Excerpt: Bones Withered Away

New York City, August 1920

The room was silent, hot and dark, stinking of whiskey, blood and feces. A laboring mother, ashen and thin, lay on a bare mattress, her hair matted with sweat. There were two other people in the room.

With one final push, the baby popped out onto the filthy ticking. The mother shuddered and then turned to vomit. The mess slid down her neck, but she did not shift her head. A pale, tiny infant lay there and barely moved as it was roughly wiped off, shaken to get a response. There were some kitten noises but then louder cries. “Looks like it will live.” The midwife muttered with a heavy Irish accent to the woman standing in the corner. “That what you want?” She was being well paid and would give them what they wanted. She saw too often what happened to children no one desired, the lives they led. It would be a mercy to make this one disappear. “What about the mother?” the other woman, older, well dressed, asked shortly.

The midwife looked at the girl in the bed and harshly kneaded her abdomen, producing a groan. Blood spurted between her legs. “Push again.” If the girl did so, it was not obvious. After a moment the afterbirth slithered out next to the baby, but not much more blood. Her pulse was felt. It was weak and erratic and she was unresponsive. “Not sure.”, she said bluntly. The other woman frowned. “Get rid of that.” pointing to the baby. Gesturing at the mother, “We’ll clean her up and get her out of here.”

“That’s not a good idea, movin’ her so fast.”

“I’ve got to get her home. No one can know anything.”

The midwife wrapped the baby up in a towel and put it on a pile of rags in the corner. By now it was crying loudly. The woman shook the girl in the bed. “Come on, we have to go home now.” Glazed grey eyes opened slowly. “The baby?”

“Forget it. It never happened. You are a stupid girl, but you are going home and forgetting this whole thing.” A tear slid out of one eye and she craned her head to look in the direction of the cries. But they each grabbed an arm and half dragged her to a rusty tub in the kitchen. It was dark, but the apartment in an old tenement building was stifling. Cold water from the tap filled a bucket, which they poured over her, washing away vomit and blood, washing away the baby. Her head hung down and no one spoke and the baby stopped its noise. The girl stayed limp and they sat her on the bed. Drying her off, the woman dressed her in clothes brought from home, from before. It was a struggle in the dark heat. Damp blonde hair was twisted into a bun and pinned it in place. At least she was now presentable. And clean enough for the trip home.