The Quintland Sisters(3)
He strode swiftly to the bed in the adjoining room to examine Mme. Dionne, then returned briskly to the kitchen to wash his hands with water I’d set to cool beside the stove. Compared with his oversize head, the doctor’s hands looked like those of a child, small and delicate—well suited to this work, I presumed. I hovered in the doorway, uncertain where I could be useful.
“Another is coming,” he said brusquely. He spoke in English, but the two women clearly took his meaning because a look passed between them: alarm, tinged with horror. Sure enough, Mme. Dionne gave another piercing cry, and before Dr. Dafoe could relieve Marie-Jeanne of her position at the foot of the bed, a third baby arrived. This one was no more than a scrap of skin stretched tight over bones so tiny you’d think it was a chick just hatched and still slick. When we lived in Ottawa, I knew twin boys several grades below me in school, but I’m not sure it had ever occurred to me that three was possible, or spent a moment thinking about what it would be like for a woman to push out one child after another. By now Mme. Dionne looked like she was ready to give up altogether, she was so weak after the third little baby emerged. Her face and lips were bloodless, and her fingers reaching weakly for Mme. Legros were turning black at the tips.
I retreated as much as I could after the doctor arrived. I busied myself in the kitchen, closing my ears to the wails from the bed and trying not to peep constantly at the little things under the blanket. I boiled pot after pot of water and washed up what I could, even as there were more exclamations of astonishment and prayer from the room next door. Because the night was far from over.
There were five frail babies settled in the apple crate by the time dawn started creeping across the fields. Five. Mme. Dionne, by the end of it, was barely clinging to life, collapsing into a troubled sleep after the last little snippet arrived. Mme. Legros stayed by her side while Dr. Dafoe stepped away to speak with M. Dionne. He opened the door that led to the porch and bid M. Dionne enter, explaining in slow, simple English, as if to a child, the events of the past few hours. Neither man paid any attention to me working at the sink.
“Cinq?” M. Dionne said. “Five?” He is a small, reedy man, and the news seemed to shrink him still further. He looked fearfully at the apple crate but didn’t step closer. “I have five already,” he breathed. “What will people say?”
Dr. Dafoe put a hand on his shoulder. “The babies will not live—it’s too soon for them. They’re too weak. And Mrs. Dionne is in grave danger.” He spoke so softly I couldn’t catch his next words. M. Dionne looked up, aghast. “I will go for the priest,” he said, then added, “Can I first please see my wife?”
Dr. Dafoe stood aside and beckoned Marie-Jeanne and Mme. Legros to step into the kitchen as I slipped back into my seat by the stove.
“Your first priority must be attending to Mrs. Dionne,” he said gravely. “There is no chance the babies will survive more than a few hours. Make them as comfortable as you can, and if one is thriving more than another, you must focus on the one that is strong. We cannot save them all. I will go now for supplies and nursing assistance for the mother. Remember, your first obligation must be saving the life of Mrs. Dionne for the sake of the five children she has already.” He paused and glanced around the dim room. “Indeed, any more would be too much of a burden.”
Then he turned to the apple crate on the wooden chair by the stove and seemed to notice me for the first time. I saw his eyes dart over the left side of my face, where, in the flickering shadows, my birthmark would have made my face look even more lopsided and distorted than in daylight.
“Emma Trimpany,” the doctor said, and he closed his eyes as if to keep from staring, pushing at his eyelids with his stubby fingers, exhausted. When he looked up again, he was careful to fix his gaze over my right shoulder. “What on earth are you doing here, Emma?”
Marie-Jeanne answered for me, taking a moment to sort out the English words. “She was joining me with M. Dionne when he picked me up in Callander earlier. Emma is considering to become a midwife.” She gave me a weak smile. “Possibly she is having a second thought.”
Dr. Dafoe took a step closer to the crate, sinking onto one knee so that he could peer beneath the blanket we’d tented over the basket and the open door of the stove. He shook his head as if he was only now processing the events of the long night. “My word,” he breathed, finally. “My word. Five babies. Five girls, born alive. It’s unprecedented.”
He stood and took several glass droppers from his black bag and set them by the kettles on the stove. “If they wake, give them a drop or two of warm water.” He was addressing Marie-Jeanne, who nodded, but he turned his stern gaze my way, as if it fell to me to make sure she understood. “Warm, mind, not scalding. Keep the irons and stones hot, but well wrapped, and replace this blanket regularly, with a hot one, draped over the back of the chair, to try to keep the heat contained. We shall do what we can, but—” He shrugged. “I’ll go straight to the Red Cross outpost and be back as soon as I can.” He left, closing the door quietly behind him.
The frogs have finally finished croaking in the fields behind the farmhouse, as if they know it’s time they settled down and let the birds take over. I should be tired, too, but I’m not. I have stayed by the stove, sitting beside those tiny bodies, thinking, perhaps, that I’d see my first life leave the world within hours of seeing a first life arrive. An alarming thought, but also, I think, a suitable punishment. How I recoiled from these little things at first! I feel I’ve let myself down in some important way, or let down the person my mother is hoping I might one day become. Sitting here through the night, watching them sleep, bidding them goodbye if it comes to that—this is the only way I can think of to make it up to them.