Garret and I walked home together without saying a word. I did go to bed and put my feet up like Ruth told me to and Garret made sure the boys were tucked in. Sleep of course would not come for me. All of the sordid truths that had spilled out earlier swirled around in my head turning my stomach and filling me with fear. I must have drifted off at some point because when Garret awoke at dawn I was ripped from sleep by him yelling my name. I looked at him and his face was full of fear. That's when I felt the wetness. I looked down at the bed where he had thrown back the blankets to get out of bed and saw the blood pooling on the sheets underneath me. "Ruth, Garret, go get Ruth!" He threw on a pair of pants and went flying out of the room in his undershirt. I heard him thundering down the stairs and out the back door. The baby couldn't be born now, it was too early, there was no way she would live. Even if we were able to feed our children every night we didn't have the kind of money that would keep a premature baby alive. I just tried to breathe through the pains and hold on until Ruth and Garret came back.
A half an hour later Ruth flew through my bedroom door and yelled at Garret to go boil some water and get some towels. "She can't come now Ruth, the baby can't come now, she won't live!" I sobbed as my friend sat on the bed next to me. Ruth held me but she remained silent. "Tell me the truth Ruth, what do you think is going to happen?"
"I don't know Vivian. I don't know, it doesn't look good but I don't know," she said quietly. Garret bustled in with the towels and she promptly shooed him back out. She rolled me over and removed the blood soaked sheets from underneath me. She put a rough canvas cover over the mattress and covered it with towels and clean bed linens. Garret came back with the hot water and again Ruth sent him back to the bakery. The next two hours passed in a haze of pain and blood. When the baby was finally born she didn't move. She was completely still, just like my first brother had been all those years ago.
"It's a girl isn't it?" I asked Ruth. She nodded. She tried to clean out the baby's mouth and nose and breathe life into her but it was too late. My much longed for sweet baby girl never took a breath. Ruth wrapped her in a towel and handed her to me. She opened the door and Garret came in looking terrified but hopeful. When he saw that both Ruth and I were crying his shoulders slumped.
"I'm sorry Garret," Ruth whispered. Garret nodded and Ruth stepped out into the hall.
"It was a little girl Garret, and she was perfect," I told him. He sat next to me and stroked her tiny cheek.
"What did you want to name her?" he asked me.
"Mairy," I said.
"Mairy then," Garret agreed. He reached for me and we held our tiny Mairy between us and sobbed for the life we had just lost.
