Free Birth: A Novella by Ann Herendeen

me.
    “Why did you want to die?” he says in a
whisper I can barely catch. He’s very weak, his deep, powerful
voice diminished to a papery rasp.
    “I didn’t,” I say. “I think I was dying, and my mind created a little scene for me, trying to make
sense of what was happening.” I want to treat it lightly, as much
for myself as for Dominic. “I mean, I don’t really believe I’ll
meet my mother on the road to Andrade when I die.”
    Dominic is not in the mood for whimsy. But I felt it , he thinks, the exertion of speech too great
for him. You jumped, chose death. You chose death over life with
me. He drags his weary mind over recent events, fixes on a
likely cause. It must have been because of what I did with
Roger, the way I was rough with him. I knew you wouldn’t like that,
but I couldn’t stop.
    That was my labor pains starting, I
say. Wasn’t it?
    Partly , Dominic says. He’s always
compulsively honest once he decides he is at fault. And partly
my own anger—at him, at you. My old desires…
    There is some truth to his fear—I did fall
off the ledge, if not for the reason he thinks. I feel obligated to
match Dominic’s honesty, although it doesn’t come as easily to me
as to him. But I have always been able to be honest with myself,
and he is more like an extension of me than a separate
consciousness. I thought you didn’t love me anymore, I
say.
    How could you think that? he says. It’s not possible. He dismisses my nonsensical answer.
    After the tournament and what I did, I say, the way you were so cold and angry—it felt like you hated
me.
    Dominic attempts a laugh. You can’t mean
that. Just because I was angry.
    He obviously has no idea how impressive a
spectacle his visible rage is, how enormous an occurrence is
covered by the little word “angry.” You were gone for a week,
and when you came back you wouldn’t talk to me. I reduce it to
simple indisputable facts.
    I was furious, he says, rueful,
remembering. But I can’t not love you. And you were rather
magnificent yourself, you know, the way you disarmed those thugs so
quickly and neatly.
    He can be gracious about it now. But I can’t
forget the pain of his extreme rage that felt like everything that
is the opposite of love.
    Amalie, he says, the thoughts lax
with fatigue, I always love you. And I know you love me, even
when you curse and shout at me like a—
    A termagant, I repeat his word. I
know. I’m sorry.
    Stop saying you’re sorry. It’s your way,
just as mine is violent anger. That’s why I left, rather than take
it out on you or the household.
    So you took it out on Stefan?
    No, he says, surprised. Why would
I? It wasn’t his fault. No, I went to him for sympathy, and he gave
it to me. He told me I should have– showed you I was master,
was his way of expressing it. And that’s when I blew up at him, and
he said he wanted to break it off between us.
    This is the aspect of Eclipsian life that
scares me. That’s what Katrina says . I offer my own
incident, testing him again. Katrina says you should beat
me.
    Katrina is a stupid, ignorant woman, Dominic says. Besides, you said if I lifted a finger,
you’d—
    I remember, I say. You don’t have
to repeat it.
    But I like it, he says. The way
you shout at me, the things you say. Nobody else does that.
    You don’t seem to like it at the time.
    Dominic tries to tighten his arm around my
shoulders in an embrace, finds he’s too weak to lift even a finger,
and settles back into the touch of light communion. I’m not used
to it, that’s all. And you know I have a bad temper. But please,
Amalie, never doubt my love for you, exactly as you are.
    The baby unclamps her lips from my nipple
and burps. Dominic cradles her head, marveling at her soft fuzz of
dark hair, and extends his little finger to her. She has milky
inner eyelids already, not open yet, like a newborn kitten, but she
can sense actions, or perhaps our thoughts. She clutches her
father’s finger determinedly,