Coffin To Lie On (11 page)

When Sarie Lee and Anselm
went to check on Miranda, she'd fallen asleep. Sarie Lee put her
finger to her lips and tipped toed away from the door. “Let her
sleep. Anselm, you have work to do tomorrow. Y'all might ought to
make a pallet in the other bedroom or by the fireplace so you can
sleep. I'll let you know if I need ya.”

“
What
about you?” Anselm asked.

“
I'll
make me a pallet on the floor by yer wife. That way if I doze off
I'll hear her when she needs me,” Sarie Lee assured
him.

The house was peaceful
until almost midnight. Miranda screamed. Sarie Lee bolted up from
the pallet. Instantly, Anselm was at the door.

Sarie Lee patted Miranda's
hand. “How you comin'?

“
I think
I'm about to have the baby,” she replied through clinched
teeth.

Anselm gripped the door
facing. “Any ding I can do?”

“
Check on
that hot water. We might have to add to it,” Sarie Lee said. “and
you wait in the kitchen.” She closed the door on Anselm. “Now I'm
goin' to pull the covers back out of the way.

Miranda let out another
scream and tried to double up. Working quickly, Sarie Lee flattened
Miranda's shoulders to the bed and raised her knees. “Hang in there
just like that. Ya don't have long to wait now. Ya feel like
pushing?” Sarie Lee asked, placing a damp rag on Miranda's
forehead.

“
Un huh,”
Miranda groaned.

Sarie Lee spread Miranda's
knees apart. “Then push. It's time to get this over with.” She
grabbed Miranda's feet, pinning them to the bed.

Miranda pushed when she
felt the urge and cried out. A sensation of warmth oozed between
her legs. The pain eased and stopped all together.

Miranda said urgently, “I
don't hear crying. Did I have the baby yet?”

Sarie Lee didn't answer.
Her face wore an indescribably sad expression. Tears wet her face
as she clutched Miranda's hand.

“
Oh, no!
The baby is dead.” Miranda put her arm over her eyes. “I've known
something was wrong for a long time. Remember! I said there wasn't
any movement.”

Sarie Lee had trouble
controlling her emotion so she could speak. She sat gently on the
edge of the bed and rubbed Miranda's arm.

Miranda put her arm down.
“I'd at least like to see what the baby looks like and hold it. Is
it a boy or girl?”

Sarie Lee shook her head
no. “I've heard of such things, but I've never knew anyone it
happened to.”

Miranda was confused. “What
are you talking about? Is the baby a boy or girl?”

“
Neither
one,” Sarie Lee struggled to say.

“
Maybe
you better just tell me. What did I have?” Miranda
cried.

“
You had
what they call a false pregnancy. You spent nine months waitin',
went into labor and out came the after birth. There ain't a baby.
No one knows why this happens. I'm so sorry, Miranda, to have to
tell you this,” Sarie Lee explained.

“
I went
through nine months of discomfort and hell getting here across this
god forsaken country, and I don't have a baby.” Miranda tried to
digest the information.

“
After I
clean you up, I'll go tell Anselm. He'll want to be with you,”
Sarie Lee said.

Miranda's eyes stung as
tears washed her cheeks. Her throat thickened until she thought she
wasn't going to be able to get a breath of air. “Just leave me
alone for a little while. I've got to get a grip on
myself.”

When Anselm and Sarie Lee
checked on Miranda, she appeared to be asleep.

Miranda moped around the
house the rest of the winter. She rocked and brooded with very
little to say to Anselm. He made one attempt to get her to talk
about how she felt. She told him she didn't feel like discussing
the subject with him.

Anselm knew he had to find
a way to help Miranda. She was losing weight from not eating. Her
complexion was pasty. He was afraid he'd lose her soon if she
didn't snap out of the depression. It was consuming her. So he
traveled over to the Mast farm to ask Sarie Lee for
help.

“
I fixin'
to I'll hep if I can,” Sarie Lee said. “You afeard it might make
her feel worse to see me with a stomach as big as a
watermelon?”

Anselm shrugged. “Maybe dat
vould make her vorry dat she needs to be strong enough to help you
when de time comes.”

“
Y'all
are plum right, and I will need her help. All right, take me to
her,” Sarie Lee said. She stopped by the barn to tell Wilbur and
Jefferson where she was going.

On the way back to Anselm's
farm, Sarie Lee said, “We've been to the meeting building several
Sundays. You should see if you can get Miranda to go. It would do
her good get out and to be around other people.”

“
Ya, dat
iss for sure,” Anselm agreed.

“
Y'all
should know some of the women, where y'all came from, was asking a
bunch of questions about Miranda. They wanted to know if she had
her baby yet,” Sarie Lee said.

Anselm looked stern. “You
didn't tell dem vat happened, did you?”

“
No. I
said the baby was born dead,” Sarie said. “I thought Miranda would
want them to think that was what happened. I hope that's all
right.”

“
Ja, I
dink dat iss vat dey should dink. Dat vill keep dem from
questioning Miranda,” Anselm said.

Miranda was rocking on the
porch when Anselm helped Sarie Lee out of the wagon. Sarie Lee
waddled to the porch and labored up the steps. “Howdy,
Miranda.”

“
Good
morning,” Miranda said without looking at Sarie Lee. Her voice
didn't sound friendly. “What brings you over here? If Anselm is the
cause of your coming, he shouldn't have bothered you. You need to
be home resting instead of bothering with me.”

Sarie Lee put her hands on
her hips. “Right now after that long ride, I'm ready to agree with
y'all. Now how about gettin' me some coffee or tea to drink. I'm
dry.”

Miranda's head whipped
toward Sarie Lee. She was ready to be rude, but when she looked at
the heavily pregnant woman, she couldn't do it. “Come in and sit
while I get the tea ready. You need to rest.”

Sarie Lee let Miranda wait
on her. While they drank their tea, Sarie Lee broke the silence.
“So can I depend on ya to help me at my birthin' or
not?”

“
Oh,
Sarie Lee, I hadn't given anything much thought for months, but of
course, I'll help you,” Miranda said. “I just can't seem to get on
with living right now.”

“
I'm one
woman that can say I know how you feel, and that's the plain truth.
I grieve for Bobby Lee all the time. Y'all told me it would get
easier as time passed and it has. The same advice is just as good
for y'all right now.”

Miranda stared into her tea
cup. “I feel as if I lost a baby. Nothing to show for all those
months I waited and not even a grave to visit. That makes me feel
sad and sick inside.”

“
I reckon
that's about right. I feel the same way about my little boy that
passed. If it makes you and Anselm feel any better, do what we did.
Put a marker up somewhere so y'all can visit it.”

“
I'll
talk to Anselm. We could do that,” Miranda
agreed.

“
After
y'all do that, ya best get back to living. Anselm needs a wife. Ya
can always try again for a baby,” Sarie Lee said
forthrightly.

“
It was a
miracle when I thought I was having a baby. Instead, I came out of
nine long months with empty arms. I don't know if I could stand to
go through a repeat of the same thing again,” Miranda
complained.

“
That
wouldn't happen again. What happened to y'all was a freak of
nature. You wouldn't have it happen to you twice,” Sarie Lee
assured her.

Anselm made a wooden cross
on Sarie Lee's advice. He burned the word BABY on it. He asked
Miranda to go with him to place the cross in the hawthorn grove.
The thought occurred to him with a cross in plain sight that would
be proof to those sliddersladders that Miranda had indeed lost a
baby.

Chapter 13

Miranda perked up some
after Sarie Lee's visit. She did the bare minimum that had to be
done. She cooked the meals and washed the laundry. Even cleaned
house once in awhile. As far as she was concerned not much mattered
anymore. When she felt down in the dumps, she'd go out to the grove
and pat the wooden cross. That was the only thing that seemed to
help.

Wilbur Mast came to take
Miranda with him the day Sarie Lee went in to labor. Miranda went
though she really didn't want to be there. Sarie Lee's labor went
fine. Miranda held the baby girl a moment before she handed the
baby to her mother.

The time for a new mother
to stay in bed was nine days. One day for every day of pregnancy.
Miranda took care of the family until Sarie Lee said she could go
home.

When it was safe to travel
in the spring, Anselm suggested they go to the meeting building for
church.

When they walked inside the
building, Miranda felt the women from Minnesota staring at her.
Brunnhilde Fjelde and Prudence Sorenson looked compassionate.
Florence Swensen looked skeptical. Miranda waited for at least one
of them to bring up her pregnancy.

Florence Swensen, in a loud
whisper behind her hand, said to Brunnhilde Fjelde and Prudence
Sorenson in her coarse voice, “Vat did I tell you? Dat woman
couldn't even do a pregnancy right.”

Gretchen Krebsbach tried to
hush Florence, but it was too late. Miranda heard the criticism.
She was ready to turn around and leave when Edward Linder and his
fair haired wife, Jane came to meet them at the door. “Welcome,
folks. I believe we're neighbors.” He and Jane shook hands with
them.

Another couple, both of
them short and heavy set, Charlie and Norma Wright joined them. “We
are neighbors, too.”

“
Good to
know,” Anselm said. “You must come visit us ven you haf
time.”

“
Yes, we
would like to have you any time,” Miranda said.

When the Linders and the
Wrights came to visit the first time, Anselm made sure they
understood his wife was frail.

Pale faced Miranda greeted
the neighbor women at the door, extending her soft, creamy white
hands. She received pitying looks from women whose faces were
covered with sun darken skin, wrinkled like dried prunes. Their
hands, rough and calloused, signified years of hard
work.

Jane Linder and Norma
Wright were good examples of what this land did to women. Miranda
intended to do everything in her power not to look like them. That
was the fate her mother predicted for her if she wasn’t careful.
Why make the effort to work like someone's servant only to come out
looking like those women did.

The women didn't ask
questions about the her pregnancy, but she watched from a window as
they drove away with their husbands. She saw Norma Wright pointed
to the cross in the hawthorn grove. Miranda was glad that Sarie Lee
thought of the cross. Seeing that cross was enough to satisfy the
women's curiosity.

Miranda spent a lot of time
sitting idly in her rocker on the porch, watching her husband clear
their land.

She knew it wouldn’t have
taken Anselm as long if she helped him, but he did get the work
done without her. She consoled herself with the fact if she'd
offered to help he'd have told her no. He believed she wasn't
able.

Her husband worked hard and
was so proud of what he accomplished. Because he loved his wife
dearly, he was very willing to share his good fortune made from his
hard work. When she let herself think of it that way, she felt
guilty.

In a few years, the fruit
trees grew higher than Anselm’s head. As one winter slipped away,
he said wistfully he expected he’d see the trees explode into white
blooms that spring. As he predicted, one spring morning Anselm left
the house to work in his orchard. He came running back, grabbed
Miranda by the hand. “Come vit me.”

“
Is
something wrong?” Miranda asked.

“
You vill see,” Anselm said, grinning at
her.

They walked out to the
orchard. Amselm said, “Look up at dat row of plum
trees.”

Miranda raised her head.
“Anselm, the trees are full of bloom. We will have plums this
year.” She took in a deep breath. “Smell the sweet air?”

“
Ja, I
do. Dis iss just de start. De other fruit trees vill bloom, one
variety at a time,” Anselm said excitedly.

Miranda hugged him. “I'm
glad the wait is over.”

So the years passed. The
orchard produced a bounty of fruit just like Anselm wanted. The
cattle herd increased due to his saving the heifers. Anselm had
everything he had dreamed about when they left their Minnesota
home. He was content.