The Birth House

by Ami McKay

  I tried to calm her. “You’re just tired, Miss B. A good night’s sleep and you’ll be fine.”

  “You proved yourself with Mabel’s little one. The women here, they’ll need someone. They’ll need you.”

  I laughed and teased her, hoping she would leave it alone for now. “By the time you die, Dr. Thomas’ll have built one of his fancy maternity homes right here in Scots Bay. Maybe even two.”

  She grabbed my arm and held tight, muttering a stream of prayers in French. “They need you.”

  Frightened, I twisted away from her, making my way to the kitchen to put on my coat and boots. “Mother needs me at home. I’m too young. I’m sorry…” I left the caul and Miss B.’s beads on the table and ran to the door.

  She called out after me. “You must take it. It’s what God means for you. It is your destinée…”

  8

  I SPOKE WITH MOTHER about what went on at Miss B.’s. We were doing the mending after breakfast, pushing darning eggs down into the heels of Father’s socks, hoping to make them last another winter. The only time words come easy between us is when we’re busy. Everything I’ve learned from Mother, every bit of her truth, has been said while her hands were moving.

  When I finished telling her of Miss Babineau’s offer, she paused and looked up from her knitting. “And what did you say?”

  “I told her no, of course. I can’t leave you to take care of the boys alone.”

  Returning to her handwork, she looped the yarn into a tight knot. “I know you don’t think I know much about the world, but I hear what’s going on. Newspapers get here often enough, and God knows Fran tells me what’s fashionable and so on.” She cut the end loose with Father’s old pocketknife. “Things are changing for women. They want a say in things, to be their own persons. Some girls are working at jobs where they make their own way. If we lived in a bigger place, there might be more opportunity for you. I’ve heard that out west and even in some towns down towards Halifax, girls your age are doing men’s jobs, working on farms while the men are away…but here in the Bay there isn’t room for it, the men’s pride won’t have it. You know how it is, a girl lives with her parents until she gets married, and then she spends the rest of her life raising babies, cooking, cleaning, waiting on her husband. Do you really want to go from helping me take care of all these boys to taking care of another man?” She was fishing for a small white button in the bottom of a canning jar. “I know Marie Babineau doesn’t have much, but she’s got one thing I’ve never had, and that’s quiet. I can only imagine having moments all to myself that no one else knows about.” Her eyes squinted and narrowed as she guided the end of her thread through a small, shiny needle. “Your father wants you to stay with Aunt Fran.”

  “I thought he’d given up on that.”

  “He spoke about it again just yesterday morning. He said you’ve been breaking the rules.”

  “What rules?”

  “He saw you sleeping next to Charlie again, Dora.”

  “It was cold, the twins stole my blankets, and Charlie offered to share. I don’t see why he thinks it’s so wrong.”

  “He just does.”

  “So he thinks I’m some sort of…”

  “He’s your father and he wants what’s best for you.”

  “He doesn’t know the first thing about me, let alone what’s best for me.”

  “Your father…” She lowered her voice to an angry whisper. “Your father is a good and honest man whose only weakness is having pride in his work and his family. You’ll not speak that way about him again.”

  “Mother. I’m sorry, I—”

  “The truth is, we’ve barely enough for the winter this year. Albert and Borden are going off to join the war. They want to do their part. I know you don’t want to go to Fran’s, but now with Miss B…. you could stay with her.” She stitched a patch on the knee of Father’s overalls. “I don’t think it’s much to ask, considering…just for a little while.”

  I tried to find a way out of it. “We could sell my caul. Miss B. said people offered money for it when I was born.”

  Mother shook her head. “That was a long time ago. No one believes in that sort of thing these days.”

  “But I don’t want to leave home. I don’t want to leave you.”

  She took my hands in hers. “My gram always said, Each day brings another handful of opportunities. It’s up to you to make the best of what you’re given. And that’s just what you’re going to do. With all the young men going off to fight in the war, who knows what will happen to them. You’ve got to think of a future for yourself, just in case.”

  Every summer, for “Mary’s day,” Miss B. makes a gift, a Lady Moon for each of the girls in the Bay who’s turned eight in the past year. They’re simple little things, rag dolls wrapped in blue dresses, stitched with crescent moons and stars, hands sewn together in prayer, bodies stuffed with dried seaweed, rose petals and lavender. Mothers, too polite to refuse them, turn their heads when their daughters leave them behind, tucked behind the headstones in the cemetery beside the church or fallen into a puddle alongside the road.

  There have been few things in my life that I’ve called mine. Anything that was important or special disappeared soon after it came to my hands. No matter how well hidden, my dolls and their tea sets were eventually found, lined up on the fence and destroyed. Smooth beach stones flew from my brothers’ slingshots, knocking my treasures into the pigpen. Father tried talking to them, but he never blamed them, never punished them for it. That’s what boys do. This is why I set my Lady Moon free. And not just my Lady Moon, but all of the other forgotten dolls as well. Some years I’ve found only a single doll lying on the beach, other years there have been as many as five sweet faces crowded into a round-bottomed basket, trimmed with a torn piece of cotton for a sail. I tell them all a secret and set them afloat from Lady’s Cove as the tide goes out. They bob and bounce on the waves as I send them away, hoping they’ll get to a place where they’ll be loved. It’s for their own good.

  Destiny or “just in case,” it’s two weeks to Christmas, and then I’ll be staying with Miss B. I’ve come to know her enough that it shouldn’t scare me, but it does. I don’t know that I’ll ever have her kind of wisdom, or the courage it takes to live like her—to be given such little respect, to be alone. I’m scared of what it means to take a step, any step, that’s not in the direction I dreamed I’d go. But I’m seventeen, never been kissed, and there’s no one in sight for love, let alone marriage, and there’s nothing else to do.

  9

  ANGELS AND SHEPHERDS, three Wise Men and a Virgin all paraded through the sanctuary, put on their play and paraded out. Aside from the trail of dung left behind by my brother Gord’s pet lamb, Woolly, the Scots Bay Christmas Eve Pageant of 1916 was the same as always…ordinary, somewhat smelly, and more or less a success.

  Just as she has for the past ten years, Aunt Fran acted as Madame Director. I had suggested that this year we put on Dickens’ A Christmas Carol instead of the usual nativity play, but Fran scowled and argued, “The Christmas season is for celebrating the birth of Christ, not some cripple named Tom.”

  “It’s Tim.”

  “What?”

  “The child in A Christmas Carol is Tiny Tim.”

  “Fine. Christmas is about Christ, not crippled Tiny Tim. It’s too late to choose a different play. We already have all the costumes, and I’ve chosen the music. Besides, aren’t there ghosts in the Dickens play? It would be more than dreadful to frighten the small children of our community on Christmas Eve. May I assign the parts now, Dora?”

  My cousin Precious made a fine but forgetful Virgin Mary. She’d open her mouth wide each time she lost her lines, waiting for Aunt Fran to clear her throat and bellow out Mary’s words while crouched behind the pulpit. The stuffed bird perched in the mass of feathers on Fran’s new Christmas hat seemed to peer out to the audience as she cupped her hand aside her mouth and announced, “Behold, I am the hand
maid of the Laaaard.” Precious-Mary would then repeat, as if she’d just remembered a forgotten item from a grocery list, “Oh yes, that’s right…I am the handmaid of the Lord.”

  The only other excitement came when Grace Hutner, leader of the chorus of angels, presented her solo. Two young shepherds stood behind her, leaning on their crooks, holding their long wool beards to their faces, trying (not quite hard enough) to hide their snorts of laughter each time she sang out the word purity.

  As tradition holds, the narrator wasn’t to be revealed until after the play ended. Aunt Fran pointed up to the choir loft and proudly announced, “This year, our own dear Reverend Covert Norton agreed to wear the star-singer crown. I’m sure you’ll all agree that it was as if God himself were speaking to us from heaven.”

  Most of the congregation seems to enjoy the reverend, but I find his Free Will Baptist preaching overbearing and vulgar. He’s got a sore, narrow-eyed look from the pulpit and is always lapping his tongue at the pocket of his left cheek. What’s worse is the way he’s prone to shout and spit, spraying hellfire and tobacco every time he shakes his fist. Aunt Fran has been generous enough to pay for him to stay through Christmas. “His boldness is just what the Bay needs. He’s a man of God who speaks the truth ’til it hurts.” What was supposed to be a temporary post until a new Methodist minister could arrive has gone on for nearly a year. After what I witnessed tonight, I’m afraid he’ll never leave.

  Halfway home, mother noticed that she had forgotten her Bible. She tried to make light of her forgetfulness by saying, “I suppose there’s no safer place for it than in our dear little church,” but I could tell she felt lost without it. I volunteered to go back and fetch it for her, welcoming the chance to walk alone, snow crunching under my feet, surrounded by stars and the woody-sweet smell of chimney smoke.

  The main doors to the meeting house were locked, but I managed to clear the snow away from the half-door in the back of the church. When I was small, Albert warned that the tiny door facing the cemetery was a coal chute that led straight to hell. I would laugh and say, “God wouldn’t put such a thing in a church!” Albert would just smile and shake his head. “Of course he would, Dorrie, that’s where the reverend puts the bad children who keep their eyes open during prayer.” After that I kept my eyes pinched shut, right through the sermon and on to the end of the benediction with its “God be with you ’til we meet again.” Perhaps Albert would be interested to know that his coal chute to Satan is merely an opening to the staircase that leads to the bell tower.

  On the opposite side of the stairwell was a second door, an opening to the back of the sanctuary. As I pulled the heavy door towards me, I found that the doorway was covered with a large tapestry. The wide, purple banner embroidered with crown and cross was a recent donation by the Ladies of the White Rose Temperance Society. Candles and lamps still flickered in the sanctuary. Peering from behind the folds of cloth, I spotted two people moving in and out of the shadows of the choir loft. A woman was bent over the railing, her skirts and petticoats lifted high on her back, bouncing. Reverend Norton stood behind her, grasping her hips, shoving his half-naked body hard against hers over and over again. His voice was quiet at first, and though I couldn’t catch what he was saying, it was clear he had control of the woman, leading her along with his heavy-breathed talk.

  I’m familiar with the muffled sounds of my parents “stretching the ropes” of their bed. It usually starts with Father’s low voice mumbling, followed by hints of Mother’s laughter. It’s hard to ignore the rhythm and thump of it, but somehow it comes faint to our ears and just shy of embarrassment. There in the church I had found something quite different. I knew I was trespassing on a secret.

  Reverend Norton’s face was determined, his voice growing loud and commanding, the words want, come and give grunting out from his mouth. For the longest time the woman was silent, and I wondered if he was forcing her to take him. Just as I had made up my mind to yell out for him to stop, the woman cried out, moaning, “Oh God, oh, oh!” Reverend Norton pressed himself tight to her, her petticoat now falling quiet around her, his face groaning and shiny with sweat.

  He grinned as she turned to face him. He kissed her lips, then her cheek, and whispered something in her ear. She nodded while she tugged at her skirts and hastily pinned on a feather-laden hat…Aunt Fran’s glass-eyed phoebe winked back at me in the candlelight.

  ~ December 25, 1916

  Stockings for all, filled with saltwater taffy, peppermint sticks and an orange in each toe. Mother had sewn two new white aprons for me to wear when I’m helping Miss B. When Father wasn’t looking, she handed me a well-worn edition of A Tale of Two Cities. “I found this in Fran’s cupboard the other day. She’ll never miss it.”

  It was a fine enough Christmas, but I haven’t been able to stop thinking about last night, how I stood like a statue while they laughed and pecked at each other with no remorse. I’ve never thought of Reverend Norton as anything but foul, but Aunt Fran! She flitted about all Christmas evening as if nothing were wrong. I had to excuse myself halfway through dinner. Mother felt my forehead and reminded me to thank Fran for the lovely new diary and pen set she’d given me. (If she could only see what I’m writing in it!) I can’t tell Precious. I shouldn’t tell Miss B. I’d like to tell Mother, but I’m not certain it would do any good. And if she told Father and he told Uncle Irwin…that would put a stop to it. But then I think it might put a stop to everything about Aunt Fran. Uncle Irwin’s a quiet man as it is, and when he’s mad, he stops speaking altogether. Word of his wife’s infidelity might leave him silent for at least a month, maybe three, maybe six, maybe forever, and that’s the worst thing anyone could ever do to Fran. If Uncle Irwin didn’t listen to her chatter, didn’t notice her dress, her hair, or whatever little thing she’s going on about, I think she’d just shrivel up and disappear. Maybe that’s what did it in the first place. Reverend Norton’s always coming for Sunday supper, always making a point of thanking Fran for her contributions to the missionary effort. He’s been seeing her. He’s noticed her so much that now she’s his. “Sold to the highest bidder,” as Miss B. says. If he leaves by spring, I won’t tell. If not, I don’t know what I’ll do.

  10

  Tales from New Zealand

  A delightful gathering was held Saturday-last at the home of the Widow Simone Bigelow in Scots Bay. Residents of the Bay included Mr. and Mrs. Irwin Jeffers and their daughter, Precious, Miss Marie Babineau and Miss Dora Rare, as well as Masters Archer and Hart Bigelow, sons of the gracious hostess. As the highlight of the evening, Professor John Payzant, brother of Mrs. Bigelow, shared tales and treasures from his days in New Zealand. He has been visiting from Halifax during the winter holidays. Special guests from Canning were the Reverend Covert Norton and Dr. and Mrs. Gilbert Thomas, who were happy to say that the weather was quite fine and the sleighing good for their visit to the Bay.

  The Canning Register,

  January 15, 1917

  AUNT FRAN MAY HAVE married into her share of money, but the Widow Simone Bigelow is by far the wealthiest woman in the Bay, and in many ways the saddest. Descended from Marie Payzant, the Widow Bigelow inherited the legendary Huguenot woman’s poor luck in keeping husbands. Married first at fifteen, she lost Mr. James Rafuse within one month of their wedding. He fell off the roof of a neighbour’s barn. Another suitor, a Mr. Samuel Huntley, was thrown from his horse on his way to the Union church only minutes before they were to be wed. At twenty, she married Captain William Bigelow. They settled down in the grandest house in the town of Parrsboro, where she soon after gave birth to a son, Hart Payzant Bigelow. Three years later, Captain William Bigelow sailed to the West Indies on the schooner Fidelity and never returned. As luck would have it, William Bigelow had a brother, a Captain Fitzgerald Bigelow, who was in need of a wife. At twenty-four, Simone married again. The new Captain Bigelow, however, was not about to live in his brother’s house, in his brother’s town, with his brother’s wif
e, no matter how remarkable she proved to be. Since all things being equal was Simone’s family motto, and since this marriage did not require her to change her name, she didn’t feel that she should have to change her standard of living either. The day after the wedding, she locked her child and herself inside the house in Parrsboro until her new husband agreed that he would have it pulled from its foundation and sailed across the water to Scots Bay.

  They were happy in the Bay. So happy, in fact, that the Captain, Simone and young Hart were soon joined by a new son, Archer Fales Bigelow. Of course, not more than a few years passed before Captain Fitzgerald Bigelow’s ship, Beautiful Dreamer, was raided by a band of pirates and his body was left hanging from a mast. Simone Bigelow gave up on marriage after that.

  She stays in her giant Cyclops of a house, all warty with Lunenburg bumps, while her son Hart spends much of every summer struggling to keep the clapboards covered in his mother’s favourite colour, a gaudy rooster red. Every evening she perches herself on the balcony, standing in front of a great round window, talking to herself and looking out to sea. Some say she goes out there to cry, others say it’s to curse her ancestors. Miss B. says, “That poor woman’s got her share of haints. She knows better than anybody, if you don’t talk to your ghosts from time to time, they’ll make you crazy.”