Ten Thousand Charms (8 page)

“What can I do?” he asked.

“Put your hands on her stomach. Yes, right there.” Sadie's hands, nearly as large as John William's and stained with Katherine's blood, guided his to rest on the mound he'd monitored over the past few months. Katherine had never been comfortable with her changing body, but John William was constantly curious and amused. Many nights, after Katherine collapsed into exhausted sleep, he laid his head against his child, reveling in the bumps and patterns of its hidden play. Now it was alien. Frightening. A threat to the life of its mother.

Heal my wife. Carry my child. Guide her hands. Keep me strong.

“And just a little pressure right where she's pushing…” Sadie's voice hung on the edge of his prayer.

“I can't…1 can't…” Katherine's anguished cry punctuated the earnest cries of his soul.

“I've got its head, Katherine! Push again!”

Heal my wife.

“…no…”

“You can. You're strong. Again, push.”

Carry my child.

“I've got the shoulders. Almost out. One more time, Katherine.”

Guide her hands.

“…no more…”

Keep me strong.

Katherine's final piercing scream was deafening, and it didn't stop. Not even when she fell back against him in exhaustion. Then John William realized the wailing he heard wasn't coming from his wife, but. from the thing that squirmed in Sadie's bloody hands.

“It's a little girl,” Sadie said. “Let her go and come help me with the baby”

John William eased himself from behind his wife's limp body

His legs cramped momentarily beneath him, and he wondered just how long he'd been sitting there.

Sadie's voice resumed the tone of a patient instructor. “Take some of that hot water from the kettle and put it in a bowl. Add some cool until you barely feel it being warm. We need to wash her.”

Her voice prattled on about blankets and towels while his head reeled with questions he dared not ask. Once again he busied himself with compliance, until he found himself facing this tiny creature on the table, no bigger than the loaf of bread next to her. When Sadie put a warm wet washcloth into his hand, he turned to her and said, “1 can't do this.”

“Of course you can. Just take the cloth and wipe—”

“I'm afraid I'll hurt her.”

Sadie put her own hand on his, her palm barely grazing the back of his hand and guided the pressure of his touch.

“You know, MacGregan,” Sadie said softly, withdrawing her hand, “it is a good thing for a little girl to have such a strong papa.”

John William worked the cloth between the tiny fingers, maneuvering around the hand that barely spanned his thumb. He pinched the tiny ankle between his fingers and gently wiped the thrashing foot.

“Be careful of her head most of all,” Sadie said. “Hold it gently and just squeeze the water over it.”

The tiny head was covered with soft brown hair that fell to curling as it dried. The face, however, continued to scrunch itself in protest of every ministration.

Proud of his final product, this beautiful shining little girl, he looked over his shoulder at the women on the bed. One lay motionless; the other was caught up in the business of cutting, kneading, cleansing.

“What do I do now?” he asked, beaming.

“Get something clean to wrap her up in.”

He scooped the little girl up, her body nestled perfectly in the
crook of his arm, and held her as he rummaged to find his best Sunday shirt.

“Will this do?” he asked, uncomfortable with his uncertainty.

Sadie smiled. “It's perfect. Just the thing. Now lay it out on the table and wrap her up.”

He did so, putting the little head where his own thick neck would be and brought the wide shoulders to wrap around her delicate ones. He then folded the shirt up to the tiny one's chin and lifted her up, wrapping the excess fabric around her back. The baby's cries diminished with each fold and tuck.

“How's that for swaddlin?”

“Gut”
Sadie's voice was distracted. “Fine.”

“What now?”

“Sit down with her.” Sadie's head motioned to one of the two chairs in the room.

John William backed against it and sat down, then studied the face of his baby girl. Minus his scars, the badly healed nose, and the lank hair, she looked just like him. But when the infant opened her eyes, he saw the clear blue soul of his wife.

Thank you, God, for carrying my child to me. Now, please, heal
my wife.

The baby let out an enormous yawn, stretched against the confines of her swaddling, and settled herself to staring into her father's eyes. Much as he longed to lose himself in his daughter's gaze, John William could not ignore the sounds behind him. The rustle and rip of fabric. The occasional whimper followed by soothing, unintelligible words. The occasional question.

“Do you have another…? In this trunk?”

Guide her hands.

Once out of the corner of his eye he saw Sadie cross the room for a cup of water. Then he heard the familiar sound of Katherine's silver-handled brush making its way through long black hair.

“Better?”

No answer.

Then the baby started to squirm. To cry

Keep me strong.

“Urn,” John William's voice seemed loud and unwelcome in the newly peaceful atmosphere. “1 think she's…”

“Bring her to her mother,” Sadie said.

John William was afraid to turn around, not sure of what sight would greet him. But when he did, he saw his wife—pretty, though pale—propped up against the wall, cushioned by their pillows. She wore the sleeveless gown reserved for hot summer nights; the row of buttons undone. Her hair lay in a thick braid over one shoulder, fastened with one of the blue scraps of cloth she usually used to make her curls for fancy dress. Under the pattern of their worn blanket, taken from its storage in the trunk in the corner of the room, he could see the shapes of her splayed, bent legs. He remembered the hushed conversation about packing the wound and changing the dressing. He forced it from his mind and stood to bring his wife and daughter together. Katherine had never been one to break into an easy smile, and he nearly lost his heart as he saw the effort it took.

“We need to see if she will suckle,” Sadie said. “Katherine's too weak to hold her, so you will need to.”

John William held his newborn daughter to her mother's breast, and the tiny girl latched on immediately, her instinct for survival manifested in the first hint of appetite. Her clear blue eyes searched her mother's face. Katherine returned the gaze, * and then both mother and daughter closed their eyes in contentment.

“When she's finished,” Sadie said, shrugging into her shawl, “wrap her in that quilt you set over by the fire. Keep her warm.”

She walked around the room, pinching out the candles and lowering the lamplight until the cabin was encased in comfortable shadows. All was silent except for Katherine's shallow breaths and the baby's hungry smacking.

Just before walking out the door, Sadie scooped up a bloody bundle and stuffed it in her bag.

“Keep praying,” she said, “if you think it helps.”

“Thank you,” John William said, tearing his eyes away from his family to glance first at Sadie's face, then down to her hands.

“If you need us, you know where we are.”

He didn't see her leave, but he heard the latch of the cabin door fall into place.

Heal my wife.

His arm ached, trying to keep the baby attached without leaning on his wife's pain-wracked body

Keep me strong.

At some point the baby's mouth went slack, the sucking stopped. John William pulled her away, and a few drops of milk drooled out of perfect pink lips. Tiny snores came from the bundle of calico. Sadie had placed the warm quilt in the makeshift cradle, and he opened the folds of it and laid the child within, then carried the cradle and set it down on the floor just below Katherine's sleeping head. Kneeling by the side of his marriage bed, he took Katherine's hands in his and continued his simple fervent prayer.

Heal my wife. Keep me strong.

At some point, fatigue overtook him. He awoke to a mewling sound coming from the folds of the quilt. His head lay on Katherine's stilled breast, her hand dropped from his grasp.

He spoke his last remaining prayer into the daylight that flooded his home. “Dear God, keep me strong.”

loria looked up sharply at the sound of the knock. No one ever visited her. No one who knocked, anyway She crossed the small room and pressed her ear against the wood.

“Who is it?”

The first response was a masculine rumble, muffled by the steady beat of the storm outside. Then Sadie's voice rang clear.

“Open the door, Gloria.”

Within seconds, the small room was full of people and rain. Sadie had braved the short distance between the main house and Gloria's room without donning any sort of cover, and her face and shoulders were dotted with raindrops.

The man, however, looked as if he had waded through rivers to get here. His drenched hat was drawn low on his face, the collar of his coat tugged up to his chin, but Gloria recognized him immediately as the man she had met at the supply wagon. The man with the pregnant wife. MacGregan.

Danny's basket was close by the small stove in the corner. Gloria lifted the basket, set it on her bed, and drew her only chair close to the stove.

“Here,” she said. “Sit down.”

“Let's take off that wet coat first,” Sadie said.

She removed the drenched garment from his shoulders and hung it on the hook by the door. Sadie then led him to the chair and said, “Give her to me.”

That's when Gloria noticed the bundle in the sling across his chest. It had the shape of a baby, but it was deathly still and quiet.

Sadie held the child while MacGregan reached behind his head to pull the sling from his neck. Once relieved of his burden, he collapsed into the chair. Gloria stepped back, sat on the edge of her bed, and placed a grateful, protective hand on her sleeping child.

“What have you brought here?” Gloria asked.

“You remember Mr. MacGregan. John William—”

“I know who he is.”

“His wife died last night.” Sadie cradled the baby in her arms and lifted the quilted cover from its face. “You remember her from that day at the supply wagon.”

Of course Gloria remembered. The wife. Respectable, married. Gloria thought back to the look of withering disdain and tried to conjure an appropriate emotion.

“She had a real hard time of it.” Sadie sat next to Gloria on the bed, the baby on her lap. She peeled away layers of damp swaddling, then bent her head down close and whispered,
“Wachen Sie
auf,
sweetie. Wake up.”

“What are you doing here?” Gloria asked. “Why is
he
here?”

“We need your help,” Sadie said, looking up from the baby for the first time.

“We offered to help,” Gloria replied. “We offered to help and she said no. Not from us.”

“Well, she cannot refuse now. This baby needs to nurse, and you're the only one who can do that for her.”

“Why should I?”

By now Sadie had the baby completely uncovered and Gloria saw the tiny body A little girl silent and cold. Without thinking, Gloria took a blanket from her sons coverings and held it out in silent offering. Sadie lifted the little girl, and Gloria spread the blanket on Sadie's lap. As Sadie drew the warm corners across the tiny shoulders, Gloria sensed a now familiar tugging at her breast.

“I'll answer that,” came the gruff voice from beside the stove. Gloria looked at him, but he wasn't looking at her. His face was firmly fixed on the hands clenched in his lap. His lips barely moved. If he hadn't been the only man in the room,

Gloria wouldn't have been sure he was speaking.

“First off,” he said, “I'll apologize for my wife's rudeness. She wasn't a happy person. She didn't want to be here.”

Sadie spoke up. “There's no need for—”

“And maybe 1 don't have the right to ask. But I'm not askin’ for my wife. I'm not askin’ for myself. It's for my little girl.”