Christopher Ransom - The Birthing House

'This is insane. How can you sit there and tell me this?'

'Ain't telling you a thing a hundred cultures on this earth don't already believe. You're gonna believe what you wanna believe anyway. I can see dat.'

'I might also sue your ass off.'

'You ever see women around babies? Just makes 'em want more babies. Dey can't help it. Da cunnie is a grand mystery to men. What do we know?'

'Tell me what happened.'

'Life. Life's what happened. All this blood splashed on the floor and the walls and the wailing women and the sweat and the pain and the prayer. It's just birth. And what does all this birth do to a house? Your supernatural tales would suggest that death opens a door. And why not? It's a violent act, the spirit leaving the body and all that crap. But birth is violent, too, make no mistake about that. Bringing a new soul into this world makes a helluva racket. Some cultures, dey move the pregnant females away just before birth, or during them menses, figurin' if the evil spirits a comin', might swoop down now when she's got her legs open. I don't know shit about spirits, but I know the Indians got a special teepee for the women. Some folks, like them nutters up in Idaho what got shot in the back by dem Federalis, dey had a birthing shack. Dey were afraid of something besides the government, all right. I don't know about opening no doors, but if dare's doors to be opened, then birth must be one way to open them. Maybe all this ushering of babies into the world could do that.'

'Is that what you believe is happening?' Conrad said. 'The birthing house wants another baby? Are you telling me that's how you kept it . . . happy for the past twenty-six years? Having babies?'

'I'm just a family man,' Laski said, his shit-eating grin revealing yellow teeth.

'Right,' Conrad said. 'And your kids?'

'What about my kids?'

'They're all . . . each one has an abnormality. What happened to them?'

'Bad genes.' Laski went back to watching the game, like they were discussing Ford versus GM.

Bullshit . 'You had more, didn't you? More than the three I saw your wife with.'

'Who tol' you dat?'

'Is it true?'

'You got no idea what you're talking about. You've never been a father.'

'What happened to them? Did they die, or did someone . . . did some thing . . . murder them?'

'You know . . .' Laski stood and hooked his beer into his arm, shelling a peanut. 'We were happy dare, once. Good times, bad times. Not so different from any life in any other house.'

'Then why'd you leave?'

Laski turned to Conrad, weighing his response. 'My wife, she didn't wanna sell. But we got her for a song. I figured the market was ripe.'

'Fuck you, Laski. What the fuck did you tell me all that for if not to tell me something? You want to confess? Because if something happens to my wife--'

'Yeah, what you gonna do? Move back to California?'

Suddenly the argument was over. Conrad wanted to crawl across the table and smash his bottle over Laski's head.

'My wife is pregnant. I don't know what to do, Leon. I need help.'

Laski looked Conrad in the eye and nodded very slowly, imparting his last and only real piece of advice. 'Listen to the woman of the house. Be a man, but keep your pecker in your pocket unless you're planning on putting it to righteous use. And listen to the woman of the house.'

18

Conrad stood leaning over the bathroom sink with a tube of ointment in his good hand. The problem was, they were both good hands now. The dog bite that had started as a hole requiring sutures was now but a faint red dot, the surrounding tissue pink, clean and dry as paper.

It's healed , he thought . Damned if it hasn't healed itself up in two days.

He turned again to the bathroom window facing the backyard, not admitting to himself that he was hoping to see Nadia Grum. He thought he'd seen her there each night since her parents left town, standing still or pacing by the fence. He thought she might be sleepwalking, but eventually she seemed to snap out of it before darting back behind her house.

Twenty minutes later he was dozing on his feet, his face pleasantly cooling against the window, when he saw movement, a shape. It took him another half a minute for his eyes to adjust and see the woman standing in his backyard. Not on the Grum side; this time she had crossed over. She looked up at him and tiredly raised one hand, then turned away slowly.

He lost her for a moment, but she reappeared, walking the flagstone path toward the detached garage at the rear of the property. No, not Nadia. Nadia was blonde as a cocker spaniel, and even in the darkness he could see that this woman had black hair. He might have tried pretending she was Nadia if she had been wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, or even a white nightgown that implied sleepwalking. But the woman who was now headed toward the overgrown vegetable garden at the end of the property wasn't wearing street clothes or pajamas. She was wearing a black dress, the kind that billowed under the waist and fit snuggly above it.

She's crazy , he thought. One of the locals gone off the radar. She needs help before she wanders into the garden and steps on a rusted rake .

Conrad trotted down the stairs, leaving a path of lights on as he went. The stove clock read 4.13 a.m. The dogs scrambled out of bed to join him in this new adventure.

But by the time he made it outside and to the edge of the garden, she was gone. He tried to imagine a woman in a long dress scrambling over the six-foot fence bordering the entire back half of the property, but it wasn't working. The late-night numbness lifted all at once and Conrad became frightened all over again. He padded up the flagstone path in bare feet, detouring to the Grum residence on his way home.

He knocked and waited. And knocked and waited.

One last rapping tattoo on the door and then he would give up before someone called the cops. Twenty seconds passed. As he passed their front bay window, he saw a curtain drop and blonde hair on the retreat.

'Nadia?' he whisper-shouted. 'It's just me. Conrad.'

He was still standing there feeling like a peeping Tom when the front door opened. She pushed the screen door with one hand, subconsciously caressing the orb of her belly with the other, leaning out as if she didn't trust the porch with her bare feet. She was squinty-eyed with sleep.

'Hey, Nadia, sorry to bother. Were you just out back?'

'I was sleeping, Conrad.' She became alert mid-yawn. 'Why?'

'I, uh, just wanted to make sure you were okay.'

He noted the small blonde hairs stiffening on the gooseflesh of her upper thighs, just below the hemline of her boxer shorts.

'I'm supposed to be watching the place,' he said. 'Doing some chores--'

'They don't trust me to be alone.'

'Oh, no, it's not--'

'It's fine. I get it.'

He smiled at that. 'Yeah, good night, Nadia. Sorry again.'

As he retreated, she said, 'Conrad?'

'Yeah?'

'Think you could give me a ride tomorrow? Or today, I guess it is.'

'Sure.'

'To Madison?'

'What time?'

'Uhm, like ten? It won't take long, maybe just an hour there and back, maybe fifteen minutes there?'

'No problem.'

'I'll pay for the gas.'

'No, it's the least I can do after scaring you.'

'You didn't scare me.' She gave him a tired smile.

'You don't scare very easily, do you?'

'Not any more.'

He told himself opening the car door for her was more an acknowledgement of her condition than an act of chivalry. Her white hair and whiter skin were glowing in the sun, illuminating the blue veins in her cheek. She wore a knee-length pleated skirt and plaid Tommy wedges, and a snug, navy-colored long-sleeve top. The top slenderized her arms and made her look more pregnant than she had five hours before.