by Alice White
When he saw her, it wasn’t the look of a man who was happy to see his wife early in the morning. It was a heavyset look, one that brings about trouble and change. Noemie hated to see him like that, but she knew the cause.
“Callaway,” she whispered, barely audible.
He heard her well enough to turn towards her, inquiringly. “I’m sorry for last night.”
Her gaze traveled downward, towards the floor, like a scolded little child who knew it was her turn to apologize. “I know we can’t keep her,” she finally said out loud.
He seemed surprised to hear her say it. He expected more of a fight, but was happy that there was none.
“That’s very reasonable of ya, Noemie.” He said gently. He wasn’t really upset with her. He was upset at this whole situation that had turned his world upside down. He said he didn’t want any kids, and he thought they had both agreed on this. But then, to find a baby on your doorstep? How crazy was that? No, there was no way he was going to change his mind about keeping this baby. He knew it, and he was sure hoping that she knew it as well. From the looks of it, she was starting to accept it.
“We’re going to have to find the baby’s parents, or at least one of them,” she said.
“Sure thing. We’ll do it together.” He approached her and took her hands in his. The look in his eyes was one of love, and she knew that everything was alright now. It was just that if everything was alright, why did her heart feel so heavy? Why didn’t she feel like everything was perfect?
“And if the parents are having some problems, we’ll offer them financial help or any help they might need. That’s the Christian thing to do, right?”
He smiled. This was the man she’d fallen in love with, not the one who yelled at her last night. This wonderful helpful soul who would put the happiness and wellbeing of others before his own. She hugged him tightly and hid her face in his broad shoulders. She felt like crying but managed to suppress her tears.
“Let me make you something nice for breakfast.” She released her body from his grip and turned towards the cupboards.
“I’d sure like that,” she heard him say. “And I gotta go into town today anyway, so I’ll ask around if anyone knows anything ‘bout any babies or strangers in town. Not sure we’ll get anything, but it’s worth a shot.” He nodded, seemingly to himself.
She smiled without turning around to face him, busy with the eggs and bacon, which he finished shortly afterwards. He left to do his errands, but not before giving her a parting kiss on the forehead.
“It’ll all be alright, darlin’,” he said. Somehow, she believed him.
Once left alone, she went to see Rose and the baby, who was soundly asleep.
“Any troubles?” she asked.
“Nah, just a little teethin’,” Rose replied. “But I’ll be happy to get back to mah duties.”
“Of course, Rose. I’m really grateful for your help.” She placed a hand on Rose’s shoulder in a gesture of friendship and appreciation.
“Don’t mention it, Ma’am.” Rose smiled and left Noemie alone with the slumbering child.
Noemie sat next to the baby, carefully so as not to stir her. It was the sweetest child she had ever seen. Its little nose was flaring, and every once in a while, the baby made noises of sweet satisfaction. Noemie couldn’t help but feel proud because she was responsible for having made the child feel this way.
“I will miss you when we give you back,” she whispered to the child. “I do wish there was a way to keep you here, with us. But…” She closed her eyes and just for one brief moment imagined how happy they all could be together. But it wasn’t meant to be. Callaway had made that perfectly clear and she had to listen to him.
She spent the entire afternoon with the baby, playing with her, and the time just flew by. Without her even realizing, it was already time to prepare supper. Callaway would return any minute. Being the good cook that she was, it was no trouble to whip something up quickly, which would still satisfy both a hungry and delicate palate. She knew Callaway enjoyed good food, so she made sure that all their meals were extra delicious. And tonight was no exception.
As they were sitting down to have their supper, Rose came to fetch the baby again.
“So, I asked round town ‘bout the baby,” Callaway started as he enjoyed the smell of the food that was brought before him. “No one seems to have heard nothin’. I even asked at the hospital, thinkin’ maybe there was some accident or somethin’. These times are kinda dangerous, people aren’t lookin’ out for one another like they used to. So maybe these people had an accident, some robbery or somethin’ and they didn’t know what to do with a baby, so they dropped her off at the first house that was on the way. Like I said, no one’s heard nothin’.”
For Noemie, this was good news. It meant that the little baby would get to stay with them for a little while longer, and this made her very happy, though she knew that it wouldn’t be good for her to show it. She tried to suppress her enthusiasm.
“Oh, really? That’s not good.” She actually managed to sound believable. “What’ll we do if we don’t find her parents?”
“Well…” He scratched his head as he tried to think of an answer, but had no idea how to go about this. “I guess we’ll try to find her a good home. We sure won’t be keepin’ her ourselves,” he concluded as he helped himself to some steamed corn.
She didn’t like his words. They could provide for her a loving and stable home, if only he would agree to this. But she knew better than to push him. At least not now.
“Yeah, I reckon that’s for the best.” His final words concluded the topic and she knew that he didn’t want to talk about it anymore.
She tried to distract him by asking him about his day, and it worked. Callaway told her about a funny incident that happened to a friend of his, and Noemie found herself laughing until there were tears in her eyes. She forgot about the whole baby issue, if at least for a short while, and enjoyed a dinner with her husband. Afterwards, they retired to the parlor and spent a quiet night reading. In all truth, he seemed to be able to focus more on his book than she did on hers, but it was a pleasant evening nonetheless. Unfortunately, it was interrupted.
“Ma’am?” Rose knocked on the door, holding the baby. “I’m sorry, but I can’t take care of the baby tonight. My own child’s sick and I need to take care of him.” She extended her arms, offering the little slumbering child to Noemie.
Noemie looked at Callaway, then at the baby. She accepted her into her arms without a second thought and wished Rose good night.
“I was hopin’ we’d be able to spend one night together as husband and wife, without that… thing,” he suddenly said, in an annoyed voice. It surprised her.
“Rose’s child is sick. I can’t make her take care of him and the baby.” She tried to find an excuse, but in fact, she was hoping that the baby would end up in her arms tonight as well.
“Yeah,” Callaway replied, before closing his book and putting it back on the shelf. “I’ll call it a night.” He went out without wishing her good night.
She had to admit, it pained her to see him revert back to this behavior after such a pleasant evening.
As it would turn out, Noemie wasn’t going to get any sleep that night. The baby kept crying all the time, but that was not the worst of it. The worst moment was when she heard Callaway shout from the corridor: “Shut that baby up, now!”
She knew that he had a difficult job to do tomorrow and he needed his rest. He had told her so at dinner. But how was she supposed to calm down a colicky baby? There was no quiet her for hours, until finally, somewhere in the early hours of the morning, the baby fell asleep.
But that didn’t mean much to Callaway who stormed out of the house, without saying a word to Noemie, despite passing straight by her. He didn’t even look at her, and she knew that he was angrier than he had ever been.
When he returned home that evening, she knew that he couldn’t avoid being in her comp
any for supper, so she decided to bury the hatchet, if possible.
“How was your day?” she asked, innocently.
He, in turn, looked at her, sending daggers. “What do ya think? I barely slept, I couldn’t focus on the job that needed to be finished today and it’s left for tomorrow now. How was my day?” His voice was angry and upset, though he wasn’t yelling.
She noticed that he was just rolling his food from one side of the plate to the other, not really eating much. This was also a bad sign.
“I’m sorry about the baby,” she apologized, though there was nothing for her to apologize for.
“It’s not your fault the baby’s cryin’,” he stated. “But it is your fault it’s still here.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“We need to give it away. We agreed we won’t be keepin’ it, so there’s no point in it bein’ here and keepin’ us awake all night.”
“But I thought we’d look for her parents some more.”
“No, Noemie. No one’s heard anythin’. If they had, or if the parents wanted ‘er back, they would have come by now. No one came, right?”
Noemie shook her head.
“See? It needs to go, Noemie.” He said this last part lovingly, careful not to hurt her. But this was impossible. Noemie knew now that she couldn’t, she wouldn’t let go of the baby. Not after everything. She wanted the baby and she wanted a full family – the kind of family she never thought she could have, but through God’s grace was now possible. If only Callaway would see eye to eye with her.
“I don’t want it to go…” She said, teary eyed. “I want us to keep her. Why can’t we?”
Callaway sighed heavily. It was obvious that this topic was troubling him greatly, and it was something that couldn’t be solved with just one conversation.
“Noemie, I…” He started, but couldn’t finish his sentence. In what other way could he explain to her that he simply didn’t want children and that was that? Why was there a need to constantly explain, constantly justify the way he was feeling?
“I just don’t want kids,” he repeated, hoping that it would end their conversation.
“But… why?” she pleaded. Her eyes were filled with tears, and he knew that just one word was needed for the waterfalls to start gushing. So instead of releasing this one word, he quietly left the room.
Chapter 5
Throughout the course of the following few days, Noemie did her best to stay out of Callaway’s way and to keep the baby as invisible as possible. Having been given so much attention and affection, the baby had become calmer and happier, which was expressed in her overall behavior. She would eat, sleep and make sweet noises, but apart from that, it seemed that the colicky days of incessant crying were finally over.
Noemie found herself talking to the baby more and more often, until finally, against every reasonable thought in her mind, she gave her a name. Pearl. Of course, she told this to nobody, and she never called the baby by this name with anyone around, but it gave her a soothing feeling to name the baby that would be taken from her arms any day now. Even the baby seemed to respond to it, or at least to the sound of her voice. Whatever the reason, Noemie couldn’t take her hands off the baby.
Just as she had suspected, Callaway returned home one evening and had important news for her.
“Noemie,” he started kindly. “I found a couple that would be willing to adopt the baby, and rest assured, they’ll give her a mighty good home. She’ll be lacking in nothin’.” He placed his hand gently on Noemie’s and she knew that he wasn’t doing this to hurt her.
And after all, maybe that was the best way to do it. Pearl would be much happier with two parents who wanted her than with one parent who did and one who could barely stand her. Yes, that was for the best.
“I understand,” she said, almost silently.
“That’s a good girl.” He smiled and kissed her on the cheek. “In a short while, you’ll forget all this nonsense and you’ll remember how happy we were, just you and I, before this whole mess started.” He tasted the supper and commented on how delicious it was.
Noemie barely heard him but did manage to nod and smile bleakly. Somehow, she wasn’t sure that she would be able to forget this whole thing as easily as he said she would. This baby, Pearl, had gotten under her skin, and she had started thinking of her as her own child. And when one loses a child, the pain never goes away, it only becomes a little more bearable as time passes by.
She prayed hard that night. Harder than she had ever prayed before. She prayed for strength, for guidance and for compassion. That couple, whose names she wanted to forget on purpose, would be coming for Pearl in a week’s time. Only one week to enjoy Pearl’s presence in the house and then it would all be over. Forever. Noemie couldn’t bear the thought.
Soothed by God’s gentle light, she managed to fall asleep and woke up rested and relieved. She knew that He had heard her and that He would help her. She was just afraid that the form of His help wouldn’t be what she wanted.
That night, she was surprised by Callaway’s early return home. It was way before supper time and he caught Noemie and the baby in the parlor, reading a book together.
Even before he entered, he could hear the baby’s sweet gurgles and giggles, and suddenly he felt something that he’d never felt before. He had no idea what that something was, but it melted around his heart and stayed there, warming him up. He knocked on the door and apologized for the interruption.
Noemie smiled and the baby smiled as well. It smiled at him for the first time, its little blue eyes glistening in the setting sun, whose rays were trickling in through the window. It was truly a magical sight to behold: a mother and her child.
“Can I get you some tea?” he suddenly offered, not knowing why. She was usually the one offering him all sorts of drinks and snacks. Not this time.
“Actually, I would like a tea,” she replied. “And the baby…”She stopped herself. It would be too much of her to ask him to warm up the baby’s milk. “Yes, tea would be perfect, thank you.”
“What about the baby? Does it need milk?”
She heard him ask and it passed through her like thunder, shaking her to the very core of her being. Did he just ask about the baby’s wellbeing? Did he actually pay attention to it?
“Yes…” She looked at him, in awe. “Milk. She needs milk.” She was at a loss for words.
“I can warm it up, no problem.” He smiled and went to the kitchen, returning fifteen minutes later with both the tea and the milk.
As Noemie was feeding the baby, she thought to herself that this would be the perfect time to ask him that dreaded question. Yes, it might ruin the magic of this moment, but she might also get the answer that she was looking for.
“Call? Can I ask you something?”
He sat across from her and nodded. “Sure thing.”
“Why don’t you want children?” All of a sudden, she regretted asking it. It’d be too much. He’d explode again, she was sure of this.
Instead, to her complete surprise, he just took a deep breath. “Babies… children… are frail beings,” he started. She saw how difficult this was for him and she loved him even more for telling her the truth, no matter how painful it was. “And I know that the good Lord put us all on this Earth not only to be good to one another, but also to procreate. To fill the Earth with children’s laughter.”
She smiled. He was finally opening up to her, and it seemed there was so much more to him than she had originally thought.
“But, Noemie, look at the world we live in. Just look at it. It’s full of bad things, bad people, tragic accidents and incidents that leave us questioning everything. Not that I’m saying that all of these are testing my faith, but… I’m wondering…” He paused and looked deeply into her eyes, as if trying to peer into her very soul. “I’m wondering what kind of a life my child can have when I can’t be there every step of the way to protect it?”
She finally realize
d it. It’s not that he didn’t want children in the real sense of the word. It was the opposite. He wanted them so much that the thought of him not being able to protect them every single second of every single day from all harm that might befall them, hurt his very being.
Noemie freed one hand and caressed him gently on the cheek.
“Oh, Callaway, you beautiful soul, you sweet, kind man.” She smiled at him. She’d had it all wrong, so very, very wrong. She felt guilty not giving him the benefit of the doubt but jumping to conclusions as to why he didn’t want children and how he was punishing her for something while in reality it was something completely different.
“And now when I look at you, at the two of you,” he continued. “It gives me hope. It makes me believe in the goodness of humanity once again and the possibility of perhaps…”
She felt like she was sitting on needles. Was he about to say what she thought he was going to say? But he remained silent.
“Callaway, sweetheart,” she whispered. “We are all put on this Earth for a purpose. Now, whether that purpose is to procreate or to serve the lord another way, only He knows. But He also wants us to know that there is nothing to fear as long as we carry Him in our hearts, as long as we act by His laws and obey His word. If we do all this, no harm shall befall us, or our beloved ones.”
“But, Noemie, the world is a cruel place.”
“Yes, it might be. That’s why you create a safe haven for your child at home. So that it knows that it always has somewhere to turn to when things get rough. You teach it that family is at the core of everything and that no one can love us like those whose blood we share.” She smiled at him.
Her words soothed him. They not only offered solace, but also a hint of hope, of a possibility for a brighter future.
“We also teach our children to do the same: to carry Him within their hearts, so that when they are away from us, their loving parents, they are never alone, never left to their own devices. Don’t you see, Callaway, that there is nothing to be afraid of as long as He is with us?”
