and grunting. Things were not going well. Jenni could feel the baby’s head, but Anna’s labor had stalled. Though she kept her voice and hands as calm as possible, Jenni fought to keep panic from rising within. She’d attended births before, but she’d never faced this situation. And never alone, without the wisdom of older, more-experienced women. And certainly never while crouching in the dark on a cave floor, while wind and snow whipped in white fury outside.
“Jenni.” Anna’s voice was barely a breath.
“I’m here, Mother,” Jennilee said.
“I can’t. Anymore. The baby. Is wrong. Turned wrong.” Each whispered word came through chapped, strained lips.
Jennilee shook her head hard. “You can, Mother. You have to. Just one more push, just one—”
“Too . . . weak.”
“Anna, you’re not. One more, now push!”
Anna’s hand squeezed once more, her strength a fraction of what it had once been. Her body squeezed as well, moving the child’s head infinitesimally down toward Jennilee’s waiting grasp.
“That’s it,” the fourteen-year-old girl breathed. “That’s it . . .” Though she’d never done anything like it before, Jennilee cradled the infant’s skull in her hands and gently, steadily pulled toward herself. Anna let out a breathy, faint scream as her body convulsed once more, and the child slipped free amid a gush of hot liquid.
Jennilee pulled the tiny baby boy out into the open air. His head and face were misshapen and bruised, as he’d tried to pass down the birth canal without turning facedown. She cradled him close to her chest with one hand while she fumbled about on the cave floor for the sheathed knife she’d found in her mother’s knapsack. She found it, cut his cord, wiped his face with the cleanest piece of cloth she could find, and bent to breathe life into his tiny lungs. He gave a little cough, jerked spasmodically, and sent up a thin, high wail.
“I can do all things through Christ who strengtheneth me.” Jennilee whispered the words to herself as she marveled at the little boy’s perfect form. His cries continued, and Jenni turned back to her stepmother.
“Mother,” she said, “Look, you have a beautiful son . . . Mother?”
She leaned close to see Anna’s still face in the fading light from the cave entrance. With shaking hands, she checked Anna’s neck for a pulse. Nothing.
Jennilee Abrams sat back on her heels, cradled the tiny body of her little brother close to her chest, closed her eyes, and cried.
* * *
—
She didn’t cry for long. Ina Abrams had raised her daughter not to waste time with foolishness. Jennilee did take a moment for a silent prayer of thanksgiving, but then she set to work. It was one thing for her to sacrifice her own life, but this tiny boy certainly deserved his chance at mortality. So, she had to find a way to save him.
First, she chafed as much warmth into the baby’s little limbs as she could, then she fashioned a sling for him inside her clothes so that he could share her body heat. The poor baby was starving, and began immediately rooting toward her chest, which led her to the second priority. Food.
Jennilee herself was of no use in that department, but . . . Anna wasn’t long dead. Jenni’s mind cringed away at the thought, but it came back to her with a great insistence. Anna’s milk had let down earlier in the labor, Jennilee had seen it herself.
But she couldn’t, wouldn’t let a baby nurse from the cooling corpse of his mother. Instead, Jennilee took a clean cloth and manually compressed Anna’s breast, causing some of the rich birth milk to secrete into the cloth. It wasn’t much, but it was something, and the baby suckled the rag hungrily. Jennilee held him close and tried to consider her options. Without his mother to supply food, this greedy mouth wouldn’t survive long enough for Jennilee’s Papa to find them. If only she could get them to the company, there were other women who were nursing infants. They could feed him, and he would grow strong enough to survive.
Jennilee looked out toward the narrow opening in the cave. Unless she