As I opened the door Mrs. Watkins shoved her teeth back into her mouth.
"Did the doc git here?" she gasped.
"No!" I snapped. "Now just don't be so impatient. I've got this medical
book. We'll get along without the doctor." I was unreasonably angry at
her.
I snapped on the light and opened the book at random. I tried to
concentrate on the print that swam and bounced before my eyes.
Mrs. Watkins was breathing hard, and grunting spasmodically. I decided
to read aloud, to keep Mrs. Watkins' mind off her troubles and to
reassure her that I was capable and efficient, that I was doing
something, that I wasn't just sitting idly by.
A few of the words finally detached themselves from the swirling pages.
"Whenever material from the bile, called bilirubin, gets into the
bloodstream, it is followed by a yellowish discoloration of the skin."
Maybe, I thought, there was some bilirubin loose in my blood right now.
Goodness knows I felt bad enough for there to be quarts of it coursing
around through my veins. And since yellow symbolizes cowardice and
fear, what could be more appropriate than for my skin to take on a
virulent shade of that color?
Mrs. Watkins grunted, and caught her breath. "There ain't no use
worryin' about anything like that now, honey," she panted.
She gave a longer, sustained grunt, and then she began to laugh weekly.
"There ain't no use worryin' about anything. It's all over, honey."
"Over!" I threw the book onto the floor.
Mrs. Watkins pulled back the blanket, uncovering herself. For the next
few minutes I was a very reasonable facsimile of a whirling dervish.
There was a tiny, obscenely red and gooey creature, howling till I
thought my ear drums would break. Fighting to think in spite of the
noise and Mrs. Watkins' uncontrollable laughter, I clung to the two
things I could salvage out of the chaos that was my mind. The baby's
umbilical cord must be tied and the baby must be made to cry so that he
would start to breathe.
Well, there was no use in worrying about his breathing. His lusty howls
were shredding the air all around us. That left only one urgent
task--the tying of the umbilical cord. Throwing fastidiousness and
delicacy to the winds, I seized the heap of string and tackled the job.
By the time I had finished, the baby was literally swathed in string,
but his umbilical cord was tied. I wasn't exactly sure why a new baby's
cord must be tied, but in order to be certain that I had accomplished
whatever purpose the ritual serves, I had tied it in four separate
places.
Just as I was washing my shaking hands in the bathroom, David burst
into the cabin.
"Mama! A customer's waiting for you. And Donna's all bloody. I turned
on the light and she's all bloody."
"I'll be right back," I told Mrs. Watkins, rushing through the door.
Judging by the wreckage and her bleeding upper lip, Donna must have
tried to sit in the chair that was perched on top of the pyramid of her
toys.
"Donna hurta mouf!" she wailed, when she saw me. I picked her up out of
the mess and tucked her under my arm, heading for the bathroom to wash
her lip. I glanced into the office on the way. A young man with a pale,
quivering mustache was standing there. His expression stated plainly
that he had been standing there for some time.
I was afraid I'd begin to gibber if I tried to explain the delay to
him, so I waved my free hand at him in a ghoulish attempt at
cheerfulness.
"Let's wash Donna's lip," I suggested, when we were in the bathroom.
Donna sent up an immediate howl of protest, and I applied
psychology--although I was tempted to apply something less abstract and
more painful.
"Oh, yes," I crooned, "we must wash Donna's lip, and her hands, and her
feet."
"Wash Donna's feet?" she repeated, her round blue eyes interested
behind their veil of untidy wisps of brown hair.
I nodded, looking more closely at her lip. I decided the cut wasn't
very serious. It had bled a lot, but it wasn't bleeding now. I'd wait
on the impatient young man and get him out of the way before I took the
time to wash her lip.
I left Donna in the bathroom and hurried back to confront the quivering
mustache.
The prim, thin-lipped mouth beneath the mustache was opening to speak,
when David hurtled into the office and clutched my dress.
"Mama!" he yelled. "She's having another baby!"
"Twins?" I shrieked. "Oh, dear, what'll we do?"
The mustache was twitching with shock now. "You'd better rent a cabin
somewhere else," I said. "I'm--" I paused. What was that splashing
noise?
I deserted the mustache and ran into the bathroom. "Donna washing hands
and feet," Donna explained. She was standing in the toilet.
I looked at her dumbly, too confused to be able to decide whether to
take care of her or to rush out and get to work on the second baby's
umbilical cord.
David, who had disappeared, came excitedly up to me again. "I was just
out there again," he cried, "and now she's got another one! And this
newest one is solid black!"
I pulled Donna out of the toilet. Then I lowered the seat cover and sat
down heavily.
"Black?" I repeated in a whisper. My lips felt dry, and my head was
throbbing. "Oh, no, it couldn't be black. You must be mistaken."
"Nope, it's black, all right. And you should see the second one--all
white, with black legs and ears! Well, I'm going back to see if she has
any more. Gee, won't Miss Nestleburt be surprised when we tell her the
cat she gave me turned into four cats?"