Chapter 22: The Birth

The creek took the bridge at noon.

Lachlan stood at the window and watched the brown water carry a fence post down it.

"The doctor's on the other side," he said. "I'll get her."

"Not across that," Pearl said.

"I can cross that."

"You can drown in that."

"I'm a wolf, Mother."

"You're a fool with a good coat," Pearl said. "Go, then. Don't come back without her."

He kissed me hard, once, and went out into the rain.

Mirabel cried out on the couch by the fire, and her whole body curled.

"Breathe," Pearl said. "In through the nose. Don't hold it."

She turned to me.

"Wash your hands to the elbow. You're the one she asked for."

I scrubbed at the kitchen sink with my sleeves rolled to my shoulders.

I had never delivered a child.

I had never seen one born.

Three pack women had come in out of the rain, and they stood in the doorway with towels and kettles.

None of them looked at Mirabel.

They had spent seven months not looking at her.

"You can all go home," Mirabel said between pains. Her face was soaked. "I know none of you want to be here."

"Hush," said Pearl.

"I want to say it." She gripped the arm of the couch. "I'm going to say it while there's people to hear."

I knelt at the end of the couch.

"I wrote it down last week," Mirabel said, and her voice broke. "If I die tonight, she goes to you. Not to Cade's mother. Not to Cade."

The pack women stood very still.

"You won't die," I said.

"Promise me anyway."

"I promise. You won't need it."

She nodded, tears running into her hair.

"I won't say it was nothing, what you did," I said. "I'm here because you asked me."

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