The Birthing House

'I'm Greer Laski, and you're Conrad, right?'

'Oh, hello, Mrs Laski . . .'

There were three of them, ages three to eight (not counting the one in the oven) but it was difficult to tell with their arms raking gum and candy to the floor, the Whiffle ball bat knocking alternately at the cart and a smaller sibling's head. They all had the same genderless cropped haircuts of a cult, and two of them wore identical grass-stained Spiderman pajamas. One fixed him with a drooling, open-mouthed and one-eyed stare, the other eye hidden behind a metal mesh patch hanging by a single strand of dirty medical tape. When she spoke, Mrs Laski's voice came in an accented, babbling run. But what kind of accent? It was more than the usual Wisconsinese his neighbors let slip. This sounded like some unique crossbreeding of shine-drunk Appalachian, Elmer Fudd and Jodi Foster in Nell.

'These are Anna Maybelle, Davey and Louis . . .' (massaging her distended belly) '. . . this one's a surprise. How are you settling in? Gosh, we loved that house, we sure do miss it, don't we kids, say hello to Mr Harrison.'

She pronounced it Miss-tawh Hay-wiss-un.

'Yes, we're doing fine.' Conrad tried to maintain the veneer of politeness while swiping his check card in the machine.

'Do you want any cash back?' the cashier said.

'No, thank you.'

'Press no.'

He did, then turned back to (what kind of name is Greer?) Mrs Laski. 'How is your new place?'

'Oh, it's hard, ya know. It's really hard, Conrad.' Rea-wee hawd. 'With the kids and the movers and ya know how Leon having trouble with crew and his back since the move, but we're doin' okay, aren't we kids, honey stop playing with those batteries, no, Anna Maybelle, no new cereal this week.'

'Okay, then.' Conrad edged out of the line with his single bag in hand.

But Mrs Laski thwarted the getaway by grabbing his shirt-sleeve. 'I don't care what anyone says, Conrad, that house is a perfectly good place to raise a family. God watched out for us in our old home just like he's watching out for you now, m'kay? Oh, h'okay, Mommy has to press the button, kids, hold on a second.'

Ah. God is watching us all.

'Yeah, about that, Mrs Laski. Is there something I don't know about our house, your old place? Leon gave me that book and if there is some significance . . . ?'

Mrs Laski's eyes shot up from her pocket book and held him with a hard stare, but it lasted only a second before she was smiling again. 'Leon should have never left that with you. It's a lotta history, ya know, Conrad.' A lot of hiss-tow-wee. 'He doesn't like to talk about it, but it's not like we're ashamed of it.'

With her bags in her cart, Mrs Laski dragged the train out of the line and followed Conrad toward the front doors. He knew he could outrun them, but not without appearing insane. One of the kids was now literally clinging to her leg, sitting on her foot so that the woman had to walk in a loping gait. Conrad did an involuntary and quite rude double-take when he saw that one of the boy's hands was - oh dear God - missing three fingers and gnarled into a ball of flesh, twin nails growing out of what should have been the first knuckles. On the back of the 'hand' was an Idaho of lumpen black fur.

'You can have it back, it's no big deal to me either way,' Conrad said over his shoulder, forgetting he had already torched the album. He shuffled faster past stacks of bulk water softener. Guilt wasn't even a factor now. They were so loud and grubby, it made him feel sick to be in their company.

'Oh, no no, too late for that. The book stays with the house.'

The house? You can have the house!

He realized, tallying it as a group, each child was malformed in some way. Jesus Christ, is she his wife or his sister?

'I'm sorry,' he said, feeling sweat leak down his ribs.

'There wasn't no devil at work in there. Lots of lil 'uns made their way into this world thanks to those women.'

'I'm not sure--'

'My family's not cursed. Accidents happen everywhere. We were happy there for a long, long time.'

'Never mind, it's not--'

'Those women were there for each other in hard times. And we all come upon hard times, don't we, from time to time?'

Conrad finally understood, and knew that he had known all along. The women were the lost women and their midwives, broken souls who came to heal . . . and got stuck bearing children . . . like the Laski kids.

'God always gave us more children, and He wouldn't do that in no home that was cursed.'

Something from dinner with the Grums came back to him. Gail and Big John and Steve arguing about how many children the Laskis had.

It's like ten little Indians over there, Steve had said.

Could have been something rare, Gail had said. Just one of those things.

'I'm sorry for your loss,' Conrad said, watching the flicker of dark martyrdom in her eyes.

But she recovered quickly. 'No regrets, Conrad.' No ree-gwetts. 'And who would trust a hospital any more these days, right? Those places are full of diseases.' Mrs Laski was giggling. 'A hospital! That would be ridiculous!'

Roddy's reference to the doctor. The sketched cross in the yard.

Conrad wanted to slap her face and tell her this wasn't funny. He realized the only things stopping him were the children, staring up at him as if he had joined their traveling circus.

'I have to be--'

'Do you and your wife have any kids yet, Conrad?'

'I'm sorry, I have to get home.' He did not look back as he fled to his car.

'Say goodbye, kids, say bye bye mistah hay-wiss-son!'

Ten little Indians. Some made it out, some did not.

All of them born in his birthing house.

The phone had not been docked long enough to hold a charge, but that turned out not to matter. Their conversation was short.

'What's wrong?' He could tell she was crying, again or still.

'I'm sorry I yelled at you, Baby. That was shitty of me. I just miss you.'

She sniffed. 'I went to the doctor today.'

'Okay.' The house was hot. So hot and humid it made him sway and plop down into one of the chairs at the two top. 'What kind of doctor?'

'It wasn't a surprise. I've known for a while.'

'A while?'

'I'm pregnant.'

13

She was right - it wasn't much of surprise. The rest of the conversation had been a blur. He hoped he'd said at least some of the right things. She had been too tired to go into it. They agreed to keep it a secret for a few more weeks. There was always a chance she would miscarry, and he was ashamed to feel a sliver of hope that she would. No sooner had he thought that than a wild shot of pride and longing he had never imagined filled his heart. He wanted to be a father. This was it. Time to become a man. Do it right, better than Dad.

But that longing was fleeting, too. Something other than Jo's new condition and Mrs Laski's traveling circus was eating him. Something about the timing of her pregnancy did not make sense.

He could see it only one of three ways. Jo was lying and not pregnant, which she would never do. That sort of emotional manipulation was beyond even her. The other possibility was, under the stress of the move and all the shit that had gone on leading up to it, he had forgotten having sex with his wife. That did not seem likely, because men don't forget, ever. The last possibility was that she was pregnant with Jake-the-out-of-work-actor-fuck-buddy's baby.