More Perfect than the Moon (4 page)

I didn’t answer.

“I’ll climb up these stairs, Cassie.”

“No. I’ll come down,” I said quickly.

Very slowly I walked down the stairs.

“Cassie. I know some things,” said Mama.

“What things?”

“I know you watch me all the time,” said Mama.

I started to shake my head, but Mama stopped me.

“I saw you in the night, watching. I saw you watching me with the goslings. I know you’re afraid.”

“Grandfather told you,” I whispered.

“He didn’t have to tell me,” Mama said. “I’m smart, you know.”

She smiled.

“I am fine, Cassie. I am strong.”

“But you’re old,” I said.

“
Older
,” corrected Mama.

Mama sat down at the kitchen table.

“I’ll make a bargain with you, Cassie,” she said. “You don’t have to follow me everywhere anymore. You don’t have to hide behind doors.”

Mama had seen that, too
?

“You don’t have to get up in the night and watch me, because I will let you know if I need you.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ll call you if I need something. I will call you when I’m going to have the baby.”

I sat down next to Mama.

“You will? You will do that?”

Mama nodded.

“I promise,” she said. “I promise, Cassie. You will be the first to know.”

I leaned back in the chair. All of a sudden I was tired.

Mama stood up.

“I have to go help Maggie now,” she said. “Why don’t you go upstairs and sleep. You look tired.”

“Will you . . . ?”

“Call you if I need you? Yes,” said Mama.

Mama put her arms around me. That terrible baby was big inside her. It came between us so I couldn’t put my arms all the way around her.

I went upstairs and lay down on my bed. I closed my eyes. There were no thoughts in my head. There were no words there. No stories. And when I slept there were no dreams.

9

W
e ate lunch in the shade of the house, all the workers and friends. The horses, near the barn, drank water out of buckets. Caleb washed them down to cool them. The air smelled the sharp, strong smell of cut hay. Little bits of hay hung in the still air.

Caleb sat next to Violet and they laughed at their own private words.

Still they laugh, the princess and Caleb. They laugh so much that laughter flies out of their mouths, goes up and away on the wind. When the wind dies, the laughter will float back to earth and make some sad, serious, surprised person laugh, too.

Rose drew a picture of Caleb and Violet, their faces pointed up, mouths open, looking like howling dogs. This made me laugh.

It felt strange to laugh. I hadn’t laughed in a long time, and Mama looked over at me and smiled. Papa smiled, too, and Maggie brought out a tall, white, frosted cake with strawberries. Grandfather ate a bite, then two, then three.

“This is stupendous, Maggie,” he said. “Exquisite!”

He caught me looking at him.

“You and Caleb taught me about words.”

I nodded. Grandfather couldn’t read when he had come back to the farm. All the years of his life he couldn’t read. Until Caleb taught him.

“This cake is magnificent,” said Grandfather. “Tasty, lovely, glorious, stunning! Could I have another piece?”

“Don’t forget we have more haying to do,” said Matthew.

“This cake can only help,” said Grand-father.

Talk and words, some of them Grandfather’s words, swirled around us until it was time for haying again.

We cleared the table, Lottie and Nick hoping for snacks.

“I’m going to town tomorrow,” said Papa, carrying plates to the house. “Who needs something wonderful?”

Papa looked at me.

“Want to come, Cassie? Buy something perfect?”

Mama smiled.

“I’ll have a new horse, if you don’t mind,” said Matthew.

“You could get me a buggy,” said Maggie. “With a leather top.”

“I’ll have another piece of cake,” said Grandfather, making everyone laugh.

“I’ll come to town with you,” said Caleb.

“I’m staying here. I know that,” said Mama. “My back hurts today.”

“I’ll stay here, too,” I said.

Mama took my hand.

“You go if you want, Cassie. Remember what I said.”

I shook my head.

“No, I want to stay and write. I have many things to write.”

“I’ll bring you something. A present,” called Caleb as he ran to bring in the horses. Grandfather walked out into the field, too.

The sky was so blue with a few clouds tossed above the land. Way off the cows moved slowly. A handful of sheep drank from the stream. A perfect day.

Perfect.

“I remember when you first came here, Sarah,” said Maggie.

I listened carefully.

“You brought me flowers,” said Mama. She imitated Maggie’s soft Southern voice. “You said, ‘you should have a garden wherever you are.’”

“What was Mama like then?” I asked.

Maggie grinned.

“She was strong-minded and opinionated.”

“And she still is,” I said.

Maggie and Mama laughed.

“Mama cried once because she missed you,” I said.

“Oh I cried, too,” said Maggie. Then she smiled. “But I’m back!”

I looked out and saw Grandfather coming in from the west meadow carrying something, a sheep following him, Caleb and Papa behind.

I ran out to the fence.

“Here’s a present for you, Cassie,” Grandfather said.

It was a new lamb. Very carefully Grandfather put it down and it stood on wobbly legs.

I grinned.

“It is Beatrice!” I said happily, leaning down to pet the lamb.

I looked at Grandfather and Mama and Papa. “Beatrice!”

The clouds float above, slowly, slowly, like in a dream. The air is sweet with hay.

Beatrice has been born.

10

M
ama handed Caleb a list.

“I’ll stop at Anna’s for a bit,” Papa told her. “I’ll be home late afternoon.”

“I have Cassie here,” Mama said.

“And they both have me,” said Grand-father.

“Be sure to check that lamb,” said Papa.

“Beatrice,” I corrected Papa.

“Beatrice,” said Papa with a smile. “I’m not sure her mother knows what to do with her.”

The wagon started off, then stopped suddenly. Papa climbed down and came over and gave Mama a kiss.

“I forgot,” he said. “I’ll do that again when I get back.”

“All this kissing,” complained Grandfather.

“You should see Princess Violet and Caleb,” I said.

“Cassie,” warned Caleb.

The wagon clattered off and turned out the gate and went down the road, sending up little puffs of dust.

We walked over to the paddock fence. Beatrice stared at us with her little black eyes. She walked a little, then stopped and looked at us again.

“Beatrice,” said Grandfather softly. “Don’t really see how Beatrice can have a name when her mother doesn’t have one.”

“I think her name is Beatrice’s Mother,” said Mama.

“What kind of a name is that?” asked Grandfather.

“It’s what we’ve got,” said Mama with a smile.

Mama went off to the garden, followed by the goslings. Grandfather and I shoveled out stalls and laid down new hay for the horses. When we were done, I took my journal and sat in the meadow with Beatrice and Beatrice’s Mother.

Beatrice is beautiful and wise and will grow up to be an intelligent and imaginative sheep.

Beatrice’s Mother is not smart.

When Mama brought us sandwiches and fruit for lunch, I read them this. Grandfather nodded.

“I’m not sure sheep are known for their good sense,” he said.

“Beatrice is unusual,” I said.

The goslings saw Mama and ran over.

“Madeleine, I believe you’re going to be the largest of the three of you,” said Mama. “And you, Margaret Louise, will always be the runt.”

“Small and lovely, you mean,” said Grandfather.

They bustled around Mama until, laughing, she shooed them away.

“You know,” said Mama, “I’m going to go inside and rest. I feel tired.”

“I’ll come in, too,” I said.

“I’ll be in the barn,” said Grandfather. “I’ll come in later for a piece of cake.”

“Cakes don’t last forever,” said Mama.

“Not with Grandfather around,” I said.

Inside, Mama sat at the table while I poured tea. I took out my journal.

“Did you write in a journal when you were little?” I asked Mama.

Mama smiled.

“No, I never thought of it. You’re lucky, Cassie. That journal is like an old friend, isn’t it?”

“Sometimes.”

There was a silence.

“Sometimes I write things in here that are nasty,” I said.

“That’s what a journal is for,” said Mama. “To put down feelings. That way they don’t clutter up your head.”

I waited for a time while Mama drank tea.

“You know, I wrote something about you in here. And Beatrice.”

“You did? Is that how you seemed to know her name?”

I nodded.

“I wrote that you did not have the terrible baby. You had a baby lamb named Beatrice.”

Mama began to laugh. She laughed so hard that I began to laugh, too.

Finally she stopped to catch her breath.

“You know, it may be a good deal easier to raise that lamb than a terrible baby,” she said.

Those words, “terrible baby,” sounded funny in Mama’s voice. It seemed to give me some courage.

“And I wrote that you made Caleb take care of it because all it did was sleep and bleat. You said I was more beautiful than Beatrice. And smarter.”

My voice got smaller.

“And you loved me best.”

Mama did not laugh. She reached over and touched my cheek.

“And I do love you the best of all
the eight-year-olds in this very house,” she said. “And I have enough room in me, Cassie. If I can love three troublesome goslings, I will share some love with the terrible baby.”

I smiled. I loved it when Mama said “terrible baby.” It was as if she had come over to my side. We would both have to deal with the terrible baby when it came.

“Oh no,” cried Mama. “Help me, Cassie! That terrible baby is rude and ugly and smelly and as dumb as a stick. And it cannot read or write. Take it away. Take it far, far away and come back and read to me.”

“Cass.”

Mama’s voice was faint. I stopped writing.

“Yes?”

“Remember when I said I’d let you know when I needed you?”

I nodded.

“Well, I need you now,” said Mama. “I think it is time.”

I almost asked time for what, and then I saw Mama’s face. It was pale and tight.

“Go get Maggie,” said Mama. “I’m going to the bedroom to lie down, Cassie. The baby is coming.”

I stood up, my journal falling off the table. I left it where it fell.

“Someone has to ride over to get her. Her phone doesn’t work,” said Mama. “I think you’d better hurry.”

Mama stood up and held on to the chair. She didn’t look like Mama all of a sudden. She looked like someone far away from me.

“I’ll get Grandfather,” I said.

I ran out the door and across the yard to the barn.

“Grandfather! Grandfather!” I screamed.

Grandfather came out of the barn.

“Mama says it’s time. The baby is coming!” I said. I could hardly catch my breath. “We have to get Maggie.”

Grandfather ran into the barn to get a horse.

“Go in with your mama. We’ll be back.”

He galloped off, out the gate, down the road to Maggie’s house.

I took a deep breath and ran into the bedroom to sit with Mama.

“Read me the part again about the cows floating through the barn,” said Mama, lying on the bed.

I read her most of my journal, even the mean parts, as we waited for Maggie. But Mama didn’t mind. She smiled sometimes. Sometimes she laughed out loud. Sometimes she pressed her lips together and didn’t say anything, and I knew she hurt.

After a long time I heard noises outside. I ran to the front door and opened it. Maggie and Grandfather were there, Maggie getting off the dappled horse.

“How is she?” called Maggie.

“I’ve been reading to her. Sometimes she laughs,” I said.

Maggie smiled and kissed me on the cheek.

“That’s wonderful,” she said. “I’ll go take care of her.”

She went past me, and when she did I felt suddenly safe again.

Grandfather sat heavily on a porch chair.

“It has been years since I galloped on a horse,” he said.

“You looked like a hero,” I whispered.

“Well then, I need a piece of cake,” he said.

He looked at me and then got up and put his arms around me.

We stood that way on the porch for a long, long time.

My journal lay on the floor, untouched. Grandfather ate cake. We didn’t talk. I called Anna on the phone, but no one answered. I washed the dishes, then saw that I’d already washed them. I swept the floor and peeled carrots and potatoes to put in a pot of hot water for soup. It wasn’t until the goslings pecked at the door that I burst into tears. I went out to the porch, but it wasn’t me they were looking for. It was Mama.

“When’s Jacob coming home?” asked Grandfather.

“I don’t know,” I said.

Hurry, hurry, Papa.

“Maybe I’ll go to the barn and do some work,” said Grandfather.

I heard Mama cry out, and then Maggie’s soft voice.

“No, please,” I said to Grandfather. “Stay with me.”

Grandfather held my hand and we watched the road for a dust cloud that would mean that Papa was coming home. It seemed like hours went by. But the wagon didn’t come. And didn’t come.

And then, later, when I was almost asleep, my head on Grandfather’s shoulder, it was Maggie who came out to the porch, smiling, to tell us that the baby was here.

“Already?” Grandfather was astonished.

“Yes,” said Maggie. “Cassie, Sarah wants to see you.”

“Me?”

Maggie nodded.

“Go on, go on.”

“Mama’s all right?”

“Your mama is fine,” said Maggie.