Free The Two-Family House: A Novel by Lynda Cohen Loigman Page B

clean, with official forms to fill out and nurses in uniform. She wanted the comfort of cold metal stethoscopes pressed against her back and hospital beds with stiffly starched sheets. She needed to see doctors in white coats walking the long linoleum hallways. Nothing else would be acceptable.
    “I’ve decided,” she told Helen. “I’m walking to the hospital. And you’re coming with me.”
    “I can’t, Rose. I can’t .” Rose didn’t know if it was from anger or exhaustion, but suddenly the color went out of Helen’s face. A grimace passed over Helen’s lips and she reached backward for the wall to steady herself. For reasons Rose couldn’t comprehend in that moment, a puddle seemed to be collecting around her sister-in-law’s feet. Everything Rose knew of women and childbirth was gone from her head, and in her grief and her fear she stared, incredulous, at the wet patch on the floor. “What is that?” she wondered aloud.
    Helen answered her back in as gentle a voice as she could muster under the circumstances. “Rosie,” she said, “my water just broke.”

 
    Chapter 16
    JUDITH
    It always bothered Judith that she never learned the midwife’s name. When she thought about that night, whether it was a few months, ten years or twenty years later, the details were always uncertain. She should have found out the woman’s name. If she had, maybe the other features of that evening would have stayed with her more sharply. If she had, she might have been able to track the midwife down to ask what really happened. But she hadn’t.
    In contrast to the time she spent in the midwife’s company, Judith remembered the hours leading up to her arrival with perfect clarity. She had a vivid mental picture of her mother, hysterical and angry, screaming about hospitals and taxis. She remembered packing pajamas and dolls for Mimi and Dinah, and bringing them upstairs so the girls would have what they needed for the sleepover with their cousins. Harry had been so unpleasant that night, speaking to her in his condescending way about how he was the one who should stay with their mothers and she was the one who should be baby-sitting. “But your mother said I have to stay with them,” she told him.
    “You’re lying!” Harry screamed at her, pushing past her and rushing down the steps because he had to hear with his own ears the reason he hadn’t been chosen. If Harry had stayed, maybe he would have found out the midwife’s name, Judith thought. Maybe he would have paid more attention.
    He returned a few minutes later, humbled, but still trying to act like he was in control. “My mother says I should baby-sit the others because I’m the oldest and the most responsible,” he muttered. “You can go back down now.” He waved his hand to dismiss her. It was maddening, but Judith still felt sorry for him. She knew he was as worried as she was, so she hadn’t told him about the little speech Aunt Helen had given her just half an hour earlier. “He can’t be here, Judith. This is no place for any man, let alone a thirteen-year-old boy. Men can’t handle this sort of thing. Believe me, I’ve had four children. They’re too squeamish to be helpful. They either get in everyone’s way or wind up in a corner somewhere sitting with their head between their knees. We don’t need that kind of aggravation.”
    One thing about that night Judith would never forget was the snow. Before that night, she had always thought of snow as beautiful and cheerful, like something you’d see in a Currier and Ives print. Before that night, the very thought of snow had her humming the tune to “Walking in a Winter Wonderland.” She would get excited about it, the snowball fights with her cousins and the snow angels they’d make. Snow meant hot chocolate with marshmallows and days off from school.
    But the night of the blizzard was the most frightening of Judith’s young life. Her mother, usually so docile and kind, turned into