Enemies To Lovers 23: New Life

He helped her to bed, and she lay there, feeling the rhythmic tightening and loosening of her womb. The contractions grew increasingly painful over time. She barely noticed as Lila entered the cabin.

"How far apart are the pains?" asked the older woman.

"I don't know!" Joanna gasped as another contraction started. Lila waited for it to end, then examined her.

"It will be awhile," she said. "Would you like some ice chips?"

Joanna nodded, and Lila slipped the ice into her mouth. She sucked on it, grateful for its cooling moisture.

She was able to rest for a few minutes, and then she felt the next contraction begin, starting in her back and radiating all the way around. She tried not to cry out but didn't succeed.

"Easy. Easy." Lila sat beside her bed, rubbing her back, pressing down hard with a rolling pin. "Your body is hard at work. Do not try to fight it. Relax and breathe into it. Find a spot on the ceiling and focus on it as you gently breathe in, slowly, deeply."

Joanna heard Lila's words and tried her best to obey, and as she did, the pain became manageable, washing over her in waves, building to a peak and then receding.

Sometime in the night, the pains became unbearable, and she felt an uncontrollable urge to push. She cried out as she bent her legs and held them close, her face a mask of effort. It was hard work - much harder than anything she'd ever done before in her life.

The contraction ended, and she gasped for breath, using her fingers to push the wet hair from her face. She barely had time to catch her breath before the next one was upon her. She labored until the wee hours of the morning, when she collapsed in exhaustion.

"I can't go on!" she cried. "I'm going to die!"

"You're not going to die." Lila held her shoulders and looked into her eyes. "You're going to have this baby! Keep pushing! You're almost there!"

With the next push, the baby's head emerged, and with the one after that, the shoulders. With a loud groan, Joanna bore down with her last remaining ounce of strength and felt the child slip from her body.

Lila caught the infant and placed it on its mother's chest. Joanna held the tiny body close, feeling the softness of the infant's skin against her own. Lila waited until the umbilical cord stopped pulsing, then cut it with scissors. The newborn made tiny, mewing noises.

"Let me clean her, and then I will help you sit up so you can hold her," said Lila.

Tears streamed down Joanna's face. A girl! She had a daughter!

Lila quickly washed the baby, wrapped her in a blanket, and handed her to Joanna. At last the young woman was able to look into her child's milky dark eyes.

"Are you really, truly mine?" she asked in amazement.

The infant nuzzled her, searching for a nipple. Joanna moved her clothing so she could nurse.

"You have a daughter," Lila told Jurgen. "She's healthy and strong - a beautiful baby. Come see her!"

A daughter! Jurgen felt as if he'd been punched in the stomach. First a Jewish wife, and now a daughter as a firstborn child.

All his life, he'd imagined himself with a son. He was determined to be the patient, loving, attentive father his own father had never been, and he'd imagined himself playing ball with his son, going fishing and hunting with him, helping him become a man. Now, like his previous dream of his Aryan bride, this one had been shattered as well.

Swallowing his disappointment, he followed Lila back to the cabin. At the sight of Joanna nursing their child, something inside him melted, and suddenly, it didn't matter that she was Jewish and their firstborn was a girl. He was filled with a tenderness he'd never felt before, had never even realized he was capable of.

He walked to the bed, and Joanna smiled up at him.

"Are you all right?" he asked her.

"Yes." She looked down at the baby. "She's beautiful. Would you like to hold her?"

"I can't." He looked at his artificial arm and felt very sad.

Lila brought a chair so he could sit beside the bed and helped him to support the baby's head with his good arm. The newborn began to cry right away, so Lila handed her back to Joanna.

"She just has to get used to you," she explained to Jurgen. "It won't take her long at all."

"Can I name her Michal, for my mother?" asked Joanna.

"Her name is Veronica," said Jurgen. "Michal can be her middle name." His memory briefly returned to the scene in the field in which he'd strangled a man to death in defense of a woman he didn't even know.

"The young woman who wiped the sweat from Jesus's face with her handkerchief during the stations of the cross," said Joanna.

"Yes."

"Did the imprint of his face really appear on her handkerchief?"

"Of course it did! How could you even question it?"

Joanna looked at Lila, who looked back at her with sympathy.

"Veronica Michal Sanchez, I baptize you in the name of the Father" - Padre Miguel poured a small bowl of water over Veronica's head, and she began to cry - "and of the Son" - he poured a second bowl of water over her head - "and of the Holy Spirit." He poured a third bowl of water over her head.

Joanna longed to hold and comfort her daughter, but the ceremony wasn't over yet. Padre Miguel anointed her with oil and dressed her in her christening gown before finally handing her back to her mother.

Joanna arranged her clothing so her daughter could nurse, thinking of how it would have broken her mother's heart to have seen her granddaughter baptized into the Catholic church.