Chained by Tessa Escalera Read Free Book Online Page B

help I need from you is much more important.”
     
    I felt ice in my stomach as I realized that she meant me to help her deliver her baby.  “I don't know anything about delivering babies.”
     
    Jenny lunged upward and grabbed my gown.  “Listen,”  she whispered fiercely.  “He takes the good ones.  The babies born without fault.  The only reason Annabelle keeps her child is because the girl was born with a club foot.  She will never walk without surgery.  My last two babies were perfect, and he took them.  I cannot survive losing another.”  She let go and fell back, gasping with pain. 
     
    “But what...”
     
    “When the babe comes out, I want you to use this.” She pressed a spoon into my hand, the handle sharpened into a spike that felt razor-sharp.
     
    “What is this for?”
     
    Even though she was in the midst of a contraction, Jenny fixed my eyes with hers.  Her voice was barely more than a whisper.  “I want you to cut him.  Not enough to damage, but it needs to leave a scar.  If he's not perfect, they will let me keep him.  Please, please, Sarah promise me.  Promise me you won't let them take my baby.”
     
    My throat hurt too much to speak.  I can't do this...hurt a baby?  No, I can't.
     
    But then that little whisper that persisted despite my best efforts to keep from hearing.  You have to.  You want the man who hurt you to take that little baby, and do who knows what with it?  You'll never forgive yourself if you let that happen.  You have to do this.
     
    And so, with tears streaming down my face, I held Jenny's hand as she writhed and groaned in the grip of her contractions.  I wasn't a midwife.  I had no idea what I was doing.  I had never even been in the delivery room when a baby was born.  Yes, I'd seen birth in movies, but this was nothing like a movie.  Jenny didn't scream, there was no posse of nurses and doctors urging her on, encouraging her.  Just a pale, thin girl on a hard cot, biting her lip until it bled.  Her travail was a combination of primal ferocity and hopeless pain that exhausted me to the very core of my being...and I was only the one watching.
     
    In the long hours I waited.  I brought water.  I placed cold washcloths on her forehead.  And I prayed.  God, please protect her.  Please let the baby be born alive.  Please let Jenny be okay.  I don't know how to do this.  Please let me know what to do.
     
    And amazingly, a sort of peace settled over me as the clock ticked ever forward.  If Jenny's markings on the calendar were correct, it was September 20 th .  5:32.  Probably evening, based upon the light outside.
     
    At 6:01, the pitch of Jenny's groans changed.  They became deeper, stronger.  She was curled around her belly, her hands below her thighs, pulling her legs back toward her shoulders. 
 
    “I need...you to look,”  she panted.  “Baby's coming.”
     
    “I, are you sure?  You want me to look there?”
     
    “Just look!”  She roared, and I hurried to obey.  At first I was cringing, not sure what I was seeing.  I would never in a thousand years have imagined myself helping someone give birth.  Medical subjects had never been something I was interested in.
     
    It quickly became evident that I was seeing the baby's head.  I put my hands out to catch the little body as it slid into the world.  With one final push Jenny fell back, gasping for breath. 
     
    “Hurry,”  she panted.  “Before it cries.”
 
    “I can't..”
     
    “Please, Sarah!  Do it now!”
     
    Tears sprang to my eyes as I took the sharpened spoon in my hand.  My heart thudded wildly as I cradled the tiny baby in my arms, her body limp and barely pink.
     
    “Do it!”
     
    With a small cry, I laid the sharp end to the baby's cheek and drew it down, leaving a dark red mark from corner of her eye to the edge of her perfect, rosebud mouth.  Blood beaded on the cut.  My stomach roiled, and I was afraid I would be