The Hollow

Shortlisted on Mum Life Stories, September 2021

Ruth didn’t wretch or chuck up at the petrol station or when she fed sardines to the cat. She even managed a bowl of sugar puffs without feeling queasy. Day 101, too easy. Could it really be this good from now on? She stretched leggings over her tum, round as a small watermelon.  

Ruth was on the bus when the cramps started.

At work when she saw the blossoms of blood.

At the hospital, when snow fell in her heart.

For three days, she lay beneath a pink blanket and didn’t answer calls. She told her partner, Sean, ‘You’ll have to tell everyone, I can’t.’ 

He stomped off.

‘Men go through loss too,’ the counsellor told them as if they didn’t know.

Ruth stared at Sean, clinging to his profile. She waited for him to face her. She needed to share the word taking up every bead of air in the room – loss. Sean looked at the counsellor instead. 

Ruth wanted to snarl. For a moment, she was a grey, amber-eyed wolf. She wanted to wail and tug her hair at the roots. Her belly ached, bleak. Empty. They drove home from the counsellor’s, windscreen wipers scarping against glass. Ruth asked Sean.

‘What shape is the hollow inside you?’

His jawline hardened, then he said, ‘Did the counsellor suggest you ask that?”

‘No.’

‘What shape is yours?’ he asked.

She sighed.   

‘Don’t answer my question with another question.’ 

Silence was barbed wire between them. As they got out of the car at home, Sean said.   

‘It’s baby-shaped.’

Ruth folded over and cried.

Sean turned the gas fire on, but Ruth didn’t take off her coat. They microwaved a mushroom pizza, ate half a slice.

In the sleepless night, Ruth went into the spare room. She told herself not to do it. Not yet. But she did. The tiny lemon shoes lay in her palm. She shouldn’t have bought them – too early, unlucky. But the day she’d seen them, the sun was warm on her tummy. She glowed – glowed feeling lucky. 

Ruth heard Sean’s footsteps pattering down the hall and turned as he came in.

‘I couldn’t sleep,’ he said, yawning.

Her voice was quivering as she said, ‘What should I do with these shoes?’

Sean held her hand before he replied, ‘You can give them away, or keep them in your heart.’ 

It was the very worst and best thing he could have said.