“I don’t do it very often.”
“You should. It’s beautiful. What is it?”
“Just a song I remember growing up. Sailors sang it.”
“Where did you grow up?”
“New York.”
“How did you get here?”
“Long story.”
“Will you sing some more?”
“And should a footstep haply stray
Where caution marks the guarded way
Stranger quickly tell, a Friend
The Word good night all’s well
All’s well, all’s well …”
“It’s time, Gloria. Now. It’s time to push.”
“I don’t know what—”
“Your body knows. Now push.”
Gloria brought herself up on her elbows and bore down. Hard. She gritted her teeth and felt her head grow tight with pressure. Her eyes closed tight, and the image of her single burning flame lingered, now blue and dancing.
“Good girl. Good girl.” Sadie’s voice faded in and out of Gloria’s ears. “I can see the head now. Rest a minute, then we’ll push again.”
Clouds cushioned Sadie’s words, so Gloria had to ask, “Now? Push?” when Sadie said, “Push! Now!”
“Are we almost done?” Gloria cried.
Bits of conversation were abandoned, at least Gloria thought they were. She spoke without hearing, heard without knowing—just a constant wash of sound as if she’d been plunged into a river that lapped and rolled inside her head.
So Gloria pushed. Again. Again. And again. Each one a little easier than the one before it until—
“ ’S here!” Sadie’s voice sounded triumphant.
Gloria was vaguely aware of precise, deft movements before Sadie spoke again.
“He’s here.” Sadie abandoned her post at Gloria’s feet and now sat at Gloria’s side. She laid a warm, wet, squirming thing on Gloria’s breast.
“Er ist perfekt. Er ist schön.”
“What?”
“It’s a boy, Gloria. A beautiful, healthy boy.”
“A boy?” Gloria brought her arms up to trap the baby next to her skin.
“Yes, and he’s just perfect. Just needs a little cleaning up.”
Sadie took the baby from Gloria, who was surprised to find her arms reaching for him. Mae had been instructed to set some water on the stove, and now Sadie dipped a hand in it to test its warmth. Satisfied, she soaked a rag in the warm water and began to wash the baby’s skin. The newborn let out a wail of protest.
“He’s a real boy all right,” Sadie said. “Already he doesn’t like to take baths.”
Gloria watched the bathing of her son. It seemed an impossibly long process—each little arm, each little leg, the protruding little lump on his belly.
“Can I see him again?” she asked.
“Of course you can, silly. He’s your son. He is yours. Just let me get him presentable.”
Sadie wrapped a tiny scrap of cloth around the boy’s bottom and then swaddled him in a little blanket she and the women had pieced together during the darkest days of winter. The warmth of the blanket stilled his cries, and when Sadie brought him back to Gloria, he was pink and wide-eyed.
Somehow, Gloria knew just how to crook her arm to cradle her son. Somehow he knew to wriggle a tiny hand free to reach for his mother’s finger. His eyes were deep and brown; his head covered with long silky blond strands. The day was just dawning, his first day on earth, and already it was impossible to imagine a world without him in it.
Sadie continued to bustle around the room, tidying this and straightening that. She held out a robe that Mae brought during the night.
“Let me take him a minute so you can put this on.”
Reluctantly, Gloria handed her son over to her friend. She managed to turn, let her legs fall over the side of the bed, and shrugged into the warm wrap. She was about to ask Sadie to help with the belted tie when she looked up. Sadie was holding the boy close, closer than Gloria had. Her face was twisted in pain, and tears—the first Gloria had ever seen her shed—fell onto the baby’s head.
“Oh, Sadie,” Gloria said.
“Mine were beautiful, too. Just so still, so quiet.”
“I’m so sorry, Sadie. I wish I could—”
“Well, you can’t.” Sadie squared her broad shoulders. “What you need to do now is get yourself cleaned up. The girls will want to come over here and meet the young prince. Let’s see if I can get a comb through that hair of yours.”
The baby once again nestled in her arms, Gloria allowed Sadie to gather and brush and braid her hair.
“He is blond, like you.”
“Yes,” said Gloria, losing herself in his face.
“So what are you going to call him?”
There was a brief pause in the brush’s task, and Gloria turned and looked into the eyes of her friend.
“Did you name your son?’
Sadie’s eyes clouded for just a second. “We named him Daniel.”
“That’s a beautiful name,” Gloria said. “May I take part of it?”
Sadie said nothing, only nodded her head as her eyes brimmed with tears.
“Danny. I’ll call him Danny.”
Just then there was a brief knock at the door, and before either woman could utter a “come in!” the door swung open and Jewell, Mae, and Biddy bustled into the room.
“Well, it ain’t exactly Madonna and Child,” Jewell said, “but it ain’t such a bad-lookin’ picture.”
“Oh, oh, oh!” Mae said over and over, her hands made little fleshy claps.
Biddy stood shyly in the background. “May I see the baby?” she asked in her tiny voice.
“Of course,” Gloria said, reaching her free arm out to the girl. “You can even hold him if you’d like.”
“Him?” Jewell said. “Well, that’s a good thing at least. This ain’t no life for a girl.”
He is able, He is able,
He is willing, doubt no more;
He is able, He is able,
He is willing, doubt no more.
5
A miserable freezing sleet hammered John William and Sadie as they made their way to the MacGregan’s cabin. Her long legs matched his stride all the way from Jewell’s house, but as they approached his home, he pulled ahead to reach out and open the door as he would for any other woman. She brushed past him and entered the room.
“Well, this is a cozy little nest,” Sadie said, shrugging her shawl off her shoulders and dropping her bag to the floor. Her presence filled the cabin. “Where do you plan to put the baby? On the roof?”
“I’ve made …” he lost the word, “somethin’.” John William made an apologetic gesture toward a small box lined with soft woolen blankets. It sat on the floor close to the fire.
“Are you expecting a baby or a litter of puppies?” Sadie asked, laughing.
John William turned from her to look at the little box. It was all he knew to do. He was about to offer an apology for it when he felt Sadie’s strong hand grip his shoulder.
“Listen, I’m sorry. I was just—”
But she was cut off by a muffled cry coming from the bundle on the bed.
Katherine was where he’d left her, curled up on the mattress in the corner of their home. She was whimpering now, a welcome sound to John William’s ears. He crossed the room and knelt beside the bed.
“I think she’s doin’ better,” he said.
“Oh, you think so, do you?” Sadie knelt down to rummage through her bag, taking out an assortment of linens and strips of cloth. These she deposited at Katherine’s feet. She saw the washstand in the corner and made her way toward it, rolling her sleeves to the elbow. “And what makes you say that?”
“You should have heard her before I came to get you. She was screamin’, howlin’ even.” He took Katherine’s hand, brought it to his lips, and spoke into her palm. “I really think the worst is over.”
Sadie made her way back across the cab
in, her newly washed hands dripping with water.
“Until that baby is born,” Sadie said, “the worst can’t be over. Now I’m going to try to get this gown off her. You get every lamp and candle you own. It is getting dark.”
Sadie whisked the quilt off Katherine’s body and into a heap on the floor. “Fold that and set it near the fire to warm. You might want to build it up. The storm is bringing quite a chill.”
John William’s head reeled with instructions. Candles, light, fire. Through the fog generated by his fear and confusion, he barely heard the conversation between the two women as he bustled about in obedience.
“All right, Mrs. MacGregan,” Sadie was saying, “let’s get that gown off.”
“Something’s wrong … something’s …”
“It is never easy the first time. Now just help me here. Are there buttons?”
“The baby …” Katherine’s voice was thick and weak. “The baby’s not moving … something’s wrong …”
“I am sure the baby’s fine. Now, if you can’t lift yourself up, I will just have to tear this off of you.”
John William was returning the glass bowl to their only lamp when he heard the tearing of the fabric and the sharp gasp that followed.
“Mein Gott.” This in a whisper, sharply contrasted to the confident stream of commands from the same voice.
He stopped in his busy task and turned toward the bed.
His wife lay there, repositioned from the curled comfort he’d left her in. Now she was flat on her back, her swollen body centered on the white muslin gown she’d worn to bed on their wedding night. It was torn, straight up the middle. Her arms, still in the sleeves, were flailed out on either side of her, and the fabric draped beside her like angel’s wings.
Bloody angel’s wings.
“Get over here,” Sadie commanded. “Hold her up against you. It’s going to be too hard for her to push the baby out if she’s lying straight down.”
John William lifted Katherine’s body with all the gentleness he could muster and slid behind her. Her head lolled against his shoulder. Her breathing was ragged. Her mouth slack.
Sadie had one hand on the rounded mound of Katherine’s stomach; the other reached inside Katherine’s body.
“Is she going to be—”
“Hush.”
John William couldn’t bear to look. He buried his face in his wife’s damp hair and prayed. Heal my wife. Carry my child. Guide her hands. Keep me strong. He listened for God’s voice to come through with words of comfort and assurance, but all he heard was Sadie.
“The baby is alive. I feel it. But we have to get it out. Soon.”
When he opened his eyes he saw Sadie standing at the plank balanced across two whiskey barrels that served as their table. She had a knife in her hand and was pouring water from the steaming teakettle over its blade.
“You must have put the water on before you came to get me.”
“She told me to.” Strands of Katherine’s hair clung to his lip, but he was powerless to brush it away, even if he wanted to.
“Smart woman.” Sadie held the blade against her thumb as if to test it and, satisfied, crossed back over to sit on the bed at Katherine’s feet. The sight of her, brandishing the knife in one hand while the other rested on the heap of child within his wife was too much for John William to bear. He once again closed his eyes and prayed. This time out loud.
“Heal my wife. Carry my child. Guide her—”
“Listen. She has bled a lot. Too much, really. Losing all that blood will leave her weak. Make it hard to push out the baby. So we must help her. Understand?”
“How?” He directed his question to the blade in Sadie’s hand.
“First, try to rouse her. Talk to her. Right there in her ear tell her to wake up. To push.”
John William brought his hands up around Katherine’s shoulders and shook her gently.
“Wake up, Katherine. Wake up. We need you.…”
“Now,” Sadie spoke almost in harmony to John William’s urgent cooing. “We’ll need to help her. I’m going to make a tiny, tiny cut here, to give the baby a little more room.”
“Will it hurt her?”
“At this point,” Sadie said, refusing to continue until he met her gaze, “that can’t be our first concern.” Then, softer, “I don’t think she’s feeling much of anything right now. But she has to be alert. She has to push.”
Katherine rolled her head back and forth against John William’s chest.
“No … no … no …” she moaned. “Get her out … get that woman—”
“Good,” Sadie said. “That’s good. She is awake. Now talk to her. Tell her to push down. Push that baby.”
“Katherine, darling, you need to—”
“Get her out! Get that whore out of my house!”
“I’m not a whore right now, darling.” Sadie’s attempt at a soothing touch along Katherine’s leg was rebuffed by an amazing display of strength and anger as Katherine kicked it away while attempting to lunge from her husband’s embrace.
John William pinned her to him, his arms crossed over her clammy bare skin. He burrowed his face into her neck and whispered streams of hushes and platitudes until, limp with exhaustion, Katherine lay still.
Sadie hadn’t moved an inch. Perched on the side of the bed, she captured Katherine’s flailing foot with one hand and forced it back to the mattress. The other leg was pinned to the wall by Sadie’s body.
“Let me go … let me go …” Katherine’s voice trailed of in a haze of delirium.
“She feels trapped is all,” John William said with a hint of apology.
He remembered how much she hated that feeling. All winter, trapped in the tiny cabin by the winter’s snow, she’d paced the perimeter of the room. Ten paces. Eight paces. Ten paces. Eight paces. She swore each week of pregnancy that the place got smaller. She could barely turn from one task to the next without brushing against a wall or piece of furniture. John William had slept on the cabin floor for the past month; she couldn’t stand his proximity in their bed. And now, here she was, pinned like some wild beast, tended by a stranger and enemy, all in the name of the life they’d created together.
“She’ll be fine,” he said.
The look in Sadie’s eyes gave no indication that she agreed. She squared her shoulders, sighed, and resumed her instructions as if the past few seconds never happened.
“When I say so, Katherine, I need you to push as hard as you can.”
“… can’t …”
“I know you’re tired, Mrs. MacGregan. I know it’s been hard. But just a little more, ya? We will help you all we can, but you need to push. Ready?”
John William watched the knife disappear behind the mound of Katherine’s stomach. Sadie’s face took on a look of furrowed concentration. Then Katherine’s body seized again, not in anger but in pain. She let forth a cry that pierced his very heart. Her hips bucked up off the mattress, her back arched in defiance.
“Push!”
Sadie placed the hand that had been restraining Katherine’s foot on top of her distended stomach and worked in a way that made John William picture his wife kneading bread.
“What can I do?” he asked.
“Put your hands on her stomach. Yes, right there.” Sadie’s hands, nearly as large as John William’s and stained with Katherine’s blood, guided his to rest on the mound he’d monitored over the past few months. Katherine had never been comfortable with her changing body, but John William was constantly curious and amused. Many nights, after Katherine collapsed into exhausted sleep, he laid his head against his child, reveling in the bumps and patterns of its hidden play. Now it was alien. Frightening. A threat to the life of its mother.
Heal my wife. Carry my child. Guide her hands. Keep me strong.
“And just a little pressure right where she’s pushing …” Sadie’s voice hung on the edge of his prayer.
“I can’t … I can’t …” Katherine’s anguish
ed cry punctuated the earnest cries of his soul.
“I’ve got its head, Katherine! Push again!”
Heal my wife.
“… no …”
“You can. You’re strong. Again, push.”
Carry my child.
“I’ve got the shoulders. Almost out. One more time, Katherine.”
Guide her hands.
“… no more …”
Keep me strong.
Katherine’s final piercing scream was deafening, and it didn’t stop. Not even when she fell back against him in exhaustion. Then John William realized the wailing he heard wasn’t coming from his wife, but from the thing that squirmed in Sadie’s bloody hands.
“It’s a little girl,” Sadie said. “Let her go and come help me with the baby.”
John William eased himself from behind his wife’s limp body. His legs cramped momentarily beneath him, and he wondered just how long he’d been sitting there.
Sadie’s voice resumed the tone of a patient instructor. “Take some of that hot water from the kettle and put it in a bowl. Add some cool until you barely feel it being warm. We need to wash her.”
Her voice prattled on about blankets and towels while his head reeled with questions he dared not ask. Once again he busied himself with compliance, until he found himself facing this tiny creature on the table, no bigger than the loaf of bread next to her. When Sadie put a warm wet washcloth into his hand, he turned to her and said, “I can’t do this.”
“Of course you can. Just take the cloth and wipe—”
“I’m afraid I’ll hurt her.”
Sadie put her own hand on his, her palm barely grazing the back of his hand and guided the pressure of his touch.
“You know, MacGregan,” Sadie said softly, withdrawing her hand, “it is a good thing for a little girl to have such a strong papa.”
John William worked the cloth between the tiny fingers, maneuvering around the hand that barely spanned his thumb. He pinched the tiny ankle between his fingers and gently wiped the thrashing foot.
“Be careful of her head most of all,” Sadie said. “Hold it gently and just squeeze the water over it.”
The tiny head was covered with soft brown hair that fell to curling as it dried. The face, however, continued to scrunch itself in protest of every ministration.
Ten Thousand Charms Page 5
