Downhill Chance (46 page)

“Hannah!” she shouted, cupping her mouth to the wind as she ran, and then her ear with an urgency for her baby’s return call—for that’s what she was, a baby, no more than a baby. Her Hannah, or her offering, as Missy had called her on the wharf yesterday.

Her heart cringed as her ear found naught but the echo of her own voice amidst the wind and the sea and Missy’s cries all those years ago at the grandmother’s graveside, for she’d been right, Missy had; she did make an offering of her child—and not for the first time either, but a mere three days after her birth. Ignoring Prude’s hollering that an unbaptized baby shouldn’t be taken on the water, she’d set aboard with the fisher Harve, Hannah bundled at her breasts. Nora had come with her and a chill grew as she climbed atop the wharf up the Basin and started up the hill. Quickly she walked past her father’s house, his face shadowed in the window, and her mother’s cheek imprinted upon the dirt below. A chorus of voices sounded from the graveyard upon the hill and could well have been the hymnals sung for her father and her mother, so fabled was the moment. And upon entering the graveyard she almost crumpled, so weak did her legs become at the sight of the two sagging mounds of ground to the far corner of the cemetery marked with a small white cross some charitable soul had erected. She turned towards the group of parishioners, searching frantically for Missy and found her standing besides a fresher dug mound; the one golden ringlet of her ponytail lending relief to the black of her dress and hat, the same as what she’d worn to their mother’s funeral a mere one year ago.

“Watch yourself,” cautioned Nora as Clair faltered besides her, but at that moment the congregation had parted, disclosing the uncle standing besides Missy, and her father’s good wool jacket spanning his stooped shoulders. A snort sounded from Clair and it were as if the uncle heard her, for he turned ever so slightly, his back stiffening at the sight of her, and laid an hand protectively across Missy’s shoulders. The parishioners stirred again and Alma, the postmistress, popped from among them, shaking her head in disbelief as she hurried towards them.

“Out on the water with the baby already—your poor old grandmother’s turning in her box,” Alma tsked, taking the baby from Nora and peering through the bundle of blankets. “There—the spit of her mother, she is—not that we’ve ever laid eyes on Luke to make a proper judgment— you’re his sister, aren’t you?”

“Missy,” Clair called as the last amen had been said and the congregation was gathering around the uncle for their final words of comfort, “Missy.”

She’d turned to Clair with surprise, her eyes wet with crying, and ran to her.

“I knew you’d come,” she wept, throwing her arms around Clair’s neck, her body quivering with grief.

“I’ve brought someone, Missy,” she’d whispered, holding her tightly and leading her towards Nora’s as the uncle’s eyes turned their way. “Look,” she urged, taking the bundle from Nora, “look at your godchild, Missy, look at her; I haven’t named her yet, I’m waiting for you to name her,” and she’d bent to one knee, pulling the blanket from the wee little face sleeping within. “Isn’t she beautiful? She looks like you—and the same size, no doubt, as when you were small. What do you think, Missy—do you want to be her godmother?” she asked, her tone becoming more urgent as the uncle started towards them. “Here, lift her— she’s so light—lift her.”

“Are you coming home, Clair?” Missy had asked, staring sullenly at the baby’s face.

“Silly, I’m married. I can’t come back now—not to live anyways. I want you to come with me—just for awhile—I have a house; a big house, and you can have your very own room whenever you stay, please, Missy,” she begged as the younger girl began backing away.

“I don’t want to come,” cried Missy. “I wants to stay with Uncle Sim. He’s lonely now with grandmother gone. And I helps him, Clair; I does all the things he asks me to, and he tells me I’m a good girl—”

“But wait, Missy—you don’t have to stay—just come for a little visit is all I’m asking.”

“No! I won’t go—I looks after Uncle Sim and he says I’m a good girl, Clair.”

“It’s not a good girl that won’t come visit her sister,” Clair had hissed. And Missy had shrunk from her. Casting a defiant, almost fearful look at the two sagging mounds to the far corner of the graveyard, she grasped her uncle’s hand and turned with him back to the grandmother’s grave. Clair’s anger grew. And when her sister’s golden ringlet started bobbing against her shoulders as she gave vent to a bout of sobbing that she’d never shared over their own dead mother, Clair turned, marching out of the graveyard. It wasn’t till she was back down on the wharf did she think to check that Nora was behind her with the baby.

And it wasn’t till now, eight years following the deed, did she falter in her step, staring unseeingly at the cold, grey Atlantic heaving itself ashore, pausing to consider that day. Small wonder her sister clung to the uncle’s hand instead of hers. Small wonder her daughter forsook the safety of her home for that of another.

Had she been a hard mother, too? No. No—not a hard mother. Not a fun mother, is all. Not a fun mother. And turning from the sea, she began running again the way her daughter had gone; her step heavy, yet fuelled with the urgency of wanting more; of taking back all that she had laid on those she held most dear, and freeing them—freeing herself—for it wasn’t her father she’d found in the cabin at Cat Arm, but herself, nailed to a cross that she’d thought had been his all these years. And now she had to find them; find Hannah, find Missy, and love them as fiercely in her arms as she had in her heart. A child’s mitt caught her eye. Hannah’s mitt. And it was bloodied. She’d fallen. She’d hurt herself. Grasping the wool mitt, she searched the ground, finding only more blood and sat down, struggling for breath. How? How had she been hurt? There was a stick across the path. Fresh ground to one end. She’d tripped, that’s all. Tripped and fell. And cut herself—on a rock. The blood was fresh. She wasn’t far ahead, not far at all.

“Hannah!” Bolting to her feet, she called out again and again, cupping her ear from the wind as she ran. The rocks grew larger, and shoving the mitt into her pocket, she began leapfrogging, then slowed as more and more boulders took up the beach. Nosebleed is what, she assured herself, breathing heavily as she clambered around one boulder after another. Nosebleed. She’d seen enough of those, Hannah had. And Prude had told her enough times what to do—hold back her head and nip her nose. That’s why her mitt was bloodied. She’d held back her head and nipped her nose. Then thrown away her mitt.

What was this, then? She’d come to the cliff protruding into the sea, cutting off the beach. She turned wildly. But no—no she wouldn’t have to tried to walk around the cliff. She was smart, her Hannah was. She wouldn’t walk into icy cold water, soaking herself in a easterly wind. “Common sense,” Luke said often enough as she sat fretting about Hannah’s wandering away whilst he paid more attention to fishing than his daugher’s rambling. “Credit the girl with common sense. She’s not going to trample through the bush and lose herself when she can follow the river home.”

A cry. Clair turned towards the hills. The light was falling and she scarcely saw the glimmer of a path leading up through the trees. There, she heard it again—faint and far away. “Hannah!” she screamed, and scarcely listening for a reply, tore at the bushes, dragging herself up over the path, her breathing ragged, her heart pounding. Twice her foot slipped and she fell flat to her face, and thrice a snapping alder near blinded her as it struck across her face. And whilst she cursed herself for the first time upon leaving home for not taking somebody with her, she faltered not a step in her determination to get to wherever it was this path was taking her. “Hannah!” she yelled whilst staggering to her feet as the hill levelled off, then bolted ahead, only to have her footing give way in front of her and she tumbled helplessly down the steep incline buried beneath the canopy of bushes.

Coming to her feet, she stared at the darkening stretch of beach before her, her heart sinking. Copy-Cat Cove already. She’d hoped to have overtaken her daughter by now. The cove would be flooded with the water this high. Staving off further thought, she hoisted her skirt and started running. A light. There was a light—shining through the trees. A cabin—was there a cabin? The light disappeared and she skirted the treeline, ploughing at the brambles, searching for an opening. Finding one, she plunged through and found herself before a half-opened door, and through it, Hannah’s voice, and that of Missy’s.

Ohh, Lord. Closing her eyes, she repeated her silent prayer of gratitude, then snapped them open. Missy was shrieking—in pain. She shoved open the door and stared wordlessly at the muddied, bloodied face of her daughter, and her fear-stricken eyes as she crouched besides a makeshift bed and Missy, lying upon it, her breathing coming hard and rapid.

“Mommy!!” Breaking into sobs, Hannah flung herself at her mother as Missy twisted and a moan escaped her lips. “Mommy, what’s wrong with her, what’s wrong with her?”

Wrapping her arms around her daughter, Clair kissed her repeatedly whilst stumbling with her to Missy’s bedside. “Shoo, now, it’s the baby coming; Aunt Missy’s baby is coming,” she said, striving to quieten her voice despite her own growing fear as Missy’s moan turned to a cry of pain. “It’s going to be fine,” she soothed, grabbing hold of Missy’s hand as she looked around the shack. A lit flashlight propping onto the window was giving off the only light, and although she could tell from the mess of ashes around the front of the stove that a fire had been lit, the shack was getting cold.

“Gideon!” gasped Missy, falling back, her eyes rolling with fatigue. “Gideon.”

“Gideon?”

“He’s up the woods, Mommy, in his bough-whiffen.”

“He—he can born babies,” whispered Missy.

“Then go—sing out—sing out hard,” said Clair, kissing Hannah’s face urgently. “Hurry, now—hurry!” And as Hannah bolted out the door, tearing through the brambles, screaming, “Giidddeeoonnnn!!!! Giidddeeooonnnnn!!!” Clair leaned over her sister. “How long, Missy—how long have the pains been coming—oh, Lord, you’re almost there,” she whispered in both fear and surprise as her sister’s breathing deepened. As Clair folded back the blankets, her surprise gave wholly to fear as the glistening crown of the baby’s head appeared between her sister’s legs. “It’s—I can see it—don’t push, Missy—don’t push—”

“I can’t stop,” gasped Missy, “I’ve been holding back, Clair—now it just does it—” and her words gave way as her breathing tightened and her body tensed. Curling back her lips, she squeezed shut her eyes and uttered a low moan, drawing her knees up to her stomach. Clair fumbled helplessly, reaching for the baby’s head that was slowly easing itself outside of Missy. “It’s—it’s coming—oh my Lord— Shut the door! Shut the door!” she shouted as Hannah bolted back inside with a gust of wind.

“He didn’t answer, Mommy.”

“Bide there, child!” Clair cried out, and positioned herself closer as Missy let out a long, low moan. The bluish, bloodied head slipped out between her sister’s loins—and then the rest of the infant, no bigger than the doll of her dreams, eons ago. “Mercy,” she whispered, unsure of how to touch the now mewling infant.

“Clair!” cried out Missy.

“Shh, it’s all right,” said Clair. “It’s—it’s born. Ooh! Oh, Lord, it’s so small!” She raised her eyes, searching frantically around the shack.

“Is it—is it all right?” cried Missy.

“Yes—yes, I think so. Hannah, go sing out agin, louder this time, louder!” But her daughter was staring transfixed at the muddle of flesh and blood between her aunt’s legs.

“Hannah!” said Clair strongly, but the infant’s mewling claimed her attention. The cord. She had to do something with the cord. Lifting it gingerly between her two fingers, then more firmly as it slipped from her, she then tugged on it, easily at first, then harder, harder, till another piece of Missy gushed out from within her, glistening and brown like a piece of moose liver.

“Clair!”

“That’s all right, it’s fine. It’s fine,” whispered Clair, meeting her sister’s anxious eyes. But things weren’t fine; they weren’t fine at all—she scarcely knew what to do now, and this baby was small, really small, and the shack was cold and getting colder—“Hannah, go call!” she ordered almost angrily.

“But—he’s not there, Mommy,” whispered Hannah, and Clair turned, the fear in her heart resounding in her daughter’s voice. She was still standing by the door, her eyes darkened further by the greyish evening light, her face wan beneath its layer of mud and blood and her eyes frozen onto the mewling creature as though it were a changeling planted by a no-good banshee who had come and gone in her wake. Along with the panic in Missy’s eyes and the mewlings now growing fainter from the infant, it was this need upon her daughter’s face to fashion the sickness before her into something of solace that struck Clair. She glanced around the room, her eyes quick, seeing nothing, then focused, not for the first time, on the rawhide string around Hannah’s neck.

“Give me that,” she commanded quietly, “and you get the fire going, Hannah. Maybe there’s matches—or a spark—hurry now,” she urged as her daughter pulled off the rawhide and passed it to her.

“Let—let me see,” said Missy, raising her head, trying to get a glimpse of her child.

“Keep still, Missy—I’ve got to fix her first.”

“Her?”

“Her—yes, her; it’s a girl.” Clair sat back, drawing a deep breath. “She’s tiny,” she said more calmly, “scarcely eight months. We’ve got to keep her warm—hurry, Hannah; that’s a good girl,” she coaxed, as Hannah lit a match, her tone softening and her words babbling on their own accord, easing her own nerves as well as her sister’s and her daughter’s. Slipping the medallion off the rawhide, she cast it aside and began wrapping the rawhide once, twice, thrice around the umbilical cord. “But she’s perfect, Missy— a perfect little girl. Born a wee bit too early is all, and that’s why she’s blue and funny looking and not fat and pink like Brother,” she added more loudly as Hannah chanced another glance over her shoulder. “There, that’s the girl,” she went on as a sudden flare of light burst from Hannah’s fire. “A fire is the most important thing right now.” Knotting the rawhide as tight as she could, she leaned over the infant, placing her mouth over its nose and mouth and sucked hard. Gagging, she turned aside and spat. A more lusty cry replaced the baby’s mewling and she turned to it with as much wonder as relief.