John Saul - Nathaniel

Laura Shields woke up, her body wracked with pain. The contractions were coming rapidly now, only a few seconds apart. Dimly, she was aware of people around her: Dr. Potter, standing near the foot of the bed; Buck, next to her, holding her hand. In the far corner, near the door, her father stood, watching her intently. Laura lay still for a moment, waiting for a respite from the pain before she finally spoke, and when it came, her voice sounded distant to her, as if she were far away from herself.

"Go away," she whispered hoarsely. "Go away and leave me alone."

"Hush," Buck told her, his gruff voice distorted with an attempt to be tender. "It's going to be all right. We're all here, and we'll take care of you."

"I don't want you," Laura moaned. "Get Mother. I want Mother to help me. Please? If I can't go to the hospital, can't I at least have Mother?"

"Don't, Laura," Buck replied. "Don't talk that way. You know it has to be this way. You know it."

Why? Laura wondered as the pain closed in on her once more. Why does it have to be this way? Why do I have to be alone with the men? Why can't I have my mother with me?

There were no answers to her questions, and all she could do was look up into her husband's eyes. "It's going to be all right, isn't it?" she whispered. "Please, tell me it's going to be perfect, and it's going to be mine, and it isn't going to die. Promise me? Please, Buck, promise me?"

There was silence for a moment as another contraction surged through Laura. Involuntarily, she crushed Buck's hand in her own, but managed to suppress the scream that rose in her throat. "Please," she begged when she could talk once more. "Please promise me."

"I can't," Buck whispered. "You know I can't."

And then the contractions seized her once again, and Laura knew the time had come. Clenching her hands, bracing herself against Buck's strong arms, she bore down, and felt the child within her move, edging slightly downward.

"Good," she heard Dr. Potter say, as if from a great distance. "That's good Laura. I can see the head. Again." Once more, feeling the rhythm of the contractions, she bore down. "Again. Again. Once more…"

She bore down hard, and again she felt the baby move. This time, though, the movement was accompanied by a searing pain that sliced through her body, forcing a scream from her throat.

And in her mind, that searing pain cut through her consciousness, peeled away the layers of scar tissue she'd built up over the years, and the memories came flooding back to her. Her brain, muddled with drugs and pain, began garbling memory and reality. As Laura's body delivered her baby into the world, her mind delivered her into the past. Her father was there, standing at the foot of the bed, staring at her.

"You killed him."

Laura heard the words, but wasn't sure what they meant. And yet, she knew, they were her words, her voice that had spoken them.

Beside her, Potter ignored the tormented words that Laura had uttered, concentrating only on the baby that was slowly emerging from her womb.

Laura's whole body was writhing on the bed now, and her arms flailed at the air, striking out at something that wasn't there. "My baby was alive," she screamed. "I felt it moving. It was alive, and you killed it!"

Amos Hall's eyes fixed on his daughter. "Stop it, Laura," he said. "You don't know what you're saying. The baby isn't born yet."

Laura's agony only increased. She was moaning now, and her hands twisted at the sheets. Her words became indistinguishable, but in her mind she could see it all. It was her baby, and Dr. Potter was holding it, and it was dead, and they were telling her it had been born dead, but she knew they were lying. She knew it had been all right, and that they had killed it. She knew it. She knew…

At the foot of the bed, Dr. Potter held the tiny form that had finally slipped free from the strictures of the womb. Its eyes were closed, and there was a bluish cast to its skin.

Potter held the baby deftly in his left hand, its head down, and with his right hand, he delivered a quick slap to its buttocks.

Potter's eyes met Amos's, and a silent message seemed to pass between the two men. Nearby, Buck Shields stood, watching the doctor, watching his father-in-law, waiting.

"Again," Amos Hall said, his impassive eyes fixed on the baby. "Try again."

Potter nodded once, then struck the baby's rump again, harder this time.

"That's it, then," Amos Hall said softly.

Laura Shields began screaming, and her husband quickly gathered her in his arms, holding her head against his chest, muffling her cries as best he could. She struggled in his arms, trying to work herself loose, trying to reach out for her baby, but it was no use. Buck held her immobile, and after a moment she made herself stop screaming, closed her eyes, and lay back on the pillow, sobbing softly.

Potter sighed. "This can't keep happening," he said quietly, as Amos Hall took the tiny body from his hands. Then he moved to the bed, and reached out, tentatively touching Laura's hair. She jerked away from him.

"Go away," she whispered in a broken voice. "Just go away and leave me alone."

"It was born dead, Laura," Dr. Potter told her. "You have to believe that. Your baby was born dead. You've had a miscarriage."

She opened her eyes and tried to reconcile his words to her memories. "Miscarried?" she asked. "It was born dead?"

Potter nodded. "It was premature, and it was born dead. You have to remember that, Laura. Can you do that?"

"I miscarried," Laura repeated in disbelieving tones. "I miscarried, and my baby was born dead."

A few minutes later, as Potter's sedative began easing her into sleep, Laura Shields repeated the words to herself once more, but she knew she didn't believe them.

The baby had been alive. She was sure it had been alive. And she was sure they had killed it. They had killed it, and they had sent it to Nathaniel.

But still, she couldn't be sure. It had all been so strange, and even as it had all been happening, and the baby was being born, she couldn't be sure of what was real and what was memory. And now, she would never really know.

Then, in her last moments of consciousness, she came to a decision. She would try to accept what the doctor had told her. From now on, when she thought of this night, she'd tell herself that all that had happened was that she'd miscarried.

She'd miscarried, and the baby was born dead;

It would be easier that way.

Eric Simpson cocked his head and stared at Michael Hall. He looked as though he was watching something, but Eric couldn't figure out what it was. "Somethin' wrong?" he finally asked.

Michael started, and then his eyes slowly focused on Eric. "I thought I saw something," he said uncertainly. "Or heard something. And I've got a headache."

Eric grinned. "That's the stuff we slopped down the floor with. It'll go away as soon as we're outside. Come on."

It was nearly midnight, and the cleanup from the foaling was finally done. But Michael couldn't quite remember finishing the job. He'd been hosing down the barn floor, and his head had begun to ache, and then he'd seen something. It had only been a flash, and it had seemed to come from inside his head, and yet he was sure he'd recognized some faces.

His grandfather, and Dr. Potter.

And Dr. Potter had been holding something, but Michael hadn't quite been able to make out what it was.

And there had been a sound, high pitched, like the shriek of the wind, or like someone screaming.

Then it was gone.

Now, outside in the cool night air, Michael couldn't even quite remember what it had been like, except for the scream.

The scream was still echoing in his head, and despite what Eric had said, his head still ached.