A Mother's Love
By RayO'Sunshine
"Shredder!" one of the Aunts looks up.
I stop pushing and pushing. Sweat pours from my body. I lie back and my neck cracks from its crunched up position. I've been like this for countless hours. My body can't take anymore. Neither can my heart.
The red sea of Handmaids parts and the Aunt like Moses enters. She bundles up the baby in a loaf of bread fashion. Her lean, reddish face narrows its eyes at me. A lock of moist blonde hair falls between the usually dark blue eyes. Her narrow nostrils flare.
"Not another one!" she hisses at me. "It's not normal!"
My heart races in its familiar fear like a repeating bad dream.
"Shredder?" my high, little voice sings a dirge.
"Another one!" The Aunt spits out her disgust at me. "You've brought us more bad luck! The Major will be angry again!"
The handmaids' bodies sag into a sea at a sudden low tide. My head lies back on the pillow and my tears mingle with the sweat I've shed.
"Ofjohn," she hands me the wrapped bundle. My shaking hands lift it off of my aching chest. The shredder wails, matching my sorrow cry for cry. "You are a damned jinx!"
I pull back the swaddling cloth to stare at her face. My tears melt at her florid pink mouth open and her eyes like crimson lines. Her quivering hands are mere lumps. No fingers or thumbs. How can she be a Wife or an Econowife without fingers? The Major will not be happy.
"Let me see her feet!" I gasp. It's too much for me.
Aunt Heather, the scrawny blonde Aunt, unwraps the stiff fabric. She holds out the newborn to me.
"No fingers or toes!" she holds out the stumps for feet. The Shredder throws back her head and bellows louder at her misfortune.
"What will you do with her?" I cry, raising myself up to my elbows. The handmaids press me down with their gloveless hands. OfPhilip, my dearest friend from what used to be called Lincoln Park High School pre-Gilead, strokes back my sodden hair.
"Don't worry about it," she sighs. "You'll have another chance.