“And, Jesus, watch over Susannah, keep her healthy. Help us become the parents You want us to be. In Your name, amen.”
“You pray like you know God personally.”
“No putting on airs for Someone who knows me inside out.”
Susannah leaned against the headboard and finished the cracker. “How did you get to know Him so well? You didn’t attend seminary.”
“I spend time with Him, talking, listening. Like getting to know you.”
Her hands clenched involuntarily, and Jesse noticed. He enclosed her fists in his, stroking her palms with his thumbs. He uncurled her fingers one by one and traced the red marks left by the bucket handle. “I wonder if you open up to God any better than you open up to me.” Jesse’s look probed her soul. Susannah wanted to hide herself under the covers, except he sat on them. “If I can figure out that you’re mad at God, don’t you think He knows it too?”
She turned sideways, tilting her head so Jesse couldn’t see her face. “I’m not mad at God.”
“Maybe mad isn’t the right word. Disappointed, let down.” He brushed her hair behind her ear. “When my brother died, I spit nails at God. How dare He take away the brain, the leader of the family? That made me the oldest. I did my best to show God what a mistake He’d made.” He shook his head, the muscles tight in his jaw. “As many times as I’d heard about Jonah and the whale, you’d think I’d know better. God can find us anywhere.”
“Even in Dakota Territory?”
His expression softened. “Go ahead and be mad at God, Susannah. He’s big enough to take it. Just don’t turn your back on Him, don’t cut Him out of your life.”
Susannah swallowed down a different sort of nausea. She might as well admit it; Jesse saw right through her. “You wrote your brother for a Christian wife and all you got is a spiritual mouse.”
“How much faith does a spiritual mouse have? Mustard seed size?” When he kissed her palms, the beginnings of a beard tickled her. He reached for his boots.
“Where are you going?”
“Back to the shed. I’ve got a cradle to build.”
“You’ve got”—Susannah counted—“eight months. Until June.”
He rooted under the bed for his toolbox. “Enough time to do a real fine job. No reason for you to get out of bed.”
Susannah tied her apron behind her back. “Since I’m not sick, I may as well get some work done.”
“Loosen your waistbands! Knit booties! And little hats!” He pulled her into his arms for a big kiss.
“Are you going to act like this the whole time?”
He grinned. “Nope. I’ll probably get worse.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.” She returned his smile and pushed him out the door. Her hands settled on her abdomen. A baby. She was having a baby!
Chapter 16
Our baby . . .
Susannah rinsed Ma Ox’s udder with warm water, then scooted the stool close and began the rolling motion with her fingers. The milk squirted into the bucket with a satisfying rattle. This breed wasn’t known for high production, just enough for two people. More importantly, this cow milked easily without kicking, butting, or sidestepping.
“Hey, you’re pretty good at that.” Jesse shoveled manure out of the bull’s stall.
“Father always owned a cow. He had seen too many diseased cattle in commercial dairies.”
He paused, leaning on the long handle of the shovel. “What do you think about Mormons?”
His mercurial thought processes continued to unnerve her. “Are you considering polygamy?”
“Can’t afford another train ticket.”
“What?” Susannah leaned back. He widened his eyes, then grinned. Ah, teasing again. She shot a squirt of milk toward his boot.
He stepped out of range. “I understand they baptize on behalf of their ancestors. Where do you stand on baptism?”
“What do you mean?”
“All the controversies: infant or adult, immersion or sprinkling. We’re starting a family. Got to figure this out.”
“Whatever you decide is fine.”
“I’m asking your opinion.” The shovel clanked on the wheelbarrow.
Susannah rested her forehead against the warm flank of the ox. Except for the domestic sphere of menus, clothing, and household furnishings, women weren’t supposed to have opinions, much less express them. “I suppose it depends on when a minister comes through and what he believes.”
“We could do it ourselves, like our wedding, and have Matt send the certificate. Should I say, ‘In Jesus’ name,’ or ‘In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit’?”
“Whatever you think is best.” Susannah grabbed the milking pail and hurried out into the snowy day.
After the milk had been skimmed and the cream poured into the churn, Jesse caught up with her. He slid onto the trunk, trapping her in the corner. While she pumped the dasher in the stone crock, Jesse launched into a discourse on mankind’s efforts to communicate with God, including Mormons and speaking in tongues. When Susannah responded noncommittally, he switched sides, elucidating the opposing viewpoint. “Come on, argue with me.” He tickled Susannah’s neck with the end of her braid.
“Don’t you have work to do?”
He dragged himself back to the woodpile, and Jake sneaked in to check for food.
“What do you think, Jake?” Susannah pressed the butter into its mold. “A woman ought to be the light of the home, a beacon of morality for her husband and children. But how can she guide them if her mind is a blank?”
She sat, and Jake put his head on her knee.
“A wife is supposed to support her husband’s opinions, but after Father’s funeral, when Reverend Mason told me to ‘count it all joy,’ Ellen argued with him. Actually argued with her husband! She said if any situation warrants mourning, it would be the death of a loved one. The Reverend said faith requires a higher level of response than wallowing in anguish. Then Ellen reminded him Jesus cried at Lazarus’s funeral.”
Susannah found Jake’s itchy spot, and the dog’s back leg encouraged her efforts. “Could Jesse be right, that it’s permissible to discuss issues with one’s husband? I wonder.”
The dog sniffed her lap and belly.
“No, there’s nothing in my apron. Can you smell the baby already? Do you think I’ll be a good mother?” Susannah contrasted her mother’s distance and disapproval with Ellen’s joy and affection. “I hope I’ll be like Ellen.”
Jake licked her hand and wagged his tail.
“Yes, Ellen gives lots of kisses and hugs.” Susannah wrapped her arms around the dog. “And this baby will get plenty from Jesse. He’s so full of love. Is it the way he was raised, or does it come from God? And do you think he could love me?”
That evening Jesse interrupted his guitar playing with a loud chord. “I’ve got it: Darwin!”
Susannah dropped a stitch. “You want to name your baby Darwin?”
He blinked, then burst out laughing. “No! Wouldn’t saddle a kid of mine with a moniker like that. I’m asking if you’ve read Origin of the Species.”
Yes, she had read Darwin’s treatise. She had been the only girl in her school to study such a controversial work. Her classmates made it known she was lacking in feminine and Christian virtue, and her mother was furious. She suspected Father had been secretly proud of her, but he only smiled and refused to discuss it when she approached him with the book.
Jesse leaned forward patiently, attentively waiting for her answer. He could hardly fault her for something she did before they married. “Yes, I’ve read it.”
“No ducking this time. Tell me where you stand.”
Susannah mentally reviewed the stacks of scientific papers in her father’s office, the discussions of provident design, lack of intermediate fossil records, geologic imperative for biologic change, natural selection, common ancestors. “Perhaps the best argument against Darwin is found in mathematics: the Law of Probability.”
“I
’m getting saddle sore,” Jesse said between songs the next night. “Don’t suppose you could make a cushion for this trunk.”
Susannah nodded. “Certainly. Could you please stand for a moment so I can get out my notions box?” She unfurled one of his shirts with half the buttons missing.
“I’ll get it.” Laying his guitar on the table, he raised the lid. “No wonder this thing is so heavy. It’s full of books.”
“Medical texts. Father hoped I’d become a physician, but the only doctoring I ever did was for Mother.”
Jesse studied her a long moment, his eyes soft. “Guess you did an A-1 job taking care of her.”
Susannah remembered the look of reproach in her mother’s eyes, asking why her daughter didn’t do something: ease her pain, restore her speech, or the unthinkable, end her suffering. If Jesse had known her then, seen how roughly she handled her mother, heard her snappish responses during the endless nights of interrupted sleep, he wouldn’t think so highly of her.
He handed her a tin clicking with buttons. “You’d have made a fine doctor. Why didn’t you start school after they died?”
Susannah set her mending in her lap. Jesse thought she was smart enough to be a doctor. Amazing. “It seems like a frustrating profession. There’s so little you can do to help, beyond sitting up with someone too restless to die.”
“Yeah. I had enough of that in the War.” Jesse held up a book. “The Horse and His Diseases by John E. Potter. Animal doctor, that’s you. I’ll never forget my little Susannah staring down that burly driver from the threshing crew, all to make four horses more comfortable. You should have gone to veterinary school.”
She glanced at him in surprise. No one, not even her father, had ever expressed this much faith in her abilities. “I would have liked to, but the closest veterinary school is in Ontario, and of course, they don’t take women.”
“Ontario? Your pa trained in Canada?”
“No, that school has only been open ten years or so. Father trained in Edinburgh, before he and Mother emigrated.”
“Medical schools take women. Why not vet schools?”
“Look at the trouble I had with the calves. Women aren’t strong enough.”
“You’re smart enough. Seems what you know is more important than the size of your muscles.” Jesse rooted in the trunk some more and came up with a knapsack stenciled “Michigan Cavalry.” “Your pa’s kit.” He pulled out a surgical knife, needles and suture thread, a pair of scissors, and several corked bottles. The heavier farrier tools—hoof knives, chisels, and pincers— were rolled in a pouch made from an old pair of denim pants. “He traveled light.”
“No fleams or patent medicines. He didn’t believe in bleeding, purging, or dosing.”
“Bicarbonate of Potash, Black Antimony, Blue Vitriol,” he read from the labeled bottles. “Can’t say half these names. You know what this stuff does? Ah, here’s one I recognize: ginger.”
She repacked the bag. “Father was experimenting with herbal remedies in animal practice.”
“Hey, what’s this?” Jesse pulled a violin case from the trunk. “You’ve been holding out on me!”
“It’s Father’s. I don’t play well. Ellen packed it.”
Holding the instrument on his lap, he tuned it. “Good, full sound. What do you like to play? Did you bring any music with you? Can you play by ear?”
“Jesse, I don’t play well,” she repeated. He handed her the violin and rosined her bow. “We could try a Christmas carol.”
They played “Hark! the Herald Angels Sing” and “O Come, All Ye Faithful,” as snowflakes hissed on the stovepipe.
“You’re doing great! How about ‘Silent Night’?”
Susannah held out her left hand. “It’s been so long . . .”
Jesse kissed her reddened fingertips. “So, what do these medical books say about babies?”
“Do you have a specific question?”
“Well . . .” He raised an eyebrow and glanced at the bed. “Is it all right for us to—”
“You know doctors. Some say yes, some say no.” Susannah returned the violin to its case. “There’s no scientific evidence either way.”
“Then”—he grinned—“I’d say let’s call it a night!”
“It’s not polite to stare. Please stop.”
“Never.” Jesse sat in his usual position on the trunk, chin in palm, watching her flip pancakes in the iron skillet.
“Then let’s have it out right now.” Plopping onto the stool, Susannah returned his stare. Sunlight echoed off the snow outside and the newly plastered wall, lighting the green and gold sparks in his brown eyes.
“Your pancakes are burning, Mrs. Mason,” he said without blinking.
“That’s your breakfast, Mr. Mason.”
Lunging across the table, Jesse kissed her on the nose. “Ha! You blinked!”
“No fair.” Susannah loaded his plate, burnt side up.
“Fair or foul, I must have my morning kiss.” He scooped butter onto the stack. “Just enough snow for tracking. Not too cold.”
Susannah nodded. “Fresh meat would taste good.”
“Your appetite’s back. Mind if I go hunting?”
She shook her head and tried to hide her relief. At last she’d have some privacy.
Susannah sorted through the mending pile, choosing Jesse’s woolen pants. That man. Whenever he came near, her insides fluttered like cottonwood leaves in a breeze. The way he joked and played made her feel like a child.
A child. Susannah rested her hand on her abdomen. She’d been so awkward when she held Ivar and Marta’s baby. Would she feel more confident with her own? No sense worrying over that. Babies come regardless of their mother’s lack of ability.
Susannah slipped a finger inside her waistband. Her skirts were still loose, but her basques fit tighter. She sensed a heaviness in her body, as if being with child anchored her to Dakota.
Enough woolgathering. If she kept daydreaming, she’d be totally brainless by the time the baby arrived.
As she turned the pants inside out to locate the split seam, Susannah’s mind strayed back to Jesse. He would be a good father, patient and affectionate. No matter how trivial a child’s concerns, Jesse would give him his full attention. Perhaps his war memories would stop troubling him, with the baby to focus on. And what a relief it would be to share the limelight with the baby.
It was dusk already and no Jesse. Putting aside the mending, Susannah hefted two buckets of melted snow from the stove and carried them to the stable.
When she raised the first bucket to the water trough, an odd twinge pulled in the small of her back, like a violin string plucked and tightened at the same time. The second bucket tweaked the muscles again. She leaned against the sod wall until the tension eased.
She sank onto the milking stool. The cow lowed and shied away from her cold fingers. “Easy there, Ma Ox. I’m not up to chasing you tonight.” The animal settled. Susannah blinked back her fatigue. She wouldn’t wait for Jesse; she’d go to bed as soon as she finished.
She pushed up from the low stool and felt the stable tilt and darken. Milk sloshed over her skirt. Susannah steadied herself against the cow and waited until the dizziness passed. Her fingers found the pulse next to her windpipe: rapid but regular. She glanced around the stable. The oxen had enough hay. Mucking could wait, but eggs should be collected before they froze and cracked. One hand on her back, she made a sweep of the nesting boxes. “Three. Good job, ladies.”
She stepped into the clear night, searching the line where the stars stopped. No Jesse. No barking Jake. Frosted clouds of her breath vanished in the wind, cold air scoured her throat. Jesse would need a hot meal. She reached to hang the lantern from the end of the roof, and a sharp pain ripped through her lower abdomen.
The baby! No!
Susannah set the milk pail in the snowbank and pulled herself toward the door. The pain clawed at her insides. Just a few more steps and she could lie down. But a black ro
aring tunnel engulfed her and she dropped to the snow.
The baby . . .
Chapter 17
Please, God, I can’t lose her now . . .
Susannah slid, faster and faster, deep into an icy tunnel. Opposing currents rushed at her like a whirlpool, twisting her body in two. A hot blade sliced between her hips. She couldn’t breathe. Something soft brushed her cheek.
A flash of maroon and hunter green—the ceiling of the parlor in Detroit. Rough hands grabbed her shoulders and pinned her to the carpet.
Let me go!
She flung herself to one side. A knee punched into her stomach and forced her onto her back. Leave me alone! You can have the money!
A hand twisted her apron strings around her neck. The parlor faded to black.
Then from far away, someone else yelled, a shriek of pure rage. A woman. Ellen. The weight lifted from Susannah’s stomach; she gasped in a breath. Pain flamed through her, and darkness descended once more.
Then . . . she was in a bed, her body weighted, too heavy to move. Water splashed. Large hands, too large to be her friend’s, lifted each leg.
“I’m not sure she’s up to—”
“I assure you, with the dose of laudanum she’s had, she’ll be insensible to the examination. I must determine the extent of her injuries.”
“She was fully clothed—”
“Mrs. Mason, we don’t want any surprises, say nine months from now, do we? You haven’t changed her clothes or bathed her?”
“No. We sent for you immediately.”
Cold air prickled her skin as the violation continued. Susannah tried to scream, but no sound came out.
“No blood. Fortunately, Mrs. Mason, you were successful in preventing further damage.”
Another man called her name. His voice . . . she couldn’t remember. He pleaded, begged, encouraged. She attempted to answer, but the words stuck, thick and useless, in her head.
Help me, please . . .
There was no response. She slid down the tunnel, away, into the silence.
Silver light. Cold dawn. Susannah felt as if she’d been kicked in the stomach by a horse. Her fingers and toes ached with cold. Shivers racked her body. She curled into a ball, finding no warmth in the sheets. Her hand pressed against her empty abdomen.
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