THE BIRTH OF EMILY AND ROSE
SAM PEMBROKE
At around ten thirty that night, Ruth began to feel the pains of labor set in. "The baby's coming Sam!" she said in a frightened and tense tone. She'd been through labor before, but nothing like this. Alice, her first born was an easy birth, but the child only lived three years; she died the past September, when she was six months along in her pregnancy. She hadn't wanted to carry this one out, but she was obligated to do so, for Alice's sake. "Someone come quick, I'm giving birth!" she called out. Her husband couldn't hear her; he'd been at the Naval Yard all day, and still hadn't made it home. Outside, snow began to fall; it showed up ghostly white in the windows. A fire was lit in the fireplace, and Ruth was prepared to give birth. A little after one thirty, the contractions began to come quickly. Sam had returned home, but was forbidden from going to his room. He needed sleep, no matter the cost. He had passed a doctor on his way home, he'd told him that he was on the way to the house, because a woman was about to give birth. He looked up and saw the same doctor.
Sam poured a stiff drink of whiskey and sat in front of the fire downstairs. "To think I'll be a father and my son will be with me, he'll be a spitting image of me. He'll do everything I do: chase women, go to parties, all that. I don't want him in the military though." Sam said to himself as he sipped the strong, burning liquid. Several hours had passed, and finally at six in the morning on the nineteenth, he heard faint cries upstairs. "He's here!" he said in excitement. Just then, he heard another set of crying. "What's this? Two for the price of one, I'm lucky. I'm a lucky father." The doctor came down from upstairs and took Sam by the hand. "You sir, are the proud father of two bouncing baby girls." Sam's face went from a smile to an immediate frown. "You mean I have daughters?" The doctor looked at him and smiled. "You should feel lucky. They're tough little things, put up quite fight with their mother." Sam sat back down. He didn't want to see them yet. Betsy, one of the maids was standing over by the fireplace, asking Sam if he needed anything. "Betsy, fetch my coat. I'm going back down to the yard." "Won't you see your daughters?" She asked with a look of displeasure on her face. "No, not yet. I'm sure Ruth is still pretty sore with me. She nodded and got him his coat.
Upstairs, Ruth lay in the bed. For the first time in nine months she had been able to sleep peacefully. "Where is Sam?" she thought. She wanted to ring the bell so she could get something to eat, for she was immensely hungry. She wanted her husband to see the children he helped her create. Just then, pains of sadness ripped through her. In a month's time, Emily, one of her babies would be sent to live in Vermont with her friend, Victoria. She turned to the other child, sleeping peacefully in the basket. "This is Rose." She said as she continued to look at the newborn infants. "You both will do things in your lives, some good and some unfortunately bad. I have brought you both into this world. I will warn you, it's a cruel place." She said as she picked up Emily and held her. The red hair stuck out like a sore thumb. Did it make her more loveable, or did it show that this child, much like the other had an independent streak? Ruth didn't realize that Sam had left the house by now. Outside, the snow had become an all out blizzard.