Ten Thousand Charms by Allison Pittman

hushes and platitudes until, limp with exhaustion, Katherine lay still.
    Sadie hadn't moved an inch. Perched on the side of the bed,she captured Katherine's flailing foot with one hand and forced it back to the mattress. The other leg was pinned to the wall by Sadie's body.
    “Let me go…let me go…” Katherine's voice trailed of in a haze of delirium.
    “She feels trapped is all,” John William said with a hint of apology.
    He remembered how much she hated that feeling. All winter, trapped in the tiny cabin by the winter's snow, she'd paced the perimeter of the room. Ten paces. Eight paces. Ten paces. Eight paces. She swore each week of pregnancy that the place got smaller. She could barely turn from one task to the next without brushing against a wall or piece of furniture. John William had slept on the cabin floor for the past month; she couldn't stand his proximity in their bed. And now, here she was, pinned like some wild beast, tended by a stranger and enemy, all in the name of the life they'd created together.
    “She'll be fine,” he said.
    The look in Sadie's eyes gave no indication that she agreed. She squared her shoulders, sighed, and resumed her instructions as if the past few seconds never happened.
    “When 1 say so, Katherine, 1 need you to push as hard as you can.”
    “…can't…”
    “I know you're tired, Mrs. MacGregan. I know it's been hard. But just a little more, ya? We will help you all we can, but you need to push. Ready?”
    John William watched the knife disappear behind the mound of Katherine's stomach. Sadie's face took on a look of furrowed concentration. Then Katherine's body seized again, not in anger but in pain. She let forth a cry that pierced his very heart. Her hips bucked up off the mattress, her back arched in defiance.
    “Push!"'
    Sadie placed the hand that had been restraining Katherine'sfoot on top of her distended stomach and worked in a way that made John William picture his wife kneading bread.
    “What can I do?” he asked.
    “Put your hands on her stomach. Yes, right there.” Sadie's hands, nearly as large as John William's and stained with Katherine's blood, guided his to rest on the mound he'd monitored over the past few months. Katherine had never been comfortable with her changing body, but John William was constantly curious and amused. Many nights, after Katherine collapsed into exhausted sleep, he laid his head against his child, reveling in the bumps and patterns of its hidden play. Now it was alien. Frightening. A threat to the life of its mother.
    Heal my wife. Carry my child. Guide her hands. Keep me strong.
    “And just a little pressure right where she's pushing…” Sadie's voice hung on the edge of his prayer.
    “I can't…1 can't…” Katherine's anguished cry punctuated the earnest cries of his soul.
    “I've got its head, Katherine! Push again!”
    Heal my wife.
    “…no…”
    “You can. You're strong. Again, push.”
    Carry my child.
    “I've got the shoulders. Almost out. One more time, Katherine.”
    Guide her hands.
    “…no more…”
    Keep me strong.
    Katherine's final piercing scream was deafening, and it didn't stop. Not even when she fell back against him in exhaustion. Then John William realized the wailing he heard wasn't coming from his wife, but. from the thing that squirmed in Sadie's bloody hands.
    “It's a little girl,” Sadie said. “Let her go and come help me with the baby”
    John William eased himself from behind his wife's limp body
    His legs cramped momentarily beneath him, and he wondered just how long he'd been sitting there.
    Sadie's voice resumed the tone of a patient instructor. “Take some of that hot water from the kettle and put it in a bowl. Add some cool until you barely feel it being warm. We need to wash her.”
    Her voice prattled on about blankets and towels while his head reeled with questions he dared not ask. Once again he busied himself with compliance, until he found himself facing this tiny