by Sara Donati
And then the three of them were alone again. Lily felt at ease, the one thing she had not expected to feel when this subject was finally raised. There was the vaguest sense of embarrassment and even anger way down deep—that these women who had borne their children so easily would sit in judgment of her, who could not. Or would not; she could tell them what she liked and they would take her word. She might claim that she and Simon had decided that they didn’t want children. That thought stayed with her for no more than a second; she was superstitious enough not to tempt the fates.
They were watching her. An old black woman who had been as much as a grandmother for all Lily’s life, and her half sister Hannah, who had been Birdie’s age when Lily and Daniel were born.
“I think it’s both,” Lily said finally. “I have—” she hesitated over the word, and decided that the alternatives were not very appealing. “I have caught three times since I’ve been—married.” Since before I was married, she corrected herself, but silently. “Three times that I’m sure of. And I lost each of them very early on.”
“And this time?” Hannah said. “How far along are you this time?”
Lily blinked. “How do you—how did you—”
Curiosity said, “Between Hannah and me we got close to a hundred years experience taking care of womenfolk. I don’t think there’s much we ain’t run across. I myself have seen a fair number of women who couldn’t bear for one reason or another. Sometimes just because they just didn’t know how the business was supposed to go.”
Hannah and Lily looked at each other, and then at Curiosity.
“You mean they didn’t know—” Lily bit her lip.
“That’s right,” Curiosity said. “They didn’t know nothing. I won’t tell you who this was, and I don’t think you could guess. It was a long time ago, a young married girl comes to me. A little bit of a thing, no more than nineteen. She came to ask for could I give her some tea or pills to make a baby come along? So I set down with her and ask her a few things. Oh, yes, she says to me. She love her husband something fierce. He so kind and considerate. So I come right out and ask her, how often do you two have relations?
“That girl look at me like I was speaking Latin. No idea what I’m trying to say except that it some business it ain’t polite to talk about. But in the end she want that baby more than she want to keep her pride. So I ask her, how often does your husband cover you at night? Once or twice a week, or more? Did she look scandalized? She say, why, I have a coverlet every night. He wouldn’t let me be cold. He a good man.
“Can you imagine?
“She been lying next to that man of hers for close to six months and he hadn’t ever done no more than touch her hand. She thought that’s all they was to it—a woman and a man and a bed. So I told her what she didn’t know already.
“Now, I don’t know what she said to her husband or how she explained what they were supposed to be doing, but nine months later she brought a little girl into the world. Just as pretty as the morning. She went on to have another five.”
They were laughing quietly, for fear that Birdie would come to demand to hear the story.
Lily said, “Well, I can tell you that whatever has gone wrong with me, it hasn’t been for lack of trying. I decided to come home in the fall because I know if you can help me, you will. Then sometime on the journey—”
“You caught,” Hannah said.
“I thought I was seasick,” Lily said. “But it’s been ten weeks since I last bled….” Her voice trailed off.
Hannah said, “You are frightened to the bone. You don’t know if you could stand another loss.”
Lily felt the blood draining from her face.
“Why are you surprised? We women too,” Curiosity said. “Hannah and me, we know what it is to lose a child. Your mama know, and just about every woman old enough to bear know well enough. I don’t doubt it the same way the world over. Ain’t you have nobody to talk to in Italy?”
Lily’s gaze dropped to her lap. “There was an English doctor. I saw him once.”
“An English doctor,” Hannah echoed.
Curiosity’s mouth twitched. “Tell us what the great man had to say.”
“It will make you mad.”
“No doubt,” Curiosity said.
“Do tell,” said Hannah.
“He said that as long as I persisted in pursuing male activities and denying my true nature, I wouldn’t be able to bring a child into the world.”
“Lord have mercy. Save us women from educated men. I’d like to have a word with that English doctor, I surely would.” Curiosity shook her head.
Lily was so relieved that tears sprang to her eyes.
“You didn’t start to believe that nonsense, did you?” Hannah looked at her as if she might have a fever.
“I tried not to,” Lily said. “But there was no one else to ask—”
“That’s when you decided to come home?” Hannah asked.
She nodded.
Curiosity said, “And high time too.”
“Do you think you can—” She paused, afraid to say the words. Her gaze shifted from Hannah to Curiosity and back again. “Is there a chance?”
“There is a chance,” Hannah said. “But you are going to have to follow orders very closely.”
“That wan’t never your strong suit,” said Curiosity. “You always had to do things your own way.”
Lily managed a smile. She said, “I look forward to surprising you.”
14
A full week after the flood pretty much everybody was still out of sorts: short-tempered, prone to crying fits, distracted. Plain old sad. Birdie understood why. It could hardly be otherwise, with so many families still without a roof. The repairs went on from first light to last, and still many houses and cabins were uninhabitable. It was a new word for Birdie, one she liked.
Since the flood she had learned a lot of new words, because when Ma was worried, she started to talk like a book. Other people might babble when they were scared, but Birdie’s ma would talk more slowly, and her sentences got longer, and her words got bigger. Birdie’s list was longer every day: chaotic, debris, indestructible (because the schoolhouse had mostly survived), turbulence, and the best of all: Mesopotamian and aqueduct. Those she got from a conversation at the table—the very crowded table—when Ma had told them all about how people farmed long ago, and what benefits were to be had from floods. Then Adam had asked if Mesopotamia was in Ohio territory, and Ma had got out the atlas to show them the world, with Da and Ben making comments now and then that had them all laughing.
There was a lot of talk at home, and even more in the village. People asked altogether too many questions and Birdie got more than her share. When a Bonner came into the village people wanted to know was it true that Gabriel had married the Mohawk girl Annie from Lake in the Clouds? And wasn’t that a surprise? And where were the happy couple living, and did they have one of the cabins at Lake in the Clouds for themselves or were they living with Blue-Jay and Susanna?
Blue-Jay and Susanna were another subject people never got tired asking about. Not the Quakers, of course, but everybody else. The Quakers had turned her out because she fell in love with a savage, or at least that’s the way people talked about it, though Birdie knew better. Her ma had explained how it all worked, but she never corrected people when they said stupid things. They wouldn’t have listened to her anyway.
The hardest thing was when they used words like savage. Which was being used even more now that Gabriel had gone and married Annie. One of the good things about that was clear right away. The talk about Susanna was put away for a while at least.
One day Mrs. Reed asked Birdie about Annie’s wedding clothes and Birdie stopped in her tracks and frowned as if she were trying to remember. “You had best ask my brother Gabriel,” she said finally. “He’s right behind you.”
Later Mrs. Reed complained to Ma that Birdie was rude, but that was only because she had jumped right out of her
skin and then flushed the color of plums when it turned out Gabriel was miles away hauling timber. Ma only furrowed her brow at Birdie. There wasn’t even a talk about common respect and dignity in the face of provocation. Ma was tired of questions herself.
That first night they were home, the day of the flood, Ma had wanted Gabriel and Annie to stay in the village until the weather settled, but they had gone off, walking ten miles out of their way to get on the other side of the waters and then climbing the mountain from the north side. The next day Gabriel had come back again to help in the village. Not happily, exactly, but as if he had something to prove. He was a man full grown and didn’t need to be reminded of his responsibilities to friends and neighbors.
That very evening Runs-from-Bears came by to talk with Ma and Da, but even that came out lopsided, in Birdie’s view. Uncle Bears wasn’t worried about Annie eloping, but he was concerned about the fact that Gabriel’s half sister and father were both of the Wolf clan, as was Annie. In the Kahnyen’kehàka way of things this was like marrying a sister.
And so that evening after a long day of work that involved wading in cold mud, Da and Daniel went up to Hidden Wolf. For once Birdie didn’t ask to come along, because she knew what was going to happen. The men would sit in a circle around the fire and each of them would talk and tell long complicated stories, and then they would pass the pipe or throw tobacco on the fire and talk some more, and then someone would say, we have no clan mother here, and this is the province of the women.
And everybody would look at Blue-Jay, whose first wife might have been a help if she hadn’t run off and got herself drowned, and whose new wife was plainspoken and wise, but still feeling her way into this new life, and unwilling to be put on the spot. It could go on like that for hours and if not for the flood, maybe days. Gabriel and Blue-Jay and Daniel would sit opposite Runs-from-Bears and Throws-Far and Da, and none of them would ever yawn or look bored.
Birdie wondered if Runs-from-Bears might send to Good Pasture for a clan mother, but Hannah said that it was more likely that Gabriel and Annie would be sent to Good Pasture to make their case before all the elder women. But the trapping season had been cut short by the flood and Gabriel wasn’t going anywhere until he had secured or repaired his lines. He was the head of a family now and it mattered, how many furs he had to sell.
The next morning Da and Daniel came down at sunrise. They let Ma fuss over them and feed them, but then they went to the new graveyard on the far side of the village above the orchards, where the four people who had not gotten out of the way in time were being buried. Birdie went because it was the right thing to do and because she was curious, which embarrassed her, but she owned it anyway.
A few hours later, Gabriel and Runs-from-Bears came too, and they got in their canoes and started looking for things that could be dredged out of the lake. It was the perfect task for Gabriel. He was helping, but at the same time he was too far away to be asked questions about his new bride or his wedding.
All in all Birdie didn’t mind the fact that Gabriel was married. She wouldn’t really be alone until the fall, when Luke and Jennet took the children home for the winter. Even then, Birdie reminded herself, she would have Lily, who needed her help.
And exactly that was the plan. Birdie would make herself indispensable—a word she looked up in Ma’s dictionary—and that would convince the grown-ups that it would be best if she didn’t come back to school this year. Instead, she would move in with Lily and Simon in order to be there whenever Lily needed anything at all.
It was perfectly logical and reasonable. She just had to convince the grown-ups.
When Hannah went out on a call, Birdie went with her and spent that time sweeping mud or washing down walls, scrubbing clothes, toting firewood, pumping endless buckets of water, and most usually, entertaining the children. She ran errands for Curiosity and Ma and anyone else who needed things fetched. She liked it best when somebody sent her down to the village, so she could see for herself how much progress was being made.
The old trading post had already been pulled down and they were just starting to lay the foundation for a new one, which would be larger, with room for things like plows and bathtubs.
Missy O’Brien found this not to her liking at all. “They talk about plain,” she said. “They are mighty good to themselves.”
Birdie heard her say this to Becca LeBlanc outside the Red Dog.
“Well then,” Becca said in her driest tone. “I guess you’ll be going all the way to Johnstown for your buttons and salt.”
Becca could draw blood with the dull side of her tongue. Most people didn’t even notice when they’d been tweaked until five minutes later. She had a high spot on Birdie’s list of grown-ups who could be counted on to teach her something.
Every day, as soon as her errands and chores were done, Birdie ran down to Ivy House to see what she could do for Lily. Sometimes there were other people there—Ma or Da, Hannah or Jennet or Ben or Luke. Neighbors and old friends. Even the nieces and nephews were allowed to come, but only under close supervision. To Birdie’s relief, they were never allowed to visit for very long. Nathan and Henry and Adam thought this was unfair and took every opportunity to argue about it with her.
Today Birdie stopped at the door and listened. No voices, which meant Lily was alone or asleep. She went in as quietly as she could and stood beside the window in a puddle of light.
Lily slept with a book opened over her belly. She didn’t have a bump yet, but some women took a long time to grow one, or so Curiosity said.
Birdie crept around quietly, bringing some order to the parlor. Or at least, trying to. The little house had been stood on its head. Simon hung the chairs on wall pegs to make room for what Ma called a chaise longue, but really was just a chair with a long bit attached so you could stretch out your legs. The whole thing was covered over with a feather bed and sheets and blankets. Lily could recline on a chaise longue, which made it better than a bed with a lot of pillows.
After the first day Birdie had to admit it had been a good idea, because Lily looked like a princess in her pretty dressing gown, with her feet in velvet slippers the color of roses, with daisies embroidered in white silk. And she was allowed to sit up halfway, which meant she could drink the tea Mrs. Thicke brought her every hour, and she could read and draw. The only time Lily was allowed out of bed was to use the chamber pot behind a screen Simon had put up just for that purpose.
There were plenty of rumors in the village about why Lily had taken to her bed only one day after coming home, some of which were funny and others that were not. The first thing Birdie did when she arrived every day was to give Lily all the gossip. She was ready with it when Lily woke up with a little start.
“Little sister.” She yawned. “How long have you been here?”
“A quarter hour, maybe a bit more. Look, Mrs. Thicke just made fresh tea. I’ll pour you some.”
Lily said, “What news in the village today? Anything interesting?”
Birdie considered what to offer first. “Friend Katie Blackhouse thinks you must be consumptive,” Birdie announced.
“Does she? That would be very dramatic, wouldn’t it? Any other good bits?”
Birdie recited it all in a rush. The Brodie house had a roof again; Simon and some of the other men had shored up the Meeting House so maybe it wouldn’t have to be pulled down altogether; and the Truebloods had gone back home, and high time because Cyrus was driving Leyton Yarnell to distraction.
Birdie paused in her recital to make sure Lily was comfortable and didn’t need anything.
“You fuss like Ma,” Lily said. “Go on.”
The last bit of news was that Magistrate Bookman had gone to Johnstown on official business but ended up coming back with the kind of supplies the Friends didn’t want or need—alcohol and ammunition—as well as three dozen hens and a single rooster.
“Missy said how the poor old bird would work himself to an early grave, but he’d di
e happy.”
It was rude to tell such stories, but it did make Lily laugh aloud, and that was the idea.
Lily said, “You bring so much light into the room, like a hundred candles at once.”
Birdie tried to look modest, but she was so pleased that it was hard. She went to get a fresh pillow slip and brought back the brushes to work through Lily’s hair.
“You spoil me,” Lily said. “If I were a more suspicious person I would think you were plotting something.”
Birdie managed to smile, and hoped that her sister wouldn’t see the crack in it.
On her way home again Birdie was feeling satisfied with her afternoon’s work. Maybe she really did have a chance of convincing Ma and Da that school was not the right place for her, at the moment at least. But then Jane Cunningham waved her down outside the post to ask had she heard the news? Maria Oxley had died sudden in the night, just when she seemed to be getting back on her feet. And all those children left behind. Wasn’t it true that Birdie was there, helping, when Hannah set Friend Maria’s broke wrist?
Sometimes there was no help for it but to be rude. Birdie turned on her heel and started straight up the hillside, forgoing the road or anything that might have served as a path.
15
Martha heard the news about Maria Oxley from Hannah, who came by one midafternoon to share it.
“Where is Birdie?” Hannah wanted to know. “I need to be the one to tell her, because she’ll take the news hard.”
“Were they very close?” Martha asked.
“Not especially,” Hannah said. “But she helped me set the arm, and she will want to know.”
Maria Oxley was now the seventh casualty of the flood. On the first day one of the Sampson brothers had been pulled from the far side of the river; his two brothers hadn’t been found and probably would never be.
Noah Trueblood, Grandma May, and Alexander Crispin were put to rest in graves that took a long time to dig because the earth was still frozen in the new graveyard, and now Mrs. Oxley would join them. People kept telling each other that it could have been much worse; that it was God’s own mercy to have saved so many of them. Martha thought that Daniel Bonner deserved a good part of the credit, as he had been the one to sound the alarm.