Switched At Birth

Jada's labor induced screams pierced the air, bouncing off the hallways and echoing painfully. Every scream, a song of childbirth where the woman was the soloist of a song she and her husband had written together.

Jada was in prolonged labor, and it was as if everything in the palace had come to a standstill. As if to join her in pushing the child out of her womb and into the world.

There was another scream, and this one was laced with the unrefined strength of a mother. Each screams a plea for the child to yield and obey its mother's calling.

Fallon forced her eyes close. Her hands went down to rub her stomach. She would be due soon, and then it would be her letting out a heart wrenching scream.

A strange kind of heaviness was growing on the left side of her waist. She desperately wanted to turn to the other side of the bed, but she didn't want to risk falling off the chocolate bar sized bed. She thinned her lips and turned so she could face Leroy, her boyfriend.

His black hair pooled over one side of his face, shielding his right eye, leaving only half of his nose and the rest of his face to face Fallon's scrutiny. Fallon watched the steady rise and fall of his chest. He was sleeping soundly, while she was battling with lingering memories of her past and the stinging sensation that was camping below her abdomen.

Another scream rent the air and Fallon's heart skipped a beat. Jada wasn't exactly a nice woman, but Fallon hoped and wished the woman would deliver her baby successfully. After three still-born births in the past, everyone was praying with their hearts up their throats for Jada to deliver successfully.

Fallon's belly came alive, the movements in her womb sent pains down her abdomen, sending stinging sensations coursing through her spine and stiffening her back. Now she wanted to rouse Leroy from his sleep, but her conscience wouldn't let her do it. Something pinched her sides, as if a zipper had gotten hold of her flesh.

She was young and wasn't familiar with these sensations. She was barely nineteen, supposed to be in college in pursuit of a degree. But here she was, in the room she shared with her gardener boyfriend in the boys' quarters of the palace. Leroy was a gardener in the palace and so when Fallon took in for him, he was left with only one tough option of accommodating her in the boys' quarters of the palace where he lived.

She loved Leroy, but she still wished she had not gotten into the mess she was drowning in at the moment.

Her back was starting to ache, she couldn't move her sides because they had been rendered stiff by the stinging sensations she was experiencing. Beads of perspiration were forming on her forehead, on her nose, under her nose and the back of her neck. She couldn't tell if it was as a result of anxiety or fear. Her legs were growing numb, she couldn't move them. Worse still they were growing heavy. Now she knew she had to wake Leroy or die in silence.

"Leroy." Jada screamed again, and the echoes swallowed Fallon's whisper.

"Leroy." Her voice was barely audible, but loud enough to pass for a whisper.

The growing ache at her sides had her pinned to the bed, she feared something horrible was happening to her. She needed Leroy awake. Risking the stinging sensations that coursed through her whenever she moved her sides, she moved closer to Leroy and tapped him thrice. Each tap was weaker than the first because her strength was fading gradually. Leroy stirred in his sleep.

Jada screamed again, a painful heart wrenching rendition that forced Leroy awake with a start. He looked at his woman who was lying awkwardly on her side and moaning quietly.

"Hey, are you alright?" He asked, putting the back of his palm over her forehead to check her temperature. Fallon's hand gripped his own just as he was lowering it.

Leroy stared into her eyes fearfully, wondering what it was with her. Another scream from Jada. Leroy couldn't believe he had slept through half of the night despite the screams. He wondered for how long the prince's wife had been in labor.

Fallon finally found her voice. She seized up on it, not letting go.

"Leroy, I need help. I can't move." Fallon managed to say. She was breathless, as if she had been running up a hill.

"You need help? Do you want to pee?" Leroy asked confusedly. Fallon felt like whacking him across the face for asking her if she wanted to ease herself.

"I can't move! Call someone. A woman. A midwife even." Her grip on Lenroy was growing stronger despite her faltering strength. Leroy was afraid she might break his arm, so he tickled her palms softly so she could let go.

"Get a maid. Anyone wearing a skirt!" She pushed him off the bed with so much force that should not possibly be coming from a pregnant woman. Leroy dragged himself out of their small room. Fallon let out another wail. Now there were two women in labour in the palace. He was afraid that the palace walls might come crashing down on him. Their screams resounded in the hallways, reverberating and bouncing off the walls of the palace.

There was no one in sight. Everybody had retired for the night. No one was supposed to be wandering around the palace unless there was fire on the mountain. And there was. Only that the fire was in his room. The fire was sitting inside Fallon's big stomach.

He walked down the hallway sleepily, his legs taking control of the situation and leading him to the kitchen garden of the palace. Jada let out another scream, and so did Fallon. The two voices blended into one, one stopping to catch her breath; Jada, obviously. She had been in labor since the previous day.

His sleep laden eyes could not quite make out the shadow in the dark. Whoever it was turned abruptly. Leroy's feet dragging across the tiled hallway must have startled the person. Leroy's eyes opened quickly on recognition of the person. It was Priya, one of the palace maids.

"Priya." Leroy rapped out.

"Leroy." She called out almost immediately. Leroy bridged the distance between them, walking hurriedly and dragging his reluctant feet to meet Priya.

"Why are you out by this time? Is everything alright?" Lenry shook his head. There were several baskets of garden eggs behind her. She had been gathering garden eggs for breakfast. It was barely three in the wee hours of the morning.

"No. It's Fallon. I think she might be in labor." Priya stared hard at him. Perhaps his voice was too calm for the perilous implication of what he had just said.

"Labour? But she won't be due till-" The two voices started off at where they stopped. Priya said something under her breath, and Leroy could swear that she had cussed out in Hindi.

She walked past him, pushing past him and brushing his shoulders. Leroy turned on his heels and followed suit.

When they got to Leroy's room, Fallon had torn the bedsheets into two angry halves, her death grip on both sides of the torn sheets unwavering. Priya went to her and grabbed her hand.

"What is the matter?" She asked. Fallon shook her head, her lips were drawn into her mouth and her teeth clamped down on it. An attempt to bite down on the pain.

"Ugh, I need to get out of here. I think the baby is coming!!" The last part came out forcefully. Leroy was patting her back, rubbing it up and down.

"How long has she been like this?" Priya asked Leroy who shook his head. The young man was trying to hold himself together. She admired him and his patience. The way he had assumed responsibility when Fallon got pregnant. There were very few men of his age that would agree to keep the woman and the child under his roof, even if he was living in the palace.

Fallon screamed again, holding her thighs together and shaking her head from left to right. She never knew a pain like this existed.

"Call the midwives." He begged.

"They're all with Jada. They won't be out until she delivers the baby." Priya explained.

"But she can't remain like this. My baby is coming." Priya looked at Leroy and clearly understood him. He was going to be a father soon.

"Okay. Keep her back off the bed like this. Don't hold her down. Hold her thighs apart too. We don't want her trapping the baby with her thighs." Leroy nodded dumbly, not understanding but knowing he had to keep his woman's back off the bed. That one made sense to him.

Priya rose from the small bed that was on the verge of sinking into the bed frame from the weight of the three people on the bed. The bed creaked with her movement. Fallon screamed again.

Few minutes later, Priya arrived with three elderly women. The last woman stood by the door. Her hands were resting on a wheelchair. They were going to wheel Fallon to the labour room.

Fallon suddenly looked down between her legs and screamed.

"I think my water just broke." She told Leroy who nodded as if he understood. Together, they carried her off the bed to the wheelchair. Leroy held her hand, a silent promise that he was going to stay with her till the end. Another woman came to join them. Fallon knew her. The head midwife who retired four years back from a renowned hospital in New York. As a matron now working on her own, she worked with the palace.

The woman's gaze met Priya's who stood still. Something was odd, because the woman shook her head and all the women looked down. Was Jada okay? Leroy cleared his throat, reviving the previous atmosphere. Fallon fought to stay awake. Her sight was blurring, blending several images into one. Despite how hard she was fighting to remain conscious, she felt herself drifting away.