Winner, South Bay Writing Contest, 2007
My first delivery was longish and hard. By the 16th hour, I no longer had any sense of time, or of myself as a person, other than in pain.
The nurse pulled me back, her hand on my forehead, pushing my hair back, forcing my eyes open. “You can do this.”
I look up in resignation, too weak to feel anger, and suddenly it is Mrs. Goodwin who is looking down at me. Gritty, middle-aged Mrs. Goodwin, my high school swim coach, her dust-colored hair cut in an unattractive bob, her strong chin jutting at me. I wonder briefly at her presence, but of course it makes sense. She’s come to mock my pain, as she always did.
“I can’t go on,” I mumble to her from the poolside, where I’ve attached myself, barnacle-like—coughing and exhausted.
She crosses her arms and glares at me over her glasses. “You say the same thing every September. You come in here out of shape, I give you a normal forty laps, and you’re in tears by the twentieth.”
I loathe everything about her—plain face, gravely voice, steel-grey eyes. Maybe I deserve a break in September, did she ever think of that? I’m not one of the rich country club kids who swim all summer, the amazons who pass me by the second lap in our first week of practice back at school. I’ve spent my summer reading in my bedroom.
My breath is still ragged, but I find the strength to feel anger. “I can’t! I’ll drown if I swim another lap.” I look down, kicking weakly at the wall in frustration, hiding the tears that do, in fact, sting my eyes.
Mrs. Goodwin kneels beside me, the hem of her shapeless gym shorts just touching the puddle on the wall beside me. She grabs my forehead, pushes back, and puts her face an inch or two from mine.
“Two things, girl, if you learn nothing else from me. First, remember last March, the swim meet down south?”
“But I didn’t place.” I try to pull away from her, but her grip is strong and cold as ice.
“No, but you broke your own record for the 100-meter back. You told me afterwards that you couldn’t remember the race. Like your body had become part of the water.”
Something inside me gives in, knowing she is right. I remember. I remember breaking through the pain, the tears, the doubt—my body just swimming, as if it were never meant to do anything else.
She sees my face change, lets go of my forehead.
“And the second thing?” I ask, sighing, trying to gain a few more seconds before she sends me back down the fifty-meter tunnel of water.
She snorts, stands up. “Well, it’s what I always say. You know my rule about swim practice.”
“I know,” I break in, coughing. “When you think you can’t go on, it means you’re about half done.” I turn reluctantly, push off the side and begin the torturous trek down the lane, ignoring the rubbery pain in my muscles, the burning in my lungs. The voice in my head gradually turns off, and my arms and legs take over on their own, their rhythm coming from deep inside me—a place I hardly know.
The nurse takes my hand, massages my shoulder. “You can do this,” she says quietly, peering at me. “You have to.”
“Yes,” I answer. “Yes, I know. We’re only half done here.” And with the next contraction, and the next, and the next, my body takes over, taking directions from a place deep inside me — a place only one other person ever knew existed.
LIFE AFTER WORK 