The midwife nodded to him ever so slightly.
“Does this mean…?” Marie trailed off.
Steven was finally by her side. He grasped her hand. “Don’t we get to decide?” he asked.
“Something is happening during the contractions that is putting the baby in distress,” the midwife said. “I promised we wouldn’t put you on a timetable, but this isn’t about time, this is about your child’s life.”
“Are you sure…”
“The only thing we’re sure about,” said the midwife, “is that we don’t want to risk your baby’s life.”
Another contraction rolled through Marie’s pelvis. Marie gritted her teeth and threw her head back. The fetal monitor squealed again. Steven threw his hands over Marie’s ears. Even with the sound muted by her husband’s palms, it sounded to Marie like it was their child squealing, like they were torturing the baby before it had a chance to be born.
“The OR is ready,” Marie heard someone announce. The gravelly tones in the person’s voice shot straight through her and stripped away everything else in the room. Marie looked up and saw the old nurse standing in the doorway. Her gnarled hands rested on the handles of the wheelchair. She vaguely heard the word “epidural” and felt hands on her body, but nothing could break Marie’s fascination with the old nurse.
She didn’t hear the rip of the wrapper as a nurse unsheathed a needle. She didn’t feel the grip of Steven’s hands on her shoulders as he engulfed her in his embrace. The pinch of the needle sliding into her spine barely registered. She heard her heartbeat thudding in her ears, she even heard her baby’s heartbeat fluttering rapidly next to her own, but she was completely estranged from the goings-on in the room.
Two nurses eased her legs off the bed. Holding tightly onto Steven and the midwife, Marie pulled herself to her feet. She leaned on Steven as she hobbled to the wheelchair. There was another contraction or two in the hallway, but they had been dulled by the epidural.
Marie began to lose sensation in her legs while she was being rushed down the hall. Although she had been unhooked from the fetal monitor, she could still hear it screeching in her ears. She could feel her body contract, but was unable to lift her knees or wiggle her toes. Panic pounded her ribcage. Pure terror invaded her.
“Steven!” she yelled, and twisted around in the wheelchair. She was frantic to find Steven, but all she could see were harried nurses in quiet shoes.
“You poor dear,” the old nurse said. The wheelchair made a sharp turn, and soon Marie was facing a set of gray double doors. The doors flew open on their own, and the nurse pushed Marie through.
Marie gripped the arms of the wheelchair and looked back at the nurse. “Where is my husband!?” she asked.
The nurse smiled. Up close, Marie could see that the nurse’s eyes were not symmetrical. One gleamed and reflected light, while the other gobbled it up, hungry as a black hole.
“Where is Steven?” she asked again.
The woman did not answer. She simply smiled. Her grin gave Marie chills.
Marie tried to stand, but when she pushed against the armrest of the wheelchair, she remembered that her legs were dead weight. She fell against the backrest.
“Don’t be difficult,” the nurse said, and the room went dark.
The sound of the nurse’s breathing became amplified. Marie was—briefly—in three places at once. She was tearing through the bushes, yelling for her daddy as a lost three year old; she was standing barefoot and dusty- toed at the crossroads; and she was here now—at the hospital, her fears and history reverberating through her mind.
“It’s time for you to pay,” the nurse said in the dark.
Marie shifted nervously in the wheelchair.
“I have nothing for you to collect,” she said, forcing her voice not to falter.
A glow lit the room from above. The light gathered into a focused stream and showered down on Marie’s pregnant belly.
“I don’t like liars,” the nurse growled.
The nurse walked around the wheelchair and stood in front of Marie. She pointed at Marie, and Marie trembled violently. The trembling invaded every cell of her body. She wanted to plead for mercy, but the trembling had taken over her face, and she could not still her lips long enough to get any words out.
The nurse smiled as if satisfied with her effect on Marie. She took Marie’s hand and leaned over until she was eye-level with Marie.
“Do you want to push?” she asked gently.
Marie shook her head, defiance burning in her eyes. The nurse extended two fingers and placed them on the side of Marie’s neck. Marie’s body jackknifed back, then she fell forward. Bent over her knees, she began to wail, but she could not form words. Her teeth chattered, and even her arms began to feel numb.
“It’s time to push,” the nurse said, her gravelly tones cloaked in cool professionalism.
The nurse grasped Marie under her arms and eased her to the floor. She manipulated Marie’s legs so that each knee was bent and each foot was flat on the floor. Marie squeezed her eyes shut and clenched her entire body as tightly as she could. The nurse walked around Marie and squatted behind her. She hooked her hands under Marie’s armpits and hoisted her into a birthing position.
Marie took deep gulping breaths to keep nausea at bay. Her gaze skittered around the room. It was empty —the room—with no furnishings, no windows, and only one door. The walls glowed faintly in the dim light. Marie latched onto the floor tiles, losing herself in the pattern they made—a chaotic series of snaking lines that curved this way and that. When the floor went blurry, she knew another contraction had found her. She tensed her body, hoping to hold the baby in. When the blurriness passed, Marie heard the plink of dripping water and the raspy, ragged breathing of the nurse licking at her ear. She thought of Steven, desperately wishing that he was by her side.
Instantly, as if triggered by her thoughts, dancing lines of light illuminated the walls of the room. The light was everywhere, as if being reflected by a pool of water, but there was no water—only the old nurse’s rasps, Marie’s pain, and the sound of dripping. The light on the walls twisted and undulated, twining to form images, and then unraveling into random patterns. For a few, brief seconds, the lines joined to become Steven—a frozen expression of false bravado contorting his face. The lights scattered, then rejoined to form the contours of the midwife’s face. Both she and Steven were looking down.
The light built into a shimmering glow that was so powerful that Marie had to look away. When the lines took shape again, she realized that Steven and the midwife were looking down at her. She was lying on a surgical bed, and there was a curtain over her chest. Past Steven, she could see the doctor leaning over the lower half of her body, intently operating on her. Anger exploded within at the same instant that another contraction ripped through her. She yelled, the rage bursting out of her in wild, uncontrolled waves.
The nurse’s voice rang out in her mind.
“Push!!”
Suddenly it was too late not to push. She couldn’t pull back her rage quickly enough. A ripple took hold of her torso and, before she could control it, it squeezed its way down to her hips.
“Noooooooooo,” Marie yelled, tears slipping out of her eyes. The nurse laughed and let Marie go. Marie whimpered, then crumpled to the floor.
Marie felt a stroking on her forehead, accompanied by a soft whispering. When she opened her eyes, Steven kissed her cheek and squeezed her hand. From somewhere in the room, she heard a dull thumping followed by a soft sucking sound. Then she heard three people counting in unison. “One, two, three, four…”
She tried to sit up but she couldn’t feel her legs. She grabbed onto Steven’s arm. “The baby?”
Steven turned away from Marie and clenched his jaw. “The umbilical cord,” he muttered, “was wrapped around his throat.”
An icy dread dripped into Marie’s heart. “Is he…”
“They’re trying… they’re trying to bring him back.”
Steven’s face was wet with tears. Marie felt moisture on her face too, but she lacked the energy to fully cry. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a slow-moving shadow gliding by. She turned her head and saw the old nurse, creeping toward the door.
“Time of death?” someone asked from the corner of the room.
