Page 19 of You Weren’t Meant to Be Human

That’s how he ends up on the back porch with a peanut butter sandwich, while Stagger busies himself breaking down a pallet for firewood.

There are a few big wooden pallets in Tammy’s shed, for some reason—old people just find themselves in possession of random shit.

Nobody will need firewood for a moment, but it stores easier broken down, so Stagger is ripping apart the pallet with his hands and stacking the pieces neatly.

Sometimes, Stagger stops for a moment and watches the window to the guest bedroom. The curtains are drawn and there’s nothing to see, but he’s fixed on it.

Crane snorts at him. Gotta feel weird knowing there’s a baby on the way and it’s not even his.

“Little one,” Stagger says.

Crane nods. Yep.

Truth is, he’s strangely relieved. This whole mess is raising more questions than it’s answering—how did Hannah’s baby slip the hive?

Why doesn’t she get her own gross flesh guardian?

—but at least he’ll get to see what comes out of her.

Some curled-up grub the size of a fist. A bolus of larvae.

Whatever. No reason it wouldn’t be the same as what’s in him.

He’d like one piece of certainty, if the world didn’t mind.

“Okay?”

Okay , Crane signs.

The back door slaps shut, and Tammy steps out onto the porch with a glass of iced tea. She gives Stagger the stink eye, but folds up her creaky limbs to sit beside Crane on the dirty stairs, and spends a moment recovering from it by sighing and letting the breeze toss her straw-gray hair.

“That brute treating you alright?” she asks.

Crane isn’t sure if she’s referring to Levi or Stagger, so he makes a noncommittal noise.

“Mm. Dunno why I even bother asking.” She’s kidding, though, he thinks. “And when’s the last time you cut your hair. Look like a shaggy dog.”

Don’t remind him. A few more weeks of growth and he’ll start getting dysphoria about that too, but with everything going on, he’s lucky he’s brushing his teeth once a day, or showering at all.

He rolls his eyes and she seems to get the message.

She looks out over the yard, at the big rhododendron bush at the edge of her property where she buried the pistol that killed her husband.

That must’ve happened, what, forty years ago?

The worms have been here awhile.

Tammy says, “Sweetheart, can I be honest with you for a second?”

It’s not like he’s going to tell her no. She takes a sip of her iced tea.

“For the past two decades,” she says, “give or take, my job was to make sure that a single baby wasn’t born to the hives around here.”

Oh.

Crane is struck with belly-deep pain so sharp and sudden he almost doesn’t recognize it. He grasps for it, mentally fumbling like he always does with feelings.

“Babies are nothing but trouble for the worms,” Tammy says. “They’re a mouth to feed, they draw attention, they’re a liability. Plus, you know, sometimes they kill their mothers, and we can’t have that.”

Crane stares into the distance. At the dark tree line, where Washville devolves into wilderness.

“Didn’t happen all that often,” Tammy continues.

“We’re an antisocial bunch, ain’t we. Not one of us fit for wanting babies, let alone raising them.

But accidents happen. Bad things happen too.

And used to be that I could take money out of the till, bring them to a clinic, and pay under the table to make it all go away.

When that didn’t work, I found them an antibiotic and a muscle relaxer, got them stinking drunk, and dug in there myself with something sharp. ”

What the hell is she doing, then? Why is she still talking?

Why are they both just sitting here? They could sneak away from Levi and Stagger both, skip the alcohol, he’ll grit his teeth through a procedure in the kitchen.

Let her pull out whatever tools she uses, force open the cervix with whatever’s on hand, give him a rag to bite on.

Tammy must see all that on his face.

“A few months ago,” she says, “the worms told me to stop. Stop traveling, stop checking on girls, everything. My job was just to stay here with you.”

She purses her lips, sucks on her crooked teeth, can’t seem to get over the rancid taste of the words forming in her mouth.

“So first you, then her. Your brute shows up. The worms want whatever it is that’s inside you. I don’t—” She gestures. “I see the pieces, but can’t figure out what the hell to make of them. All I know is that I don’t like it.”

She says, “And I’d make it as right as I can, but I ain’t looking forward to dying.”

And then she’s getting up. Groaning as she goes, cursing her old knees and the weather and the rain that’s just passed through.

All this time Tammy has been getting rid of babies, and she won’t do it for him. Not for the kid she took under her wing, considers more of her child than her actual daughter. Because the hive told her no.

“Oh,” Tammy says with a snort. “How long you been there, Jess?”

Jess, on the other side of the screen door, shrugs. “Not long,” she says, but even Crane can tell that’s a lie.

First-time births take forever. Muscles struggle, organs refuse to stretch, the cervix thins weakly like it isn’t quite sure if this is what it’s supposed to do.

When Hannah finally starts pushing in earnest—when her body’s wrenched itself open enough to allow it—she’s stumbled her way out of a hot shower, towel wrapped desperately around her shoulders in an attempt to preserve what’s left of her modesty. Her wet braid smears down the center of her back.

“I can feel it,” she whimpers, reaching between her legs to plug it up and make it stop.

Jess fetches warm water and more washcloths. Tammy reminds her to breathe. Hannah stares at the bed, then asks if she should get up there and lie down on her back, because that’s what they do on TV. Is that the right thing to do?

It’s a demeaning position, Crane thinks. And counterintuitive. Going against gravity.

Tammy says, “This ain’t no hospital. You can push this out standing, if it’s easier.”

Hannah does decide on standing. Crane can’t blame her; there’s a sort of defiance to insisting on staying upright though the pain. But the windowsills are too narrow to brace herself on, the nightstand too low, the bed too soft to offer any real support.

Alright. Crane gets Hannah’s attention and gestures her to him. He’ll hold her up. Come on, come here.

She studies him. The gears in her head turn for a moment, then whatever she’s weighing must come out on the side of yes because she steps closer, lets Crane gather her up, braces herself against his chest. She fits neatly under his chin.

She’s burning hot. He’s got her. It’s okay.

The next wave of contractions seizes her muscles and her moan rattles his teeth.

“Push,” Tammy says.

There are so many ways this could go wrong. Sophie was obsessed with them all. Women used to write wills before childbirth. Tearing, hemorrhage, infection; try not to picture this child bleeding out onto the tarp. Try not to think about the stained towels in Tammy’s arms.

Hannah wails into his shirt, and he cradles the back of her head like a newborn.

“Almost there,” Jess whispers as Tammy reaches down to check her progress. “It’s almost over.”

If there’s one silver lining for Hannah, it’s that whatever’s in there will be smaller. He’s unsure if that means it’ll hurt any less, but logically, that follows. He doesn’t know enough to make a decent guess.

But he can’t help imagining himself in her position.

Him, kneeling on the floor or braced against someone’s chest. Him , breathing through contractions.

Him , feeling the fetus bearing down between his legs.

After all he’s done to be a man, something as tiny and routine as a sperm meeting an egg is going to undo it all and leave him pushing something out of his cunt on the floor.

“One more time,” Tammy says. “Just push one more time.”

“I can’t,” Hannah pleads.

“Yes, you can.”

“We’re here,” Jess says.

It’s born with a splatter of fluid and flurry of movement. Crane doesn’t have the line of sight, but he can feel it in the way Hannah’s body nearly gives out from under her. In the birth video he watched in sophomore year health class, a baby unceremoniously falls out once it hits a certain point.

“Here,” Jess says. “Scissors.”

It’s quiet now. No crying. Just the crinkling of the plastic sheet, Hannah’s crying, the rattle of the AC in the living room.

Hannah goes to move, but Crane pins her tight. Don’t look.

Silence.

Stillness.

Tammy reaches up to touch Hannah’s leg. “Do you want to see it?”

In Crane’s arms, Hannah thinks. She sniffles. She wipes her eyes, buries herself deeper into Crane’s chest like she can disappear there.

She says, “No.”

“Hmm.” A plastic bag rustles. Over Hannah’s shoulder, he catches a glimpse of Tammy tying a bundle tight with two sharp movements. The same way an old farm woman would tie up kittens meant to be drowned in the river. “Jess, Crane, get this out of my house.”