But Cecily is so small in a bloody sea of tubes and machines and white rubber gloves. She’s gasping and moaning, and suddenly I’m terrified she’s going to die.
“I can’t,” I say.
“I’ll look out for her,” Jenna says. “I’ll make sure nothing happens.”
I know she would. I trust her. But she doesn’t know the story about Rose’s baby, how Rose gave birth with no one but Vaughn to take care of her, and the awful thing he did when she was too sedated to stop him. He did something similar to me, after the hurricane. He’s most dangerous when Linden’s wives are unable to fight back.
And I will not leave this room while his gloved hands are lifting up Cecily’s nightgown.
Something else keeps me frozen to that spot too. Cecily has become a sister to me, and I feel it’s my place to protect her just as my brother and I protected each other.
It goes on for what feels like hours. Sometimes Cecily is screaming and thrashing her legs, and other times she drifts in and out of sleep, or chews on ice chips that Elle feeds her from a paper cup. Once she asks me to tell her a story about the twins. I’d rather not share my life stories with a room full of attendants and Linden and Vaughn, so I tell her one of my mother’s stories instead, and I embellish to make up for the details I don’t know. I tell her about a neighborhood where everyone flew kites.
They had hang gliders, too, which were giant kites that people could ride. The riders would stand somewhere high, like on a bridge or at the top of a very tall building. Then they would jump, and their hang glider would catch the wind. They would fly. Cecily sighs dreamily and says, “That sounds like magic.”
“It was,” I say. And on top of everything else now, I miss my mother. She would know what to do; so many babies were born on her watch. Young, expectant mothers would donate their children to research labs; in exchange they were given prenatal care, a few warm months off the street. And my mother was always so careful with the newborns. All she wanted to do was find an antidote so that the new generations would be able to live full and normal lives. When I was little, I believed she and my father would do it, but when they were killed in that explosion, Rowan said it was pointless. He said there was no saving this miserable world at all, and I believed him. And now I’m about to witness the birth of a new generation firsthand, and I don’t know what I believe. I just know I want it to be alive.
Cecily’s body is seized by another contraction, and her back arches off of the mattress. I’m holding one hand and Linden is holding the other, and for a strange moment I feel almost like she’s our child. All through my kite story, I noticed him looking at me in gratitude. Now she makes a terrible shrieking, whimpering sound. Her lip quivers. Linden tries to soothe her, but she jerks her face from his kisses, gurgles and screams in response to our cooing voices. I feel tears brimming in my own eyes, as I watch the tears stream down her face, and finally I snap at Vaughn, “Can’t you do something more for her pain?”
Genius that he is, expert on the human form, aspiring bearer of the world-saving antidote.
His eyes meet mine with neutrality. “No need.”
The attendants are putting Cecily’s legs up on a pair of strange platforms that look like bicycle pedals. I think they call them stirrups. Vaughn leans close and kisses Cecily’s sweaty forehead and says, “It’s almost done, darling. You’re doing wonderfully.” She smiles wearily.
Jenna sits on the divan in the corner, looking pale herself. A little while ago she braided Cecily’s sweaty hair back for her, but she hasn’t spoken much since then. I want to go and sit with her, to comfort her and be comforted by her, but Cecily won’t release her death grip on me. And soon, too soon, Vaughn is telling her to push.
To her credit she has stopped moaning about the pain.
She sits upright, propped against the headboard, and a new determination washes over her face. She’s ready.
She’s going to assume control.
When she pushes, the veins in her neck bulge. Her skin is sunburn pink. She grits her teeth and clamps Linden’s and my hand. A long, strained whimper gets trapped in her throat and escapes as a spluttering gasp.
This happens once, then again, then again, with a few seconds between for her to catch her breath. She’s getting frustrated, and Vaughn tells her this next time will be the last time.
It turns out he’s right. She pushes, and there’s a horrible bloody sound as the baby comes out of her. But worse than that is the silence that follows.
Chapter 20
We wait, and we wait. I want to look away, and I think Linden does too, as this white infant is held up by one of the attendants, bloody and still, but we’re frozen.
All of us are frozen. Jenna on the divan. Cecily clinging to our hands. The attendants like sleeping cattle.
I barely have time to form the thought that Vaughn will let this baby die like his last grandchild, before he goes into action. He takes his new grandchild and sticks some kind of turkey-baster device into its mouth, and in a second the room is filled with a shrill cry, and the baby’s limbs begin to thrash. Cecily deflates.
“Congratulations,” Vaughn says, holding the writhing child up in his gloved hands. “You have a son.”
All at once the room is filled with commotion and noise. The baby, still crying, is taken away to be cleaned and inspected. Linden holds Cecily’s face close to his, and they’re talking to each other in fast, hushed voices and kissing between the words.
I fall beside Jenna on the divan, and we put an arm around each other. I whisper, “Thank goodness that’s over.”
“Maybe not,” Jenna says.
We watch as the attendants tend to Cecily, who has delivered the placenta, who is still bleeding, who is still too pale for comfort. She is transferred onto a gurney, and I am immediately at her side. This time I’m the one clinging to her hand, and I say, “I’ll go with her.”