A Northern Light(23)

"I'm not telling him any such mush. Tell him yourself when the baby's out."

"He's not coming out, Matt."

"Hush. He is, too. He's just taking his time, that's all."

I started to sing "Bill Bailey" again, but my heart wasn't in it. I watched Mrs. Crego as I sang. She was heating more water. She dunked her hands in it, then soaped them up, and her wrists and arms, up to her elbows. Then she rubbed her hands with chicken fat. I felt my insides go rubbery. I didn't want Minnie to see what was coming, so I told her to close her eyes and I rubbed her temples gently, singing all the while. I think she slept for a few seconds. Or maybe she passed out.

Mrs. Crego shoved the milking stool back in place with her foot and sat on it. She placed her hands on Minnie's belly, and moved them all around. She was very quiet. It seemed to me that she was listening with her hands. She frowned as she listened, and for the first time I saw fear in her own eyes.

"Is he coming out now?" I asked.

"They."

"What?"

"She's got two babies. One wants to come out feet first. I'm going to try and turn him. Hold her now, Mattie."

I threaded my arms through Minnie's. Her eyes fluttered open. "What's going on, Matt?" she whispered. Her voice sounded so scared.

"Its all right, Min, it's all right..."

But it wasn't.

Mrs. Crego put her left hand on Minnie's belly. Her right hand disappeared under Minnie's shift. Minnie arched her back and screamed. I thought for sure Mrs. Crego would kill her. I held her arms tightly and buried my face in her back and prayed for it to end.

I'd never known it was like this for a woman. Never. We'd always been sent to Aunt Josie's when Mamma's time was near. We would stay there overnight, and when we came back, there was Mamma smiling with a new baby in her arms.

I have read so many books, and not one of them tells the truth about babies. Dickens doesn't. Oliver's mother just dies in childbirth and that's that. Bronte doesn't. Catherine Earnshaw just has her daughter and that's that. There's no blood, no sweat, no pain, no fear, no heat, no stink.

Writers are damned liars. Every single one of them.

"He's turned!" Mrs. Crego suddenly shouted.

I risked a glance at her. Her hands were on Minnie's knees; her right one was bloodied. Minnie's screams had become short, repeating keens, the kind an animal makes when it's badly hurt.

"Come on, girl, push!" Mrs. Crego yelled.

I let go of Minnie's arms. She took my hands, squeezed them so I thought she would crush them, and pushed for all she was worth. I could feel her against me, arching and gripping, could feel her bones shifting and cracking, and I was astonished. I never knew that Minnie Simms, who couldn't lift the big iron fry pan off the stove when we boiled maple syrup in it for sugar on snow—at least not when Jim Compeau was around to do it—was so strong.

She grunted as she pushed. And snorted. "You sound like a pig, Min," I whispered.

She started laughing then—crazy, helpless laughter—and collapsed against me, but not for long because Mrs. Crego swore at me and told me to keep my mouth shut and told Minnie to keep pushing.

And then, finally, with a noise that was part scream, part groan, part grunt, and sounded like it came from deep inside the earth instead of deep inside Minnie, a baby came.

"Here he is! Go on, Minnie, push! Good girl! Good girl!" Mrs. Crego cheered, guiding the baby out.

He was tiny and blue and covered in blood and what looked like lard, and he struck me as thoroughly unappealing. I started laughing, delighted to see him despite his appearance, and two seconds later, Mrs. Crego handed him to me and I was sobbing, overwhelmed to be holding my oldest friend's brand-new child. The baby was crying, too. He was wailing bloody murder.

The second baby, a girl, came with far less ado. She had a caul over her face. Mrs. Crego pulled it off right away and threw it on the fire. "To keep the devil from getting it," she said. I could not imagine why he would want it. Mrs. Crego tied off the thick gray cords attached to the babies' bellies and cut them, which made me feel woozy. Then she got a needle and thread and began to stitch Minnie up, and I thought I was going to faint for certain, but she wouldn't let me. She bossed me right out of my light-headedness. We got Minnie cleaned up and the babies, too, and found fresh sheets for the bed and set the bloodied ones soaking. Then Mrs. Crego brewed Minnie a pot of tea from fennel seed, thistle, and hops to bring her milk in. She told me to sit down and catch my breath. I did. I closed my eyes meaning to rest for just a minute, but I must have fallen asleep, because when I opened my eyes, I saw Minnie nursing one of the babies and smelled biscuits baking and soup simmering.

Mrs. Crego handed me a cup of plain tea and touched the back of her hand to my forehead. "You look worse than Minnie does," she said, laughing. Minnie laughed, too.

I did not laugh. "I am never going to marry," I said. "Never."

"Oh no?"

"No. Never."

"Well, we'll see about that," Mrs. Crego said. Her face softened. "The pain stops, you know, Mattie. And the memory of it fades. Minnie will forget all about this one day."

"Maybe she will, but I surely won't," I said.

There were footsteps on the porch, and then Jim was inside, bellowing for his supper. He stopped his noise as soon as he saw me and Mrs. Crego, and his wife in bed with two new babies beside her.