Surrogate Mother - by Helena Pantsis
ISLAND | ONLINE ONLY
Mathilda curled up in the bathtub, head on bent knees, her cheek made red from the pressure on her skin. She kept her eyes trained on the ceiling. All she could think about were the spiders, how they'd fall on her mid-shower or appear in the crevices of her unvacuumed room. She was smooth-skinned, silk to touch. Her mother drew the washcloth over her, outlining the jagged edge of her spine and caressing the gentle curvature which came to be by the bending of her. Her body grew transparent under the weight of the water, her skin shrinking against the porcelain. The spiders spent more time inside these walls than she had. She hadn't been home in years.
Is it okay, ma, if I stay here a while?
Take as long as you need, darling.
Long red marks had burned their way into her back. Mathilda could feel a pressure pushing against her bones. Her mother rinsed the soap from her back, wringing the liquid out slowly. It was cold when it reached her; the water drip-racing to reach her tailbone over the bulges in her back and falling against her in gentle bursts like the tickle of tap-dancing spider feet.
I would have a child if I could, you know that, right? I would have a hundred children.
And: I know you would, I know you would. Her mother cooing to Mathilda, like she was inconsolable. But her daughter’s voice wasn’t shaking, wasn’t rising or falling with tone, volume or distinction of feeling. She was bent, unmoving, rigid.
The water held her like glass. Mathilda pulled her shoulders back, her mother touching the lump in her skin that sank at the force of her fingertips. It pulled her skin thin, and something under her flesh danced and wriggled. Her mother traced her gently.
Does it hurt? She asked, prodding the bones that opened like teeth around the swelling.
But Mathilda misunderstood. I feel hollow. She said. I feel like I’m defective.
Mathilda let her head tilt back, her mother massaging the shampoo into her scalp. It felt nostalgic, like the gust of wind she'd chase in the backyard in summer. Fresh-cut lawns on Sunday, the smell of chlorine staining her hair every Tuesday; imagining herself older, with a family, children running around her feet.
Close your eyes. Mathilda’s mother dug her nails into her daughter’s hair, extending and curling her fingers like they were spiders.
The shampoo rinsed out, trailing through the dark, wiry hair once soft and spry, and diverging in two paths around the swell of her flesh. Mathilda saw a spider on the wall, a daddy-long-legs scaling down, meeting gravity. Her mother always killed them; said that was how you stopped them laying eggs. Mathilda thought about the spider and its eggs and its living; the water now tepid, her temperature matching her surroundings, like an animal camouflaged. It made her want to cry.
I wish I was a child. Mathilda whispered, her voice cracking. Or, I wish I had a child.
She became still, trembling only at her mother’s gentle touch and the cold enveloping her. She felt her mother press into her, feeling for a mole, a scar, or a lump that wasn’t there when she was young. The body grows; but recently it had felt as if her body was shrinking. Her mother pressed once more into Mathilda’s back, eyebrows furrowed and fingers poised—she couldn’t fathom the great, hard mass that had manifested in her daughter’s youthful body. Mathilda kept her eyes focused on the spider. Her mother pressed into her again. This time Mathilda flinched, a great searing pain spreading through her.
Oh no, her mother said. Oh no.
Spiders in their hundreds spewed from a creamy silken sac of eggs that had grown under Mathilda’s back. Sliced wide, the crease in her skin unravelled. A plume of blood fell forth, dribbling along the length of her, and from the hollow of flesh poured the children of the house’s corner. Mathilda’s mother cupped her hands, spilling water onto the blood and the spiders that moved as one, forming a wave in their falling. Mathilda’s mother reeled, trembling, letting out a shaking whine.
Oh no, my darling. Oh no.
They spilled out, clogging the drain by the mass of them, and marring the pure white of the tub. Mathilda didn’t move, staying curved and still and cold. She thought about the life. Her own words rang loud and heavy against the walls of her skull and the white tiles surrounding her.
I would carry a hundred children.
Her mother turned the water scalding, forcing them down the drain, each spider falling and drowning by the sheer volume of their siblings clambering over each other. The water turned pink, and Mathilda’s back became raw and thin and bloodied. She thought about the death then.
And: I know you would, I know you would. I know you would. ▼
Image by Paul/howzey on Flickr
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