I stepped gingerly into the room. “See what?” Sharon threw her head back and groaned.
“You have to push,” begged Melinda. “Tess, tell her she has to push.”
“You heard her. Push, Sharon,” I implored, still unsure what power I had in this room of life itself.
Sharon blew air in and out of her nose, gritting her teeth. “Come hold my hand,” she managed.
I saw her again. Emma. The way she held out her hand to me. The way I didn’t take it. I swallowed as I rushed to Sharon and clutched her hand to my chest, falling to my knees by her bedside. “Tell me what you want me to do.”
She reached up a hand and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “Look at how scared you are. That’s why I needed you here. I need you to watch. To see.”
“We can’t wait any longer,” Melinda insisted, looking under the sheet that covered Sharon’s legs.
“You ready?” Sharon asked, turning her head up to look at me.
I couldn’t help but laugh at the insanity of her question. “Are you?”
“I was born to do this,” she replied, narrowing her eyes, readying her body for what was about to happen.
Born to do this. That was the idea that separated us. Sharon felt it was her duty to help the naturals continue. She gave herself willingly to the men of the community because she thought God had chosen her, selected her to save mankind. It was her responsibility.
It felt more like a burden to me.
As Sharon pushed and pushed, her body contorting and shifting in ways I didn’t think possible, I thought of the millions of women who came before her and all the reasons they had for taking on the task. I wasn’t naive; I knew some women had no choice at all. But others, like Emma, wanted it so desperately.
Sharon lifted her back off the cot and reached forward with her free hand, reaching into the unknown. She stared straight ahead. Her brow was furrowed, sweat dripping down the side of her face.
I had always seen her choice to mother the children of the community as weak; giving up so much of herself to some larger idea that, in the long run, probably wouldn’t matter. The council wasn’t just going to disappear, and the community wouldn’t remain hidden forever. No matter how many children she brought into the world, the end was near for mankind.
But as I watched Sharon, her determination never wavering for even a second, I saw it for what it was—strength. She was a warrior just like Eric or my father. Maybe I didn’t agree with her reasons for fighting, but I was glad she was fighting on my side.
I clutched onto Sharon’s hand, which still rested over my heart, until the cry of the newborn baby filled the room. The shrill noise caused my arms to erupt in goose bumps. I pulled myself to my feet in an attempt to get a look at it.
This was the part I never got to see with Emma.
Melinda took the baby to a table in the corner of the room and went to work, checking and rechecking to make sure it was healthy.
“Look how anxious you are,” Sharon said tiredly, squeezing my hand.
I felt my cheeks burn. “I just want to…”
“Just wait. This is my favorite part.” Sharon squeezed my hand again.
Melinda wrapped the baby in a white blanket and brought the child to her mother. Sharon untangled her hand from mine, and I had to uncramp my fingers from the pressure she had exerted on them during the labor. As Melinda sat the baby in her arms, Sharon burst into tears. Not the sad kind. Not tears of loss. But, rather, tears of the purest joy I had ever seen.
When I looked down at the baby, I found myself crying, too. A warmness, an unconditional lightness, one that had no beginning and no end, a lightness that I had never felt before, filled me to the brim. This was the beginning, not the ending, Emma should have gotten. The one she always wanted. “She’s beautiful,” I choked out, wiping a tear from my cheek.
“Life always is. That’s why I needed you to see. I needed you to know what this could be,” she whispered, her eyes becoming heavy with exhaustion.
I heard the words she didn’t say—Sharon needed me to see what it could be in case it wasn’t like this with Louisa. Because even if I watched her die, Sharon still held out hope that one day I would be a mother.
“Tess,” Sharon called to me.
“Yes?”
“I want you to name her,” she said.
I stared down at the baby who looked up at me, her eyes furiously blinking, unused to the sun that streamed in through the windows. I didn’t know if I would ever choose to be a mother, but it was a choice I was glad I got to make. I had seen this battle lost too many times.
It was good to know that sometimes we could win it.
“Emma. I want to name her Emma,” I said.