Private Practices (38 page)
Authors: Linda Wolfe
He closed his lips. They looked white, frosted over. “Who are you to ask for pleasure without pain?” he said, his lips barely parting.
What happened next was something that she was never able to make Philip believe. She felt, slowly at first and then with an increasing urgency, another contraction coming on, and she opened her mouth to scream, and her mouth was a vast wide open tunnel and there was another tunnel at the bottom of her and she was sure that if she could just get them to connect she could make the baby crawl out through the top of her. She tried to scream wider and then she felt a door lock across her mouth and a hand, his hand, clamp down across it, and she kicked and flailed and thrashed her legs and he said, “See? See what I mean? You don't
need
to make noise.”
She lay back, limp, her eyes terrified. He was smiling at her, but his smile was twisted, askew. She began to whimper and he said, “I was trying to help you. To teach you something.”
Her heart began to beat so wildly she thought it too was trying to burst out from within her. Zauber shrugged, looking at her with disdain. “You weren't listening to me, were you?” He stood and said coldly, “I'll call your husband back in.”
She tried to tell Philip what had just occurred. She was drenched in sweat and her teeth were chattering. “Zauber's crazy,” she said. “There's something wrong with him.” But Philip was wiping her forehead and saying, “I think you're getting a little hysterical, Champ. Do you think you ought to ask for some Demerol?”
“No. It's bad for the baby. And I'm
not
hysterical. I'm perfectly rational.” But it was difficult to convince Philip of her rationality when now, in each minute, she had only a few seconds of composure. The contractions were coming without any but the most minimal separations, and each time one enthralled her she could do nothing but groan and cry out, her thoughts scattering like seeds. Still, whenever the pain subsided even for a second, she tried again to tell Philip that there was something different about Zauber, something peculiarly arbitrary and detached about him, and that she wanted someone else to deliver their child. But she couldn't get Philip to understand.
She screamed, “He's crazy. Fucking crazy,” but then she was shrieking, “Oh God, make this stop. Kill me. Kill the baby. I can't bear this. I'll go crazy.” She knew it was no wonder that Philip didn't listen to her about Zauber. He was too alarmed by her shrieks whenever the contractions came. He called the delivery nurse and Emily heard him say, “I think she's delirious.”
The nurse held a moist cloth to Emily's lips. “She's okay. She'll be ready to push soon. I've heard a lot worse than her.” She winked at Philip. “Some of them even ask God to kill their husbands.” Straightening up, she added, “But if you want, I'll ask Dr. Zauber to come have another look and see if he advises an injection.”
Emily shrieked, “No. No,” and the nurse said, “She doesn't want anything.” She patted Emily's arm encouragingly. “Well, you're almost there, honey. A few more big ones and you'll be ready to push.” She glanced at the monitor, her forehead wrinkling. “Just a little while longer.”
“You sure you don't want any Demerol?” Philip asked again.
But Emily was in the midst of another contraction and she couldn't reply. And then the nurse was bending over and tearing back the sheet and listening to her belly with a curved stethoscope and staring at the fetal heart monitor and yelling something and there was a great scurrying and commotion in the tiny room and the resident was back and barking instructions to two white-jacketed men who were trying to lift Emily onto a gurney, rolling her sideways while at the same time someone else was digging an IV needle into her arm, and the resident was shouting, “Get Dr. Zauber. We've lost the heartbeat” and someone was clamping an oxygen mask over Emily's mouth just as she tried to ask, “What is it? What's happened. Tell
me
.” And then they were wheeling her down the corridor to the delivery room and Philip was running alongside her saying, “Can you understand me? Can you hear me, darling? The baby's heartbeat stopped during the last few contractions. It's alive, but they've got to get it out fast.”
“Not Zauber, not Zauber,” she wanted to scream, but the mask was over her mouth.
She slept. She was up in the mountains again. Someone was calling her name. She awakened to its sound and saw Dr. Zauber holding a fat white snake in his hands. No. It was her baby. Her baby was part serpent. She began sobbing.
Zauber was gazing with curiosity at the snake that was her baby. It writhed, and he held it without moving, regarding its twisting head as if hypnotized.
“Dr. Zauber?” A nurse, capped and masked, thrust herself forward from behind Zauber. The snake hissed, gasped.
Zauber was motionless, abstracted. “Hadn't you better cut it?” the nurse whispered. Zauber raised his eyes to stare at her.
“You'd best do it now.”
Zauber said, “Quiet! Sssh!” his voice a hiss like the sound coming from the snake.
Suddenly the nurse reached past him. In her fingers something steely flashed. Then at last Zauber began to move. “You're in my light, Nurse!” he snapped, and began wrestling with the wriggling creature in his hands.
Emily held her breath, listening for the sibilant sound, but it had stopped. The room was silent. She groaned and Zauber cut the snake that was wrapped around her baby. She slept again.
“It's dead,” Zauber was saying. “It choked. Couldn't be helped.” She was in a bed with white curtains all around it and Zauber was standing at the foot of the bed. He was shrugging. “You'll have another, I'm sure.” And then he was gone.
Much later that night Philip was holding her in his arms.
“Is our baby dead?” she asked.
He nodded. His lashes were glistening.
“What was it?”
“A boy.”
She turned toward the curtains opposite him. “Zauber killed him.”
“No. The cord was wrapped twice around his neck. He was born dead.”
“He was alive. Zauber didn't cut the cord fast enough.”
“No. He told me he cut it as quickly as he could.”
“He didn't. He was distracted. Detached. Like when he was in the labor room with me.”
“No. No, darling. You're just terribly upset right now.”
“He said terrible things to me.”
“You said terrible things.” Philip tried to smile through tears. “I never knew you knew half the words you said. Champ.”
“I hate Zauber.”
“It wasn't his fault. These things happen.”
“He wanted it to happen.”
“Oh, Emily! Oh, my darling!” Philip let go of her and pressed the buzzer for the nurse. Emily slipped down onto the mattress. A moment later she heard Philip whispering, “I think she needs a sedative.”
“I don't. I'm all right.”
“You're still confused. They doped you up.”
The nurse stuck a needle in her arm and Philip sat down beside her again.
“If you don't believe what I'm telling you, I'll never be able to love you again.”
“I believe you. Sssh. I believe you.” Philip began patting her hand as if she were a child and the nurse tiptoed away.
Behind her eyes, Emily felt a smooth, creeping numbness. “There was a nurse there, I think.”
“She's just gone away.”
“In the delivery room, I mean.”
“Of course. There were two.”
“Talk to the nurse.”
“I will. Sssh, darling. I will.”
“You've got to believe me.”
“I do. But sleep now. Sssh. Sleep.” Philip's hand began to move up and down her arm. “Sleep. We'll have other children. Lots of them.” He stroked her rhythmically. “We'll make love. We'll start another baby as soon as the doctor says it's okay. But for now, sleep. Oh, my darling, try to rest. Sssh. I believe you.”
He didn't believe her. She let her eyes shut, trying not to blame him. He couldn't help it. But still her heart hardened against him. She would never ask him for anything again, she thought wildly. Never trust him. Not him or anyone.
She fell asleep thinking that she would never love or make love again.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1979 by Linda Wolfe
ISBN: 978-1-4976-8096-8
Distributed in 2014 by Open Road Distribution
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New York, NY 10014
