I am doing something called “40/days40writes” created by my friend and wonderful editor, Robin Rauzi, which is basically 40 days of writing sparks. It’s a wonderful to get the ideas churning into stories.
It began yesterday, so I’m going to post whatever may come of it here on this blog.
Yesterday’s prompt was “Waiting Room,” and it turned into “Mangoes on the Sabbath.”
“Mangoes on the Sabbath”
My living room is a waiting room where I wait for the text or the call or the high five to say all is well or not in these crazy days of waiting.
But in another time in a distant faraway place, the waiting room was a doctor's office in LA on Sunset Boulevard, and I was already in the exam room. A three-year-old sat beside me, waiting to hear the baby's heartbeat. I let her cuddle up next to me on the exam table.
The doctor rushed in ready to get the show on the road.
I was feeling so good - not sick at all - strong.
What a good baby, I thought, at 12 weeks along or so.
But the doctor couldn't find the heartbeat. "Oh well. These machines are silly," the doctor said, and she breezily went off to get a better machine.
We waited, this three-year-old and me, who asked, "Mama, is the baby in your tummy sick?"
A tiny ice cube melted in my heart.
The doctor showed up with the ultrasound machine and soon it was over.
The baby, or the bean - because it looked like a lima bean - flipped up on the screen like a dead fish and floated down like the softest feather.
I knew. We all knew. The waiting was over.
But here is what I recall. We walked outside, this three-year-old and me, and we came upon a woman selling mangoes. It was blisteringly hot on Sunset Boulevard that Friday.
"You want the mango?" the woman asked.
The three-year-old tugged at me - Mamamamamamamamama mango!
I nodded and bought some, and we sat down on the pavement by the mango cart and we ate slice after juicy sweet slice. Who knew mango could taste so good?
Later, we tried to explain how the baby in Mama's tummy went away, and our young son asked, "Maybe it's in your leg? Did you check?" He poked at my calf. No, not there...
A few years later, when I did get pregnant again with our third child, our boy looked at my calves again during the long, hot 1998 Dodgers' summer and me well into my second trimester, and he said, "Mama, you have Mark McGwire calves! That is awesome."
The baby came in December, just before Christmas, and her big brother and sister welcomed her home.
Now, I wait in my living room in Alabama, 2000 miles away from another living room in Los Angeles, where my husband waits with our son as we try to navigate this new life of waiting in our homes.
Once upon a time, I tried to write a short story, and called "Mangoes on the Sabbath" because after the mangoes with my little girl, I had to go into the hospital for D & C.
My roommate was a Hasidic woman with a brain tumor, who couldn't turn on the light or order food because it was Friday, the Sabbath, but I was so grateful to her, because I didn't have to think about what I'd lost by turning off the light or circling tuna for lunch.