Just One Touch by Cynthia Conner Goyang

Author:Cynthia Conner Goyang [Goyang, Cynthia Conner]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
Publisher: Ambassador International
Published: 2012-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 15

ALONGSIDE DINAH, SAPIRA TROD A dreary corridor. She turned aside to her left to peer inside one of the rooms whose door lay slightly ajar. She stopped and stared in awe at her own lifeless body, laid out on a table covered in white linen. “May I go in?” she asked Dinah.

“No, no, Sapira.” Dinah straightened Sapira’s shoulders decidedly and turned her away to continue down the corridor. Sapira shook herself free from Dinah’s grasp and ran to the next room, where her baby boy lay crying on a table, covered also in white linen. “Shh. Shh, my boy,” she whispered. Putting the baby to her breast, she gently nursed him, but to her and Dinah’s dismay, the babe’s face contorted and turned crimson red. He began to vomit, first milk and then bile. Before she could recover from the shock, the baby boy vanished, and on the floor in the midst of the bile lay all the precious jewels that her husband Ahir had given her.

Sapira awoke trembling. With eyes bulging, she took in great gulping breaths. The troubling dream affected her senses. She pushed back the covers, Aja’s covers, and buried her face in her hands.

Three months had passed since the tragedy, and still Sapira could not bring herself to return to her sleeping quarters, nor could she grasp the reality of what had occurred. During those days, Sapira rose from her bed to sorrow’s greeting and laid her head down each night to grief’s gloomy song.

She came to the realization during that time that she was seriously ill in her body. After the birth of the babe, the flow of her blood had continued and not ceased.

Haniah the midwife had on many occasions come and tried many things to quell Sapira’s flow of blood—all to no avail. She bowed out on each occasion, promising Sapira that she would soon see relief.

“I so appreciate your care, Haniah,” Sapira said quietly one rainy day, “but as you know, my health is declining. I am in need of a physician’s care.”

“Very well, Sapira,” Haniah said. She could scarcely conceal the relief in her voice. It was clear that she knew no other measures to stop the flow of blood. “I will send for the physician Jathniel.”

“Thank you,” Haniah,” Sapira answered.

Sapira went and sat at the small window in Aja’s room and stared out as the rain trickled down. Grief was her constant companion. Guilt and dark thoughts threatened to consume her as she played repeatedly in her mind a different outcome. Perhaps if I had stayed in bed and not moved about so much beforehand, perhaps the cord would not have strangled the baby. She put her face in her hands, shook her head back and forth, and wept. “I am sorry, Ahir, I am sorry, my baby, I am sorry, Aja.”

Tema, the young handmaiden, entered the room with a tray of food for Sapira. “I am sorry, Mistress Sapira,” the girl said. It was what she said each time she entered the room.

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