The closet of my cousin’s childhood bedroom is a portal to the afterlife. In the back, behind the packed mass of old clothes and heaps of shoes, there is a small door that leads to the attic crawlspace. We used to hide there when we were little. Now, she slips in and out with deceased relatives and family pets. They wait at the top of the stairs for me, seemingly confined to the second floor.
My old loves are the only ones who ascend the stairs with me. We hold hands and are never scared. Sometimes I know nothing of my current life. Sometimes I confess to them. I am a mother, now. I love another and we can’t be together. Still, they hold my hand and we walk up the stairs. There is a black, amorphous mass in the northeast corner of the bedroom that only I can see. The spirits and boys ignore it. It terrifies me to my core.
Since the birth of my daughter, the attic dreams have been augmented with hospital night-terrors. IV ports failing, multiple botched epidural attempts. The doctors refuse to sew me back up after the C-section. They discharge me from the hospital, and I find myself sitting at the bottom of the stairs leading to my cousin’s room. My intestines keep slipping out, slapping lukewarm against my feet. I peer inside the wound, my blackened womb.
I gather my innards with the help of a boy I once kissed. He tells me we have to come up with a plan to sew me back together. He helps me up the stairs and opens the door to my cousin’s room. I ask him the unanswerable:
Am I a portal through which new souls come into being? Are we connected through crawlspaces to the before-and-afterlife? Can you see the black form standing in the corner?
I will ask my cousin tonight. I will tell her I am a mother now.