Family Circle
By Kathryn Brackett

I am only pregnant at night. In these dreams, I sit in a wooden chair in a dark matchbox room, wrestling with a swollen stomach that no longer feels like my own. The air is thick here, acrid, too deep for my lungs. Tiny shards of light flow like blood from hidden corners and move in the direction of my wails, as if to heal the pain that crashes into my lower back and filters into my vagina. I think my belly presses forward like a round dislocated bone, and I try to stand to alleviate the pressure but my bottom feels as though it rips through me when I do. I call out for help, but no one is there. I touch the sides of my stomach and moan when I feel a lump. More of these boils surface and join in a circle around my belly, causing the baby to kick and turn and press outward until I see the formation of its fragile body. Then a warm hand with silky fingers touches my shoulder. It journeys over my breasts and stops at my stomach. Another hand comes. Then another-until a swarm of palms latches onto the new life inside of me. And I scream so loud that I can hardly breathe...

I’ve had these dreams every night for a month now. It’s October, the time where nature surrenders to gravity in the shape of painted leaves and sunsets that come too quickly in the day. I have not told anyone about my visions, not even my mother to whom I tell everything. Instead I go to church and watch Jesus reach out to me in his white robe and bare feet from the baptismal tower. I let my prayers lift in his forgiving eyes. Yet, these dreams have intensified, especially within the last few weeks. Now my pain carries through into reality. I always wake with tears cold against my cheek. I always fall to my knees after I get out of bed, grabbing my stomach. I lie on the floor, feeling drugged by low abdominal throbs and silent prayers that linger shamelessly into the early hours.

Because the dreams are starting to overwhelm me, I decide to tell my mother about them. For some reason I think she should know. It’s Saturday morning and my father is still in London on business. After I finish speaking, my mother places her hand over her mouth, pushes her breakfast plate away and stares at me. 

“What do you think it means?” I ask.

She stands and paces the linoleum in her slippers for about a minute, a grave expression on her face. 

“How long have you been having these dreams?” she finally asks in a low voice.

“I guess since the middle of September.” She breathes low and hard. “What is it, Mama?” 

“Are you having a boy or a girl?” 

“I don’t know.” I wait for her to say something, anything. She moves to the sink and stares out the window. Gray, congealed clouds hang in the sky like thick puddles, heralding rain as the wind gathers and tosses forgotten leaves.

Finally, she breaks the silence. “I believe that dreams are messages from God,” she says, almost in a declaration.

“Well, I hope this isn’t,” I say, remembering the discomfort. “I’m only sixteen. I’m too young to have a baby.” Although I know I am not. 

My mother turns to me with serious eyes, but her voice is gentle and reminiscent. “My mother always told me that when you dream about being pregnant or birthing a baby it means that someone in the family is going to die soon.” 

“You don’t believe that?” 

“I do.” 

“Has it ever happened to you?”

“No,” she says, “but sometimes dreams are more than intuitive. Sometimes they’re like six senses. You know, like that guy John Edwards.” 

“Mama, I don’t talk to the dead,” I say. “Besides, I’m sure this is nothing.”

As she places the utensils in the dishwasher, I watch the wrinkles in her brow surface. I watch her cheeks flush when she looks at me, as if she knows something that I don’t.

“Mama, for awhile I only saw myself pregnant, like I was looking at myself through someone else’s eyes,” I say, feeling the need to explain. “Then the dreams changed. I felt a child moving and kicking and growing inside of me. But these last few weeks have been different. Sometimes I think that my stomach actually stretches in front of me to the point that I will explode and now there are boils that circle my stomach like a band.”

When I finish, my mother looks at a loss for words, her mouth hanging open, her eyes frozen in air. She turns away from me and plays with her fingers, her sign of nervousness. I sit at the kitchen table and replay the dreams in my head. In fact, I’m so consumed in my thoughts that I barely hear what my mother says to me.

“It’s James”-she says this just above a whisper-”It has to be.”

“I refuse to believe that,” I say.

“Lily, he’s been sick for a long time,” my mother says, as if I’m not aware of his condition. Uncle James is my favorite uncle, and the oldest of my mother’s four siblings. He had a mild heart attack three years back and then a second one a year ago that hit him so hard the doctors placed a fibulator in his chest. He’d just turned fifty-seven. 

I think about him as my mother moves across the floor in an aimless shuffle and returns items to the cabinets. I hear Uncle James’s deep, throaty laughter fill the kitchen. I hear him cracking jokes in his strong Southern accent, feel him picking me up as a child and squeezing me until I can’t breathe. And, I swear, as I look out the window I see him walking through the leaves in his cowboy boots, even though he doesn’t live in Cleveland, even though he’s ten hours away from me, even though he disappears with the blink of an eye. 

My mother stares out the window again. Her mouth tightens and falls about her lips; her brow creases. She and Uncle James have a special bond. He used to say that they shared the same soul, that even though they were six years apart it felt as though they’d been born right together. For awhile it was just the two of them until Aunt Mary and Aunt Jean were born. They are twins but look and act nothing alike. Aunt Mary is wide and audacious, Aunt Jean slender and modest. 

I think about how Uncle James never married or had children and how he lives only ten minutes away from Uncle Sammy, the baby brother. After Uncle James’s second attack, my mother had insisted on travelling to South Carolina to help him, even though Uncle Sammy was so close. My aunts lived about an hour away, but they were useless. Aunt Mary and Uncle James always fought. They didn’t even get along as kids. He said she was too critical of a person to share his genes. And, well, Aunt Jean was just too modest to hang around him. Uncle James made men blush with his candidness. He spent most of the hours of the day laughing and cracking jokes. I loved him for that.

His memory rolls over me as I watch my mother from across the room. She breathes carefully, slowly, almost systematically. 

“I’m sure it’s nothing,” I whisper. Then she looks at me but doesn’t say a word.

My mother updates herself everyday by asking me tons of questions: How long are your contractions? Has your water broken? Has the baby dropped? Her interrogations are so frequent that she makes me think I am pregnant, and she calls Uncle James more than usual, inquires about his health and makes sure that he’s eating right. Then she calls Uncle Sammy to confirm everything. I hate that I am the cause of her worry.

Tonight I sleep with two Bibles at each foot of my bed and a cross on my lamp table. I lie in bed with the sheets pulled up close to my neck, whisper a silent prayer, and close my eyes. I take a deep breath and fall asleep within minutes...

...I am on my knees, cradling my swollen belly. Somehow, in the midst of the darkness, I know that my feet are the size of small melons. Sweat rolls off my body, and I try to stand but the contractions throw me back down to my knees. They’re like menstrual cramps ten times multiplied, and I pant, moan, even curse to get through the intensity of them. Then the baby moves. He turns. Yes – He. Somehow, I know it is a boy. Light spreads from the corner of the room, reaches out and tries to surround me. I grit my teeth as pressure builds at the base of my stomach. I roll from one side to the other but no position is comfortable. Blood, warm and thick, flows between my legs and I realize that the baby is coming. The boils grow, and I scream for help. I call out to God; I beg Him to take away the pain, but my pleas hang above my head like a cloud. I want to push. I need to push, but I don’t think I can do it alone. I reach out for something to hold on to. I wait for those hands to come, but there’s nothing. There’s nothing...

...To my surprise, I’m gripping the cross when I open my eyes, its T-shape deeply impressed in my hand. The Bibles have fallen to the floor along with my sheets. Sunlight peels through the nearby blinds, and I roll over and try to stand. Pots and pans clink in the kitchen. They are sounds of my mother preparing breakfast. I hear her answer the phone when it rings. I manage to sit up and move across the carpet in a lethargic, stiff shuffle towards the bathroom. I look older as I examine myself in the mirror, my eyes baggy and dark, my skin pale, almost chalky. A spasm hits my back when I bend over to splash some water on my face. 

My mother walks into the room just as I turn off the faucet. She stares at me with small tears gleaming in her eyes, her hair tossed wildly. 

Her voice trembles when she speaks. “James.. .James had a mild heart attack early this morning,” she says. “He’s okay but the doctors want to keep him in the hospital for a few days. His heart isn’t as stable as they would like it to be.” She circles around the carpet like a dog testing a sleeping area. “Sammy said he’s talking up a storm and insists on going home. I have to call your father. Why does he have to be in London now? I suppose I should call Mary and Jean too, or did Sammy say they were already at the hospital?” She carries on like this for at least a minute, talking to herself, pacing back and forth in an idle daze. Wide-eyed, she looks at me and tells me to start packing. 

“We have to leave today,” she says and walks out the room. I stand there shaking, my face dripping, vanishing behind tears that no longer run from my eyes but from my skin instead.

Before I know it, my mother and I are sitting in an airplane, experiencing soft turbulence and looking at a pack of salted peanuts and carbonated drinks that neither of us feels like touching. My mother stares solemnly at the connecting tray in front of her. I can’t say anything. I don’t think she wants me to. I rest my head against the seat instead, close my eyes, and think back to the last time that I’d been to South Carolina. 

I was eight years old. My mother and her siblings were throwing a surprise fiftieth wedding anniversary party for my grandparents. When they walked into the crowded house, my grandfather clutching his chest in shock, my grandmother near tears, I heard Aunt Mary whisper to her husband: “Lord, I swear I’m gonna kill James if Daddy’s heart gives out on him in here. This was his crazy idea in the first place.” 

I watched my grandmother’s head bob through the crowd, greeting friends and family, asking every person that she touched if they knew about the surprise. My grandfather lit a cigarette and waved miscellaneous ashes while Aunt Jean chased his hand with an ashtray. We were celebrating in her two-story home, sitting on her custom-made furniture, scuffing her hardwood floors, and crowding rooms that she usually enjoyed all alone. 

Uncle Sammy was mixing drinks somewhere in the kitchen. His boyfriend was DJ-ing in another room as Aunt Mary formed complaints about her brother’s homosexuality. My mother and father were busy filling snack bowls when Uncle James walked in. He was a tall rowdy-looking man whose deep Southern accent bounced off walls. Clad in black jeans with a snakeskin belt that held up his paunch, a green shirt buttoned halfway, and a stiff cowboy hat, he sauntered through the front door with his pointy-toed boots marking the mat. 

With his smile bright and bubbly on his red face, he yelled, “James Whitfield has arrived!” just as Aunt Jean walked past him. She lost balance of a couple of sodas and spilled them across her blouse. 

“Well heavens, Jean,” he said, grinning. “I know you’re glad to see me but that ain’t no reason to go makin a mess on yourself.” He brushed his handkerchief across her half-wet bosom. Turning crimson red, Aunt Jean hurried off to the kitchen without saying a word.

My mother walked over to him, trying to hold back a smile because she was supposed to be upset with him for being late. 

“Did you bring the presents?” she asked flatly. 

Uncle James snapped his fingers together and said: “Hot damn, Margie, I forgot. I got so caught up this mornin’ with my call girl that it just slipped my mind. ‘Fact she’s right outside waitin’ on me if you want to meet her.” He pointed out the door, that full throaty laugh reaching me from across the room. I watched Aunt Mary roll her eyes. 

My mother’s smile broke free. “James, you’re crazy,” she said. 

He clapped his hands together and said, “Now darlin’ you know that Mary is the crazy one in this family.” My mother snickered and glanced to make sure that her sister hadn’t heard, but Aunt Mary was too busy lecturing Uncle Sammy’s boyfriend about his choice of music. “Besides,” Uncle James continued, “this family would be so borin’ without me.” Then he wrapped his arms around my mother’s tiny waist, picking her up off her feet, and hugged her till she giggled like a schoolgirl. I’d never seen her hold onto any of her siblings the way she did him. 

“You know what,” he said, spotting me nearby, “I could use a youngin’s help gettin these presents out of the car.” I ran over to him and jumped into his arms. His large broad shoulders felt comforting as he twirled me around. 

He opened the door and we walked outside to his little candy-apple colored convertible, the one that Aunt Mary said would put him in debt for the rest of his life. He popped the trunk, and before he pulled out the gifts, he handed me a rectangular box.

“For you, darlin’,” he said. I took the present, my eyes lit with anticipation. He’d always bought me gifts. I was his only niece. I tore the wrapping and discovered a beautiful baby doll with flowing golden blonde hair and big blue eyes.

“You ain’t too big for that now, are you?” he asked, squatting down in front of me. I shook my head, bedazzled by the doll. “Cause now,” he continued. “You’ve done grown so tall eatin’ them string beans and all that I figured you’d might not want it.” He playfully grabbed for it then picked me up. I squeezed his neck, secure in my belief that he would always be there.

But now as I sit on the plane, staring at the back of the seat, his memory crashes into me like a harsh wave. My mother reaches for my hand, as if she knows what I’m thinking, and whispers that Uncle James will be fine. I wonder how well she believes this. 

Uncle Sammy is waiting for us when we get off the plane. He greets us with a bright smile that recedes into trembling lips and muffled sniffles as soon as he hugs my mother. Uncle James says he has the softest heart in the world. 

“God, look at you,” Uncle Sammy says, wiping his eyes and hugging me. “You’re so beautiful and tall now.” He smiles weakly, and I swallow the lump in my throat.

As we walk through the airport, my mother asks questions about Uncle James’s condition. 

“James said that it felt like a mule had kicked him in the chest when the fibulator went off,” Uncle Sammy updates us as he walks to the baggage claim. “But he’s still feisty as hell. Every nurse leaves his room either smiling or blushing.” He also explains that Uncle James’s blood pressure is low and that the doctors are trying to pull it up with something called Dopamine. 

“Is he eating?” my mother asks.

“A little.”

“He doesn’t like being in hospitals, Sammy.”

“I know.”

It’s raining when we get outside, though the water feels different here, less menacing. I crawl into the backseat of Uncle Sammy’s SUV. As he drives, I look at the town and notice how different it seems. Trees loom from every direction while flowers decorate lavish bushes and quiet, half-empty sidewalks. I watch how the wet, autumn leaves gloss the streets and wonder why my mother only comes back here when someone has died or is near dying. 

Within thirty minutes we arrive at the hospital. We walk to intensive care, my mother clutching her purse like a rope. People greet us with warm smiles, head nods and the colloquial, “How you?” It makes me feel eerily calm. 

We follow Uncle Sammy as he leads the way. I see Aunt Jean and Aunt Mary sitting near the windowsill, both of them looking more like my mother than the last time I saw them, only Aunt Mary has packed on weight around her hips. Aunt Jean is still narrow as a rail. They greet us with soft eyes, their faces lifting. They stand and embrace my mother- three bodies pieced together like a dark jigsaw puzzle. They’re all wearing black.

A high-pitched scratchy voice rises from behind the thin curtain. It’s Uncle James. “What the hell are ya’ll tryin’ to do to me?” he asks. “Send me to an early grave?” He too has seen the harmony in their apparel. 

My mother walks to the bed as I slowly move further into the room. 

“I swear the only time you come home is when I’m in one of these crazy ass gowns,” he jokes with her. She taps him lightly on the shoulder and moves in close to hug him. 

Uncle James is so thin that I can see the impression of his fibulator sticking out of his chest. It looks like a small box. His chest hair is gray, sprig-like, and his ashen skin magnifies his wrinkles and deep sun lines. 

He kisses her on the cheek then looks at me. “My God,” he says. “Look at my string bean. You’ve done grown so tall. Come on over here and give me a big squeeze.” I look at my mother and she nods. I think she knows that I’m afraid to touch him. He is connected to all sorts of wires and machines that beep. I wrap my arms around his lanky body and he hugs me tightly.

“You still like baby dolls?” he whispers in my ear before I pull away. 

“Not really,” I reply. He laughs, that once pervasive sound now croupy. 

“You like boys now, don’t ya?” he persists. 

I blush. 

“That’s all right,” he says, grinning. “Your Uncle Sammy does too.”

His brother laughs from across the room, and Aunt Mary rolls her eyes. 

“How are you feeling?” my mother asks.

“Good enough to go home,” he says. “Them nurses just wanna keep me in here cause they love lookin at me.” In a playful gesture, he flips a hand across his shoulder, tossing back invisible hair. I walk over and hug Aunt Mary. Aunt Jean greets me with a light kiss on the cheek. They tell me that I should be on the cover of a magazine, and I wonder whose spirits they are trying to keep up.

A nurse comes in to check Uncle James’s vitals. She explains that he can have up to two visitors at a time but can have more when they move him into a room. As everyone except for my mother and I leave, Uncle James stares into the nurse’s face, tells her that she has Elizabeth Taylor’s eyes and the lips of Marilyn Monroe. I am amazed at his Southern charm, more blown away when she leaves the room blushing.

“Lily, how’s school?” Uncle James asks later on after my mother and I have settled into the room.

“Good,” I say. “I’m a sophomore now.”

He shakes his head. “I remember when you were born. I went out and bought the biggest bottle of liquor I could find and your daddy had so much that I had to carry him out of the hospital in my arms like a new bride.”

My mother slaps him lightly on the hand. He laughs and turns over a little, uncovering one of his feet. I tremble at the sight. It’s the size of a small melon and looks as though it will burst.

“How are Mary’s boys?” my mother asks. 

Uncle James rolls his eyes. 

“Are you ever going to make peace with her?” 

He shakes his head. “I can’t stand the way she bad mouths Sammy ‘bout his manhood and fairy preferences. Now I’m allowed to talk about him cause I’m his brother, but it just ain’t right when a woman does it. And Jean, well, I don’t know what to do about her. She don’t say two words to me. Hell, I could blink my eyes at her and she’d start blushin. I wonder if she’s still a virgin, cause now that’d be a long time to go without some – ”

“James, hush up,” my mother interrupts. He exchanges a playful glance with me and quiets down, partly from my mother’s embarrassment but mainly because he looks fatigued. And I can almost hear my mother’s thoughts. This family will be boring without him. 

When Uncle Sammy comes back around eight o’clock to take me to his place, my mother insists on staying at the hospital. We grab a couple of burgers from McDonald’s and drive to his small uptown apartment for the night. His place is so clean that I’m afraid to sit down.

After we finish our meal, Uncle Sammy shows me to my room, a rectangular box with soft beige walls. I change into my nightshirt and crawl into bed. Tonight I don’t pray. For some reason I can’t. I just close my eyes and wait...

...Blood runs down my legs. I push and scream at the same time. I reach out for something to hold on to. Those palms touch my back, my shoulders, my belly; they work around me like dust. I feel the baby’s head coming. My tears and shrill pitches mark the room as hands press on my stomach, forcing me to push out my son. I look down. He is big, at least nine pounds, covered in blood and chalky slime that fills every crevice of his plump body. I touch him but he doesn’t move and he doesn’t cry. I shake him a little. Still nothing. I poke him and suddenly the light from the room moves in his direction. I call out for help. The palms lift off my body and, like spiders, they crawl onto my child. I watch them push my son away from me. I try to stand but my legs are too weak. And I plead to God as those hands lift my son’s lifeless body into the air, wrapping him into a cocoon of light...

...I wake up trembling. My entire body feels frozen to the sheets. I sit up in the middle of the bed and breathe through my doubling heartbeat. Shadows linger from unfamiliar windows, reaching across the carpet like stiff hands. I close my eyes and pray, but my heavy exhalations and wave of tears become the only source of comfort in that room.

When Uncle Sammy and I get to the hospital the next morning, we discover that Uncle James has been placed in a private room. Surprisingly, my aunts are already there. The first thing my mother says before we walk inside is: “He’s not doing too well this morning.” 

“What’s wrong?” Uncle Sammy asks.

“They had to put a catheter in.” 

“Oh God.” 

“He’s very cranky right now, Sammy. He was up and down all night long, and now he and Mary are arguing.” 

Uncle Sammy takes a deep breath and we walk inside. Aunt Mary is saying something to Uncle James but stops when she sees me. 

“Just listen to me, Mary,” Uncle James says, not noticing us, “I know that you and me have had our disagreements in the past but I promise we can work things out if you just help me get this thing out of my penis. It’s destroying my pride.” She shakes her head, and he turns to Uncle Sammy. “Look at this damn thing!” He exposes himself. Aunt Jean shrieks as my mother covers my eyes.

“James, my child!” she yells.

“Ah I’m sorry, Lily. You still a young buck. I’ll traumatize you for life if you see this.”

“Me too,” Aunt Jean whispers.

“I swear James,” Aunt Mary pipes up. “You can be so rude sometimes.”

“I ain’t rude,” he snaps at her. “I’m natural. Speaking of natural, why don’t you try some of them health food bars. Maybe they’ll stop your ass from spreading.”

Her mouth drops.

“Your blood pressure is up today,” Uncle Sammy reports softly. “That’s a good sign.”

“It’s this stuff they’re feeding me through my veins,” Uncle James remarks. “I couldn’t get a wink of sleep last night cause of them nurses. Any other time I’d be happy to invite a woman into my room, but they wouldn’t go away- checkin’ this damn medicine, drawing my blood like vampires, getting on my last nerve. I even borrowed a nerve from Margie and they got on that. Sammy get my clothes and pull this thing out of me so I can go home.”

“Stop being so bullheaded, James,” Aunt Mary yells. 

“Mary,” my mother says, “why don’t we go get some coffee. Jean, come with us.” Aunt Jean’s eyes are still wide with shock from the mini striptease. She stands up but resumes her position when Aunt Mary speaks. 

“James, I don’t know why you insist on being so foolish,” she says. “You can’t leave the hospital. In fact, you shouldn’t even be living alone. You’re too sick.”

“I ain’t sick,” he retorts. “I’m just riding the last years of my youth. And I ain’t foolish. I got more sense than three of you put together.”

My mother tries to intervene, but her sister cuts her off.

“Sammy, you live ten minutes away from him,” Aunt Mary says. “Why can’t he stay with you?”

Uncle Sammy’s mouth drops about two inches. “Umm... I’m not – ” 

“I mean, you invite every other man from the community into your apartment,” she says. “Why can’t you take in your own brother?” 

Even that blow hits my stomach and from the look on Uncle Sammy’s face, he’s not only angry but also hurt. My mother tries to grab Aunt Mary’s arm and pull her away, but we all know that it’s too late. We’ve seen the fever in Uncle James’s eyes. Aunt Jean clutches her purse and whispers something about a muzzle as I look over at Uncle Sammy. He’s searching my mother’s face for answers. I watch Uncle James push himself up in bed, his jaw clinching.

“Now wait just a damn minute here, Mary,” he says. “You ain’t got no business talkin to Sammy the way that you do. I know that Mama may have pushed him out a fairy but that don’t give you no right to criticize him. If he likes boys, then he just likes boys. I reckon you could try tyin him to a tree and beatin the queerness out of him but that wouldn’t solve nothin either. There ain’t nothing you or me or the big man in the sky can do about it so you might as well accept it. Just like you got to accept that I’m dying.” 

Nobody says a word. I don’t think we can. Instead my mother and Aunt Mary take seats next to Aunt Jean. I sit on the window ledge while Uncle Sammy rests on the edge of the bed. We sit in silence for awhile, carefully watching Uncle James’s short exhalations as if they will suddenly stop. And I know that they’re wondering how much longer disputes like these will take place with all of them together. 

I turn my head toward the window and look at the clear blue sky. I want to reach my hand through the glass and touch the air, to swallow its glowing light, to give a piece of it to everyone in this room. Sunlight gathers at the window and casts onto the bed, making Uncle James’s skin look pale yet glorious at the same time. He looks at me as my mother walks over to fluff his pillows. Aunt Mary wipes tears and pours him a cup of water. Uncle Sammy straightens the covers on the bed while Aunt Jean turns to his favorite program on television. And I lock eyes with him, feel miles away from them all. But deep within those dark brown pools, I see a person that grew inside of me. I see my son swaddled in light. I see those hands lifting him in the air, cradling him. And I let that image rest in my uncle’s eyes, an image to go with him when he’s no longer a breath away.