Threads

by Patsy Brookshire

  Every time either of them stopped talking, I asked another question about something in the room, a piece of furniture, the house plants, a pretty or interesting picture on the wall. I wanted to listen to them talk all night. The thought of what lay ahead petrified me.

  After what seemed like hours, the talk ran out. We sat at the table in the stillness, with only a slight popping from the fire and an occasional hiss as a rain drop fell through the chimney into the flames. We could hear the ocean but the sounds within the room were most noticeable. I wanted to run out the door and down the path and into my cabin and lock the door.

  Instead, I sat, waiting.

  Amy breathed a deep sigh, which was loud in the quiet room.

  "Well." She stood up. "Might as well do the dishes."

  "I'll help." My voice sounded strange. I picked up my dish and lurched up to help her, relieved to end the stillness, to have something to do that would further prolong the, I now know, inevitable step. But that wasn't her intent.

  "No." She took the plate from my hand. "David, take Sophie to her--" She corrected herself. "To your room. She's tired and needs to sleep."

  Amy was right. At that moment I wanted nothing more than to be in bed, away from her, however normal she was trying to make this all seem. I wanted to escape. Firstmost in my mind were her words just before we had come in, that David was mine.

  Did she mean it? What was going to happen now?

  Though it was David's idea and my final compliance that had got us into this situation, it was Amy who had managed this step to get me into the house. She'd helped smooth the evening with almost normal talk. David now needed to regain control, and so he did.

  "Sophie, the staircase is right over there. The, uh, your room is to the right. I'll be up in a few minutes." I took my bag from beside the door and David led me to the steps which he didn't need to do as they were right in plain sight. I'd been aware of them all evening.

  He said again, "I'll be right up." As I started up he called, "Be careful, the steps are steep."

  I didn't need that advice, either. In my heavy and frightened condition all I could do was lug myself slowly and carefully up the steps. There were firm rails on either side, which helped some but two rails weren't necessary. Before I was ready, I was at the top. Their room was at the left, over the living room; my room was to the right, over the kitchen. So long as I lived there I never stopped thinking of them as their room and my room.

  I no sooner got to my room and set my bag on the bed than I realized that I hadn't gone to the bathroom. It had been a nagging fullness all evening, I'd ignored it. I wasn't going to make it through the night. I looked under the bed. No chamber pot. Lord!

  I wanted to stay in the room but I had to go. I left my bag on the floor by the bed and headed back for the stairs. I wasn't trying to be sneaky, I was concentrating on being careful as I came down the stairs. I got to the bottom with so little noise that they didn't notice me.

  They were by the sink, with his arms around her in a loving embrace. She was kissing his face, murmuring, "I know. It's okay. I love you, too."

  I felt sick. The jealousy I'd kept submerged all evening--along with my bladder ache--surged through me. I rushed through the room for the door.

  "Sophie! What's--" I heard David call.

  I mumbled something about the outhouse and was out before they could stop me. It was cold and raining which calmed the nausea I'd felt. I stumbled through the salal around the house, making noise that woke the chickens in the coop to the back of the house. Their squawking startled me until I could laugh and relax enough to search out the wooden walk running to the outhouse in the back.

  While in there I considered heading down to my cabin and Punkin Sue Tiger. But I'd just have to go through all this again, unless I ran away. Where would I go? There was nothing to do but go back. I stopped by the coop and whispered to the chickens until I got my courage up to go back into the house. It felt odd opening the door, so I knocked lightly before going in.

  Amy had finished the dishes and was sweeping up. The house was clean already; it was busy work. Now that the moment was at hand, she had nothing more to say. David was nowhere in sight. I went straight to the stairs, not having much to say myself. I forced myself to say, "Good night."

  "'Nite," I thought she didn't appreciate me breaking up her last moment with David.

  When I got to my room I found David already there. He'd lit the lantern on the bedside table and was already in bed. I pushed the door shut. He watched me undress and put on my nightgown and smiled as I tugged it over my big tummy. I'd made one 'specially big for my condition, but before long I had given it up and made a bigger one.

  I was glad to blow out the light but shy about getting into bed with him. He pulled back the covers and moved over to make room. If I was an artist like David I could still draw that scene, my memory is so clear with it. Once I was in, he snuggled close. I finally relaxed and turned to him. We kissed for a long time, but didn't make love. I could never have relaxed enough for that on my first night in their house. It wouldn't have felt right.

  I heard Amy come up the stairs and cross the hall into their room. I held my breath until I heard the door close.

  He played with moving the baby around by pressing down easy on the little foot that poked up on my tummy, which made the baby shift inside me. We giggled and he did it again until I made him stop, I was afraid he might hurt the baby somehow even though his hands were so very gentle.

  His love for me and the safety I felt in that bed, that first night and every night thereafter, completely overwhelmed me. I cried quiet tears and he comforted me, his hand stroking my skin in a way he never had before. Protective.

  I felt safe with him. David went to sleep long before I did. I lay there feeling him close to me, listening to the night sounds of surf and the rain on the roof. I finally fell asleep.

  18. Let Me Serve you...

  I woke in the near dawn to David smoothing the blanket over me. He was already out of bed, leaning down, when he saw my eyes open.

  He kissed me and whispered, "I must fix the fire. Go back to sleep. Come down when you're ready."

  I knew he was going to spend some time with Amy before I showed up downstairs, but, somehow, it didn't worry me.

  The daylight of early morning woke me. My place in the bed was warm. I put my hand over to where David had been, it was cool. I could feel the chill of the room on my face. I snuggled the covers up close around my neck. I didn't want to get up. Besides, I was scared again.

  Nature's call forced me to leave the room, or I might be there still. The morning was easier than the night had been. The coolness that Amy had showed the night before was gone. She was easy with me, no hint that we'd spent the night any different from usual.

  She sat at the table with piles of paper spread in front of her. Her hair was loosed from the bun of the night before, now caught up into a soft braid tied with a brown ribbon. She smiled at me as I came from the stairs across to her, said, "Good morning, dear," and moved her hand to invite me to sit down at the table with her.

  "Not yet." I smiled back at her, it was impossible not to. "I'll be right back." Grateful for a normal reason to not stop and chat, I went out into a beautiful morning. The ground wasn't dry but the sky was, for which I thanked the gods. I breathed in probably the first comfortable breath I'd taken in weeks, and took the side walk to the house out back.

  After I'd taken care of nature I walked around the ground for a few minutes, looking at the bushes and stumpy trees, just getting comfortable with being there. The chickens were already out of the coop, David must have been here. Maybe Amy took care of the chickens? It was something I could help with. I peeked in to look for eggs. The nests were at the back, not enough light for me to see whether they held eggs or not. I'd have gone in but a rooster left the group of hens and flew at me, screeching and threatening. Whoa! I backed up, not ready to challenge him.

  I'd not taken a wrap so w
hen the frosty air began to sink in I gathered my courage and went back into the house.

  "David's in the gable, painting," Amy said, indicating again a place at the table for me.

  The room was warm from coals in the fireplace. I picked up a piece of wood from the box by the hearth and put it on the fire. Puttering around. "It's really cold this morning."

  I know she could hear the fear in my voice. Less than the night before, but still there.

  She rose from the table. "Are you hungry?" She went to the sideboard and pulled a loaf of bread from the box there, and began slicing.

  "I am," I said, "a little."

  "No wonder." She opened the oven door, putting the bread on the rack, and then put a couple of pieces of wood in the stove firebox. The smell of toast filled the room.

  "There's oatmeal on the stove, and bowls up here." She indicated a shelf above and to the side of the stove before she went to the foot of the stairs. There was a narrow pull rope there that I hadn't noticed the night before. She pulled it, sounding a bell way above us.

  "David. In the gable. I know he'll want to eat something, and see that you are okay."

  I had the grace to blush.

  She had the grace to pretend she didn't notice.

  We could hear David coming down the stairs. She remarked on how pretty the frosty morning was and I said I thought so too. David was a relief, turning the corner at the bottom of the stairs and coming across the room to the kitchen table. He hesitated--this was new to him too--and then brushed his hand over my hair, a loving gesture that calmed me down.

  He pulled out my chair. "Let me serve you, my lovelies." He filled three bowls with mush, put out spoons for us each, and sat down. Amy had already brought the toast to the table where I'd buttered it, thankful for the work. I pushed the toast plate to the center of the table while she sat down, handing us each a napkin.

  I started to reach for my oatmeal.

  "David," Amy said.

  His head was already bowed. "Thank you, Lord. Amen." He lifted his head, smiled a big smile at both of us, and began spooning sugar on his oatmeal. We all three relaxed.

  It was our first sit-down meal together, the first of many. We fell into a pattern that lasted for most of my time there: I prepared breakfast, for which I always set an attractive table, if I do say so myself. David fixed lunch and, while I took a late afternoon nap, Amy cooked dinner. The other chores got done easily. David helped where needed and sometimes when not needed.

  Amy confided to me once when he was gone on his morning beach walk that he'd seldom helped around the house before, other than wood chopping and fixing things. The only reason we could come up with was that when we worked and he sat, there was too much suggestion of a harem serving their lord, and David certainly didn't want that. At least he said he didn't.

  I loved the chicken coop that David had built. It looked more like a real house than the big one did, but was small. It became part of my mornings to collect the eggs. Walking among the chickens soothed me, listening to their soft cheeps and clucks as they pecked after bugs on the ground, or grabbed at the corn I threw out for them. After a few days the hens let me enter the coop without fuss and take their prizes. The rooster was crazy, never accepted me, but I flapped my arms back at him and screeched louder than him and he backed off enough for me to get into the coop. He would crow at odd hours of the night and couldn't be depended on as an alarm clock unless you wanted to get up in the middle of the night. By dawn he was often asleep, too tired from crowing through the night to greet the morning.

  That first day went quickly. My initial impression of Amy was that she was a spotless housekeeper, because we cleaned all that first day. We washed down, straightened, and swept: cupboards, shelves, bedrooms, floors. She wouldn't allow me to do the heavy work so David asked me to take a walk on the beach with him. I thought Amy would like to have the house to herself for awhile. We left.

  He helped me down the slippery path. As we passed my cabin I heard Punkin Sue Tiger yowl from inside. I'd forgotten all about him. When I opened the door he ran out and raced around my feet, then around David's, crying loudly the whole time, both mad and glad I suppose. He ran off to the bushes.

  "We can pick him up when we come back," David said, laughing.

  I agreed with him. I was so in love with him that at that moment whatever he said, went. And I wanted to get down to the beach too.

  Once there he put his arm around my waist and we walked close, our hips bumping. I began to feel my insides and bones softening, the first time since Amy's appearance at my door. The wind was bitterly cold, biting into my face and hands. David suggested we go back.

  "Not just yet, please." I pulled him to a sheltered place below the cliff. In the privacy of a deserted beach I put my arms around him and hugged him close. Comforted, we sat on a damp log.

  There, with winds that whipped away our voices beyond a couple of feet, I questioned him. "What does Amy think of your great plan now?"

  For not the first time, and certainly not the last, David was exasperated with me. "I don't know why you continue to question her. Amy is as you see her. She has no secret dislike of you that she's hiding. She likes you. Of course..."

  I knew it. He was about to admit that all was not rosy between them, her act was all a farce.

  "She is worried about you working too hard, and wonders whether you'll miss having your family around when the baby comes. And she says you should have a doctor here when you deliver."

  She was worried about me. Not about her and David. Of course she'd probably keep that to herself, but... My suspicion of her, most active when I was away from her, lessened.

  David's hand was resting absentmindedly on my swollen belly. Suddenly the baby kicked and his hand flew off as if burnt. "Whoa! Who's in there? A tiger?"

  He bent close to the mound. "Who are you in there? How's the weather, huh? Warmer than out here for sure. Be glad you've got such a nice nest. Soon you'll be out here playing on the beach with us. I'll show you how to build a sand castle and you can tell me what it was like in there. I've forgotten. What are you? That kick was a boy's kick. But maybe you're a strong girl like your mommy.

  "Just wait till you meet your mommy. She's a funny lady, always asking questions when she should be quiet and being quiet when she should be asking questions."

  He looked up at me and stroked the baby through my clothes. "Your mommy is beautiful, too." His eyes were tender and thoughtful.

  I reached out and pulled him to me. I thought no more of Amy and what he'd said until a few days later.

  But his mention of a tiger recalled me with a start, Punkin Sue Tiger, cold in the bushes. We left the chilly beach and rescued our unhappy cat. He settled into the new house like he'd always been there, part of the family.

  That night I went to bed right after supper. The time after dinner was always easier for me on the nights he spent with her because it seemed, it was, more natural to me. I loved sleeping with him but never got used to it when she was in the next room.

  19. The Rooster Crowed at Dawn

  The days flowed one into another. After I'd been there for about two weeks Amy brought up the subject of a doctor.

  I refused to consider it.

  She pleaded, "If anything goes wrong I'll never forgive myself. Maybe if I'd had a doctor with my baby everything would have been all right." She saw the struck look on David's face. "But maybe not. We'd planned to, but I thought I had plenty of time. Some things just aren't meant to be, I guess. And look. We're going to have a baby anyway, even if it's not just as we thought it'd be."

  I was embarrassed, but she didn't seem to be. That was her way. She accepted what was, not the way things were supposed to be. I'd always been at war with the facts, trying to turn things into something I can make sense of. I was used to things being natural and simple, and having a doctor didn't seem natural to me. They'd got me into their house, made me a part of their family so that I almost felt comfortable there,
but on the subject of bringing in a stranger to help me in what I saw as a simple affair, I could not be budged. I was going to birth a child and wasn't married to the father, not even a doctor was going to know that. There would be no doctor.

  During my last two months I was glad I wasn't alone. The cabin had been so desperately lonely and now I was, in spite of myself, happy. David and Amy laughed a lot, talking and teasing each other with old stories of funny things that had happened to them. While we popped corn over the fire in the long-handled popper, we discussed the strange, unexplained, spooky things that raise the hairs on the back of your neck. On really stormy nights Amy would sit on the braided rug by the fireplace and play the flute. Sometimes David would sing softly and with very little coaxing I would join him.

  In my eighth month, when the baby was seeming to be trying to kick his way out, we found that if Amy played soft and close to me the baby quieted down. He enjoyed the music too. The only one who wanted none of it was Punkin Sue Tiger. He'd either go sit by the door and meow to go out, or go up the stairs, and later I'd find him sleeping in the center of my bed. He was not a musical cat.

  As my time neared I stayed around the house more. My heartburn was miserable and my stomach muscles started practicing for birth. It alarmed Amy and David more than me, because I'd seen it happen with Mandy's four births. It did spur me to a flurry of sewing and crocheting. Punkin Sue Tiger gave me fits with the thread.

  David went into town and bought yards and yards of white flannel that Amy and I made into nightgowns and diapers. I embroidered the nightgowns with blue forget-me-nots and yellow daisies and we made a small flannel-backed quilt from my scrap bag.

  David stopped painting for a while to finish a cradle. The wood was still there from when Amy was pregnant. He'd put it away when she lost the baby. Now he hummed to himself as he sanded and polished and carved. I sewed. While we worked Amy put away her sewing to play her music. It was all more natural than I could have believed.

  Preparing for a baby should be the happiest thing humans do, and for us, it was. We were all excited but they were a little afraid, too. Neither of them had been around at the birth of a baby. David had been the youngest in his family and Amy's younger brother and sister had seemed to just be there with no notice.