Shira

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It was almost twilight when Manfred Herbst brought his wife to the hospital. After a few minutes, footsteps were heard, and Axelrod, the clerk, arrived, talking over his shoulder to an aide, to the aide’s wife, to both of them at once. As he walked and talked, he shifted his glasses from his eyes to his forehead and looked around in alarm, as if he had come into his house and found a stranger there. He asked what he asked, said what he said, took out a notebook, put his glasses back in place, and wrote what he wrote. Finally, he brought Mrs. Herbst to the room where women in labor wait to be assigned their beds. Manfred dragged along behind his wife, then came and sat with her.

Manfred sat at Henrietta’s side with the other women about to give birth, thinking about her and her pregnancy, which had come upon them not by design for, being past midlife, she was, presumably, beyond such concerns. How would she withstand the anguish of birth and how would she endure what follows? But what is done is done. Now, we have no choice but to accept whatever windfall comes our way as a gift from heaven. He reached over to stroke her tired arms, her withered cheek. When she dozed off, a sad smile playing on her swollen lips, he dozed off too, becoming his wife’s partner in anguish and in joy.

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