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Waiting LitChart
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Waiting
work after having her first child; and “Laminex and Mirrors” is
INTR
INTRODUCTION
ODUCTION about a young woman dealing with professional standards that
keep her and her fellow hospital employees from connecting
BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OF CATE KENNEDY with patients. As a writer of realist short fiction, Kennedy pays
Kennedy was born in the United Kingdom and spent her close attention to the mundane nature of everyday life. In this
childhood traveling between various Australian states and the sense, her stories can be compared to that of other authors like
U.K., due to her father being in the Air Force. After studying at Raymond Carver and John Steinbeck. She has also mentioned
the Canberra College of Advanced Education (which later the Russian author Anton Chekhov in talking about her own
became the University of Canberra) and the Australian work. At the time Kennedy published her first short story
National University, she worked as a freelance writer, a teacher, collection Dark Roots in 2006, there were almost no short story
and a community arts worker. In the 1990s, she spent two collections being published in Australia; most
years as a volunteer teaching reading and writing in central authors—including her—were publishing individual stories for
Mexico. This experience partially inspired 2001’s Signs of Other competitions. Since then, a number of Australian short story
Fires, her first poetry collection. She has since published several writers have risen to prominence and published award-winning
other volumes of poetry, one novel, and two short story collections, including Ceridwen Dovey (Only the Animals) and
collections, Dark Roots and Lik
Likee a House on Fir
Firee. Many of her Debra Adelaide (Letter to George Clooney).
stories were first published individually in magazines and
newspapers. All of her short story and poetry collections have KEY FACTS
won numerous awards and been nominated for many more.
Kennedy lives in Victoria, Australia. • Full Title: “Waiting”
• When Written: 2009
HISTORICAL CONTEXT • Where Written: Victoria, Australia
In dealing with both the personal experience of pregnancy loss • When Published: “Waiting” was first published in 2009. It
and the medical aspects of diagnosing a miscarriage, “Waiting” was later included in the 2012 collection Like A House On
evokes a shift in how people talk about and diagnose Fire.
miscarriages. Before medical professionals began using • Literary Period: Contemporary
ultrasounds in the 1970s and 1980s, many pregnant people • Genre: Realist Short Story
miscarried before they even knew they were pregnant. Prior to
• Setting: An Australian public hospital
this point, miscarriages were often framed as a “blessing in
disguise” because of the belief that something must have been • Climax: The narrator mentally tells Pete to give up and let
wrong with the fetus. It wasn’t until the 1980s that doctors the cows eat their struggling wheat crop
began to acknowledge and validate that miscarrying can be a • Antagonist: Miscarriages, the callous and unfeeling male
traumatic experience, emotionally in addition to physically. ultrasound techs, and the forces of nature
Today, medical organizations believe that somewhere between • Point of View: First Person
10 and 20% of pregnancies end in miscarriage—though they
also suspect that the total rate might be even higher, given that EXTRA CREDIT
some pregnancies end before they’re detected. Most people Pregnancy Tests. While the narrator’s mention of the “two blue
miscarry before the 12th week of pregnancy. Experiencing lines” may be well-known shorthand for a positive result on a
multiple miscarriages like the narrator in the story is known as modern at-home pregnancy test, testing for pregnancy hasn’t
recurrent pregnancy loss, and the American College of always been so simple. From the 1930s through the 1950s, a
Obstetricians and Gynecologists state that it affects only about pregnancy test involved injecting a female lab animal with a
1% of women. In 50 to 75% of cases, doctors are unable to woman’s urine to see if the animal ovulated. The discovery that
conclusively identify a cause. scientists could use Xenopus toads was revolutionary, as they
didn’t have to kill and dissect the toads to check for
RELATED LITERARY WORKS ovulation—the test was positive if the toad laid eggs.
A number of Kennedy’s stories tackle issues of parenthood,
family life, or the process of receiving medical care. “Tender,” for
instance, takes place on the night before a woman’s scheduled
biopsy; “Cake” follows a young woman on her first day back to
Waiting Quotes Give us some privacy, says the caption, and I think, Lady, if
The horoscope page lying limp in my hands tells me you want privacy, stop cashing the cheques. Stop posing there
everything will align for me at a time I least expect it, so I flip with your manicured hand on your skinny hip. If you sincerely want
over to the page that’s about cakes and slices ideal for school the world to leave you alone until it forgets all about you, come and
lunches, then back again [...] live at my place.
Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker) Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker)
going on in this celebrity’s life and with her body. By Page Number: 198
contrast, the narrator implies that where she lives
(presumably, a farm in rural Australia), no one cares about Explanation and Analysis
her or even remembers she exists. Her commentary here As the narrator describes the magazines on offer in the
reveals her sense that people see her as unimportant and hospital waiting area, she’s surprised that other waiting
unworthy of attention; in the medical context, this will mean patients have gone through and filled out all the word
that her caregivers consistently overlook her suffering and puzzles in the magazines. It presumably strikes her as odd
give her substandard care. that, in a waiting room meant for adult women, these easy
It’s also noteworthy that the celebrity’s hypocrisy seems to puzzles, made at a child’s level, are all filled out.
irk the narrator. After all, this woman is profiting from all But the narrator quickly explains this phenomenon, and her
this media attention and then claiming not to want it. When explanation reveals her longing for sense in a world that
the narrator says that if the celebrity truly wants privacy, seems senseless. For women like her, who are anxiously
then she should stop cashing checks and stop maintaining a awaiting their appointments, seeing a recognizable word
photo-ready body (manicured hands, skinny hips), she’s emerge from a chaotic jumble of letters gives them a sense
implying that the narrator’s plea for privacy is disingenuous; of order, hope, and control. Presumably, while awaiting an
of course this woman wants the money and the attention, ultrasound that could bring either joyful or devastating
no matter what she claims in the caption. After all, to the news, these women feel like their own lives are
narrator, nobody in their right mind would want to feel as unpredictable and jumbled, and they’re hoping that the
lonely and cash strapped as the narrator does. ultrasound—like the word emerging from the word
But while the narrator is making a good point, it’s worth also search—will provide the order and sense that they seek.
considering the celebrity’s point of view. In another These women can’t control whether or not they get bad
magazine, the narrator saw a zoomed-in picture of that news about their pregnancies, but they can find all the
celebrity’s thigh, inviting speculation about whether she has words hidden in the word search. The puzzles, then, provide
cellulite. It’s no doubt frustrating for this woman that people the waiting patients the sense that if they try hard enough,
pore over every photo of her, looking for flaws to call out in they can make their lives make sense.
front of everyone. And if she doesn’t submit to this sexist It’s also worth paying attention to the language Cate
scrutiny of her body, she’ll lose her celebrity status and the Kennedy uses. Saying that the waiting patients are “hunting”
money that comes with it. So this passage subtly points out the words allows the patients to step into a role with some
the double-bind that women are in. The celebrity wants power. In contrast, a lot “prey[s]” on these women’s minds.
privacy from the vultures inspecting her cellulite, but she This casts the patients themselves as the prey—possibly, as
also presumably likes the freedom and status that her the prey of the natural world, which can change the course
money and fame provide. Meanwhile, the narrator has her of their pregnancies (and therefore their lives) in an instant.
privacy, but it feels to her like she has so much privacy that And while these patients may be able to feel more in control
she barely exists—nobody pays attention to her, good or by making sense out of the word puzzles, they’re
bad, particularly as a female patient in a healthcare system nevertheless still at the mercy of nature.
that seems not to know how to care for women.
Related Themes:
Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker)
Related Symbols:
Related Themes:
She moved the transducer and gazed at the screen and Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker)
then her hand came out and squeezed my leg and she
looked at me and said, I’m so sorry, I can’t see a heartbeat. Related Themes:
Her hand there for comfort. Warmth and pulse flowing
between us, skin to skin. Related Symbols:
schedule—much like the narrator inevitably miscarries doctor doesn’t have to do the hard work of attending to the
whenever she gets pregnant. Similarly, insisting that her narrator’s emotional needs. It’s possible that the narrator’s
symptoms are “Evaporating like a rainless cloud” speaks to hospital relies on pamphlets because it’s a public
her sense of barrenness and powerlessness. Her womb, like institution—there might not be the time, money, or staffing
the land under that cloud, is dry and barren—and nature to provide more individualized care. But still, this
won’t cooperate and let her to carry a pregnancy to term. impersonal care clearly hurts the narrator who rarely feels
This imagery of the tides and the rainless cloud link water to that her medical providers see her as a human being or
the relentless cruelty of nature. In this light, the narrator’s recognize her pain.
description of her own heart as a “shallow dish of water” To make matters worse, the pamphlets totally ignore that
suggests that this destructive water is within her and might the narrator isn’t the only one trying to have a baby and
spill over at any moment, wrecking her life. Containing the suffering as a result of the miscarriages; her husband
water in a shallow dish speaks to how hard the narrator suffers, too. By ignoring Pete’s pain, the pamphlets actually
tries to hold everything together in the face of tragedy and place even more responsibility on the narrator for managing
how doomed that effort sometimes feels. the fallout of her miscarriages, since she now has to figure
Finally, using the word “estuarine” speaks to the in-between out all by herself what Pete might be feeling and how she
state of the narrator’s pregnancy. An estuary is where a might help him cope. In other words, not only is nobody
river meets the sea; water there is a mix of salt and helping her grieve, but she also has no roadmap for how to
freshwater. Right now, the narrator is technically still help her husband, which she seems to believe is her
pregnant since the fetus is still inside of her, but she doesn’t responsibility.
believe it’s still alive. Thus, she sees her body as existing in Noting that Pete is “worn down […] almost to the point of
the same kind of in-between place as an estuary, where slippage, like a stripped screw” makes it clear that this is
she’s not pregnant, but she’s not not pregnant either. extremely difficult for him. Pete is trying to hold their lives
together by acting like a screw, which is meant to securely
join boards to one another. But a stripped screw (one whose
grooves are worn down) can’t hold, implying that Pete is
It’s funny, in the pamphlets they hand you they talk about
struggling to keep everything together. This evokes the
giving yourself permission to grieve and taking time for
narrator’s previous comment that her heart is a “shallow
yourself, but they never talk much about your partner. I’m not
dish of water” that she’s straining to keep from tipping over.
pretending I know what it’s like for him, but I look at his face
It's clear that both the narrator and Pete are working really
and I can see that he’s worn down as it is, almost to the point of
hard to keep tragedy from overwhelming them, but like a
slippage, like a stripped screw.
stripped screw or a precarious bowl, it’s not clear how long
their efforts can last.
Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Pete
This sense of how much Pete and the narrator are
struggling makes the pamphlets even more profane. It
Related Themes:
seems that if either of them had any support at all, they
Page Number: 200-01 might be able to function better in all aspects of their lives.
But by ignoring how miscarriages affect both partners, the
Explanation and Analysis medical system leaves them on their own to figure out how
As the narrator discusses how mundane and routine her to get through this.
miscarriage care has become, she notes that the pamphlets
she regularly receives imply that she’s the only one who
matters—even though Pete is struggling with the I’ve watched him out there some mornings, stooping
miscarriages as well. down, looking at the stalks, wondering where the point of
The simple fact that the narrator receives these pamphlets non-recovery is, where it comes and what you do once you’ve
speaks to how impersonal and removed her medical care is. decided. So this time I spared him. Kept the news of those two
Instead of having conversations with her doctor about the blue lines on the test to myself. I look at the calendar and think
emotional toll of these miscarriages or possibly being of him out there on the tractor sowing that wheat, ten weeks
referred to a mental health provider, the narrator receives ago to the day.
pamphlets. Giving out pamphlets means that the narrator’s
Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Pete condemns herself to going through this painful ordeal
entirely on her own.
Related Themes:
Related Symbols:
Understand, I’m not a martyr.
Page Number: 201
Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Pete
Explanation and Analysis
In this passage, the narrator explains her choice to keep her Related Themes:
pregnancy a secret: Pete’s crop of wheat is failing, which is
already hard on him, and she didn’t want to overwhelm him Page Number: 201
by getting his hopes up about this pregnancy. Implicitly, this Explanation and Analysis
suggests that she believes that she’ll never carry a
pregnancy to term, since she kept the pregnancy from Pete After explaining why she chose to keep her most recent
under the assumption that she would inevitably miscarry. pregnancy a secret from Pete, the narrator insists that she’s
not a martyr. This implies that the narrator doesn’t think
This passage firmly establishes the wheat as a symbol for that she’s sacrificing herself to spare him, but that doesn’t
the narrator’s pregnancy. She states earlier in the story that seem like truth: after all, she has chosen to suffer alone
her pregnancy is currently at about 10 weeks, which means instead of burdening Pete with her suspicion that her
that she would’ve conceived the same week that Pete pregnancy is lost. So while she might not think of herself as
planted his wheat. And in the present, both Pete and the a martyr, she’s still making things harder for herself in an
narrator are getting ready to accept that neither the wheat attempt to make things easier for Pete.
nor her pregnancy are going to be successful. They’re both
failing at the same time. The story makes quite clear that while a miscarriage is
painful under any circumstances, the narrator’s grief is even
The way that the narrator describes watching Pete and then worse when she feels alone. This is apparent when her
choosing to keep this secret illustrates how deeply she loves doctors fail to acknowledge her humanity or suffering,
him. It must be painful for her to watch Pete care for his instead treating her ultrasounds as routine medical
failing crop. Though the story offers little information about procedures with no emotional weight. And, as the narrator
how the farm is doing, it’s reasonable to assume that Pete later reveals, the time that Pete got into her hospital bed
needs this wheat to survive in order to be financially with her after a miscarriage offered her great comfort
successful. Losing it, then, isn’t just a blow to Pete’s ego; it because it made her feel that he understood her. So it seems
will likely have dire consequences for his family and his likely that, if the narrator told Pete about her pregnancy and
business. Seeing him grapple with this is clearly difficult for her suspicion that it is lost, he would comfort her again,
the narrator, so this is why she chooses to “spare” him. By easing her grief by helping her feel less alone. In this light,
using the word “spare” to describe keeping her pregnancy a even if the narrator insists that she’s not sacrificing her own
secret, she shows that she’s doing him a kindness. It would, well-being for Pete’s benefit, that’s exactly what she’s doing;
she seems to believe, be too painful for Pete to have to she’s choosing to carry both her and Pete’s share of the
watch her spend a few short months pregnant, only to see grief, simply to spare him suffering. By refusing to call
her miscarry again. herself a martyr, then, the narrator is denying the
This passage also suggests that in some ways, both the significance of her own suffering, insisting that making
narrator and Pete are lonely. The narrator describes herself grieve alone doesn’t rise to the level of true sacrifice.
watching Pete in the fields from a distance, which suggests It’s also possible, however, to read this situation in a
that she doesn’t play an active role in his work. Where the different way. Later, the narrator will describe a moment
wheat is concerned, Pete is on his own, even if the narrator after a miscarriage when she thought Pete was going to say
cares about his success and his heartache. Then, when the something and she closed her eyes to brace for it, implying
narrator thinks about her pregnancy, she also feels alone. In that she thought he would say something painful. It seems
the past, Pete has supported her through pregnancies and that she thought he might be ending their marriage,
miscarriages, but this time he doesn’t know, so the narrator presumably because she couldn’t carry the child he wanted.
experiences her symptoms and her grief all alone. She may If the narrator does believe that Pete might leave her due to
be trying to spare Pete some sadness, but by doing so, she
her struggles with fertility, then her choice not to tell him ring, etc.) with feeling powerless to change or control the
about the pregnancy might be, in part, an act of self- future. Until this moment, rubbing has seemed solely a
preservation. After all, if she thinks he’s on the brink of gesture of anxiety, a nervous tic when things seem bad. But
leaving, then disappointing him with yet another here, Pete rubbing the narrator’s arm shifts the meaning of
miscarriage might send him over the edge. So maybe when this gesture. Yes, it’s probably a self-soothing behavior, a
the narrator says that she’s not a martyr, she’s not papering sign of Pete’s grief over the miscarriage and perhaps his
over her own suffering, but rather hinting that her choice nervousness that the narrator won’t be able to carry to
was about more than she has admitted outright. The story term in the future. But it’s also an act of love and care,
provides no conclusion about this, so it’s possible to read showing the narrator that Pete is there for her in this
this either way. horrible moment. The narrator underscores how this
rubbing is both anxious and compassionate when she talks
about marriage. First, she notes that marriage “wears us
thin”—that is, that marriage can take a toll on couples,
My husband is an undemonstrative man and that gesture,
as he fitted his warm arms and legs around me in the possibly through pain and grief. Then, she notes that
narrow bed, made me see how much he understood. I woke up marriage “knocks the edges off us,” implying that marriage
can also comfort and improve people. It might take the edge
in the night and felt his thumb, as he slept, absently rubbing the
off their pain, for instance, by giving them a partner with
skin on my own arm. Oh, it wears us thin, marriage. It knocks
which to share life’s tragedies.
the edges off us.
the rug out from under us,” she says, suggesting that losing a destruction. The wheat crop is still a little green, indicating
pregnancy leaves the narrator and Pete lying flat on their that it isn’t dead yet, but the dry heat is expected to
backs with no warning. It then makes them “eat its dust” and continue long enough to fully kill it—there’s no way the
“carv[es] its erosion gullies through us,” showing how wheat can survive. Similarly, the narrator believes that her
destructive and violent this process feels. The language of fetus has already died, but she hasn’t yet miscarried, so it’s
erosion is particularly important—erosion usually takes time still inside of her. In this way, both the pregnancy and the
to happen, so this speaks to the cumulative effects of wheat still exist, but they clearly aren’t viable long term. It’s
miscarrying again and again, both on the narrator’s body this non-viability that hurts Pete so much; the “hopeful
and mind. Overall, this passage ties miscarriage to the greenness” now feels like a taunt, a reminder of hope when
narrator’s sense that all of nature is out to get her, and it the outcome is clearly tragedy. This offers a clue about the
shows how she has experienced her miscarriages as violent narrator’s decision not to tell him she was pregnant; she
attacks from the natural world. apparently thinks he couldn’t bear the false hope of another
When the narrator mentions “waiting for something pregnancy either.
comprehensible to jump out of this garbled mess,” she When Pete finally opens the gate to let the cattle eat the
harkens back to the word puzzles she described in the wheat, it’s analogous to miscarrying—the moment when this
story’s first paragraphs. For hospital patients awaiting an limbo state gives way to destruction. The narrator frames
appointment, it was comforting to see recognizable words this as the pragmatic choice. Instead of dwelling in their
appear from a jumble of nonsense letters—this mirrored the grief, she encourages him (in her mind) to use the wheat in
patients’ hope that, despite their feeling of powerlessness, the only way they can: feeding it to the cows before it fully
order and sense would soon appear in their lives. Now, the dies. This is a difficult decision for Pete, but the narrator
narrator is hoping that “this garbled mess” of her life is implies that it’s the correct, forward-thinking choice, the
something akin to a word search. Hopefully, she’ll one day way to make the best out of a bad situation. It’s similar to
be able to make sense of what’s happened to her—but the how she will soon accept letting her miscarriage take the
story never indicates whether or not she will. “natural course.”
It’s also significant to note that this is a moment of intense
suffering for the narrator (she’s about to confirm, once
He’s making the decision to open the gate into the pasture again, that her baby died), and yet her focus is on Pete’s
with its desiccated, knee-high wheat. Can’t stand its grief rather than her own. This shows how empathetic and
hopeful greenness struggling in that parched ground, knowing loving the narrator is with Pete, since his grief seems to
what three more days of this heat are going to do. matter more than her own in this moment. On the other
hand, though, it’s possible that she’s simply ignoring her
Let it go. Let the cows eat it.
own suffering because acknowledging it would be too much
to bear. Since the narrator doesn’t actually know what Pete
Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Pete is doing in this moment (this story about the wheat is all in
her mind), it’s plausible to read this not as an act of empathy
Related Themes: exactly, but as a projection of her own emotions onto Pete.
In other words, maybe she invented this story about Pete as
Related Symbols: a way to process her own grief at a distance, without
acknowledging that she’s describing herself.
Page Number: 203
WAITING
The horoscopes in a magazine tell the narrator that “everything The horoscope’s cryptic message proposes, right from the beginning,
will align for [her] at a time [she] least expect[s] it,” so she flips that it’s impossible for people to control what, how, and when things
to an article about school lunches, then to an enlarged photo of happen to them—instead, they’re powerless and simply have to wait
a celebrity’s thigh. The photo is so blown up that it’s hard to tell for everything to “align.” The language of “alignment” suggests a
if the thigh has cellulite or a shadow. moment of order emerging from chaos (as in, a jumbled mess sorting
itself into a line), and the desire to find order in chaos is something
that plagues the narrator throughout the story. The narrator will
soon reveal that she is in a hospital waiting room, trying to confirm
that she miscarried yet again, so it’s understandable why she might
skip past the school lunches article. It may be too painful to be
confronted with the article when she doesn’t have a child to pack
lunches for. Finally, the enlarged photo of the thigh shows the cruel
way in which people examine women’s bodies, which will reappear
in the story when the narrator tells of her terrible experiences
getting ultrasounds.
On the table next to the narrator is another magazine, slightly The celebrity is the narrator’s opposite—while the narrator implies
more recent, with the same celebrity on the cover—this time, that she’s working-class, the celebrity is wealthy; while the narrator
she’s asking for privacy. If the celebrity wants privacy, the goes unnoticed, the celebrity is smothered with attention. This
narrator thinks, she ought to stop posing in swimsuits and passage implies that the narrator doesn’t have much sympathy for
cashing the checks. If she really wants to be left alone or the celebrity, since she benefits from all the publicity, good and bad.
forgotten, the narrator suggests that the celebrity “come and By contrast, the narrator implies that she herself has so much
live at my place.” privacy that she’s actually suffering—she’s alone and unnoticed with
no one to comfort her, even as she waits to receive devastating
news. The narrator’s tongue-in-cheek invitation to “live at my place”
is, in part, a nod to her class background—where the narrator lives
(presumably, rural Australia), it’s easy to slip into obscurity. It’s also
a subtle acknowledgement of her loneliness, although she doesn’t
say so outright.
Once they call the narrator’s name, she’ll find out if she has the This passage clarifies for the first time exactly what is going on: the
hospital’s only woman staffer or one of its four men. If she has implication is that the narrator already suspects that her pregnancy
the woman, she’ll feel grateful for this “small mercy.” Whenever is not viable, and she’s having an ultrasound to confirm that the
she gets the men, they squirt the gel on, apologize that it’s cold, baby has died. Compounding how devastating this is, it seems to
and stare intently at the screen while they move the transducer have happened to her at least several times before. The narrator’s
around. They never turn the screen around to the narrator, description of the male techs casts them as cold and distant. They
because they’ve read the ultrasound form and they know what refuse to acknowledge her humanity or make her feel less
she’s here to find out. No matter how hard she stares at them, alone—even by doing simple things like making eye contact with her
they almost never meet her eye. in a moment of nervousness and grief. She frames their terrible
bedside manner as a result of their gender (after all, getting the
woman would be a “small mercy,” implying that the woman might
help lessen the narrator’s grief). But as men, these techs seem not to
understand her experience at all or care about her pain, which
makes her feel even more alone.
Whenever the narrator “break[s]” and asks if it’s still alive, the It’s telling that the narrator considers it “break[ing]” to ask if the
male techs say only what they’ve been taught to say: that the fetus is still alive—this suggests her belief that she cannot express
doctor will discuss the results. This detachment is ironic, since her nervousness or pain. But to feel afraid of asking such an
they’re currently looking inside her body. They’re always so essential question shows how alienating this hospital experience is,
cold and professional as they study the screen, watching the making an already traumatic situation even worse. While the techs’
“black landmass” that is her body while a “cyclone gather[s] its cold, clinical manner may be very well be a requirement of the job, it
bleary force offshore.” shows a systemic disregard for the experiences and pain of female
patients. In this passage, the narrator uses imagery that compares
her body to land and her imminent miscarriage to a cyclone about
to hit the shore. This shows that she thinks of herself as a victim of
nature’s destructive power, and that she’s powerless to stop these
miscarriages from coming and wreaking havoc on her life.
The last three ultrasounds were with men, though, so the In this passage, the narrator shows that devastating ultrasound
narrator is used to it. Every time, she waits to “have her fears results have become regular occurrences for her. It seems that she’s
confirmed,” either outright or when the techs brush her off. trying to be nonchalant, walking readers through the logistics of
Then, she goes back to the waiting room, gets her printed what happens each time she gets terrible news about her
report, and pays for the procedure. After she receives her pregnancy, but never once saying how it makes her feel. This is, of
Medicare refund, the ultrasound costs $75. course, a conspicuous omission, and her refusal or inability to talk
about her grief implies its enormity. The narrator will later stress
how pragmatic she is, and here her pragmatism seems to be simply
an attempt to push grief from her mind so it doesn’t overwhelm her.
The narrator no longer takes home the ultrasound films—at one The techs’ professionalism keeps them from treating the narrator
point, a tech even told her that there was “Nothing to see [...] It’s kindly and acknowledging her pain. Suggesting that there’s “nothing
so tiny in these early stages.” But once, the receptionist gave the to see” because the fetus is so tiny in the first trimester of pregnancy
narrator a DVD in addition to the receipt. The receptionist may be an attempt at comfort, but if it is, it falls flat. Instead of
clearly didn’t read the report—she must’ve thought that the comforting her, it makes it seem as though she doesn’t have any
narrator would go home to watch a healthy baby bouncing right to grieve the miscarriage. Then, to make things even worse, the
inside of her. front office staff ends up behaving cruelly because they don’t take
the time to read the reports. This, again, may reflect that this is a
public hospital that’s trying to get through a high volume of patients
and doesn’t have time for individualized care. But the fact that
nobody is taking the time to connect with her as a person in this
awful moment clearly contributes to her suffering.
These days, the narrator’s doctor just fills out a request form The fact that the narrator’s doctor no longer requires appointments
for the ultrasound without needing an appointment. And today, to approve an ultrasound drives home how inevitable and routine
the narrator told Pete that she was going shopping; he has these repeated miscarriages have begun to feel. And the fact that
enough to worry about right now. The pamphlets the doctors she has only pamphlets to help her grieve shows how impersonal
send home with her talk a lot about giving herself time to her medical care has been. The narrator implies that she hasn’t told
grieve, but they never mention how a miscarriage affects a Pete what’s going on because she doesn’t want to worry him when
person’s partner. She can tell that Pete is “worn down” already. he’s already fretting over his failing crop. But she also seems subtly
He put in a crop of wheat recently, hoping the weather would to link her choice not to tell him to the fact that her doctors (and
break, but it hasn’t. their pamphlets) don’t give her any information on how Pete might
be affected or how to help him grieve. Her medical providers don’t
acknowledge that he’s also trying to have a baby and that he might
need help processing these losses—something that seems confirmed
in the narrator’s sense that Pete is “worn down.” It’s sad that nobody
can help the narrator address this with Pete, so she avoids it
altogether and isolates herself in her grief.
The narrator clarifies that she’s not a martyr. When she and Insisting that she’s not a martyr suggests that the narrator doesn’t
Pete married, her mother passed down her grandmother’s think she’s really sacrificing that much by not telling Pete—but it’s
wedding ring. The back of the ring is worn thin because her not clear readers should believe her. The narrator is clearly upset
grandmother nervously rubbed it while she waited for her and grieving, which is evident in her almost hollow tone and her
husband to finish his shifts in the mines. These days, the sense of fear and hopelessness. Presumably, she would suffer less if
narrator does the same thing. Pete could help her grieve, so she has sacrificed herself in a
martyrlike way to protect him. Rubbing the wedding ring just like
her grandmother did also suggests that the narrator feels powerless.
Like her grandmother—who couldn’t guarantee that her husband
would return from work unscathed—the narrator can’t guarantee
that she’ll carry a pregnancy to term or that Pete’s crops will
succeed. All she can do is wait.
Last March, the narrator made it to 14 weeks. Pete had just Most miscarriages happen before 12 weeks of pregnancy, which is
started to look more relaxed when one day, while doing likely why Pete thought he could relax—it seemed as though the
laundry, she felt “that tide ebbing again.” She was powerless to narrator was out of the woods this time and might actually carry
stop it. the baby to term. Referring to miscarrying as an “ebbing tide” that
the narrator couldn’t stop is another way for the narrator to show
that she feels powerless in the face of unexplainable natural events.
Even when things seem like they’re going her way, nature can still
step in and ruin it.
That night, the narrator woke up to Pete rubbing her arm as he Throughout the story, the narrator associates nervously rubbing
slept. Marriage, the narrator reflects, “wears us thin” and something (such as her wedding ring or the countertop) with her
“knocks the edges off us.” But still, she’s not a martyr. Instead, sense of powerlessness over impending disaster. But here, that same
she’s just someone who does what needs to be done. She kind of rubbing is also an act of care: Pete rubbing her arm in his
learned this from Pete. sleep is both a nervous gesture born from fear and grief, and also a
way to comfort the narrator. This duality between care and pain is
also evident in the narrator’s framing of marriage as something that
both “wears us thin” (presumably through difficulty) and “knocks the
edges off of us” (“taking the edge off” means lessening a person’s
nerves or suffering). Marriage, then, seems to simultaneously strain
people and comfort them. The narrator’s subsequent statement
that she isn’t a martyr implies that she’s not sacrificing her own
well-being to help her husband, but that’s actually exactly what she
seems to be doing. Instead of accepting that marriage is always
simultaneously hard and rewarding, she wants to accept more than
her share of hardship so her husband can have more than his share
of comfort.
The narrator knows that her doctor will offer her a procedure Letting the pregnancy take its “natural course” means allowing the
to clear her uterus or give her the option to “let things take narrator to miscarry on her own time, rather than clearing her
their natural course.” She’ll choose the natural course, since it’ll uterus at the hospital. This again associates miscarriages with
be harder to explain away a hospital procedure. However, she’s nature, showing how the narrator feels that nature is out to destroy
still baffled by “Nature’s way.” She’s experienced it many times her. The narrator’s description of nature as carving “erosion gullies”
now. It carves “erosion gullies through us” and makes her “eat through her and making her “eat its dust” is one of the clearest
its dust.” She’s still waiting for something to appear out “this indicators of how out-of-control and threatening she finds her
garbled mess” and suddenly make sense. whole life—it seems like she’s talking about more than just her
miscarriage now, since she’s using the pronoun “us” and speaking in
general terms. In this moment, like in the moment at the beginning
with the word searches, she’s hoping that out of all of this chaos,
something will finally start to make sense. This is, in part, the
“waiting” to which the title refers—she’s both waiting for her
appointment and waiting for something to finally go her way. But
her feeling that she has to simply wait shows her powerlessness; she
doesn’t feel like she can affect her fate, only accept it and hope for
something better.
The real “natural course” is the fact that now, a polite male By calling the appearance of the radiographer the “natural course,”
radiographer is calling the narrator’s name. She walks toward the narrator frames the hospital as being just as cyclical and
the examination room, counting her steps and thinking about harmful as nature itself. She knows what the ultrasound tech is
the 10 steps to a “new me” or to a flatter stomach. going to find, and she knows exactly how dehumanizing and
upsetting her appointment is going to be. As she walks to the exam
room, she reveals just how bitter she feels about the women’s
magazines in the waiting room. Each literal step she takes towards
her ultrasound is, like the articles say, a step towards a “new
me”—but not the “new me” that she wants, in which she has a
healthy pregnancy. Furthermore, the magazines’ focus on a flatter
stomach feels perverse to her, since all she wants is a big stomach in
which she’s carrying a healthy baby to term. In this way, the
magazines—like the hospital overall—do not understand her and
therefore magnify her experience of grief.
The narrator knows what Pete needs—and she knows she can’t The narrator does not say outright what it is that Pete needs,
give it to him. She can see it in the “thwarted tenderness” of him perhaps because it’s too painful for her to explicitly state—but she’s
scratching the dog’s head. The “heavy dish of water” in her clearly implying that he wants a baby and it seems like she won’t be
chest feels like it’s starting to tip, and it hurts to hold it steady. able to have one. When she describes the “thwarted tenderness” of
She thinks of Pete wiping his forehead with his hat and then him petting the dog, she’s implying that this love is meant for a baby
putting it back on and straightening his back, ready to do what and the dog is just a placeholder. Seeing this hurts her so much that
has to be done next. she can barely hold it together. Again, she uses the imagery of a
precarious “dish of water” inside her chest to describe the feeling
that everything is about to fall apart, and she’s trying so hard to
keep this from happening that it’s hurting her. But when she thinks
of Pete straightening his back and moving on to the next task after
losing his wheat, she seems to be taking strength. Even though he
doesn’t know what she’s going through, he’s trying to hold it
together, too, which perhaps makes her feel less alone.