The Book of the Unnamed Midwife

by Meg Elison

  As soon as her batteries were charged, Jodi loaded the DVD player and set up a new batch to charge and arranged herself on the couch with pillows and blankets and pulled on her headphones.

  Dusty and Honus washed the dishes together.

  “That was an incredibly thoughtful gift. I’m blown away. I don’t know how to thank you.”

  “I was just in the library and thinking how long it might be before there are new books published. And if any of them will be by women, ever again. And I knew it would matter to you.”

  “It did. It does.”

  They washed and dried. Their hands touched, soapy and wet.

  “I’m sorry again. About reading your diary. I really am. I just couldn’t help myself.”

  “I kind of thought of joking about it. Like I brought you some new books so you’ll stop reading the ones you shouldn’t.” He laughed a little.

  “I’m sorry about your companion. That must have been terrifying.”

  “It was. I have nightmares sometimes. About that . . . Well, you know.”

  “I know. I have nightmares, too.”

  The dishes were done. The smell of turkey and pie still hung in the warm room.

  “I didn’t mean it about reading yours. I wouldn’t do that to you.”

  “I know you wouldn’t.” She was still hiding it.

  “I do wonder sometimes what I might find, though.” Honus hung up the dish towel he had been using and walked out of the room.

  Find me. You might find me.

  CHAPTER 10

  26 December

  Jodi went into labor early this morning. Knew it was coming on, so just watched. Going to have a bad time.

  27 December

  She’s exhausted. Only two fingers dilated. Walked her until she cried and begged to lie down. On her side now. Have misoprostol, but so far she’s refused it. Can’t C-section, she’d never survive. Sent Honus in to talk her into the drugs if he can. Ate something. Gonna lay my head down for a few minutes and then go back in there.

  28 December

  Fucking mess.

  Knew it would end this way. Fucking knew it. Don’t know why I let their hope get to me. Stupid.

  Two feet of snow outside and frozen ground, we can’t even bury the body. They named it. No point in writing it down. No point in naming it. She was right, it was a boy. No point, no point.

  Can’t talk them into cremation. Told Honus the kid can’t be in the house, and if we cover it with snow or put it in a box, animals may find it. He just about puked when I said it, but wouldn’t budge on the idea of burial.

  Jodi lost a lot of blood. Hard birth. Repaired the tearing while she was passed out, then gave her a shot to kill the pain and put her out. She didn’t consent to it. Don’t give a shit. Needs to rest.

  New Year’s Day

  Honus and I cremated the baby last night. He had some time alone with the body while I built the pyre. We did it down the road a ways so that Jodi won’t see. He’s going to tell her we buried the kid, and plant flowers there in the spring. Plan to be gone by then.

  Burned quick. Not much there, and we poured lighter fluid on the base to help it along. Held Honus while he sobbed.

  Jodi is not recovering well. Can’t blame her for not wanting to, right now. Dragged the kiddie pool outside, drained so much blood out of it . . . weird to see it all collected. Poured it out onto the snow. Still warm, and the red spread and steamed. Stared at it. Bloom, bloom red the last rose. Rose red. Snow white.

  She’s weak, thready pulse, distraught. The two of us are tending her all day. The house is silent except that I can hear them both crying through their bedroom doors. Alone.

  Each and every one of us = last person on Earth.

  Chronicles were written all over the world. Some were diaries, like the Book of the Unnamed Midwife. Others were histories of cities and settlements as the years moved by. Each marked time in their own way. Some were read. Others lay forever forgotten when their owners stopped writing.

  The new year went largely unmarked, except in these books. Times Square lay silent under a dusting of snow, stirred by the wind now and again. A small group in upstate New York marked the day a week later, guessing. Five men clinked glasses together in a toast to something none of them believed in anymore.

  On that same day, a pair of sisters swam near the foot of Iguazu Falls on the border between Argentina and Brazil, where it was blistering hot. The two of them had not seen another human being in more than a month. They stripped off their clothes and swam for hours, watching the water’s surface flashing in the sun.

  A harem of three women in Ukraine chose that day to kill their captor. They celebrated, but not because it was a holiday.

  The limited government that still functioned in Seoul appointed new guards to the facility housing the remaining 242 women left in the country. The previous guards had been publicly shot.

  The winter killed many, with cold and isolation and loneliness. The Huntsville ward moved all survivors into the bishop’s large house. Bishop Sterling had died of infection, so Patty had been married to Bishop Lewis, who had been appointed on his twenty-sixth birthday.

  If they could have compared notes, one colony of survivors to another, they would have found that the number of successful human births on Earth that year had been zero. But they did not know, and so hope persisted.

  Jodi had been in bed for six days when Dusty brought her Christmas presents to her.

  “Hey, you don’t have to get up and you don’t have to talk. I wish you’d eat, but I can’t make you. So I thought you might like something comforting. The batteries are all charged up.”

  She arranged the batteries and DVDs on the bed and left Jodi a couple of granola bars. Jodi did not respond, even by opening her eyes. Dusty knew she was awake.

  An hour later, Jodi had sat up and put her headphones on. When Honus went to check on her, she refused to look at him. The granola bars were untouched. The screen showed long-dead people dancing in a club. He kissed her on the top of her head and closed her door.

  Dusty sat on the living room sofa, reading. Honus sat beside her, put his elbows on his knees, and buried his face in his hands.

  “She’ll come out of it,” Dusty said to her book.

  “She’s going to die. She wants to be with the baby. She’s going to leave me, too.” Honus’s voice was thick with tears.

  Dusty was sick to death of this pain. She was awash in her own grief and terror. She thought Honus was right and Jodi would die, but it was such a small thing beside her dawning certainty that no children would ever be born again.

  Never again, never again look upon this wasteland.

  She wanted out of her head so bad that she considered going raiding for enough alcohol to get blackout drunk and stay that way awhile.

  Honus’s long frame sagged. His posture was all grief, and even his silence was leaden. His misery felt like a weight on her, and it was all she could do to keep from screaming at him. She sat, staring into her book but not reading, deciding that she would pack up and move to another house in the neighborhood. She tried to remember which ones still held food in the pantry.

  Honus pulled her book out of her hands. She looked at him and tried to conceal her anger. His eyes were enormous, red rimmed, and bright blue. He hadn’t shaved in a few days. He looked for once more like a man than a boy.

  “Please,” he begged her.

  “What?” She could barely get it out.

  He crawled into her lap with an urgency that woke everything in her. Heat poured into her body from some unknown spring, and she flushed all over. He clung to her like a child, and she was mother and lover and barely sane.

  He cried like he would break and molded himself to her. She found herself shushing him like a frightened child and lying down to hold him prone. The couch was an awkwardly small space, and the two of them barely fit its width, even pressed together. He lay his face in the crook of her neck and sobbed.

 
She held him while a wild, stabbing need ran through her body like a triangular circuit, current carried from her nipples to her clit and back again. She was out of her mind. Grief and rage and sex came together in waves of wordless ache.

  She kissed him.

  She kissed him, and it was like a knot being untied. She tasted his tears and felt his groan in her mouth, felt him shake and harden at once.

  A few gasping flurries of clothing and he was inside her without preamble. She didn’t care. She was as wet as she had ever been, and they ground their hips together, legs held by jeans only half rolled down. She rocked and rocked and came against him, squeezing him tight. She bit his shoulder and stifled a scream. He buried his face in her neck and whimpered as she felt him throb it out inside her. She held him as they calmed, but she could already feel him pulling away.

  He rolled off the couch and knelt, fastening his pants and straightening his shirt. He glanced nervously down the hallway.

  Dusty lay on her back and zipped her jeans. Done, cannot be undone, and there was nothing either of them could say.

  Honus walked down the hall and closed his bedroom door. Dusty did the same, and slept better and deeper than she had in months.

  5 January

  We keep saying that it can’t happen again, that we shouldn’t and she’s going to know. But we do and I don’t know if she does. We are assholes.

  After the first time, I wasn’t sure what was going to happen, but he comes to my room most nights around midnight. Talk and fuck and talk again. Never had anyone teach him anything. Never even done it any way but missionary. Fucking a missionary. Joke funny ha-ha-ha. Loves when I show him something new, but his guilt just gets deeper. Don’t know what to do about it.

  Jodi is not getting better. Refusing to eat. Healing slowly, not like she should. Doesn’t want me looking. Won’t let Honus touch her. Woke us both up screaming the other night that the baby wasn’t dead but we had hidden him from her. Inconsolable = had to knock her out.

  Still want to leave but the snow doesn’t let up and Honus says it will break his heart. Don’t know that I have a heart to break. Don’t love him, just something more along the line of a need. Somewhere to pour all the things that I feel besides this book. Relief. Is that so bad? Would Jodi be angry if she knew it was only a comfort? Rationalizing. Of course she would. Betrayed. But at least I have no intention of stealing him.

  Why steal men these days? Men = dime a dozen.

  They always were.

  Fuck, Jodi. I’m sorry.

  The snow stopped, and rain took its place. Downpour washed away the white and dripped off every edge of the house. A small leak started in the kitchen, and Honus patched it with plastic as best he could. They still had to keep a pan in the place where it dripped.

  Jodi came back slowly, but preferred to watch her movies all day. She didn’t want to speak or eat with them. She put up with small hugs from Honus, but she would not allow Dusty to touch her. Her eyes were large with dark circles beneath, and she grew thinner by the day. She did not get out of bed.

  Dusty and Honus lay in her bed one night, listening to the rain pattering on the roof. Some nights it was loud, like living inside a drum. Tonight it was milder, but enough that they couldn’t sleep.

  She had fucked him four times, each time thinking he would wear out and fall asleep. He didn’t.

  “What’s going to happen?”

  “Happen to what, Honus?”

  “To us. To you and me and Jodi and everybody in the world. What are we going to do?”

  “I’m going to move on in the spring to somewhere I can settle down permanently. Somewhere safe with less snow and maybe where I can grow things. You two will probably go back to Huntsville, since it’s what you know.”

  “So that’s it then?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You won’t stay with me? We could be married. All three of us.”

  “Oh god.”

  “What? It’s not that bad. I love you, you know.”

  “I know.”

  “That’s it?”

  “What do you want me to say?”

  “Say that you love me, too, Dusty. Jeez. I know you do. You wouldn’t be with me like this if you didn’t.”

  She stared at the ceiling. She thought about Jack, whom she had loved. The way they had treated each other, how they had known each other. This was not that.

  “Well?”

  “You don’t even know my name. Look, you love Jodi. You two can have a life together. We . . . all three of us, we got stuck together. If things hadn’t happened this way, we probably never would have met.”

  “But we did meet. I believe that God sent Jodi to you for a reason.”

  She sighed. “Maybe I kept her from dying in childbirth. Maybe. But your reasoning sucks. God killed most of the people on Earth with a plague so that we could have all this? God sent you here to sleep with me and ruin your marriage? God set you up to burn the body of your first child?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Not everything has a meaning. Maybe there is no plan. Maybe there’s no reason we met and we’re fucking because we were both really frustrated and lonely.”

  “I can’t believe you think that way.”

  “I can’t believe you still think there’s a plan.”

  “So what if you get pregnant? We’ve been making love for a while, without any . . . protection.”

  She got up off the bed and grabbed her old pack. She ripped it open to show him her cache of pills and rings and patches. “This is my plan. This is what makes sense to me. Not dying while giving birth to a dead baby. I’m going to try and give them to your wife before I leave, because without someone to attend her, she might not get through this again. So there is no what if. Don’t worry about it. What you need to worry about is that your wife may be the only woman in the county or in the state after I leave. That should worry you.”

  “What do you think will happen? Someone will—”

  “Kill you. Rape her. Maybe make you watch. Maybe you’ll go back to Huntsville and you’ll have an accident so that someone else can marry her. I’ve seen what it’s like out there. As long as you’ve got her, you’ve got trouble.”

  “Then you’re in just as much danger. Why not stay and let me—”

  “Let you protect me. While your wife hates my guts because I let her baby die and then fucked her husband. That sounds grand. When do we start?”

  “Why are you being like this?”

  “I don’t belong here. I can’t stay. Just please let this be what it is. Don’t try to make it last forever.”

  They lay, and the sound of the rain talked over them.

  “What is your real name?”

  “What did you name the baby?”

  Honus got up and left.

  10 January

  Want to leave in the middle of the night without a word. Don’t owe anything. Not even an explanation. Want to run the fuck away from all of this. From everything. Toward nothing.

  Where do I go? For what, to who? Honus isn’t an answer. This doesn’t fix anything. Honus = placebo.

  Grow carrots. Eat carrots. Shit carrots. Die. That’s the best thing I can imagine. And the last generation of humanity winds down to zero. Got into the wrong business after graduation.

  Profession is doomed.

  Can’t leave without a word. Can’t leave them raw like Roxanne left me. Can’t be a mystery like Jack is a mystery. Make them hate me, or leave with grace. Hate is easier.

  Get her to take the shot. Give her enough to share. Tell her not to give it to that Patty kid until menarche. Not sure she can handle it, or will do it at all. Have to try. Prolong life, preserve quality of life, fight for life, FOR WHAT, FOR WHAT, FOR WHAT.

  If I do it now, there won’t be any snow to show it. Get away from the house, let the rain wash me away. They’d never find me. Leave without my pack and they’ll know. Leave with only the gun and they’ll know. Do it with a n
eedle and they might not know. No. No. No.

  Not gonna do it. Can’t come up with a good reason except the awful, fucking awful way I feel, but not gonna do it. Fuck a reason why. There never was a reason why. Making copies is not a reason why. Now until the end is mine, and I won’t spend it in misery/boredom/terror.

  Gonna leave. Soon. But won’t punish them with it. Don’t deserve that.

  Dusty woke up in the morning, and the two of them were crying in Jodi’s room together. She walked to the door. It was open, but she stood in the doorway without entering.

  They sat together on Jodi’s bed, sobbing. It took them a while to notice her. Honus stood up when he did, rubbing his hands on the legs of his pants.

  “She had a nightmare.”

  Dusty nodded. Jodi looked like she’d been crying all night, but she looked alive. Alert.

  “Do you want to try and eat something?”

  Jodi nodded, but she did not look up.

  Dusty walked away to the kitchen. She was planning to carry the plates back to the bedroom, but Jodi and Honus came quietly to the kitchen table. Dusty made them powdered milk to drink and sat down with her solitary cup of coffee, eyeing them both with a weary dread.

  Jodi drank milk and ate a forkful of egg. Honus cleaned his plate as always.

  “So did you decide to live?”

  Jodi looked up. “What?”

  Dusty was not in the mood to talk at the speed she normally set for conversations with Jodi.

  “Did you decide to live instead of dying slowly in that bed? Are you going to live, or are you just going to have breakfast before you die?”

  “It’s not, like, a decision. I’m just alive. I didn’t decide anything.”

  “Bullshit.” She drank her coffee.

  Stubbornly, Jodi ate another forkful of egg.

  Honus cleared his throat and pushed his plate away. “Jodi . . . we both think we should go back to Huntsville. Not now. When she’s stronger. I’m going to look around for a car, but we might end up having to walk.”