The Sasquatch Hunter's Almanac by Sharma Shields Page A

to it:
    DOOM.
    Gladys shoved her knuckles into her eye sockets. There, too, on the backs of her eyelids, were the starlings, white this time in a black sky.
    DOOM.
    Gladys cried out. She began to shake.
    â€œWhat’s the matter?” Eli asked her.
    â€œThe baby,” she sobbed. “The baby is going to die. Not again, Eli. Oh, no, not again!”
    He put a hand on her belly. It roiled under his palm. His eyebrows shot up.
    â€œGladys,” he told her. “You’re in labor.”
    â€œDoom,” she bawled. “We’re doomed. The baby. Us. We’re all doomed.”
    Eli struggled with her into the house and then to the carport. Her bag was packed, ready, sitting in the foyer closet alongside their boots and shoes, and she managed in her terrible state to remind him to fetch it. He obeyed with a professional calm that irritated her. They drove to the hospital. Gladys bore her contractions silently now, but the tears fell in droves.
    The baby, Gladys was sure, was dead inside her. Lost. You dumb doomed baby. She could feel its death plowing through her, soaring toward her heart in one dark twisting line. The starlings were inside her now.
    In the sterile little room, the nurse gave her an enema. Gladys wept from the humiliation. They drugged her. She fell into a dreamless sleep.
    When she awoke, the baby was placed in her arms, not only alive but lovely, a perfectly defiant little being. Its eyes were lucid, skeptical, even, and it stared at her haughtily, as though it already saw her weakness.
    â€œBut how can this be?” she asked.
    The nurse brought her a mug of ice chips. “As strong as a bear cub, this little girl. Born last night near midnight.”
    Gladys, speechless, cupped the baby’s soft pink head with one palm. The baby mewled and then shut her scowling eyes as though to sleep.
    â€œShe wanted out, I tell you,” the nurse said cheerfully. “Would you like some broth?”
    Gladys thought again of the starlings.
    â€œWhere is my husband?”
    â€œAt home, maybe? Sleeping one off? I’m sure he had a drink or two after the good news.”
    Gladys had her baby now. She was exhausted, relieved, too tired for elation. She leaned back against the pillows and shut her eyes.
    â€œI’ll take her back to the nursery so you can rest,” the nurse said.
    In Gladys’s mind’s eye, the starlings unfurled. They were regrouping.
    â€œNo,” Gladys said. “Leave her here. Just for a bit. Just for a moment.”
    But then the baby’s bright bruised eyes reopened. She began to cry. It was a small cry, but it bothered Gladys. It occurred to her that she had no idea how to take care of a baby. She had babysat children, her little sisters, but that was years ago, and she had always hated it. She didn’t remember how to feed a baby or bathe her or change her diaper. She wasn’t even sure how to kiss her or how to comfortably hold her. Even now, reclining with the baby on her chest, she felt as useless and rigid as a slab of petrified wood.
    Was this all that motherhood was? Perpetual, mutating fear? A fear that blackened first this perspective and then shifted and obscured another?
    â€œI’ve changed my mind,” Gladys said as the nurse turned to leave. “I’m tired, after all. Take her. Take her now, please.”
    The nurse obediently retrieved the baby, scooping her up and kissing her almost roughly on the cheek. The baby’s cries softened as the nurse bore her into the hallway.
    Gladys listened to the cries fade. She’d feel better after some sleep, she told herself, but her heart, made of a thousand black wings, was flinging about in her chest, and she feared what she would see in her dreams.
    She fought to stay awake. She was fingering the pages of a ladies’ magazine when her husband ambled into the room. She could see that he was happy.
    â€œCamille’s a doll,” Eli said. “Well