Page 76 of Night Songs
Months passed, still nothing. So we went to the doctor. I remember there was this oil painting hanging behind his desk, of a cream-colored coyote howling at the moon while a Native American man looked on from a distance surrounded by saguaros. I’d never seen so many desert art clichés in one piece.
The doctor’s face was grim as he delivered the results of the tests. “Wefound scarring in your fallopian tubes, Rhea.” He paused. “Have you ever been diagnosed with chlamydia?”
What?Micah let go of my hand. “No.”
The doctor nodded knowingly. “There’s a chance you might have contracted it in the past without knowing it. When left untreated, it can cause scarring and infertility in women.”
I could feel Micah looking at me, but I didn’t return his gaze. “Does that mean I can’t have children at all?” I asked.
“No. There’s an operation we can perform that might help. I also recommend changing your diet and ceasing any alcohol, smoking, or drug use. You want to create a clean environment for the embryo.”
I shifted in my seat, my vagina itching like I hadn’t washed in days.
We scheduled the procedure, and then we drove home without speaking.
At home, I immediately jumped in the shower and turned it to scalding. I wanted to bend over and let it stream into me, sanitizing my insides.
In college, I had taken an evolutionary biology class that explained to me that the creature inside me wasn’t necessarily a creature at all, but a series of survival instincts left over from my primitive ancestors that I couldn’t always control, especially before my brain had fully developed. I had seen the double bind we were all in—the gap between our instincts and what society demanded of us. For a while now, I had stopped thinking of myself as the little tortured thing. I felt more in control and less shame.
But I had made the decisions that led me here. I had thought there was liberation in being so reckless with my body, as if it was worth nothing. No matter where the impulse came from, creature or no, it had happened, and now I was paying the price. Regret curdled in my stomach.
At dinner, Micah was the first to break the silence. “I want you to know that I don’t blame you.”
“… Okay.”
“Whatever you did before we were together is your business.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “What ifyou’rethe one who gave me chlamydia?”
“That’s unlikely.”
“Why?”
“Because I didn’t have that many partners before you.”
“Neither did I,” I said, and it was true. But I couldn’t stop picturing the boys I’d slept with in high school, their doughy faces pathetic with surprise beneath me.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I know how that sounded. I was trying too hard to say the right thing.”
Of course I knew I was to blame. I had let myself become infected, and now I had a scarred body. “No, this is my punishment,” I said in a small voice. “This is what I deserve.”
“Hey,” he said harshly. “Don’t say things like that. Get those thoughts out of your head. You’re never going to get pregnant thinking that way.”
“But I can’t just stop—”
“Don’t. Don’t say it. You’ll have the operation, and then you’ll get pregnant. I know it will happen for us. It’s just a matter of when.”
I nodded, attempting to clear the thoughts, but the regret and shame continued to accumulate as we ate, and I imagined it polluting my body even more.
I felt the overwhelming desire to purge, to flush all of the poison out. I wanted to be clean.
Over the next few months, I changed to a vegan diet and stopped drinking. I swore off all sugar, fat, and preservatives. I only bought produce at farmer’s markets, and made elaborate, colorful meals lurid with vitamins.
I surrounded our bed with white chunks of purifying selenite. I got acupuncture once a week. I drove to the outskirts of the city where a friend placed her hands on my womb and removed an energy blockage that I imagined as a thick, gray clot at the center of my belly.
I tried to move through the world in a way that would atone for my sins. I was kinder and more empathetic to everyone I met.
I took in deep cleansing breaths.
