by Delia Parr
Profound sadness enveloped her spirit, and she struggled to embrace this little one’s loss as his mother wept. In nearly ten years of practice, she had lost only four babies to stillbirth, and each still lived vividly in her memory. Still, nothing could ever prepare her for this experience, and she tried with all her might to accept this baby’s death as an opportunity for all of them to receive even greater blessings.
Later, she would record today’s tragedy in her diary and pray it would be a very long time before she had to do it again.
“I’m sorry, Russell. I’m so sorry. It’s all my fault. Please forgive me. Please.”
Startled by Nancy’s plea, Martha looked up. Nancy cradled her dead child against her bosom with her deformed hand. She began crying uncontrollably, but it was Russell who garnered all of Martha’s attention.
With his lips pressed together in a firm line, he held his body stiff. His gaze was hard and unforgiving. Instead of answering his wife, instead of reassuring her that he did not blame her for this accident of nature, he eased her from his lap, stood up, and handed her over to Martha.
“I have a grave to dig,” he mumbled and quickly left the room without ever holding his son or offering a single word of comfort to his wife.
Stunned, Martha embraced the young woman. With the tiny boy’s body pressed between them, they wept together. Childbearing was indeed a woman’s lot, her cross as well as her greatest blessing, creating bonds of sisterhood between all women—bonds most men could scarcely begin to understand. Memories of her own two babies, now resting next to their father in the cemetery, still ran deep.
For many men like Russell, the shock of losing a babe unleashed emotions they would bury deep in their hearts and hide from the world, but in time, she prayed, Russell and Nancy would be able to grieve together, accept their loss as God’s will, and forgive the accident that had led to this early, tragic birth.
Nancy was far from home and family, with no mother to console her, no familiar friends or neighbors to help her. For now, Martha would have to be the anchor that held Nancy and her faith steady. “Give a good cry, sweet Nancy. You are not alone. You are never alone,” she crooned. “I’m so sorry, so very sorry.”
Later, there would be time to offer hope, to speak of the children Nancy would someday carry and welcome into the world with great joy and celebration, but now was not that time. Although this baby had never drawn a single breath or suckled at his mother’s breast, to his mother, he had been real. He had been her baby for many months—months filled with dreams that now would never be fulfilled.
Now was a time for grieving his loss, for forgiving, and for healing, both in body and soul. She cried with Nancy for all that could have been and prayed for healing for this couple—a healing that would bring them closer together, united as one, in faith and in love.
2
Martha was emotionally drained and physically spent by the time she had Nancy back in bed, washed, and gowned in a fresh nightdress. It was no simple accomplishment since Nancy refused to let go of her dead newborn for a single moment. All visible signs of the birthing had now been removed, and Martha’s work, for now, was done.
An eerie silence engulfed the room with sadness, broken only by the rhythmic echo of a pick attacking frozen earth or the scraping of a shovel as Russell prepared a final resting place for his son.
Martha sat at the foot of the bed. She studied the young mother as waning afternoon sunlight cast gentle shadows onto the bed. Even in sleep, her face was haunted by grief and the ordeal of childbirth. Her eyelids were still puffy and dried tears stained her cheeks. Her crooked hold on her silent baby was firm, and he lay, silent and still, in the crook of her neck.
Martha moistened her lips and steepled her hands together. She was far from content that all would soon be well for Nancy, even though the tragic birth had proceeded quite normally. Still, she could not account for the variety of bruises she had discovered on Nancy’s body while applying the traditional wrappings and bathing the young woman after the birth.
Some bruises, like those on her shins and abdomen, were clearly fresh and caused by the fall that triggered the premature birth of her son. Others, tinged with telltale yellow, were much older, like those on her upper arms and the one on the side of her neck.
Adding the multiple bruises to the crooked fingers on Nancy’s hand made Russell’s comment at the confectionery about Nancy being clumsy appear to ring true. Most farm women suffered physical injuries from hours of long, hard work, but not nearly to the extent Nancy did. Was she just naturally clumsy and prone to injury as Russell suggested? Instead, was there a medical condition responsible for the abnormal extent of bruising Martha had detected? Perhaps Nancy suffered from an impairment in her vision. Or some kind of brain defect that affected her equilibrium, which would account for her apparent clumsiness?
Martha could not be sure. As well versed as she might be in women’s ailments, pregnancy, and the birth process, she was not trained to diagnose or treat more serious conditions, something the young Dr. McMillan would be quick to point out.
With years of experience, Martha pondered these questions, even as her heart began to race with yet another, more awful possibility. It was entirely possible Nancy was neither clumsy nor ill, but married to a man who was not the loving husband he presented himself to be. And the bruises could be evidence of his brutal treatment. If that were the case, there was no way Martha could leave Nancy here alone with him, especially after what had happened today.
Before she could begin to think of a way to approach the subject with her patient, Nancy stirred and opened her eyes. She blinked several times, then tightened her deformed hand around her babe as fresh tears fell. “I . . . I was so sure this was just a bad dream. Just a horrible dream,” she whimpered.
Martha reached out and rubbed one of the girl’s feet. “How I wish I could tell you it were true.”
Nancy sniffled and wiped her face with the sleeve of her nightdress. Fear paled her complexion. “Where’s Russell?”
“He’s still outside. The ground is frozen hard, so it may take him some time. . . .”
Nancy’s bottom lip began to quiver. “He must be so angry with me.”
Martha cocked a brow and grabbed the very opening she needed to answer her concerns. “Does Russell get angry with you very often?”
Nancy’s eyes widened as she obviously absorbed the implications in Martha’s question. When she shook her head, tears escaped and trickled down the sides of her face. She pressed her lips together and tilted her chin. Her gaze sparkled with defiance. “Russell is a fine man and a good husband. He’s patient and understanding, and—”
“I didn’t mean to imply otherwise,” Martha insisted. Most definitely rebuked, she was taken aback by the younger woman’s adamant defense of her husband. Loath to be responsible for upsetting her patient, Martha regretted even suggesting there was trouble in this young couple’s marriage.
“It’s not his fault I’m just naturally clumsy, but this time . . .” Nancy paused and wiped the tears from her face. “This time I’m afraid he’ll never forgive me for being such an oaf. I know I never will. It’s all my fault this happened. I should have waited for him to get the firewood, then I wouldn’t have fallen, and my babe . . . my poor babe . . .” She dissolved into tears.
“You won’t help matters by blaming yourself,” Martha insisted. She briefly explained the double-wrapped cord around the baby’s neck. “So you see, perhaps ending your pregnancy now is God’s mercy at work. You can mourn your babe’s loss as nature’s accident, not yours.”
Nancy brushed away new tears with the back of her hand and looked back and forth from the door to her swaddled babe. “Why did this have to happen? Why?” she wailed.
Martha moved closer to sit alongside the grief-stricken young woman. “We don’t know why,” she murmured. “All we can do is trust the good Lord to help us through tragedy. I know your heart is broken, but God’s power to heal�
�”
“God should have used His power to save my babe,” Nancy countered before she turned her back to Martha and began to sob.
Martha let her cry herself back to sleep. When the world outside once again grew silent, she gathered her bag and birthing stool, tiptoed from the room, and gently closed the door just as Russell returned to the cabin.
He placed a small wooden box on the table and emptied out the contents, an odd collection of nails and screws. “Don’t need to bother makin’ a coffin. This should do,” he murmured.
Martha swallowed the lump in her throat and set her things down by the bedchamber door. “I’m so sorry, Russell. I wish I had been able to do more.”
“You did what you could. There’s no need to apologize or waste any more time here. Figure you’d want to head back to town and get home before nightfall.”
His words were clipped, his expression hard.
Her heartstrings tightened. “I should stay awhile longer. To check Nancy and make sure she doesn’t have any complications. I’d also like to stay and pray with you when you bury your son.”
He tightened his jaw, and a tic dimpled one of his reddened cheeks. “I can bury my son without troublin’ you further, and I can tend to my wife.”
She softened her gaze. “You don’t have to do it alone. Nancy’s resting now. At least let me help you get the babe’s coffin ready and make something for you to eat. Then when Nancy wakes up, I’ll check her again and leave, if that’s what you want. The two of you should spend some time together with your son. Nancy needs you, Russell, more than she needs me right now. She’s plagued with guilt—”
His eyes filled with tears, but he held them back and balled his hands into fists. “If she had waited for me, instead of bein’ impatient and goin’ out for that firewood herself, God knows none of this would have happened. None of it!”
“You can’t blame Nancy,” she argued. “Her fall triggered the birth, but the cord was wrapped tight around that babe’s neck not once, but twice. I’ve seen it a few times before, unfortunately. Whether that babe entered this world today or next week or in April, I’m afraid the end result most likely would have been the same. What happened to your son was an accident of nature, and it won’t help bring him back to blame Nancy.”
He relaxed his hands, drew in deep gulps of air, and swallowed hard as he visibly struggled to accept her explanation. When the echo of her words faded away, he nodded toward the bedchamber door. “Have you told her this?”
“Yes, but she’s still very upset and frightened you’ll be angry with her. She’s weak from childbirth, and her heart is broken. Sit with her until she wakes up again and reassure her. In the meantime, I’ll see what I can do about fixing up that box for your son. Did Nancy have any blankets ready for him? Anything at all I could use to make a soft bed for him?”
He shook his head. “We were supposed to go to the general store and get some wool, but . . .”
“Don’t worry. I’ll think of something. Go on. Sit with her. And with your son.”
“Peter. His name is Peter,” he whispered before he left her standing all alone.
Feeling guilty for thinking he might have struck his wife, when he so clearly cared for her, Martha waited until he closed the door behind him before she glanced about the room. No curtain covered the window. No cloth adorned the table. There was nothing, simply nothing she could use to line the box, but she refused to allow Peter’s resting place to be nothing more than a coarse wooden box.
She caught her lower lip with her teeth, thought hard, and came up with a solution. Selfishly, she rejected it for a heartbeat before accepting the sacrifice she must make. “Dear Lord,” she prayed, “I know Hannah went to great lengths to make this special petticoat for me to wear with my split skirt, but I think she’d want me to do this. It’s just . . . well, sometimes it’s hard for me to give up something I especially like, so I ask You to please forgive me for coveting this petticoat and hesitating to use Hannah’s gift for little Peter.”
With her prayer done, she went to the far corner of the room, turned her back to the bedchamber door, eased out of her split skirt, and slid her petticoat free. Her hands shook as she tugged her split skirt back into place, and she let out a sigh of relief that she had managed the first part of her task without being caught half-dressed.
She carried her petticoat back to the table, retrieved her scissors from her bag, and got straight to work. She cut several squares of white cotton from one leg, laid them on top of one another inside the box, and tucked under the unfinished edges. Content with her efforts to create some semblance of a little mattress, she cut off another larger square with the wide bank of embroidery at the hem from the same leg. She had no needle or thread; instead, she finished the edges of the make-do coverlet by cutting a scallop design.
With the inside of the wooden box transformed into a suitable little coffin, she kept busy by adding a few logs to the fire and starting a kettle of potato soup. Her stomach growled, reminding her she had not eaten yet today. She retrieved the honey bun from her cape pocket and nibbled it away in no time.
When Russell finally emerged from the bedchamber, the soup was bubbling. “If you’re hungry—”
He waved away her suggestion. “Not now. I want to bury Peter before dark.” He walked over to the table and retrieved the box.
She answered the surprise in his expression with a smile. “It’s not much, but Nancy will feel better if—”
“It’s fine. Thank you. Nancy . . . Nancy asked if you’d help her with Peter and say a prayer with her now. She’s in no condition to go outside and pray at his grave.”
Martha nodded and followed him back into the bedchamber. Nancy was sitting up in bed now and held the babe in the crook of her arm. Her eyes were red and swollen from crying, but she appeared to be composed.
Until Russell placed the coffin on her lap.
Fresh tears spilled down her cheeks. When Martha reached for little Peter, Nancy flinched and tightened her hold on him.
“There’s no rush. We can wait a bit. Until you’re ready,” Martha crooned.
“Nancy, give her the babe.”
Nancy looked up at him, pressed one last kiss to her baby’s face, and handed him to Martha, before she dissolved into tears.
Ever so gently, Martha wrapped Peter in his little coverlet and placed his tiny body into the box. While Russell stood stoically at his wife’s side, Martha led them all in prayer. “We commend thee, Peter Clifford, into the loving arms of your heavenly Father. Sweet angel boy, as you look down on us from above, you can see that you were much loved. Know that you will remain in your mother’s heart and your father’s heart forever. Always their darling son. Always their sweet babe. We wait for the day you will be reunited when you welcome your parents Home.”
Martha took a deep breath.
Nancy sobbed.
Her husband remained stoic.
Martha continued. “We pray, dear Lord, that You will comfort Nancy and Russell in this, their hour of great sorrow, and ease their grief with Your endless love and generous mercy. We ask for Your blessing now and in all the days and nights that follow. Amen.”
Russell cleared his throat. “Amen.”
Nancy’s voice whispered an echo of a response as she stared at her baby as he lay in his little coffin. Without further comment, Russell slid the cover into place and carried his son away. Nancy followed them with her gaze until Russell disappeared from view. When the cabin door opened and then slammed shut, she began to tremble. “I can’t believe he’s gone. My little Peter,” she cried.
Martha did her best to console the grief-stricken woman, and they listened together as Russell buried the little boy. Eventually, after Martha checked Nancy to make sure there were no complications from the birthing, the young woman cried herself to sleep yet again, and Martha returned to the outer room.
When Russell finally came back inside, his expression remained frozen with determination. Exhaustio
n aged his face. He held up a lantern. “It’ll be gettin’ dark soon. I used this to get to town earlier, but there’s plenty of oil left. I saddled your mare and strapped on your things so you can take your leave now.”
“I wouldn’t mind staying with Nancy for the night. The soup’s ready. I could fix you some supper.”
He squared his shoulders. “I appreciate everythin’ you’ve done for my wife, but I can tend to her now.”
“Most women need an afternurse for the first week or so. If you won’t let me stay the night, at least let me send someone tomorrow to stay with Nancy.”
He frowned. “That won’t be necessary.”
Unaccustomed to having her recommendations rejected out of hand, she stiffened her spine. Her heart began to pound, and she tried to understand why he was being so adamant. Granted, he was battling emotions that were understandably difficult. He was angry and bitter over the death of his son, and his grief was so raw and so deep he just could not be thinking clearly.
There was nothing she could do to force him to let her stay the night or to compromise and to allow her to arrange for an afternurse to come in the morning. She had to hold true, however, to her responsibility to her patient and pressed her case. “I think it is necessary, and unless you want to risk your wife’s health, you’ll do as I suggest. Millicent Fenway lives just a few miles away. I could stop and see her on my way home. I’m sure she’d be willing to come to stay with Nancy tomorrow, just for a few days.”
He raked one hand through his hair. “I don’t know how I’m goin’ to pay your reward, let alone one for anyone else.”
Martha’s heart constricted. “We can work something out for my reward. Millicent won’t come because she wants to earn a reward. She’ll come because that’s what we womenfolk do for one another. We help one another.”
