Thelma was doing some moaning when I entered the house. More of the baby kicking, I hoped. Sam had moved pretty quick and gotten her clear into the sitting room, out of sight. Hurrying to catch up, I completely forgot about the floor. I got as far as the table with Georgie wiggling in my arms, but before I knew what was happening, my feet flew out from under me, and I landed hard on fresh-mopped floor. I was stunned speechless for a moment, wondering if falling with a toddler in my arms might have hurt the poor child. Sarah ran over to my side.
“Oh! Oh, Mom! I didn’t know it’d be so slick!”
She tried to take Georgie from me, but he would have none of that. At first he looked as stunned as I was. Then he burst out laughing.
“Do again! Do again!”
I’d have laughed with him if it hadn’t hurt so bad. Thank God, though, that it wasn’t Sam and Thelma falling down in a heap.
“Are you all right, Mom?”
“Oh yes,” I assured my daughter, and Harry, who by now was staring at us from across the room. “I’m fine.”
“Do again!” Georgie squealed some more. “Fun! Fun!”
“No,” I told him simply. “Not fun for me. Harry, come and take Georgie so I can get up.”
I felt a little stiff. I could imagine what a sight I was, going in to see to Thelma after drying the floor with my backside. But I went anyway, feeling a little better as I walked. And I made Sam get Thelma to my bed instead of the rocking chair where she’d wanted to be.
“Really, Mrs. Wortham,” she tried to tell me. “I’ll be just fine. I just need to sit a spell.”
“That’s wonderful. And I’m not disagreeing with you. I just don’t want to be taking any chances. Sam’s probably right. You need to get off your feet more. Might be a good idea to ask Dr. Howell—”
“Mama’s comin’ out next week,” she assured me. “I’ll be just fine till then.”
“Well enough,” I agreed. “But while you’re here, you stay in bed, just to be sure. We’ll take care of Georgie for you.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Wortham.” She smiled and mopped at her brow. “Goodness. Still pretty warm, isn’t it? And already October.”
I didn’t bother telling her that I’d been feeling autumn’s chill in the air for days now. Not strange at all for her to be warm. I’d been warmer when I was with child too. Back when I was carrying Robert, I’d nearly frozen Samuel by kicking covers off the bed all that winter.
Thelma plopped her shoes at the foot of the bed and said she didn’t want anything but a little sheet tucked in over her. “I oughta be up helpin’ you cook supper,” she told me. “And here we come bringin’ nothin’ at all but more for you to do.”
Before I could answer we heard the awfullest clatter from the kitchen. Sam just turned his head, but Thelma knew her little boy pretty well, and she clucked her tongue. “Georgie, I’d just about wager. So sorry, Mrs. Wortham, for whatever he’s done.”
His little child voice was laughing plain enough for us all to hear. “Boomie! Boomie!”
I left Sam reaching for Thelma’s hand and ran to see what Georgie had gotten into this time. I should’ve known. A whole stack of baking pans lay littered across the floor, and Georgie was plopped down in the middle of them looking delighted with himself. I should’ve tied that cupboard shut when I knew he was coming. He’d done the very same thing the last time he was here.
Harry was just standing there helpless. “He didn’t want to be held,” he explained. “I didn’t think it’d hurt to let him walk around a little.”
“It’s all right. Just better to take him in the sitting room so he doesn’t get too close to anything hot, all right?” I did my best shoving all the pans back into the cupboard with little Georgie standing at my side, merrily enjoying all the noise I was making at it.
“Boomie!” he chuckled again. “Boomie!”
Sarah was pulling the hot rolls out of the oven to put on the warming shelf, and Harry didn’t move an inch toward taking Georgie into the next room.
Emma Grace strolled back inside, and I was glad to see her. She was always obliging. “Emmie, please help Harry entertain little Georgie a while. Can you find that rag ball we made?”
Having a job to do made Emmie smile, but Harry immediately protested.
“Ah, if Emmie’s gonna play with him, why do I have to?”
“Just keep an eye on them for me,” I insisted. “Till we have supper ready.”
Harry rolled his eyes. “Why me?”
“Because Sam is with Thelma, Berty’s outside, Katie’s in the garden, and Samuel and your father and the other boys aren’t in from the field yet. But they’ll be here any minute, and it’d do well for you to be found at something helpful.”
“Oh, all right,” he said. “Oughta be Rorey doin’ it, though.”
I couldn’t argue there. She was the one who owed us a bit of helpfulness, to be certain. But she was off in her own world again. If I hadn’t needed Sarah’s help so much right then, I might’ve sent her out to see about Rorey. Maybe then they would’ve gotten to giggling and talking the way they’d been doing since they were six, and come in together ready to set their hands to business.
With Georgie occupied and Thelma resting, I turned my attention back to the chicken, hoping I could get the meal further along before everybody else showed up ravenously hungry. Kate came in with fresh-washed turnips and started peeling them for me. Lizbeth should be here any minute. She’d be bringing food and her helpful hands, and I was looking forward to her visit.
Georgie squealed from the next room, and I ignored his cries to make sure all the chicken was frying. But then Thelma gave a holler, and I couldn’t ignore that.
“I’ll watch the chicken, Mom,” Sarah said, looking a little white.
I ran to the bedroom to see what in the world was wrong. “Baby kicking again?” I asked hopefully.
“No,” Thelma said weakly. “I—I don’t think so, Mrs. Wortham.”
“It’s the pains started, then?” I was feeling a little weak myself.
“I don’t know!” Thelma cried. “It weren’t the same kind of feeling I had before.”
She tried to get up, though I don’t know why. She was straining, pulling herself toward the edge of the bed, when her water broke. She looked up at me with fear plain in her face.
“Lay back down,” I told her. “And don’t you worry about the mess. I’ll get everything cleaned up right around you.” I turned my eyes to young Sam. He was looking pretty scared himself. “I wish I could say for you to take her to the hospital,” I started to say. “But—”
“No, Mrs. Wortham,” he interrupted me. “We can’t pay a hospital. Besides, Thelma don’t want that.”
“We might not ought to move her now, anyway. But I think you should go and find Dr. Howell—”
“No!” Thelma protested. “Don’t send Sammy. Please! I want him here with me.”
She grasped at her husband’s hand like it was some kind of life rope. I thought she was probably right, that he ought to stay. At least she was having no complaint about me wanting the doctor brought in.
“George and Samuel will be back any minute,” I told them, trying to sound calm. “Lizbeth and Ben will be here before long too. I’ll send whoever gets here first. And I expect they’d better stop and see about picking up your mother too?”
Thelma nodded, reaching her free hand for the quilt I’d scrunched up out of her way. “So cold in here all of a sudden,” she said. “How’d that happen?”
“Oh, honey, you’re wet, that’s what it is.” I yelled into the next room. “Sarah! Will you bring me some towels?”
I had no easy time of it, stripping the bedsheets with Thelma still on them, but I didn’t want her getting up. Sam helped her off with her wet clothes, and I got her one of Samuel’s nightshirts, knowing anything of mine would be too small. I made up the bed again with two sturdy old tablecloths underneath the bottom sheet. Sarah briefly stood in the doorway to hand over an armload of towels, but she didn’t linger long enough to ask a single question.
“You tell me,” I said as she was leaving, “just as soon as your father gets here.”
Tucking the quilt around Thelma, I thought,
Why in the world couldn’t Samuel just have stayed home working in the woodshop today?
I knew he and Franky had a few orders to fill. Sure, there was harvesting to be done, poor as the crop would be after all the dry weather, but I would have far preferred him to be here. As it was, there was nobody but Sam and me who could drive, and we were both pretty obligated to stay.
Where were Lizbeth and her husband, Ben Porter? They were never very late getting anywhere. If they were here, I could send Ben right back to town and have Lizbeth help me till the doctor came.
Lord, help us! How hard it’d been for Lizbeth watching her siblings being born, especially Emmie Grace. Wilametta Hammond had felt something “different” at that birth, and I felt almost faint thinking about it. The baby had been breech. Emma Graham had been there to do the midwifing, and she had her trouble bringing them through, but she did it with more strength than I could muster. How I wished I had dear old Emma with me now.
“I’m awful trouble to you, ain’t I?” Thelma asked.
“No.” I sniffed. “I was just wishing I had Emma here, that’s all.”
“Right here in her old room.” Thelma nodded. “I never did figure I’d have me a baby right here in my old Sunday school teacher’s room. I wish she was here too.” She scrunched up her face and tried hard not to holler, but I knew pretty plainly what she was feeling. Sam did too.
“Maybe I oughta check the field and send Pa or Kirk on into town for your mother,” he suggested. “Wouldn’t take me long. I’d be right back.”
God must’ve favored keeping Thelma’s husband at her side, because she didn’t even have time to protest the idea.
“Mom!” Sarah called from the kitchen. “I can see them coming!”
I didn’t know for sure who she meant, but I didn’t wait a minute wondering. I ran straight on out, clear out the back door. And I could see Samuel coming across the field with four more, all of them looking like men. I knew which one was our Robert, and I could tell George Hammond by his hat. The other two, William and Kirk, were so easily the tallest. I didn’t take the time to consider where Franky could be. I just went running out to meet them with my apron flapping in the breeze.
“Juli, honey, what’s the matter?” Samuel called as soon as we were close enough. It wasn’t every day I came out of the house running, that was for sure.
“I need you to hurry to town,” I told him between puffs of breath. “Thelma’s water broke. She’s about to have that baby, and I don’t want to be without some help. She wants her mother, but I think we need Dr. Howell too.” I stopped and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry I don’t have the supper ready yet.”
Samuel smiled. “I couldn’t expect you to be cooking. I’ll go. Now try and relax.”
As I hurried back toward the house I could see Rorey scurrying down out of that tree. George hadn’t seen her. I knew he hadn’t. But I didn’t say anything about it.
Berty came running out of the barn with the old gray mother cat in his arms. “Mom! Mom! Looks like she’s been in a fight or somethin’!”
“Tarnation, boy!” George exclaimed at his son. “Let the cat take care of herself. You’s about to be an uncle again.”
Bert set Ladycat in the dust and stared at us. “Really? Already?”
“Lizbeth’s comin’,” Kirk told us quickly, and I turned my head to see their little car coming down the road.
“Thank the Lord,” I whispered.
“Send Ben,” George suggested. “Be good for him to get hisself involved.”
It was a departure for George to be so obliging about calling for a doctor, I knew. But George had changed some since his wife died.
Lizbeth was clearly surprised to see so many of us outside. She grew a little pale when I told her what was going on. “You go with Mr. Wortham, will you please?” she asked her husband. He answered with a nod.
Robert and I helped Lizbeth carry their covered dishes. Unlike Thelma and Sam, they had the time and energy, and the means, to share their cooking. And no little ones running around yet.
“Go ahead and take our car,” Lizbeth ordered. Ben stayed in the driver’s seat, and Samuel leaned and kissed me before piling in.
But Lizbeth didn’t say another word to Ben, and he backed out the drive in silence. They’d been so close in their two years of marriage that even at a moment like this I noticed the quiet between them as something strange. But I couldn’t say anything.
“Might rain tonight,” Berty told us. “Look at them clouds. It ain’t rained in a long time.”
Lizbeth glanced his way. “I hope it does. But with a baby comin’, it’s not somethin’ I’ll be dwellin’ on.”
When she walked in the kitchen, she took a quick look around. Sarah was at the stove, Katie was still cutting turnips, and Rorey had come in and started setting plates on the table.
“Oh, Mrs. Wortham,” Lizbeth said with a sigh. “Here you are again, right in the middle of helpin’ us out.”
“I was just thinking how glad I am that you’re here to help me.”
She went with me straight in to see Thelma and gave her older brother a hug before sitting on the edge of the bed.
“Lizbeth,” Thelma said, trying to sound casual. “How’s the teaching comin’?”
“No complaints.” Lizbeth smiled. “But I hear you’re fixin’ to make Pa a granddaddy again, and on Willy’s birthday too.”
“Yeah. Somebody should tell him I’m sorry for spoilin’ the party.”
“Won’t bother him any. He’d rather be fishin’, anyway.” Thelma laughed. “He oughta take Georgie and all the boys.”
“You feelin’ all right?”
Thelma didn’t respond to that. “Where’s Ben?”
“Gone with Mr. Wortham to fetch your mother and the doctor.”
I couldn’t quite discern the look in Thelma’s eyes, but she forced a smile. “I’m glad you sent ’em ’fore they could come in an’ see me in this nightshirt. You keep all them boys outta here, will you?”
She was trying to make light of everything, but just as she finished talking, she squeezed at the quilt with one hand and at Sam’s hand with the other.
“Pretty good already, huh?” Lizbeth asked. “How far apart?”
“We don’t know,” Sam told her.
“Haven’t timed them,” I admitted, wondering where my head had been. But maybe it didn’t matter if we knew that or not.