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And then she heard it. The delicately shredded cry, thin and sweet, of a newborn.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

From Here to Maternity

June would never forget one second of that night. Dr. Gibson and Mrs. Caswell were efficient but careful, even loving, as they administered anesthesia to Tuppence, swabbed her tummy, and draped white linen cloth around it.

She would remember the calm and quiet of the room, broken only by Dr. Gibson’s gentle voice. It was unnerving to watch as layers of tissue were delicately divided by a blade sharper and finer than anything she’d ever seen. But the doctor’s extraordinary skill—her precision and control—somehow made it easier to bear the reality of what was happening.

After the first incision, it took only five minutes until the baby was out. The sound of a trembling cry galvanized June into action. She moved forward with sterilized toweling to receive the red, wrinkly creature, all smeared in fluids and blood. A tiny boy, squalling up a storm.

“Should I clean him?” she asked breathlessly.

“Just wipe his face gently,” Mrs. Caswell answered without looking at her, dabbing at the incision site with a clean cloth while Dr. Gibson began to suture rapidly. “Wait another minute or two, and when the cord stops pulsing, tie it off the way I told you.”

June bundled the baby to keep him warm and carried him toward the counter near the sink. She cuddled him close, amazed by how lively he was.

“What a pair of lungs, lad,” she said softly. “Loud as a railway porter, you are.”

“If you could lift it a bit higher—” the doctor was saying behind her. “Perfect. Now forceps—hold that while I—yes—”

June stole a glance at Tuppence’s face before walking away with the baby. Something seemed . . . different. Tuppence’s stillness wasn’t the same stillness of a few minutes ago.

No. Don’t think about that. Think about the baby.

The counter had already been covered with sterilized cloth. There was a paper packet containing lengths of silk thread, and a pair of little scissors with curved blades.

June laid the baby down, uncovered him long enough to tie off the cord in two places and cut in between, and wrapped him up again. The poor thing wailed in outrage. She held him high against her shoulder, his tummy facing her chest, and kept her hand cupped around his waxy little head. It unnerved her, how fragile and floppy he was.

Afraid his crying might distract the doctor, she began to whisper close to his ear, a sort of tuneless verse Ma used to sing. “On a hill there is a tree . . . on the tree there is a bough . . . on the bough there is a nest . . . in the nest an egg lies now . . . in the egg a chick . . .” She couldn’t remember the rest of it.

To her relief, the baby quieted, breathing against her neck like a kitten. June remained at the sink with him, facing away from the sight of Tuppence being operated on. She kept repeating the verse. “On a hill there is a tree . . . on the tree there is a bough . . .” A rosary of trees and boughs and nests and chicks.

They were waiting this out together, she and the baby, while fate threaded the minutes and pulled them tight, one after another.

She thought of how the vicar had said a child’s life came from a man’s seed and the breath of God, while the mother’s body was only a blessed receptacle. But the life force in this tender being had come from Tuppence. June could feel it. His mother had given the sparks that had ignited his heartbeat.

“. . . in the egg a chick . . .”

Her throat hurt, crimping between every breath like the bellows of a concertina. How light the infant was. An entire human being, weighing little more than a pudding.

After a long time, she became aware of Mrs. Caswell standing beside her. The midwife’s voice seemed to reach her through a trance.

“. . . I’ll take him now. You did so well, June. Will you go to the door and call for Mr. Pembroke? Tuppence is ready to return to her bed now.”

June gladly surrendered the baby into Mrs. Caswell’s capable arms. Out of the periphery of her vision, she saw Tuppence on the table, with Dr. Gibson tucking a blanket around her. But June didn’t look more closely or ask about her condition. She went to the door, her legs working like the attachments to a clockwork toy.

Mr. Pembroke was already at the threshold. He entered the kitchen and stopped inside the doorway. “Will you help me with the carbolic solution?” he asked.

June went to fetch the sprayer. “Hold your breath,” she prompted. He inhaled and turned his face away, while she misted his shirt and sleeves.

“Thank you.” Mr. Pembroke slid an assessing glance over her before asking the doctor, “Dr. Gibson, is June still needed here?”

“Not any longer,” came the calm reply. “June, you were marvelous. We couldn’t have done without you.”

“Go have a rest,” Mr. Pembroke told June.

“Yes, sir.” June set the sprayer beside the doorway and walked blindly out of the kitchen. Somehow she could still feel the pressure of the baby against her shoulder. His little round head had been so doll-like. She and Reina used to play with dolls, a lifetime ago. Ma had made a cloth doll for each of them. Yarn hair and painted faces. Cinnamon and Lala, their names had been.