Genesis Lost

       The nanny was glad to see me the next morning and both goats had eaten all that I had given them. After watering them, the nanny let me milk her in spite of her wounds.

       “This is really good!” Lisa declared. “Reminds me of the rich milk we used to get delivered when I was a kid. Wish it hadn’t gone away; Dad started buying 2% and it just wasn’t the same.”

       Charlie liked it, too. I had trouble keeping him away from the bowl and sticking his fingers in it, then licking them. I decided it would be best to give him his own bowl of milk.

       The nanny was giving more milk than Lisa and I could drink. I saved some and skimmed off the cream at the top rather than mixing it together. Using an old-fashioned crank mixer, I managed to make butter from the goat cream. It was some of the best butter I had ever tasted, once I got it salted right. It was great on the home baked whole-wheat bread that Lisa made from scratch.

       Lisa’s leg break was healing nicely, and she was getting around quite well with the crutches. Her injured groin muscle made it difficult yet and especially painful when she tried to do too much. In spite of everything, life was getting better for us every day.

       Christmas was approaching, and Lisa wanted a tree to decorate. I remembered seeing a well-proportioned, four-foot spruce in that area where I had snared the goats. So I climbed the mountain again. The tree was where I remembered. I cut it down with my saw chain, tied up the branches with burlap and twine not to damage them while dragging it down the mountain. Lisa found their old Christmas tree stand and decorations in the storeroom while I was gone. We had a great time decorating for the season.

       For our special Christmas dinner we had some of my homemade smoked ham, both Idaho and sweet potatoes, a bean casserole, beets and pumpkin pie with whipped goat cream. Lisa ate for two and was showing her weight gain. She broke her fast from alcohol that one day and we finished off a few bottles of a fine red wine that Oscar had squirreled away. I knew that when her pregnancy was over, we would both enjoy wine together in the evening for many years to come as a result of Oscar's greed and hoarding.

        Charlie got some of that dinner, too; wondering about our strange behavior compared to every other day, cocking his head and listening as we sang Christmas carols and laughed.

       "Das was the bestest Christmas I ewer had since I was a chile,” Lisa slurred as she kissed me sloppily good night as I helped her with both of us stumbling from the table to our bedroom. "I loves you so much."

       "Me, too, ditto," I replied. Soon, we both drifted off to sleep together in bed.

       We celebrated New Year by going up on the roof and with some of the gunpowder I had, fired off some makeshift fireworks. I had another bottle of wine, but Lisa, thinking of her pregnancy, declined.

       Two weeks later, about 2 am, I awakened to, I thought, Lisa calling out in a bad dream. "Help! Help me, honey!… My water broke! The baby! The baby's heart isn't beating… Help!"

       Groggy, I sat up and discovered that the bed was wet, and that Lisa had lost the sack of fluid surrounding her baby. The baby was coming and I didn't know what to do. It was all too soon. She wasn't due until March. I wasn't ready.

       Lisa grabbed my hand and put it on her abdomen. "Feel… Can you feel like me that the baby's heart isn't beating? We must get it out! Help me get the baby out so we can save it!"

       "What can I do?" I cried. I acted instead.

       Instinctively, I grabbed a pillow and started to push it up under her hips. So that her pelvis would be elevated like I had seen in movies of births. 

       "Stop hurting me and help!" Lisa groaned in pain as I struggled to get the pillow under her. It was obvious that her damaged groin ligaments were not letting her have a normal birth. She screamed in pain as I gently as I could, spread her legs. I didn't know what to do next.

       All I could think of, I blurted out. "Push, Lisa Baby, push! Make that baby come out… Push!"

       I heard her groan as she pushed as hard as she could. I saw a baby's tiny foot coming out and grabbed hold of it as gently as I could and pulled. I reached and tried to find the other foot, knowing that the baby was coming out wrong. I found it and then, putting the tiny ankles together, gently pulled again while Lisa pushed.

        With a sucking sound, a tiny, ill formed baby lay on the bed in front of me in the dark. It wasn't breathing. Its flattened head looked like it had been crushed. I took the sheet and gently wiped the blood and mucus from the little boy's face and mouth. In movies, they always got a baby breathing by spanking, so I held him upside down and tried that. Nothing happened. 

       Lisa just lay there breathing heavily from exertion and pain. Finally, she cried, "Can I see it? Can I? Is it a boy or a girl?"

       "I think it's a boy. Let me get the light. I have to cut the umbilical cord. I'll be right back."

       Charlie jumped on the bed and headed straight for the baby. With one hand I grabbed him and threw him off the bed. He tried to come back, and I threw him off again. Yelling, "Charlie, no! No, no!" Charlie was a fast learner and finally got the point. He stayed on the floor, but paced back and forth like an expectant father. I turned on a light and rushed into the bathroom to find some scissors. I came back and cut the umbilical cord and tied it off. I would've asked Charlie to get the scissors normally, but in my frustration, I just acted, hoping it was all right.

        And then, I turned to examine the baby, aghast. It was a boy, but his eyes were askew his nose was two holes and there were tumors--three of them. One on his neck, another under his right arm, and a third in his groin. The one at his groin was the largest, about five inches long with heavy blue veins connected to where his scrotum should have been. I held him upside down and gave him a smack again, but there was no response. He was dead. There was no reviving him. He probably had tumors inside that were pressing on his organs. He was a child of the new nuclear age. Not a survivor of it.

       "Can I see him!" Lisa called out again when she heard me give him the second smack on the rear.

       "I don't want you to see him," I cried, tears streaming down my face. "He's dead and has tumors. He's grotesque and disfigured. You don't want to have the memory of what he looks like." Tears were dripping off my chin as I begged her not to look.

       "He's my child. Not yours! Let me see him!"

       I placed him in a pillowcase to cover his body and then brought his ugly flat head where she could see him in the light. The tumor on his neck, about three inches long, was prominent. When Lisa saw him, she cried, "Oh no… Noooo… Nooo…!" And started uncontrollably crying like I was. Charlie hopped around the bed chattering as though in sympathy. Once again, he seemed to know what was happening.

       I tried to reassure her but there was no consolation that would work. Even when I said, "We can try again. We've got time. We can try again." She only continued sobbing.

       I had been distracted by the baby and Lisa. When I looked again, I saw that Lisa was bleeding and the afterbirth hadn't completely separated. I pulled gently on it and it came out with a flood of blood.

        I panicked. I didn't know what to do. But instinctively, I grabbed the bedpan from under the bed and put it under her so that the blood flowed into the pan and not out onto the bed. As soon as I could, I got a towel and applied pressure to see if I could stop the bleeding. I did, but every time I released pressure, she bled again. I grew tired but continued to put pressure on her vagina and held on until the sun's rays came through the front windows and lit up the room with morning. I had been asleep, but didn't know it. The bleeding had stopped, but the bedpan held at least a quart of Lisa's blood.

       She was asleep, so I didn't wake her. I cleaned up the bed as best I could and got clean sheets and a blanket to cover her. My mind was a mess, so I was glad she was, at least for now, at peace.

        Not knowing exactly what to do with the baby in the pillowcase, I took him downstairs and outside and buried the little guy in the snow where I knew he would freeze and keep. We could bury him again later when Lisa was up to it. Although the sun shone brightly, my heart was so heavy everything seemed dreary to me. But I had to focus. I had to help Lisa. I had to pump her full of fluids to restore the blood she lost.

       When I got back upstairs, I was shocked at how pale Lisa looked in sleep. I saw the blood in the bedpan and thought that I needed to save it. So, I poured it into two Mason jars and put them in our refrigerator to keep them cool.

       While waiting for Lisa to awaken, I made a soup with meat and liver that we had in the refrigerator. As I waited, my thoughts were how to somehow reintroduce her blood to her through an IV drip. I knew we had one because Lisa told me that she remembered her father had used one for her mother when she was home recovering from the hospital. I looked in the storage room and found it. I didn't want the blood to become bad and she needed it, so I thought I would try to reintroduce it to Lisa right away.

       While the soup stewed I waited for Lisa to wake up. Finally she stirred, but was very groggy and a bit unclear of who and where she was. I had her drink the soup through a straw so she would get it quicker and she obliged. And then she asked, "Where is he? Where's my baby? Is he okay? I want to see him. Where is he?"

       I didn't know what to answer. "He is okay. I took him downstairs in the snow. We can bury him later if you like."

       She began to cry again. Muttering… "My baby… My baby… My sweet baby."

       I had to interrupt her; snap her out of her grief. "Listen," I pleaded. "You've lost a lot of blood. I'm going to try to give it back to you. I got that IV stand from the storage room, the bags and the tubing that your father got for your mother and have it here. Can you help me transfuse you with your own blood? I don't know what your blood type is or I would give you mine."

       Lisa opened her tear soaked eyes and looked at the stand with the bottle and tube hanging down, a bit dusty from its long storage. She whispered roughly straining to talk. "Clean that off and then bring it to me. Sterilize the needle with a flame. I will show you a vein you can put it in." She closed her eyes, resting from the exertion of talking.

       I got a cloth and cleaned off the stand. I washed the bottle and tube in the hottest water I could muster from the hot water tap. I took a match to the needle to sterilize it. I went to the refrigerator and got a jar of blood and poured it into the bottle until it was filled. When I touched her hand, Lisa opened her eyes and saw that I was ready.

       She held up her left hand and pointed to a vein with her right index finger in her arm. "There," she said.

       I wrapped a bit of elastic bandage around her arm in place of the rubber that I had seen nurses do to draw my blood and then tapped on the spot she pointed to until a vein came into view. I couldn't have been more nervous, but as carefully as I could, I pushed the needle into the vein and then quickly covered it with some cotton and tape to keep it from bleeding. Then I opened the valve and saw the blood start dripping and flowing down the tube to her arm. I thought how crude this was of me, and hoped that it would work.

       Lisa went back to sleep again. I stayed by her side and tried to stay awake in case she needed me. About noon, she needed to pee. I got her the bedpan so that she could go. When Lisa did, she started bleeding again. Worried, I taped a cotton bandage over her vagina to try to stop the bleeding while I went and emptied the urine and washed the bedpan with cold water to remove the residual urine and blood mixture. I tried not to panic. Had to hold it together. Charlie's curiosity was no help.

       When I took the bandage off, Lisa bled again into the bedpan and I had to apply direct pressure for nearly an hour before it stopped. Once again, I poured that blood into one of the jars in the refrigerator. The only good thought I had was that the IV drip of blood was working. I wanted to keep giving her liquids so that she could replenish her own blood and not need a transfusion.

       My hope faded. Every time Lisa had a bad dream that jerked her awake, she started to bleed again and I just couldn't stop her bleeding, even though she began to urinate without bleeding later that night. I knew that the goats needed water and the nanny needed milking, but I couldn't leave Lisa's bedside for fear that she would start bleeding again and I wouldn't be there to help stop it.

       I grew exhausted with worry and thoughts of how I could do better but couldn't come up with anything. I fought sleep through the night but eventually fell asleep. The IV was working but she was losing more blood than I was transfusing. The blood I saved seemed too thick. It was coagulating. So as a desperate measure, I thinned it with a little red wine. Hoped that the alcohol would help ease her pain and couldn't do her any harm.

       At dawn the next morning, I had to do something drastic. Lisa was sleeping peacefully, so I left her bedside and made it to the garden enclosure in record time. The goats were eager for water and needed more food. I quickly got them more than enough for a week if I didn't come back and then quickly milked the nanny so I would have fresh goat milk for Lisa to drink, warm.

       I was gone only a half-hour but I was worried sick as I ran up the stairs and into the bedroom. Thankfully, Lisa was still asleep with no signs that she had even moved since I left. The IV needed more blood and I refilled that. I then put a pan of goat milk on the stove to simmer lightly so that when she woke up I could give it to her warm. That didn't happen until about 10 o'clock. She was quite lethargic and I was afraid I was losing her. But she drank the milk that I warmed and seemed happy for it, smiling a sad smile before falling back to sleep. I slept, too. It was late afternoon when I heard her crying and she was bleeding again.

       Lisa held on for three more days. I grew more exhausted each day trying to keep her from bleeding and to keep her transfused--eventually with salt water. She slept more and more. Finally, about noon, she opened her eyes and called to me in a harsh whisper. "Closer… Come closer."

       I moved in so close that our lips were touching. She kissed me briefly and said, "You know I love you, honey. But I, I have to leave now."

       I answered, "I love you, too. Don't leave…."

       Lisa closed her eyes and let out her last breath. I no longer felt her faint breath on my cheek after that. She was gone. I had no tears left. I crawled into bed and put my arms around her. I was so exhausted it was hours later that I woke up, her cold stiff body next to mine.