Winter Skin by Kristin LaFollette

There’s no difference between a planned pregnancy and an unplanned pregnancy.

When it was “unplanned,” I never even told the boy. I met him at my friend Jocelyn’s house. Junior year. No alcohol, just loud music. He kept touching the back of my hand with his fingers as we stood next to each other around a table of cards, our friends all sitting in a circle. He went to a different school. I never even learned his last name.

At one point during the night, he put his hand around my wrist, pulled me toward the back of the house. How he knew Jocelyn, I’m not sure. I never asked, and I never told her about me and the boy. On top of Jocelyn’s sister’s bed, he caressed my skin, touched my face. The yellow quilt beneath me was cool.

Later, I said I was feeling sick and had my older brother come pick me up. We were all supposed to stay at Jocelyn’s for the weekend. The summer had just begun, the lake open to all of us with our pale winter skin. In the car on the way home, I stared out the window so I didn’t have to look at my brother.

When I found out I was pregnant, I didn’t tell anyone. I planned to, at some point. But then the miscarriage happened. I had to tell my mother then, and she wasn’t as upset as I thought she’d be, probably because it was “over” by then. There was no chance for a child to come into existence. She never even told my father.

I got married when I was 24 years old to a boy who was three months older than me. Dark hair and eyes. Tall, slim. Three years after the wedding, we both decided we wanted a child. I never told him that I once had a child. A child that was once inside of me. A child that, at six weeks, was expelled from my body. I blamed myself, like my fear and shame had been enough to make my body push him out.

A boy. I always pictured a son in my mind, but I’ll never know for sure.

My husband, he always said he wanted a girl. When I found out I was pregnant, I didn’t tell him for almost two months. I was afraid that this child, one that already seemed so loved by the dark-haired boy I had married, would somehow be rejected as if my womb was unable to tell the difference between a loved child and the “other” child. I wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t miscarried the first time. Would I have chosen to have him anyway? Would he have been mine?

Our son was born on the fourth day of December. It was cold and dry outside. My hospital room had pink and green floor tiles. When he came out, the doctor lifted him onto my chest, a red-faced, screaming child with dark hair and eyes squeezed tightly shut. Later, my mother came in to see him. She smiled and never mentioned a word about the summer I turned 17. The year I became a pregnant teen but not a mother.

I finally did tell my husband about the baby, the one lost. He looked at me as if he didn’t understand what I had told him, asked me how old he would be. Almost 11, I responded, holding the child in my arms that we made together, the one not rejected by my young anatomy. I cradled the child’s head, pushed his hair back from his eyes, loved and hated him at the same time.


Kristin LaFollette is a PhD candidate at Bowling Green State University and is a writer, artist, and photographer. Her work was featured in the anthology Ohio’s Best Emerging Poets (Z Publishing, 2017) and she is the author of the chapbook, Body Parts (GFT Press, 2018). She currently lives in northwest Ohio. You can visit her on Twitter at @k_lafollette03 or on her website at kristinlafollette.com.

Photo courtesy Stocksnap


 

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