Mother Lode (10 page)

Catherine left her husband’s side to speak
with her sister. Margaret and her husband were moving to Wisconsin
in a fortnight. Well, it was doubtful either would waste much time
mourning the loss of the other.

After a brief exchange, she heard, “Evening,
ma’am.” She turned to see Thomas Junior and his brother William.
“We came to wish you well.”

“Why, thank you, lads.” Perhaps they were
too old to call ‘lads’.

How clumsy they looked in their ill-fitting
suits, and turned up collar points. Tom, a shaft captain at the
mine, and William, one of the shift bosses, were not accustomed to
dressing up. She thought they looked like country bumpkins,
uneducated and unrefined.

“I am so pleased you’re able to be
here.”

They nodded.

“And where is your little brother?”

“Walter’s staying with Aunt Alice,” Tom
replied. “Pa didn’t think he’d take to the wedding.”

“How do you mean?”

The older brothers exchanged a quick glance,
and Tom cleared his throat. “Well, getting a new ma, and all.”

“Ah.”

For a few moments no one said anything. Tom
kept rubbing one balled up hand with the other, as William twisted
his neck like a horse trying to free itself of its bit.

“You must come to call some time,” Catherine
finally ventured.

“Yes, Ma’am.”

For once she was tongue-tied, and so were
they. With relief she saw Thomas crossing towards them. He gave his
sons a nod, claimed his bride and whisked her to the end of the
hall reserved for dancing.

“Oh, Thomas, we could think of nothing to
say! They just looked at me like I was some kind of ice-cream to
lap up.”

“And so you are. I intend to do just that
this evening.” He nuzzled his nose in her neck.

Catherine giggled, and
Thomas swung her across the floor to
The
Blue Danube Waltz.
Soon they were joined
by other keen dancers for the
Tri-Mountain
Two-Step
and the
Stamp Mill Waltz.

Catherine hadn't had such a fine party since
her sister’s wedding, but still she was glad when Thomas indicated
it was time to leave.

As they approached the carriage, they were
greeted by another group of noisy enthusiasts with whistles, bells
and saucepans.

“Oh, no!” Catherine moaned, as she heard the
first rattle. “A shivaree! They’re going to follow us home!”

“Get in.”

Catherine spotted someone she knew. “It’s
Earl Foster! What’s he doing in Hancock?”

“You know him?”

“Och! We were in school together!”

“He’s probably in love with you,” Thomas
smiled.

“They’ve been lying in wait for us! Tell the
driver to hurry, Thomas. Let’s get away from here.”

“First I have to wake him.”

Catherine could hardly hear him over the
din. “How can he sleep through this noise?”

“I suspect he’s been tippling some.”

Finally, they were underway, with the
noise-makers running along side, rattling their assorted
instruments.

“Can’t we go faster, Thomas? And outrun
them?”

“It’s all harmless fun—a serenade.”

“They’re making rude noises, Thomas.”

“Raspberries.” Thomas laughed. “Just ignore
them.”

With libations in hand, the noise-makers
followed the newlyweds.

“What a bunch of hooligans. It shouldn’t be
allowed.”

“Catherine, relax. You can’t change
tradition. They’re just looking for a bit of fun. It’s a wedding,
remember?” He smiled and took her in his arms.

“They’ll see us!”

“Let them. Give them something to get
excited about.”

Catherine giggled. Catching sight of the
couple through the window provoked louder, more exuberant shouts
and catcalls.

Thomas kissed his bride long and hard, as
noses pressed and knuckles wrapped at the window. Raucous laughter
and loud hoots accompanied their glee.

“That’s enough,” Thomas waved good-bye to
them and closed the carriage curtains. “They’ll go home now.”

The driver snapped his whip and the horse
settled into an easy canter, leaving the merry-makers behind. But
soon after the bride and groom had reached their bedchamber, the
boys had caught up. Small pebbles pelted the window, and the taunts
continued from below.

For the most part Catherine was oblivious to
it, for the only stimulus she was responding to now was the stir
that rose in her body from her husband’s touch, creating a
tarantella that had mounted increasingly these last days.

“I’ll try to be gentle. But it will hurt the
first time,” he warned her.

She bit her lip. There was an ache inside
her she could only look to Thomas to satisfy now.

Two weeks after the wedding, Thomas’ sister
Alice arrived with six year old Walter, who had been in her charge
while the newly-weds became accustomed to each other.

“This is your new mother,” the aunt told
Walter. The boy frowned, looked at the ground.

“Show some manners, Walter,” his father
admonished. “Take the lady’s hand.”

Walter obeyed, but did not lift his
face.

“What class are you in?” Catherine
asked.

“Don’t go to school yet.”

Catherine offered him some cake, which he
took outside. Unmannered, unlessoned, and unattractive, he held no
appeal for her at all.

“He just lost his ma last year. It will take
him some getting used to.”

For me, as well.
“He’ll be going to school this year, won’t
he?”

“Yes.”

In the weeks that followed Catherine tried
to make Walter feel comfortable. She could see he was a lonely
child, mistrustful. Well, who could blame him; he’d lost his mother
so suddenly in a bout of diphtheria. But when her efforts were
rebuffed, she grew impatient, complained to her husband.

“He doesn’t like me.”

“He loved his mother very much.”

“Well, I’m not his mother.”

“Give him time, Catherine.”

She bent her efforts toward her step-son,
and gradually, the child began to respond. He stopped banging his
head against the wall at night, and began conversing in more than
monosyllables.

“Look what I found.” He laid a horseshoe on
the table.

“Get that rusty thing off my tablecloth.
Take it outdoors.”

Walter picked up the horseshoe and headed
for the door. Catherine, lamenting that she’d spoken so sharply,
followed him.

“What do you plan to do with it?”

“Throw it. Want to see me?”

“Yes, all right.”

Walter drove a stake into the hard surface
of the drive and demonstrated the game to Catherine. Several times
he hit the mark on the first try.

“You want to try?” he ventured.

She hesitated.

“Go on, mum, have a go at it.”

Reluctantly, she took the rusty crescent in
her hand.

She was so far off course, Walter laughed,
and Catherine turned crimson. Wanting to chide him, or run off, she
nevertheless remembered her position and remained still.

“Here, I’ll show you,” he offered.

She allowed him to instruct her, noticed the
action in his wrist. When she tried again, she came much closer.
They took turns for some time, Catherine showing some
improvement.

“You’re better than I am.” Catherine brushed
her hands off, started back to the house.

“Were you doing your best?”

“Of course I was.”

The boy showed a shy smile of pride.
Catherine tousled his hair. “You’re the winner. There, are you
satisfied?”

He slipped his hand gingerly inside
hers.

For this, Thomas gave her good marks.

“He needs you, Catherine. He cares for you
far more than you realize. You are his mother now, you know.”

Her stomach rebelled.

I’m only eleven years older than he! I don’t
want to be his mother!

How she missed Red Jacket! When they
strolled downtown Hancock on a summer Sunday, she’d see girls
arm-in-arm with lads their own age. And there she was with a
husband more than twice her age.

Still, as Thomas expressed his passion
frequently, Catherine responded. Before long she felt the
quickening of new life in her belly.

“It’s going to be a laddie, sure,” the
midwife told her.

“How can you tell?”

“It’s just the knowin’ I have. Ye’ll see
yersel when the we’an comes.” Her penetrating eyes persuaded
Catherine.

“Ye’ve had no mornin’ sickness?”

“Not once.”

“Then it’s certain to be a laddie. The
others, they’re not so considerate.”

Catherine laughed.

“You’re the lucky one,” the midwife told
her. “He’ll be a blessed we’an, never givin ye a bit o’
trouble.”

But Catherine’s mother wasn’t convinced.
Down for a visit, she said, “It’s bletherin’ tales she’s tellin’
ye. Country folk’s superstitions fae the auld country.”

“But you’re — “

“—fae entirely different parts, daughter. We
never believed such foolish cracks in the big city.”

It was a sweet and mellow time for
Catherine, carrying this child. When she felt the quickening, she
held her belly, eagerly awaiting each tiny movement.

“Aye,’tis a laddie. I have the knowing,
too,” she’d murmur.

On a sunny afternoon in October, Catherine
felt labor pains and knew that her time was approaching.

“Fetch the midwife,” she told Helena.

“Is it not too soon, mum?”

“No. Hurry!”

The pains started coming quickly, and Catherine,
alone in the house, became alarmed. Autumn winds were kicking up,
rattling the windows, a sound that always made her uneasy. Where
was the midwife, and had that foolish girl gotten lost? In
frustration she got out of bed, walked around the house,
periodically doubling over in pain. Why couldn’t this have happened
at night or on the weekend when Thomas was home?

It would be soon; the pains were one on top
of the other now. She went back to bed, and bit down on her pillow
each time they came. The Portage whistle blew, signaling the end of
the work shift. Maybe Thomas would get there in time.

Then she could feel herself opening; there
was no holding back the child. She let out one loud scream as the
baby emerged. That was the last she knew.

How long she’d been lying there before the
midwife arrived she didn’t know. She heard a voice that sounded
very far away.

And then: “Dinnae I tell you it would be a
laddie?” The midwife handed the baby to his mother. “He’s all
cleaned up for ye.”

“He’s alive?”

“Indeed he is. A screamin’ he was when I got
here, and you looking dead, for all the world. You should have sent
for me sooner, lass.”

Catherine took the infant to her breast. In
such awe of what she had produced, she could say nothing for
several moments. Finally, she exclaimed, “What a bonnie wee one he
is. He ‘near takes my breath away.” She stroked the dark ringlets
of hair.

The midwife peered at him. “Aye, look at the
eyelashes on him. He’ll have nae trouble with the lassies!”

“I’m sorry,” the flushed Helena was saying.
“She wasn’t home when I went to call. Sure, and I looked all over
for her. Then finally—”

“Shall I be callin’ his faither in here?”
the midwife asked.

“In a bit. Let me have a few moments alone
with my we’an.”

The women left. Catherine held her child
close, examined his tiny features.

“You are my first-born and my last. You are
everything I need in a child, and no other will ever take your
place.”

“Here be yer man,” the midwife
announced.

Thomas came in and looked on proudly.

“Catherine, my love, you were very brave to
go it alone.”

“I didn’t have a choice, did I? Isn’t he
bonnie, Thomas?”

“He’s normal? Ten fingers and such?”

She looked again to make sure.

“What shall we call him?” he asked.

“I will call him Jorie, after my father,
Jordan.”

Thomas leaned down and kissed his wife.
“Thank you, my Love, for giving me a son.”

Catherine did not feel she had given him
anything. She had carried the child and birthed him. He belonged to
her.

But she said, “And now we are three.”

“Four,” he corrected.

Chapter 8

After his brush with death in the coal
cellar, Jorie began having nightmares. Two or three times a week
he’d come to his parents’ bed. Catherine would pull him toward her,
where the comfort of her arms quieted his fears.

One night Thomas half awoke and found Jorie
in her arms.

In the morning he asked, “Why does Jorie
come to our bed every night?"

"It's not every night, Thomas. When he comes
in with us he doesn't wet his bed." As soon as the words were out,
she regretted them.

"Wet his bed! How old is he? Six?"

“Almost.”

“What’s the matter with him? He used to be
dry, didn’t he?”

“I think it comes with his nightmares —he
can’t help it, Thomas. It started after Walter. . . after the
incident in the cellar.”

“Can’t help it—at six? I’ll help it. Where
is he?”

Catherine had never seen him like this. She
was frightened for her boy.

Thomas found Jorie on the porch sketching an
insect. He took a deep breath and sat down beside him.

“What have you there?” he began.

“It’s a beetle, Papa. Do you see his thick
hard shell and his tiny eyes?”

“Your mother tells me that you still wet the
bed.”

Jorie froze, felt betrayed.

“Is this true?” Thomas wanted to hear the
boy admit it.

“Yes, Papa.”

“Why do you do it?”

“It just happens when I’m sleeping.”

“Well, you’re too big for that and you’re
going to have to stop it. Do you understand?”

Jorie nodded. “It’s called enuresis.”