by Koji A. Dae
The pains start as little things. Stretching and hardening. Slow and steady and quite manageable. So I pass the morning breathing and walking.
“Like a fly ‘at can’t find a spot to land!” Mama complains and shoos me from the kitchen. I’m surprised she doesn’t take the fly-swatter to my behind.
Honestly, I don’t mind being shooed. Part of me wants my mama, especially as the pains start twisting and pulling, as if something rotten has settled low in my belly. But I’m determined to keep this secret for as long as possible.
Mine.
I put my hand over my abdomen and waddle to the porch.
The first time I felt the baby flip, it was like a tadpole bumping up against reeds. Such a funny, ticklish feeling.
Mama was horrified. “No Becca. Babies are beautiful things. A butterfly flitting from flower to flower. That’s what you feel.”
Ever obedient, I tried to imagine the baby as a winged creature, but the extra weight in my middle definitely felt sloshy. The best I could conjure was a rainbow trout whipping its shiny tail around. I said it felt like a butterfly, then a hummingbird. But when I was alone, singing to my growing bump, it was a tadpole.
So you can’t blame me if I want to keep this as my own for as long as possible. It’s not selfish. Not exactly. It’s just Mama has a way of twisting things, and once she voices her opinion, it has a way of drowning out any other reality that might be fighting to blossom.
Take this house. It’s a fine house, sure, but Granddad was willing to give me and Jackson Uncle Sammy’s old house as a wedding present. It’s a bit drafty but a perfectly good house with two more rooms than this one.
Mama wouldn’t hear of it.
“Too close to those swamps. You’ll never get any sleep for all that croaking.”
She had a point. The north side of Evergreen is a big marsh, which is different than a swamp, but heaven help you if you correct Mama. During mating season, the frog song echoes all the way to the town center, sometimes cutting off the preacher if he goes on too long. But was it enough of a reason to make Papa build an entirely new house on the south edge of town while Uncle Sammy’s sits empty?
The real reason came out after I told her I was pregnant.
“See. Could you imagine having a baby so close to the swamp? It could just toddle off and die.”
She had a real reason with that one. When I was twelve, I nearly drowned in the marsh. Maybe I had gone for a swim, but Mama wasn’t hearing any nonsense about her baby girl swimming in a disgusting swamp, so the official story was I slipped in. Either way, I was underwater so long I almost died. When they pulled me from the marsh, I was covered in algae. Some had gotten in my lungs, the doctor said, and I had a strange infection the hospital couldn’t make sense of. I slept for a week, and when I woke up, I couldn’t remember anything. Not about the pond or my life before it. I also had bad jaundice that yellowed my skin. My blue veins looked green beneath the new coloring, and that green spread all over whenever I blushed. The other kids in town took to calling me frog-girl.
The color never went away, and I never got my memory back. Maybe that’s why I was never afraid of the marsh — I couldn’t remember it doing anything bad to me. If anything, that strange body of water called to me.
But Mama wouldn’t hear of me venturing near it, so I appeased myself by straining to hear the comforting lull of frog song on summer nights until she moved me too far away for even that.
Now, I settle into the rocker Papa made when he learned about the baby. It has a long, smooth motion that soothes me. I close my eyes and listen to the chirping of crickets and the lazy near-silence of summer.
* * *
A pinprick on my left side jolts me from my daze. It’s sharp but manageable at first, but it keeps spreading. Soon everything is tightening. I breathe. Short, short, long, the way the doctor taught me to breathe whenever I had an attack of nerves.
These attacks were so normal to me, I had thought they were common. It wasn’t until I started high school in the nearby city that I realized the sudden wheezing, and muscle weakness was something to be ashamed of.
“Frog girl, frog girl,” the kids would call in the corridors. The nickname had carried over with a few kids from my town. “Watch out, she’s going to croak.”
And I would please them by wheezing in and out — something that definitely sounded of a croak.
When the seizures started, the school recommended Mama “stop the silliness with that country doctor and take me to a specialist.”
The specialist, funny enough, was called Dr. Greene.
* * *
How can something tighten and stretch at the same time? It’s like being ripped in two. I push my feet on the legs of the rocker to stop the motion, lean back, and let out a long, low groan. One that sounds like a croak more than my wheezing ever did.
There’s a clatter in the kitchen that would usually concern me, but it sounds distant beneath my moan, which vibrates my entire body.
Mama’s at my side. I don’t know when she got here, but she’s pushing my hair back and patting my hand and saying comforting words that cool me like sweet tea on a summer day.
Gradually, her words make sense. “That’s it, Becca. Good girl. Almost through it.”
The pain dissipates like sugar, and my whole body relaxes. The chair rocks beneath my sudden weight.
“It’s started.” I can hear the excitement of Mama’s smile. “Why didn’t you come get me?”
I flutter my eyes open. The world is just as still and bright as it was five minutes ago. “I like the rocker.”
She pats my upper arm. “Then you stay here. I’ll go in and get some water to keep you cool. You want anything else?”
I shake my head. It doesn’t matter what I say. Mama’s in charge now, and she’ll come back with whatever she thinks I need. I should be annoyed, but today, it’s a comfort to have someone else in charge. Let her call the doctor and Jackson. I’ll just sit here and become one with all that summer buzzing.
I do wish Jackson was here. He would hold my hand the way he used to outside his father’s office.
Dr. Greene’s office was fancy, with heavy furniture and a dark rug. I remember thinking it was like waiting for my baptism. It had the same old, polished smell as the church. But there was something else. At fifteen, I had felt like a giant among those eight- and nine-year-olds. But Mama had insisted I do it again.
“If you can’t remember your first time, it doesn’t count.”
I wondered if that was true. If so, did none of my life before I was twelve count?
The preacher had given a sermon, but I wasn’t half listening. I had this feeling that I’d be a completely different person after the baptism. The preacher would dunk me, and he’d pull me out changed. I started wheezing and croaking, asking myself if I wanted to change.
I swallowed it down, though, because the actual baptism was held in a pond near the church. When the preacher finished, we walked to the pond singing a low hymn, and one-by-one he dunked us in the water.
Mama wrung her hands the whole time, but her faith was more important than her fear. It was the only time she let me in the water. I nearly slipped on the wet bank, and I heard her sharp intake of breath as I wobbled and steadied myself. I splashed into the water before she could change her mind.
It was cold, and my dress clung to me in some places and floated up in others. The sensation of buoyancy made me grin. The preacher pushed me back, his pressure firmer than I expected, and there was a moment of weightlessness that took away all my fear.
But Dr. Greene’s office was more like the church part. Stiff and stuffy and what if I didn’t want to become the healthy young woman he was supposed to turn me into?
Mama sent me to the bathroom to splash cold water on my face. I calmed down the best I could and was coming out wet and splotchy when I ran into Jackson carrying a box.
I apologized and waited for some harsh comment about my green face, but it never came. I suppose the son of a psychiatrist was raised to be nice to patients, but it didn’t matter why. He was the first boy to be nice to me and, baptism-be-damned, I was determined to fall in love with him.
* * *
I’ve already forgotten the intensity of the last pain. I could almost stand up and go for a walk, but I’m afraid the next one is just around the corner.
There!
No, that was just a twitch. I adjust my position, easing the ache in my lower back.
Mama comes out with a bowl of water, an already wet rag hanging over the side, and a tray of snacks. The baby twists defiantly at the peanut butter and jelly sandwich, but I grab the cup of water and take a deep gulp.
“Easy with that. You don’t want to get a cramp.”
I nod but take another gulp.
“You should eat something.”
Another twitch in my stomach.
“I’m not hungry.”
She sets the tray on a nearby table and pulls the wooden stool next to me. “Doesn’t matter. You’ll need your strength.”
“Did you call Jackson?”
She wrings the cloth out and pats my forehead. “No sense worrying him yet. You’ve got plenty of time.”
I want to ask what makes her such an expert. She’s only had one baby, and that was twenty- three years ago. But still, she’s had one more baby than I have.
Another pain comes. It’s like a wave rushing over me, building and building and refusing to crash, and I’m grateful for Mama’s comforting hand and the cool rag.
Then it’s finally receding like algae parting when a frog jumps off a lily pad into the water.
I give a final groan, and Mama hands me the water. I sip instead of gulping.
“The world seems brighter,” I say.
“Too bright? We could move inside.”
“No. I like it outside.” What I don’t say is I have the strangest urge to go to the marsh.
It’s not the first time the craving has struck me. Other teens would sneak into the city to see a film or go dancing. Me and Jackson snuck off to the Marsh.
It was my idea. Being near that forbidden water excited me as much as his nervous lips on mine. We found a willow tree whose canopy hung out over the water. We leaned against its trunk, and he held me for hours.
“Why do you love it here so much?” he asked me.
“It calms me. The water is so deep and still. It’s relaxing just being near it.” I hugged him, listening to his teenage heart thunder. “And I like sharing it with just you.”
Somewhere in the distance a bullfrog gave a deep belch.
“Well, and him.”
We both laughed, then kissed.
That night Mama noticed the mud on my shoes and the wet seat of my pants. She forbade me from ever seeing Jackson again, but she seemed more concerned with where we had been than with what we were doing.
I suppose she had a reason for that, too. My face swelled up that night. The next morning my eyes were nearly swollen shut and my skin was a deep, leafy green with pustules opening, secreting a light fluid like tears down my cheeks and neck.
Back to the hospital. They said I was allergic to a protein in some human saliva. No kisses for me. No marsh. No frogs. No boyfriend.
* * *
Mama helps me stand and ushers me around our front yard. She assures me that walking will ease the pain and help the baby come faster. But the next contraction brings me to my knees.
I pant hard, and she rubs my back. I go down on all fours and notice every blade of dark green grass. Jackson keeps our yard trimmed, and they’re all cut blunt at the top. If it weren’t for the pain, I’d want to cry. Instead, I cry out. This scream can’t be mistaken for a croak. It’s loud and pure.
“It’ll pass, it’ll pass,” Mama’s saying. And it does.
I collapse back onto my heels, my knees spread in a V to accommodate my low-hanging bump. The sun is too hot on my head, but I’m too wiped out to move back to the porch.
“Tell me about your birth,” I say.
“My birth?”
“I mean mine. Yours with me. What was it like?”
Mama moves my hair from my brow. “There’s not much to tell. You were in my belly, then you were born.”
“Was it day or night? Did it hurt like this?”
She cocks her head to the side and considers, then stands over me. “You don’t want to hear about that. Let me go get some water.”
I’m suddenly back in the pew before the baptism. She’s sitting behind me, whispering. “If you don’t remember, it doesn’t count.”
Looking at all those young kids, I thought, “I’ve never been that young.”
This is what I told Dr. Greene in our first session.
“And do you believe your childhood doesn’t count?” he had asked.
“I just wish my parents talked about it more. Everything they say makes me sound like the perfect daughter. No kid could be that good.”
He chuckled. His eyes were the same shade of blue as Jackson’s, and I thought it would be nice to make him laugh.
Mama comes back and wipes the sweat from my forehead and cheeks. I must be fully green now. Mrs. Becca Greene. Mama used to make me tan for hours in the summer, because brown was more becoming than green. Like she could hide me. Even now, she lowers her eyes instead of looking at my skin.
* * *
When I’m able to stand again, I move down the driveway, away from the house.
“We shouldn’t go too far,” Mama warns.
“I thought you said I have plenty of time,” I huff. Maybe too much irritation comes through my words, because she winces and falls a step behind me.
“Where are we even going?” Her voice is full of false cheer. Beneath it there’s a familiar reverberation. The same waver her tone held when she told me I couldn’t see Jackson or couldn’t go to the Marsh. It’s the same fear she had when she sent me into the city on the bus my first day of school.
By the time my next contraction hits, we’re well down the tree-lined lane, and I know exactly where my feet are taking me. Maybe the idea of the destination gives me a boost of adrenaline, or maybe the contractions ebb and flow naturally. Either way, this one doesn’t bring me to my knees. I brace off of Mama’s shoulders, and squat a little into the buzzing pain in my abdomen.
“Breathe,” she commands.
And, ever obedient, I do.
The pain passes, and I gasp. My gasp turns to laughter. I’m going to make it through this.
“Let’s turn back,” Mama says.
We’re close to the houses at the lower edge of town. People can probably hear my moans. They can see me sweating and squatting.
Mama doesn’t like when people see me as different.
“We’ll have to pull you from school,” Mama had said when I returned from the hospital. “Once this gets out, you’ll never hear the end of it.”
“But Mama, I just have another year!” I whined. “What am I going to do without a diploma?”
“Plenty of women get jobs before they finish their education. You’ll find some place that will accept you for you.”
“I’ll be fine,” I insisted. But she wouldn’t hear of it, and in our house, her word was final.
My only hope at that point was Dr. Greene.
“You’ve got a right to an education,” he explained in our next session. “She can’t keep you home against your will.”
“I can’t go to school knowing she doesn’t want me to,” I said, “She wants what’s best for me, and I can’t hurt her like that.”
He nodded gravely. “And Jackson?”
That’s when I learned that not everyone hated me for being different. Jackson still wanted to date me, even if my allergy meant we couldn’t kiss. At the end of the session, I rushed up to his apartment to find him. We hugged hard, and he held my hand. I felt the overwhelming desire to kiss him, but we just hugged each other tighter.
“You still want me?” I asked.
“My frog-girl? Of course,” he grinned.
It was the first time I didn’t mind turning green. I let a blush run through my full body and relished the heat of it.
That evening, I packed a bag and told Mama I was staying with Jackson and his family. “They’ll take me in until I’m finished with school.”
She grabbed my wrist and spun me around. “You can’t do this to me. I created you.”
I shook her off of me. “If I can’t remember it, it doesn’t count, right?”
Now, I shake her hand off of my arm again. I straighten as best I can and march down the middle of the lazy street. Let the neighbors look.
Mama sighs heavily and scurries after me.
* * *
We’re well past the church, and my contractions are stopping us at least once a block. I’m past the point of leaning on Mama. Every time the tightening starts, I drop to my knees. I end up on the pavement or in the grass, on hands and knees, whining and bellowing like some kind of animal. I grunt and groan and push Mama off when she tries to comfort me. The contractions are coming faster together, but they aren’t as drawn out. It’s an intense minute of squeezing death, then relief. I am quick to pick myself up and keep walking.
When we pass the turnoff to Granddad’s street, Mama realizes where I’m heading.
“No, no, no,” she grabs my elbow. “You can’t be serious, Becca. Not there.”
I want to tell her that I’ve read stories about women in Europe giving birth in pools of water. The baby just slips out of them. It’s supposed to be less traumatic for both baby and mother. But words are beyond me at this point. All I can do is breathe and walk, and hope the baby gives me enough time to reach the marsh. Because somehow, I know that’s where it must be born.
I’m kneeling again, and I look up to her. “Tell me about my birth.”
She shakes her head. “I can’t. That’s what you want me to say, right?”
She wipes frustrated tears from her eyes.
They’re so much like the tears that fell when she finally said, “Fine, you can go to school.”
Those tears weren’t of surrender though. Her allowance was accompanied by a list of rules so long I couldn’t help but feel I was the one who lost. I was to continue living with them. I could see Jackson but only with a chaperone.
She sealed the new deal by kissing my forehead. The site swelled and blistered, reminding me that life was going to be difficult, and I was going to need my Mama to get through it.
“Tell me,” I pant.
She drops to her knees, pretenses-be-damned. “I found you in the swamp when you were twelve years old. We couldn’t find your parents, so we agreed to take you in. The doctor thought it would be easier for you if you just thought we were your parents. You had almost died. You didn’t need to know your parents had abandoned you.”
My head aches. I stand, this time pulling Mama to her feet.
“Let’s go home,” she whimpers.
But I continue walking north.
* * *
“You got everyone in the town to lie about who I am,” I huff after my next contraction.
My defiance sounds the same as it did the day I told Mama I was marrying Jackson.
“You can’t marry that boy,” she had said. “Marriage is about family. How are you ever going to give him babies? You can’t even kiss without swelling up like some… some frog!”
“We’ll figure it out,” I said. By then I had finished school but hadn’t been able to get a job. The potential employers were not as cruel as the school children, but they didn’t want to hire a green-skinned receptionist.
“The doctor thought it was best,” she says again, as if it will excuse half a lifetime of feeling like I didn’t belong and not being able to understand why.
“Did Dr. Greene know?” I bite my lip. Tears blur my vision. “Did Jackson?”
The next contraction tears through me, and my scream goes low and guttural. It sounds too much like a bullfrog. No wonder the children always called me frog-girl. They weren’t wrong. To them I was an oddity from the marsh, not a human playmate they had grown up with.
“Jackson didn’t know.”
At least there’s that.
I get up and continue walking. The blurry edge of the marsh is in view.
* * *
I don’t make it quite to the weeping willow. The contractions start coming too fast and hard, and they take me down by the edge of the water about a hundred yards from the tree. Each one sets my skin on fire and shakes my bones. I weep and cry out and croak.
There’s no one around to hear, which Mama is probably grateful for, but I don’t care. I scream louder. Let them hear my frog song.
There’s a shift in my belly, and a slipping, and I feel the incredible urge to exhale and let the baby drop from me.
“Almost there,” Mama coos. She’s holding my hand and standing behind me, letting me lean against her thighs as I squat deep.
Another tightening and another woosh of exhale. Then a burning between my legs like the preacher’s sermons of hell.
Another.
Then a pop, and it’s over.
A beautiful, grayish-pink baby slips from me. I fall back, Mama lowering me to the wet mud as I reach for my baby and bring her to my chest. She covers my dress with blood and other liquids, and she’s squished up almost too bad to look like a baby, but she’s beautiful.
I cry and hold her to me, and Mama sits in the mud beside us.
“You did good,” she says.
I nod, but I don’t really hear her. Blood still rushes in my ears.
I bend my head to my baby’s. I nuzzle against her, smelling her newborn scent.
“Becca,” Mama says, “Don’t.”
I kiss my newborn’s head.
The pinkish skin turns gray. Then green. It puckers and welts. Her arms flail, then change, webbing growing between her tiny fingers. Her legs fatten. Her head fuses to her tiny body. She stares at me a minute longer, then hops off my stomach.
She’s small for a baby, but large for a frog.
She hops twice, then splashes into the water.
Mama cries. Real tears. Heavy, sobs. Surrender.
I don’t know how I’ll explain this to Jackson, but I do know that if you remember it, it counts.
* * *
About the Author
Koji A. Dae is a queer American writer living long-term in Bulgaria with her husband, two kids, and cat. Her writing focuses on relationships, mental health, generational trauma, and parenting. More of her writing can be found in Clarkesworld, Apex, and her website: kojiadae.ink.