Page 140 of When the Sky Breaks

“I said any time you ask, didn’t I?” I forced a smile, then caught her under the arms and eased her up to lean into my chest. She was shaking hard, dead weight. I braced my back against the table leg—steady. I had to be steady for her.

“Don’t let go,” Sorcha murmured into my chest. “Promise you won’t let go. The whole time.”

I just kissed her head.

“Da?” I called to him where he was bent at the fire sterilizing rags.

“What can I do?” he asked.

“Catch the baby,” I replied, since I was clearly not welcome to put Sorcha down and manage that myself. Her fingers were gripped onto the fabric of my nightshirt like an iron clamp—daring me to let go of her.

Da froze, then shook himself as though from sleep.

“Catch the baby,” he repeated. “Right. Catch the baby. Don’t drop it.”

“Absolutely do not drop it,” I emphasized.

“You’ve got it, son.”

Sixty-Seven

Sorcha

Ihad never once in my life felt pain like that.

I’d always assumed I’d be quiet when I gave birth. Stoic. Like my mother—who’d sweat and cried silent and still in my father’s arms until her body finally gave up and she stopped breathing. My body didn’t agree. I screamed through the contractions and went limp in Neal’s grip between them.

At Neal’s instruction, Glen settled both hands on my low back, pressing hard when the waves hit their peak. Meanwhile, Neal carded gentle fingers through my hair, kissing my face and murmuring reassurance.

Nothing helped.

The clock said it only lasted two hours, but I could’ve sworn we crouched there on the kitchen floor for days before the pain and pressure finally, mercifully let up and Glen exclaimed, “You did it, lass! You’ve a daughter, my loves!”

I collapsed back into Neal’s chest, crying hard now—pain, relief, and terror all mingling.

“Can I please go to bed now?” I asked as Glen passed me the tiny, squirming bundle. My daughter—too small by half, pink skin so fragile it was nearly translucent, breath hitching like she wanted to cry but couldn’t find the strength. My daughter—too early, born on the floor in the middle of the night without a healer, but present, with us, her family, perfect and complete. Neal laughed, actually laughed, and I looked up to find his eyes wet with tears as well.

“Anything, Sorcha,” he said. “Anything for you and her.”

“We made it, little one,” I murmured, pulling the baby closer. “We did it.”

I breathed in the perfect newborn scent, savored the fleeting moment of peace—just me and Neal and baby, together in the pre-dawn quiet—before Cavan returned with the midwife, before Ansel came with questions about how to prosecute Irene, before the world crashed in and ruined it.

“What should we name her?” Neal asked, his fingers tracing quiet circles on the baby’s brow as I held her.

I tipped my head to look at him and tried to reply. And then my vision swam and the world went dark.

Sixty-Eight

Neal

The midwife arrived before dawn. She was a brusque, older human woman whom Sorcha would have hated immediately. But Sorcha was mostly unconscious, limp on the kitchen floor, blood pooling on the planks beneath her hips. The trousers I’d hastily pulled over my nightshirt were soaked with it—sticky and dark. The midwife took all of five minutes to look Sorcha over, declared it a retained afterbirth, and set to work without saying another word. She didn’t even look at the baby, cradled in my arms where I sat beside Sorcha’s body.

I couldn’t make myself watch directly, keeping my gaze fixed on Sorcha’s face, but whatever the woman did hurt enough that Sorcha twitched like she was trying to get away, her breath stuttering.

“That’s the best I can do,” the old woman said after a time, wiping bloody hands on her apron and gathering her things. “She may pull through. She may not. You never know when there’s hemorrhage.”

“And the babe?” Da asked.