Treasure of the sea |Lesbian story|

From the diary of Delise Shelley

My brother came into the world in complete silence. I remember the delivery day. I found my mother, Lorien Cote, in a pool of blood.

"Go get the midwife, Del," she had ordered, weakly.

And I was out of the house running. The midwife lived a few blocks away. She was an old woman, her face wrinkled, but her eyes as clear as a hawk's.

"Do you have the money to pay me, child?" That was the first question she asked me.

I offered the midwife Mom's bronze bracelet. It had been the last gift my father had given her. The woman accepted it and hurried to follow me home, retrieving a string of clean towels and zinc basins.

I witnessed the birth. I still remember the mother's heartrending screams, her face flushed, contracted with suffering. I kept my distance, near the right corner of the room, and watched the scene with my eyes full of tears. I wished it would end. I longed for my mother to be well again. That creature inside her was only hurting her. I hated my father for impregnating her, for condemning her to suffer like that.

Everett, my brother, was born in complete silence. The midwife took him in her arms and examined him.

"He's not breathing."

My mother opened her mouth wide, like she was going to scream. But she didn't scream. I'd never seen eyes so full of horror.

Everett was shaken violently, turned upside down to make him cry, to make him breathe. After a few minutes of a silence filled only with sobs, all three of us heard the baby's sharp cry.

"Oh, praise the Lord!"

The midwife washed the new born and laid him down in my mother's arms. It was over at last, I thought. They were fine. Everyone was fine.

But I was wrong.

Four hours after giving birth, Mom slumped down on her pillow and closed her eyes, never waking up again.

Mom was buried in a mass grave. All that was left of her was a wooden cross with her initials carved on it.

It was hours before anyone came to pick her up. The midwife had left to go get someone, leaving me alone with my mother's lifeless body and the creature she had just given birth to. He was screaming, insistent. His screams were so ragged they hurt my ears. The midwife had propped my brother on the end of the bed, next to Mother's now cold feet. I stared at him.

"Look what you've done. You killed our mother. Do you know that murderers are executed? I've seen them in the square. They put a noose around their necks and hang them."

I took a few steps towards him, wrapped in such anger that I was shaking all over. He continued to cry convulsively, paying no attention to me. He wriggled hard I hurried to cover his little body with the blanket, aware of how cold it was in that room. Mother's face remained contracted in a grimace of pain. It was not pleasant to the eye. Her cerulean eyes had remained half-closed, revealing a blank stare. I leaned toward her and tried to close both her eyes and her half-open jaw. Still, the jaw reopened, revealing crooked but healthy teeth. I tried to make it look like she was asleep, but I couldn't. It was tremendously obvious that she was dead. I do not know exactly how long I stayed there alone together with my brother. However, it seemed like hours to me.

Then people came into the house. There was the midwife, three men who would take my mother's body away, and Theresa Oldman. The latter took the tiny infant in her arms, cast a furtive glance at Mother, and then laid her gaze on me.

"Let's go," she said, with irritation.

"No. I don't want to leave Mom."

"Let's go, I said!"

She took us to her house. The woman had just had her sixth child, so she was able to breastfeed my brother as well. The house was so noisy that I was disoriented. The children kept making a racket, running up and down and giving me no peace.

"What's his name?" asked Mrs. Oldman at one point, as she uncovered her breasts and brought them closer to the infant's mouth.

I was unprepared for that question. Mom had never mentioned anything about it.

"I don't know."

"What is your father's name?"

"Everett."

"Everett Shelley," she nodded. "That'll do."

"What will happen to us now?" I asked.

The woman remained impassive at that question. "I cannot keep you with me. There is already a great deal to do in this house. I will seek out your father and tell him to fetch you, wherever he is."

"Father left with the British Navy eight months ago. He hasn't been back since."

"We'll hire someone to find him."

I nodded, not too convinced. Mrs. Oldman offered me a bowl of soup and then told me to get some rest. Everett stayed with her. I wasn't given a proper bed. The beds were all full and there wasn't even room for me. I had to content myself with a cubicle in the understairs, where Mr. Oldman had spread a bit of straw and a blanket on the floor, leaving me a half-consumed candle.

I didn't shed a single tear that night. I always thought crying was useless. Everett, on the other hand, would not stop screaming. Nobody could sleep a wink.