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utensils to take outside. I didn’t want to get too close to the woman emotionally. I already felt like I knew too much about her and her perverted brother.
    I got dinner under way and came back to talk to Sarah. Something was bothering me and I had to share it.  I pulled her outside and asked discreetly, “Do you think that a little whisky might be a good idea? Not so much for the pain but for the shock of the, well, you know.” I didn’t want to say that it would be so Rachel didn’t freak out when she saw her dead baby , but Sarah knew what I meant and obviously agreed.
    “I put a b it in the tea, but you’re right— it might soften the blow.” She went back inside and pulled out a half-full bottle of whisky from under the cupboard. “I don’t think we should cut it with honey and milk,” she told me. “The more we get into her in the next hour, the better. She’s progressing rapidly. Normally I wouldn’t w ant a labor to go this quickly—it’s hard on the baby—b ut in this case , it doesn’t make a difference.”
    “If that’s whisky, can I have some?” Rachel asked when Sarah stopped talking. “I want to be blind drunk when this baby comes out. You’ll take care of the body, won’t you? I don’t want to see it.”
    Rachel had been reclining when Sarah brought out the whisky , but elbowed her way up to a sitting position with the offer of oblivion. “If there’s ever any whisky around, Grant gets it. Ooh, there’s another one,” she winced as she grabbed her lower belly.
    She started huffing and blowing without instruction. I watched as she finished her contraction with a cleansing breath, just like I would have told her to do. It appeared she was already employing the Lamaze method. “Where did you learn to do that?” I asked. “I mean the breathing during the contractions.”
    She shrugged her shoulders. “When I was pregnant with the first baby, my daughter, I didn’t know what to do, how to birth the baby. Our mother was dead , and I didn’t know anyone else that could help. My brothers didn’t know or care a bout how babies came out. ‘Hey,’ they said, ‘the cat can have kittens without any help so you can, too.’ So when it was her time , I went out to the barn and watched the cat have her kittens. I saw that she did the breathin’ when her tummy got hard and, well, she did yowl right there toward the end when the first one came out , but after that , she was okay. So , I just did the breathin’ when little Esther started to come. But , I didn’t yowl or holler or nothin’, ever! My brothers knew what was gonna happen and said I’d probably scream ‘til my throat bled , but I didn’t. I wasn’t gonna let them have the satisfaction of hearin’ me hurtin’. It was all their fault anyway.”
    I was stunned and didn’t know what to say. Wallace had told me he thought that this baby was the result of incest, that she was little sister to both Grant and Captain Asshole. So , rather than ask about why it would be their fault , I decided to ignore the remark and offer my help as a coach instead. She was doing fine by herself , but since I was already here, I might as well make myself useful. I put one hand on her belly and said, “Here, let me hold your hand and, oops, here’s one now. Start your breathing.”
    Well, every couple of contractions merited a drink and she wasn’t just sipping the firewater either. She was handling her labor better than I had , although I knew her pains had to be just as intense. Of course , by now, I doubt she was feeling any pain. I was surprised she was still awake.
    “I didn’t want to do it so that’s why he gave me the whisky the first time,” Rachel said , her eyes glazed. It was if she was reliving that moment. She tossed back another shot . “Atholl told me to drink some of it, that it would make me feel real good and warm inside. It smelled nasty and I didn’t want it , but Grant glared at me , picked up a branch and