The Weeping Woman

By Libby Brewer '25

The mid afternoon air was cooler than normal. Late March had been unusually cool, relatively speaking, it was just cold enough to want a jacket when you left your house. The apartment complex in Lian Jiang China was patiently waiting for warmer air to hit the shoreline. The last of the morning light was seeping into the small apartment on the 6th floor. Rays of sun sank through faded yellow window curtains and hanging clothes in the living room. Apartment 607 was no pristine penthouse. The apartment was small and paint chipped on the edges of door frames leaving a crummy white dust thinly scattered across the floor. Normally the woman who lived in apartment 607 could be heard weeping when night fell, but neighbors never caused a fuss. 

The woman lay sedentary in bed and her small puffy eyes barely opened. She had been awake for hours, but still, she tried resisting the mid afternoon light. She rested her two hands on her stomach and watched herself breath. The bump on her stomach had become so large that for the past couple weeks she could no longer hide her unborn child. For the past couple days she had not even mustered up the courage to take a walk. She sighed, looking around the bare bedroom. Another contraction started, squeezing every muscle and tissue in her torso. The pain was excruciating, as if another force was trying to tear her apart. She shut her eyes tight and locked her two hands together, using everything within herself to not cry again.

The Man stood in the kitchen, pouring warm water from a stainless steel kettle into two plastic cups. He dropped a tea bag into each one and stirred slowly. When he walked into the bedroom with the two cups of tea he took a long look at his wife as she tossed and turned. He placed the cups of tea on the small side table and sat with the woman in bed. The two did not smile at each other. They did not talk. But he did embrace her, pulling her close and hugged her a little tighter today than the day before. She nestled herself into him and in a soft voice the man whispered in her ear “it will be over soon enough”.

There was not much to say at this point. The one-child policy had been implemented for over 20 years now, and the couple ran a risk keeping the woman’s pregnancy. Already parents to a 2 year old girl, the alternative options were far from solutions. Abortions were encouraged or forced by government officials, and the unregulated procedures were potentially fatal using harsh chemicals with painful side effects. Unwilling to gamble the health risk with an abortion in China, the woman decided to follow through with her pregnancy in secret. Not an unusual choice, civilians knew the consequences for those who got caught. Government Family Planning Officials did not restrain from violence towards families looking to keep multiple babies. Other family’s made executive decisions to give their unwanted children up for adoption. 

The sun floated across the sky mid-afternoon shifting into early evening. By this point the woman had been in labor for 12 hours, occasionally walking from the bedroom to the bathroom. In bare feet the woman moved to the bathroom in silence. The pain in her face formed new wrinkles she had not yet seen before, and her husband walked with her, hand in hand. The two moved slowly, their baby girl in the other room. If the two were lucky, the woman would birth a baby boy and surrender their daughter, if they were unlucky she would birth another girl. 

When night fell, the weeping woman could be heard again. Neighbors did not dare to say a word or come to comfort her, but those who lived above and side to side were good enough people to keep their mouths shut. The woman’s contractions grew more frequent, each one bringing more pain than the last. Her abdomen weakened as her body twitched from exhaustion. In the other room their daughter could be heard crying, confused with the tension in the apartment. The man held her hand, squeezing it with just enough pressure to show his love. 

The man sat on the floor of the bathroom with his wife. Her back pressed against the bathroom floor and her eyes shut. She started to push, there was no crowd of people, or happy family members, but the man continued to squeeze her hand. Every push made her cry a little harder. The skin between her legs began to tear and she felt the head of her child. For one last moment she prayed. Let me welcome a son. The baby started to slip between her legs. Her throat was dry and dusted, and her deep breaths filled the room. In a puddle of blood a baby girl stumbled onto the ground. 

The man went right to his wife. Holding her head between his hands, he kissed her sweaty forehead. The man handed the baby girl to his wife and the three of them sat on the bathroom floor in tears.

The night of March 26th was far from joyous. The woman wrapped the newborn baby girl in a blanket and held her the entire night. She pressed the newborn close to her chest and fluttered in and out of sleep. The man offered to take the baby girl from his wife to give her time to rest, but she insisted on holding the baby until they gave her up. The night stars tucked themselves deep into the blue morning sky on March 27th and the woman spent the morning in bed with her baby girl. They did not name her. They would not name her. Because the next day she would be left outside of the local bank in town. The man and woman had already decided this was going to be the spot they would leave their baby girl, and the man was hopeful she would be picked up quickly by Chinese officials. It was not acceptable to surrender an unwanted baby directly to an orphanage, but if a baby was left in a public place one could pray the police would relocate the baby to an orphanage. That night the man dreamt of his newborn baby girl leaving China, he pictured her in Europe or Canada. He did not know much about these other places, but he had heard fairy tales of hope and success.  

Finally on March 28th the man and woman woke up before the sun. The woman wrapped their newborn baby girl in a new blanket, and hugged her one last time. She could not be seen in public with her fresh stomach and a child, so the man prepared himself to take the child downtown. He grabbed a cardboard box by the door and the woman whispered in the baby girl’s ear, “I love you”. 

She looked at the man with tears welling, and said softly “Please take her quickly, go now”. 

The three embraced each other one last time, the man and woman did not open their eyes. They just stood there and felt. Then the man walked out. Baby in one hand, cardboard box in the other, he walked down the 6 flights of stairs, out to the street. He passed buildings and shops. He passed men and women. When the characters with Lian Jiang Credit Union met his eyes his feet stopped. He placed the cardboard box on the concrete stairs and hugged his daughter one last time. He looked her in the eyes and said “Tell me when everything is okay”. His eyes shut as he placed her into the box. He looked down at her, she did not cry, she looked back at him with eyes wide open. He could not look at her again, and slowly his feet turned and moved his body back the way he came. The man started to cry as he took off his coat. A trickle of warm spring air hit his face, and he cried the whole walk home to apartment 607. 

The baby girl was found later that day, after being taken in by a local orphanage her article of abandonment would be published soon after. They named her Chunhui and gave her the last name Lian. Every child from that orphanage got the last name Lian, they were to be named after their town of birth. Her first year was spent waiting in China’s international adoption system, and later that same year she matched with a woman from the United States. The woman was sent pictures of the growing baby girl and In May of 2008, Lian Chunhui would officially move to Philadelphia Pennsylvania.