Bella’s snores spoke to the hospital walls – murmuring a language of anguish. I struggled to comprehend.
Finally, she can sleep.
Five hours of labor. I waited with her. I mopped her forehead with a clean washcloth. I held her hand; her grip was as forceful as a pipe wrench.
“Her cervix is dilating,” the nurse said. She turned to her assistant. “Call in Dr. Sales.
Bella bellowed boisterously.
I stared at the fent between her legs, her vagina, the spot I devoured and caressed, was bulging and red. Her lips were swollen and bloody. Nausea tightened its fingers around my throat, stifling back the sourness mounting from my stomach.
The crown of the baby’s head emerged.
My mind raced to Dolly, my Brown Swiss. Only four months ago, I watched her push her calf out. It landed on the ground, covered in jelly. A coppery scent filled the air. I grabbed a clean towel and wiped the membrane from its nose and mouth. Its eyes blinked back at me. He was the ninth in my herd. The veterinary check was A-OK.
Bigger now, Dolly’s calf had a tuft of hair, a cowlick, that sprang up between his ears. It made me chuckle.
“PUSH!” the nurse screeched at Bella.
I tightened my intestines and pushed along with her.
A boy! My heart exploded.
Then my gut petrified.
Blue.
The baby was blue.
The doctor whisked him from the room.
“Bastien!” Bella howled at me.
My heart pounded, a stampede stomped across my body.
Bella shook. The bed shook. I jumped to her and held her shoulders.
Bella’s sobs, violent at first, subsided to raspy whimpers. Her eyes blinked up at me. I swept a drenched lock of hair off her forehead with a washcloth.
Neither of us spoke, as if the question tumbling around behind our tight lips would become real if it took a breath.
I thought about Dolly’s calf, number 9. I had parked him with his brothers in a Sorghum field when Bella first went into labor.
Did I fill the water trough? It’d been beastly hot lately. They’d need water soon.
Dr. Sales walked in.
I sucked in all the air my lungs could hold.
He pulled off his scrub cap and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand.
“He’s going to be okay,” he said.
Bella squeaked.
My breath escaped.
“He needed oxygen, but he is breathing on his own now.” Doctor Sales’ eyes were glassy. “We are going to monitor him for a few hours; you should use this time to rest.” He smiled at Bella.
I held Bella’s hand until her snores entered a private conversation with the walls.
I let her sleep. I had to get back to the farm.
What day is this? September 8. I pictured birthday cakes, balloons, and children’s laughter.
Two round, brown eyes.
I looked at my watch.
The livestock hauler was due in an hour.
My heart shrieked.
Lucy Carr Icard is an MFA student at Southern New Hampshire University. She has published short fiction in several literary magazines and she is working on her debut novel. Icard’s writing is influenced by her adulthood in France, her childhood in Maine, and her zealous imagination.
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