The Secrets She Carried (27 page)

When the first day of school comes, it is me who walks with her to the end of the drive to wait for the bus. Her eyes are wide and unblinking as she stares down the misty road, her face washed pale in the chilly morning light. She’s trying to be brave, clutching her lunch sack and her pencil case like a good little soldier, but her hand holds to mine like a lifeline. I do not have to look to know that Susanne is at her window. I can feel her there, boring holes in my spine. I don’t care. I promise Maggie I will be here again when the bus drops her off in the afternoon, and I am.

She is six now, long limbed and pretty, with hair the color of India ink and fathomless gray eyes, like the sky before a storm. They are restless eyes, too keen for a child, and I cannot help wondering, when they settle on me, just how much she sees. How much, I wonder, will she ever truly know about her mother and father, and how will she come to know it? I think about the Celia Cunninghams of the world, women who wound for sport, and I pray with everything in me that Henry’s little girl will never have to pay for her father’s sins—or for mine.

T
here is to be another child, and this one will be mine.

I don’t let myself believe it at first, though I know the signs—the weepiness and wringing fatigue, the vague queasiness while I’m frying up bacon in the morning. When I lose my breakfast for the third day in a row, I’m finally certain. My heart soars at the thought of it, but I am torn, too. I wonder how Henry will take the news. We have never talked about what would happen, how we might…manage things. Still, I am filled with a fierce joy. I’m going to be a mother, and nothing—no threat, no guilt, no fear—will ever rob me of that.

That night, I prepare a special dinner of Henry’s favorites, then put on my best dress, but he’s late coming in from the fields. I fret that dinner will be spoiled, that he’ll be worn-out when he finally comes, and I think maybe I should save the news. But I know I can’t. Maybe it’s just Mama whispering in my ear, but I need to know that he wants this child, inconvenient as it may be, that he’ll be with me as I raise it, that he’ll love it as he loves Maggie.

He is exhausted when he finally comes in, so tired I see he’s forgotten to take off his hat when he comes looking for me in the
kitchen. I remove it, smoothing my fingertips over his brow, trying to erase the creases that are part weather, part weariness.

“My poor Henry, you look so tired.”

He nods, scraping back the hank of hair that’s forever flopping onto his forehead. “Had a hell of a scuffle in the barn just as we were knocking off.” He sighs heavily, shaking his head. “Had to let a man go. I didn’t like to do it, but they know the day I take ’em on what I expect. And what I won’t stand for.”

I make the appropriate sounds as I put a cold glass of tea into his hand, but all the while I’m thinking that this isn’t the right time to tell him my news. He’s got too much on his mind already. I’ll wait. Then he drops into his chair at the kitchen table and turns a tired smile on me.

“Have you got any good news for me, Adele? ’Cause I sure could use a little about now.”

I blink at him, then set my own glass down on the counter. “I’m going to have a baby.” And that’s how I tell him—just blurt it out with no warning at all.

His face goes through all sorts of contortions while I stand there worrying the corner of my apron, his mouth opening and closing like a fish. I feel like I might start to cry, and I wish he’d just say whatever it is he’s going to say, even if I’m not going to like it. But he can’t seem to make any words come out, and I finally turn away, looking for something, anything, to do with my hands.

I don’t hear him get up out of his chair, but suddenly he’s there, his hands heavy on my shoulders, turning me into his arms, crushing me against that broad flannel chest. The smell of tobacco and male sweat rises between us, mingled with the aromas of ham and sweet potatoes. For a moment my stomach rolls, but I cling to him. When I finally find the strength to look up, there is only joy in his eyes.

The child will come in late spring, a boy, I hope, for Henry’s sake. He says he doesn’t care—ten fingers and ten toes is all he’s hoping for—but I know better. Every man wants a son, and Henry has waited far too long for his. It would be a lie to say I didn’t pray every day that this baby will be a boy, the son Susanne has never been able to give him, not to best her, but to ease the pain of all those other losses.

My belly swells as the months rush past, and at first the days are a blur. The upstairs needs papering, and the bed needs to be moved to make way for the bassinet. The child will need things too, bottles and blankets and diapers. But goods are hard to come by these days. No one’s buying anything, and when they do find a few spare pennies, the store shelves are nearly bare. I can still get cloth and thread, though, and Mama made sure I was good with a needle, so at least Henry’s child won’t run naked.

I scare up one of Henry’s old cigar boxes to make a sewing box and set my chair near the window where the light is good and I can see the leaves beginning to turn. Now and then, I let myself wonder what Maggie will think when the baby comes. I wonder if she will grow to love the child or if she will see it as a rival. She’s got a good, sweet heart in her, but she has always worshipped her daddy. It will be hard, I think, for her to share him with someone else. In fact, I’m not sure she’s quite keen on having to share him with me. She gets a look sometimes, when she thinks I don’t see, confusion mingled with hurt, and maybe a little anger too, as if she’s wishing me a thousand miles away.

As for Susanne, I do not let myself think about what her reaction will be when she finally spies my belly from her window. I keep close to the cottage most days, working the small patch of garden behind the kitchen, where I can’t be seen from the house. Lottie comes by now and then to take home a handful of whatever’s ready for picking and leave a bit of whatever she’s been cooking.

She tries to give me news from the house, but I don’t want it. I don’t
want to hear how crazy Susanne’s been acting or how bad she looks. Instead, we talk about the town, what latest family has lost its farm, and who’s been put out of work. When she comes by just before Christmas she tells me Celia Cunningham’s husband got caught taking money from the bank and was likely going to jail. That last part makes me feel just a little bit good. Then I remember they have two girls, tiny things in grade school, and I feel sorry.

Spring is slow in coming, the days raw and perpetually wet. By the end of March I am miserable, tired to death of being indoors, of endlessly, endlessly waiting. But if I am restless, Henry is worse. His eyes go with me everywhere, greeting me at the end of each day with the same unspoken question. And each day my answer is the same—not yet.

I’m alone when the first pain comes, tearing me from a warm, deep sleep. I blink at the sheets, bone white in the splash of moonlight streaming through the window, and try not to panic. Beyond the dark panes there is only night sky and the cold prickle of stars. It will be hours before Henry comes, and then he’ll still have to fetch the midwife. I’m not sure the child will wait.

An hour later my water lets go and I start to pray. Not the prayers of a woman full-grown, but snatches of the words Mama taught me to say when I was little, silly bits of rhyme that catch in my throat between sobs. The pains are coming harder now, and my back feels fit to break. I watch the sky, petrified as I try not to think of that awful night in Susanne’s room and the look on Henry’s face when his son slid into the world, silent and blue.

By the time I finally hear Henry’s voice echo up the stairs, I have lost all sense of time. I don’t know how he knew to come. I am only thankful to God that he has. I sob with relief when he appears in the doorway, his hair still disheveled from sleep, eyes wide with panic.

He drops to his knees beside the bed, his calloused fingers gentle as he pushes the hair back from my sticky face. “Is everything—?”

He doesn’t finish. He doesn’t have to. Before I can utter a word, another contraction grabs hold, turning me inside out. “Go!” I grit through my teeth. “Bring her quick.”

The sky has gone a dull shade of pink when I hear Henry’s truck finally rattle back up the drive. It’s none too soon. I am near senseless now, my body battered and limp. I can endure no more on my own. Then comes the slow, steady tread of feet on the stairs, and when I turn my head on the pillow she is there, bulky and slightly stooped in her wool kerchief and worn cloth coat, her skin the color of polished mahogany in the dim lamplight; Minnie Maw Speights, the midwife from the hills of Level Grove who once sent her tonics to Susanne.

She wastes no time. She sets a heavy cloth bag at the foot of the bed, her jaw squarely set as she surveys the situation. Her eyes meet mine briefly as she peels out of her coat and kerchief. There is no softness there, no pity or warmth of any kind, only a calm resolve to be about her business of bringing another child into the world.

She peers under the sheets, then prods my belly with firm, practiced hands, pausing until the latest wave of agony releases me. Henry hovers behind her, wide-eyed and anxious, dwarfed somehow by her presence. She has brought a girl with her too, a stringy child about Maggie’s age, all elbows and knees and great white eyes as she huddles in the corner, staring at me panting with my knees up around my ears.

“The child’s coming,” Minnie announces to no one in particular. “Be here right along with the sun, I expect.” She turns to Henry then, tilting her wiry gray head toward the door.

“Time for you to get on out now.”

Henry’s boots scuff heavily, but he does not move.

“Mr. Henry,” she says with her bottom lip jutting, “I’ve brung over
two hundred babies in my time, your little girl among ’em. I reckon I can bring this one without your help.”

His eyes shift to mine, anxious, helpless. I try to find a smile but can’t manage it. I cannot worry about Henry now. The next wave of pain is already gathering, waiting to crash over me, to bury me.

“Go on, now,” I tell him raggedly.

I’m calmer with Henry gone, though the pains are coming one on top of another now, no time to breathe, no time to prepare. I lose track of Minnie as she shuffles about the room, readying a small tray of things at the foot of the bed. I’m so tired and so sore, like my insides are all ripped to bits. If I could only sleep a little…

“Annie Mae Speights!”

Minnie’s voice is like a whipcrack, jolting me back to something like awareness, though some small part of me understands it isn’t me she’s talking to.

“You come out from that corner and help Minnie Maw, now,” she’s saying over her shoulder. “I didn’t tote you with me to stand there with your eyes closed. It’s time you learned what’s what.”

Annie Mae does as she’s told, emerging reluctantly from her corner, though she’s plainly terrified, doing everything in her power not to let her eyes settle on me or on what might be going on beneath the clean white sheet tented over my knees.

“This here’s Annie Mae,” Minnie says, still fishing around in her bag. “Belongs to my oldest boy. I brought her along to learn. I was already helping my mama when I was her age, but Annie Mae’s a little skittish. Doesn’t like it when the hollerin’ starts.”