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It happens in the middle of the night which is not fair. It’s in that period of darkness where the chair looks like a person and Mondale, released from his crate, seems like the only thing she can cling to in her confusion.
She’s alone in the bed, only her sweat for company, dripping down her back. Despite the temperatures plunging throughout this winter she’s been an oven, constantly, and especially in the last few weeks as the Thing started to become aware it was entering the world soon and found her stomach just too small to bear.
The baby had been punching her repeatedly all night keeping her from getting any sleep, she had even reprimanded it, got upset about how tired she would be tomorrow, remembered there was actually nothing to do tomorrow, and let the baby punch away, already taking its anger out on its mother. And just as she had gotten to sleep there it was, the pain that everyone talked and raved and worried about. Shiv didn’t think it was so bad, she used to hold her fingers up to lighters in college to impress boys, see how long she could keep them there, that was worse than this.
She trudges through the apartment, feeling like a whale, or some kind of ghost rather than Shiv Roy. The Thing growing inside her, which she calls that because the scene from the Thing where the creature punched through the man’s stomach, or maybe that was Alien. She can’t remember now but it would be cruel to call the Thing an Alien. Regardless the scene terrified Roman and she felt like it now, like some parasite had crept into her skin and taken over, creating a new person without her knowing the difference.
She finds Tom in the kitchen, on his laptop at the counter with all the lights off. The perpetual suffering man.
“Tom?”
“Oh hi honey.” He had been extremely affectionate throughout the holidays and especially in the past few weeks which made Shiv want to rip his hair out of his scalp.
Didn’t he have an oh-so-important job? Didn’t she destroy her brother’s life for him and he still thought of her as his little incubator, a little girl locked up in her room all day. Fuck Tom.
“It’s happening.” She says calmly and watches as Tom dissolves and reforms in front of her, panic and joy and excitement as he rattles off phone calls and texts and grabs their go bag and herds Shiv around the apartment like if he doesn’t have eyes on her she’ll disappear.
He packs her into the car idling on the curb, the city quiet with only the junkies and college students out in their neighborhood, she wonders if Kendall is around somewhere.
The hospital is accommodating and gets them in quickly but not quickly enough for Tom to not be on the verge of panicking every two seconds. Nurses prod and poke at Shiv as they do her intake. These strangers look at her body, sticking their fingers where they don’t belong and Shiv has the urge to close her legs and tell them she is fine and she would much rather just do this on her own.
But she allows them, she answers their questions, she is accommodating. Not a petulant child, she can let things happen to her. She asks for drugs straight away and they refuse, saying she isn’t far enough along yet.
She remembers accidentally showing up to the hospital while Rava was in labor with Iverson. Connor had given her and Roman bad information and they had arrived with balloons (Roman) and a tasteful bouquet (Shiv), they were trying to make up for the lackluster reception of Sophie. But when they got there they found Rava bouncing on a yoga ball and Kendall halfway asleep in one of the reclining chairs. That labor had gone on for two days, she remembers because her Father had complained about it the entire time, why did Kendall even have to be there anyways?
That was real labor, that was a woman suffering, Shiv just, was there and it seemed a baby would be soon. Tom flicked through the channels for her and checked his emails as they watched the sun rise above Manhattan.
“Should we call anyone?” Tom asks as Shiv feels herself starting to drift towards sleep.
“They can wait.”
___
Another person, a doctor this time, but not Shiv’s doctor comes in and puts his fingers inside her and she can barely feel it. He tells her she’s six centimeters dilated and Shiv tries to picture what that looks like in her head but only thinks of the watermelon boys had used in health class to mock the girls. Tom squeezes her hand, he thinks this is exciting. Tom is so thrilled. Aren’t we all so happy for Tom. Shiv chews on ice chips.
Her stomach turns over after the next contraction and she feels her mouth fill with saliva, she lets out a small moan as she grips onto the bed and a nurse seems to recognize that noise enough to put a basin in front of her to gag into. Nothing but spittle comes out and she hears Tom give sympathetic oohs as he rubs her back. She gags again and nothing comes up, she wishes something would present itself as evidence of this suffering, like a matyr on the cross, see Tom, see Caroline. See Kendall. Siobhan has felt pain too, look at how much.
But instead, there’s nothing.
The pain does get worse. And despite Shiv’s berating of the nurses and Tom, nothing is done to make it better. They give her something for the nausea which doesn’t help because she keeps gagging. After three hours of this, she whimpers out something about her Mom, which she’ll always deny later on. It’s probably fuck my mom for putting me on this earth, or fuck im going to be a mom, or motherfucker. But Tom latches onto it and comes rushing into the room.
“Your mom will be here in thirty.”
“What the fuck? Tom?” She asks with unease.
“You said you wanted your mom?”
“What the fuck Tom?”
“It’s okay honey.” He pets her sweaty head and for one ridiculous moment, she can feel her cheeks flush and her eyes water and its all too much, she can feel the paper thing sheets under her fingers and hear her heartbeat on the monitor, she feels small and insignificant, call in the next nanny.
“I don’t want my mom” She tries to say it in a dignified way but can hear her own voice, the way it shakes. Little girl.
“It’s okay Shiv,” Tom says and continues to pet her and she wants to scream and bite him like a rabid dog.
“Why did you call her ?” She mumbles as Tom tries to push her head into his stomach in some form of a hug.
Caroline had set up camp in her New York apartment as of late, the one she got during the divorce and very rarely used. She claimed she felt her children needed her though Shiv hadn’t seen her since Christmas let alone needed her at all.
And now she would be here to tut and snark at Shiv, to watch Shiv cry and wail and shrink into something that was not her, to watch as her body morphed and her life changed. Caroline would bear witness to all of that. Shiv gags but nothing comes up.
__
Tom ushers Caroline into the room like he’s trying to switch out Shiv’s pacifier without her noticing.
“Shiv. I’m just going to be down the hall okay, I just have to do a meeting.” He’s talking to her like she’s a puppy about to pounce.
“It’s fine Tom.”
Caroline is in a cardigan, no coat, and a purse in her hands. She looked so unfazed that Shiv is immediately enraged.
“Well well,” Caroline says with a smile in her voice, like look at this strange predicament we’ve found ourselves in, Shiv wants to yell at her yes mom I know I’m not pleased either and you can tell the nurses to give me drugs on your way out. “How is it going?”
“Do you care?” Shiv snipes back and Caroline sighs, she’s so put upon.
“Siobhan, I’m here aren’t I?” Sure. She’s here which is more than Shiv can say for the rest of her lifetime.
Caroline settles into Tom’s chair and fiddles with one of the hospital magazines. Shiv can feel another contraction and grits her teeth to stay silent.
__
No one told Shiv about the shaking. It’s the worst part of the whole ordeal and she silently curses the little Thing for coming before the scheduled c-section that its mother had so carefully aligned. What kind of baby chooses to be a Pisces anyway?
Her hands shake and her toes shake, she’s pretty sure her bones are shaking and it’s not like it is with nerves or the cold, it doesn’t stop. Her teeth chatter so loudly that she wishes the nurses would clamp her jaw together.
For some reason, it reminds her of Kendall. The seizure he had years and years ago, at work, in front of the Jess before Jess. It was probably the only reason he had gone to rehab, that his drug use had an impact on his effectiveness as a businessman. She thinks of shaking her brother, of being in that conference room again and shaking him and shaking him until his head could be on right and he could listen to her.
She imagines him shaking somewhere right now, all alone. Maybe even dead. She hasn’t heard from him since that day, she doesn’t know if anyone has.
People don’t say his name around her like the lines have been clearly drawn in the sand. And she hasn’t reached out because he should first, he needs to call her and apologize but every day right before bed or right after waking up she has the sudden belief that Kendall is dead, and every time she’ll text Roman something inane or look at Sophie’s Instagram feed. Because she’d be able to tell if Roman knew, if Kendall was dead he wouldn’t even be able to text back, she doesn’t even think their phones would work if Kendall was dead, everything would just dissolve.
Which is stupid thinking obviously, she doesn’t really believe that, her brother is a big boy he can take care of himself. I’m a cog. Still, she imagines Kendall with slit-open wrists, blood dripping down to the floor, or a fucking hole in his head, a clear divide through which Roman would whistle, brain matter still caking his shirt.
And she knows Kendall would just look at her with that hangdog expression that mocks her, tells her he told her so even though he’s the one with his brain exposed.
And isn’t it all her fault anyways, that daddy’s little princess is never satisfied? She killed her brother, isn’t that a biblical sin, what was Cain’s punishment again? Sometimes she thinks not having Kendall is punishment enough.
Though she would never admit it, she misses him. She’s felt less like a person and more like a thing, something to be used and cut open and if necessary killed but this Thing is ruining those plans by forcing the pain on her, vindictive little bitch.
She was enjoying the free ride, everyday the housekeeper comes in and shifts Shiv from place to place, the cook feeds her and then it’s all cleaned up, she rallies herself for a walk with Mondale around 4 pm, her first appearance of each day and scoffs at the people who stare at her and her exploding belly with fond smiles.
If Kendall would talk to her she would be real again, she would be a person that functions in this world. That has purpose, that matters. And the sad fact is she’s never mattered outside of her siblings, never held power, never even been offered it. So she doesn’t reach out to him, maybe like him she doesn’t deserve to be real either. Cogs with no machine.
“Siobhan.” Her mother is shaking her shoulder and she blinks up at her, feeling dumb. She realizes from the crust in her eyes she’s gotten some kind of temporary rest and as she comes back into her body she can feel the layer of grime and sweat all over it. If she ran her fingernails down her arm she’s sure they’d come back covered in dirt.
“Are you even listening?” Caroline asks her and Shiv rolls her eyes.
“Where’s Tom?” She asks blankly and looks around to see a doctor there. A doctor who says the epidural went fine and maybe that’s why Shiv was able to get some sleep. A doctor who says it’s almost time to push. Shiv can’t breathe.
She huffs and puffs but there’s not oxygen in the room. She grabs onto her mother’s hand, smells the perfume her mother has worn since she was a child and gags, her legs feel weak and her stupid fucking body won’t stop shaking.
“I need-” She can hear herself say over and over again but she can’t say it to these people, what she needs. She needs her brother, she needs him to be here right now even if it would be humiliating. She would never want him, or anyone to see her like this, but didn’t he see her when she used to wet the bed, didn’t he help her find sheets? She needs a room to go to in a dark hallway. She just needs a hug or a hand or someone to say everything is okay. He’s been through this! He would know! No one else in this room seems to know. No one else here knows Shiv. She gags and finally, something comes up.
“Push Shiv!” Tom is there and he is holding her hand and her mom is holding her other and if the pain wasn’t so blistering she would demand her mom leaves for this part, isn’t it bad enough Tom is here.
“Push!” The words keeps coming out and she can see herself lying in the bed, her legs seemingly impossibly propped. Her disgusting body is writhing in the sweaty sheets, blood soaking through the mattress probably.
This thing that can’t do the thing it was designed to do, who ruins everyone’s lives even her own, this piece of filth. This creature whining and pouting and flailing its body around.
She thinks they should put that animal out of its misery, execute it in her father’s mausoleum, hang her from the Gojo executive suite. She is a fugitive. She is a wanderer.
She has no place here in his brightly lit room with nurses patting her forehead with soft towels and anyone holding her hand. It's what she deserves, something she never understood but her father did, you never get more or less than what you deserve, she was the fool who didn’t know. The idiot who thought, who wanted, such a fucking little girl.
And then-
It’s quiet.
Dead silent.
She can’t see herself anymore can only see the edges of her legs in front of her. The blood rushing in her ears. She can feel her heart pounding out of her body.
The doctor throws something onto her chest, wiping at it with a towel and Tom is cooing.
Shiv peeks down at the Thing. The baby. Her baby. A little girl. She stares at her and the baby stares back.
And then the baby cries, wails, her lungs so strong and her rage so severe Shiv laughs.
She wants to tell the baby that she understands, that she never imagined looking into her daughter’s eyes, only the idea that the baby would be carted away as soon as possible but here she was, on her chest, covered in muck.
They take the baby and clean her and move them and clean them both up and Shiv locks her eyes on her daughter and her daughter looks back.
“Well done Siobhan,” Caroline says at one point while cradling the baby. And Shiv thinks Caroline doesn’t have any right to hold her, that no one else should be able to touch her. She thinks of herself as a baby in her mother’s arms and her brothers peering over a baby bassinet and then she feels Tom’s hand patting her back and she realizes she’s sobbing.
“I’m sorry. I’m tired. I don’t mean it.” She quickly utters out and gestures for the baby who has started to fuss in Grandma’s arms.
__
She knows Tom has already facetimed his family and shown off her daughter while she was asleep. She knows her family has probably been contacted because her phone keeps buzzing but she doesn’t want to move. Doesn’t want to disrupt. The baby is so little, what if one movement today somehow made her head go misshaped and then Shiv would be the terrible mother who let that happen. She tastes the tears before she realizes they’re happening. She can’t stop crying.
When the sun wakes them up on the first day of Baby Girl Roy’s first full day of life Shiv smooths over the little tuft of hair on her head which looks red to her and snaps a picture, she sends it off to Connor and Roman quickly.
And then she starts a new text chain with Kendall. In the aftermath, she had deleted his number, blocked him, and then added him back again in the span of a week. She sends off the picture:
Helena Roy