Chapter Thirty-Six #2
Another pain seizes me, and I gasp. It’s worse than before. Much worse. My body tightens around the baby like it’s trying to expel this thing that’s been growing inside me for nine months.
Nine months.
Nine months of hiding. Nine months of wearing loose dresses and telling people I was eating too much.
Nine months of knowing that the man I love was killed in a prison fire and the man I was supposed to marry was not only the reason for his death, but abandoned me to this spinster’s care with instructions to “handle” me quietly.
Nine months of preparing for this moment, and now that it’s here, I am completely unprepared.
“Get onto the bed,” Mrs. Hartwell instructs, already pulling supplies from a small trunk in the corner.
I drag myself to the narrow mattress in this small room that’s become my entire world. The walls are plain whitewash. There’s a single window that looks out onto a barren yard. A small desk holds a basin and pitcher—my only washing implements for months.
This is where I’ve been exiled. This is where I’ll give birth to a child that no one wants. A child born of a love that was deemed inappropriate. A child who will never know his father.
The contractions come faster now, one after another, until I can barely catch my breath between them. My body seems determined to tear itself apart, to force this life out of me by any means necessary.
“Breathe,” Mrs. Hartwell says, wiping my forehead with a cool cloth. “Just breathe. It’s natural. Your body knows what to do.”
But my body feels like it’s rebelling. Like it’s fighting itself. The pain is everywhere now, not just in my abdomen, but radiating down my legs, up through my back, into my very bones.
“It hurts,” I gasp. “Oh no, it hurts too much. I can’t—I can’t do this—”
“Yes, you can.” Mrs. Hartwell’s voice is firm. “Women have been doing this since the beginning of time. You’re stronger than you think.”
But I don’t feel strong. I feel like I’m breaking. Like my body is coming apart and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to be here, alone.
Tommy … please find me. You promised me. I need you; we need you.
Hours pass. Or minutes. Time has lost all meaning.
There’s only the pain, the pressure, the overwhelming sensation of my body’s betrayal.
I cry. I scream. I beg for Tommy, knowing he can’t hear me.
Knowing he’s gone forever. And it’s all my fault.
I should’ve never gone to see him. I am the cause of all of this pain.
“Please,” I beg, my voice hoarse as my body shakes uncontrollably. “Please, make it stop. Please—”
“The baby’s head is crowning,” Mrs. Hartwell announces. “One more big push, Miss Whitcomb. Just once more.”
One more. As if I have any choice. As if my body is still under my control.
I bear down with everything I have, feeling something tear inside me, feeling a release of pressure that brings no relief because the pain shifts, becomes something different, becomes—
“It’s a boy,” Mrs. Hartwell announces.
The words don’t register at first. I’m too focused on the agony that still wraps around me, too aware of the wetness between my legs, too consumed by the sensation of something being very, very wrong.
Then I hear it.
A cry. A newborn’s wail, thin and desperate and absolutely heartbreaking.
My son is crying.
“Is he—” I gasp through my shivers, my body covered in sweat. “Is he okay? Is he—”
“He’s perfect,” Mrs. Hartwell says, and there’s something almost tender in her voice. “Ten fingers, ten toes. A beautiful, healthy boy.”
She places him on my chest before I can ask, before I can prepare myself for the weight of him. He’s warm and impossibly fragile, and he’s screaming like the world has betrayed him.
Which, I suppose, it has.
“Hush, baby,” I whisper, my hand shaking as I try to touch his face.
His eyes are scrunched shut, his tiny fists clenched. He has dark hair like his father’s.
“Hush now. It’s all right. Mummy’s here.”
Mummy. The word feels strange and right and devastating, all at once.
I have a son. I am a mother. And in this moment, with him crying on my chest, I understand what I’ve truly lost. Alister didn’t just take Tommy from me. He took this—the chance to bring our child into the world together. The chance to let Tommy hold his son. The chance to be a family. To be happy.
But even as I’m thinking this, even as I’m holding my newborn child and feeling the first true moment of joy I’ve experienced in months, something is wrong.
The pain hasn’t stopped.
“Mrs. Hartwell,” I say, my voice uncertain, “the pain—it’s still quite severe. Shouldn’t it have stopped?”
She’s working between my legs with brisk, efficient movements, but I can see tension in her shoulders. The kind of tension that suggests concern.
“There’s still the afterbirth to come,” she says, but her voice has changed. It’s less certain now and more worried.
She replaces the towels beneath me, and I realize with growing dread that they’re soaking through far too quickly. With blood—my blood.
“Mrs. Hartwell—” I think I say. My voice is sounding so far away.
“Just rest,” she says, but her hands are moving faster now. More frantically. “Just hold your son and rest.”
I look down at the baby on my chest. His crying has quieted to a soft whimper. His eyes are open now, unfocused but present. I trace the curve of his cheek with one trembling finger, memorizing the feel of him. The weight of him.
“Hello,” I whisper. “Hello, my beautiful baby. I’m your mother, and I love you so much already. Do you know that? Do you know how much I love you?”
He can’t know. He’s only minutes old. But I need him to know. Need him to carry that knowledge with him into a world where I might not be there to tell him again.
The thought terrifies me.
“Mrs. Hartwell,” I say, trying to keep the panic out of my voice. “Is something wrong? There’s so much blood—”
“The bleeding is normal,” she says, but she’s lying. I can hear it in her voice.
I feel cold suddenly. My skin is clammy. My vision blurs slightly.
“I’m cold,” I say. “Why am I so cold?”
Mrs. Hartwell pulls a blanket up over me, but it doesn’t help. The cold is coming from inside me now, spreading through my body like winter. My son feels warm against my chest; it’s the only warmth I have left.
“Tell me what’s happening,” I demand, my voice shaking. “Please. I need to know.”
Mrs. Hartwell meets my eyes for a moment, and what I see there breaks something inside me. Pity. Resignation. Acceptance.
“Something has torn inside you,” she says quietly. “Something significant. The bleeding won’t stop.”
The words don’t make sense at first. Then they do.
I’m dying.
I’m lying in this tiny bed in this spinster’s cottage, holding my newborn son on my chest, and I’m dying.
“No,” I whisper. “No, there must be something you can do. There must be—”
“I’m sorry,” Mrs. Hartwell says, and she sounds genuinely grieved. “I’ve tried everything I know. Your body is stronger than most. You lasted through hours of labor that would have broken other women. But this—”
She doesn’t finish. She doesn’t need to.
My son is crying again. Tiny, desperate sounds that suggest hunger or fear. I don’t know. I haven’t learned his cries yet. And now I never will.
“Don’t cry,” I tell him, pressing a kiss to the top of his head. “Please don’t cry, my love. You’ll be all right. You’ll be more than all right. You’re strong—I can feel it. You’re so very strong.”
But I’m not strong. I’m falling apart. My body is shutting down, one piece at a time, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.
I think of Tommy. I think of the forge and the way he looked at me when I remembered who he was.
I think of our time in the forge, our bodies tangled together, our future spreading before us like an open road.
I think of the letter I wrote him when he was in prison.
I think of the plans we made, the promises we swore, the life we were supposed to build together.
And it’s all gone.
All of it.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, unsure if I’m apologizing to my son or to Tommy or to myself. “I’m so very sorry. I wanted to give you more. I wanted to give him more. I wanted—”
My vision is fading now. The edges of the room are growing dark.
“I love you, baby. Do you hear me, sweet boy? Mummy loves you so much.”
“What’s his name?” Mrs. Hartwell asks softly. “He should have a name from his mother.”
A name. Our son should have a name. Thomas, I think to myself before voicing it aloud. His name should be Thomas. If our love together cannot grow, at least it can live on in our boy. And his legacy will live on in his father’s name, even if the memory of him cannot.
But the words do not come.
My voice fails. I cough and groan, the pain intensifying everywhere.
I try in vain to form the word, to name the life I’m leaving behind. Nothing but agony courses through me; nothing but a scream escapes my lips.
The darkness consumes me. I feel myself slipping away. My heartbeat slows. My breaths are shallow.
And I hold my son. All I can do is cradle him in my arms and let the pain take me.
And then there is nothing.
Only darkness as the soft, wailing sound of my baby’s crying dies with me.
The Bliss
I remain beneath the surface, drowning in memory, dying again inside the exact moment I died the first time.
My hands reach for a son who does not exist.
My body aches from a labor long gone.
My heart breaks for a love stolen.
The water holds me under, and in the depths, I remember everything.
I remember my love, Tommy’s face. I remember our son’s cry. I remember the blood and the pain and the cold embrace of death.
I remember choosing to forget. And I understand, with devastating clarity, why I made that choice. The pain was too great to carry. The loss was too overwhelming to survive. So, I begged to forget, and The Bliss granted me that mercy.
But mercy, I’ve learned, is just another kind of prison.
And forgetting doesn’t make the truth any less real.