by Rain Trueax
His voice was toneless. "Delores didn't get there in time. Somebody had to help her... I was oldest." He stared out the window. "It's no big deal--if nothing goes wrong."
She glanced over at him with horror. "Wrong? What do you mean--wrong?"
"You spent enough time at the ranch to know," Phillip said. "Hey, watch out, you're swinging too wide for that corner."
She corrected her steering, then glared at him. "Nothing better go wrong!"
"Did Nancy call the doctor?"
"Why?"
"Well, I don't imagine she's going to make it to the hospital. Not if the contractions are coming this fast after so little time."
"Yes. No. I mean, I think she said she called him. Should we call 911?" Helene began to shake. She couldn't imagine Nancy's baby being born at the ranch. She felt panic beginning to set in, even as she somehow kept the truck more or less on the highway.
When Helene wheeled the truck into Nancy's driveway, she hoped to see an emergency helicopter preparing to land. Unfortunately all was quiet. A rooster crowing down toward the barns was the only sign of life.
Phillip tried the kitchen door and found it unlocked. "Smart girl," he said, ushering Helene in ahead of him.
Inside, Helene yelled, "Nancy," as she headed for the main floor bedroom.
Opening the bedroom door, Helene heard Nancy let out a scream that nearly sent her right back out of the room. Bracing herself, she forced herself to not retreat. She followed Phillip into the room.
Wearing a flannel nightgown, Nancy was lying in a brass bed, sweat or tears rolling down her cheeks, her belly rising impressively above the quilt she lay under. "Sorry," she managed between pants.
"How far apart are the contractions?" Phillip asked as he moved to one side of the big bed.
"Every two minutes now," Nancy managed before she had to start panting again. "I took Lamaze," she said after a moment, "but didn't plan to use it this way."
"Did you call Doc?" Helene asked, stroking hair off her forehead.
"I..." Nancy stopped again, practicing her breathing until the pain passed. "Yes. He's on his way too." She tried to smile as she looked up at Phillip. "Did she drag you along... for moral support?"
The muscle in his jaw was twitching, but he calmly took Nancy's wrist, counting out her pulse rate. "No, I invited myself." He glanced at Helene. "I'll go see how long ago the doctor left." He added in a whisper, "And get a few things ready."
"What do you mean ready?" Helene mouthed back at him.
His eyes were emotionless, but he managed a faint smile, then was gone, leaving Helene to comfort Nancy as best she could. Lord, she prayed as she sat on the edge of the bed, please make this be okay. She wanted to say something soothing to Nancy, but didn't feel calm enough to manage the words. She settled for stroking her friend's hand and pasting an encouraging smile on her face.
#
Helene went out onto the back porch to see where Phillip had gone. He was leaning against a post, smoking a cigarette and staring into the darkness. He didn't look at her when she came to stand beside him.
"I made coffee," she said, running her hand down his arm.
"Maybe... in a little."
"Are you okay?"
He shook his head taking another drag on the cigarette blowing the smoke into the darkness.
"You were wonderful. With Nancy, I mean. And Doc Albertson said nobody could have done anything more than you did." When he said nothing, she asked, "What's wrong, Phillip?"
His mouth was set into a hard line, and he didn’t look at her. "It just brought back a lot of memories. It was like going through it again when it was my mother."
She put her arm around his waist and felt how cold he was. "I think you should come in and get some strong coffee."
“Maybe later. I’ll just finish the cigarette.”
She clung to him then, giving him her warmth as he smoked in silence. When he tossed the cigarette down, grinding it into the dirt, he put his arms around her, his face against her hair.
“Coffee now?” she asked. He nodded and followed her into the kitchen. In the light, she could see the strain on his face, the enhanced hollows of his face, the bleakness in his eyes.
"I suppose now you wish you hadn't come with me," she said, pouring his coffee.
"No." He swallowed back the urge to be sick and forced himself to drink the coffee. The hot liquid did seem to help. "Sorry I'm acting like this," he muttered, holding the cup with both hands. He shook his head. "I thought I'd be okay. It was all so long ago."
"How old were you?"
"Ten." He managed to take another sip of the coffee without spilling any. He could hear the baby crying, a good, healthy cry. "At least he's okay," Phillip said staring darkly into the blackness of the coffee.
Helene frowned. "I thought you said-- I thought you said nothing went wrong with your mother."
He shook his head. "No, I didn't. I said, when nothing goes wrong, it's no big deal. I didn't want you to worry any more than you already were."
She felt suddenly sick. "What happened?"
She saw the muscle jump in his jaw and knew he had his teeth clenched. Finally he said, "The cord was wrapped around his neck. It... There wasn't anything I could do. Nobody said it was my fault, but for years I kept thinking... if I'd just known what to do. If I'd..."
"Oh my God... and yet you came with me."
"I didn't figure it'd happen again, and if it had... I did know what to do now."
"You were so calm for Nancy. You did everything right. I had no idea what it was costing you."
He tried to smile and halfway managed it. "At least something good came out of those years."
"I'm sure a lot of good came," Helene said, picking up his hand and stroking the back of it.
"Are you? Oh, I learned a lot, all right. Things you'll never want to know. Things nobody ought to know." She saw the muscle jumping in his jaw.
Before she could respond to his bitterness, Doc Albertson came into the kitchen grinning broadly. "You two want to take midwife training?" he asked as he bent over the sink to wash his hands.
"She's all right?" Helene asked, still worried about Phillip but glad to hear Nancy was going to be okay.
"Didn't need me driving all the way out here at all. She and baby are fine." Outside Helene heard a truck pull up. In moments boots were hitting the steps, and the door was flung open. "I saw all the cars. What's going on?" Emile asked, his face pale. "Is Nancy okay?"
Doc Albertson, hands dripping reached for a towel. "Relax, Emile. They're both fine."
"Both?" If possible, Emile's face paled to the level of Phillip's.
"Nancy's working on getting your son to nurse right now."
"But... The baby wasn't due for two weeks," Emile stammered, looking from Helene to Phillip and back to the doctor. "Son? What about the hospital?"
"There wasn't time," Doc Albertson said.
"Oh God."
"Listen here, boy. Babies have been born in their parents' bedrooms for centuries and before that in caves or tents. Your wife and son are healthy and well. There's no need for either of them to make the long trip into town to a hospital they don't need."
"Thank you, Doc," Emile said, his voice breaking.
Doc Albertson grinned. "I only got here at the tail end of it. Helene and Phillip were the ones who helped Nancy give birth. Now, you go on back to see your wife and meet your son. She's more worried about you than herself. You folks name him yet?"
“We had a few ideas but she went one way and me the other. Guess we’ll have to get down to business.” He tried to smile but it take out weak.
After Emile stumbled from the room, Helene stared at the phone, her own mind a jumble of what Phillip had told her and all they'd just been through. "I guess I should call Uncle Amos and tell him Emile's here and everything's okay."
Helene looked down at Phillip, who was slumped back in his chair. She wished, she could help him, say something. His thoughts were
now hidden behind an enigmatic expression, his blue eyes cold and impersonal. Even if she'd thought of words, she knew he would reject them now. Maybe later. Maybe they could talk then.
Chapter Eight
Sick and tired of trying to understand Phillip's rapidly changing moods and feeling under increased pressure at night since he'd moved into the bedroom down the hall from hers, Helene drove the truck toward Livingston, one of two articles she hoped to sell to the newspaper in a file beside her on the seat.
As the road wound down along the Yellowstone River, snow was lightly falling, coating the tops of the trees with an icing of white, but its beauty was no comfort as her thoughts ran through wildly chaotic patterns that seemed to always end up in a maze from which there was no end.
Phillip had said nothing to her on their drive home from Nancy and Emile's or for that matter in the days that followed. Because she had recognized the defensive mode he'd gone into, she made no attempt to make small talk. The emotional turmoil that seemed to swirl around Phillip was making her tired.
She remembered the things she’d been learning from her aunt’s journal. Clearly no matter how Aunt Rochelle had felt about him later, in the beginning she didn’t love Amos, hadn’t seen him as a potential for a husband. Months went by and she had wanted that other man, that Roger guy. The thing is though she put him off and then when she began to change her own mind, Roger was putting her off.
November 12, Damn Roger. Damn him to hell. Oh I don’t mean that but I learned today from Leah... she’s pregnant and it’s Roger’s baby. Why would he do such a thing all the time he was professing love for me? There is no joy in this now for me. When I confronted him, Roger claimed… Well it doesn’t matter what he claims. He broke my heart. Bob wants me to come back to Massachusetts for Thanksgiving. I am half tempted to go only I won’t. I will stick this out.
That is what life is really about, isn’t it? Sticking it out. Who knows where it’ll go but you stick it out. You live it from here to there and every moment in between is what it’s really about. You never know where there will be. This moment. It’s all we got.
This whole way of thinking is irritating me as I don’t want to be philosophical. I don’t want to be understanding. I want to be mad, damn mad!
Helene had set the journal down. Was nobody’s story really as simple as it looked from the outside? Damn indeed. Did her uncle know about Roger and what he had truly been like? When had her aunt realized she loved Uncle Amos. Or had she ever and just settled for what she could have? No, that wasn’t possible. She had seen them together except how much do we really see or is it what we want to see?
She still wasn’t sure why her aunt had wanted her to have this particular journal. Maybe it would be clear by the end. Her own story seemed no less uncertain in terms of what she felt or could have even if she felt a certain way.
She stopped thinking about that or even what she felt for Phillip. She turned her thinking toward her own chance to make some money, prove she could do something on her own. She felt positive about the piece she'd finally written on Doc Albertson and a second one that came much easier on Curly and his career of cowboying.
Watching Phillip deliver Nancy’s baby and then Doc when he arrived had given her a depth that had been missing in her first attempts. If the newspaper wouldn't buy her writing, she would have to consider other professional options. Whatever she did, she wasn't going to leave Uncle Amos.
One thing she definitely saw as a comparison between herself and Aunt Rochelle was a knowing that she wanted to make her home in this country whether her uncle lost the ranch or not. If he did, she’d help him make a home elsewhere and stick with him. Although he had perked up at the news of his grandson, already having visited him twice, she knew he was still worried about finances. She now understood his fears. He needed her, for at least the near future and that was what she needed too. Even if Phillip left.
What Phillip planned was beyond Helene's intuitive powers. He spent his days outside, helping wherever Uncle Amos needed him. He worked as hard as any man she'd ever known, but he said little in the evenings, content to sit before the fire and listen to others pick through conversations. When he was directly addressed, he grunted out monosyllabic answers, but his mind was clearly elsewhere.
They had gotten the dish set up and he was able to communicate with his work, but that wasn’t giving him any peace as there were problems there. Everybody needed a piece of Phillip. The question was what did he need, and she wasn’t sure he knew. Dale, his assistant, was due at the ranch any day for a conference. That might help him at least with the work if not with what he wanted personally.
She knew Phillip watched her. She'd have had to be blind not to know that his eyes sought her out and seemed always aware of where she was in a room, but what did that mean? He desired her, but desire wasn't enough to hold a marriage together. Was he thinking of asking for a divorce? He hadn't sought out her bed. With Uncle Amos on the main floor bedroom and the two of them alone upstairs, it would have been possible. It hadn't happened, and she admitted quite honestly that it hadn't happened because Phillip hadn't wanted it to happen, not because she hadn't.
Putting him from her mind, she parked the truck at the curb in front of the newspaper office. On the street, she smoothed down the skirt of her sophisticated gray suit, gave a quick examination of fitted, leather boots for scuffs or mud, fluffed her hair, rubbed her lips together, took a deep breath and headed for the front door of the newspaper office. She was determined to sell not only her article but herself.
#
Driving back in the driveway, Helene noted the fresh tracks in the newly fallen snow, then saw the brand new rental car parked in front of the ranch house. Obviously Phillip's assistant, Dale, had made it out from Boston. How would that affect Phillip’s choices now?
Opening the kitchen door, she could hear two male voices arguing from the den; one was clearly Phillip's. With doors closed, it was impossible to understand the words, but the angry tones were inescapable. Uncle Amos was seated at the long table, legs crossed, sipping the inevitable cup of coffee with the ever faithful Hobo at his feet.
"How'd she go in town?" he asked, grinning up at her as she put her heavy coat over a hook.
"Actually quite good," she told him with an answering smile. "Chad Garrison bought the article on Doc Albertson, gave me two names for future possible pieces and said he'd consider putting me on staff, at least part-time, if I wanted it."
"I'll say that's good. So, did you want it?"
She shrugged her shoulders. "I think I'd like to freelance for now. It's hard to decide. A steady paycheck is attractive, but it would limit any other writing I might want to do." In an abrupt switch of the conversation, she asked, "What's the argument about?"
Uncle Amos raised his hands in the age-old expression of no responsibility, no knowledge but lots of curiosity. "I didn't listen at the keyhole," he admitted, "but was plumb tempted."
"So the car is Dale Cranston's?" Helene asked pouring water into the tea kettle. “What did you think of him?”
"Officious looking guy. Didn’t give me the time of day. I'd have figured him for a tax assessor if Phil hadn't introduced him. Near ready to run him off the place."
Helene smiled, searching through the cupboard to find the blackberry tea bag she'd remembered stashing. "They don't sound very pleased with each other." She put the bag in a mug and stood by the stove watching the water to hurry along its boiling.
"Nope. From what I can figure, he wants Phil to go back with him. Says the business needs him, can't make it without him. Some client's crying over an investment problem. Another's threatening to find another company. But your husband’s not buying none of the arguments."
"For not listening at the keyhole, you seem to have done a good job of figuring out what they're saying," Helene said with a smile.
"Well, there's times their voices get louder than others."
Curly came onto the porch, stompin
g snow from his boots before he entered the kitchen. He sniffed loudly as he dusted a light powdering of snow from his coat. "Think we're gonna get it," he observed, wrinkling his whole face for emphasis, in case anyone hadn't understood how serious the weather situation promised to be.
"You heard how many inches they're expecting," Uncle Amos asked without much real interest.
"Maybe a foot overnight."
"You think that much?" Helene asked, pouring nearly boiling water over her tea bag.
"That ain't much," Curly said as he doctored his coffee with the obligatory two spoonfuls of sugar and a dollop of cream. "Times I seen it snow two feet in twelve hours, four foot in a day."
"I'm glad I went to town when I did." Helene sat down between the two old men. "I don't mind driving in snow, but I don't like putting on chains. Even these new cable ones leave me mystified."
"That city fella still talking with Phil?" Curly asked, nodding his head toward the kitchen door and the raised voices.
"If you call that talking," Amos answered with a laugh.
"You figure out what they're arguing about?"
"The way I figure it, it's about whether Phil goes back to Boston or not," Amos said.
"You figure he'll go?" Curly asked, looking down at his coffee cup.
"I would've reckoned you'd be glad to see the last of him," Amos observed. "You didn't think much of him when he got here."
"Man can be wrong," Clem admitted defensively, stirring his coffee vigorously. "He's done better'n I figured. Lasted longer too."
The kitchen door swung open, and Phillip came through followed closely by Dale Cranston. Cranston was almost a head shorter than Phillip. Although only in his mid-thirties, his brown hair was thinning rapidly, and he wore wire-rimmed glasses to complete the look of a bookish, scholarly man.
"Dale would like to spend the night," Phillip said, looking at the three expectant faces staring at him from the table. "Think that is possible?"
