A Father's Hope

“What is happening? Why is there no word from the mid-wife?” I could not stop pacing the short hallway. My legs felt like wheels on a machine, moving, moving. Filled with energy, with anxiety. The door to the bed chamber was closed, and there was little sound to be heard. My hands jerked through the air as I spoke, as if I could demand a reply with them. Then they went to my chest, and the unlaced linen shirt I had thrown on in haste a few hours prior. My heart pounded so powerfully that I felt it through my skin.

“Breathe, Éohard,” a voice laughed from nearby. This figure was stout and thick, ruddy-haired and smirking behind a bushy, unkempt beard. He was properly dressed, having been summoned from home before dawn to attend to my time of need. “There is no rushing these things, as the women like to say.”

I grumbled and frowned, and continued to march. Up and down, up and down. A restless stallion in a stall. From the open living area at the opposite end of the hallway, a rooster crowed, and a breeze came stirring through the farmhouse. The morning was already warm, and the air scented with straw and manure from the stable nearby.

“What will you name him?” asked my companion, leaning a shoulder against the wall. His calm was both infuriating and reassuring.

I paused in my pacing, just long enough to meet the other mans’ eyes in gratitude for declaring that the forthcoming child would be a son. “She cannot decide,” I answered, and I stood still then, distracted by the pleasant thought. “We have waited so long for her to carry a child, we will have to make it count. I suppose you would like us to name him Tormsen, after you?”

My ruddy-haired friend bellowed out a hearty laugh. “Béma forbid! Let him grow up to be nothing like me.” He huffed out another chuckle before going on. “She is also certain it is a son?”

I nodded quickly and resumed pacing. My Cwenhild had assured me that it would be a boy, strong and tall like his father. Her words had filled me with a pride I never knew I could feel, and I found myself possessed with a longing that had not left me since. A longing to see my son with my own eyes, to take his hand and walk him around the farm. To show him the buildings, the animals, to teach him all the ways of our life. To watch him grow as I prepared him for his own masterhood of the farm and the family name.

“What if it is not?” Tormsen asked. His words were like a splash of cold water on a peacefully sleeping man. They were jarring and I told him my ingratitude with a frown as I passed him on my next circuit of the corridor.

“Do not speak such things,” I grumbled. “Remember the dream I told you about?” I recalled the conversation with perfect clarity. On Midsummer’s night it came to me, a dream so vivid and real that I thought myself awake. My Cwenhild, smiling more brightly than I’d ever seen, holding a little bundle wrapped in her favorite shawl. Though she was approaching the end of her fertile years, her face was luminous and youthful. She offered the bundle over to me and said, “Free as a meadow, strong as a hill.” Free and strong. Those were words for a son. No woman was ever compared to a hill! No, the bundle surely held our strapping little boy. I awoke from the dream before more could be revealed, but I shared it with my friend the next morning. And I had held it all close to my heart through the final days of her confinement.

“Aye, I remember. Of course I remember. Do you think my mind is as full of holes as yours?” Tormsen was jesting and full of his own sardonic mirth now. I let him enjoy his joke. I did not have the inclination to banter in return, and it was a comfort to hear him carrying on in such a familiar way.

A cry came from the bedroom at last. Cwenhild. She had labored so silently all through the night. I had never known a more stoic woman. The pain that would make her utter such a wail must have been terrible indeed. I felt fear then. The sort of fear only a husband and father-to-be can feel. The sudden realization of the terrible fragility of his wife and child. Every husband hopes and prays for a healthy babe, a safely recovering wife. How many of those prayers went unanswered! We all knew of men who’d lost wives, and children who’d lost mothers while bringing life into the world. “Cwen!” I shouted, without meaning to, and took a step towards the door.

Tormsen’s hand clapped down hard on my shoulder. The man was twice my size and I was instantly halted. “Easy now,” he said quietly. The jesting was gone in a flash, and he was a solid rock now, calm and assured. “She is fine.”

Another plaint sounded, high-pitched and desperate. My body jerked towards it instinctively, though I knew Tormsen would hold me still, and he did. “Must be close now,” he murmured. I could not take my eyes from the door.

A minute or two of silence followed, and it was the thickest and longest wait of my life. My ears ached for any sound from within the bedroom. The stillness was unbearable. I felt irrationally that it would last forever. A dreadful image of Cwenhild, limp and bloodied on the bed, tormented me.

Then all at once, the world returned to itself. I heard a voice within, sighing and crooning with glad sounds. It was not Cwenhild’s voice; it must be the mid-wife. And beneath it, a sharp, high wailing. My child. My son.

Even Tormsen’s bear-like grip could not hold me then. I wrenched free and rushed forward, throwing open the bedroom door, gasping and smiling. My eyes darted everywhere, searching for my wife and for the inevitable bundle promised to me.

Cwenhild lay in a calm repose, with her hands on her chest. Her face was turned to the window. The mid-wife was cradling something so small that I could not see anything but two miniature, bare feet. The birthing cord still trailed from the babe and down between my wife’s parted legs. The wet, bloodied sheet beneath her was only briefly shocking. I measured the crimson stains swiftly in my head and deemed them not large enough to be alarming.

“My lord,” the mid-wife was saying, turning to me with a wide smile. Her face was flushed, sweaty, her cheeks shining. “Your child is perfectly healthy!” As she spoke, she masterfully freed one hand and the cord was snipped cleanly. A linen cloth was ready at hand, and before I could find my voice or remember to breathe, the babe was swaddled.

I felt torn. Was I to rush to Cwen’s side? Was I to hurry over to the child? My feet were stuck in place, my mind awash in a heady excitement that left me mute.

“Here! Here!” the mid-wife was saying to Cwenhild, leaning over the bed and offering the bundle to her. Tiny, muffled grunts and noises came from within the swaddling cloth. I felt my heart do something peculiar in that moment. I could not explain it. I was hearing my child’s voice for the first time.

Cwenhild did not seem to hear the mid-wife speaking. She laid still and looked to the window, and her hands did not move.

“Cwen,” I said softly, and my feet came unglued. I drew near and laid my hand on her shoulder. “My love...our child is here!”

“You can hold her,” my wife said. Her face was cold and hard like stone.

I heard nothing except that I could hold the child. My child. I looked to the mid-wife eagerly and held out my arms. She was beaming still, though her eyes darted to Cwen for a moment, and I thought I read concern on her brow. But all in the world was forgotten as the wrapped bundle was placed against my chest. I marveled at how tiny it was! Only a pink, wrinkled little face could be seen.

“She is beautiful,” crooned the mid-wife, leaning up on her toes to take another peek. Then she stepped over to the bed to begin attending to Cwenhild, and the process of coaxing forth the afterbirth. A first-time father I was, but I had managed dozens upon dozens of births among my horses, and knew the process thoroughly. I nodded dumbly, and then I heard a sigh. Not from my wearied, persevering wife, but from the doorway behind me. I turned to see Tormsen standing there with a furrowed forehead.

It was then that it all came to me. The words that had been spoken, that I had not absorbed in my giddy elation. I stared at him. The arms that cradled the child suddenly felt weak. It could not be. We had been promised a son! The dream I’d had!

Ten thousand thoughts crammed into my mind all at once. The family name. The family line. The land we owned. Cwenhild. Was she angry? Grieved? I dreaded turning to look at her again, but I knew I must.

Swallowing against my drying throat, I looked down at the tiny face in my arms. How I felt then, I could not put into words. I turned back to the bed and said, “Cwen. We have a healthy, beautiful daughter.” It sounded so wrong. Everything was wrong. The joy in my heart was seeping away with every beat.

“Hmm,” Cwenhild hummed without looking at me. I could not read her face. She had ever been a deep, dark pool when it came to her heart.

I was desperate to right the situation somehow. Never had I felt so utterly helpless. So useless. I felt a prick of blame. Was it not as much my duty as hers, to produce a son? Had I failed somehow? I felt the feather-light babe squirming weakly in my arms, snuffling and grunting. “You must take her,” I said weakly. “She must be nursed.”

My wife heaved a deep sigh, and reluctantly turned to me, reaching to take the little bundle.

“If a healthy daughter,” I said softly, comfortingly, reaching my freed hand to stroke Cwenhild’s sweat-damp hair. “Then next time, a healthy son.”

As she drew down the front of her night-gown, she said, “There will not be a next time, Éohard. I am near past my birthing years already.” A hand cradled the impossibly small head of our daughter, guiding her to find her mother’s breast. “We failed.”