by Megan Hart
The baby is coming. Fast. She tries to find the strength to scream, but all that comes out is a whistling gasp. It chokes her. She turns her head to the side, trying to cough, but all that comes up is a thin runner of spittle.
“Mama…” Her mother is out somewhere, maybe the garden or doing some sort of yard work.
Where is anyone else?
Sunny, groaning, manages to get to her feet. Careful not to slip in the puddle on the floor, she makes it to the sink. Breathe in. Breathe out. She pants through another wave of contractions, but the urge to bear down and push is overwhelming. She can’t stop it. She squats, her body huge and unwieldy, and everything inside her stretches and surges, trying to get free.
Sunny puts a hand between her legs. She feels the softness of hair, not her own. The firm lump of a baby’s head. Another pain cycles up and up and up, and from someplace inside her she finds the voice to scream.
She screams as loud as she can, and her voice echoes off the tile walls. It tears out the bathroom door, down the hall. There is the sound of running feet, loud cries. The bathroom door flies open, startled faces appear, there is someone on her knees beside Sunny, and on the other side, too. Joy and Willow. They each take an elbow, trying to help her, but Sunny can’t move.
“I want my mother.” This is what she thinks she says, but in reality all she manages is a series of grunts.
They are women, though, and they understand. Willow shouts out for someone to go get Trish. Joy gets a thick pad of wet paper towels and presses it to Sunny’s forehead.
Sunny does not want to have her baby on the bathroom floor, but there’s no stopping it. The women of her family, her sisters and finally her mother, crowd around her. They bring towels, a blanket, some cool water to bathe her face. They bustle around her, each of them with a purpose. This baby is not the first to be born here in Sanctuary, and they all know how to handle it.
“Sunny, hold on, one more time and you’ll have to push,” her mom says.
It’s all she can do. There’s no holding it back, even if she didn’t bite her bottom lip and bear down, this baby would come. But Sunny waits as she breathes through the pain for her body to tell her its time, and she works with the contractions, not against them. Her body does what it’s meant to do.
Something tears. More pain. There is blood, lots of it, but nobody seems alarmed even though the heat of it, the sudden bright red gush, has Sunny choking on her breath.
The baby is not coming out.
She can’t stand the pain any longer, and the world grays out for a second or two. When she’s clear again, Josiah stands in the doorway. Far enough away that his white shirt is at no risk of being stained, but even so…men don’t usually attend the births. Even Papa wasn’t there when his true sons were born.
Nobody else notices him.
They’re all talking to her. Urging her though this. Wiping her brow. Joy is between Sunny’s legs, fingers probing.
Sunny should be embarrassed; from his vantage point in the doorway, Josiah can see everything. He is silent, watching, but his gaze snares hers.
He smiles.
And Sunny finds the strength inside her to push again. To push hard. She bears down, pushing the baby inside her out into the world. First the head, shoulders, and finally in a great, huge gush of fluid, the entire body. The baby slips from inside her and into Joy’s hands so fast she cries out, startled.
No fear, though, she’s delivered babies before. She doesn’t drop Sunny’s newborn. There is an instant relief, the pressure gone at least for a minute or two. A certain grateful numbness.
Then the pressure of Joy’s fingers inside her again, her palm pushing on Sunny’s belly. Push again, she says. The afterbirth has to come out.
Someone has taken Sunny’s baby to wipe her off at least a little bit before she’s handed to Sunny. It is a girl, just like she knew all along. Sunny holds her brand-new daughter to her chest, not caring that her dress is stained or that the baby is still slippery with blood and that white coating.
The women around her are crying, the way most of them do when a baby’s born. The baby is silent, wide-eyed. Sunny doesn’t cry either, she’s too tired. She has nothing more to give but this. She wants to close her eyes and sleep forever, but she can’t. They have to take her out of this bathroom and into her own room.
Later, when she’s been cleaned up and stitched—it’s her second baby but the first time she tore—Sunny rests in her bed with the baby tucked up firmly against her. Her milk hasn’t let down yet, but that doesn’t stop the infant from suckling greedily. Her nipple is already sore, just one more ache along with most of the rest of her, too. Bruises on her knees she didn’t notice until now. Pulled muscles in her arms and shoulders.
Sunny dozes, but wakes when a shadow falls over her bed.
It’s Josiah, and he smiles again. His hand touches the baby’s head softly, softly, fingertips barely brushing the head of soft blond fuzz. He touches Sunny’s head, too.
“What’s her name?” he asks.
“Patsy. I want to name her after my mother.”
Josiah’s smile doesn’t falter, but he does shake his head. “You should name her Peace. Because that’s what she’ll bring you.”
And that was what Sunny named her child, because Josiah, Papa’s second true son, had said she should.
It had not occurred to her that Josiah would remember that story, but when he asked her how Peace was doing, Sunny said, “You named her.”
He was silent for a moment, only the sound of his breathing through the phone. “I remember.”
“Now that my mom’s gone, I sort of wish I’d named her Patsy the way I’d intended.”
“Because you think it would be honoring your mother?”
“Yes.” Sunny turned on her back in the cool, smooth sheets. With the window open the temperature in the room was perfect. She could hear crickets from outside. Occasionally a firefly flashed.
“Because she’s gone,” Josiah said.
Sunny hesitated, then thought there should be no point in lying. “Yes.”
“Your mother’s not gone,” Josiah said. “Not really. I mean, you know that, don’t you, Sunny? None of them are really gone. They’re just on another plane.”
Josiah had called her every night since he’d driven her home. Always when everyone else was asleep. Josiah had turned out to be the one thing she could count on to make her feel better.
“That boy. From the coffee shop,” Josiah asked. “How’s he?”
She was ashamed Josiah knew about Tyler. “He doesn’t talk to me anymore.”
“Not at all?”
She was silent for a moment, thinking of how he barely even looked at her now. “No.”
“Why not?”
“He wanted me to be like those girls he talks to in the shop, the ones who go to college and wear their hair loose. They wear jeans. Lipstick. They don’t have children. He wanted me to be like those girls,” Sunny said. “And I’m not.”
But it wasn’t Tyler who wanted her to be like those girls, she thought. She was the one who wanted to wear eye shadow and glittery earrings and slim-fitting T-shirts. To paint her nails. To be someone she wasn’t.
“I’d say I’m sorry, but you know I’m not.”
She thought of Josiah’s touch, his kiss, the warmth that had spread through her, and it made her feel hot now, though the breeze from her open window was cool enough. “I shouldn’t have gone with you the first time. Liesel and Christopher wouldn’t like it.”
“Because they don’t understand. I don’t blame them. You could bring them, too, Sunny, you know we always have room at our table for more.”
Sunny tried to think of her father and his wife sitting with Josiah and talking about goi
ng through the gates. Or anything, for that matter. She shook her head, her hair pulling softly against the pillow. “I’m sure they wouldn’t want to.”
“People are usually afraid of what they don’t know. And believe me, I understand why anyone would have a bad opinion of us because of what my brother did. But you know…you’re an adult,” Josiah told her. “If you want to go out with me or spend time with your family, they can’t stop you. And if you just told them a little bit about who we are and what we believe, I’m sure they wouldn’t want to.”
“My children got into trouble the last time I was with you,” Sunny told him. “Because I was off with you, I wasn’t there for them. They got sick, and it was my fault. They were hurt because I wasn’t there to make sure they were okay, because I did something stupid…”
“Your children are as welcome as you are, Sunshine. You know that. You wouldn’t have to be away from them at all. And you’re young. You could have more babies. As many as you want, and you wouldn’t have to leave them to work. We’d take care of you.”
Sunny was quiet. “Josiah. Do you still listen with your heart?”
A pause. “Sure. Of course.”
“For the voice that tells you when it will be time to leave?”
“Oh, Sunny…” Josiah coughed. “I told you before, I think there’s so much more work to do here in this world that it will be a long, long time before any of us have to leave. Maybe not even in our lifetimes.”
She listened to the low murmur of the ever-present stone angel. It reminded her of everything she’d ever been taught, all she’d ever believed. “My mother had cancer, Josiah, did you know that?”
She expected him, of course, to say no.
“I did,” he said instead. “I’m sorry. She came to me once when my brother was starting to lose control. She begged me to come back to the family and try to make him see that he was hurting the people he was supposed to love, but…honestly, I didn’t have anything left to give my brother.”
“But my mother…”
“She looked sick. I’d known your mom for a long time, you know. I was just a kid when John brought her home. And she was so funny, so full of life and faith and belief, and when she had you, you were so much like her. She looked bad. Complained of headaches, dizziness. One of our new brothers was a doctor, and he convinced her to let him check her out.”
“She knew.” Sunny swallowed hard. “I thought she did. It’s why she sent us away but didn’t come with us. Isn’t it?”
Josiah sighed. “I don’t know. I wish I did. But I know your mom loved you very much. And she’d have wanted you to come to me. I’m sure she’d be so happy if you did.”
Her mother couldn’t be happy for anything, because her mother was gone. Nothing left in her vessel, nothing left to go through the gates, whatever that meant. The angel’s voice whispered this, but Sunny already knew it.
“I hear the voice, Josiah.”
She heard the shuffle of something against the phone. “What?”
“The voice Papa told us about. I hear it.”
“Sunny, you know that voice isn’t real. Don’t you?”
“It’s real.”
“No,” Josiah said firmly. “There is no small voice that tells us to end our lives. It was something my father made up and John Second perpetuated as a way of controlling you.”
“It’s my own voice, Josiah,” she said, surprised he didn’t know that or couldn’t understand. “And it is real, it tells me right from wrong and what I should do, how I should live, what choices I should make. My mother must’ve heard it, and that’s why she sent me and my kids away to my father, to protect us. She could’ve sent us to you, apparently, but she didn’t. So what does that tell you?”
“I told you, I can’t say what your mother wanted or didn’t. All I can tell you is that we all love you.” Josiah paused. “I always have. Please let me see you again.”
Sunny listened as hard as she could, but the voice was too hard to hear with Josiah to drown it out. “I don’t think so.”
Chapter 45
The heat had broken, finally. Mostly because of the storm clouds that had been creeping across the sky since morning. They blocked the sun and dropped the temperatures, which had been in the mid-nineties for the past week, into the more reasonable eighties. So far, no rain, but every so often Liesel heard the far-off rumble of thunder that meant it was on its way.
“Kids recover fast.” Becka sipped from a tall glass of iced tea. She hadn’t offered margaritas today, but that was all right. “Thank God.”
Liesel shuddered. “Yeah. Thank God. I was really worried. I’d never seen kids be so sick. Out both ends.”
Becka gave her a sympathetic look. “In the realm of child-related disasters, I can honestly tell you that the very idea of what you went through has my skin crawling. That is a nightmare of epic proportions. Beans in the nose? Jumping off the second-story landing with a blanket used like a superhero cape? Cutting their own bangs? Nothing is as bad as what you went through.”
“That’s not true,” Liesel said quietly, even though she knew her friend was joking. “I can think of lots of worse things that could happen.”
“Of course you can, hon. You’re a mother.”
Chris had said something very much the same on the night of the emergency room visit, but Liesel had the same response for Becka. “No. I’m not.”
“You’re a mother to that girl out there.” Becka pointed.
“Stepmother.”
“So? You think that makes a difference? Her mother’s dead. You’re the only one she has now.” Becka shook her head.
They both watched as Sunny took the hands of all three of her children. Bliss was able to stand now, so long as she held her mama’s and brother’s hands. The four of them circled slowly, the lilting tune of their game wafting up the hill to the deck on the damp breeze. Laughing, all of them except Bliss crouched at the end of the song, and the baby’s laughter rang like bells across the lawn.
Becka sipped her tea with a sigh. “I haven’t played Ring Around the Rosy in ages.”
“I never liked that game. It’s about the black plague, did you know that?” Liesel leaned her elbows on the table and took a grateful breath of cooler air.
“What? No.” Becka pursed her lips. “That’s sick.”
Liesel laughed and glanced at her friend. “Yep. Check Google.”
Becka pulled out her iPhone with a flourish and tapped at the screen. Down the hill, Sunny and the kids had stood up again to start all over. The kids would play that game for round after round, Liesel knew that from experience. But while she usually encouraged them to pick something else after about three times, Sunny seemed to have a lot more patience. Or maybe she just didn’t know many more games.
“I’ll be damned.” Becka shook the phone at her. “Wow. Who knew?”
“Well, I did.”
“Smart-ass.” Becka thumbed her screen to read more. “It makes sense now when you look it up. Ring around the rosy means the rash. The posies were the flowers people carried to mask the stench of rotting bodies—”
“Ew, gross.”
Becka gave Liesel a wicked grin. “You brought it up.”
“Ashes, ashes,” Liesel said. “All fall down. That’s the end of it, when all the people died.”
“Snopes dot com says it’s not true, anyway.”
Liesel shrugged.
“It was only food poisoning,” Becka said. “Or a stomach virus. Kids get them all the time. And you said Sunny cleaned out all the food from under her bed, no complaints.”
“She said she was sorry, over and over and over.” Liesel shaded her eyes against a sudden bright spike of sunshine that had pierced the ever-darkening clouds. The children
were now playing some other game while Sunny sat on her favorite bench. “Oh, God. Look. She’s talking to that angel again.”
“It’s only a problem if the angel answers her.” Becka swirled the ice in her glass, rattling the cubes.
Liesel didn’t say anything.
“Oh, hon,” Becka said.
“I don’t know anything,” Liesel said hastily. “She was doing so much better. She seemed to have made peace with what happened. Her sessions with Dr. Braddock had been so helpful. Sure, she still had those idiosyncrasies about the diapers, corn syrup. Recycling, my God, you’d think we were single-handedly tearing apart the ozone layer with our bare fists if we tossed a plastic container in the trash instead of recycling.”
“No, that’s only if you use too much Aqua Net.”
Liesel laughed a little. “She’s doing really well at work. They gave her a promotion a couple months ago. She seemed really proud.”
“But?”
Liesel looked again down the hill. Sunny didn’t look like she was saying anything. Or even like she was listening to anything other than her children, who were performing some sort of dance in front of her.
“She’s so apologetic all the damn time. And I feel like it’s because she somehow senses that I’m frustrated. And so’s Christopher.”
“She doesn’t have to be a psychic to get that.” Becka snorted softly. “And you don’t have to beat yourself up over it, either. The poor kid was beaten if she spoke out of turn. I’d be surprised if she didn’t have a lot of hang-ups about screwing up.”
“I don’t want her to feel that way.”
“But she does,” Becka said. “Probably always will.”
“Since the kids were sick, she’s been quieter. A lot quieter. I asked her if something had happened at work, or maybe with the boy who likes her—”
“Yeah, whatever happened with him?”