CHAPTER 16 — Not Okay
STEPHANIE
“Hello day five of Orc life,” I mumble as I stumble into the kitchen. Roarg is still in bed; I’m up uncharacteristically early and I can’t fall back to sleep. It’s apparent I’m not the only one. Ulda has the laundry spread out on the kitchen table where she’s calmly folding clothes.
Bleary-eyed, I shuffle up to join her. “Morning.” I reach for a pair of pants and start to bring the pockets together on folding autopilot.
My hands feel scoured; we made wood ash soap all day yesterday, and by bath time, I felt like I’d been slathered in beef tallow and olive oil and colloidal oatmeal up to my eyeballs.
On the upside though, last night involved a thorough saltwater bath, which felt wonderful on my many aches and pains—as did my personal attendant’s big hands, which were very attentive as they scrubbed me (and did other things) during our bathing session, and today I feel very clean.
Ulda hollowly announces, “I’m in labor.”
And just like that, I’m awake. I drop the pants. “You—Okay, what do we do? Do we take you to—to… Do you have midwives?”
“We stay here,” she replies, no emotion in her tone. “Fix those,” she orders, gesturing down at the pants.
I snatch them up and smash them into a messy square. “Is there anything I can get you?” My mind trips along, not able to compute why we’re not headed for the closest Orc hospital or at the very least not sending Roarg out to fetch a midwife. That’s such a basic staple for at-home births, isn’t it?
“No need,” Ulda says. And she keeps folding clothes.
I rub my face and blink at her. “Are you okay?”
Finally, she looks up from her task and meets my eyes. They’re puffy and bloodshot, and they are not okay. “I will be fine,” she says firmly.
My gut clenches.
And as I watch her flinch for an extended moment before she returns to folding the shirt in her hands, I become very, very worried.
***
Three hours later, Ulda strains, biting her lip until blood runs down her chin, not letting more than a pained grunt out as her body bears down.
She’s spent most of her hard labor perched on the edge of the redwood sofa, with Roarg behind her, holding her. Why the sofa, you ask? It’s near the entry to the kitchen so we’re close to water and soap.
Roarg looks grim as he leans around her, whispering to her. He mops her forehead and chin with a cloth, kisses her temple, tells her he loves her.
And there is the weirdest, saddest emotion staining the air. It’s making my stomach clench harder, sick all day with premonition.
If you can call it a premonition. It’s not like I’d need to be clairvoyant to pick up on what’s happening.
You’d have to be emotionally numb not to sense the weird tension that’s thick as a lead weight in and around the whole house.
There’s a despairing sort of aura that I want nothing more than to escape from…
but I also can’t bear to leave. Because nobody else gets to leave this sad reality, and it feels like the respectful thing to do is to stay.
Just be here, for Ulda, for Roarg, and for their coming baby.
Despite the fact that we’re going through a ton of ash soap, which is strongly aromatic, there’s a distinct odor clinging to the air.
It’s biting, and it’s odd. It makes my nose prickle, and anxiety creeps through me as the smell only strengthens.
Joktepitha brings Opkug to nurse, which Ulda says helps the contractions along.
But Opkug is fussy and upset, so Joktepitha takes her back upstairs with Crushosh.
Ulda moves, squatting on the floor, and Roarg stays close, moving to sit on a stool behind her. Namak?ga has me fetch more tea, something that helps the womb expel babies faster, and Ulda gulps it down. Roarg watches her like a hawk. Between contractions, he helps her up so she can pace and pant.
And throughout all of this, there’s no happiness on what should be a joyous occasion. No one is smiling. No one is excited. This is so very wrong.
“Here’s the head,” Namak?ga announces flatly, down on the floor, hands cupped under Ulda.
The baby slips out. And I suck in a breath—because the baby looks dead.
“It’s a boy,” Namak?ga announces quietly.
His features are squished, covered in fluid and meconium, and there’s no life to his face or little body.
I stare, chilled from the inside out. That smell, that weird smell that’s had me on edge—it’s coming from him.
Namak?ga gently walks him to the kitchen table and begins to clean him. She rubs him gently as opposed to briskly like I expect, and I follow behind her, lost, eyes glued to the baby, waiting for him to revive.
Namak?ga cleans out its mouth and sighs, a tear dropping down her face. “Your time was too short,” she says sadly.
I practically slam against her side, whispering furiously, “Do you know how to do baby CPR?” When she gives me a blank frown, I explain, “Where you give the baby air and do tiny chest compressions…”
She glances over her shoulder, at Ulda, who’s now seated on the stool Roarg was on earlier. He’s a wall at her back, his gaze locked to her. She’s stoically keeping her lips pressed in a white line, and her eyes are clenched shut. Her bearing is painfully proud.
Roarg leans around her to say something to her, holding her shoulders between his big hands, his face a mask of pain so exposed, so excruciatingly bare, my chest hitches with a silent sob.
Namak?ga sets the baby down, washes her hands, and catches my arm, pulling me deeper into the kitchen, drawing me back until Roarg and Ulda can’t see us, and we can’t see them.
She gets right up to my ear, points to the newborn, and whispers, “This baby is dead.” When I start to speak, she cuts in. “This baby has been dead for a day.”
My throat convulses, and my stare moves unwillingly over the too-still child before rising to Namak?ga.
Her eyes search mine, hers sorrowful and heartbreakingly sure. “Ulda always loses her babies.”
***
Hours later, I’m done with every bit of busywork I could find. And Joktepitha and Namak?ga did their best to find things to occupy me all afternoon, believe me. Now I find myself hovering at Ulda’s door, wondering if I should walk in.
The door is open.
Anxiously, I stay paused at the threshold, questioning if I should leave. The room is dark, the curtains drawn, and I don’t hear a sound.
Tentatively, I rap my knuckles against the doorframe.
“What is it?” Ulda asks from the dark, her voice devoid of her usual snap.
“Is it okay if I…” I peel my lips back from my teeth and hunch my shoulders. “Can I give you a hug?”
Light floods into the room as a curtain is shoved back, and I see her beside a beautiful wooden bassinet. Opkug is in the crook of her arm.
Her dead baby is in the bassinet.
My throat spasms.
Ulda huffs at me. “Oh, go away, you pest.”
But she doesn’t utter the command with her usual force, or her usual irritation.
I stand there, staring at her for a second. She looks awful. Of course she does. And what the heck am I even doing here? I want to apologize for intruding, but in a way, saying more will be its own intrusion, so finally I just dip my chin.
I turn away and take two steps before Ulda’s arm swoops around me—and she draws me against herself.
“He’s starting to smell,” she whispers.
I don’t tell her that he’s been smelling for a long time.
I’m sure what she means is, he’s begun to smell more strongly.
Because he has. Being this close is actually sending my lizard brain into some panic.
I don’t think dead babies are good for us to smell.
On a primal level, on some basic instinct I wasn’t aware I possessed before this, it’s seriously freaking me out.
“It’s time to bury… Balayi,” Ulda says, voice cracking. “I named him Balayi.” And she takes a shaky breath at my neck, burying her face in my hair.
Opkug, tight against her, looks like she’s two seconds from bawling. She’s been remarkably quiet, although her cheeks are stained with baby tears. Together with Balayi, they make the saddest picture ever.
I give Ulda’s arm and hand a tight squeeze. We don’t know each other well, and she doesn’t even like me, but... this sucks—her son is dead, and he never even had a chance to live. This is a horrible, awful thing—the absolute worst… and I’m here for her.
When I feel a shift in the air, I glance up to see Roarg in the doorway. He’s looking grim, remote. His gaze moves over me and Ulda, his eyes grave. And sad. So, so sad. Silently he enters, moving behind us, behind Ulda. Without a word, he wraps himself around her.
I start to pull away. They should have privacy.
But to my shock, I’m jerked close. Not by Roarg—by Ulda. Opkug shifts in her arm, and she murmurs to her, sucking a sniffled breath, but she doesn’t release me. My eyes sting when Roarg’s arms come around me too, holding all of us, rocking us without saying a word.