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There wasn’t a lot of quiet time after Rick’s crew invaded the Greene farm. Up to that point, Hershel had done his best to shield his girls from the realities of the world they lived in now. It worked. Beth felt as if her mind and body had been in fight or flight mode for decades. While it was only a few years, sleeping with one eye open every night can age a person.
Beth was tired — more than just tired. She was weary to her very bones. Her soul ached just as much as her muscles. Lounging across the small bed in her cell, it was almost too easy to get lost in the book Daryl suggested for her. The lives of the characters in “Brave New World” were so stable. Planned out before they were even conceived. While she could feel that the whole thing was rather fishy — it read much like “1984” with less flesh-eating rats and more brain washing and weird sexual habits — Beth could also appreciate the idea of a world where she never had to worry about anything. She almost identified with Lenina, the promiscuous, shallow leading lady of the story. She likes being blissfully ignorant about the state of the world. Lenina accepts her role in everything, never questions it and never really has to. Beth was almost jealous of her easy life, however messed up it was.
As if Beth wasn’t allowed even a moment to forget her situation, the sound of the prison alarms flooded her cell. Her heart skipped a beat and she almost jumped clear off her bunk. Breathless, she dog-eared the page she was on and threw the book on the foot of her bed. Beth stepped out of her cell and immediately turned toward Daryl’s. He wasn’t standing there. She couldn’t remember if he was on watch. Beth felt a panic creep into her lungs, but the overwhelming loudness of the alarm made it hard to think. She looked around and saw Carol, T-Dog, and Glenn all running from the cell block toward the sound. Her father was seeing them out, and then turned and met Beth’s eye as Lori wobbled out of her cell with wet pants and wide eyes.
“We need to stay here,” Beth said, immediately finding herself at the pregnant woman’s side.
Hershel closed the gates to the cell block, and met the women. They were ushering Lori to her father’s cell, where he kept the most important supplies, to lock themselves in. Lori was protesting, saying she needed to finish tidying up the cell her and Carl were in. Just then, Carl ran into view. He skidded to a stop and put his hands up to grip the bars, taking in the sight of his mother holding her stomach calmly.
“You’re okay?” he asked nervously.
“The walkers will be coming,” Beth said hurriedly. “We’re locking ourselves in.”
“Let him in! Let him in!” Lori exclaimed, taking the few steps into Hershel’s cell and turning on her heel to glare at the Greenes.
Hershel patted his daughter on the shoulder with a knowing look, before leaving them there to unlock the gates for Carl.
“The baby’s coming!” Lori screamed, turning toward Beth, who was pulling the mattress from the bottom bunk onto the floor, as if she didn’t already know.
Beth gave Lori an assuring smile, placed a calm hand on the woman’s arm, and led her toward the mattress. “It’s going to be okay, alright? I just need you to breathe and try to stay calm.”
As the woman lowered herself onto the mattress, which was only barely softer than the ground, she propped her legs up and closed her eyes. “Carl was a rough delivery. I-I’m scared,” her tone had softened, but Beth figured it was more out of exhaustion than a calmer demeanor.
“We’re prepared okay? I know this seems like the worst case scenario, but it’s not,” Beth said coolly, because while Judith’s birth had been tragic before, even then it could’ve been worse — what if they had never found the prison, and didn’t have a solid roof over their heads?
Lori nodded. “Thank God for this pri—ohhhh,” the woman tensed up, gritted her teeth and squeezed her eyes shut, just as Hershel and Carl entered and the alarms stopped. The silence was deafening, and while the group all looked up when the sounds went quiet, there wasn’t much mention past that when another contraction started.
“Mom, it’s going to be okay,” the teenager said, springing into action and rushing to his knees by his mother’s head.
Hershel took his place in between the grunting woman’s splayed legs. Beth had already grabbed the supplies out from under the bunk where her father kept them, and he pulled gloves over his hands. “Alright Lori, you’ve progressed quickly, but I still think it’s going to be a while. We’re going to give you something for the pain, but it’s nothing like what you got for Carl, okay?”
Lori shook her head up and down frantically. The contractions had only just started, but they were already coming rapidly. Beth had only ever helped her father with animal births, she wasn’t even around the first time this happened — it had been Maggie. So she didn’t know much, but she figured Lori’s ongoing stress levels, even in the prison, would make for a premature labor. Beth just prayed the mother would live through it this time.
Beth found it hard to concentrate as Lori screamed, Carl tried to calm her, and Hershel instructed. At one point, the sound of walkers slamming against the gates of the cell block made them all pause, but Beth knew they were safe locked inside the cell, and they had much more pressing matters to attend to.
She remembered Maggie telling her about the emergency C-section, and Maggie always felt guilty because she thought their father would’ve been able to keep Lori alive. The fact that Hershel was now present for the labor gave Beth a little more hope for the baby to know her mother.
“Here she comes now, Lori,” Hershel crooned. “You’re doing grea—”
The man’s voice trailed off and his ever present smile faded as the baby’s toes peeked out first where its crowning head should have been. “Stop pushing, Lori,” Hershel commanded sternly, rising fear and panic out of Beth.
“What’s goin’ on?” she asked and glanced up at Lori, who’d lain back against the mattress as if thankful for the break.
Hershel simply shook his head, though, his hands fumbling with his bag of tools and supplies. From within, he pulled out a brown bottle, some gauze, and a variety of scalpels. “Bethy,” he began, nodding pointedly toward the povidone-iodine, “I need you to prep Lori’s belly. Can’t risk infection. Start within her pelvic area, cover up and over her naval.”
As Beth moved quickly to prepare Lori’s skin for incision, the sounds that enveloped the cell came to her slower. Carl’s reassurances sounded distant, as if he was comforting his mother from the other end of the cell block; and Lori’s pain-filled breaths were muffled to Beth’s ears. She worked fearlessly, handing Hershel one scalpel after the other as he thoroughly burned the blades with a lighter.
“The baby is breeched,” Beth heard her father explain to Lori, who nodded in understanding. A thousand and one complications entered Beth’s mind, which was foggy with adrenaline. A caesarean section would be the only option at this point to bring a healthy baby into this world. “I want you to take a breath, Lori. Hold it and release slowly when I tell you to.”
Hershel turned to Beth and pointed at the stack of towels beneath his bunk. “Try to keep her bleeding to a minimum.”
The incision happened smoothly and was accented by a pained yell from Lori and a series of gurgles from the walkers against the gate. Beth fought against the horizontal slice, holding it and the uterine wall open as Hershel grasped the baby and pulled her back through the birth canal. “Carl, I’ll need sutures,” the man continued instructing calmly as he gave one last tug and the baby entered the world.
Suddenly Lori’s cries were joined by a brand new baby’s. Beth couldn’t take her eyes off of the gooey, squirming life in her father’s hands. She held open a towel and he passed the infant off to her. She smiled as she wiped the baby down and Carl took over, helping Hershel with closing Lori’s belly up. Beth exchanged the soiled towel for a new one, and then finally wrapped the baby with a soft blanket.
“It’s a girl,” she said as she laid the baby against her mother’s chest.
Lori’s short spurts of breath came out as giggles of joy. Tears brimmed the mother’s eyes, and Beth felt tears in her own. “Hi Judith,” Lori cooed softly, brushing her fingers along the girl’s forehead.
Beth felt a sudden laugh bubble up and escape out of her. She was still crying, so it came out as a strange, happy kind of sob. Lori looked up to the blonde, smiling from ear to ear. “She just looks like a Judith, don’t you think?”
Nodding, Beth wiped tears from her cheek. “She’s perfect.”
•••
The cell block was abuzz much earlier than usual following Judith’s birth. The baby’s cries woke everyone, and most would filter out into the prison as quickly as possible. Carol and Beth took shifts helping Lori. Rick was still acting weird toward the mother of his children. Beth hoped seeing her and the baby together would help him get over whatever was still messing him up. But now he acted even more strange. Like he didn’t know the woman holding their baby, but he loved the baby more than anything. Beth could see it in his eyes.
But he wasn’t much to help out. And Beth could see how Lori would resent that. Beth almost resented him for rolling over when the baby woke the cell block and filtering out with the rest of them.
“I was just hoping the baby would help,” Lori said, mirroring Beth’s thoughts. The woman was ragged and exhausted. Her hair was a mess of knots, the dark circles under her eyes were getting bigger and darker by the day. But she was still beautiful. Glowing even, especially when she held Judith in her arms. “You know? It’s his baby. Shane is gone. It’s over."
Beth was surprised by Lori’s sharing. While Beth and Lori were close, they weren’t best friends. It was more of a mother-daughter relationship. But Beth guessed maybe she was all Lori had when it came to confidants. Taking the baby from Lori gently, the girl just smiled serenely at her. “You should lie down for a minute. It’s early.”
Holding Judith in her arms felt just as wonderful as it did before. The child was sweet and cooed at Beth when she was in her arms. Beth cooed back, tickling the baby gently with her fingers. “I’m sure Rick will come around,” Beth finally responded. “He carries the weight of the world on his shoulders, and right now that weight is a lot heavier. The alarms going off, I think, reminded us all that nowhere is as safe as a place like this seems. We got too comfortable.”
“But I wish he’d say that, Beth,” Lori sighed. “I probably shouldn’t be talking about this.”
Bouncing the baby to keep her happy, Beth shook her head. “It’s fine! Lori, I know I’m young but living in this world ages you. I appreciate you talking to me.”
“I’d rather talk about Daryl.”
A blush crept immediately into Beth’s cheeks. Daryl? Why the hell would she want to talk about him? Beth looked at the woman, her confusion apparent on her face.
Lori chuckled. “It’s so obvious.”
“What?”
“He likes you.”
Beth stopped dancing the baby around and turned on her heel to face Lori. “WHAT?”
Lori started to sit up, but Beth glared at her and the woman rested back again, but she was still amused. “I saw Carl reading a book and I asked him about it. He told me about you and Dixon going to find the library.”
“Yeah, so?”
“I’ve been with that man for years now, goodness, it’s been years . . . anyway, I can tell you reading hasn’t been on his to-do list possibly ever.”
Beth went back to dancing with Judith and mumbled, “He read in high school.”
“He went to high school? See? He talks to you. More than he talks to anyone. And the way he looks at you… Mmm.”
The blonde shot a look at the woman on the bed. “I’m just saying,” Lori said, holding up her hands innocently. “Rick used to look at me that way . . .”
Beth frowned. “I’m sorry.”
Lori swiped at the air with her hands as if she could push what she had said away. “Like I said, I would rather talk about Daryl. You like him, too?”
“Is that a question?”
Laughing, Lori shook her head, “You can answer in a lie, but I know the truth.”
Beth sighed, keeping her eyes trained on the cute baby in her arms. “Daddy would have a heart attack.”
Lori chuckled again, and Beth could tell sleep was taking hold of her. Which was good, the woman needed as much rest as she could get. “Don’t worry,” Lori spoke barely above a whisper now. “Your secret is safe with me.”