The Baker's Secret by Lelita Baldock

Author:Lelita Baldock [Baldock, Lelita]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-01-25T00:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-SIX

ESTERE

As the cramps of labour began racking her body, Estere thought that she wasn’t ready. She hadn’t done enough.

Zenta took her hand and helped her up the stairs.

“You must not miss the deliveries tomorrow,” Estere had said, panting with the effort to speak above her pain.

“You must focus now, sister. Your baby comes. All is well. I have it in hand.”

As the contractions that contorted her belly intensified, Estere had accepted she had no other choice.

It was all right. She had done her part. Unexpectedly, Zenta had been the key. Catching the eye of a young, naive soldier, her sister was the perfect cover for the messages that Valdis needed circulated to try and mount a resistance. She hadn’t liked to bring Zenta into it, to risk her little sister. But Estere could see no other way. Now, she had to let go and trust.

The baby came easily. Or so Dārta said. Estere was of a rather different opinion. Small and red and screaming, she slipped out in the early hours of an unseasonably warm day in early June.

Estere had never seen anything so perfect in her life.

The baby was cleansed then wrapped in a woollen blanket and placed on her mother’s chest. Instantly, she nuzzled, seeking sustenance. It was the way of Latvia that summer. Heat and hunger hung over them all. Estere bared her breast and guided her child to suckle. She would give all she had, and more. She would keep her baby alive.

“Her name is Aina,” she whispered to her mother and sister.

“A beautiful name,” Dārta had said.

Healing took longer than she expected. The fatigue of her labour, the hot burning between her legs, a sense of general malaise that just wouldn’t lift.

Dārta saw that her daughter was as well fed as possible from their meagre rations. Extra portions of cabbage soup, larger slices of bread, all made their way up the stairs to the room Estere still shared with Zenta. Part of her wanted to refuse the extra food, knowing it would otherwise have been going to those she and Valdis strove to hide and supply. But a greater part, the mother she now was, took every extra she could, knowing it would pass to her precious Aina.

In truth, with the birth of her baby, the fight had gone out of her. The moment she looked into the perfection of her child’s sleeping face, it sluiced from her shoulders, and she drifted into her own rest, deep and heavy, exhausted. She wanted to stay cocooned with her newborn forever, away from danger, away from the fight.

But it couldn’t last.

Pebbles sounded against the window. Valdis waiting in the darkened street below. Zenta snuck him into the bakery kitchen and Estere made her way, silent as a mouse, to introduce him to his daughter.

He waited, body pensive, a small posy of yellow daisies clutched in his hands.

“For you, my warrior,” he said. Estere thought her heart would burst.

He reached for Aina instantly, eyes welling with tears, wonder stitched through his smile.

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