“Can you come now?”
“Our car’s not running,” her mother said. “Did you call the rescue squad?”
“We ain’t got no phone,” he said.
“Is your mother with her?”
“Nobody’s with her!” He stomped his foot like an impatient little kid. “Please, ma’am. Please come!”
Her mother turned to Noelle. “You call the rescue squad while I get some clothes on. And you come with me tonight. I might need you.”
She’d never invited Noelle to go out on a call with her before, but this whole situation was different than the usual. This was the first time a neighbor had come knocking at two in the morning. Sometimes there’d be a phone call in the middle of the night. Noelle would hear her mother leave the house and she’d know she’d be on her own for making breakfast and getting ready for school. Her mother would probably be back by the time she got home in the afternoon, but she’d be quiet about whatever had gone on. Noelle didn’t really care. She was more interested in reading than she was in how her mother spent her time.
Her mother was ancient—fifty-two years old—and her mousy brown hair was streaked with gray. She had wrinkles around her eyes and on her throat. She was much older than the mothers of Noelle’s classmates and people often thought she was her grandmother. Her friends’ mothers painted their carefully shaped fingernails. They wore lipstick and went to the beauty parlor in Lumberton to get their hair done. Noelle was embarrassed by her mother’s age and unconventional demeanor. But as she dialed the rescue squad and did her best to explain to the dispatcher where James lived, she had the strangest feeling that her perception of her mother was about to change.
She hadn’t known her mother could run. They jogged down the dirt road behind James’s bike. Even carrying her blue canvas bag of supplies, her mother was outpacing her. The air was heavy with the smell of the river, and Spanish moss hung from the cypress trees lining the road. They turned onto the lane that bordered the creek and some of the moss brushed Noelle’s shoulders. When she was little, her mother told her that a Lumbee Indian chief’s wife had disobeyed him, so he chopped off her hair and tossed it over the branch of a tree, where it grew and multiplied and soon began covering the branches of all the neighboring trees. What that had to do with Spain, Noelle didn’t know, but she loved imagining that the Indian chief’s wife might have been one of her long-lost ancestors.
Noelle and her mother followed James around the last bend in the lane. Moonlight flickered on the peeling white paint of the tiny shack, but they heard the screams even before the house came into view. The voice sounded more animal than human, and it cut through the dank air like a sword. The screams made her mother run even faster while Noelle slowed her own pace, a little unnerved. Birth wasn’t completely foreign to her—she’d seen their cat give birth to kittens—but she’d never heard anything like those screams.
“Where are your parents?” her mother asked as James tossed his bike to the ground.
“Ma’s up to Lumberton,” he said over his shoulder. He grabbed the knob of the beat-up front door and turned it. “Her sister took sick.”
He didn’t mention his father and Noelle’s mother didn’t ask. They raced into the house, which was no more than two squat little rooms. The first was kind of a kitchen and living room together, with a couch at one end and a sink and stove and half-size refrigerator at the other. Noelle’s mother didn’t seem to notice the room, though. She followed the wailing to the second room, where a girl, slim as a reed except for the giant globe of her belly, lay on her back in a double bed. She could only have been a couple of years older than Noelle, and she was naked from the waist down, her green T-shirt hiked up to her breasts. Her knees were bent and the place between her legs bulged with something huge and dark.
“Oh, my stars, you’re crowning already!” her mother said. She turned to James. “Fill every pot and pan in the house with water and set it to boil!” she commanded.
“Yes, ma’am!” James disappeared from the room, but Noelle stood frozen, mesmerized by what was happening to the girl’s body. It couldn’t be normal, could it? It looked and sounded like she was being torn apart.
“All right, darling.” Her mother began pulling things out of her bag as she spoke to the girl. “Do not push. I know you feel like pushing, but don’t push yet, all right? I’m going to help you and everything’s going to be fine.”
“Not … fine!” the girl yelled. “I don’t want no baby!”
“Well, you’re going to have one in just a few minutes, regardless.” Noelle’s mother turned to her. “Find me every clean towel and piece of linen that’s in this house,” she said as she wrapped her blood pressure cuff around the girl’s thin arm. “Then wet a cloth with some of that water the boy’s heating up and bring it to me.”
Noelle nodded and began searching in the narrow bedroom closet, grabbing the neatly folded towels and sheets and pillowcases from the shelves. In the other room, she found James trembling over water-filled pots on the stove.
“I need to dip one of these in warm water.” Noelle pointed to the pots. “Which one’s warmest?”
“This one, maybe.” He nodded toward the one closest to her and she dipped the washcloth into the water, then wrung it out in the sink and carried it back to the bedroom.
Her mother partly unfolded one of the sheets and slid it under the girl’s bottom. Then she took the warm washcloth and held it to the bizarrely stretched skin that circled the baby’s head. Noelle leaned down to whisper in her mother’s ear, “Is this normal?” She pointed between the girl’s legs and her mother brushed her hand away.
“Completely normal,” her mother said out loud, and Noelle knew she was trying to reassure the girl at the same time she answered the question. “Why don’t you go help the boy?” she suggested.
Noelle shook her head. “I want to stay here.”
“Then get a chair.” She nodded toward the girl. “Let her hold your hand.”
Noelle dragged a straight-backed chair from the living room to the side of the bed. The girl was gripping the edge of the mattress with her fist, and Noelle awkwardly pried her fingers loose and then pressed them around her own hand. The girl squeezed her fingers hard. Tears ran down the sides of her face and tiny dots of perspiration covered her forehead. Her skin was lighter than James’s, and even with her face contorted with pain, Noelle could see how pretty she was. And how scared.
She reached forward, wiping the girl’s tears away with her fingertips. “What’s your name?” she asked.
“Bea,” the girl whispered. “I’m dyin', ain’t I? This baby goin’ kill me?”
Noelle shook her head. “No,” she said. “My mother—”
Bea interrupted her with another scream. “I’m splittin’ apart!” she yelled.
“No woman’s ever split apart, darlin',” Noelle’s mother said, “and you’re stretching just like you’re meant to do.”
“My thing’s burnin’ up!” Bea said. She let go of Noelle’s hand to reach between her legs. Her eyes widened as she touched whatever was down there out of Noelle’s line of sight. “Lord Jesus!” Bea said. “Lord Jesus, save
