The Fragrance of Geraniums (A Time of Grace Book 1) (29 page)

T
he baby hung on
until the first week of April. Five weeks late. Grace found Mama gripping the
corner of the stove with a white-knuckled hand one morning, so early that the
frost still clung to the window panes.

“Want me get
Mrs. Bailey, Mama?” Grace asked for the tenth time since Christmas. Her heart
sped up in anticipation.
The baby’s coming! I’m sure it is.

Mama turned a
grimaced face toward her. “No, not yet, Grace.”

Grace heard a
dripping noise and realized that Mama stood in a puddle of fluid.

Mama glanced at
her uneasily, almost apologetically, like a dog who’d vomited and felt bad.

“Don’t worry,
Mama,” Grace hurried. “I’ll clean it up.”

Weariness
already gnawing her face, Mama nodded. “Thanks.” She held her hands against her
back and shuffled toward the bedroom.

“Tell me when
you want me to get Mrs. Bailey,” Grace called after the retreating figure. She
grabbed an old towel and began mopping up the puddle, nervousness making her
fingers shake.

G
race gritted her
teeth at the guttural moan issuing from Mama’s bedroom. She’d long since
fetched the old midwife, who relaxed in the rocking chair beside Mama’s bed, her
knitting held in sun-spotted hands.

Chop the
carrots. By the time you finish, her labor will be over.
Grace coached
herself through each task. She was preparing chicken soup at Mrs. Bailey’s
instruction. “Your Mama,” Mrs. Bailey had said earlier, “will feel weak and
want something nourishing to eat after the baby’s born.” So Grace filled the
afternoon hours with making the soup, glad to have something with which to
occupy her hands.

“Ouch!” A line
of liquid red sparkled on her finger. The knife had slipped. Grace inspected
the offending digit. Not too deep. She sucked away the tangy blood and wrapped
a scrap of rag around the cut as a makeshift bandage.

Finishing with
chopping the vegetables, she poured them into the pot – celery, carrots,
potatoes. They plopped into the chicken stock, and she covered the pot with its
lid. They’d take a while to soften up.

The sun set. Its
rays filtered through the window above the sink, turning the kitchen orange and
yellow. Grace pulled the curtains closed a bit and turned impatiently toward
Mama’s bedroom door.

Silence. Was the
baby born, then? No, babies screamed when a woman birthed them, when they came
face-to-face with this new reality called life.
I don’t blame them.
Licking
her lips, Grace edged toward the bedroom door, wondering if Mrs. Bailey would
get upset if she knocked.

But Grace didn’t
have long to wonder. The door opened just wide enough for her to see Mama stretched
out on the bed, stifled by her pain. Mrs. Bailey squeezed her short round
figure through the doorway, shutting the door behind her.

Unable to speak,
Grace beseeched Mrs. Bailey with her eyes.

The Irishwoman’s
mouth set in a firm line. “Now, listen, child. Your mama’s time has come to
give birth, but the baby refuses to enter this world. It’s come to the end of
my ability, I hate to say. Where’s your papa? He should get your mama to the
hospital.”

Numb, Grace
shook her head. “I don’t know where he is,” she managed. Papa had headed out
early that morning. “But Mama will never go to the hospital. It’s where people
go to die, she says.”
And it costs far more than we could ever afford to
pay.

The midwife’s
jaw tightened visibly.
She’s afraid
. The sturdy woman usually took
everything in easy stride; if Mrs. Bailey sensed something was getting out of
control…

“Let me ask
Mama,” Grace heard herself say, swallowing the lump in her throat.

The midwife
hesitated, then nodded. Her crepe-paper hand popped open the door behind her,
and she allowed Grace to enter the darkened bedroom.

Mama moved
restlessly beneath a thin sheet, her complexion matching it. “Mama?”

Mama’s eyes
fluttered open, struggling to focus. “Grace,” she swallowed. “You shouldn’t be
in here.”

“Mrs. Bailey let
me in.” Seeing Mama so helpless tore at Grace’s chest. “Mama, she wants you to
go to the hospital. She says—”

But Mama
interrupted before Grace could finish the explanation. “No,” she gasped out just
before Grace saw a contraction wrestling her body into paralysis. Finally, the
pain apparently releasing her, Mama murmured, “Is Mrs. Bailey sure… sure she
can’t deliver me?”

Grace turned to
glance back at the midwife, who immediately gave a nod. “Yeah, Mama. She’s
sure.”

Mama stayed
silent for another long moment. “Then get Doctor Philips. I ain’t going to no
hospital.”

Grace nodded and
moved to the door.

“Sweet Jesus
give wings to your feet, child,” Mrs. Bailey intoned, making Grace’s heart
pound even harder.

“Grace,” Mama
called just before Grace passed through the door.

“Yeah?”

“Do you… Do you
think Emmeline would mind coming round?”

“Mrs. Kinner?” Grace
blinked in surprise.

“Yeah.” Mama
grimaced, trying to roll over but not managing it.

“She’d come,” Grace
said, knowing it for certain.

“Then… Then get
her, too.”

A
scream pierced
the still black night, waking Charlie from a thick slumber.

“What’s that?”
He felt Gertrude tense beside him as she asked the question.

“She must’ve had
the baby,” Charlie mumbled. Gertrude didn’t like it when he referred to Sarah
outright, so he always used a pronoun. They both knew of whom he spoke.

His girlfriend
shivered, clutching the coverlet to her chin. “Does it always sound so… so
awful? Like someone got themselves murdered?”

In that moment,
Charlie felt more than his usual serving of disdain for Gertrude. “Yeah,” he
said. “She has big babies. Hurts coming out, ya know.”

Gertrude stayed
silent for a moment, maybe contemplating his words. Then she offered, “Or she’s
just a crybaby.”

“Yeah,” said
Charlie carelessly, knowing it was far from the truth.

“I mean, she had
the baby, didn’t she? She didn’t die or nothin’.” Gertrude persisted. “Couldn’t
have been that bad.”

“Naw,” he
agreed, to shut her up. He needed his sleep, after all.

E
leven pounds,
six ounces of human flesh-and-bone. Though, as a young teenager, Emmeline had
accompanied her mother to visit poor new mothers, she had never seen such a
large baby born as Sarah’s.

Carefully,
Emmeline picked up the infant from its place beside nearly-unconscious Sarah.
She marveled in his perfectly-formed fingers, his red-flushed skin, the black
hair thatching his domed head.

“Quite a lot of
tearing you’ve got there, Sarah,” Doctor Philips commented, his deft hands
finishing the sewing. “You’ll have pain for quite a while, I should think. And
no wonder, with such a baby. Almost twelve pounds.”

Sarah didn’t
reply; she just leaned her head back on her pillow and closed her eyes.

The doctor
turned to Emmeline, fatigue draping his body. “Will you be staying here with
her? I hate to leave her by herself.”

Emmeline nodded.
“Yes, I’ll stay with her for as long as she needs me.” She clasped the warm
bundle of baby nearer to her chest and gazed at Sarah, painfully sleeping now.

“I gave her
something to make her rest easier,” Doctor Philips informed her. “That’s the
best thing for her right now. She’ll feed him when she wakes up.”

“Alright.” The
baby nestled in the crook of Emmeline’s arm, as if he belonged there.

“And Sarah
usually puts her babies in a bureau drawer, lined with a blanket and maybe a
hot water bottle. Oh.” He pointed toward a drawer laid next to the far side of
the bed, already lined with old blankets. “There it is. She must have prepared
it before she went into labor.”

Emmeline nodded,
her gaze fastened to the baby’s tiny flushed face.

“Emmeline.”
Doctor Philips placed a fatherly hand on Emmeline’s shoulder. She looked up to
meet his kind eyes. They exuded his concern. “You oughtn’t stay here. I know
how much you desired your own…” He trailed off, letting her fill in the rest.

She smiled. “The
Lord is my strength, Doctor. Don’t worry about me.”

Doctor Philips
sighed, and his hand slid off her shoulder. “Alright.”

The doctor left,
but Emmeline didn’t place the baby in the drawer. Rather, she made certain that
Sarah was comfortably asleep and then sat down in the creaky rocking chair next
to the bed. Softly humming a hymn, she rocked the baby until dawn touched the
windowsill with its golden light.

E
mmeline had
come. Sarah hadn’t been able to speak because of the pain last night, but she’d
seen her friend arrive, a dark-haired angel, just as Doctor Philips came. And
Sarah had been so thankful, so comforted by this woman who had spoken words of
compassion and prayed over her for the past few weeks.
I’ve never known
anyone like her. She owes me nothing and yet gives me so much.
Emmeline had
stayed through the long hours of grueling labor, holding Sarah’s hand, whispering
words of encouragement and things from the Bible.

Hovering now between
waking and sleeping, Sarah’s thoughts whirled to her daughter. Poor Grace!
Wherever her daughter was, she surely must have heard Sarah’s scream at the
very end of the labor, when the baby had torn its way from her body. Everyone
must have heard it; even Charlie…

H
e’d waited until
late afternoon when Gertrude headed off to do some shopping and he’d seen that
lady-friend of Sarah’s walk off the property.
His
property. “Don’t see
why I feel like I have to sneak up to my own house,” Charlie grumbled as he
scraped his way to the back door.

When he entered
the kitchen, he heard the floorboards creak over his head. Relief poured over
him. Good; Grace must be doing something upstairs. He couldn’t have said why
he’d come into to the house anyway; it wasn’t mealtime. It couldn’t be to see
his wife and newborn, yet his feet brought him over to the bedroom that he’d
shared with her for nearly twenty years.

Sarah looked
like such an shabby thing, couched in that bed that sagged so in the middle. It
had been his papa and mama’s bed before him, Charlie remembered as he looked
down at his wife’s plump form. Her arm extended over the quilt; she wore a
much-laundered nightgown, thin as a dish rag and not nearly as pretty. Someone
must’ve brushed her hair and tied it back from her face; it climbed over her
shoulder in a thin graying rope, the little tassel at the end touching the
smooth downy head against her chest. Sarah’d fallen asleep nursing the infant,
who nestled close as a squirrel to its mother’s body.

It
. Whether a boy
or yet another girl, the baby certainly looked healthy, not yellow as a banana
like Grace and Cliff had been at birth. As Charlie watched, the baby gave a
tiny yawn and snuggled even nearer on Sarah’s bosom. He leaned against the
doorframe and gazed at the woman and her freshly-made child, fighting the
emotions twisting his face this way and that in the long seconds before Sarah
opened her eyes.

He didn’t know
what wakened her. She’d always been a light sleeper, so maybe it was just the
insignificant movements of the living thing at her breast that did it.
Stirring, Sarah didn’t see him there at first, leaning back into the shadowy
doorway, dark coat still drawn over his body. She blinked away the cobwebs of
sleep, pushing one reddened hand over her eyes, tucking a strand of hair behind
her ear. Charlie heard the deep sigh Sarah gave as she remembered the little
bit of flesh in the crook of her elbow. She shifted her body carefully so that
the baby wouldn’t wake, raising herself up a little more on the flattened
pillows with her free hand. Charlie stuffed down the guilt that rose up inside
him as he saw her struggling and knew that he could help her… but wouldn’t.

Well. It was now
or never. No reason for him to keep standing here in the doorway of his own
bedroom, like a visitor, rather than the master of his house. Charlie cleared
his throat, hacking up a little wad of mucus so it wouldn’t sound like he was
trying to be polite for Sarah’s sake. He saw her gaze fly up at the sound just
as he stepped into the light.

She tensed but
didn’t drop her eyes. Charlie kept his own as unreadable as he could.
She
won’t get the best of me.
The bare light bulb created shadows on Sarah’s
face and neck and shoulders.
She looks old,
he thought, taking in the
creases on her forehead, the wrinkles on her chest, the freckled skin on her
once-milky upper arms. The contrast between the newly-minted baby and the
timeworn bride of his youth brought the bile of revulsion to Charlie’s mouth.
I
wish Gertrude lay there with my child instead of her.

But he didn’t
really; even Charlie knew this. He wished he was a young man again, handsome,
dapper, not lacking any women who were eager to hang on his every word. Looking
at Sarah made him realize afresh that he was just old Charlie Picoletti, father
of seven, strapped by God and law to an aging, offended wife. But – thank the
saints! - Gertrude waited for him in the cottage out back, barren of children,
yes, but always willing to assure him of his manliness and youth. His eyes
fastened on the child at Sarah’s bosom. Six children – now seven – Didn’t Sarah
know when to stop? What did she think she was, a rabbit?

“Did they tell
you, Charlie?” Sarah asked in her low voice, the only sound in that ticking
silence. “It’s a boy.” Pride sparkled out of her eyes as she turned the baby
toward him a little.

He looked at it,
flesh of his flesh, combined with that of Sarah, who’d risked her life once
again to deliver that small parcel of humanity. Tightly-wrapped, it lay
pink-faced and wrinkled, at peaceful rest. So conflicted between instinct and
desire, Charlie didn’t move; he knew Sarah wanted him to go over to the bed and
pick up the child, hold it against himself. He saw it in Sarah’s eyes: It would
be her way of claiming him again, her way of triumphing over the woman in the cottage
out back.

What right has
she to triumph?
The thought made him straighten, made the molten emotion in Charlie’s heart
harden into resolve.
Gertrude lives out in a cottage, hiding away from
notice, while I’ve given Sarah all this – the house, my name, my dough -
besides the children. What right does Sarah have to complain about anything?
She
wanted him to talk, to compliment her, to return to her arms because of this
baby? He thought not. Most certainly he would
not.
He jutted out his jaw
and stared at Sarah, wanting to burn holes through her into the headboard for
all the trouble she’d caused him. Some women at least had the decency to die
off.

“Well, Charlie,”
she said at last, breaking the silence that had become awkward quickly, “Do you
have any names in mind? I-I know we haven’t talked about it much…” Her voice
trailed off, and she dropped her eyes from his.

Much? They
hadn’t discussed the baby at all, much less what it would be christened.
Charlie snorted. “Name him what you want,” he stated, shrugging and turning to
go. He’d show Sarah that there’d be no manipulating Charlie Picoletti.

“What do you
mean? Don’t you want…?”

The thin needy
tone coming from the bed annoyed him, and Charlie turned his head just enough
so that Sarah could hear him. Why must he repeat himself? Couldn’t she hear him
the first time? “I don’t want nothing, Sarah,” he snapped out. “He’s not my
concern,” he added, using one of Gertrude’s fancy phrases to intimidate her.

“He’s your
child,” Sarah gasped. “Your own flesh and blood, Charlie!”

The baby started
to cry at her slightly raised voice, and Charlie gritted his teeth at the high-pitched
mewing. “Is he, Sarah? I didn’t want him in the first place, and I don’t care
what you do with him or what you name him. Just don’t name him after me.”

Charlie strode
out of that confining bedroom and into the cool, dark hall. Glad to breathe
freely at last, he paused for just a moment to collect himself. Behind him, he
could hear Sarah weeping. She would hide her face in the bedclothes, Charlie
knew, so that she didn’t further disturb the baby.
Let her cry.
He felt
no remorse. She’d had it coming to her, after all.