“Pull a couple of the tables together,” said Erin, “and do it fast. I need to straighten this baby out now, and I need Mom lying down to do it.”
Lila and Mary pushed over the tables. Margaret and Gail hefted Tiffany atop them, grimacing and turning their faces away, as if she were throwing mud at them instead of screams of objection.
Erin went back to work on Tiffany’s stomach, kneading it like dough. “I think it’s starting to move, praise God. Come on, Junior, how about a little somersault for Dr. E.?”
Erin bore down on Tiff’s stomach with one hand while Jolie Suratt pushed sideways.
“Stop!” Tiffany screamed. “Stop it, you fuckers!”
“It’s turning,” said Erin, ignoring the profanity. “Really turning, thank God. Yank her pants off, Lila. Pants and underpants. Jolie, keep pressing. Don’t let it turn back.”
Lila took one leg of Tiffany’s jeans, Celia Frode the other. They yanked and the old denims came off. Tiffany’s underpants came with them part way, leaving brushstrokes of blood and amniotic fluid on her thighs. Lila pulled them the rest of the way. They were heavy with liquid, warm and sopping. She felt her gorge rise, then settle back into place.
The screams were constant now, Tiffany’s head lashing from side to side.
“I can’t wait for the bag,” Erin said. “This baby is coming right now. Only . . .” She looked at her former office-mate, who nodded. “Somebody get Jolie a knife. A sharp one. We have to cut her a little.”
“I-gotta-push,” Tiffany panted.
“The hell you do,” Jolie said. “Not yet. The door’s open, but we need to take the hinges off. Make a little more room.”
Lila found a steak knife, and in the bathroom, an ancient bottle of hydrogen peroxide. She doused the blade, stopped to consider the hand sanitizer by the door, and tried it. Nothing. The stuff inside had evaporated long ago. She hurried back. The women had surrounded Tiffany, Erin, and Jolie in a semi-circle. All were holding hands except for Elaine Geary, who had her arms wrapped tightly around her midsection. She was directing her gaze first to the counter, then to the empty booths, then out the door. Anywhere but at the panting, screaming woman on the makeshift operating table, now mother-naked save for an old cotton bra.
Jolie took the knife. “Did you disinfect it with something?”
“Hydrogen per—”
“That’ll do,” Erin said. “Mary, find me a Styrofoam cooler if there’s one around. One of you other ladies, get towels. There’ll be some in the kitchen. Put them on top of the—”
A miserable howl from Tiffany as Jolie Suratt performed a steak-knife episiotomy, sans anesthetic.
“Put the towels on top of the golf carts,” Erin finished.
“Oh yeah, the solar panels!” That was Kitty. “To heat em up. Hey, that’s pretty sma—”
“We want them warm but not hot,” Erin said. “I have no intention of roasting our newest citizen. Go on.”
Elaine stood where she was, letting the other women wash around her like water around a rock, continuing to direct her gaze at any object that was not Tiffany Jones. Her eyes were shiny and shallow.
“How close is she?” Lila asked.
“Seven centimeters,” Jolie said. “She’ll be at ten before you can say Jack Robinson. Cervical effacement is complete—one thing that went right, at least. Push, Tiffany. Save a little for next time, though.”
Tiffany pushed. Tiffany screamed. Tiffany’s vagina flexed, then closed, then opened again. Fresh blood flowed between her legs.
“I don’t like the blood.” Lila heard Erin mutter this to Jolie from the side of her mouth, like a racetrack tout passing on a hot tip. “There’s way too much. Christ, I wish I at least had my fetoscope.”
Mary came back with the sort of hard plastic cooler Lila had toted to Maylock Lake many times, when she and Clint and Jared used to go on picnics there. Printed on the side was BUDWEISER! THE KING OF BEERS! “Will this do, Dr. E.?”
“Fine,” Erin said, but didn’t look up. “Okay, Tiff, big push.”
“My back is killing me—” Tiffany said, but me became meeeeeeeEEEEEEE as her face contorted and her fists beat up and down on the chipped Formica of the tabletop.
“I see its head!” Lila shouted. “I see its fa—oh, Christ, Erin, what—?”
Erin pushed Jolie aside and seized one of the baby’s shoulders before it could retreat, her fingertips pressing deep in a way that made Lila feel ill. The baby’s head slid forward tilted strenuously to one side, as if it was trying to look back to where it had come from. The eyes were shut, the face ashy gray. Looped around the neck and up one cheek toward the ear—like a hangman’s noose—was a blood-spotted umbilical cord that made Lila think of the red snake hanging from the Amazing Tree. From the chest down, the infant was still inside its mother, but one arm had slithered free and hung down limply. Lila could see each perfect finger, each perfect nail.
“Quit pushing,” Erin said. “I know you want to finish it, but don’t push yet.”
“I need to,” Tiffany rasped.
“You’ll strangle your baby if you do,” Jolie said. She was back beside Erin, shoulder to shoulder. “Wait. Just . . . just give me a second . . .”
Too late, thought Lila. It’s already strangled. You only have to look at that gray face.
Jolie worked one finger beneath the umbilical cord, then two. She flexed the fingers in a come-on gesture, first pulling the cord away from the infant’s neck and then slipping it off. Tiffany screamed, every tendon in her neck standing out in stark relief.
“Push!” Erin said. “Just as hard as you can! On three! Jolie, don’t let it face-plant on this filthy fucking floor when it comes! Tiff! One, two, three!”
Tiffany pushed. The baby seemed to shoot into Jolie Suratt’s hands. It was slimy, it was beautiful, and it was dead.
“Straw!” Jolie shouted. “Get a straw! Now!”
Elaine stepped forward. Lila hadn’t seen her move. She already had one ready, the paper stripped off. “Here.”
Erin took the straw. “Lila,” Erin said. “Open his mouth.”
His. Until then, Lila hadn’t noticed the tiny gray comma below the baby’s stomach.
“Open his mouth!” Erin repeated.
Carefully, Lila used two fingers to do as she was told. Erin put one end of the straw in her own mouth and the other in the tiny opening Lila’s fingers had created.
“Now push up on his chin,” Jolie instructed. “Gotta create suction.”
What point? Dead was dead. But Lila once more obeyed orders, and saw shadowy crescents appear in Erin Eisenberg’s cheeks as she sucked on her end. There was an audible sound—flup. Erin turned her head aside to spit out what looked like a wad of phlegm. Then she nodded to Jolie, who raised the baby to her face and blew gently into its mouth.