by Donna Mabry
When Tommy and I got back home, Sister Clark took me to Helen’s bedroom and showed me all the things I would have to do to care for Helen. She was finally awake, and Helen said that she could take care of herself, but Sister Clark shushed her and told her she had to follow doctor’s orders if she wanted to get well again.
She told me how to keep Helen’s most private parts clean, and how to use a pan for Helen’s toilet. She explained how to put clean sheets on the bed with Helen still in it. I listened close to everything she said so I would do it right.
When she was finished, Sister Clark gave me a quick hug. “If you need help sometimes, let me know. It won’t be for very long. In a few weeks, she’ll be her old self, and you can go back to being a little girl again. For right now, you have to be the woman of the house.”
It was as if, for the last year since Helen was married, Mom had been training me for the job I had to do. I set about being the woman of the house that very day. I gathered up the soiled bedding and took it out to the back porch where there were two washtubs, one for washing and one for rinsing. I pumped the water and heated it and carried it to the tubs myself. I took the paring knife and a block of soap and cut it up in the hot water, the way I’d seen my mother do so many times. When the bedding was washed and hung on the line, I changed the water and did the regular clothes.
After that, I put out a simple lunch for the three of us, me, Tommy and Helen. The house was full of food brought by friends. Someone had been smart enough to bring a block of ice so the food would keep fresh longer. I sliced some ham, boiled a few potatoes, and warmed up a dish of collard greens. I made a tray and took it in to Helen. Tommy took his plate in the bedroom to eat with her, and I sat at the table in the kitchen by myself.
After giving thanks for all our friends and the food, I ate alone and then cleaned up the dishes.
Tommy sat in the bedroom all that day and held Helen’s hand while she slept. Later that evening, Brother and Sister Clark came over with a regular bed for me so I wouldn’t have to sleep on the floor. They brought me a stack of clothes that were donated by the members of the church. Some of the things were brand new. There were a coat, three dresses, and there was enough underwear for me to go a whole week before I had to wash them. Tommy and the preacher set up the bed in the room meant for the baby. Tommy cried as he carried the cradle to the barn, and Brother Clark patted him on the back and re-assured him that someday he could carry it back in the house.
Helen was weak for a long time, and I did everything I could to take care of the house and my sister. After a few weeks, Helen’s strength came back some, and she was up and about. I didn’t need to help her so much in a personal way, but it was a long time before Helen started to take over the household chores. Even then she left the harder work, like the laundry and the heavy cleaning, to me. It seemed that I never did get to go back to being a little girl, but my life did start to be more normal. I went back to school and to my regular class in Sunday school. I saw my friends there, but never asked them over to the house. It wasn’t my house, and besides, I didn’t have time to sit on the porch the way Helen did before she married. There were too many chores to be done.
I got my first time for the monthlies when I was eleven. I picked up a basket full of laundry and felt something hot and wet run down my legs. I set the basket down and looked down to see the red streaks. No one had ever talked to me about it, but I wasn’t afraid. I knew from doing the laundry that women bled once a month.
All the same, I didn’t feel old enough to be a woman. I washed off the blood and cleaned myself up, then stuffed a cloth into my undies and went to talk to Helen. She said it was something all women shared. She sat next to me and put her arm around my shoulders and told me matter-of-fact what she knew about the situation. “When Eve sinned, God put a curse on her and now, every woman has to suffer for it. You’ll get this once a month. It will last five or six days. You can’t take a sit-down bath or wash your hair while you have it or you’ll get sick. I’m sorry you got it so young. Some girls don’t start until they’re fifteen. They’re the lucky ones.”
Then Helen tore up some of the thin, older towels into strips and gave them to me with directions on how to use them and how to keep myself clean. Taking care of the house, I had a woman’s job, and now I had a woman’s body, and I wasn’t happy about either thing, but there wasn’t much I could do about it.
When I was twelve, I struck up a beginning courtship with James Connor. I always liked him, and I guess it showed, because even when I was in kindergarten, Daddy teased me about it. James mostly ignored me before.
The town had only one school, so we saw one another every weekday, and he attended the Holiness Church with his family, the same one I went to with mine. He was a few years older, and I figured out right away that now he wanted to be a different kind of friend. I was tall for my age, as tall as a grown woman, and my figure had bloomed early. I wasn’t slim and tiny-waisted like Helen, but was like my daddy, sturdy built.
James had light blond hair and deep blue eyes and was tall enough that I had to look up at him. I liked that. He didn’t make me feel so big. He was as plain as I was, but he was pleasant looking and had a warm smile and a winning way about him. He made me feel special. If I came into the classroom after him, when he caught sight of me, his face sort of lit up, like it pleased him for me to be there. I never saw him pay attention to any other girl. He smiled at me and seemed happy to see me each time we met. Once, he held my hand when he walked me home from school. I liked that, but the next day, someone teased us about it, so he didn’t do it again.
After the birth of Helen’s stillborn baby, Helen seemed to get in a family way at least once a year, but she always miscarried in her second or third month. Each time, she would go to her room for days and cry. Every time, she gave up on ever being able to carry a baby to the end. Tommy held her and comforted her and reminded her that the doctor had told them that they would have a healthy baby sooner or later.
When I was thirteen, Helen missed her period again and made it through the third month without a problem. Everyone held their breath. Doctor Wilson told her to go to bed and stay there as much as possible, and she did. For the second time, I was the only woman working in the house. I got up extra early, when the first rooster crowed, cooked breakfast for the three of us, made a sack lunch for Tommy to take to work with him, and a lunch for Helen, which I put in the icebox to keep cool. When I got home from school, I did the chores and cleaned and fixed dinner. Saturdays, I did the laundry and cooked the meal for a cold Sunday dinner, usually fried chicken, corn bread and potato salad. Except for the necessary things, even I didn’t have to work on the Sabbath.
When her fourth month of carrying the baby passed without a problem, Helen became more cheerful. After the fifth month, she developed a tummy bulge, and even Tommy relaxed a bit. He would come in from work, kiss his wife, lay his hand on her big belly and talk to the baby. He was sure it was another little boy.
During the day, Helen sat propped up in bed, reading or visiting with one of her lady friends. I would have liked to join them, but I was usually busy with running the house. If I did go into Helen’s room when she had company, I still got the old feeling of being an outsider, just like when I was a girl.
When I finished cleaning up after dinner, I would sometimes sit on the front porch with James. He had just as many things to do as I did. He’d graduated the last term and started a job at his father’s store. While I did the housework on Saturdays, he played baseball. Saturday evenings, he visited, and we had to be careful that we kept a respectable distance between us, with our chairs not quite touching. We didn’t want people to talk about us.
James couldn’t keep the excitement out of his voice when he talked about baseball. “They’re opening ball parks all across the country, Maude. There’s different levels of teams. The real professionals play in the majors, where they don’t have to do anything to earn a living but play ball. Just i
magine, getting paid money to play! Then there are what they call the minor leagues, where you still learn from real coaches and they get you ready to move up to the majors. The kind of ball we play here, one small town against another, is like the bottom level.”
He’d told me all this before, but I listened anyway. I took pleasure in seeing how much he loved the game. He got a dreamy, faraway look when he said, “Once in a while they send out a man to take a look and see if there are any players who might be good enough to be a professional. One of them was here, Maude, in our town. He watched us play. He talked to three of us after the game, Henry Gray, Phil Fuller, and me. He asked us a lot of questions and said that he’d be back. That’s what I want to do, Maude, I want to play ball more than anything.”
James’s dad ran the farm supply store, and I thought about that. “What about your dad’s store? Doesn’t he expect you to take over someday? Would he let you go off to play ball?”
“My dad’s not like that. He wouldn’t hold me back from what I love. Besides, I’d come home someday and run it for him, but not until I was too old to play anymore.”
James held my hand and looked in my eyes, “What do you want, Maude? What kind of life do you see for yourself?”
I was taken unexpected by his question. I couldn’t even answer him right away. After a moment he asked, “Maude?”
I laughed a little, embarrassed. “No one ever asked me what I wanted before, James, not once. I spent my whole life so far having people tell me what to do, and doing it. It’s like I was out in the middle of a stream and it was better to let it carry me along than to fight it.”
“Well, I’m asking you now. What is it that would make you happy?”
I smiled and looked off at some clouds in the sky. I had to think about it a minute before I could answer him. “I’d like to graduate from school and then go see other places. I’ve heard tell about cities where it would take days to walk from one side to the other. I read about oceans so big that it takes the biggest, fastest boat weeks to cross over them.”
He was quiet and, after a few seconds, I thought of some more to tell him. “After a while, I’d like to have a home of my own, where I could make pretty curtains for the windows. I’d like to marry a good man and raise babies, and grow old with my family about me.”
We sat together for a while after that without talking, both of us dreaming our dreams, until Helen came out to remind James that it was getting late, and I had chores still to do.
James’s mother and father were really nice to me. They encouraged us to spend time together and told me they appreciated how I worked to take care of Helen and the house. They made me feel they thought their son had made a good choice in courting me.
James and I really enjoyed what little time we spent together. It was comfortable. Our future seemed settled. We never actually spoke about it, but I expected James would talk to me about getting married as soon as I finished school. Of course, that was three years away.
Helen’s sixth month passed without any problems, then her seventh and eighth. She said the baby moved around all the time. Sometimes Helen would grab my hand and press it against her stomach. I could feel the little feet kicking away. Helen was so happy, “Henry Mathias was never like that. He hardly moved. I just know this one is going to make it.”
I would smile and be happy along with her. I wanted this baby to live as much as Helen and Tommy did.
When the baby was due in another week or two, Helen started to be nervous and asked the doctor, “Are you sure it’s all right, Doctor Wilson? How can you tell? Isn’t it time?”
He smiled at her like she was a little girl. “You know what they say, Helen, a baby’s like a ripe apple. When it’s ready, it’ll fall. Now, don’t you worry so, I’ll take good care of you. All of us will, me and Tommy and Maude.”
Tommy brought the cradle down from the barn’s loft and I cleaned it and polished it. I put it back into its original location in my bedroom. I shoved my bed against the wall to make room. I moved my things out of two of the bureau drawers, making room for the little layette that I’d packed away. I’d sewn enough with my mother to be a pretty good seamstress, and made little gowns and bonnets for the baby. They weren’t embroidered and fancy like store-bought clothes, but they were stitched even, they would last, and they were made with love.
I came home from school one day to find Helen lying on her side in her bed. She was sweating and trying to catch her breath. “Get the doctor,” she said.
I ran out of the house, and ran the quarter-mile to the doctor’s house lickedly-split. He kept his office in an addition at the side of his house, one little waiting room and one examining room. The door was open, but he wasn’t there. There were men I knew from the church waiting to see him. One of them had a bandage on his hand with blood leaking out of it.
“Where is he?” I yelled. “He has to come. Helen’s having her baby.”
They all knew what happened the first time. Their bloody fingers could wait. One of the men stood. “He just went over to the store for something not more than a minute ago. I’ll go tell him.”
I ran back out the door and all the way home. I was sweating and panting for breath by the time I got there. Helen was the same. “Doctor Wilson will be here in a few minutes. Is it bad?” I asked.
Helen managed a nod, her mouth twisted in pain.
I thought back to the other time, “I’ll get things ready.”
I ran into the kitchen and pumped a pot full of water and put it on the stove. The fire was always banked so it wouldn’t go out. I ran to the porch and grabbed some of the logs that were stacked there, opened the stove door and threw all but one of them on the fire. I poked the embers with the last log until the tiny flames burst out again. When I was satisfied that the fire had caught, I slammed the door shut and then ran for the towels. I stopped and looked out the window toward the doctor’s office to see if he was coming, but he was nowhere to be seen.
Helen rolled on her back, raised her knees up, and fastened her eyes on mine. “It’s coming, Maude. Where’s the doctor?”
I looked out the window. I still didn’t see him. “Hold on, Helen, he’ll be here.”
The look in Helen’s eyes was wild. “I can’t hold on. My baby’s getting born right now.”
I took a deep breath and pulled back the covers. I’d already seen more of Helen’s private parts than I had ever wanted to see, but I had to know what was happening. Helen was right. The baby was coming. The little round head was already out. The baby wasn’t crying. I had to help it.
“You’re right, Helen, it isn’t going to wait. When the next pain comes, see if you can help it and push it out far enough so I can get hold of it.”
Helen scrunched up her eyes and pushed hard. The baby’s shoulders slid out. I pulled on it the way I’d seen Doctor Wilson pull on the first one, but it was so slippery my hands just slid off. Helen took another deep breath and pushed again. The baby slid out a little further and I took a towel and wrapped it around the baby’s body and then tried again. This time, the baby came free. It was a little girl. I wrapped it in the towel. It didn’t cry, and it was blue all over. I used my right hand to hold up its tiny neck while I held its feet to turn it upside down. I shook it a little. It still didn’t cry. I put my mouth over the baby’s and blew into it the way the doctor had the first one. The baby coughed right in my mouth and then let out a blood-curdling scream. It was the most beautiful sound I ever heard. Helen fell back against the pillows.
I looked up just as Doctor Wilson came charging in the room. The baby was letting out ear-splitting screams. The doctor pulled his instruments out of his bag and tied and cut the cord. Then he touched my arm and directed me toward the kitchen. “I need to take care of Helen. Wrap that baby up and take it in the kitchen. Clean it up, and don’t let it get cold.”
I was only too happy to do what he said. Holding the baby in one arm, I used my other hand to make a pallet on the kitchen table wit
h a folded blanket. I ladled some of the warm water into a basin and washed the baby until all of the birthing mess was gone. I diapered her and dressed her in one of the little gowns I’d made, then wrapped her tight in one of the little blankets, the way I’d seen the mothers at the church do with theirs. The baby cried the whole time and the sound of her screaming made me happy because she was telling me she was alive and she was strong and she was going to be just fine. I was so proud of her perfect little body you would have thought she was my own. She was the right size and rounded out and pink all over. Her head was covered with blonde fuzz, the same color as Helen’s. She was a healthy, beautiful little girl.
The doctor finally finished up with Helen and found me rocking the baby in the corner of the kitchen. The baby was sleeping peacefully, with me watching every breath she took.
“You did quite a job in there, young lady. I couldn’t have done any better myself. Helen told me how you breathed the life into her.”
I couldn’t help but beam at the praise. In all my life, I felt it was the most important thing I had ever done.
Chapter 3
I can’t tell you how much I loved that baby. I rushed home from school every day to do my work and help take care of her. Helen named her Faith, after our mother, and that made me love her even more. I washed her and changed her, and I put the cradle up next to my own bed so I could rock her and sing to her if she fussed at night. When she needed to be fed, I would carry her to Helen. I would turn away as Helen held Faith to her breast. It was the one thing I couldn’t do, and it was the most important thing of all. I was jealous of Helen for it.
One day, when little Faith was a few months old, I heard Tommy and Helen talking about getting a bigger bed for her. She was outgrowing her cradle. “That room just isn’t big enough for two beds,” I heard Tommy say. He sounded almost angry.