Life Events by Karolina Waclawiak

Author:Karolina Waclawiak [Waclawiak, Karolina]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780374721626
Amazon: 1713506602
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
Published: 2020-05-18T23:00:00+00:00

* * *

ONE OF THE FIRST NIGHTS I slept in my new apartment, I dreamed of being in a hospital waiting room. There were other women in there with me, pregnant and not, and we were waiting for our names to be called. Thumbing through issues of People and Us Weekly as we waited. The phone kept ringing. Two women in pink scrubs wheeled a gong out to the waiting room. I was trapped in Daphne’s cancer ward, but no one seemed to be sick. These women were happy—blonde, brunette, a sea of white women on high alert. They all seemed to know why we were here.

The first nurse looked at her chart and said, “Hillary Johnson?” Hillary, a twentysomething in a striped boatneck shirt, blue capris, and a headband, jumped up and threw down her magazine. She was ready to win a game show. She was ready to hit the gong.

“Five years!” the nurses cooed.

Hillary clapped her hands and said, “It’s true!”

“That’s the wood anniversary,” one of the nurses said.

Another nurse looked at her and said, “I’m still on paper.”

“You’ll make it,” Hillary said. “You’ll all make it.”

The women around me clapped and looked on with envy. The woman next to me, who was dressed in a black sheath suitable for an interview, leaned in and whispered, “I’m a newlywed.”

“Congratulations,” I said, really focused on meaning it.

“Come up here and claim your reward,” the nurses said.

Hillary ran to the gong and pulled the mallet from the nurse’s hand.

“I’ve never done this before,” she said.

“Hit it like you mean it,” the nurse said.

“I’m six weeks along,” she said.

“It won’t hurt the baby to celebrate your achievement,” the nurse said, hand on her shoulder.

“More to celebrate,” the other nurse added.

Hillary slammed the mallet into the gong so hard that it nearly knocked her backward.

“I could feel it in my teeth,” she said. “I hope my baby couldn’t feel the jolt.”

“It can’t feel anything,” I said.

I woke up with a start, my heart racing. I didn’t want to be the kind of person who didn’t want others to make it.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.