Threads

by Patsy Brookshire

  I was afraid of the pain.

  Mandy had carried on so with the births of her four that I determined not to scream if I could help it. I also knew that Mandy was more dramatic than me, and because she was angry at her husband for not being there, she made everyone, including herself, suffer. When he came home, after each birth, she gave him a blow by blow description of her suffering and swore never to go through it again. She wouldn't stop until he begged her to forgive him, and comforted her, promising never to be away again. But once she had the new baby in her arms she forgave and forgot and was happy the next time she was carrying another child.

  My last week was the worst. March going out with a roar. The ocean stormed and the clouds poured the last heavy winter rains on us. On April third, the sea calmed down and the rain lessened to a drizzle. I felt more energetic than I had in days. I baked enough bread and rolls to last a week, then mopped the floor. I finally stopped, only because Amy was worried, and once she got me to stop I wanted to do nothing but rest. I went to bed early because she insisted. I wasn't physically tired, just wanted to be alone for a while. It was her night with David. I could hear their voices from downstairs, until her flute lulled me to sleep.

  Early in the night I awoke. All was quiet, until I heard that crazy rooster crow. I figured that was what had wakened me, and tried to get comfortable again to go back to sleep.

  A sharp tightening at the bottom of my belly brought me to attention. It felt different than the other cramps, deeper, more insistent. It passed and I lay waiting in the dark, alert. After an eternity it grabbed again. I kept quiet, not yet ready to share this with anyone. I was excited but protective of this miracle that was happening between my baby and me. I thought about the baby and prayed that all would go well.

  The pains got harder, closer together and I didn't want to be alone any longer. I called out softly, "David." I no sooner said his name that he was in the room.

  "Sophie? What's the matter? Is it the baby? Is it time?" His words tumbled in a rush of excitement and fear. He lit my lamp, took one look at me and shouted, "Amy!"

  She must have been waiting for his call, she was there so quick. She took my hand as a contraction grabbed me, I squashed her hand in mine. She took charge.

  "David, start the fire in our bedroom. Put clean sheets on the bed. We'll move her in there where it's warmer, and we'll need hot water to wash with."

  While David hurried around getting everything ready, Amy sat with me, talking softly and holding my hand. When their room was ready she helped me from the bed. Warm water suddenly rolled down my legs. My bag of water had broken and I knew the birth was not far away.

  Walking was difficult. It had been hard to get up. Now it was hard to get down into a bed again. David helped us into their room. Amy sent him downstairs to heat up more water and to scout out the old flannel sheets she'd put aside for this. She helped me into the bed.

  "Well, Amy, this is it." I tried to joke between pains. "I hope you're ready. No more peace and quiet in this house."

  She gave me her hands to pull on as a big wave of pain grabbed me. "I'm ready. We'll handle whatever comes. You just relax, and push."

  Yes, indeed, relax. Easier said than done.

  I didn't need any urging to push. My body was fixed on it.

  She let go my hands and gave me a towel tied to the head of the bedstead to pull on. David came into the room.

  His lips were tight around his mouth. He hovered over me. "Are you okay? What can I do to help you? I'll rub your back." My back? He stepped back at my glare. "For God's sake, Soph, what should I do? Just tell me, I'll do it." He moved from one side of my bed to the other.

  "Stop moving around. Give me your hand." When he did I shoved it away.

  "You're hurting, I can tell. I don't know where to touch you."

  "Don't touch me," I swept his hand off my forehead. "Lord, David. Can't you do anything?"

  "I'm trying."

  I grunted, reached out to him. I wanted his hand. Despite myself I groaned. David grabbed my hand. I wasn't aware of anything other than trying to push the pain away. I wasn't thinking of the baby, just doing what my body demanded. When I got my breath I noticed how hot I was. David had built quite a fire. "David, please, open the window."

  "It's cold out there."

  "Well, it's hot in here. Please."

  He opened the window a crack. That small coolness from the sea relaxed me until the next pain came. The next few minutes seemed to go on forever, until a final crushing squeeze in my back, belly and bottom. I felt the baby start to come out. One more push, it was over and the pain stopped.

  David immediately shut the window.

  Amy grabbed a flannel. With the stopping of the pain I focused on her. She scooped the baby up into the cloth as easy as if she'd always done it. His wail filled the room. My baby's face wasn't the only one wet. Tears streamed down Amy's face, and David's.

  "For heavens' sake," I demanded, my own voice none too steady, "Is it a boy, or a girl?"

  "He's a little Sampson," Amy laughed through her tears. "A head full of hair and all." She handed him to David who put him on my flat belly. He brushed at his face with the back of his hand, and turned to help Amy. I paid no attention to the delivery of the afterbirth or the cutting of the cord I combed my baby's wet hair with my fingers. It was a black mass that went down to his neck.

  We named him Jonathan Sampson but always called him Sampson, except when he was naughty, then he was Jonathan Sampson Smithers.

  I had thought I was grown up and understood life, but it took Sampson's birth to show me the full range of it. As I lay there stroking his so soft, so perfect little body, I realized that he would die someday. I wanted to protect him from that and had to accept that, as I had not been able to prevent his birth, I could also not stop his death. But I swore I'd try to make his life pleasant and worthwhile, that I'd love him forever.

  Light came through the window, along with the noise of the morning surf. That crazy rooster was just below the window and damned if he didn't crow at the dawn. For once he was on time and had something to crow about. He brought my thoughts back from death to life. We all grinned like we'd done something special.

  The rain stopped and the early sun turned the room a rosy pink. Amy moved around cleaning up while David put some more wood on the fire. Sampson lay quietly beside me, looking up at me. His little face was so cute to watch. His forehead wrinkled and his mouth opened and shut. Such a tiny nose.

  "Would you like some toast and egg?" Amy smoothed the blanket at the bottom of the bed, ready to leave the room. Her eyes glowed with a soft happiness. She was happy for me, and satisfied at the birth of our baby.

  Little Sampson started at her voice, his head moving against my breast to find his breakfast, too. I loved that movement and never tired of it. "Yes," I said, "me too. This Sampson baby is gonna eat. We're starved."

  She left the room to start the day's work.

  David took his Bible from the top of the chest and sat down in the chair beside the bed. He looked at Sam and me, nodding as he opened the Bible to the front. Below,

  Married: Amy Johnston and David Smithers,

  July 18, 1907

  he wrote,

  Born to Sophie Adele Elm and David Andrew Smithers:

  Jonathan Sampson Smithers,

  April 4, 1919. May God bless.

  20. Love of Work

  Amy made me stay abed for a week. She wanted me to stay down at least two weeks but I wouldn't hear of it. I was restless to be up and about, sure that she was going to wear herself out running up and down the stairs, bringing my meals.

  David was in the room with every little whimper from Sampson. I had plenty of milk and David delighted in watching me feed the baby. "Lucky boy, Sampson," he teased as the milk began to drip from my breasts whenever the baby cried to be fed.

  He would lift Samson from his cradle, if he wasn't already holding him. Little Sampson's mouth would search for the milk,
nuzzling into his chest. He'd lay Sampson beside me and watch with a grin as Sampson clamped greedily on a nipple and begin sucking with a fierce labor, his body softening as the milk flowed from my body to his.

  I enjoyed it as much as they did, because my breasts were swollen with the milk and only Sampson could relieve it. We would both relax after he ate. David would burp him and put him back in my arms. Often I would waken, not knowing I had gone to sleep. David would be gone, and Sampson would be sleeping in his cradle, making his little snorty noises that were so sweet.

  It was all very peaceful and enjoyable to rest and be waited on. After one week I decided it was enough, time to get back to my own room and into our regular routine. They protested but I insisted, so we changed beds and bedrooms again. Sampson stayed in their room because it was warmer--we all said--and bigger. We all said, but we all really knew that as hungry as I was for this baby, Amy needed him. I wondered, later, of course, if that had been the best for me, but, that was later.

  If Sampson woke at night to be fed, David brought him to me.

  David slept for a week with me, mostly at Amy's urging, then we went back to every other night. Days, David took the cradle downstairs and we all gave Sampson so much attention that he seldom had a reason to cry.

  Evenings I remember especially. He'd often whimper a little from gas or something; I'd lay him across my knees and rub his back and stroke his sides while Amy played her flute. It never failed to quiet him. His bright, big blue eyes would turn toward her and he'd kick his arms and legs and gurgle, almost as if he was trying to march and sing in time with the music.

  When Sampson was so little, he could lay across my lap, then he grew enough to lay facing me lengthwise with my legs close together. I'd bring my knees up and play with his hands and tickle his belly. He especially liked the bee game. We'd all burst into giggles with him when I finished circling my finger with the funny buzz into his tummy or under his arm or under his chin.

  David returned to his painting. He painted a picture of me nursing Sampson. He made me more beautiful than I was, with my hair falling loosely around my shoulders, and he caught Sampson's serious look of concentration, the furrowed forehead when he was working at dinner. He titled it "Love of Work." Although it was his best, he would not sell it. Most of his paintings that spring were a record of life within our house.

  Amy returned to her writing and did a series of poems and short stories, some of them springing from the same well as David's drawings, Sampson. The poems concentrated on the wonder of birth, but the stories were tales of a small boy named Sampson, and his adventures at his seaside home. They were wild fantasies of him taming sea lions and a whale, and riding over the waves on the backs of seagulls that came whenever he called. He had only to play his flute and all sorts of creatures came to play with him, a miniature Tarzan of the sea.

  In late July, when Sampson was almost three months old, Amy began reluctantly to pack David's paintings and her writing for her annual trip to the city. She didn't want to go and worried that she was leaving us with no one to care for us. We just laughed and reassured her that we would be okay and told her to enjoy her vacation.

  "Vacation?" She sputtered. "You two better hope I bring home plenty of money from my 'vacation'." She finally left, but planned to be gone for only a month. Even that was more than she could bear, she said, but what must be done, must be done.

  I was surprised at how much I missed her in the house. We'd grown close and I loved her, but still I was looking forward to having David and the baby all to myself for a month. But the house seemed almost empty without her laughter and singing as we worked together or played with Sampson. He missed her too, and when we sat by the fire at night he would look bewildered when he whimpered and there was no Amy to play for him.

  I think David missed her least of all, because he was used to her yearly absence and for once he had other people to talk to. It was now clear why he'd been so happy to have me when Amy was gone before. David hated being alone. The only difference that we both enjoyed from her departure was that we made love almost every night, but in my bed, not theirs.

  She came back in early August, radiant. She burst into the house with David close behind, staggering under the load of her luggage. She'd gone with one trunk and the paintings and had come back minus the paintings but with two trunks.

  Her brown eyes were dancing when she flew across the room and threw her arms around me. Her hug almost squeezed the breath out of me.

  "I sold all of David's work the first week." She bubbled with happiness, lifting Sampson off the rug where he was laughing and trying to talk to her. "You little love!" She kissed him and held him out to admire him and pulled him close for another big hug. "You've grown so much. Auntie Amy missed you so much."

  Another squeeze, he squealed, she calmed down and told us, "I spent the second week with a publisher. 'The Mother's Journal' bought all my poems and Springtime Books offered me a contract to publish all my Sampson stories in individual books, the first to come out next winter."

  To say we were all happy to be together again and to have such good fortune to celebrate is to understate it. David killed a fat hen. We had chicken and dumplings, his favorite, in celebration, along with fresh lettuce and tomatoes from our garden, and blackberry pie for dessert. The new trunk sat by the door where David had dropped it when he'd dragged it in. It was heavy.

  The house was a home again as we sat together at the table over coffee. Sampson was asleep in his almost too-small cradle by the fireplace. Amy was still bubbling and I wondered why. David and I were happy to have her back but we were puzzled at how she continued to laugh.

  Finally, as the late summer sun began to set, she burst out with, "Well, you two. I have still another surprise. Bigger news even than the books and paintings."

  She jumped up from the table and went to the new trunk. She fiddled with the catch, got it open and reached in. She had presents for us all. For me, a lovely dress of a deep rose color, and a beautiful pearl necklace. She helped me get the clasp fastened. I loved the feel of the pearls on my throat.

  For David there were new pants, a shirt, a gold watch chain, and a cunning pocket watch that chimed off the hours. He wound it and then was immediately impatient for the hour to pass.

  For Sampson a toy train that David wound up and watched it run in circles on a small track. A small stuffed whale, that the baby grabbed onto, tasted, and held the softness against his cheek. Clothes enough to last until he was a bigger boy.

  For herself, Amy had a rich, dark blue wool coat with a hat to match. She shrugged into the coat, set the hat on at a sassy angle and paraded around the room while we admired her. A light blue dress in the latest fashion, but no prettier than mine. And yards and yards of material. Satins, velvets, woolens, and lots of flannel.

  "What's with all the flannel?" David said.

  She threw her arms around him and then quieted down so I barely heard her say, "That's for nightgowns and bedding for our baby."

  "Sampson has all he needs."

  She put her fingers against his lips to shush him. "The new baby. Our baby."

  After all the years of waiting, David's cup of babies was overflowing.

  "Oh, Amy," was all he could say.

  I got up and kissed them each on their foreheads and went to bed.

  I lay sleepless, listening to smothered giggling and finally the soft notes of Amy's flute drifting upstairs. What would this mean to me, and to Sampson? Would Sampson be shoved aside? Would they love their baby more than him? I couldn't imagine it but I knew the power of blood enough to worry.

  The next morning I learned that the last two weeks had been spent shopping, visiting friends, and seeing a doctor. She'd suspected she was pregnant when she left but had said nothing, for fear of another disappointment. It had really been the only reason she had gone, otherwise she would have sent David this time because she hadn't wanted to miss a whole month of Sampson's growing. And, she said, sh
e had missed me too.

  "I'll never leave here again for that long." she declared, her jaw as set as the night she had led me up the hill. "From now on I'm a mother, and a writer, and David can be the salesman. Or get the buyers to come here."

  She was full of plans. "When the children are older we can all take the train to Utah and show them off to Grandmas and Grandpas and aunts and uncles galore."

  "What did the doctor say?" I said.

  "That I'm perfectly healthy, and as long as I'm careful I should have no trouble. And you can bet I will be. Just to be sure though, I'm going to see a doctor here. He advised it. And David wants me to."

  She was in her third month already, which relieved some of our fear. Amy complained that we were treating her too delicately, watching her like a pot about to boil over. We tried to treat her condition as they had mine, with naturalness and joy, but there was no getting around our worry over every little pain, and stepping in to ease her way as we could. Despite her protests, Amy too took care, moving slower and taking no chances. She would let Sampson onto her lap but she didn't lift him there. She let him crawl up, offering her hands for him to pull on. Once there he snuggled easily into her. When he got restless she asked David or me to lift him off. But truly she didn't have to take too much care with that little baby boy. He sensed that she needed gentleness; around her he moved more slowly. His heart and senses were like his father, alert to his women.

  We all eased Auntie Amy's way as much as we could. For them it was a gentle winter and spring. For me, it was different.

  21. A Hollow House

  Sampson was crawling at six months. He had to be watched by someone all the time. If he was on his blanket on the floor he would crawl off to follow Daddy. We learned to watch him. Daddy decided that if he wanted to go so much, it was time for an adventure. On a fall day that was warm and with only a bare breeze, we packed a basket and took him for his first picnic at the beach.