The Fragrance of Geraniums (A Time of Grace Book 1)

by Ruggieri, Alicia G.

  Finishing with chopping the vegetables, she poured them into the pot – celery, carrots, potatoes. They plopped into the chicken stock, and she covered the pot with its lid. They’d take a while to soften up.

  The sun set. Its rays filtered through the window above the sink, turning the kitchen orange and yellow. Grace pulled the curtains closed a bit and turned impatiently toward Mama’s bedroom door.

  Silence. Was the baby born, then? No, babies screamed when a woman birthed them, when they came face-to-face with this new reality called life. I don’t blame them. Licking her lips, Grace edged toward the bedroom door, wondering if Mrs. Bailey would get upset if she knocked.

  But Grace didn’t have long to wonder. The door opened just wide enough for her to see Mama stretched out on the bed, stifled by her pain. Mrs. Bailey squeezed her short round figure through the doorway, shutting the door behind her.

  Unable to speak, Grace beseeched Mrs. Bailey with her eyes.

  The Irishwoman’s mouth set in a firm line. “Now, listen, child. Your mama’s time has come to give birth, but the baby refuses to enter this world. It’s come to the end of my ability, I hate to say. Where’s your papa? He should get your mama to the hospital.”

  Numb, Grace shook her head. “I don’t know where he is,” she managed. Papa had headed out early that morning. “But Mama will never go to the hospital. It’s where people go to die, she says.” And it costs far more than we could ever afford to pay.

  The midwife’s jaw tightened visibly. She’s afraid. The sturdy woman usually took everything in easy stride; if Mrs. Bailey sensed something was getting out of control…

  “Let me ask Mama,” Grace heard herself say, swallowing the lump in her throat.

  The midwife hesitated, then nodded. Her crepe-paper hand popped open the door behind her, and she allowed Grace to enter the darkened bedroom.

  Mama moved restlessly beneath a thin sheet, her complexion matching it. “Mama?”

  Mama’s eyes fluttered open, struggling to focus. “Grace,” she swallowed. “You shouldn’t be in here.”

  “Mrs. Bailey let me in.” Seeing Mama so helpless tore at Grace’s chest. “Mama, she wants you to go to the hospital. She says—”

  But Mama interrupted before Grace could finish the explanation. “No,” she gasped out just before Grace saw a contraction wrestling her body into paralysis. Finally, the pain apparently releasing her, Mama murmured, “Is Mrs. Bailey sure… sure she can’t deliver me?”

  Grace turned to glance back at the midwife, who immediately gave a nod. “Yeah, Mama. She’s sure.”

  Mama stayed silent for another long moment. “Then get Doctor Philips. I ain’t going to no hospital.”

  Grace nodded and moved to the door.

  “Sweet Jesus give wings to your feet, child,” Mrs. Bailey intoned, making Grace’s heart pound even harder.

  “Grace,” Mama called just before Grace passed through the door.

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you… Do you think Emmeline would mind coming round?”

  “Mrs. Kinner?” Grace blinked in surprise.

  “Yeah.” Mama grimaced, trying to roll over but not managing it.

  “She’d come,” Grace said, knowing it for certain.

  “Then… Then get her, too.”

  A scream pierced the still black night, waking Charlie from a thick slumber.

  “What’s that?” He felt Gertrude tense beside him as she asked the question.

  “She must’ve had the baby,” Charlie mumbled. Gertrude didn’t like it when he referred to Sarah outright, so he always used a pronoun. They both knew of whom he spoke.

  His girlfriend shivered, clutching the coverlet to her chin. “Does it always sound so… so awful? Like someone got themselves murdered?”

  In that moment, Charlie felt more than his usual serving of disdain for Gertrude. “Yeah,” he said. “She has big babies. Hurts coming out, ya know.”

  Gertrude stayed silent for a moment, maybe contemplating his words. Then she offered, “Or she’s just a crybaby.”

  “Yeah,” said Charlie carelessly, knowing it was far from the truth.

  “I mean, she had the baby, didn’t she? She didn’t die or nothin’.” Gertrude persisted. “Couldn’t have been that bad.”

  “Naw,” he agreed, to shut her up. He needed his sleep, after all.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  Eleven pounds, six ounces of human flesh-and-bone. Though, as a young teenager, Emmeline had accompanied her mother to visit poor new mothers, she had never seen such a large baby born as Sarah’s.

  Carefully, Emmeline picked up the infant from its place beside nearly-unconscious Sarah. She marveled in his perfectly-formed fingers, his red-flushed skin, the black hair thatching his domed head.

  “Quite a lot of tearing you’ve got there, Sarah,” Doctor Philips commented, his deft hands finishing the sewing. “You’ll have pain for quite a while, I should think. And no wonder, with such a baby. Almost twelve pounds.”

  Sarah didn’t reply; she just leaned her head back on her pillow and closed her eyes.

  The doctor turned to Emmeline, fatigue draping his body. “Will you be staying here with her? I hate to leave her by herself.”

  Emmeline nodded. “Yes, I’ll stay with her for as long as she needs me.” She clasped the warm bundle of baby nearer to her chest and gazed at Sarah, painfully sleeping now.

  “I gave her something to make her rest easier,” Doctor Philips informed her. “That’s the best thing for her right now. She’ll feed him when she wakes up.”

  “Alright.” The baby nestled in the crook of Emmeline’s arm, as if he belonged there.

  “And Sarah usually puts her babies in a bureau drawer, lined with a blanket and maybe a hot water bottle. Oh.” He pointed toward a drawer laid next to the far side of the bed, already lined with old blankets. “There it is. She must have prepared it before she went into labor.”

  Emmeline nodded, her gaze fastened to the baby’s tiny flushed face.

  “Emmeline.” Doctor Philips placed a fatherly hand on Emmeline’s shoulder. She looked up to meet his kind eyes. They exuded his concern. “You oughtn’t stay here. I know how much you desired your own…” He trailed off, letting her fill in the rest.

  She smiled. “The Lord is my strength, Doctor. Don’t worry about me.”

  Doctor Philips sighed, and his hand slid off her shoulder. “Alright.”

  The doctor left, but Emmeline didn’t place the baby in the drawer. Rather, she made certain that Sarah was comfortably asleep and then sat down in the creaky rocking chair next to the bed. Softly humming a hymn, she rocked the baby until dawn touched the windowsill with its golden light.

  Emmeline had come. Sarah hadn’t been able to speak because of the pain last night, but she’d seen her friend arrive, a dark-haired angel, just as Doctor Philips came. And Sarah had been so thankful, so comforted by this woman who had spoken words of compassion and prayed over her for the past few weeks. I’ve never known anyone like her. She owes me nothing and yet gives me so much. Emmeline had stayed through the long hours of grueling labor, holding Sarah’s hand, whispering words of encouragement and things from the Bible.

  Hovering now between waking and sleeping, Sarah’s thoughts whirled to her daughter. Poor Grace! Wherever her daughter was, she surely must have heard Sarah’s scream at the very end of the labor, when the baby had torn its way from her body. Everyone must have heard it; even Charlie…

  He’d waited until late afternoon when Gertrude headed off to do some shopping and he’d seen that lady-friend of Sarah’s walk off the property. His property. “Don’t see why I feel like I have to sneak up to my own house,” Charlie grumbled as he scraped his way to the back door.

  When he entered the kitchen, he heard the floorboards creak over his head. Relief poured over him. Good; Grace must be doing something upstairs. He couldn’t have said why he’d come into to the house anyway; it wasn’t mealtime. It couldn’t be to see his
wife and newborn, yet his feet brought him over to the bedroom that he’d shared with her for nearly twenty years.

  Sarah looked like such an shabby thing, couched in that bed that sagged so in the middle. It had been his papa and mama’s bed before him, Charlie remembered as he looked down at his wife’s plump form. Her arm extended over the quilt; she wore a much-laundered nightgown, thin as a dish rag and not nearly as pretty. Someone must’ve brushed her hair and tied it back from her face; it climbed over her shoulder in a thin graying rope, the little tassel at the end touching the smooth downy head against her chest. Sarah’d fallen asleep nursing the infant, who nestled close as a squirrel to its mother’s body.

  It. Whether a boy or yet another girl, the baby certainly looked healthy, not yellow as a banana like Grace and Cliff had been at birth. As Charlie watched, the baby gave a tiny yawn and snuggled even nearer on Sarah’s bosom. He leaned against the doorframe and gazed at the woman and her freshly-made child, fighting the emotions twisting his face this way and that in the long seconds before Sarah opened her eyes.

  He didn’t know what wakened her. She’d always been a light sleeper, so maybe it was just the insignificant movements of the living thing at her breast that did it. Stirring, Sarah didn’t see him there at first, leaning back into the shadowy doorway, dark coat still drawn over his body. She blinked away the cobwebs of sleep, pushing one reddened hand over her eyes, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. Charlie heard the deep sigh Sarah gave as she remembered the little bit of flesh in the crook of her elbow. She shifted her body carefully so that the baby wouldn’t wake, raising herself up a little more on the flattened pillows with her free hand. Charlie stuffed down the guilt that rose up inside him as he saw her struggling and knew that he could help her… but wouldn’t.

  Well. It was now or never. No reason for him to keep standing here in the doorway of his own bedroom, like a visitor, rather than the master of his house. Charlie cleared his throat, hacking up a little wad of mucus so it wouldn’t sound like he was trying to be polite for Sarah’s sake. He saw her gaze fly up at the sound just as he stepped into the light.

  She tensed but didn’t drop her eyes. Charlie kept his own as unreadable as he could. She won’t get the best of me. The bare light bulb created shadows on Sarah’s face and neck and shoulders. She looks old, he thought, taking in the creases on her forehead, the wrinkles on her chest, the freckled skin on her once-milky upper arms. The contrast between the newly-minted baby and the timeworn bride of his youth brought the bile of revulsion to Charlie’s mouth. I wish Gertrude lay there with my child instead of her.

  But he didn’t really; even Charlie knew this. He wished he was a young man again, handsome, dapper, not lacking any women who were eager to hang on his every word. Looking at Sarah made him realize afresh that he was just old Charlie Picoletti, father of seven, strapped by God and law to an aging, offended wife. But – thank the saints! - Gertrude waited for him in the cottage out back, barren of children, yes, but always willing to assure him of his manliness and youth. His eyes fastened on the child at Sarah’s bosom. Six children – now seven – Didn’t Sarah know when to stop? What did she think she was, a rabbit?

  “Did they tell you, Charlie?” Sarah asked in her low voice, the only sound in that ticking silence. “It’s a boy.” Pride sparkled out of her eyes as she turned the baby toward him a little.

  He looked at it, flesh of his flesh, combined with that of Sarah, who’d risked her life once again to deliver that small parcel of humanity. Tightly-wrapped, it lay pink-faced and wrinkled, at peaceful rest. So conflicted between instinct and desire, Charlie didn’t move; he knew Sarah wanted him to go over to the bed and pick up the child, hold it against himself. He saw it in Sarah’s eyes: It would be her way of claiming him again, her way of triumphing over the woman in the cottage out back.

  What right has she to triumph? The thought made him straighten, made the molten emotion in Charlie’s heart harden into resolve. Gertrude lives out in a cottage, hiding away from notice, while I’ve given Sarah all this – the house, my name, my dough - besides the children. What right does Sarah have to complain about anything? She wanted him to talk, to compliment her, to return to her arms because of this baby? He thought not. Most certainly he would not. He jutted out his jaw and stared at Sarah, wanting to burn holes through her into the headboard for all the trouble she’d caused him. Some women at least had the decency to die off.

  “Well, Charlie,” she said at last, breaking the silence that had become awkward quickly, “Do you have any names in mind? I-I know we haven’t talked about it much…” Her voice trailed off, and she dropped her eyes from his.

  Much? They hadn’t discussed the baby at all, much less what it would be christened. Charlie snorted. “Name him what you want,” he stated, shrugging and turning to go. He’d show Sarah that there’d be no manipulating Charlie Picoletti.

  “What do you mean? Don’t you want…?”

  The thin needy tone coming from the bed annoyed him, and Charlie turned his head just enough so that Sarah could hear him. Why must he repeat himself? Couldn’t she hear him the first time? “I don’t want nothing, Sarah,” he snapped out. “He’s not my concern,” he added, using one of Gertrude’s fancy phrases to intimidate her.

  “He’s your child,” Sarah gasped. “Your own flesh and blood, Charlie!”

  The baby started to cry at her slightly raised voice, and Charlie gritted his teeth at the high-pitched mewing. “Is he, Sarah? I didn’t want him in the first place, and I don’t care what you do with him or what you name him. Just don’t name him after me.”

  Charlie strode out of that confining bedroom and into the cool, dark hall. Glad to breathe freely at last, he paused for just a moment to collect himself. Behind him, he could hear Sarah weeping. She would hide her face in the bedclothes, Charlie knew, so that she didn’t further disturb the baby. Let her cry. He felt no remorse. She’d had it coming to her, after all.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  “Thought I told you to stay away from the house!” Charlie growled through gritted teeth. Why couldn’t women ever listen? Gertrude had lived here for, what? More than six months! And she still waltzed around the main residence in broad daylight. If there was anything that would anger Sarah, that would be it!

  In the little cove behind the cottage, Gertrude squinched up her nose, peering up at him with narrowed eyes. “I don’t like staying down at the cottage all day, Chuckie,” she complained. “When are you going to divorce that old woman, anyway, and let me come live at the big house?”

  Not over my dead body. “You gotta be patient, Trudy,” he evaded. “I’m doing the best I can.”

  She sneered as only Gertrude could. “Well, I don’t see you doing nothing. Staying around that wife of yours is all. What, ‘cause she cleaned up your face for you when you burned it?”

  He would ignore her. Just let her talk on and on; he’d not say anything. Soon enough, Gertrude would run out of words.

  “You’re a fool, Chuckie, that’s what you are. You think I’m gonna stay around and wait for you to get everything straightened out?”

  He shrugged. Let her leave. He could always get another girl.

  Mrs. Kinner stayed at the Picoletti house for a full month following the birth, going home only to fix up a batch of meals for Mr. Kinner every few days. She bathed Mama, cared for the infant, and helped Grace with the housework and cooking. And Grace knew such gratitude toward the woman; surely the Mother of our Lord must be just like her!

  “Grace,” Mrs. Kinner said one day as she rocked the baby, “did you keep the geranium plant I gave you for Christmas?”

  Startled, Grace nodded. “Of course.”

  Truth be told, Grace had found herself too busy these past few weeks to pay too much mind to the geranium. Actually, she probably hadn’t watered it as much as she should have. What if it had died? “Uh, excuse me, ma’am,” she said, hurrying out of the kitchen.

  Her bare feet clat
tered up the staircase, her heart pounding in anticipation. Would she find the plant crumpled and dry from neglect, unable to support itself on its wobbly stalks? Would she never see the red flowers her own plant could produce?

  Half-afraid to look, Grace peered into her bedroom. There, in the still stale air, punctuated by the late April sunlight flooding through the windows, the plant held firmly to its place on the sill. She approached it with slow steps and gently lifted up the carved pot.

  The soil in the pot was dry; there was no denying that. And a few stems and leaves had grown brittle and brown. Yet, the sight of three bright green shoots flooded Grace’s soul with joy.

  “Mrs. Kinner! Mrs. Kinner!” Grace forgot all sense of decorum and reserve as she flew down the staircase, pot cradled against her chest.

  Mrs. Kinner glanced up, obviously surprised at Grace’s unusually boisterous entrance. “What is it?”

  Grace took a breath of shuddering joy. “The geranium. It’s going to live.” She couldn’t keep the grin off her face. “I thought… I hadn’t taken the time to water it these past few weeks, and so I thought… But it’s going to live anyway. See?” She held the plant out for Mrs. Kinner’s inspection, and the scent of geraniums filled her nostrils.

  Mrs. Kinner gave Grace a smile that reached her eyes. “So it is.”

  The evening light had already dimmed, and Emmeline turned on the lamps when she entered the kitchen, humming a hymn under her breath. Sarah recognized it from the radio minister’s broadcasts, but she didn’t remember the title.

  “You’ll have to go home soon,” Sarah remarked, hoping her friend – truest in all ways – would protest.

  But Emmeline nodded. “Yes, but I’ll visit you often. And I wouldn’t trade the time that I’ve spent with you for the world.” As the younger woman took a seat at the table, Sarah admired her grace once more.