Without Borders (12 page)

But two minutes later, the blankets rolled in. One after another, the villagers returned, their arms loaded with cloth. When Annie had a pile so high she could barely see around it, she stumbled into the house.

“
Espera
.”

She turned, shifting her weight to keep the blankets from tumbling to the ground. “I think this is enough.” She hoped her expression and the massive stack in her arms would make her meaning clear.

The man slapped a damp cloth on her neck and stuffed a piece of sweet, ripe mango in her mouth. The juice ran down her chin, and she closed her eyes, savoring the liquid on her tongue as she chewed.

“
Gracias.
”

He gave her a smile and shuffled outside as the sugar roared through Annie’s system and cleared her head. She jogged to the room with her mound of blankets and tore back the curtain. “Here. It took a little while because—”

The coppery scent of blood mixed with the harsh odor of antiseptic, and Annie froze in horror. Felipe knelt in front of Angela, slicing her open with a shiny scalpel. He’d told her this was what he’d have to do. And she’d heard of episiotomies before, but seeing it in person was not the same. At all.

Her knees wobbled, and a blanket fell off the top of the pile. From across the room, the midwife glowered at her, then barked at Felipe in Spanish.

He didn’t look up from his work. “Annie, are you okay? If you need to go, it is fine.”

She swallowed her fear and set the blankets beside him. “I’m good.”

“Okay.” He dropped the scalpel next to a giant syringe and nodded toward Angela. The girl’s cheeks and nose blazed red, and her eyes were swollen and bloodshot. Silent tears rolled down her cheeks. “I need her to squat. Stand behind her and hold her up.”

Annie rushed to the girl as Felipe translated the request. She hooked her arms under Angela’s armpits, and both of them groaned as she struggled to move. It took three attempts and one hefty push from Angela’s mother, but Annie planted her feet and heaved the girl into a squat.

“What now?” Annie panted and wiped her forehead on her sleeve, still supporting Angela from behind.

“Now we push.” Felipe looked at her. Blood and sweat stained the front of his shirt. “On the next contraction, Angela will push. You will have to hold her steady. Yes?”

She nodded. He spoke to Angela in a hushed voice, and the girl whimpered and squirmed. Annie’s fingers slid and slipped as she tried to keep hold of her sweat-laden skin.

“Empuje, empuje
,” Felipe and the midwife chanted.

The world erupted.

Angela grunted and groaned. Her body weight shifted as she pushed, throwing Annie off balance. Her foot skidded in something wet as she scrambled for leverage, but she refused to let herself look down.
Don’t want to know
. Annie jerked the girl upright and joined in the chant, adrenaline surging through her.

And for a minute, the world calmed again.

“We have one leg.” Felipe said. “On the next contraction, I will try to bring down the other.”

Annie peered over Angela’s shoulder. One tiny, bloody foot dangled from between her legs. “Wow.” The girl’s sobs shook Annie’s body. “Hey,” she whispered. “It’s okay. It’s okay.” She couldn’t find the right Spanish words to soothe the girl’s tears, but she hoped her tone would be enough to offer some comfort.

“Ready?”

It took Annie a beat to realize Felipe was speaking to her. “Yeah. How do I say good job?”

“
Bien hecho
.”

Angela writhed and grumbled, sliding dangerously close to the floor. The midwife’s shouts echoed off the bare, unfinished walls as Annie tugged her upright. Plopping down could mean crushing that tiny little foot.

She wrangled the girl into the squat and the chanting began again. “
Empuja, empuja
.”

“
Bien hecho
,” Annie said between pushes, but she doubted Angela could hear anything over her own pants and curses and screams. Each shout reverberated through Annie’s chest, sharpening the fear growing inside her. And as Felipe delivered the baby’s other leg, for the first time, the full weight of what was happening hit her squarely in the chest.

This girl could die.
In my arms
.

Panic boiled inside her, but Annie blew at the hairs clinging to her forehead and pushed it away. Angela’s body tensed against her, and soon the room was caught in the midst of another contraction, leaving no room for anything but focus.

Three pushes later, Felipe managed to deliver the baby’s arms. The girl’s mother squatted between Angela’s legs and wrapped the half-born infant in one of the many blankets Annie had procured from the neighbors. Angela leaned over and rested her weight against her mother, giving Annie a brief reprieve.

She shook out her arms and legs, long numbed by the constant tension in her muscles and the pressure—both physical and emotional—of supporting Angela’s weight. Her back ached, and the metallic taste of blood invaded her nose and mouth.

Angela leaned into Annie’s arms, ready to push again.

And again.

The girl strained and cried out, and it took everything Annie had to keep her upright. Felipe and the midwife swapped positions with every contraction, taking turns at easing the infant into the world. But with every push, Felipe’s face darkened and the midwife’s voice grew shriller as she half cried, half encouraged her daughter.

Annie had no idea how long it had been since they’d arrived in this dim hut, but every second that passed with those legs and arms dangling outside the womb made her heart ache.

In a rare moment between contractions, Felipe and the midwife began arguing. They pointed and stomped and shook their hands as the words flew between them.

Angela sagged in Annie’s arms, pale and sweaty.

“What’s going on?” Annie asked.

For a moment, the arguing stopped and they both stared silently at Annie.

The girl’s mother pointed and nodded at her, shrieking in Spanish, but Annie didn’t understand a word of it.

Felipe held up a hand. “We are having some trouble delivering the baby’s head.”

The midwife yelled and pointed again, and before Annie could ask what she was saying, the woman stood and nudged her out of the way with her rotund mid-section. She looped her arms through Angela’s and took the girl’s weight.

Annie stumbled, her muscles too tired to change position. She squeaked to something that resembled standing, but her back refused to straighten. Felipe looked at her, eyes flashing with fear.

“We need you to deliver the baby,” he said.

• • •

Felipe watched the redness seep out of Annie’s cheeks.

“What? Why?” she demanded.

As he rewrapped the infant’s lower half in a fresh blanket, fear overtook him. Everything could go wrong. In one fell swoop, he could lose the mother and the baby, and Annie. “Your hands are thinner than mine. Thinner than hers.” He nodded at the midwife. The woman was right. There was no other option.

Annie’s mouth fell open, and her body shifted as if she were ready to charge through the door and never return.

“Please,” he said. “I will tell you exactly what to do. I think—”

She knelt beside him. “What do I do?”

Above them Angela squirmed, and her mother shushed the girl, rocking her from side to side. “Rest for a minute,” she whispered in low, mournful Spanish.

“Get some gloves out of the bag.”

Annie darted to the supplies, and she pulled on the latex. He gave her the quickest, most basic explanation he could find, but amid the exhaustion and strain of the moment, his words were half English, half Spanish.

“Sorry,” he said. “I am not making sense.”

Annie crouched beside him. “Tell me what to do as I go, okay?”

He nodded.

She reached into the birth canal without an ounce of fear in her features. “I feel the neck, I think. Yes, definitely the neck.”

“Good. Reach further.”

“And the chin…I think.”

“Find the baby’s nose. You will have to reach past the cervix.”

“Its nose?” Her lips set in a thin, harsh line, and her eyelids snapped shut. “What will it feel like?”

He racked his brain, but everything was so damn foggy. “Like a nose.”

She opened her eyes to scowl at him, nostrils flaring. “Okay, thanks.”

“No, I did not mean…It will be on the underside. See how the baby’s toes are pointing at the ground?” He pulled back the blankets to show her.

She nodded and closed her eyes again. A handful of seconds passed in silence except for Angela’s intermittent moans, and his heart hammered against his ribs.

“Got it. I think.” Annie twisted her shoulder, reaching a bit further as Angela let out a wail. “Definitely. I feel the nose.”

Relief washed through him, neither he nor the midwife had been able to squeeze past the infant’s chin. “I am going to have her push. Keep your fingers around the nose so the head does not move.”

“But don’t we want it to move?”

“I mean, do not let it turn to the side. Keep it straight, yes?” She nodded, and he went on. “Guide the face down with your hand. I will work on the rest of the body.”

Angela whimpered. Felipe looked into her slack face and then into her mother’s tear-streaked one. He’d never seen a midwife cry. They were steely, solid, unshakable. They had to be, dealing with this kind of work every day. But this wasn’t everyday work.

“One more push,” he said. “Angela,” he waited until the girl opened her eyes and stared at him, “push with everything you have.”

She let out a deep, guttural moan. Annie must have realized what was happening, because he didn’t have to translate for her. Her eyes snapped shut, and the infant’s body moved downward a fraction of an inch.

Angela slumped against her mother, taking a portion of the progress they’d made with her. Both he and the midwife began talking at once, throwing ideas and fearful, barbed words at one another.

Annie’s knee brushed his as she stood. Her jaw set and her gloved fingers squeezed into balls. “Stop it,” she shouted over them. “I can’t think.” Everyone fell into silence, and she squatted next to Angela, dipping her head low to force the girl to meet her eyes. “Tell her I felt the baby’s face.”

“What?”

“Just do it.”

He did.

“Tell her that her baby has fat little cheeks.”

He did.

“Tell her it’s a boy.”

Felipe glanced at the infant between his hands. She was right. He’d hadn’t stopped to look. “
Es un niño
,” he said.

“Now tell her we need her to push one more time. Tell her she can do it. For her baby boy.”

He translated the words. Angela’s features stayed slack and loose, but she gave an almost imperceptible nod.

“Okay.” Annie lowered herself to the ground beneath the girl’s legs. “I’ve got the nose,” she said a few seconds later. “Let’s do this.”

Angela groaned and grunted as her mother chanted in her ear. Annie’s eyes clamped shut, the freckles across her cheeks and nose scrunching in concentration.

One minute later, the baby boy let out his first cry.

The sun sizzled Annie’s already-sunburned neck, and the constant whir of the boat motor and the distant call of birds lulled her to the edge of sleep. But Phillip pelted her with question after question about yesterday’s events, and the memory of delivering that baby kept Annie awake, her body buzzing as if she’d downed three espresso shots and chased them with one of those chalky energy drinks.

“Man. I can’t believe you got to deliver a baby,” he said.

“It was
the
coolest thing I’ve ever done.” She’d replayed the labor and delivery dozens of times since yesterday, first mentally, then to Marisol, and then to her journal—pouring every last detail into the pages. And as she lay in the hammock, too keyed up to sleep, she went over it again, her breath still catching as she remembered the moment the baby began to move.

“It’d be hard to top that,” Phillip said. “I mean, I’ve had my hands in a few honeypots, and it’s pretty awesome.”

“Honeypots?” Annie scrunched her forehead, unsure if she’d heard him correctly. “What? No. Honeypots? Who says that?” The laughter bubbled over. “Honeypots. I think you just ruined Winnie the Pooh for me. Forever.”

After three long hours in the boat, they arrived in the same village where they’d put on their first clinic, and the sights brought a rush of memories—the strange looks, being overwhelmed with the language, the mud pit, Felipe’s bad jokes. It all stared back at her in the winding dirt road and the smattering of houses. She shouldered her pack and followed the group to the edge of the village. On their way, people waved from windows and stilted front porches. The truck sat untouched, still encased in a crust of mud.

Air conditioning
. Giddiness bubbled inside her, and she closed her eyes, imagining her face in front of the vent. “Can I ride inside with you?” she asked Juan. He frowned. “Um,
puedo paseo
inside?” She pointed at the front passenger seat.

“
Sí, sí.
”

Annie scrambled into the cab. Juan opened the driver’s door, and Marisol squeezed between them. He jammed the key in the ignition, and Annie waited, ready for the roar of the engine and the blast of hot air that signaled the air conditioner coming to life. But the truck only hacked and sputtered before it gave up altogether.

Juan turned the key again, and this time there was nothing. Not even a sickly cough from the engine. He popped the hood, muttering and smacking his palm on the wheel. She didn’t need advanced Spanish to get the gist of it. Juan got out, and Annie opened her door to let in fresh air, her legs sticking to the seat as she moved.

“So…” Marisol raised one side of her mouth in a lopsided, trouble-making smile.

“So, what? I guess the truck is broken?”

“So you and Felipe have made up, yes?” The other corner of her mouth lifted, and Marisol’s grin consumed half her face.

“Uh, yeah. I guess. I tried to apologize, but…” She shrugged. He didn’t seem angry about the Pink Stringer incident anymore, but there was still a wall there. One that hadn’t been there a few days before.