21

000.155.16.05.30

I’ve never delivered a baby. I’ve never had the desire to do so. The youngest newborn I’ve ever seen was a six-month-old with a scrunched face, and that only in passing at the Market one Saturday morning. I know nothing about birth! It sounds harsh, and looks complicated.

Ash doesn’t ask for help, but guilt pressures me. I’ve slept in her house all this time. Where has she been sleeping? Why didn’t I think of her well being?

“What can I do?” I watch her support herself on the side of the hut with one hand, holding her stomach with the other.

She takes several deep breaths. They grow deeper and longer, more relaxed. She straightens and smiles. “You say you have a God, so why don’t you pray?”

Her voice is genuine and innocent, like she welcomes my beliefs but doesn’t accept them. I chide myself. Prayer should have been my idea, but I’d expected something more from Ash. Something like, “Go make the bed,” “Run for help,” or “Give a shoulder massage.” But pray?

Okay, God, I think, not feeling an ounce of His presence. I don’t know anything about babies or birth, but please let Ash live.

Ash does a series of squat-stretches beside her hut.

And please make things go smooth so I don’t have to help too much. I don’t have the stomach to deliver a baby. I don’t know what I’ll do if Ash starts screaming. Where is her husband anyway? Does she have a husband? Do the albinos even marry?

Jude shows up as another contraction takes hold of Ash’s body. She sinks down to her hands and knees and adopts another series of loud long breaths.

“Where have you been?” The moment Ash told us she was in labor, Jude ran off. I wanted to tackle him and scream, “Don’t make me do this alone!”

“I’ve taken the liberty to boil some water.”

My anger dissipates. “Good idea.”

Ash chuckles from the ground and sits back on her heels. “Why?”

We lapse into an embarrassed pause. “Don’t you need it?” Jude’s cheeks redden. “I’ve always read it’s important for births, though I haven’t studied the topic.”

I can’t seem to remember why the water is important. For cleaning, maybe?

“Maybe for a bath,” I suggest. “To help you relax.”

Ash rises from the ground and walks around, hugging her middle. Jude and I watch her pace. After a minute, she puts her hands on her hips. “You don’t have to watch me. This will take hours. Get some rest so you can be useful when I do need you.”

Jude bites his lip, then looks at me. I shrug, though I want to do the opposite of “get some rest.” I walk into Ash’s hut.

From outside, Jude says, “I’ll go, uh, find something to use as a tub.”

Once I’m in the shadows of Ash’s hut, I light more candles, using the one already burning as a starter. I glance at my left wrist, but then look away. There’s no watch there. No hand. I close my eyes and take a long breath through my nose. Now is not the time to mourn.

I rummage in my pack for the watch. Two hours until midnight. I put it back inside my pack. Ash groans outside.

I can’t go to sleep with her out there—the woman who provided the only true comfort I’ve received. I owe this to her. I will be the best imitation-midwife this mossy forest has ever seen.

I make Ash’s bed and fluff the pillow. The marble, two-drawer dresser holds women’s and men’s clothing. I straighten, clutching a long nightgown that looks as if it’s been traded for rather than made. Ash steps into the hut, panting. “I need your help changing.”

I hold up the nightgown. “Does this work?”

“I just need to take these off.” She points at the loose pants hanging to her knees and her loose belted top.

“Oh.” Even better—a naked birth. It makes sense, but still . . . awkward. “Jude’s out there, though.”

Ash doesn’t respond. Doesn’t she care another man might see her naked? I untie the rope belt beneath her giant belly. Her boots are the most difficult to pull off. As we get her top off, she has another contraction. She slams her back against the wall of the hut and grimaces.

“Keep breathing,” I whisper.

Her breaths come out in gasps. I avert my eyes and spot the small cloth bag Alder laid on the dresser when he visited me. Inside are hundreds of the white pain pills. I grab three and hold them out to her once her breathing relaxes.

“Take some of these, they’ll help with the pain.” I finally have something useful for her.

She shakes her head. “Those will slow down the process.”

I try a different tactic. “Shouldn’t you lie down?” I pat the bed, still looking at her as little as possible. “The covers will keep you warm.”

“We have gravity for a reason. It helps transport the baby.” She steps forward and squeezes my shoulder. “You are sweet and very innocent, Parvin.” She reaches past me, grabs the nightgown, and pulls it over her head.

Peeved at the way she called me innocent, I gesture to the gown. “You don’t have to wear that for me. Do what’s comfortable.”

“This is fine.” We exit the hut and she walks around doing squats.

The things Ash does are foreign to me. Walking around? Squatting? No medicine? Mother gave birth to triplets lying down. We turned out fine . . . well, two of us did, at least.

Over the next hour, Ash’s contractions increase in intensity. She continues her odd habits of squatting and leaning against tree trunks. How does she remain so calm through it all?

My heart beats faster when I think of the actual birth moment. I won’t know what to do. I don’t know when to yell, “Push!” I won’t know what to do with the baby. When do I cut the umbilical cord? Is there a certain length it needs to be? Isn’t there something important about the baby’s lungs?

The entire camp is lit with fires in front of the huts. Each fire has a pot over it. I find Jude near Alder’s hut, peeking under the lid of a pot. Sweat keeps his short hair stuck to his forehead, but he still wears his black coat. He looks up when I approach.

“Good midnight, Parvin. The bath is almost ready.” He leads me to the back of Alder’s hut where a one-man hollow boat sits like a giant walnut cut in half. “An unfinished coracle.”

“It looks like a miniature boat.”

Jude grins. “That’s what a coracle is. It takes the albinos a long time to make them because they have to wait for a Willow tree to uproot or reach the verge of death before they can use its wood. Alder started this one a few days ago. I lined it with some animal skins to keep the water in.”

“So are you almost done?”

“Just waiting for the water.” He looks up with a start. “The water!” He rushes to the fire and pulls the pot off the coals as boiling water overflows.

“Check the others,” he commands.

Before I can move, Ash’s voice rushes through the night. “Parvin!”

I break into a run. She is even paler than her albino-whiteness and sits on the ground, leaning against the base of one of the white dogwood trees. I fall to my knees beside her.

“I can’t do this alone.” She gasps, covering her face with one hand.

“I’m here.” My stomach gives a nasty twist. God, what am I supposed to do?

“I’m afraid,” she mumbles. “Is it supposed to hurt this much?”

As if on cue, another contraction steals her breath away. Her face contorts. I watch her chest for any rising or falling action. “Breathe, Ash.” She doesn’t. “Breathe!” She manages a small inhalation.

God, give me insight! Her grip tightens and my fingers go numb. I stare at her twisted face. This is not how things are supposed to be.

This is broken shalom.

There’s His voice again. Or was it a sudden thought? Broken shalom . . . why did Adam and Eve have to ruin everything?

Ash is crying. Her tears, her pain, this brokenness eats at my soul. I never want to witness this ever again. I never want to do this.

“The bath is ready,” Jude yells from afar. I wait until Ash’s contraction ends and try pulling her to her feet.

“No.” She waves me away. “I’ll sit here.”

“The warm water might help.” Her body seems so tense. Relaxing in warm water ought to do something. Don’t some people have babies in water? I sling her arm around my shoulder. Lift with the legs, not the back, I chant as my muscles scream.

“I don’t know,” Ash protests, but pushes herself up.

“It’s not too far.” I pray she makes it to the bath before another contraction. We take shaky steps. Running footsteps reach my ears as my knees threaten to buckle. “Jude, get her other side!”

But it’s not Jude, and he doesn’t do what I ask. Instead he lifts Ash off her feet and strides faster than I can walk toward the bath.

“Black.” Ash buries her face against his chest. “How did you know?”

My mouth falls open as I follow. Black is covered in sweat and dirt, with a small wound healing on his forehead from my dagger.

His chest heaves with deep exhausted breaths. “I couldn’t sleep and I couldn’t get rid of chills. I just knew, Ash. I saw the fires when I got closer and my thoughts were confirmed.” He plants a kiss on her forehead.

Everything about Ash’s demeanor seems to relax. They reach Jude’s bath as another contraction wracks her body. Jude stands beside the coracle with an empty kettle. He stares at Black for a moment, but says nothing.

Black tests the water with his hand before placing Ash in it, nightgown and all. I suddenly hope he doesn’t ask why she’s wearing a nightgown.

Even though the contraction looks just as painful, my nerves and heart are calmed. Black seems to know what to do. He cues Ash to breathe and even takes deep breaths with her to help pace her.

When her contraction ends, he grips her hand as she closes her eyes for breath. Sweat lines her forehead. Black groans. “This can’t be how it’s supposed to be.”

Ash looks up with wide eyes. “Am I doing things wrong?”

He places a trembling hand on her face. “No, I meant birth. This pain . . . it just doesn’t seem necessary.”

“It’s not how things are supposed to be,” I blurt. “Your pain hurts God’s heart like it hurts yours. His creation was broken by Adam and Eve’s disobedience.” I look at Ash. “This pain is a result of that brokenness.”

My words sound preachy to my ears, but clarification sinks into my heart. Somehow, I understand another hair’s breadth of God’s character.

Black and Ash give no response to my mini sermon. Heat fills my face. What did I expect? Black helped chop off my hand—does he think that’s how things should be?

Another contraction hits and I watch them for the next several minutes, thinking of Mother and Father. As far as I know, Father wasn’t even in the room when Mother gave birth. Ash and Black, though, form a type of team.

I meet Jude’s eyes. He looks somber, tired, but alive. We stare at each other for a long moment. He smiles. Warmth builds inside me, initiating a genuine smile back. It is strange, smiling again, like I’m not supposed to feel happy after everything I’ve gone through. It reminds me of when I laughed with Reid at our One Year Assessment.

Thinking of that life six months ago sucks away my smile and I break our stare.

“It’s time.”

“Time?” Black croaks, mirroring my own reaction to Ash’s words. “You mean the baby’s coming?”

Ash reaches for him. “Let’s get to the bed.”

Black puts one foot in the water to lift her out.

Ash’s house is at least three contractions away. Can she make it before the baby comes?

They head in the opposite direction. I stare after them. “Where are you going?”

“Our house,” Black responds, tense.

I point back toward where I’ve been sleeping. “I thought that was Ash’s house.”

“That’s the healing house—” Black is cut off by a sharp inhalation from Ash. He moves behind her and supports her exhausted frame as she puts her hands on her knees.

“It might be better for her to lie down,” Jude says.

“Get under her!” Black shouts at me.

Not having a clue what I’m going to do, I drop to my knees as the baby’s head emerges. “It’s here!” Shock—and a tinge of disgust—race through me.

Ash releases a gut-wrenching groan and I guide the rest of the baby free. I catch it in the crook of my left arm, avoiding my stitches, and stabilize it with my right hand. Everything is a mess of blood—the ground, Ash, the baby—but I can’t stop staring at the small albino form in my arms. I turn the baby over.

“It’s a boy,” I murmur, using Ash’s nightgown to wipe off the baby’s face. Ash collapses against Black and they both sit down on the ground. I hand them the baby. “Where do I cut the umbilical cord?”

“Wait,” Black says. “Wait until the baby gets all of the nutrients he needs.”

So we wait and stare. My initial disgust melts away into euphoric wonder. My anger about broken shalom sees new light, new hope. Ash’s pain didn’t last forever. It resulted in a new creation.

I stare at the pale baby skin. This is how it’s supposed to be. God hates broken shalom. He won’t leave us in it forever. He plans something more for us.

I want it.

Everything after these silent minutes of awe and shock happens in a mindless fog. Black cuts the umbilical cord, the baby cries, Ash washes in the coracle, and they hobble into their hut. Jude puts out his fires, sets two pots of boiling water outside Black and Ash’s door, then we both wash, go our own way, and collapse.

A windstorm hits that next morning. The flapping of my animal-skin roof wakes me, but I snuggle beneath the blankets, falling back asleep with the vision of Ash’s baby in my mind. I never liked babies much, but for some reason, even though his eyelids were red and his skin an odd splotchy white, the albino baby left me stunned.

After two days of eating leftover pheasant, reading my Bible, and resting, I crawl out of bed and use my teeth to help squirm into my fresh extra shirt. Then I pick up Reid’s journal. I haven’t touched it since the cave above the wolves. Sickness and then the atonement have directed my mind elsewhere.

I sink back into bed, pulling the covers up high and crack open the book. Where should I start? I turn to the first page with writing.

09.19.2147, Time: 08:32

I’ve come to the realization that I will be the one to die on October 7, 2149. The Clock is mine.

The journal slips from my fingers and flops backward onto my lap, losing my place. I scramble to pick it back up again with my one hand. What . . . what did Reid write? How could he know the Clock is his?

I can’t open the book fast enough. My breathing accelerates.

There it is.

 . . . The Clock is mine. So I’ve started a journal to record my last two years. It’s a strange feeling, knowing I’m going to die. I’ve always felt an urgency to live my life, but now it’s increased. I’ve decided to travel some more. I think I want to visit the Upper Cities in Florida.

“But how? How do you know?” I shake the journal as if it will grow a mouth and share the answers.

“Parvin?” Jude calls through the doorflap in a quiet voice. “You better come out here.”

With a harsh squeeze to the binding of the journal, I discard it for the moment and climb out of bed. I lift back the flap and meet Jude’s eyes.

He looks over his shoulder. “We need to leave.”

“Leave?” I look past him, but see nothing unusual. What about Ash and the baby? “Why?” I don’t want to leave yet, and that thought frightens me.

Jude takes my hand and pulls me out of the hut toward the edge of the village. I’m startled by his touch, but even more startled by his careful quiet manner. “There.”

I look where he’s pointing. Far in the shadow of the forest march a line of albinos with trimmed, soaked logs on their shoulders. They’re returning with the dead standing.

A vice clamps around my throat. Between them and us lies the pink dogwood, broken clean in two, blossoms scattered across the ground like tree blood.