Mother Lode

by Carol Anita Sheldon

  “He’s alive?”

  “Indeed he is. A screamin’ he was when I got here, and you looking dead, for all the world. You should have sent for me sooner, lass.”

  Catherine took the infant to her breast. In such awe of what she had produced, she could say nothing for several moments. Finally, she exclaimed, “What a bonnie wee one he is. He ‘near takes my breath away.” She stroked the dark ringlets of hair.

  The midwife peered at him. “Aye, look at the eyelashes on him. He’ll have nae trouble with the lassies!”

  “I’m sorry,” the flushed Helena was saying. “She wasn’t home when I went to call. Sure, and I looked all over for her. Then finally—”

  “Shall I be callin’ his faither in here?” the midwife asked.

  “In a bit. Let me have a few moments alone with my we’an.”

  The women left. Catherine held her child close, examined his tiny features.

  “You are my first-born and my last. You are everything I need in a child, and no other will ever take your place.”

  “Here be yer man,” the midwife announced.

  Thomas came in and looked on proudly.

  “Catherine, my love, you were very brave to go it alone.”

  “I didn’t have a choice, did I? Isn’t he bonnie, Thomas?”

  “He’s normal? Ten fingers and such?”

  She looked again to make sure.

  “What shall we call him?” he asked.

  “I will call him Jorie, after my father, Jordan.”

  Thomas leaned down and kissed his wife. “Thank you, my Love, for giving me a son.”

  Catherine did not feel she had given him anything. She had carried the child and birthed him. He belonged to her.

  But she said, “And now we are three.”

  “Four,” he corrected.

  Chapter 8

  After his brush with death in the coal cellar, Jorie began having nightmares. Two or three times a week he’d come to his parents’ bed. Catherine would pull him toward her, where the comfort of her arms quieted his fears.

  One night Thomas half awoke and found Jorie in her arms.

  In the morning he asked, “Why does Jorie come to our bed every night?"

  "It's not every night, Thomas. When he comes in with us he doesn't wet his bed." As soon as the words were out, she regretted them.

  "Wet his bed! How old is he? Six?"

  “Almost.”

  “What’s the matter with him? He used to be dry, didn’t he?”

  “I think it comes with his nightmares —he can’t help it, Thomas. It started after Walter. . . after the incident in the cellar.”

  “Can’t help it—at six? I’ll help it. Where is he?”

  Catherine had never seen him like this. She was frightened for her boy.

  Thomas found Jorie on the porch sketching an insect. He took a deep breath and sat down beside him.

  “What have you there?” he began.

  “It’s a beetle, Papa. Do you see his thick hard shell and his tiny eyes?”

  “Your mother tells me that you still wet the bed.”

  Jorie froze, felt betrayed.

  “Is this true?” Thomas wanted to hear the boy admit it.

  “Yes, Papa.”

  “Why do you do it?”

  “It just happens when I’m sleeping.”

  “Well, you’re too big for that and you’re going to have to stop it. Do you understand?”

  Jorie nodded. “It’s called enuresis.”

  “Enu what!”

  “Enuresis. Shall I spell it for you, Papa?”

  “No! Just get over it. You will not have any liquids after supper, and make sure to urinate before getting into bed. And when you’re sleeping if you feel the urge— You have a chamber pot?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, use it.”

  “Yes, Papa.”

  Thomas started to go, and then turned back to his son. “Where did you learn that word?”

  “Mummy taught it to me. That’s what the doctor called it.”

  Jorie wasn’t at all sure that he could overcome this shameful habit as easily as his father suggested. That night he stayed awake as long as he could, fearful he would miss the “urge.” But eventually he fell asleep, and sometime after that when he rolled over, he knew he was wet.

  In the morning his father asked, “Did you stay dry last night?”

  “No, sir.”

  He felt the heat prickling his face, his throat close. He had to get away from here. His mind grabbed on to the sums he was learning. Three plus four is seven, three plus five is eight. If he went where the numbers were, maybe he could make this morning disappear. Three plus seven is ten.

  “Jorie, next time, I’m going to have to punish you. We can’t have a big boy like you still wetting your bed. Do you understand?”

  Three plus nine is twelve.

  “Do you?”

  “Yes, Papa.”

  “Sit down now and eat your breakfast. Sit.”

  Jorie sat, but could eat nothing, concentrated on the squeaking of his chair, as he gently rocked back and forth, wishing he could fly with Peggythis way up in the sky. Mummy could be Peggythis and he would be Belly. They would ride across the sky and back again. And he would kill the monster.

  The next morning Thomas spanked his son.

  Catherine reproached Thomas. “Did you have to do that? He was mortified.”

  “Good. Maybe that will make him stop.”

  “Thomas, why is this matter so important to you? You aren’t the one who has to wash his sheets!”

  “Sheets! Hanging out on the line every day telling everyone we have a bed-wetter!”

  “Thomas — “

  “It’s disgraceful. I’ll not be humiliated like that!”

  “He doesn’t do it to humiliate you.”

  “He is old enough to stop if he wanted to. The boy is defying me.”

  She choked with anger and bitterness. “It’s not fair, Thomas. You’re taking it out on Jorie that Walter’s gone!”

  Thomas slammed his fist down on the table. “By God, woman, I’ll not have you judging my actions. It is the boy’s behavior we’re discussing, I’ll thank you to remember!”

  With that he strode out of the house.

  For the rest of the week Catherine managed to avert the bedwetting by waking Jorie up in time. But one night just as Jorie was climbing back into bed, Thomas was at the doorway.

  “Come back to bed, Catherine.”

  The boy pulled his covers up wondering if his mother would get in trouble.

  “Don’t go to him,” Thomas admonished his wife. “You baby him far too much.”

  Fearing that her intervention was causing Thomas to take an even harder stand, the next day Catherine told Jorie she couldn’t come to his room at night any more.

  When he heard her words, Jorie’s throat closed. He remembered the baby robins he could see last spring outside his window. Each day he’d watch the mother bring back worms to feed them. Then one day she didn’t return. For awhile the babies squawked, but she never came back. The little birds died.

  He would just have to stay awake all night. But how?

  He decided to sleep on the floor, so he’d wake up if he felt the urge. But the wetting continued and the punishments worsened.

  One day Thomas brought out his razor strap. Jorie recited the multiplication tables to escape the staggering pain; he rode high in the sky on Peggythis. When it was over, he lay on his side in the corner.

  From his place on the floor Jorie watched a small moth dance against the window pane, trying to find a way out. And he could see a spider in the corner of the ceiling drop, spin, and drop again. Two flies were caught in her web, one still buzzing and wiggling, frantically trying to make its escape. He felt a strange kinship with them, but was too exhausted to figure it out.

  When Thomas left for work Catherine tried to take her child’s mind off his deep humiliation and the painful punishments by chan
ging the scene.

  She sat on his bed and called him to her. “Let’s pretend you are a very brave knight. You fought the foe for your queen, and many times you were a hero. But one time there were too many enemies for you. You were knocked from your horse. Your foot got caught in the stirrup, and as the horse ran down the hill you were dragged with it, bumping along the rocky hillside. Finally, the horse stopped, you got untangled, got back on your horse—”

  “Peggythis.”

  “—and returned to the castle. But your bottom was very sore from all that bouncing on the rocks. It was so sore the queen had to rub it with a very special salve.”

  Jorie looked up.

  “On my dresser, Darling, there is a pretty blue jar. Go get it.”

  “The one with the silver ballerina on top?”

  “Yes, Dear. Handle it very carefully. It was a special present from my father.”

  He ran down the hall to her room, that lovely place that smelled of lavender and lilac.

  When he brought the jar to her, she bid him lie across her lap. He could hear her removing the lid, and then she was applying the cream to his burning bottom.

  “Mummy, it’s so cool. And your hands are so soft.”

  It became a ritual — after each whipping, Jorie would bring the blue jar. Catherine would rub the cream on his abused skin and tell him a story.

  But the whippings were becoming unbearable. Jorie decided he’d have to take a firmer hand with himself. Since none of his other ideas had worked, there was still one more thing he could do. It frightened him, but it was all that was left.

  When she was bathing him, Catherine noticed Jorie’s penis was bruised and swollen. “Jorie, what is this? What happened to you?”

  He burst out crying and would not talk.

  “Did Papa do this to you? Answer me!”

  Jorie shook his head.

  “Did he?”

  “No!” Jorie sobbed.

  “What happened? How did you injure yourself?”

  Jorie pulled away. Finally, she got it out of him that he had wound a piece of yarn around it tightly and tied it so as not to wet.

  When she’d gotten the story from him, such a fury mounted in her as she’d never known. All the feelings that had been dammed up of the injustice of Thomas’ punishment rose in a torrid swell from her spine upward. This would not, could not continue. That Jorie would feel obliged to resort to such extreme measures to accommodate his father’s will was outrageous.

  She rocked him in her arms, crying, “Oh, my darling bonnie lad.”

  Finally, she pushed him up and took his face between her hands. “You must promise me that you’ll never do that to yourself again.”

  “But it’s the only way,” he cried.

  “Jorie, you could really injure yourself. Maybe permanently.”

  “But I don’t know how else to stop!”

  For a moment she said nothing. Then she sat straight up. “He won’t whip you any more. I promise.”

  “How can you make him stop, Mummy?”

  “I’ll find a way.”

  Although only twenty-four years old, Catherine knew her feminine charms no longer held leverage over Thomas. His smoldering resentment over losing Walter and their continual quarrels regarding Jorie’s discipline had risen to such a crescendo, the fire of his passion was all but extinguished. Only occasionally did he require his conjugal rights. She could hardly threaten to deprive him of what he no longer desired.

  No, it would have to be something else. Something that would strike at his public face.

  She knew that Thomas would be entertaining his poker friends the next evening as he did every Friday night. George McKinney, Arthur Johnson, Buck Boyce and Earl Foster would all be there.

  After completing the washing up that evening, she strode purposefully into the dining room, where he sat at the table studying the assays of last month’s yield of ore. She did not wait for him to look up.

  “If you strike that boy one more time, I will leave you. I will take Jorie and leave your home, Thomas.”

  He turned to her, stunned. “You can’t do that.”

  “Of course I can.”

  “I would not support you.”

  “You forget I have money of my own.”

  “And how long do you think that would last?”

  “If necessary I will go to work.”

  “Are you trying to undo me, woman? First Walter, now Jorie!”

  “It seems to me you are undoing Jorie.”

  “He needs discipline, Catherine!”

  “Not like that.”

  Thomas took a deep breath. “You cannot take a man’s children from him. The law would give him back to me.”

  The tiniest smile appeared on her face. “Perhaps. But need I point out, Thomas, that in the meantime there would be a great scandal? We shall make our departure tomorrow evening—during your poker game—complete with suitcases.”

  His mouth fell open. Catherine left the room before he could find words to answer.

  The next morning Thomas turned to her. “I have given thought to your remarks. Under one condition I will agree to your request.”

  For an anguishing moment time seemed to freeze.

  “Someone has to discipline the lad,” he continued. “If you believe you are up to the task, then I leave it to you. If you are unwilling, unable, or fail in your duty, the responsibility will revert to me.”

  Catherine could hardly believe what she’d heard.

  “All right,” she answered. “I’ll undertake his discipline.”

  “Do not misunderstand me. You are soft with the boy. I wager it will be only a short time before the task will fall to me again. I expect an accounting, Catherine, of his infractions and how you have dealt with them. Do you understand?”

  “If you think I’m going to beat the boy as you have, you are mistaken. He is a tender lad, and I have never found it necessary to resort to such measures.”

  “Choose your own methods, but make sure they are effective.” He started to leave. With is hand on the doorknob, he turned to her.

  “I give you three weeks to stop the bed-wetting.”

  With that Thomas stomped out of the house. Catherine paced the floor. She felt a thrill of victory, at least for her son, but some doubt as to whether she could meet Thomas’ deadline. As for her relation to her husband, no doubt she would incur a debt of consequences. She would not think of that now.

  To show Thomas her appreciation she made a peach cobbler for the poker players.

  As they were leaving that night, Earl Foster said, “Mighty tasty pie, Catherine.” He chuckled, “I’d never have thought of having peach pie with beer—leave it to a lady to conjure up such a combination!”

  Catherine wasn’t sure if he was poking fun at her, or making a crude attempt at a compliment. How strange that Thomas’s poker friends were all prominent citizens, all except Under Sheriff Earl Foster!

  Aware of how much comfort she was giving the boy, Catherine wondered if she were in some way prolonging the problem with her ministrations of salve, which he clearly enjoyed.

  One day she hit on what she thought might be a solution.

  “Jorie, I think we had best turn things around. From now on, Mummy is not going to put the cream on your bottom when you wet the bed. Instead, I’ll apply it when you keep dry.”

  He was confused and disappointed. “When I’m dry?”

  “Yes, as kind of a reward. I think that might help you stop wetting sooner. Wouldn’t you like that?”

  Jorie tried extra hard to keep dry all night. At first the wet nights still outnumbered the dry, but within two weeks he was dry more often than not.

  On the first morning he experienced success, he couldn’t wait for Papa to leave, and to bring the jar to her.

  “I am so proud of you, Jorie,” she said unbuttoning the flap of his long underwear and pulling it down. He lay across her knees and she pulled him toward her.

  “Mummy, ca
n you do it a long time since I was dry?”

  “A little longer.” Catherine hummed ‘Barbara Allen’ as she caressed his bottom with the soothing balm. The jar sat on his bedside table. Catching the morning’s light, it created the most wonderful blue, like the sky must be if you could just go up high enough.