Then another contraction overwhelmed her. She moaned in intense discomfort. She looked to Liam for comfort and assurance. As he watched her vaginal area, she didn’t see confidence in his face.
“Vhat?” she asked.
“Nothin’.” Liam saw bright red blood coming from the vagina. Not much, but something was bleeding, something that wasn’t supposed to be. Christ, what do I do now? Just stay calm. It’s only a little blood. I’ll change the subject. “Will it help if ye take yer nightgown off?” he asked. “Ye’re sweatin’.”
She nodded and he helped her remove it.
He stood to examine her vaginal opening. Still seeing some discharge and a small amount of bright red blood, he reached for a folded sheet to place underneath her to catch any more. He feared it would become more profuse as the birth continued.
“I need to check yer dilation,” he said. “I’ll have to use my hand.” Liam asked Saimi to bring him soap, a clean towel, and a pan of hot water. He washed and got Eva ready for his internal exam. “It’ll be uncomfortable,” he said. “But I want to know where ye are.”
She endured it well.
Liam’s belly churned. “Ye’re fully dilated, sweetheart. I even felt the baby’s head. It’s comin’.” He smiled another reassuring smile.
Eva went into another big contraction. She cried out.
The pain was getting worse. Liam’s anxiety was growing. Whatever’s bleedin’, it could be exacerbated by the advancing labor, but it could also stop. So far, it hasn’t gotten worse. Just keep comin’, baby, the faster, the better.
“The head’s comin’,” he said. “Next time, push a little more.” He thought of something. “Saimi, can ye come in and put yerself behind Eva so she can have support pushin’?”
Saimi diligently did as instructed.
A short time later, Ellen showed up at the bedroom door, sleepy and rubbing her eyes. “Vhat time is it? Vhat is dis? Vhy you in the bedroom, Saimi?”
“You Mamma is havink baby, Ellen. Ve are helping.”
“Can I help?”
“Stand by me,” Liam said. “You can see the head coming.” He saw no more blood, but no less, either. Ellen would not know the difference. If somethin’ happens, I’ll have Saimi take her out of the room.
“Is that where the baby comes out?” Ellen asked. “I vas vondering ’bout dat.”
When another contraction came, Eva pushed, yelling and growling. Tears were beginning to flow.
Ellen became greatly concerned. “Mamma, vhy are you yellink? Pappa, help her!”
“It’s not unusual for women to yell when they give birth,” he said. “Go hold her hand. She’ll like that.”
There was one more rush of bright red blood, but after that there was nothing. Liam’s private vigil would last a while longer. He did breathe a little easier, however.
Ellen stayed with her Mamma until her little half-sibling started to emerge.
“Dark hair,” Liam said. “One more big push, Eva, and ye’re done. I don’t know if it’s a boy or girl yet. I have to turn it over.”
~~~
Elisabet Eva Dady was born. It was February eleventh, 1903. They would call her Liisa, after Eva’s sister.
“Liam, you haff lil girl,” Eva cooed. “I see dark hair.” Eva looked at the first-time father, who happened to be her man. She felt so in love.
“Come, Ellen, see your new sister,” Liam said, tears rolling down his cheeks. “Come with a towel. Let’s wipe down the baby and wrap her up. Mamma will want to feed her. And we have to clip her cord.”
“Will it hurt?” Ellen asked.
“No. The baby can’t feel it.” As Liam spoke, the afterbirth delivered.
“That is disgusting,” Ellen said.
“You can’t feel that way if ye’re goin’ to be a doctor. We have to stomach a lot.”
“Fine, I’ll stomach it later.” Ellen paused and looked at the newborn. She smiled and gave her little sister a kiss on her fuzzy cheek. “I am very hungry and I need some cake. I’ll put that in my stomach. But first I need to know, why is she so wrinkly?”
“You would be, too, if you’d spent nine months in water.”
“I get that way in the tub. I’m getting that cake.” Ellen left.
Saimi busied herself with cleaning up. She took the sheet with the afterbirth, folded it, and put it into a bucket.
Liam was still tending to the baby when Saimi took a good look at her. “Sees haff Liam’s hair, so dark and curly. She has his look, too, Eva. Wait ’til you see. Sees pretty girl. Kaunis tyttö.” Saimi went into the kitchen with the placenta in a bucket.
Liam weighed Liisa on the scale he’d borrowed from the hospital to record the birth weight. “Seven pounds, two ounces,” he announced and wrote it down for the record.
“Dat good?” Eva asked, still sweaty.
“Aye, it’s a good weight. Many are born smaller and considered healthy.” He walked to Eva with the infant, who was starting to squawk. “Are ye ready, Mamma?”
“Sees lil hungry.”
As Liam gave Liisa to her, Eva grinned from ear to ear. Liam sat on the edge of the bed, watching his brand-new baby start to suckle on Eva’s engorged breast. Eva looked at him, smiling, and he began to cry again, tears of joy and exhaustion. She glanced out the window and noticed it was dawn. The blizzard of the night before was still pounding away. Eva pulled him close. As he bent down to meet her, she leaned up to kiss him.
“You vere good doctor,” she said. “I am so proud. I never see you like dat.”
“You were an easy patient. Ye didn’t yell at me once!” He smiled. He paused as he gazed at her, studying her as a new mother. A feeling of awe overcame him. “Ye’re so beautiful right now. Ye just had my baby, Eva. Ye’re so strong. Ye weren’t even afraid.”
Eva deftly took Liisa off the one breast and turned her to the other one. “You ’fraid,” Eva said, gazing fiercely into his eyes. “I see somptink last night in you face.”
“Aye, I was. But everything seems fine now. I will still watch you for the next while.”
Eva took a few breaths, still gazing into his eyes, still looking for more. “I luff you,” she whispered.
Saimi called from the kitchen, “Ellen has cut bik piece of cake for herself, Mamma, yust to let you know.” Then she said to Ellen loudly enough for Liam and Eva to hear, “Don’t you vanna see you baby sister?”
“Yes, I do,” Ellen said from the kitchen. “I’m celebrating. When I finish my cake, I’ll go back in.”
“I make some pancakes for breakfast.” Saimi said. “Den I go to bed for ’vhile.
“Good,” Ellen said. “I’m hungry. I’ll come help you in a while.” Ellen left the kitchen and entered the bedroom with the last bites of her cake in her mouth.
“It was a new thing for me,” Ellen said. She still had cake in her mouth. “Pappa Liam helped you have a baby. You yelled and yelled, but you are fine anyvay. I still know exactly what I vant to be vhen I grow up.”
“Vhat’s dat, Ellen,” Eva asked.
“I vant to be just like Pappa Liam.”
~~~
Although Eva had been up for nights with the baby, Ellen found she was, nonetheless, up and in the kitchen. It was March twelfth and Ellen’s tenth birthday. Even though it was a school day, she came out of her room that morning dressed in her best clothes. Her hair was combed and bunched into a bun at the base of her head. She looked at her bleary-eyed parents, both sitting at the kitchen table, nursing cups of coffee.
“Where’s the baby?” Ellen asked.
“Sees sleepink.”
“She’s backwards.”
“If ye mean she stays up all night and sleeps in the day, aye, she’s backwards,” Liam quipped.
“Hyvää syntymäpäivää,” Eva said to her daughter. She opened her arms for her ten-year-old to receive a birthday hug.
“I haven’t heard that one. HOO-veh …?” Liam often asked about words or small phrases. He was usually snickered a
t when he attempted to pronounce them.
“It means ‘Happy Birthday’,” Ellen explained. She went to Liam’s open arm, inviting her for a hug.
“How old are ye, then?” he asked.
For many days now, Ellen had been announcing that her tenth birthday was coming up. She smiled, recognizing the tease. “Ten!” she said.
“You sit. I make plattu for you.” Eva pointed to a covered plate on the stove. It was piled high with the crepe-like pancakes.
“Ummm! My favorite,” Ellen cooed. “I can get them, Mamma.”
Standing on her stool, Ellen took a plate from the shelf. She put several of the pancakes on it, and then came to the table. She spread strawberry preserves on the plattu from the crock on the table, then sat down and commenced to devour the monstrous heap.
“Ye eat like yer mother does,” Liam said.
Eva smacked his arm.
“Ve have cake tonight after supper.”
“And a present, I hope.” Ellen wiggled her eye brows, making Liam and Eva snicker.
“Ve see ’bout it . . .” Eva said, wiggling her own eye brows.
Ellen snickered.
From the bedroom, one-month-old Liisa began to sputter and fuss. Eva started to get up. Liam held up his hand and put his coffee cup down.
Ever vigilant, Ellen went into observation mode as she ate her breakfast.
“I’ve got a while before I have to leave, I’ll get her,” Liam said.
“I get you breakfast,” Eva said. She went to the stove with a plate for Liam, piling the rest of the plattu on his plate. She took it back to the table.
Ellen could see that her step-Pappa loved his baby daughter. He spent much of his home time with her close to him, cuddling and talking to her. Ellen thought Liam was very good at paying attention to everyone, not leaving anyone out.
“All I can see is a fuzzy black head with fists flailin’,” Liam reported from the bedroom. Liisa was in a full-blown wail.
“Sweetheart, love,” Liam said sweetly, “what’s all this, then?”
Ellen could see him from her seat. She watched him pick up the baby and smell what the matter was. She laughed at his scrunched-up expression.
“It’s nothin’ much, Mamma. Just a nappie full o’ baby shite.”
“Irish people talk funny,” Ellen announced through a mouth full of pancakes.
“What about Finnish people?”
“I don’t talk funny,” Ellen said.
“To Irish people ye do.” Liam spoke in a strong lilt.
Ellen laughed. “Very funny.”
After Liam changed Liisa, he picked her up and cradled her in his arms. He kissed her softly on the head. Then he brought her into the warm, fragrant kitchen. He gave the baby to Eva and went to the kitchen sink to wash his hands. Then he sat down to the big plate of pancakes Eva had prepared for him, already slathered in preserves and ready to eat. “Thank ye, love.”
“Tank you for changink stinky baby.”
“Vas I stinky, too, Mamma?”
“Yes, verdy stinky somptime. You start to eat food early. My milk vas not enough. Den you get stinky paskaa.”
“Mamma! You said ‘shit’ in Finnish!” Ellen fell into great giggles.
“Vell, don’t tell anybody I say it,” Eva said with a chuckle. She hid her face behind her coffee cup while cradling Liisa against her body. “You don’t say dat, too.”
“I won’t, Mamma,” Ellen said with a modicum of regret behind a grin.
“Vhat cake you vant for birtday?”
“Chocolate, please.”
Ellen rode to school in the cab with Liam; it was a birthday treat. “Tank you, Pappa. I’ll see you at home tonight.”
Liam helped her out of the cab. “Have a good day at school, love.”
~~~
That evening, before they cut the birthday cake, Eva sang the Finnish girl’s birthday song. The song always made the older ladies cry, which included Eva, now, although she was not old. Just as she finished, a knock came on the front door. Saimi answered it. Eva didn’t know who would be at the door.
“I came to see a Miss Ellen Mattson, if you please.”
Saimi came into the kitchen. “Mr. Greene from bank vants to see Ellen.”
Eva didn’t know why the bank president would come to the house.
They all walked to the foyer, Eva carrying the baby. Ellen walked right up to Mr. Greene.
“I’m Ellen Mattson. How may I help you?” she said in a very grown up manner. This elicited the usual bovine looks from the adults in earshot.
“Ah, yes Miss.” Mr. Greene cleared his throat, “Your father, the late Victor Mattson, had started a savings account for you, with the intent of giving it to you on your tenth birthday. I am delivering an account book to you as per his instruction.”
“Thank you,” Ellen said, seeming perplexed.
Mr. Greene handed Ellen the savings account book, tipped his hat, and bid them all a good evening. “Happy Birthday, Miss Mattson.”
“Thank you,” she said again.
Saimi let him out.
Ellen opened the small, dark green, leather-covered book. “There’s five hundred dollars written in here,” she announced. Her voice was steady and even. “Pappa gave this to me?”
Eva was so overwhelmed she could not stem the tears that began to roll down her face. No one could say anything for several long moments. Eva gave the baby to Liam and went to her room, lay on the bed, and cried. Ellen went to her mother and sat on the edge of the bed, rubbing her mother’s arm in comfort.
“I have to give him credit,” Liam said softly, following the two into the bedroom and putting Liisa in the cradle. “He was a good father to ye, Ellen.” He went to Eva, scooping her into his arms. Ellen held her mother, too. Liam wrapped an arm around Ellen as well. The birthday cake was temporarily forgotten, left on the kitchen table.
~~~
The next morning at breakfast, Ellen asked her Mamma, “What is the money from Pappa for?”
“I tink he knew you gonna be somptink someday. Maybe it for… Liam, vhat you call school for doctor?
“Medical school,” Liam helped.
“I’ll save it for that, then,” Ellen decided, smiling.
Chapter 17
Over the winter, Liam wrote to Annie MacDonald, making arrangements to have her make her way from Belfast to the Minnesota North Country by the first half of May. Annie’s last letter to Liam had solid dates of departure from Liverpool and arrival in New York. Eva had just celebrated her twenty-seventh birthday, and Liam was excitedly awaiting Annie’s arrival.
One night as Liam and Eva were getting ready for bed, she smiled at Liam’s anticipation.
Liam was keyed-up and excited at the prospect of seeing his adolescent-hood caregiver in the flesh after all this time. “She said her Atlantic crossing was scheduled for May the fourth from England. That would get her into New York Harbor and Ellis Island on the ninth, and then give her about a week to arrive here. Maybe sooner.”
“How you feel ‘bout Annie comink so soon?”
“I’m elated beyond anything, but I know I will cry when I see her. Our past is so full of joy and then tremendous sorrow. I will have to tell her about what I did those four years in which I disappeared.”
“Sees lost Dolly, too. I understand dat. Den you don’t write her.”
Eva leaned down to check on Liisa, asleep in her cradle, then crawled in bed next to Liam.
“I know you luff her verdy mutts, Liam. I am happy you happy.”
“I can’t wait for her to meet you and Ellen, and especially Liisa,” he said, helping Eva settle in next to him. He put her in the crook of his arm and kissed her neck.
~~~
“Who is Annie, Pappa? Tell me again.” Ellen and Liam were finishing breakfast and getting ready to leave for work and school.
“Annie was the live-in cook at my parent’s mansion in Belfast. She was more of a mother to me than my own, who was too wrapped up in
her high society.”
“You were rich in Belfast?” Ellen asked.
“My father and mother were. Don’t get me wrong. There’s nothin’ wrong with makin’ money and livin’ well, as long as ye don’t hurt others. My parents were of the mind that because they had money, they were better than others who didn’t have as much. They treated the help terribly. I’d get angry with them.”
“I wouldn’t do that, treat the help terribly,” Ellen declared.
“The woman I married, Dolly, was one of the ‘help,’ and my mother was very angry about that. She wanted me to marry a rich girl that I didn’t care for. And I’m absolutely certain my father took me out of his will. That’s why I like workin’ as a doctor. It pays me well to support my family. I also happen to like helpin’ sick people feel better.”
“I’m sorry you lost your first wife and baby, Pappa. You vere sad like Mamma vas. I remember.” She got up from her chair, walked to Liam, and hugged him.
“Thank ye, love,” he said. He bent down and hugged her in return. Ellen never stopped amazing him. He glanced at Eva, who was breastfeeding his second daughter. Although he had claimed Ellen as his after the wedding, it took Ellen much longer to accept him as her stepfather. Over Ellen’s shoulder, he could tell Eva was thinking the same about Ellen, gazing poignantly at her increasingly compassionate older daughter.
“I will be very glad to meet Mrs. MacDonald,” Ellen said. She let go of the hug and looked into Liam’s eyes.
~~~
On the morning of May thirteenth, a Friday, Liam found himself at the hospital treating a man in with a gunshot wound to the arm. The man was lucky; the wound was only a graze. The doctors at the hospital were required to call the Sheriff when gunshot victims came to the emergency room for treatment. Liam accompanied the Sheriff to interview the wounded man.
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