he first pain surprised her. She'd felt contractions on and off for weeks, but Sadie had assured her that they were nothing. Just her body practicing for the real thing.
“How will I know when it's real?” Gloria had asked.
“You will know.”
And with that first pain, she did.
It wasn't particularly strong. It didn't bring her to her knees or make her cry out. It simply tugged at her back, like a child with an apron string, and told her, “It's time, mama. It's time.”
She had been in Jewell's kitchen, a rare visit these days. March was a fickle time in Wyoming. One day the snow would be so deep, Gloria's pregnant stomach prevented her from stepping high enough to get through it. Then would come days where slush and mud made walking a treacherous path for a woman who couldn't see her feet. For weeks now, Gloria stayed mostly to the bed in her cabin.
But today the air was crisp, the wind reasonable, and the path a perfect surface of shallow crunchy snow
The women sat around their familiar table, sipping their familiar coffee. The difference was that now Gloria was so big she could hardly reach her cup.
“Ach! Why don't you move in? Upstairs?” Sadie asked, just as she had countless times.
Jewell never offered such an invitation, and this evening was no exception. She simply looked at Gloria and waited for an answer.
“I've told you. I like the little house. I like to be alone. I've never been alone before.”
“You're spendin’ a lot of time here for someone who likes to be alone so much,” Jewell said.
Gloria made a face. “Besides, I think it might be better if—if the baby isn't born in a whorehouse.”
Jewell laughed out loud. “Darlin', what do you think you're livin’ in now? Just because I'm not sendin’ men out there don't mean that I put up that shack to be a guest room.”
“It's just that, it's never been—I've never had—”
“And don't be thinkin’ that you're gonna take up residence in the Taj Mahal permanent. Once that baby's out, I expect to get some work outta you.”
“Of course,” Gloria said, soothing. “But for now, I think of it as a home. My home.”
They'd finished an early supper and Gloria stood to clear the table.
“Let me do that,” Biddy said, taking the plate from Gloria's hand. “You should rest a bit. You look tired.”
’ “Don't be silly,” Gloria said. “I'm fine. Besides, if I don't do the clearing, I'll have to do the cooking.”
Mae, Sadie, and Jewell all assumed an expression of mock horror and urged Biddy to please, please, let Gloria do the dishes.
“I'd waste away to no thin’ if I had to eat your cookin',” Mae said.
“Wouldn't do you no harm,” Jewell said. “Frankly, I don't care who cleans up the mess, just get it done. It's a nice day, gonna be a nice night. You girls all look a bit haggard. Finish the kitchen, then get yourselves ready.”
When the door finished swinging behind Jewell, the atmosphere in the room changed to one of light, lively fun. Sadie poured steaming water from the kettle into the washbasin. Mae scraped the plates into a slop can before handing them to Gloria, who submerged them in the hot, soapy water. Once clean, they were handed to Biddy, who dried and stacked them on the table to be put away later.
“I like doing dishes,” Gloria said. “It makes me feel like I'm putting everything back in order again. A new beginning.”
“Listen to her,” Sadie said, scrubbing a heavy cast-iron skillet, “a regular philosopher. Too bad your mama didn't work back East—you could have gone to college.”
“Might have to learn to read first.” Gloria's voice held all the humor of Sadie's, and there was the familiar layer of laughter that accompanied much of the women's conversation. Although she'd been a part of it for nearly five months, it still managed to warm Gloria's soul in a way she never could have imagined.
“I can see what Gloria means,” Mae said. “There's something satisfying about standin’ at the window, lookin’ out at the sunset.”
“You know what would be even better?” The dream-filled voice of Biddy made them all pause and turn to her. “It would be even better to know that you were standing at your own window in your own house looking at your own yard and doing your own dishes.”
That feeling settled among the women, and while nobody said anything at first, the sense of agreement was strong. After a few seconds, Sadie's voice broke the melancholy in the room.
“What would be best,” she said, “would be to be at your window, doing your dishes, and have the man of the house come up behind you, nuzzle your neck, and say Tut, tut, darling. You look tired. Why don't you sit down and let me finish up?'”
The laughter was back. Not loud, not raucous, but soft and complete. It was a sound that filled every corner of the room. Gloria enjoyed her contribution to it, loved the feeling of it bubbling up from deep within her. She was just finishing a long soprano sigh when she felt it.
That first pain.
That first tug.
She handed the last clean cup to Biddy, used the end of her apron to wipe her hands, and grabbed her coat.
“I've got to get home now, girls,” she said and closed the door on their good-byes.
The single window faced the east, so she couldn't watch the sunset, but Gloria did look through her blue flowered curtains as the shadow of her cabin stretched across the yard. All the lights were on at Jewell's, the windows open. The crowd Jewell was expecting didn't arrive. From what she could tell, there were just a few men over, playing cards and buying drinks. The house sounded full, not loud, and Gloria knew that if she ever did have a place in it, she wouldn't after tonight.
The pains progressed with the darkness. First erratic and inconsequential, they grew in intensity and regularity. She'd almost laughed at the first ones. Ooh, that's a big one!” Or, “Yep, I think this is it!” Laughing, she thought, was better than screaming—not that they'd been strong enough to make her scream. Besides, laughter meant strength.
But as the shadows lengthened and the darkness crept in and around her home, the laughter died.
“1 should have told Sadie,” she said to the empty room. “She should be here. She said she'd be here.”
There was a little fire in the stove, not much more than embers right now, and still she felt hot. She'd taken off her clothes earlier, and now sat on her bed wearing one of Mae's nightgowns. The room was encased in darkness. Her only lamp sat on a little shelf that jutted out from the windowsill. She rarely lit it, preferring to lie in the darkness and concentrate on feeling the movement of the baby within her.
The life within her.
Left in the dark, she could imagine the trappings of a home surrounded her. She could conjure the breath of a sleeping mate. She could pretend that this child was coming into a world where it would be loved and cared for in a way she never was. She tried to imagine herself, an unborn mass in her mother's womb, tried to see her mother lying in darkness eagerly awaiting Gloria's arrival. A single flame in the lamp would make all of that disappear. A solitary strike of a match would light the whole room and reveal its bed, its bureau, its chair, its stove. Worse, it would reveal the small green leather case, the legacy her mother left her. The rootless existence handed to her. The mere presence of light was not worth the dashing of a dream, not on any ordinary evening, anyway
But this was no ordinary night. With a shaking hand, she lit the lamp, turned the flame high, and waited for someone to notice.
Another pain seized her.
Why hadn't she told Sadie? Why didn't she call out to her now? Why not risk the few steps across the yard? The pain that gripped her made Gloria feel as though the muscles in her body were about to rise against her and squeeze out her own breath, her own life. Without Sadies help, she felt she might not live through this night at all.
Maybe that's why she'd kept silent.
Last week she lived through two days without feeling the baby move. Not at all. She'd stayed awake all night, not wanting to miss a single kick. But nothing. She knew it was dead, just knew it. She remembered the sadness in Sadie's face as she talked about her stillborn children, yet she felt a tiny sense of relief at the thought of escaping motherhood. She congratulated herself on the confirmation of her inadequacy.
But when she woke up that third morning to the insistent stretching of arms and legs within her, she experienced pure joy Silently alone in her bed, she had rejoiced at the child's determination and strength. The baby wanted her, and it wasn't until this night, this moment, this pain that she wanted it, too.
If the baby could decide to live, so could she. But not alone. She needed help; she needed Sadie. She needed—
To walk. Maybe she could make it to the door. A breath of fresh air. She was a little unsteady, stooped over. It only took about three steps to go from her bed to her door, and by the time she made it through the third step, she felt as though her body were engulfed in shards of glass. She fell against the door latch and took a stumbling step outside. Sometime during the seconds that had passed since she left her bed, it had started to snow. Fat, soft, silent flakes. Gloria turned her face up toward the sky and opened her mouth. The snowfall was so new, so irregular, that it was some time before she felt a flake fall onto'her tongue. But she did, then another, and another as the snowfall increased in intensity.
Then pain.
She held onto the doorframe even as she fell to her knees. She knew she would never make it across the yard to Jewell's back door, so when the grip of this last contraction eased, she called to the open window.
“Sadieeeee!”
The wind wasn't howling or strong enough to whisk her voice away, but the thickness of falling snow seemed to absorb sound.
“Sadieeeee!” she called again.
Still no tall silhouette in Jewells doorway. No bustle of broad shoulders and ash-colored hair. No friendly voice, no ready joke. No capable hands to deliver one life and keep another.
She had to try one more time. Just one more. If Sadie didn't come, she would crawl to her bed and wait to die. She straightened her back as best she could, took a deep breath, and screamed into the growing sheet of snow
“Sadieeeee!”
Still nothing. Still on her knees, she allowed her weight to settle on her feet. She felt a chill begin to spread throughout her body Then she felt something else.
Warmth.
It was coming from within her. Slowly her feet and ankles were drenched in liquid warmth.
“Oh, dear God,” she said. “I've killed it. I'm sorry,” she called in the general direction of Jewell's house. “I'm so sorry”
Gloria let loose of her grip on the threshold, felt her face hit the mud, and sank into blackness.
Somebody was telling her to wake up. Insisting, really
“Come now, Gloria,” said the voice at the edge of the fog. “Wake up now We got some work to do.”
“Mama?”
“Sure, if that's what it takes. You ready to have this baby?”
“Mama…mama, I'm sorry”
“Not as sorry as you're going to be if…”
The rest of the sentence dissolved in a grunt. Two strong hands grasped her under her arms and suddenly she was being lifted to her feet.
“Let's get you to the bed.”
“I killed it,” Gloria said, sobbing. She did her best to shuffle her weight in the direction that the hands were dragging her. “I felt it, just pouring out—”
“That was just your water breaking.”
“What water?”
“Your water. It happens. It is natural and right.”
Gloria felt the edge of her bed behind her knees and began to sink down upon it.
“Not just yet. Your gown is soaked and we need to get it off.”
The fabric was tugged off her shoulders and she felt it fall at her feet. She convulsed a bit at the sudden chill, but the warm, strong hands guided her to lie down. Soon she was engulfed in the warmth of her quilt pile.
“You warm yourself up, Liebling.” The hair was brushed off Gloria's face with the softest caress she could remember. “I need to get some help.”
Gloria reached up and gripped the hand that stroked her cheek.
“Don't leave me, please. Not again.”
“It's all right, Gloria. I'll be back. Right back. I won't leave you.”
The haze dissipated, and Gloria felt the clear, strong presence of love. This wasn't her mother. This was her friend.
“Sadie. You're here.”
“Yes.” Her voice was deep and warm and full of promise.
“Sadie, 1 killed the baby”
“Darling, relax. You are fine. The baby's fine.”
“I don't want it to die. I don't want to die.”
“Nobody is going to die tonight,” Sadie said, her voice strong and authoritative. “But 1 need another set of hands in here.”
“You'll be back?”
“Of course.”
“Sadie?”
“Yes, honey.”
“How did you know to come here?”
Sadie laughed. “Biddy made a spice cake, and you didn't show up. We knew something had to be wrong.”
Gloria's body embraced her laughter.
“Now stay put,” Sadie said. “I'll go get one of the girls.”
Sadie stood up and crossed the room.
“Sadie?”
A sigh. “Yes, Gloria.” She kept a hand on the door's latch while turning to face her friend.
“I never laughed until I met you.”
“Of course you did.”
“No, 1 didn't. I really don't think 1 did.”
“You just don't remember. Now, I've got to go get some help.”
“All right. Sadie?”
Another sigh. This time she let go of the latch, walked back to the bed, and knelt beside Gloria.
“What?”
“Could you bring me a piece of that spice cake?”
“Not until you're through,” Sadie said.
Gloria started to voice her disappointment, but it turned into a moan. Right away, Sadie was at the foot of the bed, lifting the quilt from Gloria's legs and repositioning her body
“On second thought,” Sadie said, “the girls will figure it out. I am staying right here.”
Gloria wanted to say “thank you,” but the haze was back. She felt Sadie's hand between her thighs.
“1 can feel the head. It won't be long now.”
“It has a head?”
“Of course it has a head. No creature runs around on this earth without a head. Except maybe you sometimes.” More laughter…
“Sadie?”
“Yes, Gloria.”
“It doesn't hurt anymore. Why doesn't it hurt?”
“Because I am here. I'm helping you.”
“I don't feel anything.”
“You will. It is almost time to push.”
“Push?”
“You'll know. Your body will tell you when to push the baby out.”
“I don't want to push it out. It's safe with me.”
“It will still be with you. It will always be safe.”
“But I don't know…”
Faces appeared in the doorway. Voices popped into the room. Mae brought fresh water for Gloria to sip and coffee for Sadie. Biddy brought fresh linens and firewood. Jewell wondered when it would all be over. So did Gloria. Sadie knew…
“Deserted by the waning moon,
When skies proclaimed night's cheerless noon,
On Tower Fon or tended ground,
The Sentry walks his lowly round
The Sentry walks his lowly round…”