by Grace Greene
Grand’s car was old, but the engine turned over and came alive. The driveway was red clay and mostly graveled. Up around the curve where the road sloped down, the low spot in the S curve might be flooded a bit but shouldn’t be a problem if I had enough speed and didn’t stop. I’d take the last hill fast and be up to the level spot where it joined the paved road before the tires could give a thought to getting mired. I hit the accelerator hard. And instantly slammed to a jolting stop.
My neck. My head. Pain, bright and blinding, hit me. I raised my arm to shield my face, and in the same instant, with my other hand, I grabbed at the precious bundle on the seat.
The downed tree. I’d heard it fall, hadn’t I? Back in the house when nothing had mattered but my Ellen not waking? Yes, and in my haste to get help, I’d been fooled by the mass of thickly leaved branches. I should’ve realized why so many leaves were draped around my car and blocking the view.
Time was precious—each second—and it continued to tick. In that same moment, I understood time didn’t matter. Its continued passing would only carve grief more deeply into my heart and brain.
My hand rested on the still form beside me. The leaves from the fallen tree covered my windshield like a green grave, and told me there was nothing more to be done here.
But hope dies hard. Taking my Ellen in my arms and holding tight to her, I opened the car door. I stepped out into the mud and sticks and other storm debris and stumbled my way under the now-slanted tree trunk and through the hanging boughs. On the other side of it, clear of the tree, I slipped and fought through the mud until I reached the driveway. The drive was muddy, too, but the surface still had enough gravel in it that it provided better footing. I tried to quicken my pace, not feeling the sharp rocks underfoot and ignoring the pain that shot up my back to the base of my skull with every movement. Clutching my bundle, I ran along the driveway.
If I could make it to the main road and flag down a passing car . . . Stranger or not, they’d help.
Where the drive curved away into the woods to begin its long slope down and nearly out of view of the house, I missed my step and went down. I never lost hold, though. I held tight. But when I tried to rise, I made it only as far as my knees.
There was nothing to be done. I rocked back and forth, holding to my heart my dearest little girl, who, through all this turmoil, had never cried, never stirred. She was gone, her spirit flown away.
I looked skyward at the dark clouds clearing overhead, almost as if I might see her . . . what? Ascending? No, all I got was a searing pain wrenching the back of my neck and down my spine.
Distantly, I heard Gran’s voice. She must’ve come out onto the front porch.
Some rational spark in my brain cried out, Get up and go back, Hannah. Heaven help us if Gran tries to walk down here. How will we ever get her back to the house? And then the spark died, and I was fully back, enveloped in misery and pain.
I struggled to my feet and limped home, my face buried in the folds of Ellen’s blanket.
Gran was standing in the doorway braced against the lintel. I ignored her and sat for a while in the porch rocker in my own hazy bubble. I was dizzy. My head and neck hurt, but the only thing that mattered was my loss. Gran was talking. I didn’t answer her, and finally she stopped. My baby and I kept rocking.
It was summer. July. The afternoon was passing. No matter how tightly I’d wrapped her, no matter how hard I held her, I couldn’t warm her small body back to life, nor keep out the damaging heat.
I knew she wasn’t coming back.
I wished I could lay her back in the crib. As if I’d never disturbed her nap. All would be as it had been.
But it was too late.
Gone, as they say. Passed. Lost.
Our nearest neighbor was Mr. Bridger. I could hike up and over the hill. It was quite a walk, but once I was over the ridge, if he was home . . . He had an old truck, and it wasn’t likely blocked in. His phone might be working, too. But to what purpose?
If he took me into town, would I be able to say to whomever one reported such events . . . say my baby was . . . I bit my lip, tasted blood, and bit down harder.
There was no way I could utter those words.
I held her more tightly and rocked harder back and forth. The jerking motions made the pains in my head worse.
No point in seeking help, anyway. No one could help. Not in any way that mattered. Time had passed, taking hope with it. One hour? Two? More than that. It was done. Over.
If no one could help bring her back, then I wouldn’t give her up to the hands of strangers. People who’d never seen her laugh, had never experienced her temper when she was hungry.
She was my baby. My Ellen. Whether there was breath in her lungs or not. I had a duty to her.
I left the chair and the porch and entered the house. Gran had sat herself in a chair in the living room. Her face was red and pale all at once. She was panting through parted lips, her chest rising and falling in a quick, jumpy way. Her hair was wet and stringy. It clung to her forehead and cheeks. I noticed her state only peripherally as I carried Ellen past. Gran’s eyes were big, her expression stricken, but I couldn’t feel her pain. I was too full up with my own.
In my room, I laid my baby on the bed and opened the blanket. Her face and body were perfect. Not a mark. I tried one last time to wake her, not able to see how this could have come about, but the effort was too cruel to both of us to try more than once. I washed her body and pinned a fresh diaper on her, and then re-dressed her in the same gown. It was my favorite, and it had meaning. Gran’s mother and other family, perhaps my own mother and father, might recognize the dress and know who she was when she arrived in heaven. It was a light thought—a thought without weight because I had to keep certain things at a distance.
Nobody was coming to clear the downed tree. I would have to do it myself with the chain saw or wait until the power company came to check on the outage, and they’d help me. But such help could be hours or days in coming, depending on how widespread the storm damage was.
No help was coming. This was on me.
I’d heard of crib death. I didn’t know if that’s what had happened, but there was nothing to indicate otherwise. She was as beautifully perfect as she’d been when I put her down for her nap, except now she was limp and cold. Her lips were tinted the soft lavender of a summer sunset, but there was no pink in her cheeks, no life in her flesh.
I brushed her brown-gold curls, kissed her perfect cheeks and smooth forehead, and then wrapped her again in a dry, fresh blanket. I took a clean sheet from the linen press and spread it on the bed. I laid her in the middle of the sheet and, kissing her soft cheeks one last time, I folded the fabric around her with all the love in my heart.
Tucked in is how I thought of it. Her mama was tucking her in.
Inside, I was breaking. Only great care could hold me together. And I had to hold it together. If not me, then who? Who else would take care of this?
Not Gran.
Not the hands of strangers when, and if, they ever showed up.
Human noises—breathing hitches and exhales, wet-sounding, almost painful in their gasping, were coming from the next room.
No help there. Not to be received or given. This was on me.
How would I explain it to people? My poor, sweet babe was gone, lost to me—an unworthy mother who must’ve done something wrong. That’s what their eyes would say, and their mouths might say it, too.
I should’ve kept moving, but I let in these thoughts, and my heart failed me. My legs got weak. I sat in the chair in my bedroom and held the bundle. Gran was grieving and calling out questions and saying something about fetching Mildred.
But we had no phone service, and it was too late. The fact was it had been too late even before I’d known there was a problem.
Gran’s breathing was ragged, and her voice was hoarse. “Hannah.”
I nodded, yet stayed in my chair. I wouldn’t go to Gran, but I owed her so
me words. “She’s gone. She didn’t wake from her nap.”
It seemed indecent that a few words, such simple words, could represent something so unthinkable and horrendous.
“Child, call Mildred.” Gran had made it to the doorway. She was standing there, held up by the doorframe and her cane.
“Phone’s out and the drive’s blocked.” I tightened my arms and shrank back. There was a high edge to my voice that hurt my head. It rang in my ears, but with a nails-on-chalkboard edge that seemed to be growing in my head. An answering wail echoed in my body, like a vibration from within the earth, shaking below me and inside me. I tried to speak. I opened my eyes, but everything around me was awash in red.
A sharp, hard pain stabbed my leg. My vision cleared enough for me to see Gran, closer now, the tip of her cane hovering near me.
“Hannah, child, stop that screaming.” She stumbled forward and ended up sitting on the bed, shaking her head and repeating, “I can’t lose you, too, Hannah.”
I dragged in a breath and tried again. My voice was no more than a hoarse whisper.
“She’s gone, Gran. Gone too long. There’s nothing anyone can do to help her. If they can’t help her, then they can’t have her.”
There was a long pause before Gran spoke. Her tone was stronger, and there was steel in her words as she demanded, “Help me to my bed, Hannah.”
I looked up. Her face was wet. Tears flowed from her eyes and followed the wrinkles in her cheeks, then dropped onto the bodice and skirt of her dress. I looked beyond her to see that, somehow, the afternoon had slipped away, and evening was pressing in on us.
“Yes, ma’am.” I put my bundle carefully onto my bed and took Gran’s arm.
I helped my grandmother back onto the living room bed. The mattress sagged and sighed as she returned to her place. I pulled the light coverlet up over her legs and hips. Despite it being high summer, she tended to feel the cold in her extremities.
“Bring her to me.”
My mind blank, I stopped. I glanced toward the bedroom. Had Gran not understood?
“Bring her,” she repeated. “Now, Hannah. Bring her here. Ellen and I will nap together again for a while.” She fixed her teary eyes on mine and spoke a truth we both understood. “Grand’s shovel is in the shed.”
I brought Ellen to her. It was a good thing. Horrendous to settle Ellen in Gran’s arms as if to nap, but it was also right, because I had decisions to make and work to do. That work was unspeakable and horrific, but it was also a duty of love, and the task had fallen to me.
I carried Grand’s shovel across the creek bridge and up the slope to the cemetery. There, I dug a hole beside his grave—between his and my mother’s grave where Gran had intended to be buried. She would now rest on the other side of Grand when her turn came.
Generations of Coopers are buried here, I thought. Our baby will rest between her grandmother and her great-grandfather. Grand would be there to welcome her to heaven, and I presumed my mother would, too, but I hadn’t known her. She’d never felt real to me. Gran would join them there sooner or later and make sure all was right. Sooner rather than later, if she didn’t take better care of herself.
It all made sense in my head while I was digging up the earth and creating a nice, neat pile of dark soil.
There were a few cedar boards in the barn. I fetched them and laid them side by side in the bottom. The scent was faint but reminded me of the cedar chest Gran had her wedding gown stored in. I went back to the house and took some loose chips from inside Gran’s wedding chest. I sprinkled them on top of the boards.
The blue butterfly pots I’d made—they had wings shaped almost like fingers tightly pressed together, wings that wrapped themselves up around the sides of the pot. George Bridger had suggested making two, and I’d taken his advice. I’d pressed Ellen’s name into each before glazing and firing. Now I took one of the pots and set it gently in the grave.
When I paused in passing beside Gran’s bed, she looked at me with wide, dark eyes—the rest of her had faded into nothingness—and we didn’t speak. When I picked up the bundle from beside her and carried it out, she didn’t stop me.
After that . . . I remember it all, but like I was someone else, watching from afar, bemused, as a young woman laid her precious bundle into the midst of those cedar chips. Somehow the woman reached into the pile of dirt and took it, handful by handful, and returned the earth from whence it came. I held my breath, watching her. I didn’t think she could do it, but she did.
Gasping and breathless, I watched her, and when it was done, she mounded the dirt with her bare hands, shaping it and patting it into place. I could read her mind. She kept telling herself, “Just this—this and no more—and then you’ll be done. Do this, and then you’ll be finished and able to rest.”
But still the woman wasn’t satisfied. She looked around, this cold creature, and decided to pry up a cement slab her grandfather had made as a step at the shed door. She dug it out with her bare fingers and rolled it end over end to the creek, across the bridge, and up the slope.
When she reached the cemetery wall, despite the weight of the slab, somehow she managed to lift it over and lay it on top of the mounded dirt. She climbed back over the wall and searched the woods and creek bed by moonlight. She gathered up rocks, large and small, and carried them back. She arranged them like a necklace around the perimeter of the block. The mica flecks and milky quartz crystals glittered like earthbound stars in the light of the moon.
Was it deep enough? Secure enough with the concrete block on top? Rocks all around to mark it as special? I heard the woman’s voice in my head asking, Is she safe now? Not asking about herself but about the bundle. Baby Ellen. Is Ellen safe?
There were noises in the dark night. The woman stared, her eyes fixed on the stone wall. I, myself, saw a small figure move, not much more than a shadow on top of the wall, but it remained indistinguishable. Meanwhile, small animals—rabbits, possums, and a raccoon or two—crept from their burrows. They prowled for food and were driven by the other needs of life. They, and the insects, came alive with the dark, and filled the air with their noises.
The woman’s knees grew wet and cold as the earth soaked through her clothing and the night settled damp around her. A gentle breath of wind swirled the air. The branches overhead moved, shaking up the moon-cast shadows. The wispy almost-form on the stone wall vanished. The woman lifted her arms, her hands grasping at the empty air as wails and cries filled the darkness. Wild, crazed sounds. Creatures emerging into the night stopped, then slunk away. There were better places to hunt and mate. Tonight, this landscape had become a hostile, nightmarish hell.
Finally, only the woman remained. The continued cries hurt our ears, but I was helpless to stop her. They issued from her, hurting her chest, tearing at her throat, and over some period of time I knew the truth—the coarse sounds emanated from us. They came from inside us—her on the ground and me at what should’ve been a safe distance—the wails screamed from a consciousness whose reality had been torn fiber by fiber, beyond acceptance.
I was pulled back roughly from my distant perch, but I couldn’t come in all the way home, not back to where I’d begun. Instead, I found a place to dwell within Hannah but that was not Hannah. Hannah, the girl who’d lost her child, went to sleep, and then I was finally able to rest.
A few times I heard Gran’s voice from a distance.
At false dawn, I awoke. I was curled up in the loam, sheltered only by the moss and lichen-covered low stone wall of the cemetery. The predawn sky lit up this patch of land and the flat concrete block, and I knew my baby was gone from me. Really gone.
I pushed up to my knees. My fingers screamed. The early light wasn’t enough to give me the details, but they felt torn and bloody. My joints ached. I made it to my feet but couldn’t stand all the way up. I was hunched over like an old woman, older than my Gran even, and I crept, drained and hurting, back to the house.
Gran was on the floor i
n the open doorway between the kitchen and the living room. She was half-propped against the doorframe, and her legs were sprawled out. Her eyes were closed. I was so near the floor already that it wasn’t a long trip down. I touched her face.
“Gran? You there?”
She murmured something. Her eyes opened slowly. “Hannah?”
I sagged. “You’re OK, then?”
She nodded. Even in the near dark, I could see her eyes were red and wet. The lids were swollen; she could only peek out. Her cheeks had sagged long ago, and her jawline had grown soft as her wrinkles had deepened, but tonight she looked like she’d grown old twenty times over. She put her arm around me, heavy but firm, and pulled my face into her midsection. I let her hold me close for a few minutes but then struggled free.
“I’ll help you back into bed,” I said.
“All right. Help me get to the bathroom first, and then a drink of water would be welcome.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Everything hurt me, inside and out, but the necessity of getting my grandmother onto her feet and sorted out stirred the life back up inside me. I found I could put one foot in front of another, as long as she didn’t ask. When we passed the bedroom door where Ellen’s crib was clearly in sight, she didn’t comment. She coughed. She sniffled. She groaned. She muttered. But she didn’t ask. And that was a good thing.
I’d tossed the rain-wet blanket into the crib when I was changing her that last time. In the dim light and from a certain angle, I could almost believe she was still there, and the past almost twenty-four hours had never happened.
After Gran was settled, I fell into bed and curled up, filth and all, into a ball. I closed my eyes and left this world again for a while. I hoped I would never have to return.
Gran never brought up our loss, and I never mentioned it. I put fresh flowers or greenery on the grave every day. I sang softly while I worked and spoke quietly to the grave. I prayed, too, but I never exchanged a word about it with any living soul.
The next grocery delivery came about two weeks after the storm. By then, the power company and phone company had cleared enough of the downed trees to restore services. After the utility workers left, I took the chain saw and removed the rest of the tree blocking the drive, leaving the larger parts of the trunk. I’d have to hire someone else to split it for firewood, but at least I could get in and out of the Hollow now if I wanted. I didn’t want to, though, and I didn’t go anywhere. We did wonder why Mildred hadn’t been by to check on us.