Under Water, page 27
When it passed, she was exhausted with knowing it would only worsen. She opened her eyes to see Lettie, returned with a basin of cool water. Lettie wrung out a cloth to wipe the sweat from Aoife’s face.
I would that it was William. “Is Thomas waiting down the stairs?”
Lettie grunted assent. “Told him stay out ’less I call him.”
Another pain, harder, and Aoife cried out again.
“It comes hard now, faster than it should. Let me see.” Lettie pushed the quilt down from Aoife’s belly, letting it fall careless to the floor.
The next contractions were titanic waves breaking against Aoife’s insides. A gush of fluid flowed from her sex, drenching her thighs. She raised herself up again with the pain and saw the bed linens bloomed with blood. “Lettie!”
The girl jumped, knocking into the chair, sending it crashing to the floor. “No!” she screamed. “It cannot be!” She pulled the pillow from behind Aoife’s back and pried her legs apart. “It is coming too fast!”
Aoife could smell her own blood, hot and metallic, like that from the pig at slaughter. The room swirled, spots sparkling like fireflies in her head. Another spurt flowed from her, hot against her cold skin. She pressed her knees together, as if that might stop the bleeding.
Her vision blurred and blackened. Mam, mam! Where are you? Had she thought that or cried it out? Is this God’s punishment?
She could not stand Lettie’s touch. She fought her off, crying, “Leave me be!” She pulled at Lettie’s wrists as her legs were pried apart, her strength now desperate as that of an animal caught in a trap.
Lettie flung the window open and screamed out, “Thomas! Hurry!”
It seemed an eternity, filled with pain and dizziness, seeing Lettie’s wide frightened eyes boring into hers. Why is she fearful? It is I who am dying, unshriven.
“A priest,” she begged.
Thomas ran into the room. “My God, Lettie, I’ll fetch the doctor!”
No, a priest!
“’Tis too late, Thomas!” Lettie grabbed his sleeve.
Her pains crescendoed, hitting like a storm at sea, putting aside all thoughts of eternal damnation.
Thomas bent over her face, his mouth moving to speak. But she no longer wanted him. “Mam! Mam! Where are you?”
Thomas’s shirt billowed against her cheek.
Consciousness slipping away, she closed her eyes and dreamed of the past, of the croft. She was cold and growing colder.
“No, stay where you be! Hold her knees up and apart.”
She felt his hot hands slipping on her flesh.
Thomas’s voice, “I can’t!”
“You can and must! The babe must live.” And Lettie was on the bed, between her legs.
Aoife opened her eyes. Thomas’s face was disordered, his mouth opened, as in a silent scream. And then everything was black.
Thomas
1864
With his eyes fixed on her face, he wrenched Aoife’s leg apart hard, fearing she might rip in two. Their child, conceived in the violence of lust and joy, was being born in the violence of desperation.
Though her face was still, pale as the moonlight, her belly continued its monumental contracting.
Lettie reached between Thomas’s hands, reached into Aoife. His stomach churned. It seemed like an act of revenge, of mutilation.
“I seen many born, but this is too, too fast,” she muttered. “Too fast and too much blood.”
His heart pounded, roared like a storm raging about his head. Aoife will die and it will be my fault. Could it be that the hard birth of that bull calf somehow infected us and our babe’s conception?
He threw his head back and looked upward and prayed for the first time since he’d hid behind his mother during the riots. Lord, this sinner beseeches you. Let them live. If, in your great goodness, you let her and the child live, I will serve you all the rest of my days.
“Thomas, your knife!” Lettie was screaming. “The babe strangles!”
He released Aoife’s now unresisting limbs and pulled his knife from his belt. In Lettie’s hands was a gray round bloody thing, grotesque, hanging half outside Aoife’s sex. With a gasp, he realized it was the baby’s head. Beside it, the limp little arms dangled down. The bluish cord went from Aoife’s body and twice around the tiny neck. Lettie slipped a loop from the baby’s head. Thomas stretched to thrust the knife blade through it, jerking his arm upward to free the child. She pulled the rest of the body into the world. “’Tis a boy!”
She held the child up, shaking him and then hitting his back with her palm. “Cry, cry.” she muttered between clenched teeth. But the little boy was still and flaccid. And yet perfectly formed…
The tiny body seemed a thing of contagion, heralding a fall from grace, inhuman. Thomas turned his head away to look at Aoife’s still and colorless face. “He is dead, but Aoife, save Aoife,” Thomas cried. “She still bleeds.”
Lettie put the child on the chair and returned to the bed. She wrapped the cut cord around her hand and pulled steadily and firmly, kneading Aoife’s low belly as if it held a ball of dough, pressing hard with her knuckles. She pulled on and on, with constant tension, then reaching inside as if clawing out contagion. At last, the gray-pink afterbirth was delivered.
Thomas vomited on the floor, desperate with the desire to flee. He wanted to hug Aoife and make her safe. He wanted Lettie to love him without blame.
The bleeding continued.
“Thomas!” Lettie’s voice was harsh. “Bring more water from the well and more clean sheets. Quickly!”
Chapter 34
Evening fell, the waning light still imbued with an eldritch clarity, making the house like an island, unmoored in time, the past and present blending into one.
They sat in the quiet living room as the shadows moved across the flowered rug. Iris—with her foot still up and ankle now encased in Seapoint Farms frozen peas—Benny, and Charlotte sipped herbal tea and ate lemon muffins.
“We got a lot done, Iris, cutting off the branches. I called the arborist for the trunk—the guy we had take down the yews by the house.”
“Such a shame about that grand old oak.” Charlotte turned, gazing out the window at the tops of the still standing trees. “I didn’t realize this area was so lush. Really beautiful.”
She’s surprised by Pennsylvania? Was Jessica Hartnup right?
“Thanks for being here, Charlotte,” Benny said. “You’ve become very important to Iris.”
Charlotte nodded and looked from Benny to Iris. She tapped one finger against her lips, over and over, before saying, “Iris is super important to me. You, too, after today—I didn’t know you before.”
He inclined his head. “The fault is all mine.”
“I felt you didn’t trust me. Yet today you were so nice.”
“What makes you think I didn’t trust you?” Benny was wide-eyed, almost dewy. Like that cartoon cat, Garfield, when he’s playing innocent or wants a treat.
Charlotte’s eyes were fixed on Benny.
“I knew you were Team Cozy Mystery. But after today, I know you were like that—to protect Iris. I wish my dad cared that much about my mom.” She turned to Iris and began laughing. “No joke, Iris. Everything we talked about became about you. Like how beautiful you’re making the dump you bought sight unseen.”
Benny turned bright red.
“Why are you embarrassed, Ben? It was a dump.” Iris felt a surge of love warm her heart. She leaned to stroke the unruly gray curls at his neck though moving made her ankle sting like it had entrapped a wasp. “That only makes me love you more.” She smiled at Charlotte and winked.
“I want to tell you all about me. I am in a doctoral program, but in Michigan, where I grew up. Combined history and anthropology. I’m here...”
“For a paper.” Iris broke in.
“Not really.”
“Why then?”
Charlotte sighed. “You’ve made me feel so accepted, more than anyone has in my life, except my mom. You guys are like family to me, more than my own family. I owe it to you to be honest.”
Benny cocked his head as if he was going to say something, and Iris worried. She relaxed as his features settled back into listening mode.
“When I saw Little Jack’s picture… I felt a connection, like we’re related somehow. He was like a magnet pulling me here. Hard to explain but, whatever the reason, he wasn’t wanted. That’s the way I felt my whole life. An outsider.”
The lace gown and cap… he was wanted, just like our baby was! She thought to challenge the statement aloud, but looked at Benny’s sympathetic expression… It would be kinder to take a soft approach. “Any family would be proud of you.”
“Huh.” Charlotte’s fingers danced nervously about the rim of her cup, like flies afraid to stick a landing.
A familiar tide of loneliness, of feelings sequestered when thoughts of her daughter arose, swept over Iris.
Benny seemed to sense something. He slid closer to her and took her hand, but he spoke to Charlotte. “If our girl had lived, I’d want her to be like you. Smart, educated. Still having time for us old folks.”
There was an uncomfortable quiet, broken only by the sound of Freddy licking his privates. Abnormally loud in the silence, it made Iris want to break into nervous laughter.
Charlotte rubbed her temples with her fingertips, quieting them at last. “My father didn’t want anything to do with us. No support, no visits—I remember asking my mom about why and she said that his people didn’t like him taking up with a white woman. He died when I was six, had a big family who would only let me visit if Mom didn’t come. She had a big family, too. Her family hated that she’d gotten knocked up by a black guy.” Charlotte snorted derisively. “That’s what they said, knocked up. And I was in the middle, some ashamed of me because I was a shade too dark, the others resenting me because I was a shade too light…” Her voice trailed off.
Little Jack’s image, fresh released from the bag in which he’d been hidden, floated into Iris’s mind. The little odd man out, the curiosity.
“Anyway, so my father’s family came from around here a long time ago. They once owned a farm. But no one living knows how much land or exactly where. All they knew was, farm life was too hard and too isolating. Land was sold off bit by bit over the years until nothing was left. The family scattered. My father’s great-grandparent went to Detroit to earn real money in the factories and my mother’s family was already there. Norwegian farmers.”
“And the rest is history,” Benny said, and then, as if he was afraid of Iris’s reaction, “Didn’t mean to sound flippant.”
“Why didn’t you just come tell us this?”
“With all the publicity, all the trauma tourists and other gawkers, how could I come and say, ‘I want to snoop around your place to see if it once might have belonged to my family, might once have been mine?’”
“Yeah,” Iris said, turning her eyes to Benny. “Then certain people would have been really suspicious.”
Benny narrowed his eyes. “Give it a rest. I’m not that big a jerk. And it’s not as if Little Jack lived long enough to be anybody’s ancestor.”
Thomas
1864
The water sloshed on the pie steps as Thomas rushed back with the bucket. He slipped, bloodying one shin, the pain sharp. Upstairs, the doors to both rooms were shut. He opened Aoife’s and found her lying still, pale and alone, her arms by her sides. He sat on the bed next to her, twisting his hands together with such force that his fingers cracked over and over, the only sound in the room.
“She ain’t dead yet, husband.” Lettie had come in quietly. She took the small hand mirror from the dresser and held it to Aoife’s lips. “See? The reflection fogs.” She dropped the mirror on the bed beside him and went to the door. “The bleeding is done. I’ll leave you with her one last time and go wash the boy’s body.”
Thomas lay beside Aoife, holding the mirror just above her mouth, to see the in and out of her breath. I do not care what Lettie thinks, only that you live, Aoife. If you do not, I shall be alone.
While she remained still and cold, seemingly sinking into death, he held the looking glass. It seemed an eternity, but slowly the cloud on the glass expanded, and grew to fill the frame. Without opening her eyes, Aoife whispered, “William…”
Thomas’s arm and hand burned as he put down the mirror after holding it aloft so long. He took her face in his hand, palm over the high cheekbone, thumb caressing over and over the arch of the bone. Her eyes opened and she smiled at him. “My lovely friend.” She lifted her head and looked about the room. “The child?”
Lettie glided back in, her long apron stained with blood. She carried the infant’s body. “Your babe died before ever he took a breath. Hold your son.” At that, she put the body in Aoife’s arms.
The tiny body was dressed in the gown and bonnet adorned by Aoife’s lace. Aoife touched the cold little cheek as Thomas had touched hers. “My poor little darling.” Then her eyes closed, and she slumped, insensate once more.
Thomas went to go to her, but Lettie stopped him. “She will live if no infection come. Look at your boy whilst you still can.”
Thomas obeyed. The baby’s face was the perfect blend of features, his and Aoife’s. Tears welled up in Thomas’s eyes and ran hot and silent down his cheeks.
Oh, for what might have been.
Aoife
1864
Aoife walks with William beneath the blooming apple tree, turning to kiss him as he brushes the fallen blossoms from her long, wild blonde hair. The air grows cold and footsteps, resounding on wooden boards, ring in her ears. The spring air is now sick-room stale with the iron smell of blood, the sky darkening into winter.
One single wail, that of a new infant, had pierced the fog that surrounded her. She was sure of it. And someone had lain next to her. Bewildered, her mind still clouded, Aoife sank in and out of consciousness but did not dream again.
Full awareness came, only to bring bitter reminder that her little boy was dead—and the realization of Lettie demanding he be held against Aoife’s bosom, clothed in the lace she’d tatted.
“Poor wee mite, never to know the world.” She stroked his belly, admired the perfection of his fingers. “Like little rays of light from stars,” she crooned. “They will serve you well, sitting at the Heavenly banquet.” Certainly, he, an innocent, would join the martyrs at the table, at the Lord’s right hand. Had she and Thomas martyred him with their fornication?
Thomas had been reflected in her baby’s countenance. She grieved to remember how she’d once dreamed of such a moment, holding a son who reflected William.
But she was sure a cry had come, strong and piercing, no dream hallucination. It had been like the call of a cat in the night, a newborn’s wail. At the sound her breasts swelled with an aching pressure. She looked about, desperate.
Lettie read her face. “The child you heard cry is not yours.”
Thomas stood. “What do you mean?”
“The one that was yours and hers is dressed in the gown she made. Mine is naked as she came into the world.”
A wail again reverberated through the door of the nursery room.
“I knew the Lord had a plan, knew he would put things to right, though her belly grew too big and the morning sickness did last too long. Reached up inside her, felt the second sac, but it seemed too much blood, I thought both were doomed. Should’ve had faith He would guide my hands to save our child, Thomas.” Lettie’s eyes gleamed. “We have a babe at last!”
Aoife’s hands fluttered uselessly as Lettie unbuttoned the neck of her gown. The cloth was pulled aside and her swollen, blue-veined breast, newly weeping milk, was exposed.
Thomas moved to stop Lettie taking the little body from Aoife’s arms but was held in check by her words. “This your doing, husband. You ain’t got no right to stop me,” she said as she went out the door, carrying the dead boy. She returned with a squirming baby, swaddled in a kitchen cloth. “You’ll nurse her, Aoife, but she’ll sleep with me.”
The living child was a girl, tiny but furiously living. Put to the breast she sucked ravenously.
The babe was smaller, but as perfect as the other, and more alive than any creature Aoife had ever known. Her hair was reddish brown, a mass of still-damp curls, tight against her well-formed skull. Aoife stroked them, feeling the tender soft spot in the center. She clutched the little bundle tight enough for the infant to cease sucking for a moment and squeal indignantly.
“She is not yours, Lettie, and shall not sleep with you!” Aoife pulled the coverlet up to hide her breast and the child’s face, as if she concealed a secret.
Her face as fixed as a carven image, Lettie leaned over Aoife, again exposing the nursing to sight. “She was made shamefully, in a cow’s byre, by an adulteress and an adulterer. Would you have her know that?”
Aoife put up a hand to ward Lettie away.
But Lettie wasn’t to be put off. “Thomas, he put babe after babe into me, all in our marriage bed, and all were lost. I have longed for a child to love. I won’t lose her.” She straightened her back, cocked her head from one side to the other as if examining the child for the first time. “Just like your dead boy, she’s got Thomas’s face and color. You wish to blight her life? Everyone will know whose daughter she is and when she was conceived.” Lettie’s fists balled up digging deep in the sides of her waist, and her features were contorted in anger. “And they will say that, while William Sprigett suffered, while he lay dying, that wife of his was in the barn, like an animal, with the colored field hand. But let her be mine and she’ll have a father, a family. I’m of a shade for her to be mine. She’ll have a place in the world, a colored missy with a colored mama.”
Chapter 35
