The House of Eve (79)

“I’ll run for help.” I moved toward the door.

“No,” she hissed. “I’ma have this baby right here on my own. Then we jumping out the window together and going home.”

Loretta clucked her tongue in a way that suggested that Bubbles was crazy.

“I told you I’m not giving these crazy nuns my baby, and I mean it.” Her face was sober and eyes clear. “My grandmama was the midwife in her parish. I already stole some clean cloths, pads and scissors. Look under my mattress.”

Georgia Mae lifted the left side, revealing Bubbles’s stash of items.

“Bubbles, this is stone madness. You can’t deliver the baby yourself.” I crossed my arms in front of my belly.

“In the motherland women go into the bush, labor alone and then come back holding up a baby. I can do this. I will do this,” she said, even as her face contorted in pain.

What she didn’t say was that in those faraway villages, women died in childbirth all the time. I had read about poor countries in my world history book and knew the risks. Not to mention the consequences if Mother Margaret found out that we’d helped. She could call Mrs. Shapiro, I could lose my scholarship.

Loretta and I looked at each other, both without the faintest idea of what to do. But then Georgia Mae went to Bubbles and started rubbing her back. Her pain came about every ten minutes, and each time, Georgia Mae took a deep breath in and let it slowly out, gesturing to Bubbles to do the same, until they fell into a rhythm. I finally got my head out of the clouds, folded up some blankets and stuffed them under our door so that the noise wouldn’t penetrate. It would also act as a barrier if Mother Margaret made one of her impromptu visits to our floor.

“Turn out the lights,” Bubbles requested. “Better for them to think we sleep.”

In the dark, the three of us rallied around Bubbles.

“Are you sure about this?” Loretta murmured.

“Goldie, I never wanted to come here in the first place. I’m only here because my daddy is the pastor of our church.” Bubbles bit her lip like she had said too much.

Mother Margaret had given strict orders for us to not disclose personal details with each other. For the most part, we’d abided by the house’s code of secrecy, but then Bubbles rolled her eyes and said, “Fuck it. Y’all the closest I have to family round here. I want you to know who I am.” She looked at each one of us and then sank into her pillow.

In between the birth pains that rippled through her, Bubbles talked. Her voice took my mind off what was happening, and I was certain it did the same for her. Made her less afraid. She told us that her mother was the perfect first lady, prim and proper, and how every Sunday she played the part in her fancy hats and fine apparel. Bubbles had been sent to the home so that her slip in judgment wouldn’t embarrass her parents in front of their precious congregation.

“When I missed two periods, Ray went to my parents and asked for my hand in marriage, but they told him no.”

She readjusted the pillows at her back and told us that Ray was older, twenty-five to her seventeen. Ray had been married before and his wife had overdosed on pills. Everyone assumed that Ray had been the cause of her unhappiness, but he told Bubbles that it didn’t matter what he did, she was just sad. She left behind a two-year-old daughter that Ray’s mother helped Ray raise.

Bubbles squeezed my hand hard, and even in the dark I could tell she was experiencing a bad pain. After a deep breath, she told us that Ray worked as a janitor at her high school.

“It started off friendly. Hi and bye, that sort of thing. But then one day I ran into him at the county fair. I was walking with some friends, and he was trying to win his daughter a stuffed panda. When I saw him, I separated from my girlfriends and walked the fair with the two of them. I loved how sweet he was to me,” she said, chuckling. “At first, he didn’t want no part of me. Said I was too young, but then he quickly got over it.”

The three of us stayed up taking turns comforting Bubbles throughout the night. Georgia Mae took a wet towel and put it on the back of Bubbles’s neck to cool the sweat that wouldn’t stop dripping. Bubbles moaned with her mouth closed, but I could tell things were getting worse, and after a while it was harder for her to contain the volume of her moans. Loretta told me to sneak down into the kitchen to get her something to eat.

With each passing hour, Bubbles’s grunts got deeper, and her body writhed in pain. I plugged her pillow between her teeth to muffle her sounds, but then she pushed me away and threw up all over the floor.

“I can’t do this,” Bubbles said faintly.

Loretta kept up a steady rub on her back and shoulders. “You almost there.”

“She is?” I looked at Loretta, who shrugged her shoulders in a way that told me she was just trying to comfort Bubbles. I was starting to seriously worry: What if Bubbles and the baby died right before our eyes? We didn’t know what we were doing. Just when I decided that it was best to go for help, Bubbles said, “I feel it slipping down. Give me that damn pillow and help me get it out.”

We sprang into action. I shoved the pillow back into her mouth and let her squeeze my hand as she cried out. Loretta stood holding an armful of towels and Georgia Mae squatted between her legs. The two of them did what looked like a dance of push and pull and push and pull, and then Bubbles roared like she was being split open. The bed shook and Loretta moved to keep it from knocking against the floor. When I looked down, Georgia Mae was holding on to a brown little thing covered in blood. Birdlike cries filled the attic room immediately.