of her.
Well done!
Dr. Lynn said, Congratulations, Mrs. White. You have a son.
I held out a blanket to take him.
Unprompted, he let out a cry.
At first I thought the doctor’s forceps had cut his mouth. Then I recognised the kinked line—born harelipped.
But a healthy size for being a few weeks before full term, and a good hue.
Dr. Lynn was concentrating on stemming the bleeding. She massaged Honor White’s collapsed belly from the top, persuading her uterus to squeeze out the afterbirth.
Now the cord’s pulse slowed; this infant had had all he was going to get from it. I asked Bridie to bring me over the instrument tray. I tied the slippery blue rope in two places and scissored through.
Could you warm up a pint of saline, Nurse?
I bundled the White baby in a towel, set him in the crib, and told Bridie to watch him. Speak up if he seems to choke or changes colour.
I rushed to mix salt into hot water, then brought over the bottle. Dr. Lynn had already attached a fresh tube to Honor White’s inner arm. I set the bottle up on a stand so the saline would pour into her.
She was less flushed, and she’d stopped scratching at her weals, but she was weak as a rag. What other damage had my unlucky blood done her?
Holy Mary Mother of God, pray for us sinners, she was whispering, now and at the hour of our death, amen.
There’s the placenta now, excellent.
The meaty thing surged out, with a huge clot behind it.
Dr. Lynn lifted up the organ to check it was whole, then dropped it into the waiting basin.
I felt Honor White’s pulse; still too high and too weak, an awful feathery dance.
Suture, please, Nurse?
I washed my shaking hands before I threaded the needle.
Dr. Lynn steadily sewed up the small incision she’d made in Honor White’s perineum.
Bridie said, Your arm, Julia!
Inside my left elbow was trickling red where the needle had been. It’s nothing.
But she went to get me a bandage.
It doesn’t matter, Bridie. Leave it.
Let me just—
She tied it on me clumsily, too loose.
Over the next quarter of an hour, as we watched, Honor White’s bleeding did taper off. Oh, the slow, painful relief of it. Little by little, her pulse steadied and dropped to under a hundred, and the speed of her breaths diminished too. She was able to nod, to speak. I didn’t know if it was the saline, or divine mercy, or pure fluke.
I gave the White baby his bath with Bridie’s help. How it drew the eye, this fellow’s tiny gap—though only on one side, and the dip didn’t reach the nostril. I’d heard the ancient Romans were so horrified by these babies, they used to drown them. This one was in the pink; no sign of flu, and my blood didn’t seem to have done him any harm either, which suggested that his was a different type than his mother’s. Funny to think the two of them had been one a quarter of an hour ago and now were severed forever.
Bridie whispered to me, Is he not quite finished, then?
His mouth, you mean?
Maybe because the doctor took him out before he was cooked?
Dr. Lynn said over her shoulder, No, it just happens, Bridie. Runs in families.
(Especially poor ones, though she wouldn’t say that in front of Honor White. It was as if what the mothers lacked was blazoned on their children’s faces.)
Honor White spoke up in a gravelly voice. What’s wrong with him?
You have a healthy boy, Mrs. White, I told her, it’s only that his lip is cleft.
I held out the wrapped pupa.
Her reddened eyes struggled to focus on his triangular mouth. Hand fumbling, she crossed herself.
Will I sit you up so you can hold him?
But her face closed like the lid of a desk.
Dr. Lynn murmured, She’d better stay flat to boost her circulation.
Right; sorry. (I should have remembered that.)
I’d have offered to lay him on his mother’s chest, but maybe even his small weight would impede her wet breathing. So I held him right beside her instead, almost as near as if she were cradling him, his downy head not far from hers; I was ready to pull him away if she coughed.
She didn’t move to kiss him. A tear ran out the side of her eye and down the gap between them.
Bearna ghiorria, murmured Dr. Lynn.
I knew a little Gaelic but not that phrase. What’s that, Doctor?
She explained, It means a hare’s gap. Bring him back in a