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woman of my body leaned to the pull of history and family expectation. Leaned so far that her body yearned. This woman said, Now. Before it is too late. The yearning distilled into a singular desire that overwhelmed logic and common sense. I wanted to be pregnant. To be filled with baby and movement of baby. To have my breasts swell, belly grow, to feel the pressure and weight of carrying within. I wanted to run my hands over the taut skin that sheltered a soon-tobe child and know the pains of a baby pushing out. Words I’d once heard Mom say echoed in my sleep. The women in our family have easy pregnancies. In my sleep my belly grew with a dreamed-up baby. I dreamed the special attention that a pregnant woman gets, the
chair given up, the soft eyes and hopeful questions, the baby gifts and baby shower. I dreamed a hurried hospital drive, the birth beginning. In these dreams I never had the baby. Waking was a loss. I ran my hands down my flat stomach, over my small breasts. Next to me, Bill slept, his leg long against mine. Did the dreams mean I was making the wrong choice? Were my dreams my secret truth? I told Bill, “I dreamed I was pregnant.” Or “I was in labor. It didn’t hurt.” I told him how much I loved it. “This is the part I feel like I’m missing,” I said. “I can’t know what it’s like to have a baby in me. To give birth.”
tried to keep my wanting small, to not burden him, he didn’t know how big it was. To him, my dream-telling must have sounded the same as when I told him my dream of driving off a road into a lake and the water was rising; the dream of putting on new running shoes and I could fly; the dreams of the man or boys or killer bees outside the door and me inside terrified. I said, “The women in my family have easy pregnancies.” Bill did not pick up this hopeful offering. The dreams of pregnancy and almost-birth held in me through the day. In the skin of me, the blood of me, the womb of me.
Bill stayed quiet. Because I
ABOUT THE BOOK THIS PARTICULAR HAPPINESS Knowing where your scars come from doesn’t make them go away. When Jackie Shannon Hollis marries Bill, a man who does not want children, she joyfully commits to a childless life. But soon after the wedding, she returns to the family ranch in rural Oregon and holds her newborn niece. Jackie falls deep into baby love and longing and begins to question her decision. As she navigates the overlapping roles of wife, daughter, aunt, sister, survivor, counselor, and friend, she explores what it really means to choose a different path. 53
