Water sloshes between my toes as we run through the rain to the overflowing street, where I clear the sewer drain with my naked foot, three-week-old Margot in her carrier under my slicker, slippery like skin. By the time we return to the house, the sump pump is beeping. Water runs along the basement floor and crashes against cement blocks. I stuff towels in the gaps under the kitchen and front doors and unplug electronics that I carry upstairs, pressed against my hollow womb.  

There, we sit on the master bed, waiting on Mark, who called an hour ago—just as the water climbed the front stoop—to inform me he had left work. Surely, he’d call if his Pontiac stalled out, I tell myself. He’d ask for help or wade to higher ground. 

My phone has one signal bar and ten-percent power left. The electricity went out a few hours ago, and I have no way to charge anything. We should’ve bought that generator, like Mark suggested, but our power never goes out. Besides, I don’t think it would work in a flood.

I don’t remember summer being so wet. Or flooding. Not in Ohio, the nearest dam ten miles away, the nearest ocean hundreds more. I don’t remember a summer as hot as this either, the vines creeping through windows, the corn toppling, their roots rotted out, no solid earth to cling to. 

Against my chest, Margot whimpers from discomfort. She can sense danger, smell stress on me like a dog. I tell myself to remain calm and breathe, but her wrap grows damp from the humidity and rubs against my C-section incision. I peel her from the carrier and pull up my shirt and down my bra, offering her my breast, now full and aching for her. She roots before latching. 

I’ll need to keep her warm and dry when the water reaches the second floor, not really a second floor or an upstairs, since the house is a split level. We might have to sit in the water some time before help arrives. If only I were still pregnant, I think, she wouldn’t have to suffer. 

I once watched a documentary about how our ancient ancestors might have lived in water, our ample fat and hairless skin evidence of it. But I’m not sure we’re made for water. Our fingers prune when submerged; their deep grooves channel water away for better grip. No sea mammal transforms like that. Dolphins and whales stay smooth and rubbery, their skin used to wetness.  

Rain falls in foggy sheets. I shiver despite the heat and humidity. My delivery wound throbs as Margot sucks as though beckoning her to return. I reach into my pants and scratch at the incision, catching an undissolved stitch with a fingernail. The threads should be gone by now, I think, pulling my sweats away and peering down into the darkness there at the purple line cutting through my pubic hair. One errant wire begs me to yank and cut it away. 

Margot full and my breast drained, I drape her over my shoulder, my cotton shirt covering her tiny feet. I wonder where Mark is, if he’ll come for us. Maybe, we can reach the neighbor, the kind of mother who’d lift a car or push a boulder to free her baby. She was a woman who’d somehow fight the amorphous, constant stream of water creeping under doors like a ghost. 

Margot cries once, a shrill, lip-shaking whine. She isn’t much of a sleeper or nurser. She cries often, her back arched in that frustrated C-shape. Mostly, we pace the halls together, her in the sling, wet and useless now, discarded on the soggy bed.

I pat her bottom, feeling her diaper soaked under my hand, and wade to her nursery, knee-deep water slowing my stride. The bin on a shelf under her changing table is submerged, and diapers swell and explode as they float away. I peel Margot’s own diaper from her and surrender it to my wake.  

My shirt, too, has gone damp. Under it, Margot pierces the rumbling, thunderous air with her howl. I have nothing left to warm us but my skin and hers. I climb atop the bed and peel my clothes away, my damp shirt, soaked pants, underwear and bra, so that we are both as naked as those once-water-sapiens, ready to swim. Margot on the bed watches me, her eyes full with tears. “No, honey,” I whisper. “No more crying.”

My surgical scar itches in the open air, and I scratch at it, my fingernails catching that stitch and yanking it loose. I pinch two fingernails at the thread and pull, feeling it tug at each point of insertion, then release in a satisfying pop. The incision opens, revealing a purple, fleshy pouch. I don’t think. I slip Margot’s head and body up and into that hole, her little feet hanging from me until I push on their soles. 

I feel her inside me now filling the void created when the doctor pulled her from me. She satiates a hunger I didn’t know I had. I press the incision closed, sealing her in, and her cry muffles and stops, becoming instead a soft, engine-like purr.  

Water laps at the mattress. The bedspread absorbs it and fills like a giant sponge. Margot inside me, I wade to the window and force it open to the pelting rain. Below, dark, angry water licks the siding. Mark isn’t coming. I could jump and swim, the nearest tree only a dozen or so yards away. 

I climb onto the windowsill and onto the roof, watching the maple tree’s limbs stretch in all directions. I could almost reach one, if it weren’t for the wind. It is our only chance. 

Holding my breath, I jump, feeling a surge of current and then stillness. I cup the water and pull back, then squeeze my legs together and do it all again. Pull, squeeze, pull, squeeze. My muscles feel sinuous in this struggle, these actions familiar. I was born to swim. 

Through the chaos, I spot the tree, solid, unmoving, and struggle toward it. Riptide tugs at my toes, pulling me backward. No! I want to scream, Let me swim! My voice will only fold into the waves. 

It is useless, fighting the current, and I am tired. So tired. I go limp, allowing the stream to carry me away. At least, I think as darkness closes in, Margot will stay safe and warm inside me, even as my corpse grows cold. There, she will swim, her body made for it. 

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Jody Gerbig lives in Columbus, Ohio, with her husband, young triplets, and too many pets. Her stories and essays appear in Litro, Columbus Monthly, Brevity, Ruminate, and elsewhere, and have been nominated for both a Pushcart and Best of the Net. Currently, she serves as a senior editor at Typehouse Magazine. Visit her at www.jodygerbig.com.