Learning to Talk to Plants

by Marta Orriols

Genres: Marriage & Divorce; Literary Fiction

Synopsis

An immersive, moving novel about complex grief: a woman attempts to rebuild her life after her boyfriend leaves her for another woman, then dies hours later

Paula's partner has died in a car accident - but no one knows her true grief. Only hours before his death, Mauro revealed that he was leaving her for another woman.

Paula guards this secret and ploughs on with her job as a paediatrician in Barcelona, trying to maintain the outline of their old life. But all of Mauro's plants are dying, the fridge only contains expired yoghurt and her mind feverishly obsesses over this other, unknown woman.

As the weeks pass, vitality returns to Paula in unexpected ways. She remembers, slowly, how to live. By turns devastating and darkly funny, Learning to Talk to Plants is a piercingly honest portrayal of grief - and of the many ways to lose someone.

Release date: June 15, 2021

Publisher: Pushkin Press

Print pages: 256

Sample

1
“Pili, check the equipment, fast! Is she breathing?”
“No.”
“Let’s start positive-pressure ventilation.”
I repeat the baby’s vitals in a whisper, like a litany. I know,
little one. This is no way to greet you on your arrival into this world,
but we have to get you breathing, you hear me?
“Thirty seconds.” One, two, three… there’s a woman lying over
there, your mum, and she needs you, you see her? Come on, you can do it,
ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen… come on, breathe, you got this, I promise
that if you can do this, things’ll change, this world is a good place to
be. Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty. Living is worth the effort, you
know? Twenty-three, twenty-four… sometimes it’s hard, I won’t lie,
twenty-six, twenty-seven, come on, sweetie, don’t do this to me. I promise
it’s worth it. Thirty.
Silence. The baby girl doesn’t move.
“Pili, heart rate?”
My eyes meet the nurse’s vigilant gaze. This is the second
time this has happened recently and I know that warning
look. She’s right, I shouldn’t raise my voice so much,
I shouldn’t raise it at all, in fact. I’m not comfortable. I’m
hot and my right clog is rubbing against a little blister I got
from my sandals in the last few days of my summer holiday.
In these crucial moments, right after birth, the blister and
this heat are the last thing I need. Our absolute priority for
the baby is to keep her from losing body warmth. Perhaps it
wasn’t such a good idea to travel at the crack of dawn and
go straight to work without stopping by the house to unpack
and shake off the strange sensation of having spent almost
two weeks away, far from work, from my babies’ medical
records, from the blood work, from the lab, far from everything
that makes me tick.
New decision. With short, quick movements, I stimulate
the soles of the baby’s feet and, as always happens when I do
that, I curb my desire to press harder, with more urgency.
You can’t do this to me, little one, I can’t start September off like this,
come on, breathe, pretty girl. Reassessment.
I try to concentrate on the information on the monitor
and on the girl, but I need to close my eyes for a second since
I can’t cover my ears, and the questions launched at me by
her mother, which sound like a disconsolate moan in the
delivery room, throw me off worse than ever. Other people’s
suffering now feels like an overloaded plate after I’ve eaten
my fill. I can’t take in any more and it sends me running
in the opposite direction. Every pained cry and whimper
becomes Mauro’s mother’s sobbing on the day of his burial.
It ripped at the soul.
Breathe, pretty girl, come on, for the love of God, breathe!
I furrow my brow and shake my head to remind myself
that I shouldn’t stir up all that. Not here. Here you shouldn’t
make waves. Here you shouldn’t remember. Not here, Paula.
Focus. Reality hits me like a pitcher of cold water and
instantly puts me in my place: I have a body weighing only
eight hundred and fifty grams that hasn’t taken a breath,
laid out here on the resuscitation table, and its life is in my
hands. My sixth sense kicks in, guiding me more and more.
That sense somehow maintains a balance between the most
extreme objectivity, where I retain protocols and reasoning,
and my shrewd ability to harness my intuition, without which,
I’m convinced, I couldn’t aid these tiny creatures with their
arrival into the world.
Listen, little girl, one of the things worth living for is the sea.
“Pili, I’m turning off the ventilation. I’m going to try
tactile stimulation of her back.”
I take a deep breath and let it out like someone preparing
to leap into the void. My mask acts as a wall and holds in
my exhalation, a mix of the fluoride toothpaste I found this
morning in my father’s bathroom and the quick, bitter coffee
I drank in a motorway service station. I miss my things, my
normal life. I miss my coffee and my coffeemaker. The smell
of home, my rhythm, not owing anyone any explanations,
just being able to do my own thing.
I rub the baby’s tiny back as gently as I can.
The sea has a rhythm, you feel it? Like this: it comes and it goes,
it comes and it goes. You feel my hands? The waves come and go, like
this. Come on, beauty, the sea is worth living for, there are other things
too, but for now focus on the sea, like this, gentle, you feel it?
“She’s breathing.”
The first cry was like a miaow, but we received it with the
joyful relief that greets a summer storm.
“Welcome…” I’m not sure if I’m saying it to the baby or
to myself, but I have to struggle to hold back my emotion.
I wash her with quick movements I’ve made hundreds of
times before. It calms me to see her colour improving, that
transparent skin taking on a reassuring pink tone.
“Heart rate?”
“One hundred and fifty.”
“Pili, let’s put on a CPAP and put her in the incubator,
please.”
I look over my mask into her eyes to make her understand
that I’m sorry about my earlier tone. It’s best to keep Pili
happy, otherwise she acts all offended and pays me back by
making me wait for the blood work. At least she gets cross
with me, which is something in and of itself. For the last few
months everyone’s been incredibly forgiving when I lose
my patience and their indulgence actually makes me more
angry and irritable.
As I wait for the incubator, I rub the baby’s tiny back
sweetly, this time to thank her for making that immense
effort to cling to life. But I can’t help thinking that, deep
down, I’m touching her for some other, more elusive reason
too, something to do with the fact that she’s still here when
Mauro isn’t. Because he’s not here, Paula. He’s gone and, yet
he comes to me even here as I’m handling these few grams
of gelatinous life.
“Here you go, Mama. Give your daughter a kiss.” I bring
the baby over to her mother for just a few seconds so they
can meet. “She had some trouble breathing but now she’s
fine. We’re going to bring her up to the ICU like we talked
about, OK? I’ll be back in a little while to explain everything
in detail. Don’t worry, everything’ll be fine.”
But I don’t promise her anything. Even though the mother’s
eyes are begging me to give them hope, after Mauro
I don’t make any promises.