“Push!”
The round
face that belonged to the midwife peered through my bent knees as I held my
breath and pushed until I thought the space between my legs was going to rip
wide open.
“I can see
your sweet baby’s head, Emma. Just one more push.”
“I can’t
push anymore, Gladys, I think I’m going to explode!” My hair was matted down
around my eyes from the perspiration.
“Here it
comes, Emma, your sweet baby has arrived.”
Gladys
reached down, busily cutting the cord and wiping the newborn with a wet cloth.
“She’s a
girl, Emma, you have a baby daughter.”
Then she
stopped what she was doing and paused, looking carefully at the small bundle
that lay on the bed. A frown wrinkled between her eyebrows, and she glanced at
me quickly to see if I was watching.
“What is it,
Gladys? What’s wrong? Is the baby ok?”
Gladys
wrapped the baby in a white muslin towel and placed her in my arms. I was
shocked at first, and couldn’t take my eyes off the jagged red spot that
blemished her right cheek. Just then, the child let out a piercing screech that
sounded like a cat that had been caught by a fierce wild dog.
“Gladys,
what is that red spot on her face? Will it come off?”
Gladys
smiled and rubbed my arm. “She’s been kissed by an angel, Emma, that’s all.
She’s a beautiful baby.”
There was a
hesitation in her voice that made me want to cry. My beautiful baby was
scarred, her perfect little face disfigured by an ugly red blemish.
“Kissed by
an angel, that’s right.” I softly kissed my baby’s cheek. “Her name shall be
Katherine Maggie O’Donnell.”
I gazed out
the window and stared at the harvest moon rising over the mountain. The man in
the moon appeared to be just dark ugly ink spots splattered on a round piece of
yellowing paper.
As a child,
Katy was a handful. I tried controlling her wild red hair with braids, but
after running around the farm all day, sprouts of hair would break loose from
the bands, making her look like a haystack that had caught fire.
When Katy
was seven, she discovered an old barn on the neighbor’s land to the north and
claimed it as her secret hideaway. She would be gone for hours, until one day I
saw smoke in the distance. My heart was racing almost as fast as I was running
towards the black clouds. The barn was engulfed in flames, and I feared Katy
was inside. Instead, I spotted Katy off to the side, mesmerized with the
burning building, smiling, her face glowing in the heat. She let out a blood-curdling
scream as I snatched her up, pulling her away from the collapsing embers.
This was not
her only fascination with destruction. Katy would taunt the small animals on
the farm, often poking them with a fiery hot stick to see their hair sizzle and
curl.
Through the
years, I often felt that the ugly red birthmark on my daughter’s check was the
kiss of the devil instead of an angel.
One crisp
fall day, I wiped my hands on my apron and peered out the window. Red and
orange leaves tumbled by as the cold autumn wind battered the small cabin. Katy
should have been back from the country market by now. At that moment, I saw the
flying, fiery red braids. What I had decided was the devil's mark on her right
cheek, was clearly visible, even at dusk. Katy was breathless as she burst
through the wooden door.
"Ma!
Come quickly!!"
Once again,
my heart raced with fear of finding a dismembered cat or charred body of a
bird. I ran out the door, following Katy as she took off sprinting down the
dirt path. She pointed under an old wooden bridge that spanned across the
creek.
“Look, Ma,
look what’s hanging under the bridge!”
I was afraid
to look, thinking she had strung up a friend’s dog, and it was dangling to its
death beneath the wooden slats. I slowly peered under the bridge and saw six
bats hanging upside down, their feet grasping the edge of the metal bar holding
up the planks.
“Aren’t they
beautiful, Ma? Can I keep one as a pet?”
“No, Katy,
they are dangerous and they might bite you.”
“No they
won’t, Ma! They like me. I talk to them, and they talk to me too.”
I grabbed
Katy’s hand and pulled her up the slope, away from the bridge. Katy shrieked
her cat scream and jerked away from me, kicking and clawing her way back down
the rocks to the creek. The six bats flew out from under the bridge and swarmed
around her, landing on her face and neck. When I reached her, I saw the bite
marks on her face. The devil’s mark on her right cheek was gone, and Katy’s
lifeless body lay in the water.
My heart was
heavy with sorrow, and I sobbed for my baby girl who had been kissed by the
devil.
The harvest
moon is hanging low in the sky, and Gladys is once again encouraging me to
push.
“Here it
comes, Emma, your sweet baby has arrived. It’s a boy! And look, he too has been
kissed by an angel.”
