The Birth House

Dora imagines keeping Iris Rose and the baby safe with her. Iris Rose is just 13, and she worries that Brady Ketch will harm her. However, the bed around her is soaked in blood. Dora searches the Willow Book, which says that a woman who has “had hope beaten right out of her" will bleed like a river (256).

Iris Rose refuses the remedies Dora tries to give her because “she had already given her reason over to pain” (256). Delivering the afterbirth is difficult, and Iris Rose begins to bleed heavily. Dora directs Precious to burn the afterbirth with salt as it “helps slow her bleeding down” (257).

Dora tries to push on Iris Rose’s belly to get her womb to close and stop the bleeding. However, she feels “her heartbeats slow and faint, then silent” (257). Dora recalls Miss B. telling her that all she can do is “keep her safe until her angel come” and reflects that “Iris Rose has started her life with a soul that wanted to die” (257).

As a final check to see if Iris Rose is truly dead, Dora stabs her with a “dead needle,” which will be tarnished if she still lives and clean if she is dead (257).