Revival Season - Monica West (recommended ebook reader TXT) 📗

Ma hadn’t yet brought her bag inside, hadn’t yet stepped over the threshold. I couldn’t move to bring her in or shut her out, so I kept the door open as an invitation.

“What will happen to us if you leave?” It was the most selfish question, but it was the only thing I could think about, especially as Caleb and Hannah slept only feet away.

“You don’t think I’ve thought about that? You three are the first things on my mind each morning and my last thoughts at night. How to love and protect you. How to keep you safe. And I’ve failed at all of it. I’m so sorry for that…”

Her voice trailed off as she spoke, each word bringing her farther inside the house. By the time she stopped talking, both feet were on the tile. When the screen door closed on her, the car turned the corner with its hazards still on. Ma sagged in the doorway with her hands pressed against her stomach, breathing harsh exhales through pursed lips. It seemed like a contraction, but her due date was a month away. I helped her onto the couch and carried her suitcase upstairs, stowing it in the back of my closet behind a cardboard box of old Bibles and Sunday school drawings.

Later that afternoon, the house suddenly swelled with wailing. The low hum from Ma’s early stage of labor lifted through the vents and curled its way beneath doors. It was too soon, and when I rushed to the couch to check on Ma, she was grabbing her stomach and rocking, as though that action would slow things down.

“You’re okay, Ma,” I said as I scampered into the kitchen to call Mrs. Cade. I tried to keep my voice neutral, but Mrs. Cade must have heard something in it that scared her because ten minutes later, her car tires screeched into the driveway. I opened the door to her familiar, welcome face, and stepped aside while she rushed to Ma.

She entered the living room and gasped when she saw Ma’s swollen face; a moment later, she reset her expression into a look of practiced calm and hurried to Ma’s side.

“You’re okay, Joanne,” she said over and over. I stayed far behind her, looking over her shoulder as she placed her stethoscope to Ma’s stomach.

“The baby’s okay, too,” she said. “Everything’s going to be fine.”

Caleb took Hannah upstairs while I turned on the teakettle in the break between contractions. Its whistle mingled with the noises that Ma was now making in the living room. I checked the kitchen clock: 3:04. The house paused to catch its breath as Ma caught hers; in the brief silence, I gathered an armful of towels.

My body sprang into action, the movements deep in muscle memory. I’d done this with Isaiah, wiping Ma’s brow at regular intervals and feeding her ice chips, counting the minutes between the contractions and, finally, when the time came, telling her to push with my hand propped on her sweaty knee. But Mrs. Cade must have seen something that wasn’t right, because just when I was about to tell Ma to push one final time, she sent me away.

I’d watched from the hallway when Ma was having Hannah, too young and scared to enter the room. Ma’s cries were different back then, more like a cat’s breathy mews than wails. At first I thought those noises were normal, until a look of concern crept across Mrs. Cade’s brow and she stepped in the kitchen to make a call. Before we knew it, the house flooded with intermittent flashes of red light. While Papa stood there, the paramedics placed a plastic dome over Ma’s mouth that silenced her cries. They belted her to a gurney and whisked her off, the stretcher’s back wheels skittering like a wayward shopping cart’s. Papa went away in the ambulance with her. When I finally got to see Hannah, a wall of glass and a tangle of tubes separated us.

In the kitchen, I soaked and wrung out the towels that Mrs. Cade had directed me to get. For a moment, it was quiet. My internal timer counted the seconds between contractions. One, two, three. Ma screamed out at almost ninety-four. Go time, as Mrs. Cade called it. Normally, she would tell me to go upstairs and bring Papa down, but she must have gotten a good enough look at Ma’s face and decided not to extend the invitation.

“So we’re going to do this, huh?” Adrenaline pulsed through me when I realized that it would be the three of us for the first time. Ma switched from her laboring position on all fours to the birthing position, which meant that her raised, bent knees were on either side of Mrs. Cade’s head.

“Hey, Miriam.” Her thready whisper was barely audible with the noise of Mrs. Cade removing things from her bag.

“Hey, Ma.” I crouched by her head, wiping her brow with a cool cloth. Her dry lips cracked into a smile before I rubbed a piece of ice over them.

“When the next contraction comes, you need to start pushing,” Mrs. Cade directed from between Ma’s knees.

Ma lifted her head from the pillow in acknowledgment of what Mrs. Cade had said. Like a wave, the next contraction rolled in. Ma curled around herself. I grabbed one of her knees and guided it back, focusing on the way the bruise seeped across her left eye as she winced, listening to Mrs. Cade’s steady movements rather than the irregular patter of my racing heart.

“Push,” I coaxed. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. I paused a beat between each number, just like Mrs. Cade had taught me. Ma’s screams threatened to shatter the windows. I grabbed her hand tight, hoping to take away some of the pain. She squeezed so hard I thought my fingers might come off, but I kept counting.

“Good, Joanne. A few more like that and we’ll have a baby.”

“Good job, Ma,”