Mama Day

by Gloria Naylor

  “And if they get divorced …”

  “Can’t divorce someone you never married.”

  “… the rumor is that the widow Ruby will be his next wife.”

  “I guess you qualify as a widow, even though you murdered your first husband.”

  “Ruby did no such thing.”

  “She did.”

  “The man drowned, Miranda.”

  “You would, too, if someone hit you in the head with a two-by-four and pushed you off your boat. She told him she was gonna kill him if he kept messing with that little loose gal of Reema’s. I guess all them roots she had working on him wasn’t doing the job fast enough for her.”

  “I ain’t gonna believe that.”

  “Believe what you want. But no point in sugar-coating that letter—Baby Girl can read between the lines. She grew up around these folks.”

  “Are you writing this or me?”

  “If I was writing it, I’d just come right out and call a spade a—”

  Yup, it is just about nearing the point for Abigail to shove the paper and pen over to Miranda when a horn starts sounding long and frantic down by the bend onto the main road. They look toward the left from where they’re sitting, but all they could see way off is a cloud of dust and gravel. Something is coming, and coming fast. A dull throbbing begins in Miranda’s head.

  “Lord, it’s Ambush,” Miranda says.

  “Ambush?” Going to the porch railing and leaning over, Abigail squints down the road at the approaching dust cloud and soon Ambush’s flat-bed truck comes heading over the horizon. He’s going so fast that he almost passes the house before jamming on his brakes, sending the smell of burning rubber into Abigail’s yard.

  There ain’t a politer boy in all of Willow Springs than Ambush Duvall. Church-going since he was a tit, without being overly sanctimonious like his mama, Pearl. He’d take a little drink or tap his toe to music at times, enjoyed his Saturday nights. But it was early morning service on Sunday, and what he promised you on Monday still stood on Friday, with a good word for most folks in between. So they know something is terribly wrong when he walks right past Miss Abigail without a how-do and heads straight for Miranda.

  “Mama Day, I’d appreciate it if you’d come on over to the house with me right now. Bernice is awful sick—she thinks she’s gonna lose the baby.”

  “Baby?” Abigail can’t hide the shock on her face. “Since when Bernice …”

  Miranda takes the bowl of beans off her lap and gets up right away. Ambush ain’t hardly what you call the excitable type, it’s hard to tell anything by his tone of voice. But Miranda sees the trouble in his eyes, and whatever is going on over there, now ain’t the time to piece it all together. She knows Bernice Duvall is about as pregnant as she is, but this is one scared boy in front of her.

  “I better head on over there, Abigail.”

  “But, Miranda …”

  “I’ll talk to you later.”

  Ambush is already in the truck and gunning the motor. Miranda gets in beside him and tells him to stop by her trailer so she can pick up a few things.

  “Is she bleeding, Ambush?”

  “No, m’am. But she’s curled over clutching her stomach, and she’s got an awful high fever.”

  “How long she been like that?”

  “Since morning.”

  “Since morning? And you wait till now!”

  “But it wasn’t that bad at breakfast.”

  “She ate breakfast?”

  “No, ’cause she talked about a little queasiness in her stomach. And we just thought it was morning sickness—she been going on for a while about that.”

  Dear God, Miranda thinks, Bernice, what have you done?

  “Is it dry or wet?”

  “M’am?”

  “The fever, Ambush—is she sweating or is she just hot? I gotta know what to get out the house.”

  Ambush’s hands are trembling. “I can’t remember, Mama Day. I guess she’s sweating if she’s burning up like that … But then, maybe I just thought she was because …”

  “It’s okay, boy. Let’s just go on to your place. You got lard in the house, right? And some baking soda? Well, I can bring down the fever with that.” If fever’s all it is, Miranda thinks.

  As they fly on out toward the south end of the island, past the cluster of stores on the branch of the road leading to the bridge, Miranda is so distracted she doesn’t wave back to the few folks who can make out that she’s up in the truck with Ambush.

  “She won’t lose the baby, will she, Mama Day?”

  “I can’t say, Ambush. I can’t even say there is a baby. Why ain’t nobody known Bernice is pregnant?”

  “’Cause we wanted to be good and sure before we told folks—we’ve been disappointed before. Bernice didn’t even wanna tell my mama, since she’d carried on so about us not having kids after all this time. You know how upset Bernice can get, and Mama always going on about a judgment from God. But I don’t see how God can punish us for liking to go out and dance on the weekends. Why, I never even touched Bernice before we—”

  Your mama is a Bible-thumping idiot, Miranda almost says aloud. But instead, “If Pearl thinks all God got to worry about is two young people hearing some of that silly boogie-woogie music y’all like, then He ain’t worth serving. But now how long Bernice say she been pregnant?”

  “Her monthly is six weeks overdue.”

  “And she always been regular, ain’t she?”

  “Yes, m’am. And then when the morning sickness started, we were so happy. I told Bernice she could stop taking them pills now, but she said she’d keep on just in case.”

  “Pills? What pills, Ambush?”

  “The ones she got from Dr. Smithfield. No offense, Mama Day, but I told her since she got the pills from Dr. Smithfield we oughta call him, but she said no—go get you.”

  “Were you with her when she got the pills?”

  “No, m’am. She said she was going to see Dr. Smithfield about something, and the next week she had ’em.”

  They make it the rest of the way in silence. Ambush and Bernice live in one the prettiest parts of Willow Springs. Counting all the Duvalls, they have near a thousand acres, over half of it turned to truck farming, and the rest woods and bluff land that slope down to the water. And Ambush built Bernice a house that lets her look out over The Sound from her front window, and that’s shaded by the woods in the back. When they pull up to the brick house, Miranda is so angry with Bernice that she could strangle her. Dr. Smithfield never gave her no fertility pills—he told her long ago her system couldn’t handle ’em. So if that’s what she taking, she’s stole ’em from where she works. She’s risked losing her good name—and for what? For lack of a little patience. She softens a bit when she sees how sick Bernice really is. Just walking into the bedroom, she can smell the fever—a dry burning. She’s laying on top of the covers, still in her paisley nightgown, and has dozed off into a fitful sleep.

  “Bernice, I got Mama Day for you.” Ambush touches her shoulder gently.

  Bernice blinks her eyes open on a stone-faced Miranda. Her lips are cracked, her tongue is thick, and her thin body shudders with each dry swallow.

  “Mama Day, my baby—I don’t want to lose …”

  “Hush now, you just hush.” With the back of her hand, Miranda feels Bernice’s forehead and the side of her neck. She lifts Bernice’s wrist and feels for the rhythm of the blood while pressing her ear against her chest. Then she pulls back her eyelids and makes her roll her eyes around.

  “Now, where is the pain, Bernice?”

  “In my stomach.”

  “You sure it’s your stomach?” She turns Bernice on her back and makes her fold her hands gently on her belly. “Close your eyes and try to concentrate on the pain. Is it coming from your stomach for true?”

  “No, Mama Day, it’s my sides.” Bernice winces.

  Miranda nods. “And what kind of pain is it, Bernice?”

  “It hu
rts.”

  “I know it hurts, honey, but is it like little needles all in one spot or does it kinda radiate out and down?”

  “It’s like it’s happening in my stomach and side all at one time.”

  “Okay, lay still now.” Real gentle, she presses her fingers along the bone under Bernice’s stomach, and then starts to move up along her sides. “Now, you just nod when I touch a place more tender than the rest.” She ain’t but a little ways up when Bernice presses her lips and eyes together and nods.

  “Good girl. That’s what I thought.”

  “Can we save the baby?” Ambush asks her.

  “She ain’t pregnant.”

  “Then you gonna try to bring down her fever?” Ambush is the kind of man to ask that question next without missing a beat.

  “If it’s what I think it is, we can’t break this fever from the outside. Ambush, go get me a plastic bucket—spotless now—and a warm wash rag. And do you know where she keeps them pills?”

  Bernice cries out and doubles over in the bed. Ambush stands stock still as if the pain happened to him.

  “Go on, and get me what I asked, Ambush.” When she finally gets him out the room, she bends back over Bernice.

  “Now, Bernice, you listen to me good. You ain’t gonna die, though you probably feel like you are. And if you weren’t so sick, I’d give you a good horsewhipping this minute. Now, them fertility pills you stole done inflamed your female parts, and I won’t be able to tell what part it is till I go inside of you. But even then, since I don’t know much about them chemical drugs, we gonna have to get Dr. Smithfield over here to see if he knows. And if he don’t, then we got to find out through them folks at the drug store. And you know what that means—you done lost your job if they’re kindly, and you’ll end up in jail if they ain’t.”

  “I’m so sorry, Mama Day, so …”

  “Now, don’t take on to crying. The first order of business is to get you well. Think you can get out the bed and squat, Bernice? You gonna have to pee for me. And when Smithfield gets here, he’s gonna want some to take back with him.”

  Ambush comes in lugging a huge, four-gallon bucket.

  “Lord, Ambush, what did you think—I wanted her to swim in it? Now, take off her gown, help her squat on over it, and then wash her parts good down there with the rag.”

  Ambush stands there kinda bashful, and Miranda’s gotta smile.

  “Boy, there ain’t nothing there new for you to look at. And since I brought you both into the world, neither of you got any surprises for me. If I recollect, you pissed right in my hand when you got here. And let me see them pills.”

  While he’s helping Bernice, Miranda turns her back on them and uncaps the old vitamin bottle to shake out some flat, oval-shaped tablets. Silently, she spells out the name printed on ’em: Perganol. Miranda shakes her head. God only knows what she done did to herself. She gets Ambush to lay Bernice back on the bed and prop up her knees.

  “Since we being so proper, you can throw a little sheet on her, just below the waist,” Miranda says as she takes the bucket toward the window. She puts her head in and sniffs and then tilts it toward the light.

  “You say she ain’t had no breakfast?”

  “No, m’am.”

  “What about supper last night?”

  “A little Campbell’s soup.”

  Miranda sniffs again. There’s pus in her, all right, and it’s in the upper parts.

  “All right, Ambush, show me where to wash my hands. And then pour a little of this in a clean Mason jar and cap it up tight before you call Smithfield.”

  “We gotta get Dr. Smithfield?”

  “Yeah, tell him it’s serious. But don’t tell him I’m here, or he’ll take his own sweet time.”

  In the bathroom, Miranda turns on the water hot as she can stand it and lathers her hands good with Ivory soap. Finding a box of Q-Tips in the medicine cabinet, she cleans under her fingernails and then splashes a little alcohol over her right hand.

  “You hanging in there, Bernice?” Miranda touches the top of her forehead.

  “Yes, m’am. But it hurts so bad.”

  “I know, and it’s gonna be a bit more uncomfortable but you gotta work with me, okay? Now, you keep them legs propped up and relax as much as you can. See these two fingers?” She holds up her middle finger and pointer. “I’m gonna dab a little Vaseline on ’em, go up in you with this hand, and press below your belly with the other hand—it’ll help me to figure out what’s wrong. You won’t tense up on me, will you?”

  “I’ll try, Mama Day.”

  “Good. And pretend it’s something pleasant—like the first time you was with Ambush.”

  “He was awful clumsy the first time.” Bernice manages to smile.

  “Well, that grin tells me he musta gotten a heap better, so think about the last time, then.”

  Miranda slides her fingers up into Bernice real gentle. Them wrinkled fingers had gone that way so many times for so many different reasons. A path she knew so well that the slightest change of moisture, the amount of give along the walls, or the scent left on her hands could fix a woman’s cycle within less than a day of what was happening with the moon. When she gets up to the beginning of Bernice’s womb, she pushes up against it and cups her left hand—heel at the private hair, fingers near the navel—and presses down. Good thing she’s nothing but a bone, Miranda thinks. I could just about feel this womb if I had put my right hand behind her spine. It’s warmer than it should be, but that’s from the infection, and it’s gotta be spreading down from her tubes, ’cause it ain’t here. This womb is good and strong—all my star grass and red raspberry tea—sized right, shaped right, moves about like it should. She could hold triplets in here. Lord, girl, why didn’t you just wait? You done undone months of care. When she moves her left hand a fraction to the side and bears down a bit harder, a spot the size of a dime sends off blazing heat. Bernice cries out and tenses her legs.

  “Uh, huh. Uh, huh,” Miranda whispers, and kneads her fingers along the spot, twice the size it should be. And I’ll lay my life, the other one’s the same way. But no point in putting her through no more torture. She draws her fingers out of Bernice.

  “It’s all right, child. It’s over.” She covers Bernice up with the sheet. “You know, the little sack where a woman makes her eggs—the ovaries? Well, you got something growing on them. And it can’t be no tumor, ’cause it’s not large enough to give you this kind of pain, so it must be one of them boils. It’s done pussed up, that’s for sure, and blocked your tubes. That’s why you ain’t had no monthly, and you ain’t about to have one till it gets cleared up—if it can get cleared up.”

  “Mama Day, you mean, I done taken them pills and sterilized myself? I ain’t never gonna have a baby?” The way she says it, all quiet, frightens Miranda some. It woulda been better if she had cried or argued, called her a know-nothing old woman—fought back in some way.

  “Now, I ain’t saying that, Bernice—I’m not God. But we gotta find out exactly what them pills do. And when Smithfield gets here, you can tell him how long you been taking ’em, and how many. You done moved yourself out of my hands with that.”

  Bernice just curls herself up in the bed, holding her sides, and shivers. It’s too much for her, Miranda thinks, the body pain and now the head pain—where in the blazes is Ambush?

  She finds him in the living room, having heated words on the phone with that little fish-eyed gal in Dr. Smithfield’s office. Next to putting folks on hold, she loves telling ’em that the doctor is out, the doctor is busy, the doctor can be reached only at such-and-such a time of day if it’s an emergency. Guess it makes her feel powerful, knowing that what she does or doesn’t do is only important to folks when they in need of help. And since they know all about Mama Day beyond the bridge, any call she gets from Willow Springs she figures gotta be mighty pressing. Ambush is trying to tell her that he can’t give his wife some aspirin or Tylenol and wait till tomorrow—she can�
��t keep nothing on her stomach, so how she gonna keep the aspirin down? But since fish eyes only got three sets of answers—Yes, he’s on his way; No, he can’t make it; and, He’ll come out tomorrow, take aspirins—she’s at a total loss about what to do with Ambush’s problem. Miranda asks Ambush if he’d mind if she gave it a try.

  “Sue Henry? Sue Henry, this is Miranda Day. I’m fine, thank you, and you? That’s good, glad to hear it. Now, I got somebody here I’m nursing who ain’t doing so good. And I want you to get on that little beeper you got, call Brian Smithfield, and tell him I need him out at the Duvalls—he knows where it is, the south end of the island—and I need him tonight. Not tomorrow, tonight. You been knowing me a long time, ain’t you, sugar? So if you don’t do that, you know I ain’t phoning back to find out why. You know I’m coming over the bridge tomorrow to stand in front of your face to ask you. Why, of course, there won’t be no call for that. We’ll see him here soon as he can make it. You take care now. And my best to your mama.”

  “She’s a snippy little thing,” Ambush says.

  “That’s what happens when you send ’em off to fancy schools and they settle beyond the bridge—they start forgetting how to talk to folks. Sue Henry was the runt of Reema’s litter, and I’d take a peach switch to her now as fast as I did when she was running around here, picking snot out her nose.”

  “I better go on back in to Bernice,” Ambush says. “But I wish we could give her something for her pain.”

  “Just try to keep her comfortable. I found out the problem’s with what them pills done to her female parts, but he’s gonna have to tell us where to go from there.”

  “Mama Day, forgive my manners, you can rest on in this room. Or would you like a little something to eat?”

  “No, thank you, Ambush. I could use a little fresh air, so I may take a stroll in your woods. Lend me your pocketknife, would you?”

  “You ain’t gonna run across nothing worse than a gray fox or an ornery water rat,” Ambush teases her. “The few copperheads down by the stream been run off since Dr. Buzzard built his still. Not that my knife woulda helped you against them.”