He phoned her the day after she visited him in the church by saying hello and quickly rattling off instructions: “You’re going to pack your clothes and you’re going to move in with me until you give birth. You’re going to tell your mother that the stress of being at her spot is too much for you. After class, you come straight to my place. After any extracurricular activity, you immediately come home. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” Amara said.
The process happened almost too easily. Amara told Denise that she would be going back and forth between campus and Landon’s home because Laila was distracting her from concentrating on her studies. Denise didn’t put up a fight. Amara called the housing and residential life office to make plans to officially move out of the dorms for the remainder of the year and packed her belongings throughout the afternoon. That evening, a luxury sedan parked outside of her home was waiting for her.
In the weeks that followed, Amara found that Landon was doing more for her than what was initially agreed upon. Both Valerie and Landon were entirely too clingy, barely allowing her to cook over the stove or run errands. If they were in the midst of a conversation and Amara entered the room, they immediately stopped and bombarded her with questions: How was she feeling? Did she need anything? Had she taken her prenatal vitamins? She never remembered them being this doting even when she was a child, as they would pick her up every other week to do some kind of museum or ice cream outing.
As the months progressed, Amara found simple tasks, such as walking down the stairs and reaching for teacups in high cabinets, extremely difficult. Her feet had swollen to the thickness of gourds, and she could not see them unless they were propped up on a pillow or on the arms of a sofa chair. Her body seemed ill-fit to carry the child much longer. Her long stretch marks bore the strain of her skin overextending itself to cover a baby. If she ran her fingers along one of them, she could feel the heat and the depth of its jagged lengths, an indication of how hard her body was working for her. Fortunately, she had no morning sickness, light-headedness, or mood swings. She wasn’t particularly large either. A shirt or dress twice her size could hide her belly. All the classes she picked for the fall semester—which coincidentally fell during her third trimester—were lectures where she could sit far in the back where no one could see her. Amara and Denise would call each other every week and she would bite down on her bottom lip to refrain from telling her everything. Denise would often tell Amara how much she missed her but thought it was best to give her daughter her space and wait till Amara said she wanted her around without asking the question of when.
All Saints’ Day was approaching, and she could not be a part of St. Philip’s altar guild this year to help arrange the flowers in the sanctuary to commemorate the souls of those who had transitioned. When she asked if it was okay to stay home, Landon nodded and asked if she would like any Earl Grey tea. The end to all of this could not have come soon enough.
It was Halloween and there would be an All Hallows’ Eve service for all parishioners. Amara woke up that morning feeling as if she had just lain down after spinning around and around on a grassy knoll. This was a service to remember the dead, and many people would be wearing black and their eyes would be closed in contemplative silence; she would sneak in through the back because she never missed this holiday. But she could not move from the bed. On the day of service, she pulled back the covers and the entire lower half of her body was wet. Any time she made a movement, there was an accompanying squishing sound. She didn’t remember when last she peed the bed and was repulsed that she had that much liquid stored inside of her and didn’t feel any of it expelling. Putting two and two together, Amara yelled for Landon, who hurtled into the bedroom, both hands curled into fists. As soon as he saw the huge wet circle in the center of the bedsheets, he called for the doula, a legally blind Afro-Cuban woman by the name of Melinda, who delivered every baby to come out of the Thomas family home. She could see only twenty feet in front of her, but that was all she needed to do her job.
Melinda stood at five feet, but the strength of her voice and the distance it traveled could rival that of a man twice her size. When Melinda’s body moved to the left, her behind swayed in the opposite direction. Her reddish-brown skin was a testament to her Taino heritage, her thick hair and nose from her Yoruba bloodline. She wore an eleke of alternating crystal and royal-blue beads and a muumuu to match. To assuage Landon, she placed a Bible on the nightstand and kept it open to the book of Matthew. “Both Jesus and Yemoja are here.” She cackled and patted Landon on the back before using that same hand to nudge him out the door.
“How many months are you?” Melinda asked.
“Eight and a half,” Amara answered.
Without warning or narration, Melinda pulled up a stool in front of Amara, parted her knees, and stuck three fingers in her until she felt a soft, wet rind and grinned.
“You’re already dilating. Good. How are you feeling?”
Sweat glistened on Amara’s forehead and slicked the hairs to the sides of her face. She gritted her teeth and bit down on her lip,
