“I see its head!” Lila shouted. “I see its fa—oh, Christ, Erin, what—?”
Erin pushed Jolie aside and seized one of the baby’s shoulders before it could retreat, her fingertips pressing deep in a way that made Lila feel ill. The baby’s head slid forward tilted strenuously to one side, as if it was trying to look back to where it had come from. The eyes were shut, the face ashy gray. Looped around the neck and up one cheek toward the ear—like a hangman’s noose—was a blood-spotted umbilical cord that made Lila think of the red snake hanging from the Amazing Tree. From the chest down, the infant was still inside its mother, but one arm had slithered free and hung down limply. Lila could see each perfect finger, each perfect nail.
“Quit pushing,” Erin said. “I know you want to finish it, but don’t push yet.”
“I need to,” Tiffany rasped.
“You’ll strangle your baby if you do,” Jolie said. She was back beside Erin, shoulder to shoulder. “Wait. Just… just give me a second…”
Too late, thought Lila. It’s already strangled. You only have to look at that gray face.
Jolie worked one finger beneath the umbilical cord, then two. She flexed the fingers in a come-on gesture, first pulling the cord away from the infant’s neck and then slipping it off. Tiffany screamed, every tendon in her neck standing out in stark relief.
“Push!” Erin said. “Just as hard as you can! On three! Jolie, don’t let it face-plant on this filthy fucking floor when it comes! Tiff! One, two, three!”
Tiffany pushed. The baby seemed to shoot into Jolie Suratt’s hands. It was slimy, it was beautiful, and it was dead.
“Straw!” Jolie shouted. “Get a straw! Now!”
Elaine stepped forward. Lila hadn’t seen her move. She already had one ready, the paper stripped off. “Here.”
Erin took the straw. “Lila,” Erin said. “Open his mouth.”
His. Until then, Lila hadn’t noticed the tiny gray comma below the baby’s stomach.
“Open his mouth!” Erin repeated.
Carefully, Lila used two fingers to do as she was told. Erin put one end of the straw in her own mouth and the other in the tiny opening Lila’s fingers had created.
“Now push up on his chin,” Jolie instructed. “Gotta create suction.”
What point? Dead was dead. But Lila once more obeyed orders, and saw shadowy crescents appear in Erin Eisenberg’s cheeks as she sucked on her end. There was an audible sound—flup. Erin turned her head aside to spit out what looked like a wad of phlegm. Then she nodded to Jolie, who raised the baby to her face and blew gently into its mouth.
The baby just lay there, head back, beads of blood and foam on its bald head. Jolie blew again, and a miracle happened. The tiny chest heaved; the blue eyes popped sightlessly open. He began to wail. Celia Frode started the applause, and the others joined in… except for Elaine, who had retreated to where she was earlier, her arms once again clasping her midsection. The baby’s cries were constant now. Its hands made tiny fists.
“That’s my baby,” Tiffany said, and raised her arms. “My baby is crying. Give him to me.”
Jolie tied off the umbilical cord with a rubber band and wrapped the baby in the first thing that came to hand—a waitress’s apron someone had grabbed from a coathook. She passed the wailing bundle to Tiffany, who looked into his face, laughed, and kissed one gummy cheek.
“Where are those towels?” Erin demanded. “Get them now.”
“They won’t be too warm yet,” Kitty said.
“Get them.”
The towels were brought and Mary lined the Budweiser cooler with them. While she did, Lila saw more blood gushing from between Tiffany’s legs. A lot of blood. Pints, maybe.
“Is that normal?” someone asked.
“Perfectly.” Erin’s voice was firm and sure, confidence personified: absolutely no problem here. That was when Lila began to suspect that Tiffany was probably going to die. “But someone bring me more towels.”
Jolie Suratt moved to take the baby from his mother and put him in the makeshift Budweiser bassinet. Erin shook her head. “Let her hold him a little longer.”
That was when Lila knew for sure.
Sundown in what had once been the town of Dooling and was now Our Place.
Lila was sitting on the front stoop of the house on St. George Street with a stapled sheaf of paper in her hands when Janice Coates came up the walk. When Janice sat down next to her, Lila caught a scent of juniper. From a pocket inside her quilted vest, the ex-warden removed the source: a pint bottle of Schenley’s gin. She held it out to Lila. Lila shook her head.
“Retained placenta,” Janice said. “That’s what Erin told me. No way to scrape it out, at least not in time to stop the bleeding. And none of that drug they use.”
“Pitocin,” Lila said. “I had it when Jared was born.”
They sat quiet for awhile, watching the light drain from what had been a very long day. At last Janice said, “I thought you might like some help cleaning out her stuff.”
“Already done. She didn’t have much.”
“None of us do. Which is sort of a relief, don’t you think? We learned a poem in school, something about getting and spending laying waste to all our powers. Keats, maybe.”
Lila, who had learned the same poem, knew it was Wordsworth, but said nothing. Janice returned the bottle to the pocket it had come from and brought out a relatively clean handkerchief. She used it to wipe first one of Lila’s cheeks, then the other, an action that brought back painfully sweet memories of Lila’s mother, who had done the same thing on the many occasions when her daughter, a self-confessed tomboy, had taken a tumble from her bike or her skateboard.
“I found this in the dresser where she was keeping her baby things,” Lila said, handing Janice the thin pile of pages. “It was under some nightshirts and bootees.”
On the front, Tiffany had pasted a picture of a laughing, perfectly permed mommy holding up a laughing baby in a shaft of golden sunlight. Janice was pretty sure it had been clipped from a Gerber baby food ad in an old women’s magazine—maybe Good Housekeeping. Below it, Tiffany had lettered: ANDREW JONES BOOK FOR A GOOD LIFE.
“She knew it was a boy,” Lila said. “I don’t know how she knew, but she did.”
“Magda told her. Some old wives’ tale about carrying high.”
“She must have been working on this for quite awhile, and I never saw her at it.” Lila wondered if Tiffany had been embarrassed. “Look at the first page. That’s what started the waterworks.”
Janice opened the little homemade book. Lila leaned close to her and they read it together.
1 Be kind to others & they will be kind to you
2 Do not use drugs for fun EVER
3 If you are wrong, apologize
4 God sees what you do wrong but HE is kind & will forgive
5 Do not tell lies as that becomes a habit
6 Never whip a horse
7 Your body is your tempul so DO NOT SMOKE
8 Do not cheet, give everyone a SQUARE SHAKE
9 Be careful of the friends you choose, I was not
10 Remember your mother will always love you & you will be OKAY!
“It was the last one that really got me,” Lila said. “It still does. Give me that bottle. I guess I need a nip after all.”
Janice handed it over. Lila swallowed, grimaced, and handed it back. “How’s the baby? Okay?”
“Considering he was born six weeks shy of term, and wearing his umbilical cord for a necklace, he’s doing very well,” Janice said. “Thank God we had Erin and Jolie along, or we would have lost them both. He’s with Linda Bayer and Linda’s baby. Linda quit nursing Alex a little while ago, but as soon as she heard Andy crying, her milk came right back in. So she says. Meanwhile, we’ve got another tragedy on our hands.”