Dance Away with Me(93)

Savannah managed a nod. Kelly helped her roll over and get into a more comfortable position, a position where she was less likely to tear. Savannah cried out. Tess responded automatically, unsteadily. “You can handle it. Your body knows what to do.”

Bianca’s body didn’t. It betrayed her.

Tess’s T-shirt stuck to her chest. Ian was right behind her, his hands warm against her shoulders. She was used to the sights and smells of childbirth: the poop and pee, the bulging perineum, the leak of amniotic fluid—but he wasn’t. She should tell him to leave, but she couldn’t. She needed him.

The contractions were coming more quickly and with greater force. Savannah had no time to adjust to their strength, and Tess could feel her mounting panic, right along with Tess’s own. “We’re going to . . . going to breathe together. Breathe with me, Savannah.” But as Tess tried to inhale, the air stuck in her windpipe.

Her hands twitched. The breathing pattern was as familiar to her as the sound of her own voice. Pant, pant, blow . . . Pant, pant, blow . . . She’d led countless women through the sequence of those two quick pants followed by that short puff of air, but her lungs had constricted. The room started to spin. She couldn’t find any oxygen.

Ian’s mouth brushed her ear in a whisper. “Chicken shit.”

The air rushed into her lungs, and the room settled. She inhaled again, her body steadied, and she began the breathing pattern.

The minutes ticked by. Kelly wiped the hair from Savannah’s damp face. Savannah fell into the rhythm of the contractions as they gained more intensity.

The front door burst open, and three of Valley City’s volunteer firefighters rushed in. Ian shot up and positioned himself in front of them. “It’s under control.”

No, it wasn’t under control!

“She’s a nurse midwife,” Ian said. “She’s handling it.”

“Get them out of here!” Savannah gasped. “Don’t let them touch me.”

“Stay by the door,” Ian told the men. “She’ll let you know if she needs you.”

She. He meant Tess, not Savannah.

The firefighters were trained to give way to anyone with a higher degree of experience, and they did as he directed, even as Tess started to order them to take over. But she could see the top of the baby’s head.

Savannah emitted the unmistakable guttural sound of a woman who needed to push.

“Don’t push! Pant.” Tess couldn’t let her tear. She acted automatically, massaging Savannah’s perineum to help it stretch naturally. Ian moved to the side to give her room. He held steady before all the muck of childbirth, and she’d never loved him more.

“Keep panting,” she told Savannah. “We’re taking it slow. That’s it. Good.”

The baby’s head began to move. “Slow now. Slow.” The top of the baby’s head emerged, and the contraction eased. “Good job. You’re doing great.”

Savannah dropped her own head on her folded arms to rest, her hips still high in the air. The beautiful indignity of giving birth.

“Keep panting,” Tess said. “You’re almost there.”

With a deep grunt, Savannah was back up on all fours.

“Easy! Don’t push. Pant.” More of the wet, wrinkled head appeared. Tess kept the baby’s head supported. In the background she heard Phish’s contribution. The baby would enter the world to the muted sounds of the Grateful Dead singing “Ripple.”

“That’s the way. You’re almost done.” Another contraction. A tiny shoulder. The baby slipped into Tess’s palms. “It’s a boy.”

Savannah collapsed onto her back. Tess wrapped the messy, blue-skinned baby in one of the dish towels Ian handed her. The infant gave a tiny mew followed by a lusty cry. Tess had no stethoscope but she went through the rest of the steps automatically: the cry, the flexation, chest moving. The baby was pinking up. All good.

She set the baby on Savannah’s chest and covered them both with the coat Ian handed her. She leaned back on her heels, heart racing, listening to “Ripple,” and waiting for the placenta. She delivered it into a plastic mixing bowl that she suspected Phish would never use again.

Savannah lay still, the baby to her chest. And now . . .

The screams . . . The gush of blood . . .

Tess swallowed hard.

But unlike Bianca, Savannah wasn’t dying. She was too busy admiring her baby. “He’s so much cuter than Mom’s.”

Tess had never heard more welcome words. She had a healthy mother. A healthy baby. She wanted to weep from gratitude.

Ian’s complexion, however, had a faint green tint. “Good job,” he said. “And I’m never having sex again.

*

At first Savannah, being Savannah, refused to go to the hospital with the firefighters. “Why should I? You said me and the baby are doing good, right?” She paused to gaze at her newborn, her features softened from an abundance of oxytocin and maternal love.

“Yes, but you both need to be checked.”

“You already checked us.”

“I’m not a doctor,” Tess protested.

“Half the time you act like one.”

The same old Savannah.

Savannah stunned her with a smile that transformed her sulky nineteen-year-old expression into the face of a Madonna. “Zoro.”