Beverly Byrne (23 page)

She
carried the mug toward the house. It looked fine in the half-light that hid its
wounds. Tommy seemed to think it could look really fine again.

The
sun rose at her back. The mellow terracotta walls of the house shimmered to
life. She smelled a sweet vanilla scent drifting across the morning. Amy
followed the perfume to the patio, and gazed up at the mass of branches twined
overhead. The leaves were a soft gray green. They hung absolutely still, as if
to protect the tiny cruciform blossoms that studded length and breadth. They
were white, as Diego has promised. Then, while she watched, a shaft of new sun
caught them. The flowers turned to flame.

18

SIXMONTHS
LATER, ON THE TWELFTH OF NOVEMBER, 1917, Amy's child was born.

Her
labor began in an afternoon almost as dark as night, the first sunless day she
had known in New Mexico, "Will it rain?" she asked Maria. They were
desperate for rain.

"Not
yet. Duster first. Then rain maybe."

Amy
gasped with another pain and Maria led her inside the shed. Amy had fantasized giving
birth under the sun. On the patio perhaps, under the gum tree. There could be
no chance of that today,

Luckily
Tommy was home. He'd returned the previous day after a week out on the range.
He'd left Diego to continue supervising the erection of the fence. Now he
looked at his wife and required no instructions.

"I'll
take the car and go into town. Be back with Ibanez in a few hours."

Maria
made Amy lie down, then sat beside her. "When pains come you breathe hard.
No push yet. I tell you when."

After
an hour Amy heard the wind. Maria was standing by the door, looking out.
"What is it?" Amy demanded. "What's happening?"

"Duster."

Amy
craned her neck. She could see nothing but dark. The room was filled with
eddying currents. She felt the onslaught of another contraction and tried to
breathe, but inhaled choking sand instead of air.

Maria
heard her coughing. She soaked a cloth in water, then tied it over Amy's nose
and mouth. She made the same arrangement for herself. The two women looked at
each other above surreal masks that swiftly turned red brown and had to be
rinsed and renewed every ten minutes.

"No
more water," Maria said after a while. "I get some. Come back
quick." She took a bucket and stepped outside, hunched against the dry,
debilitating storm.

Amy
felt a contraction that seemed to start at the back of her neck and move down
her spine in a paralyzing grip of increasing intensity. She screamed, but the
sound was lost in the screeching wind. The pain went on and on until she had no
more breath to scream and could only moan.

Maria
returned, took one look at her, and came quickly to the bedside. "Sit up,"
she commanded. "Open legs."

Amy
struggled to do as she was told. Maria put her strong arms around the girl's
shoulders and dragged her upright. "Push, senora. Push down. You squeeze
out baby."

Amy
pushed. She felt warmth and wetness, but more than anything else, pain. It was
gut-wrenching, tearing pain, without surcease. She clung to Maria. Her mask
slipped. She screamed in an unfiltered mouthful of the sand that blew all
around them. It was as if the rotten walls of the shed didn't exist and they
were outside in the raging elements.

Then
it was over. Amy sagged against the older woman, but Maria moved away and Amy
was left with only the wall for support.

Maria
reached for the child and laid it on Amy's belly. Then she severed the cord
with a knife. Quickly she soaked a towel in a bucket of water and flung it over
the baby. Maria's hands reached beneath the protective cover.

"What
is it?" Amy murmured. "Is it all right?"

"Girl,"
Maria muttered under her breath. She continued her efforts. A few seconds
passed; then the baby cried. At the same instant the wind stopped. Maria smiled
broadly. "Girl, ok," she said. "Boy next time. Even better."

Amy
fainted.

When
she came to, Rick was there, bending over her and smiling his familiar warm
smile. "You were impatient, Amy," he said. "You started without
me."

"Sorry."
She smiled back. They had become friends in the months of her pregnancy.
"The baby ..."

"She's
fine. A beautiful girl. You're both fine. Maria knows as much about all this as
I do. She says you had an easy time of it. Quicker than expected."

Amy's
eyes flew open. "Easy?"

He
grinned. "Anyway, Maria's proud of you. She says you did as well as an
Indian woman. From her that's high praise."

Amy
looked away and didn't answer.

"Here."
Rick reached into the basket beside them and lifted the infant. She was wrapped
in blankets and only her tiny face showed. It was red and wrinkled and the eyes
were screwed shut. He lay the bundle in Amy's arms.

She
looked at the child and knew neither what she should feel nor what she felt.
She was too tired, still disoriented. "She's lighter than I
expected," Amy whispered. "And I can't see her eyes. Have you seen
them? What color are they?"

"Blue.
All babies are born with blue eyes. And she weighs six pounds. That's not too
small. She's a healthy, normal baby, Amy. Don't worry."

"If
you say so." She stroked the tiny cheek with one finger. Something burst
inside her. Love, hope, joy-call it anything. It made her feel happy and sad at
the same time, and she knew she was crying, but not why.

Rick
swallowed hard and reached out his hand. but drew it back without touching
either of them. "Tommy's waiting outside. I'll get him."

Tommy
came in and stood by the bed, staring at his wife and child. Finally Amy
stopped crying and looked up. "Here, you can hold her." She started
to lift the baby toward him.

He
shook his head. "No, I don't dare." He dropped to his knees and
studied the little face peeking out from the blankets. At that moment the tiny
mouth opened and the baby made a sound. "Jesus," Tommy whispered.
"Oh, Jesus ..." It was as if, until that moment he hadn't believed
the child was alive.

The
next day he went again to Santa Fe. There was no dust storm this time, and he
made it there and back in six hours. He came into the shed with a big unwieldy
parcel, unwrapped it, and stood back for Amy to admire the bassinet. "I
don't want her sleeping in a basket like some damned papoose," he said.

The
bassinet was painted white and had a tulle skirt and lots of pink satin
ribbons. It stood on wheels, and he pushed it close beside the bed and waited
until Amy lay the baby inside.

"I've
been thinking about her name," she said.

"Mmm,
so have I. But the only thing I come up with is Cecily or Jessie, maybe both.
But they don't sound good together."

"No!"
She shook her head violently. "I don't want to name her for anyone. I want
her just to be herself."

Tommy
was slightly awed by her and by what she had accomplished, as it seemed, all by
herself. "Ok. What do you want then?"

"Kate.
That's all."

"It
will have to be Kathleen or Catherine," he said. "Kate's just a
nickname."

"No,
only Kate."

"She
can't be baptized with a nickname. They won't allow it."

Amy's
brown eyes darted to his face. As far as she knew, he had not been near a
church in almost a year. "You want her baptized? In a Catholic
church?"

"Yes.
You promised, Amy. Don't fight me about it now. "

 "I
won't, I just thought you had forgotten about all that."

He
laughed softly. "No, not quite." He looked at the baby and then at
her. "Tell you what, pick a middle name, something ordinary. Then the Kate
part will be all right. They let you do that."

Amy
thought for a moment. "Mary, I suppose. That ought to fulfill the
requirements."
But she'll always be just Kate to me
, she thought.

"Mary
Kate. Sounds better than the other way around," he said. Amy shrugged her
acquiesence. "Mary Kate Westerman it is, then," Tommy said.

He
stood up and looked around the room, and at the incongruous glamor of the
bassinet. "The fence is almost finished. Another month, maybe six weeks.
Soon as it's done I've arranged for the crew to start on the house. With luck
we'll be able to move in early next year."

"Don't
feel you have to," Amy said. "Not for me or for her. If you want to
wait until there's more money, it's all right."

"I
had a letter from Uncle Donald," he said. "The Eighty-third Street
house is sold. My share's a bit over thirty thousand. We can afford to live
like human beings. "

Amy
thought of the New York house as she had last seen it; covered in dust sheets,
with all Cecily Westerman's beautiful things packed away. "Did they sell
it furnished?" she asked. She wanted to ask what Luke would do with his
portion of the money. What did a Dominican do with thirty thousand dollars? She
knew better than to voice the question.

"Almost
completely furnished," Tommy said. "I sent Donald a list of a few
things I wanted. He's shipping them. "

"What
things?"

"Nothing
much, most of it would look out of place here. Just Dad's desk and Mother's
statue. The antique from France."

"The
madonna and child," she said.

"Yes,
that's right."

In
March of 1918 they moved into the main house. That same day Tommy had the old
shed dismantled and the rubble carted away.

"Kate
was born there," Amy said. "Maybe we should leave it for her to
see."

"Not
a chance! I don't want her thinking about things like that. I want her to know
only this."

He
had grown less timid of his daughter. Now he carried her as they walked through
the restored rooms of the old hacienda. The walls were repaired and
whitewashed, and the ancient wood was sanded and polished. The floors were
tiled in dull red and covered with bright Mexican carpets. It wasn't entirely
furnished, but the rooms that were had the heavy carved pieces that had been
left behind by DeAngeles. as well as some new things in the same style. Tommy
had found them in Santa Fe and Albuquerque. He had, in fact, chosen all the
decoration.

Amy
walked beside him and studied the ambience he'd created. "While the work
was going on I couldn't really tell about it," she said. "Now, seeing
it all together and with the workmen gone, it's beautiful."

"Yes,"
he said. "Here, hold Kate a minute. There's one more thing I want to
do."

He
left, then returned with his mother's statue and set it on a shelf in the
entrance foyer. It looked perfect. Amy had to admit that. The wormeaten wood
with its centuries old patina glowed against the white wall. When the door was
open, sunlight bathed the figure and revealed shafts of gold hitherto secreted
in the grain.

There
had been more rain than usual over the winter. Now the desert bloomed in a
riotous, fecund spring. Exotic, unknown perfumes filled the air, and Amy waited
impatiently for the gum tree to have its turn. Anxiously she watched the birds
that settled in its branches, afraid lest they peck the life from the closed
buds. Her only other worry was that her milk suddenly dried up and she had to
put Kate on a bottle.

The
baby didn't seem to mind. She cooed and gurgled and grew strong and healthy in
the cool, spacious house. Kate was somehow a meeting place for her mother and
father. She was someone they both loved so much that she created an oasis of
peace in the aridity of their tense and unhappy marriage.

Tommy
no longer drank, but he grew colder and harder and more distant. He spent more and
more time away from the house. For weeks at a stretch he was out riding the
range, overseeing the delivery of new stock, and shaping the Indian crew to his
method. Amy was grateful for the time alone. When Tommy was home they were
civil to each other only in the baby's presence.

He
had installed a huge bed in their room, sending east for the mattress and
having the base specially built on site. It was six feet square and sat on a
massive wooden frame with tall carved posts at each corner. Tommy vented his
bitter anger in that bed. He did not strike or physically abuse Amy. She had no
cause to repeat the threat uttered a year earlier. But he seemed to take more
satisfaction from humiliating her than from possessing her.