The Refuge

by Ann H. Gabhart

  “A strong contraction from the feel of it,” she said. “How often?”

  The pain slid away like a leaf thrown in a brook. I pulled in some air. “I don’t know. I tried to keep count but I must have fallen asleep for a few minutes.” I reached for her hand. “Will these ease and go away? It is still early.”

  “Nay, I think early or not, your time has come. We need to run for Sister Lettie.”

  “I don’t think I can run.”

  Sister Ellie smiled. She had not lit a candle, but the moon sent light in through the window. A ghostly gray light that made me shiver.

  Sister Helene came to stand at the end of my bed then. “What is wrong?” She wasn’t particularly tall, but she seemed to tower over me, her face in shadows.

  “The baby is coming,” Sister Ellie told her.

  “Now? Are you sure?” Sister Helene twisted her hands together. She seemed even more fearful than I. “What must we do?”

  “Worry not, Sister. Your job will be to pray for our sister and her baby. I will rouse Sister Genna to fetch Sister Lettie.”

  Sister Ellie left my side then and I felt strangely bereft without her hand in mine. I tried to sit up to keep her in sight and perhaps keep the fear at bay, but moving brought on a new pain. One not quite so fierce but fierce enough. I fell back on the pillow.

  Sister Helene moaned as though the pain had grabbed her as well. Even in the dim light I could see her wide eyes and the way her hands trembled as she clutched her nightgown.

  As the pain eased, I thought to comfort her. “I will be fine. This is as it’s supposed to be.”

  “It does not seem right,” she whispered.

  “But it is the way of nature ever since Eve was tempted in the garden.”

  “Yea.” Sister Genna, aroused from sleep, frowned down at me. She had already slipped on her dress and was tying on her cap. “In pain you shall bring forth children.”

  Sister Genna and I had not formed the sister feelings that I shared with Sister Ellie and Sister Helene. She kept to herself, rarely speaking when in our retiring room. She had come into the Shaker village shortly before Walter and me. Sister Ellie tried to draw her out, but every question was answered with a curt yea or nay. The words from the Bible just now spoken were the most I had heard her say at one time.

  “Have you been through this pain?” I asked.

  “Yea. Twice. All for naught.” The sorrow in her voice made me forget my pain for a moment.

  Sister Helene looked at her. “Why for naught?”

  “One never drew breath. The other took a fever and died before his first birthday.”

  “I am sorry.” I put my hand on the bump that was my baby, while Sister Ellie knelt beside me and squeezed my other hand.

  “Nay, it was God’s will. At least that is what the Shakers say.” Sister Genna leaned down to pull on her shoes. When she straightened back up, her face was set as she stared at me. “Time will tell God’s will for yours.”

  Sister Helene tried to put her hand on Sister Genna in sympathy, but the woman shrugged her off. “I will fetch the Shaker doctor. You best tell the eldress to unlock the door. They keep us locked in, you know.”

  “Yea, she is right. I will go.” Sister Helene followed Sister Genna from the room.

  A new pain gripped me. Tears slid down my cheeks. I wasn’t sure if the tears were from the pain or the worry of Sister Genna’s words. God’s will. Had it been God’s will that Walter was on the steamboat to die? Was it God’s will that I was here in this Shaker room with nothing to look forward to except working with my hands and being separated from my child? If my child lived. I had worried of many things, but not about my baby dying.

  “Oh, dear God,” I whispered as the pain eased. But I knew not what to pray next. For God’s will to be what I willed, but how could I be that bold?

  “Block Sister Genna’s words from your thoughts. Some babies do not survive the perils of birth, but many more do. This baby will.” Sister Ellie leaned close to look directly in my face.

  “How do you know?”

  “I feel his strength under my hand. He is anxious to get out into the world. Small, perhaps, but full of courage like his mother.”

  “Thank you, Sister Ellie. You are a heaven-sent blessing. If I don’t make it through the birth, I want you to know how much you mean to me.”

  Sister Ellie shook my hand as if to shake away my words. “Nay. I’ll listen to no such talk as that.”

  A spasm fiercer than those before seized me and I gasped.

  “Scream if you must.” Sister Ellie gripped both my hands as though to give me her strength.

  But I pressed my lips together and did not let out the scream that gathered with the pain. What would all the sleeping Shakers think to be awakened with screams? I had heard a few of them shout in their worship before Eldress Maria banned me from the meetings, but screams in the night would not be welcomed.

  Then Eldress Maria was standing over me. No, looming over me. The candle she held threw shadows across her face so that I could not see her clearly, but I heard disapproval in her words. “So it is her time. I thought she lacked a month yet.”

  Sister Ellie answered. “Babies sometimes come early.”

  “She needs to be in the infirmary. Not here.” Eldress Maria stepped to my side and held the candle higher. “Can you stand, Sister Darcie?”

  “Yea.” I claimed I could with no idea whether that was true or not. Perhaps when the pain ebbed I could.

  An older woman hustled up then. “Give the poor girl room.” She moved in front of the eldress. “I will decide if she must be moved.”

  Her face was lined with wrinkles, but there was kindness in her eyes. She smiled at me. The first smile I had seen since the pain took me over. “All is going to be well, young sister.”

  “It will be as the good Lord intends.” Eldress Maria softly spoke the words behind her. They sounded like a prayer.

  “Yea,” Sister Lettie agreed. “And he generally intends new life to come.” As she talked, she was feeling my stomach, probing along the lines of the baby. “How are the pains, dearie?”

  “Stronger with each one,” I said.

  “And how long have you been suffering?”

  “Her back was paining her before the evening meal,” Sister Ellie said when I hesitated.

  I looked at her. “I did not tell you that.”

  “You did not have to. I saw the way you moved.”

  “Never mind that.” The old woman put her hand on my forehead. “Just say if it is so.”

  “Yea, pains have settled in my back all day.” I could feel the approach of another contraction. I didn’t know whether to run toward it or try to push it away. I gripped Sister Ellie’s hand until it must have hurt, but she made no complaint.

  “Easy, little one,” Sister Lettie said. “Let the pain roll over you. Accept it, for it is what will bring your baby to you.”

  “We should take her to your infirmary in the Centre House.” Eldress Maria had moved back to the foot of the bed. Shadows darkened the wall behind her. Tall shadows nearly to the ceiling, moving in dreadful dances that seemed to mock me as the contraction seized me. I shut my eyes and tried to do as the old Shaker said. Embrace it, for without the pain my baby could not be born.

  “Nay, she is too far along to move. This room will serve well. We need hot water and towels. And more candles.”

  I heard her instructions through a fog of pain.

  “Sister Ellie can see to that,” Eldress Maria said.

  Sister Ellie started to stand, but I gripped her hand with all the strength I could muster. I did not want her to leave my side. Someone who truly loved me and who had walked this path before me.

  “It’s all right, Sister Darcie. I will return.” Sister Ellie stroked my face with her free hand and tried to pull her other hand from mine.

  “Nay.” I held her hand as though my very life depended on her staying beside me. Somehow I felt it did, reasonab
le or not.

  The Shaker doctor motioned Sister Ellie to stay where she was. “Eldress, get someone else to heat the water. This sister seems to be needed here.”

  “But that is foolish. You are here with her.” Eldress Maria sounded cross.

  “Foolish or not, it is how it will be. There are many other sisters in this house who can be of help.”

  “I know what is needed.” Sister Genna slid into view beside Eldress Maria. “I can boil the water. Sister Helene can help.”

  “But I am praying.” Sister Helene’s voice sounded timid, a bit shaky. “For our sister and the baby.”

  “Pray as we walk.” Sister Genna’s voice was as firm as the sound of her footsteps going out of the room.

  “Go with her,” the eldress said. “You need not be witness to this.”

  “Yea,” murmured Sister Helene, ever obedient. As she followed Sister Genna from the room, I wanted to call after her to not forget the prayers. But I stayed silent.

  “It is a natural part of life,” Sister Lettie said quietly.

  “Not a Shaker’s life,” Eldress Maria said.

  “Many who are Shakers have borne children before they came into the Society. Your own mother suffered these birthing pains giving you life, Eldress.” Sister Lettie stroked my belly as she talked, her voice calm and soothing. “Even our Savior had an earthly mother.”

  “But that birth was miraculous. A virgin bearing the son of God.”

  “Yea, miraculous it surely was,” Sister Lettie said. “And we cannot know for the Bible does not tell us if Mary had to suffer the same birthing pains as other mothers in the world. Perhaps our Lord’s birth was as amazingly singular as his conception. Or it could be Mary suffered the same as any mother to bring him into this world. Be that as it may, this young sister is beset with birthing pains, and we must do everything we can to help her.”

  Her voice settled down over me like a soft blanket. With the pain receding, I attempted a smile. “Thank you.”

  “Just relax, little mother. We must be patient and allow your baby to come in his own good time.”

  “He’s early,” I said.

  “How early?”

  “Four weeks as best I can figure.”

  “Do not concern yourself,” Sister Lettie said. “Let us bring the baby out into the light and then we will keep him warm and healthy.”

  “Or not. The Lord may take the baby as punishment for wrong thinking.” Eldress Maria leaned toward me. The candlelight made her shadow waver on the far wall.

  “Now, now.” Sister Lettie glanced up at the woman. “We must dwell on the good, not the bad.”

  I shut my eyes to keep from seeing Eldress Maria’s frown. I didn’t think she was being intentionally cruel. I thought instead she merely had no notion of how I already loved this child. As Mary surely loved Jesus. As Sister Ellie had loved each of her children. As she still did, even though separated from them. I was far from alone in birthing a beloved child.

  Yet even though countless women had traveled this path before me, each had surely felt alone in spite of those around her. Husbands could not birth the child. Nor could sisters. Even those sisters, like Sister Ellie, who had brought children into the world.

  I surrendered to the pain then. Floating with it. Absorbing it. Wondering if I would survive it. But I continued to breathe as the pains grew closer together with barely time to catch my breath and recover before the next one roared toward me. I entered another dimension. Voices continued to echo in my head. Sister Ellie’s whispers. The old doctor’s words as she spoke of the birth of Jesus.

  If Mary felt such pain, I was sorrowful for her.

  15

  The night went on forever. The pains crashed over me one after another. Sister Ellie stayed by my side, speaking Scripture now and again. Sister Lettie massaged my abdomen and assured me all was proceeding as it should. If Sister Helene or Eldress Maria stayed in the room, I couldn’t see them. I imagined Sister Helene on her knees praying for my baby, or at least I thought of that when the pain wasn’t blanking out all thoughts. Sister Genna surprised me by gently bathing my face and then rolling up the cloth for me to clamp between my teeth as I fought against the need to scream.

  At daybreak when the rising bell rang through the village, I was not sure I could survive another contraction, but then Sister Lettie said my baby’s head was crowning. “Just a few more pushes, dearie, and you can rest.”

  My mind was ready to refuse, but my body had no choice except to push. Sister Genna and Sister Ellie raised my shoulders up and held me to give me a bit of extra strength.

  “Good, young sister. The sweet head is in my hands. Plenty of dark hair,” Sister Lettie said. “Only a little more now.”

  I cried out then with another push. Whether it was a cry of pain or victory, I was not sure, but my body felt a release and I knew my baby was no longer hidden within me.

  Eldress Maria’s voice came from somewhere in the room. “You are disturbing the peace of the morning.”

  “Worry not, Eldress,” Sister Lettie said. “We have reason to celebrate. A new little sister is here.”

  A girl. I had been so sure I carried a boy but I felt no disappointment. A sweet girl child to hold and love. I fell back against the pillow, joy overcoming my weariness. But then all was quiet. Too quiet. I pushed up off the bed again to look. Beside me Sister Ellie held her breath and a tear slid down Sister Genna’s cheek as she stroked my hair.

  Breaking the silence, Sister Helene sounded fearful. “Is she supposed to be blue?”

  “Nay,” Eldress Maria said. “Such is the result of sinful living.” She did not sound jubilant, but sad.

  “No.” The word exploded out of me as I pushed up higher to see my baby. She was too still, too small, too gray.

  “Breathe, sweet child,” Sister Lettie whispered as she flipped the baby over in her hands and thumped her back.

  “Please. Please.” I sent the frantic words heavenward. The thought of losing my baby before I could feel her warm breath on my cheek was too horrible to contemplate.

  Please, Lord, forgive whatever wrongs I’ve done and let my baby live.

  I didn’t really believe the Lord would punish my wrongs by not letting my baby draw breath, but at that desperate moment I was not thinking clearly. Instead Eldress Maria’s words were shattering my heart. The result of sinful living. My love for Walter and his for me had not been sinful, but my baby lay without moving in Sister Lettie’s hands.

  Sister Lettie blew softly into my baby’s face and then massaged her back. I dared not think of the seconds passing as I willed my breath into my baby’s lungs. How many seconds would be too long?

  Sister Ellie gripped my hand and I knew she was praying as fiercely as I. Then into the silence came a weak cry like that of a young kitten.

  “Yea, sing to us, baby sister.” Sister Lettie stroked the baby’s back and the cry became stronger.

  Sister Ellie cried out hallelujah and Sister Genna actually laughed. But tears flooded my eyes and sobs choked me.

  “There, there, young sister,” Sister Lettie smiled at me. “Your little one lives. Let your tears be those of joy.”

  And they were. Joy and thanksgiving. I fell back on the pillow and Sister Genna handed me a cloth to wipe my face. When I seemed unable to do so, she took the cloth from me to gently pat my face.

  “I am glad,” she whispered and somehow I knew she was thinking of her own lost babies.

  Sister Lettie wrapped the baby in a towel and handed her to Eldress Maria, who was beside her. I tried to get up to take her from the woman, but Sister Lettie pushed me down. “You have more work to do, my sister. You can hold your baby soon enough, but first we must finish here. You must pass the afterbirth.”

  She began massaging my abdomen, and my body obliged, even as I kept my eyes on the eldress. I was surprised to see her face gentle as she looked down at the bundle in her arms. And then she sang a few words to her. “’Tis a gift to be simpl
e. ’Tis a gift to be free.”

  As if she regretted her tender thoughts, she looked up and held the baby out. “This child needs cleaning.”

  Sister Genna stepped away from my bed to take the baby. “Yea, I can do that.” She glanced back at me. “Worry not, I will take great care with her.”

  “I know you will.” I looked at Sister Genna with new eyes. Before she had seemed to want to stay aloof, but perhaps I had been too wrapped up in myself to note her loneliness. The three of us—Sister Ellie, Sister Helene, and I—should have opened our arms and ears to her and not let her shut us away. Now this little child, my baby, had brought her into our circle.

  Sister Lettie patted my legs as she positioned me after pulling away the towels she had placed under me on the bed. “You did well, young sister. Very well.”

  My eyes went from her kind face to Sister Genna, who wrapped my baby in a neck kerchief and brought her to me. “Here, mother. See your child.”

  Tears threatened to overflow my eyes again as I reached for her. I had never seen anything more beautiful than the baby’s sweet round face. She let out a new wail, stronger this time.

  “That’s right, little sister.” Sister Lettie laughed. “Let us hear what you have to say.” She came to look down at us. “Do you have wraps and nappies for the dear one?”

  “Yea, in the bureau’s bottom drawer. I was allowed to make some when I was in the sewing room.” I didn’t look up at Sister Lettie. I could not take my eyes off my baby. I touched her cheek and she turned toward me.

  Sister Lettie laughed again. “A good sign. She is already hunting for her nourishment, but rest a few minutes before you try nursing her. Cuddling is what you both need right now.”

  “What are we going to do?” Eldress Maria spoke up. “She can’t stay here.”

  “What do you mean, Eldress? Where else would she stay?” Sister Lettie sounded puzzled.

  “In the Children’s House.”

  “Nay. Not yet. This seems the perfect room with three sisters more than willing to tend to the young sister and her baby. One of the brethren can fetch a cradle for the room.” Sister Lettie stroked the baby’s head.