Read Online Wake the Dawn by Lauraine Snelling - Free Book Online

umbilical cord toward the baby a couple of times, then clamped it off. Ansel looked a little uncertain, looked at the clamps, at the scalpel, at the clamps. As if a fire were suddenly lighted in him, he gripped the cord tightly on the placenta side and gave his son his first lesson in independence.
    And now Esther and Ansel were laying their hands on Beth and the baby, and Ansel began praying aloud for the life and safety of his son, for God’s blessing on them all, Esther too. Ben should be there with them, his hands on Beth and the baby also, praying in mind and heart as Ansel gave voice.
    He couldn’t. He just plain couldn’t. He couldn’t touch them, couldn’t pray. What the blazes was wrong with him that he couldn’t pray in this situation, this only bright spot in a miserable night of pain and death? He wasn’t normal anymore. Maybe he wasn’t even human anymore. Chief and Jenny, they all said he should get help. Were they right?
    Esther stood erect. “Blanket. Ben, can you do the placenta then?”
    He unfolded the tightly wadded receiving blanket in the bottom of the kit, shook it out, handed it to her. Then he did what some EMTs simply could not bring themselves to do, squeamish women especially, and he could never understand that: He carefully examined every millimeter of the placenta to make certain it had not torn on the way out and left behind any little bit of itself to cause infection and death. The edges on the single tear in it fit together exactly. A gift of God, most of Ben’s friends would say. He opened the plastic bag that the kit thoughtfully included for just that purpose and slid the gelatinous mass into it, closed it with a twist tie the kit also provided.
    “Talk about a textbook delivery. Beth, you did really well.” Esther closed her eyes for a moment. “Did you bring a diaper or gown?”
    “Sorry, I was afraid the house was crashing down around our ears. It was. The big oak in our yard went down on it just as we backed out of the driveway. So, I guess you could say we are homeless.”
    Esther wagged her head sadly. “You’re not the only ones.” She turned to Ben. “We should still have diapers somewhere. See if you can find any.”
    “Is that a baby crying?” Mrs. Unfeld’s quivery voice rose from the corner. Ben had forgotten all about her.
    “Take her with you, please.”
    Ben stared at Esther. “But…”
    “Take her to Barbara.”
    Nuts. “All right.” He handled that dead man, he could handle this. He lifted the slight body and carried her from the room to the area behind the reception desk, nearly gagging on the odor. “Can you keep her here?” He didn’t wait for a reply but put her down, still all curled up in her fetal position, behind Barbara’s chair.
    “I’ll try.” Barbara sighed and pushed her dark hair back from her forehead. “Mrs. Unfeld, Bessie, you stay here with me for a while so Ben can go looking for Harold. Okay?”
    “She needs to be washed up and I don’t know what happened to the jacket that guy loaned her. We found her in the corner behind the door of room one.”
    “Was that a baby cry I heard?”
    “Yes, a very unhappy little boy and he’s letting the whole world know about it. But mother and baby are doing fine and Ansel is, too.”
    “One ray of good in this mess.”
    “Yah, that big old oak tree took out their house, just as they backed out of the driveway.”
    “Dear Lord, thank you for keeping them safe.”
    Ben kept his response to himself. He was too tired to argue faith matters at the moment. “We need to get some food in here for these people.” And a nice stiff belt for me. And this time, I earned it.
    “I know. And we’re out of coffee. I’ll put out the call. Reception is so erratic. Sometimes I can get out, sometimes I can’t.”
    The ambulance blipped outside.
    “Here we go again.” Ben detoured through the break room. Hannah had the baby on her shoulder, burping her. The man on the gurney slept soundly