A New Birth of Freedom Ch. 04

"Now honey, no."

Sally drooped, her head sunk.

'It's just the hormones,' thought Valerie, 'I'll ask Helen Waston about this, but I'm sure it's just chemical.'

But Sally remained depressed. She dragged herself to the kitchen and started Valerie's breakfast. Although the morning sickness had gone, she didn't want any. Valerie's breakfast was the usual black coffee and oatmeal. Sally cut up a banana and put it in the oatmeal.

Valerie came in to eat her breakfast. "Where's yours, honey? Did you eat already?"

They usually had breakfast together.

"I don't want any."

"Sick again?"

"No."

"Oh baby, don't. We have so much to look forward to. You should see Helen. I'll make an appointment today."

"I don't need Helen, I need Valerie."

"No, baby, don't do this. Please."

Valerie finished her breakfast, showered and dressed quickly. Kissing Sally's forehead, she said "I put the shopping list on the refrigerator. Here's money for the cab to Food Lion. We don't need much, so there's not a lot for you to carry. I'll see you tonight. We're having veal and spinach with mushrooms. Love you." Valerie strode out of the kitchen and out of the house.

Sally said nothing. 'The slave got her orders,' she thought. 'The slave always gets orders. The slave has nothing, owns nothing, is nothing.'

"GODDAMIT, I AM NOT NOTHING!" she shouted. Instead of crying, she reached for her cellphone, the one Valerie had given her.

*************

Charles Vanquil was more than annoyed. "Ms. Thatcher, I am not John Quincy Adams and you are not in chains aboard the Amistad. Nor am I your and Valerie's father. You are both adults, you are both morally bound by your mutual agreements, so grow up and work it out yourselves." Sally's tearful call bit deeper than Charles would admit, even to himself.

"Master, I tried, but she won't listen...."

"Well, try again. Understand, I won't intervene. I will not permit this squabble of yours to enable you to create some sort of psychological ménage à trois with Valerie and me. I hope you have sufficient work to occupy you just now, because I certainly do. Goodbye and good luck."

'Why do I get involved with this?' thought Charles. 'I really must be too kindhearted. Jamie Whynch was saying just that yesterday. The philosophy of dominance...one could write ten volumes and not tell it all. Well, enough.'

Charles went back to work.

Lady Nadine came home just as Charles finished executing the trades that Sally had interrupted, closing out positions and reckoning the profits and taxes generated.

"Hello, darling, how's business?" she asked.

"Not as good as it would have been if Ms. Thatcher hadn't interrupted me, trying to get me involved in her latest spat with Valerie. Getting her pregnant wasn't Valerie's smoothest manoeuvre this year."

"Don't blame it on the baby, dear."

"If there wasn't going to be a baby, they wouldn't be fighting over the baby's name. Let's have some lunch, I'm hungry."

"The baby's name? I thought they were naming her for Francine Traline and Valerie's husband Mike."

"Yes, it was settled. Except Sally now wants to name the child for her mother."

"Oh."

"And of course Valerie is adamant, and Sally is resentful, and they expect me to play Solomon and cut the baby in two, so they can each have her own way. And I won't do it."

"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be fucked up the ass...by both sides," said Lady Nadine, smiling.

Charles rose from the sofa, moving his laptop to one side, and kissed her. "They did teach you something useful at Wellesley."

"More than they taught you at Harvard," she replied, sticking out her tongue, which he seized between his teeth and licked.

Parting momentarily, they went to check on Chip and have lunch.

****************

Sally was going to go to see Helen Waston on her way to the Food Lion, but she didn't feel like talking any more. Master Charles had ground her down. She felt abandoned. She went through the aisles listlessly, checking off items on the list and paying for them with their joint low-limit credit card.

Waiting for the taxi to take her home, she felt the contractions start.

They were light enough so that she thought they were just practice. The taxi arrived quickly, as it was still early afternoon. There was almost no traffic going back home. As she finished putting the groceries away, and putting the credit card slip in the folder for Valerie to review, the contractions got firmer.

Sally knew first babies could be late; her due date was still two days away. She went to her computer and started to answer the few business e-mails that were in her inbox. Nobody wanted to work with the holidays so near.

The next contraction was firmer, grinding its way into her. Sally realized this might not be practice.

'Call Mistress, call Master, call Helen....' It seemed too much. Sally could handle burned-out businesses, flooded factories, industrial vandalism. Sally could deal with thieves and con-artists, insurance companies, lawyers, accountants, tax officials, fire investigators, police; but right this minute she couldn't deal with anything.

There was no "she" any more.

Sally sank to the kitchen floor. She lay there. The contractions kept dragging through her in waves.

She struggled to kick off her shoes and lower her jeans and panties. If the baby came, it would be easier...or would it?

She lay back down. The pain got worse, but she was used to pain. Pain was all that was left.

The contractions continued, as the afternoon light waned, as the sky turned a yellow-grey through the sliver of window she could see from where she lay.

The water broke, and ran over the floor. The pain got worse, and then worse still. Sally drifted into the subspace of pain she had not visited for so long. Her body was being torn apart, her Mommy was dead, Mistress and Master would take this baby away from her.... Sally was crying, her body shaking.

Winter night, full dark, shut out the world. Something black, like a cloud, was covering her. She'd be dead soon, the pain would stop, she would be with Mommy, she would be safe, away from Mistress and Master, away from the pain, at last, at last....

"Sally! What the hell?!" Valerie was kneeling beside her, her skirt wet with the water on the floor. "Oh my God, the baby's coming, you didn't call, oh darling, don't leave me don't leave me!" Valerie pulled her inseparable cellphone from her side and jabbed the "emergency" key.

"911, what is your emergency?"

"Three Seven One One Garfield, lady having a baby, lady in shock, need ambulance."

"Are you with the lady, ma'am?"

"Yes."

"Keep her warm. No food or drink. I'm sending an ambulance. Are you Valerie Burbon?" The operator mispronounced her name as "Bourbon", but Valerie didn't correct him. "Yes." "Stay on the line, ma'am."

The next five minutes saw Valerie cover Sally with the first thing she could find, a tablecloth that they never used again, put her heavy neck-to-ankle down coat over it, and she stayed beside Sally, holding her hand, kissing her cheek and forehead. "Baby, please stay, oh please stay, I love you so much."

The siren's wail came nearer. "Ma'am," came the voice through the cellphone, "they're coming to your door, open for them please." "Oh thank you thank you," Valerie gasped into the phone and jumped to the front door.

The EMTs, unemotional, brisk, professional, strapped Sally to the stretcher, lifted her quickly and placed her in the ambulance. Valerie tried to get in with her, but the EMT stopped her. "Sorry, ma'am, you can follow if you wish."

"If I wish?!" Valerie locked the house door and jumped into her car, her wet skirt chilling her as she followed the ambulance, driving a lot faster than the law would allow.

****************

Valerie sat shivering outside the birthing room, as Helen Waston had ordered her to wait while she made sure Sally was in no danger. Sally's blood pressure had dropped, and Helen had to work to stabilize her patient and to keep the baby safe.

Valerie heard Sally's grunts, her scream, and stood up. She would go to Sally and no one, nothing, would stop her. As she did, she almost knocked over the nurse Helen had sent to tell her to come in.

As she and the nurse untangled themselves, she heard the cry.

"Oh, thank God, the baby!"

Francine Michaela Thatcher-Burbon's head was elongated from pushing its owner's way through Sally's body to the world outside. A dense mop of hair covered her eyes, which were blinking rapidly at the strange light.

"Is she all right?" Valerie asked desperately, as she ran into the birthing room.

"She's fine," Helen said. "She had a hard time getting out, but she'll be just gorgeous in a day or two."

"Sally, darling, are you all right?"

"Oh, Mistress, I'm so tired. I hurt, and I'm tired. Is she all right?"

"Darling, she's fine, I'm so happy, I love you both so much."

"We're just going to weigh and measure her, take a test or two, nothing invasive, clean her up a little and bring her back to her mommy," said the nurse.

"Mommy," said Sally, crying.

"I'll stay with you tonight, darling," said Valerie. "I'll call Franklin Moore in the morning and start the adoption. You won't need to sign papers for a couple of days. We'll both be her parents then."

"I want to be her mommy."

"Oh, my dearest, my love, you always will be."

Sally tried breastfeeding Francine when they brought her back. They both drifted off to sleep. Valerie and the nurse made sure they both were securely tucked in. Valerie begged some dry scrub bottoms from Helen to replace her dripping skirt.

Francine and her parents then spent their first night together.

****************

"Godfather? It sounds like a bad movie," said Charles. "And no, I won't undertake to see this child raised in a religion in which I do not believe."

They had come to see Master Charles the week after Sally came home from the hospital.

"Master, I had to ask," said Sally. Valerie nodded, but her face showed no more enthusiasm than Charles'.

"Then you must find someone else, dear Sally. I'm sure you have a friend who will undertake this largely ceremonial role."

"Will you come to her baptism?"

"Of course. You are very important to me. Is Francine going to be godmother?"

"Yes, but she doesn't know it yet," said Valerie. "I want to surprise her. I'll tell her as we stand together in the church. After submitting to her again, to show how much I trust her, I want to show how much I love her by naming my daughter after her."

"And you think surprising her shows your love?"

"Why yes, Master."

"Don't you think it might be embarrassing to her, to make her have to deal with this in front of all the people at this ceremony?"

"Master, I never thought this might cause her any embarrassment, I meant it to show my love...."

"And perhaps just a little, to show her how what she did to you embarrassed you, exposed you in public?"

"Master, no, never! I never...."

"You never thought, Valerie. Or if you thought, you never examined the implications. Tell Francine in advance, and let her decide to accept your gift."

"Yes, Master."

"And now, for Sally. Oh, good evening, my dear."

Lady Nadine walked into the room, smiled at Valerie and Sally, and kissed Charles.

"Did I miss anything, dear?"

"Only that Valerie will tell Francine what she intends before the christening, or baptism, or whatever it is, and get her consent. And I am not going to be godfather."

"Good as to the first, and too bad as to the second. I so much would have liked to see Al Pacino as Charles Vanquil, with a mandolin obbligato. And to imagine all those people being shot or garroted, as you are taking the vows or whatever they are."

"My dear, much as it hurts me to disappoint you, I regret...."

Chip Vanquil let out a howl, and his parents went to his cradle. Francine Michaela, lying in her carseat and hearing another child, joined in. As their parents picked them up, their eyes met, and held.

***************

They stood at the font in the back of the church, Sally, Valerie and Francine. Joe and Eve Burbon joined them, Joe as godfather.

The priest asked, "Name of this child?"

Valerie and Sally answered together, "Francine Michaela."

As they left the church, Valerie whispered to Sally, "Our next baby will be named Janey."

"Our next?" Sally was surprised. "I thought you would want to stop at one."

"My darling Sally, my love, my soul, to make you happy I'll stop at nothing."

*

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