Plantation

by Dorothea Benton Frank

  “Trip! It’s Frances Mae on the phone! She’s pulled over to the side of the highway five miles up the road and that baby’s coming! Hurry!”

  “Merciful Mother of God!” Mother said.

  Trip ran from the room, holding his bourbon in the air as though that would keep it from splashing, which it did not and he soaked the sleeve of his signature blue oxford cloth shirt. Mother and I followed him to the hall phone, where we stood with him and Millie trying to listen in on their conversation.

  “Goddamnit, Frances Mae! Where are you? Tell me exactly where you are!”

  “I hope to God my grandchild’s not born in a ditch,” Mother said, in a low voice.

  I couldn’t help thinking about Frances Mae, on the shoulder of Highway 17 south, hanging on to the car door, squatting and pushing, simultaneously mediating the bickering between her three girls, who were all strapped in their seat belts. The problem was that I remembered that Frances Mae was only in her eighth month. She had a history of delivering late, not early. Worry reared its ugly head as I remembered her fall into the Edisto and I hoped it hadn’t caused this.

  “Just calm down!” Pause. “Damnit, Frances Mae! Calm the hell down!” Pause. “Okay! Okay! Okay! I hear you! I’m coming! ” Trip slammed the phone down into its receiver and began rummaging around in his pockets for his car keys. “Mother? Call the police in Jacksonboro. Tell them to send an ambulance to the side of the road to Walterboro about ten miles from the Hess station. I’ll be back.”

  “Hold on a minute, boy! I’m coming with you!” Millie said.

  “Me too!” I said.

  “Me three!” Eric said.

  “You stay with your grandmother!” I said.

  “Mom! Come on! I don’t want to miss this!”

  “Yes, you do,” Mother said, and swung the front door wide open. I followed Trip outside and heard Mother say, “Well, I guess dinner will be later than expected.” Trip was in his Range Rover and starting the engine. I all but jumped into the front seat.

  “Wait for Millie!” I said.

  Millie appeared carrying a pile of things under her arm, hiking her skirt as she hurried down the steps and hopped into the backseat. “Move it!” she said.

  Trip put his foot down hard on the pedal and we took off, a cloud of dust rising behind us until we reached the gate. Hardly stopping, he turned left on two wheels and tore down the road to Highway 17 at over eighty miles an hour.

  “Slow down!” I said. “You’re gonna kill us all!”

  “You don’t know Frances Mae like I do,” he said, “she’ll have that baby to spite me and then blame me for the rest of my life!”

  “Don’t say that! And slow down!” Millie said from the backseat, with a trace of panic in her voice.

  “No, she’ll say the fall in the river did it and blame me for the rest of time!” I said.

  “Stop this talk!” Millie said. “Stop it now!”

  We ignored her—an unwise thing to do. Trip cut me a glance from the side of his eyes. “That’s bullshit.”

  “Wait and see,” I said.

  “All right! That’s enough!” Millie said. “You’re both asking for trouble! Go looking for trouble and you’ll find it. Sure enough you will!”

  We stopped talking for a minute to consider the possible outcomes of this drama. The best of the litany of finales? That she was just in labor. The worst? I didn’t even want my mind to wander there. No; I began to say silent prayers that Frances Mae and the baby were all right. Babies were pretty sturdy, and God knows, Frances Mae was a pack mule. Still, I prayed.

  The light was red at the corner, but Trip didn’t care, he made the left onto 17 and took off again, tires screeching.

  “Hang on, Frances Mae,” Trip said, shouting to the ethers, “hold your legs together!”

  Suddenly I could see Frances Mae in my mind. She had indeed given birth, and she was in shock and the baby wasn’t crying.

  “Hurry, Trip!” I began to shake and turned to the backseat to face Millie. “Millie . . .”

  “Don’t worry, girl. Pray!”

  I prayed. We all prayed. Trip was now doing well over one hundred miles an hour. We passed the blur of the Hess station and, in the blink of an eye, up ahead were a patrol car and an ambulance, lights spinning, going as fast as they could. We all raced to a stop, got out, and ran to the scene.

  Frances Mae was lying on the grass of the shoulder of the road, delivering her baby. Amelia was holding her hand and crying. The other girls were in the car screaming, covering their eyes. The patrolman and the medical team were getting out of their vehicles, and it seemed to me that they weren’t particularly in a hurry. But Millie was. She broke through the crowd and got down on her knees on Frances Mae’s right and spread out the things she had brought.

  “Where the hell have y’all been?” Frances Mae said, screaming. “Oh, God!”

  “Roll over on your side,” Millie said, commanding Frances Mae to do as she said. Frances Mae did and Millie slipped a quilt under her. “Now roll back to the other side. Amelia? Tell your sisters to hush before I get up and beat the hell out of them!”

  “You heard Millie? Hush! Hush right now!” she said, and they quieted down.

  “Is Momma all right?” Isabelle said.

  “She’s gonna be just fine. You girls say a prayer for her, all right?” I said. I held a sheet up at Frances Mae’s feet to give the woman a modicum of privacy. Not that she seemed to care.

  “Hang on, Frances Mae,” Trip said, “the ambulance is here.” He knelt down beside her and took her hand, patting it and looking anxious.

  Frances Mae’s head looked like it might blow up, she was so contorted and red. Millie pushed Frances Mae’s dress up and was going to pull off her underpants. I looked away at Millie’s face instead. May I say that, even given the urgency and gravity of the situation, Frances Mae’s you-know-what was the last thing I wanted to see?

  “What can I do, Millie?” I said.

  “Tell those men to get the stretcher over here with sterile cloth, a clamp, and a sterile knife! We got a baby coming!”

  “Jesus! God! Oh! God!” Frances Mae said, screaming loud enough to wake the dead. “I’m dying!”

  The men were on their way toward us, pushing the gurney over the uneven ground. The policeman was in the road directing traffic and rubbernecks. I turned back to the scene and thought, of all the surreal episodes in my life this would surely make the top ten.

  “You’ll do no such thing,” I said to no one in particular as I walked back.

  “Push!” Millie said. “Push again! Now one more time, girl, come on!”

  The baby’s head appeared and Millie all but pulled the child out of Frances Mae. The child was blue and the umbilical cord was wrapped tightly around its neck. Then I saw that it was a little girl. Millie said not a word, but put her strong fingers under the cord and pulled with all her might. The medical team dropped to the ground on either side of Millie and began helping. Finally they loosened it and removed it. No cry. Blue as flagstone. Millie flushed the baby’s mouth with two fingers and blew into it. The medical worker did something else—it was all happening so fast—Frances Mae screamed again, “Why isn’t my baby crying?” Trip said, “Hold on! It’s okay!” The silence from the tiny infant was terrifying. Millie pressed the child’s chest and blew into her mouth again. Eh! Eh! The baby finally made a sound. One of the medical workers covered the child’s mouth with an oxygen mask and slowly she gained color.

  “You have a girl! Another girl!” Millie said.

  Frances Mae started to cry, from relief, from joy, from pain—she was completely overwhelmed. Trip just pushed the hair back on her forehead and smiled, saying, “It’s okay. It’s okay now.”

  In a few minutes, the baby began to scream and cry. It was like music to all of us. Millie wrapped the baby in a sterile white sheet and showed her to Frances Mae, who merely nodded her head, satisfied that her child had made it into the world. The girls tumbled
out of the car to have a look at their new sister, oohing and aahing at the marvel of it all. Finally, Frances Mae was lifted into the ambulance with her baby and rushed to the hospital in Walterboro. Trip would follow them in his car and I would drive Millie and the girls back to Tall Pines in Frances Mae’s Expedition.

  “Millie! How can I ever thank you?” Trip said. “You probably saved my daughter’s life!”

  “Ain’t no probably about it,” she said, grinning wide with relief, “but God helped. Y’all should give Him some credit, yanh?”

  “You’re right,” I said. “God. Millie! You’re the hero of the day!”

  Trip shooed his girls into their mother’s car, threw me the keys, and waved at us and went to his car, leaving Millie and me outside for a moment’s private speculation.

  “I’m the hero? I don’t know about all that. Did you see that baby’s angry face, crying and wailing like a wild animal?”

  “Looks just like Frances Mae,” I said. “Tiny and all wrinkled! Sure hope she’s smart, ’cause she sure ain’t pretty.”

  “Shoot! That ain’t wrinkles! Ain’t nothing at all but meanness! That baby’s got a soul like her momma and a face like a bulldog,” Millie said and we began to laugh. “Ugliest child I ever did see!”

  Thirty

  Back to School

  2000

  BY Sunday afternoon, I had a shortlist of tutors for Eric. On Tuesday they would come for interviews. The movers were to arrive on Thursday and I had to figure out what to do with our things. It was going to be a busy week.

  I had extracted two possible candidates for Eric’s education from Frances Mae during her short stay in the hospital. I went by with some flowers for her on Saturday and found her packing. They had all but thrown her out the next day. She was good and cranky and even I couldn’t blame her for that.

  “Managed health care,” she grumbled, “hell, my milk ain’t even come in yet!”

  “Well, I’m sure it will,” I said.

  What was I supposed to say? That we’d call CNN to send in a film crew to document it when it did “come in”? Frances Mae and those breasts of hers—Mother’s Milk with a provenance.

  Her baby, temporarily named Chloe for a favorite actress of Frances Mae’s and until Trip could convince her to give her a normal name—i.e., a family name—stayed on in the hospital. Chloe had high bilirubin numbers and so they wanted to keep her under the lights for a few days. Frances Mae would spend a lot of time driving to the hospital to feed her new infant and that would certainly be inconvenient.

  But, the baby’s jaundice was pale in comparison to Frances Mae’s attitude toward us. When she should have been grateful that we all rushed to her side, and most especially to Millie, she was angry at the world. She stayed in bed crying and got up only to refresh her supply of tissues and to run to the hospital. When Amelia finally called Mother to report Frances Mae’s frightening behavior, Mother got on the phone with her and read her the Gospel.

  Now you see here, Frances Mae, you get yourself up from the bed this instant! You have three other children who need your attention and I dare say my son would like to have a pleasant partner to come home to in the evening! No woman in our family’s entire history ever behaved in such a self-indulgent manner! Are you a Wimbley or not?

  That was the Gospel according to Mother Sensitiva, not the apostles. Frances Mae got up and resumed living, but she was foul-tempered and unpredictable. I asked Trip if her doctor had said anything about postpartum depression and he looked at me like I was speaking Greek.

  “What the hell is that? Another one of the analyst’s excuses for a woman to shirk her duty?”

  Mother and Trip had that sensitivity and sympathy gene well in hand. Neither of them would let something minor like giving birth on the side of the road—while your new infant nearly died and your children watched in terror and earned another twenty years in therapy—throw them off for a minute. They made me shake my head. I’d get Millie to do something.

  I drove to Charleston to find a gift for baby Chloe and a small something for each of the girls. For Chloe I found a precious Sea Island cotton dress in pale pink, all hand smocked across the front with a bonnet to match. Crogan’s had wonderful pearl studs for little girls. Mrs. Ramsey helped me decide on five-millimeter pearls for Caroline, six for Isabelle, and seven for Amelia. She wrapped them in beautiful velvet boxes and while I waited, we talked about Mother.

  “Tell your mother I said hello! She’s so darling! What has she been up to lately?”

  “Oh, the usual,” I said, “she’s ruining my boy by giving him everything in the world he wants.”

  Mrs. Ramsey laughed and said, “Well, I expect she hasn’t changed much! She always was so generous with you and your brother.”

  “Come to think of it, Mrs. Ramsey, you’re right!”

  “My word, I know she’s glad to have you all at home with her. Are you staying for a while?”

  “I think so, yes.”

  “I declare, every mother is the happiest when she’s surrounded by her children. You give her my best, yanh?”

  I left her store slightly embarrassed because it was true. Mother had given Trip and me every material thing we had ever asked for. Now she was doing the same thing for Eric. This past Saturday, Mr. Jenkins rolled up to the house with a new mountain bike for Eric, a pair of Rollerblades, a skateboard, and a Sunfish sailboat. Eric was in hog heaven and Mother was smiling from head to toe, tickled to pieces with her extravagance. Mother had found a new cause in Eric and Eric had found someone who would lavish him with gifts like a Good Fairy. I never would have guessed it. I hadn’t even considered it. I had forgotten about Mother’s generous side because with every gift was attached a barb. Don’t lose the pin! Now, Eric? Don’t go out there and kill yourself. Eric? Don’t do anything foolhardy!

  I found books at Chapter Two on having babies in midlife, and herbal cures for depression and what the nature of it was. I bought Frances Mae the prettiest gift set of perfume and body lotion I could find at Saks on King Street. I bought a big tube of Clinique Body Lotion for Mother and one for Millie. After what Millie had done for Trip and Frances Mae and after what Mother had done for Eric and me, it only seemed right to pick up a little something for them too. Trip was the only one I hadn’t bought something for, so I stopped at M. Dumas and picked up a funny fishing hat for him. All in all, I thought I had done a good thing and began the trip home thinking of life’s possibilities.

  Thoughts of Richard came to mind. He hadn’t called us. How could I have been so naïve? His silence only furthered my worst fear that he valued his sexual fantasies more than he valued our marriage and family. If he was willing to give that all away so that he could frequent sleazy bars and have Lois handle his “public service,” what could I do?

  Well, what I could do, I thought, was minimize Eric’s confusion and shore up his emotions—show him that Richard loved him and always would. Just how I was going to do that hadn’t come to me yet, but I could start by putting Eric on the phone with Richard a few times a week at a designated time. At least they could talk to each other. Maybe Eric could help Richard see what he had lost.

  Once again, my heart drifted and was playing with the idea that Richard would change and want us back. I knew he would not.

  Millie was waiting for me on the front porch when I pulled up in Mother’s car. That was another thing I had to do—buy a car. Maybe I should take a one-year lease, I thought. Standing in the rose-colored slices of the afternoon sun, Millie looked positively regal. She had been cutting flowers and the basket she held was filled to overflowing with branches of fuchsia and white azaleas.

  “Hey! Need a hand?” she said.

  I reached into the trunk and pulled out the bags. “No, but thanks! Eric home?”

  “Gone down the river with your brother to fish. What’d you do, girl? Buy out Charleston?”

  “Yeah, almost. Mother?”

  “Took Trip’s car over to Walterboro to
check on Frances Mae.”

  “Poor Frances Mae,” I said, following her inside, picking up on the way six envelopes and boxes from the UPS man for Mother.

  “Yanh, lemme help you! Baby came home today. Let’s have us a glass of iced tea. How’s that sound to you?”

  I dropped my bags on the hall bench and dug through my packages to find the tube of cream I had bought for Millie.

  “Thanks. Sounds perfect,” I said. “I’m parched. So little Chloe is home! Why couldn’t she name that child something else? Here, Miss Millie, I bought you something.”

  “Don’t ask me,” she said. “Maybe she thinks a movie star’s gonna make that baby better looking!” She looked at the tube, opened it, and sniffed. “Smells good! Thank you!”

  “You’re welcome,” I said and followed her into the kitchen. Millie took a glass pitcher filled with tea from the refrigerator and filled two tall glasses with ice from the ice maker on the refrigerator door. I listened to them fill the glass, piling on each other with clinks, ice that would melt away. I took the sugar bowl from the cabinet and put it on the table. She popped some mint sprigs from a glass of water over the kitchen sink, and dropped them in.

  “You got some phone calls,” she said, handing me a glass. “It’s already sweet.”

  I put the sugar bowl back on the shelf. “Right, I always forget. Millie? Is that green stuff in my tea gonna make me hallucinate?”

  “It’s just mint, missy. But you never know with Millie, do you now?”

  She handed me the pad with the messages and I sat at the table with her, draining my glass. She refilled it.

  “Thanks,” I said. “No, I never know!” I looked at the list: Ruth Perretti, tutors math and science; Peter Greer, tutors language arts and English; and Joshua Welton, teaches fine arts and also does occupational therapy. They had all called to confirm their appointments for the next day. “Okay, so this is good. It’s a step toward getting settled!”

  We clinked our glasses in a toast.