Free Shout Her Lovely Name by Natalie Serber Page B

frayed satin edge of her blanket. The sofa was the reason. The damn sofa and how it wouldn’t fit right in the apartment. It had brought on labor three weeks early. Three weeks she needed to make Marco fall irrevocably in love with her and the idea of their baby. The sofa had put her in this hospital bed, unrecognizable, alone. Beneath her hospital gown, her own breasts—nearly blue with crisscrossing veins, engorged as if two extra heads had been stuck to her chest—shocked her. Sister Joseph wrung out hot diapers and laid them over Ruby’s chest. She gave her pills to dry up her milk and instructed Ruby to clasp her hands on top of her head while she wound Ace bandages around and around, pressing Ruby’s nipples flat beneath the truss.
    “Your daughter startles easily. The smart ones do. They sense any change in their environment.” She pinned the bandages together across Ruby’s back. “I leaned over the bassinet, and her eyes flew open.”
    “How long will I have to wear this?”
    “They’re brown, your baby’s eyes, like bark.” Sister Joseph tied the hospital gown together and patted Ruby’s shoulder. “Dark eyes are unique. Most babies have blue, you know.” Before leaving, she mentioned that Ruby would be uncomfortable.
    Uncomfortable did not begin to describe the heaviness and burning Ruby felt waiting in her bed for her milk to vanish. She stared at the worn floorboards of the charity ward, wincing each time she shifted. The green curtain drawn around her bed did little to keep out the sounds of the Puerto Rican girls on the ward with her. At first, the shrill newborn cries, interrupted by heart-stopping lulls as their babies sucked air into brand-new lungs, frightened Ruby. But as her stay lengthened, she found herself sitting up in bed, listening. The mothers spoke Spanish to their babies and one another, sealing Ruby’s isolation. She did not see many men pass by the crack in her curtains—just three boys with flowers, daisies, daisies, and daisies. Yet all the girls, even those who might be alone in the world, resisted when the nuns came to take their bebés to the nursery at night. ¿Solamente diez minutos, por favor?
    Marco visited in the mornings, clean-shaven, his cuffs buttoned. The skin beneath his eyes was scuff marked, as if he hadn’t slept well, and Ruby clung to that. He asked how she was and brought her mascara, a bottle of shampoo, a pack of cinna-mint gum, and cigarettes, which she wasn’t allowed to smoke. Though he never said it, he was ready to finish things. Just seeing him sitting there, with his long legs stretched across the space between Ruby’s bed and his chair, with square hands folded over his fly, she knew he’d signed the papers.
    “Her eyes are the color of bark,” Ruby offered.
    “I know.”
    “You’ve seen her?” She pushed herself up in bed.
    Marco nodded. His cheeks were smooth as marbles. She imagined him staring at himself in the bathroom mirror, watching the sweep of the razor along his chin. There were specific things about Marco that she missed: his smell, wool and mint. By not seeing her daughter, she was protecting herself from future missings as yet unknown to her.
    “I looked in,” he said.
    “Did you hold her?”
    “Ruby.” He closed his eyes. “They make you, before you sign the papers.” His lips continued to move, steadfast, determined. “We’ve been over this.”
    “I thought now things would be different.”
    “You’ve got to decide.” Marco stood and stepped to the side of her bed. “She won’t be motherless.” He lifted Ruby’s bangs from her forehead, and then brushed his lips across her skin. “Have you called Sally?”
    She felt his kiss, like a phantom limb, above her left eye. She wasn’t ready to let her mother know she’d delivered. Buried beneath the weight of Ruby’s dead sister, Sally had opinions about babies and responsibility.
    Marco lingered, his hand on her hair. She leaned the curve of her head into