Life Sentence (14 page)

Even though my parents encouraged me to be more
circumspect in my own behavior, they kept the blame and ostracism
of Rachel to a minimum; they said she was so hurt and alone by what
had happened that she compensated by taking risks and behaving in
unacceptable ways. The important thing, they always insisted, was
that she never hurt or lied to anyone, and therefore her behavior
was not immoral in any substantive, important way. I of all people
knew about ostracism, so I did not want to ridicule or criticize
her.

My mom told me Rachel had not—or, the gossips
confidently asserted,
could not
—name her baby’s father, but
this made no difference to us that day. She was alone and in pain,
and all we needed to think about was how to help her.

Ms. Dresden’s house wasn’t far from the school. We
went right in. There were old rock posters on the walls, dead
flowers in a vase, and lace and bead curtains in each window and
doorway. A large pistol sat on the end table next to the couch, and
leaning on the wall between the end table and couch there was a
shotgun. She’d stuck a big, plastic flower in the barrel of that.
On the mantle she had a rifle, a box of ammo, and a bunch of partly
burnt candles, all under a picture of Jimi Hendrix superimposed on
a marijuana leaf. I thought it was the most delightfully scandalous
room I had ever seen.

We followed her grunts to her bedroom. Ms. Dresden
was on her bed, panting and sweating, her belly impossibly huge.
She didn’t greet us, just sort of nodded as she breathed, puffing
her cheeks out with air. She threw her head back, grimaced, and let
out a howl of animal agony.

Mom took a towel out of her bag and unrolled it on a
chest at the foot of the bed, revealing a row of medical
instruments. She pulled on her rubber gloves, then handed me a
pair; I put them on.

“Easy, Rachel,” Mom said as she pushed the woman’s
knees up and back, then pushed the big gown or t-shirt up around
Rachel’s waist. The sheets under her were wet; her water had
broken. Rachel gave another howl. The contractions were really
close together. This would be done pretty soon.

“Thanks for coming so fast, Sarah,” Rachel managed
to pant in response, before another contraction wracked her body.
“I appreciate it.”

“Of course. You knew I would.” Mom kept her eyes on
Rachel’s as she reached inside. “You’re not dilated enough, so try
not to push. I know it’s hard.”

Rachel went through another contraction, this time
with her mouth open but silent, trying to work the uncooperative
muscles and fight the urge to push. All the drugs used to induce or
inhibit labor had long since expired. So had the ones for pain.
Sometimes the woman would bite something, like a strap or a rolled
up towel. Mom would usually run the generator to power an
ultrasound machine twice during a pregnancy, but other than that,
births took their course with little interference from technology.
Mom just had to keep encouraging her and checking how dilated she
was.

Ms. Dresden let out a string of expletives with most
of the contractions, cursing the world and herself, but it was
pretty normal by birthing standards. This went on for a while, but
not nearly as long as some of the more difficult births I’d been
to. In less than an hour, Rachel was fully dilated and could push.
Mom guided the baby and coached Rachel, and I got ready to catch it
with a clean towel. But after it had crowned, I could see there was
a problem. Its shoulder caught a little, and the baby was a pale
blue. Mom kept working, but she looked to me. A stillbirth was an
extremely traumatic and dangerous procedure and I’d never been with
Mom during one—until then.

“What’s going on?” Ms. Dresden demanded, picking up
on the change in our demeanor. “What’s wrong?”

Mom was working to maneuver the tiny corpse out of
her. “Your baby’s not alive, Rachel. I’m so sorry. But we have to
work quickly. You know that. Keep pushing. Zoey, get ready to cut
the cord.”

I grabbed a pair of shears from the tools Mom had
brought. Gleaming, stainless steel—I never liked handling medical
instruments. I found the oily, black sheen of guns far preferable;
they seemed more human somehow, while such shiny, pristine utensils
as these looked alien and otherworldly, taken from out of science
fiction and dropped down onto our simple, dirty, broken planet.

Ms. Dresden let out another howl as she pushed, and
this one was followed by two small sobs. The tiny body finally
slipped out of her. Mom held up the cord for me. I cut through it,
surprised again at how tough and gristly the flesh seemed, like a
chicken neck. Mom handed the body to me and I wrapped it in the
towel, trying to keep my back to Ms. Dresden so she couldn’t see
it. I made the wrapping as tight as I could, covering its face, and
set it on the floor where I thought Ms. Dresden wouldn’t be able to
see it. I turned back to Mom, who was working to get the afterbirth
out. “Keep pushing, Rachel.” Mom was sniffling too, I could see,
and she bent her head down to wipe her eye on her sleeve. “We’ve
got to get everything out. We don’t want infection. And you know we
have to do it quickly now.”

Ms. Dresden’s sobs crescendoed to the most perfect,
keenest wail that cut down from my head to my abdomen and resonated
there, making my diaphragm spasm into choked, restrained sobs. She
took a wheezing gasp and then cried, “Who the hell cares? Just
leave me alone!” She let out another string of expletives, then
started thrashing her legs, kicking at us. I grabbed her right leg
and held it as best I could so Mom could finish.

After she had done everything she could, Mom balled
up a towel with all the fluids and tissue and shoved it to the
side. “Okay, Rachel, okay, we’re done.” She looked down at the
bundle I had put on the floor. She nudged it with her foot. It slid
just a little, then started to move on its own, the towel pushing
out in one spot, then another. Mom scooped up the bundle and her
bag. “Zoey, stay with Rachel. I need to take care of this.”

Ms. Dresden sat up as Mom hurried from the room. I
tried to sit next to her, to comfort her, but she was already
thrashing and pushing me away. I got her around the shoulders, but
she was strong.

“Get off of me, you bald, little freak!”

She wrenched her body away and tried to follow my
mom. I thrust my left arm over her shoulder and across her chest,
then snaked my right arm under and around hers to press my hand on
the back of her head—a half nelson, my dad had called it. It was a
better hold, as I didn’t think she could shake me off as easily,
but I didn’t have as much purchase with my legs. I could feel her
well-muscled back and shoulders; with the adrenaline pushing her,
she could probably stand up with me still clinging to her. I braced
my right foot on the floor and twisted my body to keep her from
standing.

“I said get off me, you little, zombie, freak girl!”
She elbowed the side of my head, but I held on. I was crying
because I was fighting this poor woman, not because of the
pain.

“Sarah, you bring my baby back in here!” she
bellowed as she got one foot on the floor and started to turn. “You
got no right to do anything with it!”

“I have to take care of it, Rachel!” Mom shouted
from the other room. “You know that!” I could hear a small
moaning—plaintive and angry—and then repeated tearing sounds.

I leaned back as hard as I could, but Ms. Dresden
was getting her other foot around to stand.

“You leave my baby alone! And you and your little
freak girl leave me alone, too! You always think you’re so high and
mighty, Sarah, ’cause you’re married to the big, boss man of this
little shit hole! Screw you!”

Now she had both feet on the floor. I grabbed the
headboard of the bed with my left hand as I twisted and wrapped my
right leg around her waist. She slid a little and lost her balance
and we were wrestling on the bed again as she screamed more at my
mom. “Yeah, the big man! Piss off, Sarah! Maybe it was him that
knocked my ass up! Maybe hubby’s been screwing me ’cause you’re
such a cold, heartless bitch, and now you want to take it out on my
poor baby! Is that it, Sarah, you sick cunt?”

“Rachel, stop it,” Mom said in loud but measured
tones. “I know you’re devastated, but stop it. Zoey doesn’t need to
hear that.” There was a thud from the other room, and Ms. Dresden
went slack and slumped back on me.

I slipped my arm and leg from around her. “Mom?” I
croaked, my voice sticking in me. “You’re going to bring Ms.
Dresden’s baby back in here, aren’t you?”

“Yes, Zoey, I just dropped my bag.” She came through
the door carrying the bundle, which she had wrapped with white
cloth tape. The head was poking out, moving a little side to side
and moaning. “Zoey,” Mom said, “go to my bag and get a surgical
mask for Rachel. Sometimes they spit.”

I nodded and went to get the mask. Once I’d put it
on Ms. Dresden, Mom handed the bundle to her. “It’s a boy,” she
announced.

Ms. Dresden nodded a little and rocked the thing
that would’ve been her child in a better, kinder world. Unlike a
normal baby, it watched her intently, its cloudy eyes filled with
that mixture of forlornness and bestial hunger that one can always
imagine in the eyes of the dead.

The tears came slow and steady now from its mother.
Not the previously violent sobs of denial and rage, but the calmer
bathing as her soul sank down into abiding sorrow, accepting the
small comfort that comes from embracing enormous pain.

Mom brushed Ms. Dresden’s sweaty, red hair off her
forehead. It was so red and glistening that for a moment it looked
as though she had removed a bloody gash from there. Mom smoothed
the hair back, then gently stroked her pale face, swollen but still
so overwhelmingly pretty, and now so weak and vulnerable. “I’m so
sorry, Rachel. I’m so, so sorry.”

Ms. Dresden looked up at my mom, and pulled the mask
a little away from her mouth to speak. “I shouldn’t have said those
awful things, Sarah. I don’t know what to say now. Please forgive
me.”

“Of course, Rachel. I’ve heard a lot from women in
labor. Don’t worry about me. I’ve always said you were a nice girl.
I know you are.”

Ms. Dresden turned to me. “You too, Zoey. I’m so
sorry I said those things and hit you.”

“It’s okay,” I said.

“You hold him a while, Rachel,” my mom said. “You
need to. It’s natural. And when you need to put him down, I’ll put
him in the other room, so he’s safe. I think Zoey should sit with
you for a while, if that’s okay. It’s harder when you’re
alone.”

We both nodded.

Mom and I sat in the living room among the guns and
rock posters for what seemed like a long time while Ms. Dresden
held her baby. Afterward, Mom put the baby in the bathtub and
closed the bathroom door. She and I gathered the bloody towels and
made a clean bed for Ms. Dresden, propping her up with fresh
blankets and pillows. Mom left, and the two of us sat alone, not
speaking, just sitting there, Ms. Dresden in her bed, me in a chair
next to her.

“Zoey,” she said, breaking the silence, “I know it
sounds funny, when so much has happened, but I can barely see
straight, I’m so hungry. Someone left some stuff for me. It should
be on the stairs down to the basement, where it’s cooler. Please
bring me something. It doesn’t matter what.”

I went to the kitchen, where the door to the
basement was. There was still enough daylight coming in that I
could see a few steps down into the darkness. Hanging on the wall
was a large haunch of smoked deer meat, and on the steps was a bag
with berries in it, and another with hard, dry bread. In the
kitchen, I found a knife to cut away some of the hard rind on the
meat, and to slice the bread into smaller chunks. I picked through
the berries to get out the moldy ones, too. I took the good parts
to Ms. Dresden and we sat on her bed, chewing silently till we were
full. Then she lay back. I put the food in the bags and returned it
to the basement stairs. Then I sat back down on my chair next to
her.

I lit a candle when it got darker. More light
might’ve been nice, but most of our candles were tallow, and the
smell wasn’t pretty.

Ms. Dresden spoke up again. “That was gross what I
said about your dad. I know your mom and dad are nice and they
don’t talk about me. I should’ve remembered that, and I also
should’ve respected you and not tried to hurt you, especially not
that way. You’ve always been a nice girl, too. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s hard, when you’re sad and in pain, to be nice.
I know.”

“I guess that’s right. But still, I shouldn’t have.”
Though the candlelight made the room look slightly sinister,
Rachel’s face looked serene and softened. “I need to sleep.” She
scooted over a little on her bed. “Sit next to me if you want, if
it’d be more comfortable. Or I’ll be okay if you want to
leave.”

I sat next to her. “It’s okay. I could stay a while.
Mom will come get me later.”

Protect the living. Honor the dead. I had done what
I had trained to do, what was necessary for survival. Survival
meant life continued, and life was hard. This was true, and I now
saw how difficult truth was.

As she finally sank into an exhausted sleep, Ms.
Dresden’s breathing fell into a rhythm that matched the frail
wheezing from the thing in the other room as it struggled against
its bonds. Though identical in rhythm, the latter had the ragged
pant of desire, frustration, and restlessness, while poor Rachel’s
spent body was only soft, yielding, finally without struggle or
pain. I leaned against her as she slept and just breathed in all
her feminine, fecund, and profane scent—warm, solid, and enduring.
Though there was a pain in my heart so cold and bitter I could
taste it, metallic and sharp, slowly I felt my bones soften and
settle onto Rachel’s small but powerful frame, till I too fell
asleep.