BREAKING POINT

Doctor James and nurse Caroline stood at the foot of the bed and looked at her. Her face was tranquil and lovely, despite the sweat and the tumbled hair and the purple bruises under her eyes.

Doctor James frowned.

“It’s a dammed nuisance” he said. “that baby is not making the headway it should. She will sleep for a bit but I’m afraid she will wake up to another nasty bout”

Nurse Caroline twisted her lips.

This was not a straight forward case, that was obvious. But like everyone she had implicit faith in this doctor.Text property © Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org.

“I will go down and get a spot of sleep” said Caroline. “Call me when she wakes out of this”

Downstairs in the little living room he had a tall with Joey. Audrey went into the kitchen to make coffee for everybody. There were all thankful that Penny wasn’t suffering any more for the moment. Audrey had been horrified at the sight of Joey’s face when he heard Penny moaning. She thought :

“It must be ghastly to be in love with a woman and see her giving birth to another man’s child. Poor old Joey”

For Penny, a few hours oblivion and then she woke with the dawn of a cruel stab of that awful pain. The demon possessed her body again. It no longer seemed to be her child or anything that she could ever love or care about. She only wanted to be rid of it and of this torture.

Pitifully she hung on to the little nurse and sobbed.

“I can’t go in… Oh, must I? Must I go on?”

“Try to be brave, my dear. You have had a bit of sleep, you know. It won’t be long now”

But to Penny it was intolerably, inconceivably long and the dawn became the bright morning and morning was afternoon and still she was racked with these remorseless pains and her child had not arrived.

She felt herself getting beyond the bounds of courage or resistance. Half crazy with pain, she fought back nurse Caroline who was trying to raise her in the bed and screamed :

“Jeremy. Jeremy”

He must come. He had to. He must hear her cries. He must know what she was going through and how unbearable it was. He would not let her suffer anymore. He had loved her body. He would not let it be tortured like this.

The door opened and her pain glazed eyes turned to it. She saw, dimly, a man’s form enter the room. She sobbed :

“Jeremy”

The man came to the side of the bed and lifted up her hand and held it in his strong, warm, clasp.

“Hold on darling” he said. “Hold on”

“Jeremy” she sobbed again and cried hopelessly, tossing her head from side to side on the pillow.

And then she saw that it was not Jeremy who held her hand but Joey who was looking down at her with some of her own pain in his eyes, and with infinite pity.

She gasped to him, “Joey….. Don’t let it go on” she said.

“It’s all right, Penny” he said. “The doctor is going to give you something about it now. You have had a hard time and you have been very brave”

That pleased her. She thought she had been such a coward. She asked him what time it was and before the next pain tore through her she heard him say that it was half past four. She thought:

“That means I have been in labor for Sixteen hours. I’m having a bad time. I know I am. He said so. Perhaps I am going to die. Perhaps the baby is dead. I don’t want the baby to die. I don’t want to die either. I want to see Jeremy again”..

“Am I going to die?” she gasped.

“Of course not. It will be quite alright and…”

She did not hear anymore. A low moan broke from her and then the room seemed to fill with people and the doctor was putting something over her face. She heard nures Caroline saying :

“Take a deep breath dear… Nice and deep. That’s right. Go on. You will feel ever so much better in a minute”

Penny sniffed hard, desperately hard… In, in, in, sucking in the anesthetic as though her very life depended on it.

‘Quickly, quickly. Let it put me out… Quickly so that this pain can’t get any worse. Oh, God, let me lose consciousness… Quickly, quickly’

“More, more, more…..” she heard her own voice saying as from a great distance… Like a banshee, wailing.

Then a whirling into space… Into nothingness.

————

Jeremy’s son was born at half part five on that bleak afternoon when the curtains were drawn across the cold darkness and lights and fires burnt brightly inside Audrey’s house.

Audrey confessed that she had never been through a worse time. As she said to Joey :

“It’s pretty damnable knowing some one you care for deeply is suffering so much.

Her feelings of relief when she heard the first cry from Penny’s baby had such an effect on her that she sat weakly down on a chair and found herself crying for the first time in a very long time..

Doctor James was still upstairs with Penny. Joey came down and said :

“Well, that’s over” he looked worn out. “it wasn’t an easy business Audrey, but nurse says that James was superb. Thank God Penny and the baby are both alright”

Audrey wiped her eyes and gave her brother a watery smile.

“Is Penny really alright?” she asked anxiously.

“Yes. Only very exhausted. But she is fairly strong and healthy, you know. She had hell. Poor dear, but she will be alright In a day or two. She just needs rest. We will see she does not get up too soon. It was such a heafty great boy… Big head. That was the trouble. Just over nine pounds ”

Audrey began to realize that Penny was the mother of a baby boy weighing nine pounds. It was upstairs, screaming. It hardly seemed possible. She wished desperately that it wasn’t Jeremy’s son, but woman like she wanted to see it and was moved by the sound of its cries.

Joey wiped his face with a large white handkerchief. She thought he looked near breaking point. He must have been through a special hell of his own, but she did not refer to it. It was Joey who suggested that she might like to go up and have a look at Penny and her child.