“Doctor, I took care of that child,” said Granny gently. “Now do you think I would let her lie there if she was hemorrhaging?” But she went away, bouncing the baby in her arms, pretty vigorously, he thought, for a newborn.
He thought sure the little mother was going to put up a fuss, too, but she didn’t.
There was nothing to do but hold this oil lamp himself, if he wanted to make sure everything was all right. This was hardly going to be a thorough examination.
She sat up against the pillows, her red hair mussed and tangled around her white face, and let him turn back the thick layer of covers. Everything nice and clean, he had to hand it to them. She was immaculate, as though she’d soaked in the tub, if such a thing was possible, and they had laid a layer of white towels beneath her. Hardly any discharge at all now. But she was the mother, all right. Badly bruised from the birth. Her white nightgown was spotless.
Why in the world didn’t they clean up the little one like that, for God’s sake? Three women, and they didn’t want to play dolls enough to change that baby’s blankets?
“Just lie back now, honey,” he said to the mother. “The baby didn’t tear you, I can see that, but it would have been a damned sight easier for you if it had. Next time, how about trying the hospital?”
“Sure, why not?” she said in a drowsy voice, and then gave him just a little bit of a laugh. “I’ll be all right.” Very ladylike. She’d never be a child again now, he thought, pint-sized though she was, and just wait till this story got around town, though he wasn’t about to tell Eileen one word of it.
“I told you she was fine, didn’t I?” asked Granny, pushing aside the netting now, the baby crying a little against her shoulder. The mother didn’t even look at the baby.
Probably had enough of it for the moment, he thought. Probably resting while she could.
“All right, all right,” he said, smoothing the cover back. “But if she starts to bleed, if she starts running a fever, you get her down into that limousine of yours and get her into Napoleonville! You go straight on in to the hospital.”
“Sure thing, Dr. Jack, glad you could come,” said Mary Jane. And she took his hand and led him out of the little tent enclosure, away from the bed.
“Thank you, Doctor,” said the red-haired girl, softly. “Will you write it all out, please? The date of birth and all, and let them sign it as witnesses?”
“Got a wooden table for you to write on right here,” said Mary Jane. She pointed to a small makeshift desk of two pine boards laid over two stacks of old wooden Coke bottle crates. It had been a long time since he’d seen Coke crates like that, the kind they used to use for the little bottles that used to cost a nickel. Figured she could probably sell them at a flea market these days to a collector. Lots of things around here she could sell. He spied the old gas sconce on the wall just above him.
It broke his back to lean over and write like this, but it wasn’t worth complaining about. He took out his pen. Mary Jane reached up and tipped the naked light bulb towards him.
There came that sound from downstairs, clickety-clickety-clickety. And then a whirring sound. He knew those noises.
“What is that sound?” he asked. “Now let’s see here, mother’s name, please?”
“Mona Mayfair.”
“Father’s name?”
“Michael Curry.”
“Lawfully wedded husband and wife.”
“No. Just skip that sort of thing, would you?”
He shook his head. “Born last night, you said?”
“Ten minutes after two this morning. Delivered by Dolly Jean Mayfair and Mary Jane Mayfair. Fontevrault. You know how to spell it?”
He nodded. “Baby’s name?”
“Morrigan Mayfair.”
“Morrigan, never heard of the name Morrigan. That a saint’s name, Morrigan?”
“Spell it for him, Mary Jane,” the mother said, her voice very low, from inside the enclosure. “Two r’s, Doctor.”
“I can spell it, honey,” he said. He sang out the letters for her final approval.
“Now, I didn’t get a weight….”
“Eight pounds nine ounces,” said Granny, who was walking the baby back and forth, patting it as it lay on her shoulder. “I weighed it on the kitchen scale. Height, regular!”
He shook his head again. He quickly filled in the rest, made a hasty copy on the second form. What was the point of saying anything further to them?
A glimmer of lightning flashed in all the gables, north and south and east and west, and then left the big room in a cozy, shadowy darkness. The rain teemed softly on the roof.
“Okay, I’m leaving you this copy,” he said, putting the certificate in Mary Jane’s hand, “and I’m taking this one to mail it into the parish from my office. In a couple of weeks you’ll get the official registration of your baby. Now, you should go ahead and try to nurse that child a little, you don’t have any milk yet, but what you have is colostrum and that …”
“I told her all that, Dr. Jack,” said Granny. “She’ll nurse the baby soon as you leave, she’s a shy little thing.”
“Come on, Doctor,” said Mary Jane, “I’ll drive you back.”
“Damn, I wish there was another way to get home from here,” he said.
“Well, if I had a broom, we’d fly, now, wouldn’t we?” asked Mary Jane, gesturing for him to come on as she started her thin-legged march to the stairway, loose sandals clopping on the boards.
The mother laughed softly to herself, a girl’s giggle. She looked downright normal for a moment, with a bit of rosy color in her cheeks. Those breasts were about to burst. He hoped that baby wasn’t a snooty little taster and lip-smacker. When you got right down to it, it was impossible to tell which of these young women was the prettiest.
He lifted the netting and stepped up again to the bed. The water was oozing out of his shoes, just look at it, but what could he do about it? It was running down the inside of his shirt, too.
“You feel all right, don’t you, honey?” he asked.
“Yes, I do,” she said. She had the jug of milk in her arms. She’d been drinking it in big gulps. Well, why not? But she sure as hell didn’t need it. She threw him a bright schoolgirl smile, just about the brightest he’d ever seen, showing a row of white teeth, and just a sprinkle of freckles on her nose. Yes, pint-sized, but just about the prettiest redhead he’d ever laid eyes on.
“Come on, Doctor,” Mary Jane positively shouted at him. “Mona’s got to get her rest, and that baby’s going to start yowling. ’Bye now, Morrigan, ’Bye, Mona, ’Bye, Granny.”
Then Mary Jane was dragging him right through the attic, only stopping to slap on her cowboy hat, which she had apparently taken off when they’d come in. Water poured off the brim of it.
“Hush, now, hush,” said Granny to the baby. “Mary Jane, you hurry now. This baby’s getting fussy.”
He was about to say they ought to put that baby in its mother’s arms, but Mary Jane would have pushed him down the steps if he hadn’t gone. She was all but chasing him, sticking her little breasts against his back. Breasts, breasts, breasts. Thank God his field was geriatrics, he could never have taken all this, teenage mothers in flimsy shirts, girls talking at you with both nipples, damned outrageous, that’s what it was.
“Doctor, I’m going to pay you five hundred dollars for this visit,” she said in his ear, touching it with her bubble-gum lips, “because I know what it means to come out on an afternoon like this, and you are such a nice, agreeable …”
“Yeah, and when will I see that money, Mary Jane Mayfair?” he asked, just cranky enough to speak his mind after all this. Girls her age. And just what was she likely to do if he turned around and decided to cop a feel of what was in that lace dress that she had just so obligingly mashed up against him? He ought to bill her for a new pair of shoes, he thought, just look at these shoes, and she could get those rich relatives in New Orleans to pay for it.