Mattie

by Judy Alter

  “Don’t let him come in here anymore,” Amy said in her weak voice. “He, well, I know he means well, but he makes me nervous. He looks so scared.”

  “It’ll be all right, Amy. Don’t worry. Just try to relax and push down when I tell you.” I tried to sound soothing, but I was worried. The longer the labor went on, the less chance the baby had.

  The baby was born in the wee hours of the morning, almost a full day after I’d arrived. She was a delicate little girl, beautifully formed but too tiny. She gave only one weak cry in spite of my best efforts. I wrapped her in a cloth and put her close to Amy, but she died within two hours.

  Amy and William were inconsolable, and I didn’t try to tell them that God knew best or anything, like many doctors did, because I couldn’t believe it myself. I left them to their tears and went about the business of fixing up the baby, choosing the prettiest of the little dainty things Amy had sewn and wrapping the tiny thing in a blanket before I put it in the wooden cradle. Then I straightened up the house and gave Amy something to make her sleep. By then, William was able to talk to me, though he choked up every two minutes. I wasn’t exactly dry-eyed myself.

  “Thank you, Dr. Armstrong. I know you tried, and, well, I . . .”

  “You’ll see about a coffin?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I can do that. Will you say a few words if we can bury her?”

  The “if” meant if the ground was soft enough to dig a grave.

  “Of course,” I said, “but the reverend—”

  “He’ll understand.”

  This was not the only time I’d been called on to say a few words at a gravesite. That had happened to me before, out in the country where there was no one else, and I always dreaded it. What William meant as a compliment settled on me as a burden, like the final straw. I went home with the heaviest of hearts that early morning. Fortunately, Em was asleep and didn’t stir as I crawled into bed. I dreaded telling him about a baby that didn’t live.

  Nora was born in the middle of a stormy night. It was probably the only predictable thing she ever did, but like most first babies, she came at the most inconvenient time, and she was late. Em had been nervous for three weeks, hovering over me, asking if I was sure I had counted the weeks right, didn’t I think it was time to worry, maybe I should contact Dr. Dinsmore. I had a hard time to keep from losing my temper with him, but I knew he was excited and scared and anxious. And truthfully, underneath all that pose of “Don’t worry, I’m a doctor, I know best,” I was scared, too. Not, like some women are, of childbirth, but that something beyond my control would go wrong, that the perfect baby that I wanted to bring into the world wouldn’t be healthy . . . or worse, like Amy and William’s baby, wouldn’t live.

  I was good enough, though, at appearing calm and collected, covering the nervousness. It’s always been one of my strengths, the ability to hide my fears and uncertainties from other people. So I tried to calm Em.

  “Em, the baby’s only a week late. You started expecting it too soon.”

  “Well” —he paced nervously around the kitchen, picking up a cup here, a paper there, fiddling with an old piece of string— “you never can tell. Sometimes they come early. You should know that.”

  “Of course I do, Em. But first babies often come late, and this one just isn’t ready to come into the world yet. They’re healthier, you know, if they don’t come early.”

  “But don’t they, well, I mean, sometimes if they’re too late, doesn’t that mean . . .”

  “Only in unusual cases, Em, unusual cases.” I tried again to pay attention to the recipe that I was diligently trying to follow. All the women around could make cornbread with a pinch of this or that and a handful of meal and so on. I had to ask Sally Whittaker to write down directions, and still, the first time I baked it, I got nothing but crumbs. But I was trying again, flour and cornmeal all over, and me as ungainly and big as a bear, when Em came and grabbed me.

  “It’s just that I’m scared, Mattie. Scared for you and scared for me, because I want our baby so badly.” He looked like he might cry, though he was the kind of man who never did that, and I remember feeling, well, touched. To think that a man loved me that much, that he was that scared about something happening to me, and that he wanted our baby that badly.

  “Em, it will be all right. Believe me, it will.”

  And like a little child, he looked solemnly at me and said, “If you say so, Mattie. I’ll try to relax.”

  Nora kept him in suspense for another two weeks, though, and it was a strained time. Em refused to leave my side for more than five minutes, and he dictatorially announced that I would go on no house calls. I agreed, because I wouldn’t have gone anyway, no matter what he said, but I let him think I was bowing to his wishes. Every once in a while, I guess I must have learned a lesson from Mama. Letting Em think things were his own idea was one of those lessons.

  We had a late spring snow that year, one of those storms that blow off the prairie quicker than you can think. I saw the dark gray-blue of the sky off in the distance and knew, instantly, that it was too late to send for Lucy Gelson and that tonight I would need her. Somehow you know those things with an irrevocable certainty. Luckily, Em didn’t have the same premonition I did.

  “Sure is blowing up a storm,” he said, coming into the kitchen and warming his hands by the stove. “Glad I got back from the claim in time. This is the kind of spring storm a man’s a fool to be caught in.”

  “If he can avoid it,” I said. “They come up so fast, sometimes you can’t help yourself.”

  “Well, I’m glad we’re all safe and warm here. Wonder if we should have asked Lucy Gelson to come in before this. I mean, if the baby comes tonight, who will help you?”

  “Hush, Em. The baby won’t come in a storm like this. And if it did, you’d help me. Who else?”

  He turned green and grabbed a chair to steady himself. “Me? Not me! Oh no, Mattie. I couldn’t.”

  I was sitting, resting, which was mostly what I did those last days before Nora’s birth, and I stared long and hard at him and saw that he was right. He would be no help, might probably be a hindrance, getting nervous and not following my directions.

  “We’ll call Sally Whittaker. She could make it that far if she had to.”

  “Sally Whittaker has never had any children of her own!” He was indignant.

  “Neither,” I said, “have you. But she’s a woman. I’m going to lie down.”

  Em heated some soup for our supper, took it out of the cold-keeper room, and I ate, but not very heartily. I still didn’t tell him that tonight was the night, and we both went to bed early, ostensibly for the kind of sound sleep that is possible only when you’re snug and warm inside and listening to a storm boil around you outside.

  It was still early in the night, maybe before midnight, when I awakened Em.

  “Em, Em! Wake up! I need for you to go get Sally Whittaker.”

  “Huh?” He was always foggy when he woke up, a sound and heavy sleeper who seemed to escape from the world when he dreamt. “Mattie? Why the hell are you shaking me? Oh, the baby? Is it the baby?” As consciousness came to him, he recovered all his nervousness and grabbed me hard as if to assure himself I was still there.

  “Everything’s fine, Em, but I think it’s about time to get serious about having this baby. And I’d like Sally, I really would.”

  “I’ll go right away,” he said. And he did. He was dressed and out the door quicker than I’d ever seen him move.

  While I waited, I lay back on the bed and worked hard at relaxing. One thing I’d noticed about childbirth was that the more tense the mother was, the harder the delivery was on her. ‘Course, now that’s almost a commonplace, but nobody had said much about relaxation in those days. Yet I lay back and willed my body not to be tense, took some deep breaths and tried not to fight back every time a contraction came. Nora, always feisty, was a hellion coming into this world, but she was quick.

  Sally barely ha
d time to get into the house, all breathless and full of “Oh, me!” and “My goodness, what shall I do, Mattie?” I gave her a few simple directions, such as to bring me water to drink, and showed her where the clean cloths were and how to rig up a blanket around the bedposts for me to pull on. Em, of course, had disappeared to sit, I later learned, whisky bottle in hand, at the kitchen table. Sally calmed down quickly and proved helpful and a comfort, and before we knew it, Nora Kathleen Jones made her appearance, caterwauling as though she’d tell the world instantly what she thought of it.

  “Mattie?” Em heard her cry and stood outside the door, whispering, as though a loud voice would break some precious moment.

  “Wait just a minute, Em.” Pride made me want to be clean and covered before he came in, so I held the baby while Sally straightened and cleaned. Within minutes, the baby and I were ready for Em.

  “I’ll just wait in the other room,” Sally said, sliding out the door.

  Em said the obvious. “She’s beautiful, Mattie, absolutely beautiful.” But she was. She had dark, curly hair, lots of it for a newborn, and her face was neither wrinkled nor red, but rather, soft and feminine. Her crying had stopped, and she stared at the world with dark and suspicious eyes.

  “She is lovely, isn’t she?” I asked. Oh, I was the proud mother, full of dreams and hopes and longing for this fairy child I had brought into the world. Nothing, I vowed, would be too good for her. Never would she know the uncertainty, the pain of childhood that I had.

  “Do you want to hold her?”

  “Is it all right?” He looked scared, and I smiled a little, tired as I was.

  “Of course it is. She’s your daughter. Here, be sure to hold her head.” I put my hands under her to give her to him, and he sat on the edge of the bed, cradling Nora and smiling foolishly at her.

  Then he looked at me. “Thank you, Mattie. She’s wonderful. And you are, too.”

  Never, I thought, had there been a family as complete and perfect as we made, and never had there been a man who loved a woman as much as Em loved me. I loved him because he had brought it all together, like a circle that had come full round. Em gave me back the baby, kissed me gently and went off to take Sally home. Nora and I were asleep before he closed the bedroom door.

  The next day Em was beside himself with pure joy and bursting to share it with the world. Of course, once he’d taken Sally back home, every family in Benteen knew of Nora’s arrival, so Em couldn’t exactly surprise them with his news. And you know how it is with good news and sometimes bad; lots of times a person wants to be the first one to tell folks. I could see that was how Em felt, and I understood. As a new father, all he could do was stand and boast, while I was taking care of the baby and recovering my strength, fully occupied and not feeling like I wanted to share my happiness with anyone but Em and Nora. But I understood.

  “Em, why don’t you ride out and tell Will Henry and Jim?” I asked, as though it were of burning importance to me that they find out instantly about the baby. Actually, they had been checking on me every two or three days, and it was about time for them to wander along of their own accord. But it would make them feel important to be sent for, and it would occupy Em.

  “Gee, Mattie, I’d like to . . . but, well, I don’t think I should leave you and Nora.”

  “We’ll be fine, Em. I . . . well, that’s really thoughtful of you, and I appreciate it. But we’ll be just fine. I think we’ll both sleep most of the time you’re gone.”

  Em left, and we slept. In a few hours he came stomping into the house. I could tell by listening that he was shaking snow on the kitchen floor, but I kept my peace. Then I heard voices behind him.

  “Where is she?” boomed Jim, heading straight for the bedroom.

  “Wait!” Em said, desperately trying to control the situation that should, by rights, be his moment of glory. “Let me see if it’s all right for you to go on in.”

  “Pshaw! I ain’t gonna hurt nothing. Just want a peek at my new grandchild.” And in Jim came, grinning from ear to ear.

  “Here she is, Jim, Nora Kathleen Jones, for your approval.” I smiled and held the baby out to him, but he backed away.

  “Now, Mattie, I just want to admire. I don’t want to get into holding her.”

  “Jim, you’ve got to hold your grandchild.” It was unspoken between all of us that Jim, though no blood relative, was to be Nora’s grandfather, the only grandparent she’d ever know, it seemed.

  “Well, maybe I’ll hold her a day or two from now, when she’s had time to get used to things, but for right now, she sure does look comfortable right where she is. Don’t you think, Will Henry?”

  “Yeah” was the noncommittal answer. Will Henry stood in the doorway looking shy and uncertain.

  “Come see her closer, Uncle Will Henry,” I urged.

  He tiptoed over. “She sure is tiny, Mattie.”

  “Tiny but healthy,” I said.

  “Came into this world yelling like a calf that lost its mother,” Em said, proudly stepping to the head of the bed. “Mattie practically delivered her herself; did a good job, too.”

  They all looked at me in awe, and I was most conscious of being in a feminine position and state, surrounded by three amazed men. It was a nice feeling.

  Jim cooked dinner that night, cutting a hunk of meat off the side in our storeroom and raiding my cupboard to find the makings of a stew more delicious than any I ever made. I ate ravenously, while all three of them stared at me.

  “Hungry, Mattie?” Jim laughed.

  “Well,” I said indignantly, “I haven’t eaten all day, and I’ve got to keep my strength up to feed Nora now, you know.”

  “That’s right. She does,” Em said solemnly.

  Jim just laughed. “Have another helping, little mother.”

  Later in the evening I caught Will Henry kneeling by Nora when he thought no one was watching, extending a tentative finger toward her tiny curled fist, a big smile on his face. She’ll be blessed with a loving family, I thought, and no child can ask for more.

  The next few days people drifted by with gifts for Nora—a handmade blanket knit by a woman I’d once ridden out to see, a tiny sweater of wool that apparently once had been used for something else, then unraveled, washed and reknit. From Sally Whittaker there was a corncob doll dressed in scraps of old material with dried corn silk, saved from last year, for hair, and a ludicrous boa of chicken feathers. In later months, Nora would chew on the doll and rub the feathers against her face.

  There’s nothing like the feeling of being close that a first baby can bring to a couple. With Nora, we were a welded unit, strong against the world, or so I thought. She was a good baby, rarely fussy, though she didn’t gurgle and bubble happily like lots of the babies I’ve brought into this world. Nora seemed to lie there and take it all in.

  “She’s seeing if she likes the world,” Em would laugh. “Not going to rush into anything until she’s sure.”

  Sometimes he would wake with me when I fed her in the middle of the night, and Em would spin glorious tales about the future, specifically about Nora’s future. “I’ll get her a horse pretty soon. Gentle, of course, but she’s got to grow up riding, not like you having to learn when you’re full grown, and not like me, never feeling sure of myself.”

  “Em, are you going to make her a cowboy?” I was joking, but in a way I meant it. I envisioned a dainty little girl, dressed in ribbons, kind of a Mary Jane Canary that I had never been, and I didn’t want Em turning her into a ruffian.

  “No, not a cowboy, Mattie. Just a strong all-around person, who can do whatever she wants. Who knows? Maybe she’ll be like her mother and be an independent woman with a career.”

  I was always on the alert for comments like that, but Em said it proudly this time and leaned over to kiss me hard.

  “Careful! You’ll smash Nora before she can get to that horse.”

  He pulled away again and stared at the baby, who was busily nursing at my breast an
d making no sound except that sucking noise.

  “She is beautiful, isn’t she, Mattie? Is she the prettiest baby you’ve ever seen?”

  “I haven’t seen that many, you know,” I laughed. He sounded as though I’d delivered hundreds of babies, like some old country doctor who’d been around for years, and like I have by this time in my life. But my laughter turned silent, because I thought of one of the few babies I had delivered, the stillborn girl of Amy and William Snellson. I hugged Nora tighter, feeling how blessed we were, until she protested with a slight sound of disgust.

  William and Amy came to visit when Nora was but two weeks old, bringing her a beautifully smocked little gown.

  “I . . . I made it for our baby,” Amy said hesitantly, “and I want you should have it.”

  “Oh, Amy, I’ll treasure it. It’s the most important gift Nora’s had, and I can’t thank you enough. It means . . . well, you know.” I truly was at a loss for words because of the enormity between my good fortune and their bare lives. But Amy confided in me later that she thought she was pregnant again, and I prayed for a safe and normal delivery. Realistically, I also told her to visit me soon and explained a little about the importance of taking care of herself during pregnancy.

  With his usual extravagance, Em ordered a huge stuffed animal from Kansas City for Nora. He set it in the middle of our bed, then put Nora down beside it to see how she liked it. She stared long and hard without a sound. Then, apparently having accepted it, she stuck one hand out and shoved as hard as her little fist would go. We thought it was wonderfully funny, but I wonder now if it didn’t say something about Nora. Em encouraged her by putting the bear back for her to knock it down again and roaring with laughter at her efforts. She fixed him with a long gaze that seemed to say, “Okay? You like that, do you?” And then she hit the bear again with that tiny but remarkably strong fist.