Dollybird (17 page)

“Thank God,” I whispered.

She stirred and opened her eyes. “God had nothing to do with it,” she said, and drifted off again.

Maybe she was right; maybe none of it had anything to do with God. Maybe we're just proving ourselves to each other. I felt brave thinking it, but lonely too, realizing someone you'd called friend for so long a time was not who you thought he was.

I grabbed the heel of bread from the table, picked up Casey and set out to the Miller farm, the red dog trailing behind.

CHAPTER 25

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MOIRA

Alarm rang through
my head when the baby shifted and stretched. I'd actually forgotten she was in my arms, had left her unattended as it were, and subject to harm. Her tiny, pursed lips sucked at the air, her fingers grasping, seeking comforts, perhaps the solace of my womb. Maybe the world was traumatizing in its brilliance, its overpowering smells, its cold air touching her virgin skin. She was minute and fragile and new, but wise with instinct, rooting now, signalling her need. I had forgotten what my breasts were for and fumbled with those foreign appendages, afraid her nose and mouth would disappear into their fullness and she would suffocate. She suckled weakly for a moment and promptly fell asleep as though knowledge of my presence was enough. For now.

Seconds later I was nodding away with her again, acutely aware of how sore and naked I was, unable to address either of our needs. I was draped with a blanket, the blood and sweat of labour drying on everything. A mother. That's what I'd become, what Dillan had helped me become, what was expected of a pregnant woman whether she was ready or not. Little choice. None really. Except now. Silas believed the birth would shake sense into my life, make my choices clear, the answers obvious. I looked at the baby. She was tiny and needy, but did she have to be mine in order to belong in the world? I was about to give in to exhaustion and sleep when I caught sight of the rocking chair, a beautifully crafted piece, the finished sheen of cherry wood.

It seemed only moments later I was awakened by Mrs. Miller bustling at the stove, warming water, readying soap and towels. She whisked the baby from my arms and bathed her, then diapered her, dressed her and cocooned her in a blanket. Mrs. Miller's competence was a relief. For all the babies I'd helped deliver, I had no idea how to care for one. Finally the tiny thing was settled in Mrs. Koch's crib. A startling combination of fear and hope shot through me. The bad luck of the crib's forbear might reach my child. Maybe I would be released from the responsibility and choices to come. But of course nothing would happen.

“She's beautiful, Moira.” Mrs. Miller turned to me and smiled. “And now it's your turn.”

“It's all right. Really. I'm fine.” I pushed myself up, pulling the covers to my chin. “I'll just clean up and get dressed.”

She laughed. “No, my dear, you'll do no such thing.” She quickly grabbed the sheet and swept it off, grinning when I shrieked and pulled at my bunched nightgown. “There's a little warm water in the tub, enough for now. We'll get you in and heat some more so you can have a nice soak. Are you very sore?”

“No. Yes. I'll be fine.”

“Moira, believe me. At this point you need to take any help you can get. That baby will be nursing at all hours. You won't get much sleep, and you'll wear yourself out keeping up with everything else, including Casey and Dillan.” She pointed at the tub. “Get in.”

The warmth of the water slid over parts of my body that had never known such pain. I was only vaguely aware of Mrs. Miller stripping the soiled bedclothes and replacing them with clean sheets and blankets she'd brought from home. She added more hot water and gently washed my hair, back and legs, rinsing away the sticky evidence of birth. Reclaimed at last, my body felt itself again, my slack stomach a welcome, if wrinkled, sight. I was a freed hostage, released from the baby and the fear of its birth.

The baby cried in the crib and I leapt to my feet, splashing water on the floor. A pain, almost as intense as a contraction, gripped me. I doubled over, my euphoria premature.

“It's okay, Moira. It's an afterpain. Try to breathe.” Mrs. Miller's hand on my arm was strong, steadying. “You get dried off and dressed. I'll rock her for a bit 'til you're ready.”

Father claimed afterpains were nonsense, a woman's attempt to get back the attention transferred to the baby on its arrival. I'd have something to tell him.

“Thank you.” The rough towel rubbed over the pores of my shivering skin. I dressed in a clean nightgown and gingerly sat in the rocking chair. Its arm fitted snugly in my hand, each spindle perfectly carved. I swallowed hard around the lump in my throat. Mrs. Miller caught this moment and nodded.

“Why are you doing this?” I asked.

“Why?” She didn't appear surprised by the question. “I'm here because I know how alone a person in your position can be.”

“Did you have no one to help you when your first baby came?”

“They could have helped. But they chose not to.” The edge in her voice carried a hint of sadness with it.

Exhaustion overcame curiosity about what she might mean.

“Here let's get her fed.” She settled the baby in my arms. Her tiny tummy met my own. “It's a little tricky the first few times. You have to tuck her right into you.”

Positioning her, learning to have her latch on rather than nibble and bite, burping, diapering. By the time we laid her in the crib again, I could barely stand. “I think you must have been a very good mother.”

“I did all right.”

“But why would no one help you?” I crawled into bed, melting into crisp sheets and blankets that smelled of pure summer days.

“Let's just say I'm more like you than you know.”

My eyes fluttered open, but closed again of their own accord.

“I'll be leaving now and coming back in a few hours. If you need anything sooner, have Dillan come for me.”

“Thank you.” I didn't hear the door close.

CHAPTER 26

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Only the Millers
came to see us in the month after the baby was born. I was happy when Carla finally showed up, riding bareback on a small pinto pony.

“I'm so sorry I couldn't come sooner,” she said, and jumped down lightly where I stood surveying my neglected garden, looking past me then at Dillan standing in the doorway. A blush spread to her throat. Dillan came toward us, Casey in his arms, light-footed, almost dancing, and kicking up a little dust. I took Carla by the arm and led her over to him.

“Dillan, you remember Carla?”

“Yes, um...hello,” he managed before Casey shrieked.

“HELLO. I CASEY.”

“Well hello Casey.” Carla was almost as loud.

We laughed, awkward adults saved by the silliness of a child, and trooped into the house, where I fixed cold tea.

“Your place looks wonderful.” Carla swallowed her drink in one long chugging gulp, then blushed at Dillan. “This heat.”

“It's taken a little while to get everything arranged,” I said, conscious of how pleased I was she'd noticed, how domestic it was of me to care.

“And there's the infamous crib.” Carla nodded to the corner where it stood next to my bed, all made up with the sheets and blankets the women had given me, a tiny handmade mobile hanging above it. “And such a beautiful girl,” Carla crooned, bending over to stroke the baby's downy head.

“I think she's crazy to use the thing,” Dillan said loudly.

“Dillan! He thinks me daft for accepting the bed of a dead infant.”

“Well, you had to accept it.” Carla looked at Dillan. “But I didn't think you'd use it, what with the ghosts and all.”

“I've told her, but she won't listen to me.” Dillan was a little too pleased to have found an ally.

“Don't tell me you're as superstitious as he is.” Shaking my head, I got up to bring more tea and turned back to discover the two of them smiling shyly at one another. Carla reached up to smooth her hair. Dillan brushed dust off his work pants.

“It's just a crib and it's in perfectly good shape,” I continued, though they barely nodded at me, so engrossed were they in their simple actions. “Besides, I'll only need it for a short time until the baby is weaned and I can find her a good home.”

There was silence as the words sunk in. Then Carla drew a quick breath and stared at me, horror in her eyes. “You're not going to...I mean, how can you think of...?”

My pulse quickened, ears turning hot. “I can't raise a baby out here all alone.”

“But if you took her home with you, back East.” Her voice trailed off. I caught Dillan sending her a warning look. “Well, surely your family would help you?”

“I'm going home to be a doctor. I can't do both. It'll be better. For everyone.”

Carla's eyes filled with tears of pity. For me. How dare she.

“You don't know what I'd be giving up.” I hated that my voice broke. “What I already have.”

“It's just that I look at you, this house, the baby.” Carla stood up and flung her arms out. “You have everything,” she whispered. “How could you throw it away?”

“Believe it or not, Carla...” What I wanted to say was angry and mean, but I couldn't stop. Carla was naive, her world narrow, her situation desperate. “This is hardly everything.”

“Leave her alone.” Dillan sat Casey in a chair and went to stand beside Carla. “Maybe some of us believe a child is important.”

“Is that what you think? That I'm selfish?” My hands clenched. “I'm the exact opposite, and you're a fool.” Eyes fixed on Carla, I gathered the baby in my arms. “I want to make sure this child has a good home, the life it deserves.”

“But who can do that better than its mother?” Her eyes were wide with an innocence I wanted to slap away. It was a simple question, but I couldn't answer it.

“This is none of your business. Either of you. You don't know anything about me.”

Quickly laying the baby in her crib, I fled outside, my legs stiff when I wished for swiftness, out of breath with anger. I yelled at the dog to stay home and walked past the corral where Mule stood slumbering in the sun, past the small garden. It was spindly and ugly, ungrateful for my efforts to pull the immortal weeds and haul endless buckets of water.

I looked back an instant. Dillan and Carla stood next to her horse, their heads together in discussion. I stormed into the field, knowing full well I left a trail of mangled stalks through Dillan's precious Red Fife wheat.

Finally I sat down in the neighbour's pasture near a few scrawny cows, the anger that had spurred me now a dull throb in every muscle. The horizon was flushed pink with the setting sun, and distant thunderclouds were coloured soft by the light. I heard the geese calling. They were scattered across the field, dining there on Dillan's hard work; and as I listened, their noise grew, filling the air like voices at a ceilidh, all cackling and giggling and grunting and posturing. Gossiping. Everyone thought I was wrong, my plan stupid or worse, selfish. Maybe I was the one who was naive to think it could all be decided so easily, and with such certainty. A life was in the balance and I was the scale. I was impatient with the uncertain woman I'd become, my old self weighed on one hand, the newborn girl on the other.

“She's expecting,” people would say of a pregnant woman. Until now I hadn't known what that meant. It was the expectations I hadn't been prepared for. Expectations came from everyone, parents, friends, acquaintances. They saw a pregnant woman and instantly made assumptions. She was married, she was desperately happy to be having a child, she would love it unconditionally and she would never, ever, think of giving it away.

Who better to raise my child? If Carla knew my mother she'd have proof that some women lack the basic instincts for mothering, the unconditional kind of love required. Maybe I'd inherited my mother's inability. Maybe I just didn't have it in me. Or maybe Dillan was right, and I was being selfish. I'd seen how children robbed women of their own lives. I'd delivered babies into homes already stuffed with them, the mothers overwhelmed and left with little room for choices.

Sitting there on the edge of the field, I wrapped my arms around my belly and felt the slack skin where the baby had made its home, remembered slow ripples across taut skin, the swift jab of a tiny foot. Rocking back and forth, my thoughts mingled with the sounds of the party in the wheat field. I had my answer for Carla.

CHAPTER 27

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DILLAN

The wind swarmed
round the house, sucking at the greased paper hung across one window, pushing the canvas sack out the other. I stood in the door and watched it come, shoulders hunched with listening. It had been building for hours, the thin grey horizon gathering itself into a long barrel that rolled toward us. The cloud was almost white where it moved and spun high above us, black on the bottom part surging ahead.

I went out into the yard for a better look. The great white thresher, Silas had warned, telling me the stock would fend for themselves in such a storm, leaving out any mention of what it might do to the crops. The Red Fife was almost ready for harvesting, and now there might be nothing to show for it.

Moira was standing in the doorway, the baby in her arms, Casey clutching her thigh. She searched the sky, then looked at me like I had the answers. “What's it doing?” she called.

Casey followed close. He'd been twitching all day, like the boiling sky and sharp air were scaring him too. The wind grew then, lashing out and drawing back, gusting harder every time. The hot, dry air crackled, needing some kind of release from the late-July spell of heat and dust.

“I think we're in for it.” The wind died a little just as I spoke, tempting me to hope, but then seemed to take a deep breath and pushed it out hard and fast from the southeast, the change in direction making it seem more of a threat. The dust and grit stung my face. Casey covered his and cried, sending Moira inside with him.

I kept my head down against the wind. It was hard to see for the dust blowing. Mule and Nelly were in the small corral I'd built from small trees. I'd finally been able to buy the big Percheron from Silas. She lowered her head, waiting for the scratch I always gave her. Instead I slapped her on the neck. She jumped back, wheeled around and trotted out the gate toward the dried-up slough. Mule looked confused. He never left the corral except when I took him out. He waited, looking at me like Moira had, like I could somehow change what was happening. It was a relief when he finally followed Nelly.

We had a half-dozen small pigs. Local families had given them to Moira as payment for bits of doctoring. They came running, looking for slop. The animals had learned to get along in their small space, and the open gate and my waving arms surprised them. Any other time, I'd have chased them with sticks, thrown rocks to head them back to the pen. They rushed around in circles, tried to head back to the corral, bolting away at the last second when I stomped at them from inside the gate. Finally they shuffled off with their heads down, ending up under the tree by the house. It was all I could do for them.

The red dog was running circles around me. He was a useless thing, shittin' in the yard and chasing the chickens. I kicked at him now and he ran away round the side of the house.

The field was just beyond. My gut felt heavy seeing the heads of wheat bent almost to the ground by the wind. The brittle stalks couldn't survive. Blinking dust, I headed to the house. It wasn't much of a fortress, just stood there looking puny in the wind. We'd survive or we would not. The storm didn't give a fug either way.

The long barrel of cloud swirled right above my head. I started to pray, the words whipped out of my mouth and flung at the sky. “Please God, let us be all right, and if you could somehow keep the crops standing?” I didn't want to ask for too much. I hadn't prayed since Taffy. Dust blew into the house with me, and I heaved the door shut. The thick sod insulated us from the noise, but Casey's eyes were still huge, his body rigid. He ran over and threw his arms around my knees.

“I think we should put that extra sod in the windows for now. I thought we wouldn't need it until winter.” Moira laughed nervously.

Soon the house felt like a tomb, all light blocked by the chunks of dirt and grass stuffed in the windows. I lit a lantern and we sat on the two chairs, facing one another, Casey between us on the floor, each of us alone in our listening.

“Do you think the wheat will be able to stand this?” asked Moira.

“I don't know.”

“It would be a shame if it was flattened.” She was like a crowbar trying to open me up to the fear hiding just under my skin.

“Uh-huh.”

“What'll we do if we lose the crop?”

“It's just a storm. Stop harping.” The muscles in my jaw hurt.

“I need material to start some new clothes for Casey. He's grown so much. And you'll need some decent things to wear into town this winter.” The words came rushing out of her, and she jumped a little as another blast of wind rattled the door. “The produce from the garden won't last long. It was a pretty dismal first attempt.” Her hand played round her lips.

“Why don't you just shut the hell up?” The words leapt out of my mouth, and she sat back quickly. “It's just a storm. And what the hell do you care what I wear? You're not my wife.”

Casey started to cry. He wasn't used to anger or the big voice with it.

“I'm only trying to be realistic.” Her voice was pinched.

“But all your worrying won't help. You can go on talking but it won't change what God delivers. I know that for sure.” I heard Mother's defeated voice in the words, felt washed out by their truth.

Moira stared at me for a long minute. “What a complete truck of horse manure,” she finally said. “You tell me how God is responsible. It is just a storm, like you said. Not revenge, not a curse, not anything your voodoo Catholic brain can come up with.”

The house groaned. She sounded like my teachers in Arichat, their voices saying it was useless trying to get anything through my thick skull. Casey had got down on the floor and was playing. He was getting used to the sounds of the storm, us raising our voices to hear over it.

“Maybe it's a punishment,” I said.

“For what? For being alive?”

“For taking Taffy away.” My face felt like it was crumpling in on itself. “For letting her die.”

The tension in my shoulders started my head pounding.

“What is it, Dillan?” Moira's voice came from far away.

“I took Taffy to Halifax where we had nothing and no one. She tried so hard, did everything she could to prepare.” My chest hurt so I could hardly breathe. “And she still died.”

“But if there was nothing the doctor could do...?”

The answer to her question was one I hadn't ever wanted to say out loud. But the storm, the possibilities of what could happen, I wanted her to know. Moira leaned over the baby in her arms to hear me.

“I didn't call the doctor. She didn't die because of Casey. She had the typhoid.”

Moira didn't move.

“She got it because we lived in filth.” I could barely hear my own words. “She got sicker and sicker because I didn't think a doctor could help.”

The wind rose and shook the house. I had taken away any chance Taffy had. Casey could have died too. I looked at him sitting on the floor, playing with a cup and spoon, startling at the bang of the door in the wind. “Oh God.” I clutched at the pain in my skull and felt her hand on my knee, real gentle.

“Silas told me about the typhoid,” she said. “But Dillan, things happen. When you love each other” – her voice seemed to come from a great distance – “you don't think anything bad can possibly happen because you've got all that love to bank on.” She stopped talking and stared at the floor. “Or at least you think you do.”

“We did.”

“Oh I'm sure you did.” She studied me, and then straightened. “But tell me, why didn't Taffy tell you to get a doctor?” Her voice was harder now. “And earlier, why did she stay in Halifax if it was so terrible?”

I tensed. “She was a good wife.”

“Oh yes, a good wife.” She was being sarcastic, and I flinched, wishing I hadn't. “I think you mistake devotion for love. She stayed with you because she wouldn't do what her good common sense told her to do, wouldn't just put her foot down.” Moira's voice rose above the sound of the wind. “She was taught to be obedient until death do us part. And it did.”

I felt like she'd kicked me in the head. I stood and backed away from the fire burning in her eyes. Moira hadn't been there when Taffy stood up to her father, stood up for me. “You would damn yourself to a life of poverty for this man?” her father had asked. “Wherever he goes...” I heard Taffy's answer like she'd said it just yesterday. Saw her father shake his fist. “Be damned then. The both of you.”

Moira was wrong. “She stayed with me because she wanted to,” I said, knowing it was a poor defense of my dead wife. The house seemed to be humming now, the wind testing the sod's strength.

“She went with you because she was weak. Let a man decide her fate. It wasn't your fault,” Moira said, glancing up at the ceiling as rain began pounding against the roof. “It was her own choice. When you realize that fact, you'll let go of this useless guilt you wrap your whole life in.”

“She was weak? If you were half the woman Taffy was, you wouldn't have ended up here. Knocked up and alone, practically selling yourself. At least Taffy had her dignity.”

“Dignity?” said Moira. “While dying in her own filth? I've seen typhoid, Dillan. I know how ugly it is.” She glared at me, poking at me worse than any man ever had. “There is no dignity in dying because she didn't have the courage to make decisions for herself.”

“What the hell do you know of courage?”

“I'm here aren't I? That took courage.”

“And what does that prove?”

“That Taffy's not.”

“You bitch.”

I raised my fist at her. The fear in her eyes quickly turned to defiance, as though this was what she'd expected, that my anger proved her right. Fear was in Mother's face when Da came home drunk and angry. It was in Taffy's face when she'd stood up to her father. There was movement on the floor, Casey still there between us. He was watching me close, his eyes turning to my raised fist, a kind of awe coming over him as though he sensed what was about to happen. My anger dissolved; I'd allowed my son to see the violence of a trapped man. Shame filled me up.

And then the storm hit.

The door flew open. Rain drove in at an impossible angle and quickly puddled on the floor. Casey screamed and Moira grabbed him up in her free arm while I rushed to push at the door.

“Oh my good Christ.” The rain shot like slivers into my face and instantly soaked through my clothes. Lightning flashed so bright I could almost see the bones in my hands held out in front of me. Another bolt shot across the sky, white veins of power sparking off in every direction. A crack of thunder exploded around us and the house shook. It was like my feet had grown roots. I couldn't move, couldn't take my eyes off the blackness outside. Another flash lit the land like an instant of sun and I saw it again. Not more than a half mile away, a black funnel hung from the boiling mass of cloud. The wind was so strong I had to brace myself against the door frame to stand upright. Another crack sounded, as though the sky and earth were in a fight to outdo one another. Casey screamed. I turned to see the fear in Moira's eyes. She had seen the funnel too.

“Shut the damn door,” she yelled. The dishes rattled in the cupboard. “Oh God, my china.” With Casey and the baby in her arms, she rushed to rescue the china, as though that mattered now.

“Leave it, Moira,” I hollered. “Get them under the bed.”

In the battle to close the door, I lost my grip and it banged against my shoulder and across my forehead. I fell backward, but grabbed the door in time to steady myself by pushing against it. I felt something warm trickle down my cheek. Anger gave me the strength to heave the door shut. At the last instant I caught sight of the monster, only a quarter mile away now, but a little to the north. “It might miss us,” I yelled, but when I turned there was only blackness.

The lamp had blown out. The roar of the wind was like the sound of a train, drowning out all other sound so I wondered if I was even breathing. I stood an instant in a darkness that had swallowed my world, life cut down to what I was at that moment, a man at the mercy of God. Another flash of light came through the cracks in the sod, and I saw feet sticking out from under Moira's bed. Casey's feet. The storm could take me, but I would not let it take Casey.

“I'm here, boy,” I shouted into the darkness.

I felt my way over to the bed, then reached underneath and touched firm flesh. Another flash of lightning, and I saw Moira's face only inches from mine. Casey was clutching at her neck, the baby buried in her breast. She inched back toward the wall to make room, and I quickly rolled under as another strong gust of wind blew the sod out of the windows.

“My teacups,” Moira moaned as the dishes rattled in the cupboard again. “I can't lose them.” I felt her body shaking.

“It'll be okay.” I said it like I knew what I was talking about. “I think it's heading north.”

“I've never heard anything like it,” she said, her voice a choked whisper.