Free Shout Her Lovely Name by Natalie Serber Page A

blankets beside her. The truth was, the only thing that terrified Ruby more than the idea of giving up the baby was the idea of giving up Marco. No matter what, she lost.
    Now she had the sofa lodged in front of the window. She was acting out her mother’s game, as if finding the exact sweet spot for the sofa was the key to everything working out. Sally had been rearranging the furniture back at home for the past five years, lighting one cigarette off the butt of the last. Ruby wanted a cigarette too, but Marco had given the last of theirs to the boys who wrestled the sofa up the stairs. She tucked the bedspread beneath the cushions, just so. A weighty exhaustion swept up from the soles of her bare feet, overtaking her, as if someone, her mother, was pressing her down with hot, heavy hands, ironing her flat onto the furniture. This is how a doorstop must feel, dull and immovable. She pulled their sun-baked curtains closed, the fabric so brittle in her hands her fingernail pushed through, as easily as paper. Ruby dragged her fingernail all the way down, one long satisfying slit. Pregnancy had made her nails strong. She gave herself frequent manicures, filing them into ovals and polishing them icy pink. She pushed her nail through again, another long slit, then another, and another, shredding the curtains. More than anything, she wanted to be free of this crappy apartment, free of her huge body, out with Marco, drinking a Manhattan in Manhattan.
     
    When she woke in the dark with a fist clenching inside of her, she knew it was too soon. First she tried holding perfectly still, as if she could trick the pains into stopping, and for a time they did. But when the gripping started again, she sat up, lay back down, rolled over, and tucked a pillow between her thighs. She kept rearranging herself on the sofa until the clenching fist turned into a hot vise. Maybe peeing would help. On the toilet, Ruby curled herself around the pains, and that was the first place she cried out. Her voice, a sharp yelp in the tiny bathroom, terrified her. Marco wasn’t even home yet. She hadn’t made any kind of a decision. She paced the apartment, went back to the sofa, drew her knees to her enormous belly until that too became unbearable. Where was Marco?
    “Please,” she panted as another pain gripped her low back. “I’m not ready. Stop.”
    Brakes hissed on the street below their window, a panel-truck door rattled open, and a stack of newspapers thumped onto the sidewalk. It was the thump that made her scream. The thump of morning. Marco still wasn’t home, and when the next pain slammed into her, she felt a warm gush between her legs.
     
    The nun wrapped a hot-water bottle in flannel and denied her codeine. Her thick, practical fingers massaged Ruby’s belly. The fundus, she called it. Apparently having the baby didn’t change everything; Ruby’s fundus bulged and surged with cramps as if it held a life of its own, as if she hadn’t given birth two days ago. Marco had found Ruby on all fours, huffing and crying in the center of their apartment. His face went pale when he saw blood on her nightgown, and he kept repeating “I’m sorry,” as if it made a difference. Down the stairs of their third-floor walkup, waiting for the cab and driving uptown: “I’m so sorry. I’m sorry.” He brought her into St. Vincent’s, his arm wrapped around her wide waist, his face ashen. “Where were you?” she whispered. The doctors induced twilight sleep, and Ruby felt herself peeling away, as if she were a felt cutout of a woman, no longer a part of the story.
    “Your baby is perfect,” Sister Joseph said. “Sometimes we have to worry about breathing and sucking with preemies, but your daughter is healthy. A little small, but healthy.” She smoothed blankets, staring at Ruby while she spoke, hitting the words preemies and daughter with extra verve.
    Ruby squeezed her eyes shut. “Why is your name Joseph?” She twisted her fingers in the