubs my back as he gazes at our child. He does smell good.
“You guys are cute,” Emil says, smiling, nuzzling my neck with a little more lust than is warranted, considering the outfit, and a lot more lust than I can currently handle. I should reciprocate but I lean away from him, feeling suffocated. His clean-scent smell is jarring. I am a wild animal next to him, all stale milk and sleep-warmed flesh.
“Hmm,” I reply, hoping he doesn’t notice the sharp bristle of my leg hair against his calves. It’s been some time since I shaved. “She is cute, maybe, but not me.”
“She is cute.”
He leans in, kisses the top of her head.
“I am going to miss you guys so much.”
work trip that I okayed as a naïve pregnant person. Emil’s work as an assistant director takes him all over the country. When we first started dating, I would visit him in the hotels he was put up in, and we would roll around on pristine bedsheets knowing they would be made again the second we left the room. I would wander around unknown cities with all the time in the world while he worked tirelessly, desperate for him the minute he swiped the room key. When he was away I missed him with a fervent, unbridled passion that meant there was joy to be found in his absence. This time I knew it would be different; this time I would be alone, but not really alone.
I was always proud of this lust we had for each other, it seemed rare. It was not a lust my parents had; they had been housemates only. I had never so much as seen them hug, not that my mother had hugged me and my brother, Devon, either. We were held at a cool, reserved distance, just close enough for her to pick apart our achievements, never close enough to celebrate them. Resentment for Emil’s departure wells up behind the wall I have built to keep the uglier versions of myself out, and I kill it dead. I am a new Sofia. This is a new chapter. It is perfect. I will not sully it with thoughts of my mother. Deep breath, in through the nose out through the mouth, like they taught in prenatal yoga. Goddess pose. I smile as I switch the baby from my right to my left breast, quieting the sense of panic that creeps up my throat, making it deflate along with my throbbing boobs.
“We’ll miss you too. But it’s not that long, right?”
“Three weeks,” Emil replies flippantly, not making eye contact with me, preoccupied with closing the clasp on the chunky gold chain around his wrist.
“Three?” I reply, a little too loud, a little too Mom. I readjust my tone. “Three weeks? I thought it was just two?”
“It was,” he continues hesitantly, still fumbling with the chain, “but it looks like we have some new sides to shoot so we decided to just conservatively say three. And there’s Max’s will to bend to, you know what producers are like. It’s a smart choice anyway. Being conservative just means error will be factored into the schedule and we won’t waste anyone’s time.”
What about my time? I think. What about me? I swallow, stare down at the living, breathing baby at my chest, the one we are in charge of, the one we must keep alive. I. I must keep alive. I take a breath, exhale a little too noisily. I reach over and clasp the bracelet around his wrist with ease and he finally looks at me.
“Okay,” I say. “Okay. Three weeks, then.”
“Well…just over. Three weeks and a day or two. I know it’s more than we expected,” Emil placates, already relieved, resuming the back rub that suddenly feels like sandpaper to me, “but I’ll call my mom, we can get a nanny, Dominique is around. And I’ve seen you with her. You’ve got this. I mean, you read all those parenting books, you’ll be okay, right?”
I know the answer I am supposed to give. The answer is yes. The answer is: I have my notes, I have resources and friends and co-workers with kids and an iPhone. The answer is: Of course you should go and work, of course you shouldn’t stay here with me, your wife and new baby, of course you shouldn’t help me unpack the boxes in our brand-new house, of course this is more important. But a small, persistent voice says no. I want to say no.
And as if by magic, as if a reminder of all I have escaped, my phone buzzes next to me and I look down at the screen, which reads Do Not Answer. My mother, Eddie. She hasn’t called in years. She couldn’t contact me even if she wanted to, I was disfellowshipped, it’s forbidden. Just the sight of her number is enough to make my heart lurch downward, and a darkness I had forgotten the taste of is now in my mouth. I think to tell Emil and stop myself because this is a problem
easily solved. I flip the phone over, push it away, push it away along with all the curiosity I have for what she could possibly want. I push it away along with all the noes I long to say out loud and instead I say,
“Yes. We will be all right.”
—
While the baby sleeps upstairs I watch Emil make coffee in the kitchen, agonizingly slowly, via pour-over. There’s a rhythm to it and I let myself be lulled, leaning against the counter, watching. Emil asks if I want a cup and I shake my head, content to watch him. I am so soothed that a sudden movement from outside is jarring, and I stand up like a startled deer. I catch something move behind the thick trunk of the beech tree. Is that a face? A hand? The day is bright and the beech tree provides ample shade to the house; is it possible it’s just a trick of the light?
“I think there’s someone outside,” I venture, not letting my eyes drift from the tree that feels as if it is hiding something.
“Hmm,” Emil replies distractedly, wetting down the sides of an unbleached coffee filter with a silver pot.
His noncommittal response makes me re-examine. Nothing is wrong—jazz tinkles in from the Sonos, the dappled late-morning light warms the room. This scene is perfect.
But then, behind the tree, a wisp of something, a shadow.
“Emil, I’m sure. Someone is out there.”
Emil leaves the Chemex to follow my gaze, resting his chin on my shoulder from behind.
“I don’t see anything, babe.” He stares out the window for a few more seconds to humor me, then settles his attention back on the coffee
check. Keeping my pace casual, I unlock the French doors to the back and peer, left to right. Nothing. Slipping on some Birkenstocks I pad across the grass. Against my better judgment I take a step toward the tree, where something lingers against the bark. A finger? Or something shaped like one, but black like charcoal. I walk around the trunk of the tree, my left hand against it, the bark breaking away beneath my fingertips. Whatever it is, it’s just out of reach, I feel the dread of being surrounded by something that somehow looms in front but also behind. I quicken my pace, rotating around the tree, until a face is up against my own, eyes wide in horror, a chain saw in his hands.
I scream. He screams.
The gardener.
“Sorry, miss. I didn’t mean to startle you. Just doing some work on this tree.” He swallows; I’ve made him nervous.
I press my hand against my rib cage, heart pounding. Emil steps out of the door in full protection mode.
“Everything okay here?”
“Yes,” I say, forcing a smile, feeling foolish, I gesture stupidly at the poor worker. “I just…The gardener.”
The gardener nods as if to confirm.
“Okay to continue?” He gestures with the chain saw at the tree.
“What’s wrong with it?” I ask as Emil slips his arm around my waist.
“Heart rot.” The gardener points up. “See those funny-looking mushroom things? They grow out of fallen branch holes. Whole tree is riddled. Probably will have to cut down the whole thing. ...
We hope you are enjoying the book so far. To continue reading...
Copyright © 2026 All Rights Reserved
Please log in to recommend or discuss...
