Memoirs of an Ice-Cream Lady (Part 25)
By Emily Ho
Editor’s Note: The author runs an ice-cream parlor on Hong Kong’s Lamma Island. When time allows, she draws caricatures and writes. This series consists of semi-autobiographical anecdotes blending fact and fiction.
The Labor Day
“PUSH! Push! Push harder!” the big, dark-skinned midwife shouted to Emily’s mother who labored inside the woman’s shabby clinic. Instead of an air-conditioner, the clinic had just a dusty, old fan hovering on the ceiling near dim light bulbs that flashed at times as if to echo the shouting.
“Come on. Just push a bit more. It’ll be easy. Your fourth baby’s on the way.” The midwife’s voice softened. Personally and professionally, she liked to see people having big families.
Late on that hot summer night, Emily’s mother sweated and panted, battling with help only from her “cheerleader”, the midwife. “Hope it’s a boy,” she secretly prayed.
Emily’s father, who had just returned from work in the city, waited outside the room, smoking a cigarette.
“I’m going downstairs for wanton noodles!” he yelled to his wife through the door. His wife’s screaming drowned out his voice, but he appeared unconcerned if she had heard.
With a cigarette in hand, he hastened downstairs. Smoke trailed from his mouth and nose. After finishing his noodles and a pack of cigarettes, he returned carrying yet another burning cigarette.
Then he saw the midwife holding a tiny creature still covered in blood and body fluids. Immediately he looked, but saw no “hanging down” sexual organ between the little legs.
“Sorry, Mr. Ho, it’s a girl again,” the midwife whispered.
“Do you want to hold your baby, sir?” she asked.
“Never!” Emily’s father shouted. He extinguished the cigarette by stomping on it with his right sole. Then turning away from his wife, he left the room and again descended the dark staircase.
Hurt and disappointed, Emily’s mother grasped a corner of the stained bed-sheet to wipe away tears. But moments later big teardrops dripped along her nose and onto the newborn’s face.
“Showered” by her mother’s tears, the baby girl cried too as if sensing what a hard life waited.
Suddenly the clinic filled with the cries of two females.
“Woo…Woo…”
"Wha...Wha..."
Coming Soon:
Delicate Procedure Happens in 'Heaven' (more Memoirs of an Ice-Cream Lady)
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