by Glenn Cooper
When the lights and the cameras were off, Sue asked the translator what had just happened.
‘Mrs Torres had me tell Maria what she should name the baby. I’ve been practicing with her how to say it in English. She did good, don’t you think?’
Cal was meeting with one of his two new PhD candidates, a Nigerian student with an interest in the history of Catholicism in Africa. Gil Daniels, Cal’s dean, rapped on the open door.
‘Sorry to interrupt but have you seen the video?’ Daniels said.
‘What video?’ Cal asked.
‘One of the girls you investigated – the Filipino one, has just given birth. Someone released a video.’
‘Of what?’
‘The birth of the baby.’
‘Jesus,’ Cal muttered.
‘Yes, exactly,’ Daniels said, waving off. ‘How did you know?’
Cal asked his student if she minded if he went online to check out the video.
‘You were involved with the girls?’ she said, impressed.
‘I did a consult for the Vatican,’ he answered, opening his Twitter feed.
‘Everyone back home is deeply immersed in this story,’ she said.
‘Tell me why.’
‘It’s a matter of hope and inspiration, a sense that the fundamental tenets of the faith are relevant to our lives today.’
‘I’ve heard that view. You’re saying it’s percolated to the grassroots of the Church?’
‘In Africa, yes, certainly.’
His feed was packed with news on the birth. The YouTube video released only thirty minutes ago already had over a million views. His student stood behind him at his desk to watch it. Two minutes long, it was professionally shot and edited, showing young Maria Aquino in the final stages of labor accompanied by a subdued soundtrack of ecclesiastical music. She was in a birthing suite attended by two masked healthcare workers and a Filipino translator off screen. The music rose as the baby was delivered and placed on her belly. Then, a close-up of the baby clutched to her chest and the declaration of his name. Jesus Ruperto. The shot faded to black with a final musical crescendo.
‘Nothing more?’ the student said. ‘Nothing about where she is, who has taken her, anything about the other girls?’
Cal closed his laptop. ‘One has the sense that we’re all the audience of a giant reality TV show.’
EIGHTEEN
The addition of baby Jesus Ruperto, or JR as Mary Riordan dubbed him, changed pretty much everything around the ranch. The ranch staff, down to the stable hands and gardeners, chefs and cleaners, went about their jobs proudly with a new sense of purpose. Even the saturnine Mrs Torres had a much-improved temperament; one day Sue caught her standing over JR’s crib, staring down and singing to him in Spanish. It turned out, the woman had a lovely voice.
It was the girls who changed the most. Maria Aquino floated on a cloud of new motherhood, so buoyant that Sue was worried she might come crashing down when her hormones stabilized. But the other girls were also smitten by JR and wanted to take turns washing and changing him, preparing for their own moments in the sun. It seemed that the only melancholy one was Lily, the dog, who likely felt neglected.
In the evenings, when the heat was manageable, the girls and Sue took JR for circuits around the house, taking turns pushing his pram. Every time they got to the stables-side of the mansion they would look to the sky.
‘Still don’t know what’s it for?’ Mary Riordan asked.
‘They don’t tell me anything,’ Sue replied, shielding her eyes from the setting sun.
‘I reckon it’s for them,’ Mary said, reaching in to tickle JR. ‘It’s for you, little man, isn’t it?’
Sue might have been the only employee of Miracle Ranch LLC who wasn’t giddy. Her work was only a third done. She worried about the two impending births, particularly little Maria Mollo, she of the tiny hips. The closer Maria got to her due date, the more frequently Sue talked to the helicopter pilot to make sure he’d be ready to fly her into town for a C-section if it came to that. And Sue fretted about Mary Riordan, poor thing, who still hadn’t been told about her mother’s death.
Ten days later it was Maria’s turn. Her water broke while she was watching a morning cartoon show, immediately followed by her first cramp. Afterwards, the contractions came at breakneck speed and Sue had to scramble to prepare the birthing room for action and to get Dr Lopez to drop his morning clinic schedule and hurry out to the ranch.
The small girl was scared out of her mind when Sue carried her into the suite and placed her on to the table. Torres, impassive as she was, had a bit of a soft spot for the girl and was the designated translator. She arrived with the videographer as Sue was having a look at Maria’s cervix.
‘Holy smokes,’ Sue mumbled, adjusting her headlamp.
‘What’s the matter?’ Torres said.
‘She’s already six centimeters. We need Sam.’
Sue and Dr Lopez were now on a first-name basis. The pediatrician arrived while the baby was crowning, all of two hours since her first contraction.
‘I thought you were worried about her pelvic diameter,’ he said, throwing on a mask. ‘She’s a rocket.’
‘The baby’s really small,’ Sue said. ‘Come on, Maria, time to push, push, push!’
With an ear-piercing shriek, Maria gave it her all and the baby squirted into Sue’s sure-handed grasp.
With the videographer standing over her, Torres asked the panting girl what she would call the baby.
Maria was nervously ready with the answer. She wasn’t an attentive student. Her English wasn’t as good as Maria Aquino’s, and she was exhausted, but she said, ‘Baby Jesus Juan. Juan my padre. Jesus my—’
Torres whispered the word in her ear.
‘Jesus my savior.’
Baby JJ looked like a peanut beside JR. He was one and a half pounds lighter and had to spend his first few days under a phototherapy lamp for mild jaundice. The two Marias began to do everything together, harmonizing their maternal schedules using whatever common English they could muster to chat and joke about poop and pee and breast milk. Mary was on the outside, looking in, getting bigger and bigger and more and ever more irritable.
‘When’s my time?’ she asked Sue.
‘It’s going to be soon, honey.’
‘Better be or I’ll burst like the bloke in Alien.’
There was another problem in Mary-Riordan-land. The two Marias would come back from their phone sessions with their mothers, giddy and talkative. The women had been shown the birthing videos and photos of JJ and JR. But Mary Riordan had been cut off from her mother for over two months and had received shifting explanations.
First there was a problem with the special phone they had to use, then one of her sisters dunked it in the toilet and they had to wait for a replacement. Then her mother had to go to hospital for an operation. That’s when Mary had her first chat with her father who assured her that all would be well with her mum, though, typical Kenny, he was drunk and never asked how Mary was getting on.
A month later, it was her father again on the other end of the line. He’d been drinking again – he’d gotten boozed up in anticipation of the call – and told her that her mum, brothers and sisters were visiting with Cindy’s sister.
The next time, her aunt was the one who answered. Kenny had pressed her into service, telling her that he’d gotten firm instructions to keep hiding the news of Cindy’s death until she’d had her baby.
‘Aunt Cathy, tell me what’s the matter with Mum,’ Mary had demanded.
‘Well, to be honest, dear, she’s had a bad case of the phlebitis. Her weight, you know. She’s been back in hospital but she sends her love. Your sisters and brothers are here with me. Say hello to Mary, children.’
And Mary had heard the shouted hellos through the phone and had felt a touch better.
Sue argued repeatedly with Torres over the subterfuge, telling her it would permanently scar the girl. But the woman stu
bbornly refused to budge and warned Sue not to go off the reservation. The powers that be were insisting that her baby’s physical health was more important than Mary’s emotional health.
A knock on Sue’s door marked the beginning of Mary’s turn.
The girl was standing there in her oversized t-shirt and elasticated shorts, her face screwed into a grimace.
‘You weren’t all that interested in sleeping tonight, were you?’ Mary said.
Mary had already decided she’d be calling the baby Jesus David. Torres told her the first name was mandatory – house rules. The middle name was up to her. ‘Sod Kenny,’ Mary had said of her father. ‘My granddad, David – he was a nice man.’
Sue gave Mary a hug and said, ‘Let’s go next door and have a welcome party for JD.’
If Maria Mollo’s labor was yin, Mary’s was yang.
It dragged on all night, throughout the next day and into the following night. Dr Lopez spent hours napping in a guest bedroom. The videographer came and went. Torres dropped by every so often, scurrying off to make phone calls from her office. But Sue maintained the vigil, fueled by coffee and adrenaline, refusing to leave Mary’s side. She even endured the girl’s favorite pop-song playlist on a loop.
Twenty-seven hours into labor, Mary was eight centimeters dilated. She was panting like a hot dog and was pale as a ghost and glistening with sweat despite a shivering-cold AC setting.
Fatigue caused Sue to take a few extra seconds to process the beeping of the fetal monitor. The cobwebs cleared when she saw the baby’s heart rate had slowed to ninety.
The videographer was dozing in a chair. Sue woke him and calmly had him call over to Dr Lopez’s room.
‘What’s the matter?’ Mary asked, panting and steeling herself for the next contraction.
‘JD’s heartbeat’s a little slow.’
‘What’s that mean?’
‘Just keeping an eye out.’
Lopez came in and conferred with Sue over the tracings.
‘I agree. Late decelerations,’ he said quietly. ‘I think we should scramble the helicopter.’
The next contraction hit and Mary groaned in agony.
The monitor beeped again. This time the fetal heart rate dropped to eighty.
‘I don’t think we’ve got time for the chopper, Sam.’ Sue unwrapped a sterile forceps kit and an episiotomy kit in case she needed to make an incision.
‘What’s happening?’ Mary cried out.
Sue went to the head of the table and mopped Mary’s wet forehead. ‘We think JD’s not getting enough oxygen. I’m going to do a routine procedure called a forceps delivery.’
‘You done it before?’
‘More times than you’ve had porridge with milk and brown sugar.’ It was the girl’s favorite breakfast.
Sue got ready and the videographer asked if he should be recording this.
She still couldn’t stand the guy. ‘Only if you want to film the birth.’
Sue placed her fingers into Mary’s vagina and probed the cervix for the baby’s cranium. Then she slid one forceps tong along one side of the head and another tong on the other side, then locked them in place.
Torres came in just then, froze in fear, and crossed herself.
Sue said with a contained urgency, ‘OK, Mary, at the next contraction I want you to push really hard.’
An ‘Arghhh!’ came out of Mary’s mouth and Sue tugged hard on the forceps. The baby’s head emerged from the cervix face-down and made it almost out the vagina when the progress abruptly halted.
‘Heart rate is sixty and falling,’ Lopez called out. ‘Speak to me, Sue.’
‘Shit,’ she whispered. ‘Sam, hand me a couple of clamps. Stat.’
‘Nuchal cord?’ he asked.
‘Big time.’
‘Didn’t see it on the ultrasound,’ Lopez said, coming to the foot of the table.
‘JD decided to pull a Houdini on us at the last minute,’ Sue said, grasping the first clamp.
The umbilical cord was double-wrapped as tightly as a hangman’s noose around the baby’s neck and his face was turning blue.
‘Is my baby all right?’ Mary cried.
‘Relax, honey. Just relax,’ Sue said.
Torres took hold of one of Mary’s hands.
Sue slid a clamp around one loop of the purple cord and the second clamp close to it. Lopez handed her a scissors and she made the cut. The baby still didn’t budge.
‘Double knot,’ Sue said, her voice getting a half-octave higher. ‘Give me another couple of clamps, please.’
Lopez passed them over and Sue positioned a second set of clamps. When she cut between them, the baby positively hurtled out of the birth canal as if shot by a cannon.
This wasn’t the time for maternal fulfillment. Sue bypassed Mary and handed the infant to Lopez who carried it over to his work station.
He talked while he worked, his reassuring tone aimed at the mother.
‘I’m just going to give him a little extra oxygen, Mary, a blend of room air and oxygen. I’ve put this little clamp on his finger to measure the oxygen in his blood. Here we go, that’s a nice breath, big boy. He’s getting pinker already.’
‘Can I see him?’ Mary asked.
‘Just give me a minute or two.’
Lopez was being optimistic. He wasn’t ready to let the baby breathe room air alone for ten minutes and then he waited another five before he was comfortable handing him to Mary.
Sue and Lopez put arms around each other’s waists and looked on as the cameraman came in for the money shot.
Mary held the baby like a fragile piece of china and at Mrs Torres’s prompt said, ‘Hey there, world, say hello to my baby, Jesus David. David was my granddad on my mum’s side. Jesus – well, you know who he was, don’t you?’
Sue slept until late the next morning. If she had dreams she couldn’t remember them; she told Torres later in the day that it felt more like being in a coma than sleeping. As soon as she showered, dressed, and gulped a cup of coffee she went to see Mary who was alone in the communal bedroom. The girl was so sore and shattered she hadn’t gotten out of bed.
‘Hey you,’ Sue said. ‘How’re you getting on?’
‘Don’t need to get hit by a freight train no more,’ Mary said. ‘I know what it feels like.’
‘You had the roughest time. Don’t rush it but don’t stay in bed all day. I don’t want you getting blood clots in your legs.’
‘I’ll be up and about soon enough. Got to pee something wicked.’
‘Where’s JD?’ Sue asked.
‘Minion and Eeyore have him.’
Sue helped her to her feet and left her in the bathroom to clean herself up. The scene in the lounge was one for the ages. While Maria Mollo looked after babies JR and JJ who were lying in a playpen, Maria Aquino was breastfeeding Mary’s baby.
The girl looked up at Sue and smiled like an angel. ‘Baby JD very hungry,’ she said.
Sue was waiting for Mary when she hobbled back to bed wearing a t-shirt and tracksuit bottoms. She told her that JD was feeding like a champ.
‘Minion’s a good egg,’ Mary said. ‘Even Eeyore’s growing on me. So, what’s next for us Jesus mums?’
‘I wish I knew,’ Sue said. ‘Look, Mary, there’s something I want to talk to you about. Some people – not including me – felt it needed to wait until you had the baby. Well, you’ve had the baby.’
‘It’s about my mum, isn’t it?’
Sue nodded and Mary began to blubber.
‘How did you know?’ Sue asked.
‘Because it was bloody obvious? No word in months. Everyone making lame excuses. How’d she go?’
Sue only knew what she’d been told. ‘Breathing problems.’
‘She had the asthma.’
Sue had armed herself with tissues stuffed into her pockets. She began to deploy them.
‘Why didn’t you say anything?’ Sue asked.
Mary broke down hard. ‘Because I kne
w and I didn’t want to know. Does that make any sense?’
Sue found Torres doing paperwork in her office.
‘I told Mary about her mother,’ she said. ‘She already knew.’
Sue had expected Torres to lash out and accuse her of acting unilaterally. But she didn’t.
‘She’s a smart girl,’ Torres said. ‘She’s got a good intuition. Is she OK?’
‘She cried a river. She’s been bottling it up.’
‘I see.’
‘There’s something else I want to talk to you about,’ Sue said.
‘I know what you’re going to say. I’ve got good intuition too.’
Sue hadn’t had a cigarette in years but the cravings hit her in the solar plexus like she’d just quit. Fortunately, there were none at hand.
‘Look, you’re good at keeping things close to the vest,’ she said. ‘I have no idea what the grand purpose of all this is. I don’t know how the girls got pregnant. I’m not like a lot of the people around the ranch. I don’t see holiness when I look at their faces or their babies’ faces. But I’m not the least bit religious so maybe I’m not seeing what you can see. All I see are three wonderfully ordinary girls and three wonderfully ordinary newborns. I don’t have any idea what you have in mind for them or what that thing is out back. I was hired to do a job. You paid me a shitload of money to do it. The job is over. You’ve got three healthy babies and three healthy moms. It’s time for me to go home.’
Torres had been nodding during her monologue. She rolled her chair back and reached into a desk drawer. The envelope had Sue’s name on it.
‘There have been discussions about your role going forward,’ Torres said.
‘Discussions? With whom?’
‘The powers that be.’
Sue scoffed at the phrase. ‘Why don’t you just call them the Wizards of Oz. The men behind the curtain. This is all such bullshit. These girls are being manipulated for something by somebody.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Torres said, ‘but I can’t agree with you. People believe these girls are holy vessels, that they were touched, that they were chosen.’
‘Well, obviously, I don’t.’
‘I know you’re not a woman of faith, Sue. I understand what you think you know but maybe you don’t know everything. You weren’t hired for your beliefs. You were hired for your skills as a midwife but your role has certainly gone beyond that. Read this letter, please.’
