Rosalie puts down her hemming. “You were too little to remember John’s birth. Or Joe’s. But I remember them. Mother had ten babies and no problems. You’ll be exactly the same,” Rosalie says. She bites the thread off, knots it. Her hands are the most graceful thing about her. “I was just now remembering how you used to go flying down the roads on Fanny. Sidesaddle and faster than all the boys. I used to worry you’d break your neck. But nothing scares you.”
The two women look at one another. Then Rosalie stands and crosses the room. She puts her arms around Asia. They don’t often touch and this embrace can’t exactly be accomplished—Asia with her big belly, Rosalie with her Richard III spine, and the chair rocking spasmodically beneath them. It’s a hug made up of sharp elbows and stumbling. And yet, it’s all the nicer for the awkward unfamiliarity of it. She can feel Rosalie loving her, which is not a thing she often feels. The solace of having an older sister.
Rosalie’s cheek is lying on her hair. Rosalie smells of something almost like gin. “You are Asia Sidney Booth Clarke,” Rosalie says. “And nothing scares you.”
* * *
—
By the time she goes into labor, Asia’s more than ready to trade in the tiresome little aches and exhaustion for the Big Agony. A false alarm brings the nurse to stay for two days and then go away again. The doctor begins to call daily. Then one morning in late March, she wakes to a stabbing pain in the back of one shoulder. The pain moves down into her lower back, where it feels like a great spiked ball, levering her spine apart. It hurts so much she doesn’t even notice when her water breaks.
Joe goes for the doctor. Mother and Rosalie help her out of her soaking nightgown into a soft old one, move her to Mother’s bed, where the blankets are dry. Sitting is impossible; it even hurts to lie down. She tries one side and then the other, curled in agony around a pillow.
She’d been told that her labor, while painful, would be sporadic—there would be moments to rest between the waves. She’s aghast to find this was a lie—the back pain never lets up. It begins to twist, wringing her spine out like a dishrag.
The nurse comes first, followed shortly by the doctor. Everything is going splendidly, they say. Everything is just as it should be. The nurse forces Asia to get up and walk about the room. Asia is a knot of burning fury.
She lies down again. The doctor puts her on her back, palpitates her stomach. She has a moment of screaming wonder—I’ve never actually been in pain before, she thinks—and then all thoughts leave her mind.
The nurse gives Asia a tincture of opium. It has a curious effect—Asia splits in two. One of the Asias lifts up out of her body to watch the whole debacle from the ceiling, her body spread out and pawed over like a carcass at an autopsy. The other Asia is left behind to feel everything just as before.
Hours pass in hellish torment. The doctor leaves—the room, the house, the city? Asia doesn’t know. The floating Asia goes with him and sends no message back.
Night falls and the baby is no closer to being born than it was twelve hours ago. The doctor must have come back, because he’s leaning over Asia, explaining things to her. There are bread crumbs in his beard.
The baby has lodged its head against Asia’s pelvic bone. “All we need,” the doctor says, “is for Baby to tuck its chin.”
Baby does nothing of the sort. Asia is given more opium. She’s rigid with pain and exhaustion, and also hungry. Her throat is raw.
Finally, the doctor grows tired of waiting. He reaches one horrid, enormous hand inside her, rummaging about, while the other bears down onto her stomach. Mother sobs quietly beside the bed. Asia feels the baby being shoved back inside and thinks they’ve decided not to have it, after all. This seems a good decision and perhaps the only way she’ll survive this.
But then, finally, the baby slides downward, and, with a great deal more effort and pain, in a tidal wave of gore and shit, Asia Dorothy Clarke (they’ll call her Dolly) enters the world. Everyone—Mother, Rosalie, Asia, and the baby—is crying. The nurse washes little Dolly and passes her over, wrapped in flannel, squinting and howling. She’s wrinkled and red and hideous. Asia’s first thought is that she’s embarrassed to show her to Sleeper. After all that work! Her second thought is that she would die before she let anything hurt this tiny person. Dolly stares into Asia’s eyes. So this is what love feels like, Asia thinks. That’s her third thought. Dolly nuzzles about her breast, but before she latches, Asia is already asleep.
xvii
Dolly’s an active baby, prone to runny noses and sleepless nights. Asia spends hours holding her in the rocking chair, the only light filtered in from the street outside. She’s mesmerized by the kaleidoscope of Dolly’s expressions—fear, worry, joy—a full rehearsal for the day when they’ll be attached to actual emotions. After her unpromising debut, she’s turned so pretty. Asia doesn’t suppose there ever was a prettier child.
She fits perfectly in Asia’s lap, her head on Asia’s knees, her toes digging into Asia’s collapsed stomach. When a fever lays Asia low for a few weeks, she misses that dimly lit time in the rocking chair. Becky, the nursemaid, takes over the nighttime shift, feeding Dolly with a bottle, and by the time Asia recovers, her milk is gone.
She celebrates her wedding anniversary. So much has changed in a year. Asia’s a wife and a mother now and her role as sister is relegated to her lesser tasks. This might not have happened if she and Edwin hadn’t grown so cold, if John weren’t always so far away.
The Booths are all moving about these days. Edwin is on tour, as usual, and Joe is accompanying him, performing the tasks Edwin once performed for Father. This is a temporary arrangement as Joe will soon be leaving for Charlotte, South Carolina, where he’s enrolled in medical school.
Edwin rents a place in Philadelphia for himself and Mary, though they’re not even married yet. Mother and Rosalie move in immediately, which makes Asia suspicious that Rosalie asked Edwin for a house. She can just imagine the way Rosalie and Edwin must whisper about her behind her back.
Rosalie and Asia have been sniping at each other over trivial, daily annoyances for weeks. Even Mother’s legendary patience has been tried. Asia is glad when they leave. And also hurt. She doesn’t mind so much for herself—no truer expression than familiarity breeds contempt. But she’s surprised they’re willing to leave Dolly.
She’s hurt that they’re willing to miss even a day of the Dolly show.
This evidence that Mother plans to keep house with the despicable Mary Devlin is another blow. Obviously, Asia’s the only one who cares about the family name. She can’t, all by herself, protect the great reputation of the Booths.