Margaret Laurence
[1] When the baby was almost ready to be born, something went wrong and my mother had to go into hospital two weeks before the expected time.I was wakened by her crying in the night, and then I heard my father’s footsteps as he went downstairs to phone.I stood in the doorway of my room, shivering and listening, wanting to go to my mother but afraid to go lest there be some sight there more terrifying that I could bear.
[2] “Hello — Paul?” my father said, and I knew he was talking to Dr.Cates.“It’s Beth.The waters have broken, and the fetal position doesn’t seem quite — well, I’m only thinking of what happened the last time, and another like that would be — I wish she were a little huskier, damn it — she’s so — no, don’t worry, I’m quite all right.Yes, I think that would be the best thing.Okay, make it as soon as you can, will you?”
[3] He came back upstairs, looking bony and disheveled in his pyjamas, and running his fingers through his sand-colored hair.At the top of the stairs, he came face to face with Grandmother MacLeod, who was standing there in her quilted black satin dressing gown, her slight figure held straight and poised, as though she were unaware that her hair was bound grotesquely like white-feathered wings in the snare of her coarse night-time hairnet.
[4] “What is it, Ewen?”
[5] “It’s all right, Mother.Beth’s having — a little trouble.I’m going to take her into the hospital.You go back to bed.”
[6] “I told you,” Grandmother MacLeod said in her clear voice, never loud, but distinct and ringing like the tap of a sterling teaspoon on a crystal goblet, “I did tell you, Ewen, did I not, that you should have got a girl in to help her with the housework? She would have rested more.”
[7] “I couldn’t afford to get anyone in,” my father said.“If you thought she should have rested more, why didn’t you ever — oh God, I’m out of my mind tonight — just go back to bed, Mother, please.I must get back to Beth.”