Kensei Jon's Arc

Chapter 21 of 49

The morning after the midwife, Kensei sat at the work table and could not thread the needle. His hands would not hold still. Jeon-min was carrying a child, and Kensei knew nothing about children. He had never held one. He had grown up with servants who took infants away and brought them back clean. He did not even know how a baby was fed. "You're staring at the wall," Jeon-min said. He was mending a sleeve, calm, as if nothing had changed. "I don't know how to do any of this," Kensei said. "When the child comes, I won't know what to do. You'll be tired and hurting, and I'll be useless." Jeon-min set down the sleeve. "Then learn." "From who?" "The midwife." He said it like it was obvious. "She's two doors from the thread seller. Go." Kensei went. The midwife was an old woman with ink on her fingers, sorting dried herbs into small jars. She did not look up when he entered. "The husband," she said. "Your wife sent you to be useful?" "He's not my wife. He's my husband. He's carrying our child." Kensei felt the old fear rise, then pass. The woman only nodded and kept sorting. "Then you'll do the carrying of everything else," she said. "Sit." She made him work. She handed him a wrapped bundle of cloth the weight of a newborn and showed him how to hold the head. His arms shook. She corrected them. She showed him how to warm water, how to test it on his own wrist, how to burp a child against his shoulder. She told him what Jeon-min would need after the birth, the bleeding, the fever to watch for, the days he would not be able to stand. "Most fathers faint or run," she said. "You didn't faint yet." Kensei stayed until the light turned. He asked every question he had. When he ran out, he thought of more. The woman answered all of them and charged him three coins for the afternoon. He walked home with his arms remembering the weight. The strange cat sat in their doorway, the one with markings like fish scales. It followed him inside. Jeon-min looked up from the sleeve. "Well?" Kensei crouched in front of him. He put his hand flat on Jeon-min's stomach, the way the midwife had shown him. His hand did not shake now. "I know how to hold the head," Kensei said. "I know how to test the water. I know what you'll need after, and I'll be there for it. All of it." He looked up. "I won't be useless." Jeon-min was quiet. Then he put his hand over Kensei's. "No," he said. "You won't." The fear was gone. In its place was a job Kensei knew how to begin. He picked up the needle. This time his hands held still.