From a chair beside her bed, Leon Holloway leaned in close to his wife’s wan face. She lay exhausted under clean sheets, eyes tightly closed, her hair brushed and face washed after nine harrowing hours of giving birth.
“Millicent, do you want to see the twins now? They need to be nursed,” Leon said softly, stroking his wife’s forehead.
“Only one,” she said without opening her eyes. “Bring me only one. I couldn’t abide two. You choose. Let the midwife take the other and give it to that do-gooder doctor of hers. He’ll find it a good home.”
“Millicent—” Leon drew back sharply. “You can’t mean that.”
“I do, Leon. I can bear the curse of one, but not two. Do what I say, or so help me, I’ll drown them both.”
“Millicent, honey… it’s too early. You’ll change your mind.”
“Do what I say, Leon. I mean it.”
Leon rose heavily. His wife’s eyes were still closed, her lips tightly sealed. She had the bitterness in her to do as she threatened, he knew. He left the bedroom to go downstairs to the kitchen where the midwife had cleaned and wrapped the crying twins.
“They need to be fed,” she said, her tone accusatory. “The idea of a new mother wanting to get herself cleaned up before tending to the stomachs of her babies! I never heard of such a thing. I’ve a mind to put ’em to my own nipples, Mr. Holloway, if you’d take no offense at it. Lord knows I’ve got plenty of milk to spare.”
“No offense taken, Mrs. Mahoney,” Leon said, “and… I’d be obliged if you would wet-nurse one of them. My wife says she can feed only one mouth.”
Mrs. Mahoney’s face tightened with contempt. She was of Irish descent and her full, lactating breasts spoke of the recent delivery of her third child. She did not like the haughty, reddish-gold-haired woman upstairs who put such stock in her beauty. She would have liked to express to the missy’s husband what she thought of his wife’s cold, heartless attitude toward the birth of her newborns, unexpected though the second one was, but the concern of the moment was the feeding of the child. She began to unbutton the bodice of her dress. “I will, Mr. Holloway. Which one?”
Leon squeezed shut his eyes and turned his back to her. He could not bear to look upon the tragedy of choosing which twin to feast at the breast of its mother while allocating the other to the milk of a stranger. “Rearrange their order or leave them the same,” he ordered the midwife. “I’ll point to the one you’re to take.”
He heard the midwife follow his instructions, then pointed a finger over his shoulder. When he turned around again, he saw that the one taken was the last born, the one for whom he’d hurriedly found a holey sheet to serve as a bed and covering. Quickly, Leon scooped up the infant left. His sister was already suckling hungrily at her first meal. “I’ll be back, Mrs. Mahoney. Please don’t leave. You and I must talk.”