The Birth House (14 page)

They need you. You gotta keep them safe.

The Midwife’s Gift

from the Willow Book

Along the Bayou Blaize Le Jeune there lived a country midwife, a howdie or sage femme as some liked to call them. One night when she done got herself ready for sleeping, a swamp man came to the door. He was someone she’d never seen before and would never see again. He said to her, calling her name in almost a song, “Grann-ee Bonne, there’s a woman down the river who’s a-calling for you. She’s a-howling and spitting, bringing her baby down soon.” That granny, she tried to get a proper dress on, but the swamp man wouldn’t let her. All he’d let her bring was a ball of cotton to tie the cord. He picked her up, right off the stoop, and carried her out to his flat-bottom boat that was waiting on the river.

Most times, Granny Bonne would know just where she was headed. She’d travelled all up and down that river to bring women’s babies up, floating along in her canoe that she paddled for herself. But there weren’t no moon that night, and the bayou was dark as blindness. She asked the stranger where they was going. He wouldn’t say another word. When they got to the place, it seemed nice enough. A cozy cabin with a fire lit, and a lamp all bright and cheerful in the window. Granny Bonne went in and found the woman already “in the straw.” Before long the baby came, a fine child indeed, causing his mama no trouble at all. The father of the house played the fiddle, the aunties gathered round and danced, and the mother sang sweet and low, sweet and low. Granny Bonne was about to dress the child when one of the aunties came to her, carrying a little pot of salve. The auntie pulled the cork and the scent of magnolias came right out. She gave old Granny Bonne a rhyme to follow,

I give to you this salve,

As precious as a rose

Anoint the child from end to end,

From his wee fingers to his toes.

Now, before the auntie could say “don’t,” a moon moth was fluttering on Granny Bonne’s cheek, leaving the dust of its wings in her eye. She brushed the thing from her face and rubbed the itch. What else could she do? And then, amazed she was…seeing with one eye what she always thought was there, and with the other something more like magic. It weren’t no cabin she was took to. She’d been whisked away to a faerie hole, down under the willows, moss hanging all around, lights coming from fireflies and foxfire. Gathered all around her were the tiny folk. One on each shoulder, grinning. Three more was in her lap, tickling the baby’s ears. Granny let go a squeak, dropping the pot to the ground. Right away, the auntie knew what had happened and told Granny Bonne that if she promised to never tell a soul where the faeries kept themselves, she could have any wish she wanted.

Granny Bonne thought and thought. She didn’t want riches or desire fancy clothes fit for a queen. She didn’t even wish for a grand house or better land, since she knew all these things could be taken away. She held out her hands to the auntie and said, “These are all I’ve got. Make my hands so’s they’ll always be of some use.” The auntie blew into her hands comfort and goodness, tales and tears, and Granny Bonne got her wish.

part two

20

T
HE FIRST THING
I
DID
upon settling into the house on Spider Hill was to move every furnishing (even if it was only an inch)—the bed, the sofa, the kitchen table, every chair, lamp, plant stand, rug and vase—that the Widow Bigelow had placed “just so.” After that, I made several trips to Miss B.’s, bringing back all the memories I could heap onto her old handcart. Archer complained, saying we didn’t have room for hand-me-downs. When I tried to put Miss B.’s rocker in the parlour, he said, “At least put it where others won’t see it. It’s an insult to my mother’s generosity.”

He was especially mean when he found me filling a cupboard with jars of remedies and herbs. “I thought I told you to give it up.”

“What if someone needs help?”

“That’s what doctors are for.”

“What if it’s the middle of the night? Miss B. always had something on hand.”

“Stop talking like the old woman ever made a bit of difference. I tasted the stuff she used to give Mother for her rheumatism…it was nothing but sugar-soaked wine. Half the time a person’s sickness is all in the head, especially with women. Mother’s always taking to bed with this or that. It’s all the same. Just an excuse to get attention.”

“If I get rid of it, then it won’t be there for someone who might need it. What if they can’t get to the doctor? What if a child has the croup, or a woman’s got morning sickness? Miss B.’s not around to—”

When he saw that I was about to cry, he pulled me into his arms. “Alright, you can keep your little
potions.
Out of plain sight, though.” He brushed the hair away from my neck, his voice convincing and low. “I hope you’ve made it clear to the other women around here that you’re no longer in the baby business.” He took my hand and slid it down the front of his pants. “You’ve got other duties to see to.”

I knew little about my husband until I lay with him. It started the same every night, his lips finding mine in the dark, his hands groping their way around my body, but soon there was nothing gentle left between us, nothing to stop him from forcing his sweaty, cruel body against mine. “It’s supposed to hurt the first time. This is how a man makes a woman his own: he ‘breaks her in’ and then she’s all his.” Archer feels a wife should be willing and happy to take her husband in any time he likes, that he’s allowed to be demanding and restless, never giving me a day’s rest for the pain or bleeding. I’ve tried offering him warm milk and a hot bath before bed, hoping he’ll forget his
needs
and fall asleep, but he persists, saying it’s his nature. “It’s what gives me the rights to call myself a man.” Nothing prepared me for this, for the shame that comes from not wanting to give him whatever he wants, not knowing how to be a wife, wishing he’d just leave me alone. I give in when I don’t want to, until he has my hands over my head and my legs wide open, leaving me seasick and empty. When it’s over, I search for roses in the shadows on the wallpaper while his snoring goes on and on, reminding me that he’s been satisfied.

I tried talking to Mother about it, but it came out all wrong. Her cheeks turned red; she thought I was asking if it was possible for a woman to want marital relations too often. “Oh, Dorrie, dear, don’t you worry about that. You might as well enjoy it while you have no children to tend to.” Then she whispered, half hiding behind her knitting as she spoke. “Your father and I clung to each other every chance we got, some days it was everywheres but our own bed…the hayloft, in the belly of a worn-out skiff, out at Lady’s Cove…” She stopped when I dropped several stitches and the cuff of the mitt I was working on began to unravel.

I began to put him off, staying awake until he was too tired to bother with me, knitting socks for the war effort, mending clothes, baking bread. I held on to at least one, maybe two nights a week that way, nights where I was free from my “obligations as a wife.” It made the other days of the week bearable, even if it didn’t stop his complaining.

One night became “excusable,” especially if I said I was having my courses. Two nights was sometimes possible, but never in a row. Putting him off for three nights in one week has left me without a husband.

Not quite three months after our wedding day, he was waiting in the parlour, legs slung over the end of the couch, rolling an empty pickle jar on the floor with his lazy fingers. “Well, how-do-ye-do, there she is, Mrs. Dora Bigelow…” He got up and came towards me, grabbing at me, trying to kiss me. “Come on, Dorrie, how about I take you to bed and you act like a proper wife.”

“Please, Archer, not when you’re like this.”

He pulled on my arm, and tore at the buttons on the front of my blouse. “Come on, you ungrateful little whore.” He put his face close to mine, spitting the bitter, skunky smell of the Ketch brothers’ overripe brew. “Wait, I forgot…you don’t know how to be a whore, let alone a proper wife. I might as well have married Grace Hutner.” He grabbed at my waist, pulling me into an awkward waltz around the room. “You remember Gracie, don’t ya, Dora? Beautiful Gracie…now there’s a girl who knew the way to a man’s heart.” I pulled free of him, but he came back at me, shouting, “Mother might have disowned me, and I’d have wound up poor, but at least Gracie would have let me crawl on top of her every night until I felt like a man.” He made a fist and raised it high in the air. As he swung to hit me, he missed, punching a hole in the parlour wall.

I ran through the kitchen and locked myself in our bedroom, wedging the back of Miss B.’s rocking chair under the doorknob. He kicked and pounded at the door until the walls shook. “Just answer this, Mrs. Bigelow…how is it that a wife can’t find one bit of pleasure in her own husband?” I could hear him pacing through the house, then coming back to the bedroom door, beating it with every word he said. “Let…me…in, and I’ll give it
hard
to you, dear…then we’ll see if you dare cry about it.”

Finally I heard the door slam shut and the sound of a horse being whipped and whistled down the road.

Several people asked after Archer at church. Mother, the Widow Bigelow, Aunt Fran and Precious, even Reverend Pineo. I had considered missing services, but my absence would have sent Mother straight to the house looking for me. I had planned to say that Archer wasn’t feeling well. (This was certainly the truth the last time I saw him.) But rather than going down the list of symptoms I’d rehearsed (sore throat, slight fever, night sweats and chills…probably just a cold), I concocted an elaborate tale from an advertisement I’d seen in one of Archer’s copies of
Vaughn’s Almanac,
telling them my dear husband had decided to travel across all of Nova Scotia, selling Bibles.

“I truly feel it’s the best thing he could do, a kind of service almost, rather than work, bringing people hope…in these troubled times.”

Reverend Pineo gave a solemn nod, tucking his Bible under his arm so he could reach both his hands out to me in a gesture of comfort. “The Good Book is blessed balm for any soul. I’ll be sure to pray for him, Dora. I’ll pray for welcome, open doors and a safe return.”

I’m bound for hell.

Still, the idea of Archer gone drumming isn’t all that far-fetched. Not a week had gone by after the wedding when he started spreading the pages of the
Halifax Journal
and
Vaughn’s Almanac
all over the kitchen table during mealtimes. He’d point to this or that, soup dripping from his spoon, exclaiming, “There she is, Dorrie, the next big thing!” and whatever it was, from transistor radios, electric appliances or fire insurance to brooms and brushes, he was going to sell it. Every week another box would arrive, the samples and sales manuals piled high in a room at the top of the stairs, each one replaced with something else, soon forgotten. At least with my imagined excuse no one will expect to see him anytime soon, and when he does come home, I can be as surprised as anyone else.

Of course, Mother worries about my being alone. She asked if I might want to come home with her until Archer returns, but I can’t see going from this quiet, empty place to being crowded between Father and the boys.
Why don’t you pack your bags and come home, Dorrie?
She’s given up. Thinks he’s gone for good. Three days he’s been gone, and she’s supposing I expected too much, played at something I had no business with. I don’t feel half as sorry for myself as I do for her. She had such hopes for this marriage. With every day he stays gone, there’ll be another woman who will start to wonder, telling the person next to her—in the church pew, in a knitting circle, at the market—that she knew it was bound to turn out this way, that Dora Rare certainly wasn’t pretty, or resourceful, or confident, or come-from-money-proud enough to be Archer Bigelow’s match. Like Miss B. always said,
No matter what you do—somebody, somewheres, knew that you would.
Three months a wife and I couldn’t be happy with what I had. Rest assured, by the time Archer comes home (if he comes home), I’ll have it all figured out, and there’ll be nothing more to worry about.

21

B
ERTINE
T
UPPER CAME
to the house, pulling her youngest child along by the arm, the little girl dragging a rag doll behind, all three of them topped with red knit caps, looking like a lopsided chain of paper dolls. She came through the door without a knock, her loud, cheerful “hello” ringing into the kitchen ahead of her. She sat the girl and a lumpy, faded flour sack on the table and smiled at me as if I should have been expecting her.

“Was walking lunch out to Hardy, and little Lucy decided she couldn’t go home until she’d been inside your pretty new house. Can’t believe it’s October already and I hadn’t stopped by for a proper visit. Now’s as good a time as any.” She tugged the wool cap from her child’s head, Lucy’s hair sticking up all over. “Looks like I found her under a basket, doesn’t she?” Bertine soon gave up on trying to smooth Lucy’s wispy curls and turned her attention to the bag, bringing out a yeasty, sweet-smelling loaf of bread. “Good enough for tea, I’d say. Still warm, too.” She sat down in the parlour and took Lucy into her lap. The child began to tug at Bertine’s sweater, wanting to nurse. “Well, don’t just stand there, Dora, how many hands you think I gots?”

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t expecting…”

“That’s not the right answer.” She wrinkled her brow and grinned. “First I say, ‘How many hands you think I gots?’ and then you say, ‘One less than you need, my dear. Let me make you some tea.’ Didn’t your mother teach you any manners?” She snorted, her hearty laughter shaking her whole body, Lucy’s cheeks bouncing, her lips sucking hard to hold on to Bertine’s breast. “Sweet baby Jesus, Luce—watch your teeth there, dearie.”

I took the kettle off the stove and poured it into a fresh pot. “Raspberry leaf fine with you?”

“Mmmm…smells just like Miss B.’s.” She slipped her pinky in the corner of Lucy’s mouth, then tickled under the little girl’s chubby chin. “I’ve got to get on with weaning this child, she’ll be two next month.” Lucy blinked back at her mother and smiled. “Of course, you know as soon as I do, the next one’ll come along. Once the milk dries up, I’m ripe for the picking.”

We sat in the parlour, taking our tea, Bertine knitting away on a pair of mitts, Lucy stealing back and forth between our laps, brushing behind the curtains. Before I could notice, she was standing on Archer’s sitting chair, parading her rag doll across its high back, then sticking its limp arm through the hole Archer left in the wall. She laughed and giggled as she pushed the doll’s head into the hole, as if they were on a grand adventure, searching for hidden treasure.

Bertine apologized, pulling at Lucy, trying to get her out of the chair. “Come down now, Luce. I think it’s time Dolly had her nap.” She settled Lucy and her doll on the chesterfield, curling them up together in the corner, then sat back down in her chair. “Never saw a mouse hole up that high. Some big too. You got a rat?”

I gave a nervous laugh and made an excuse. “The funniest thing happened, I was trying to hang a picture and…” I made a wide, grinning face at Lucy, hoping she would start giggling again and Bertine would forget what she had asked.

“And?” Bertine’s foot started to tap under her skirt.

I pulled my apron in front of my face, popping my head above it occasionally to grin at Lucy. “And the hammer went right through the plaster.”

Lucy kicked and squealed with laughter.

Bertine yanked my apron out of my hands. “No talk that starts with ‘the funniest thing happened’ has ever been the truth. Those words are meant for fishing tales and husbands come home late for supper. Besides, your father built this house, put these walls together…I know it would take more than a girl, a hammer and picture hook to undo his work.” She tucked Dolly snug in the crook of Lucy’s arm. “Hush now, girls.” Lucy squirmed herself into a tight, obedient knot. Bertine gave me a stern look. “You’ve had your head stuck between a woman’s legs, pulled out her baby and God knows what bloody else. You’ve seen more of a woman than their husbands dare to look at, so I figure that makes you more honest than not.” She went back to her knitting, counting the stitches to herself before going on. “How about you try telling me what happened again…”

Bertine was always Miss B.’s favourite of the women from away. She’d made Marie laugh out loud the day Dr. Thomas came to deliver his lecture to the White Rose Temperance Society and the rest of the ladies of the Bay, sizing him up as soon as he walked through the door of the Seaside Centre. “I’ve never seen a man so clean. Looks like he doesn’t believe in work. Almost looks sinful, doesn’t it?” She’s too young to be half as wise as Miss B., but she’s just as fierce with her honesty. So, even though I’d decided that I wanted Archer to come home, that what had happened—his hurtful words, the hole in the wall, his needing to drink himself into a rage—was mostly my fault, I confided in Bertine, sobbing as I told her everything that had happened.

“I was tired of it, of him, I guess. I was cold to him, turned him away. He got angry with me. I don’t blame him. I don’t know. Maybe I’m not meant to be a wife. He’s not happy with me. I’m sorry, I don’t mean to cry. I don’t blame him.”

“That’s terrible, just terrible.” She handed me a handkerchief and put her arm around my shoulder.

“I know. I should’ve let him do as he pleased.”

Bertine gave an angry snort. “If you say that again, I’ll have to wash your mouth with tallow soap and vinegar.”

“You think I’m right to feel this way? I tried to talk to Mother and—”

“My mind says you have every right to feel any which way you like. Not that a man’s ever gonna understand, though.”

“Was Hardy like this too?”

“Hardy’s some sweet now, but he used to get all red-faced and mad over all kinds of things when we were first starting out, mostly burnt suppers or too much starch in the sheets. He changed his tune once there was a little one around.”

“You think having a baby might settle Archer down?”

“Never know what might come between the jigs and reels. Of course, thinking you can change a man is thoughts wasted, but there’s a bright side to everything, if you’ll only look ’til you find it. Like my mother always said,
If your husband smokes, be thankful he doesn’t chew; if he smokes and chews both, be thankful he doesn’t drink; if he does all three, be thankful he won’t live long
.” She started to bundle Lucy up for the walk home. “I’ll come by next Thursday, say, seven o’clock?”

“That would be nice.”

“What should I say we’re doing?”

“Hmm?”

“Hardy gets his hackles up when I start doing things
for no good-God reason.
Seems to him that women have to have a
good-God reason
for everything.”

“How about knitting socks for the war?”

“Perfect. That’s what Dinah Moore says when she wants to sneak off with her cousin Hank, tells her father she’s going to her sister’s house to make care packages for the soldiers…it hasn’t failed her yet. How’s the Occasional Knitters Society sound?”

“Dinnie sneaks off with Hank?”

“Oh my gosh, yes, they’ve been at it since the war started. Everyone thinks she’s pining after Emery Steele, but Dinnie has old Hank to keep her warm. I’ll tell you the rest next Thursday, gotta get home and get supper on the stove.”

Hart came by in the evening to say that he’d help keep things in order while Archer’s away. At first I thought to say no, but I agreed to his caring for the team, mucking the barn and feeding the cow. I’ll do the milking, since Archer nearly always forgot and poor Buttercup never liked his tardiness or the rough way he handled her teats. I’m afraid the sound of any man’s voice might dry her up.

Sometimes it’s hard to believe that Hart is the older of the two Bigelow brothers. Despite his crippled hand, and the fact that he’s at least thirty, there’s a willingness to his body, his step, his character that makes him seem younger than he is. He spends his days moving around the Bay, doing the work of two or even three men, helping wherever he sees a need. Most often a mess, with his curly brown hair full of hay dust, he’s happiest when he’s working, having no patience for “careless people and useless talk.”

There was another visitor along with Hart: his collie, Pepper. “Would you mind taking a look at her? She’s been limping for at least a week, and I can’t figure why. She won’t let me get hold of her to see.”

I sat on the kitchen floor and looked her over. She had a small burr stuck between the pads of her paw, hidden under a tough mat of fur that she hadn’t been able to gnaw loose, although she’d licked the rest of her foot raw, trying to get at it. The dog turned her head at me and tried to nip, but Hart kept her calm, and with one snip of my scissors I got rid of the troublesome thing.

He patted Pepper on the head. “Looks like I’ve witnessed Dora Bigelow’s first miraculous healing at Spider Hill. Miss Babineau would be proud.”

I laughed as I went to the cupboard under the china cabinet, looking through Miss B.’s things I had hidden away…the Willow Book was tucked alongside jars of remedies, bundles of herbs, tallow candles, figures of the Virgin Mary and a small wooden box filled with rosary beads, the pouch with my caul sitting on top. “Don’t let word get out. I promised Archer I’d given up my witchery.” I pulled out a jar of Miss B.’s marigold–honey salve and shut the door, tight.
Heals any burn or wound.

Hart apologized for Pepper’s growling. “Sorry she got a little testy with ya.”

“I’ve seen worse.” I bent down and rubbed the salve on her sore spot. “She may need to favour it for a few days. You should keep her inside until it heals up.” Pepper hopped up and whimpered a bit as she made her way around the kitchen, sniffing for scraps.

Hart scratched his chin, combing his fingers at the roughness that comes with colder weather and his starting to grow a beard for winter. “Mother would have my head. She thinks Pepper’s no better than a pig.”

I set out a bowl of water and a soup bone for the dog to chew on. “She’ll stay here, then. Doctor’s orders.”

Over tea, I showed Hart my most recent letter from Borden, forgetting that my brother had said a few unkind things about Archer.

I told Albert about your marriage to Archer Bigelow. He said it better than I can. “Tell Dorrie she’d best be happy when we get home or we’ll have to take Archer out to the woods to go hunting.” I added that you should tell Hart he’s in some hot water for not keeping his eyes on you!

Hart grumbled, “You tell Borden not to worry. It seems Archie’s a new man now that he’s got you for a wife. I never would have guessed he’d be making his way, selling Bibles to the good people of Kings County.” He scratched Pepper behind the ears and looked at me. “It’s Bibles, right? Isn’t that what you said?”

I opened my eyes wide and tried to give a convincing stare. “That’s right.”

He put on his coat and went to the door. “God knows Archie could sell rain barrels in the desert.”

“That’s right.”

I don’t think he believed me.

˜ October 25, 1917

Expecting that a woman might be with child after only a few months of marriage isn’t unheard of. I got my hopes up when my courses were late, but despite my daydreams of a happy home, the blood has come.

Archer’s been gone nearly three weeks. It can’t be long before he runs out of money and needs to come home. Even if he doesn’t care for me, his mother still holds the purse strings to the rest of his inheritance. This is one time when I’m glad she wants to keep Archer in her reach.

Bertine says, “He’s not the first man to run away from his wife. He’ll get tired of having to look for a place to rest his head, of having to explain who he is, of having to think about what comes next…he’ll find his way home.”

Whatever it is that brings him back, I’ll welcome him with my affection, my love and my body. It’s not that I expect that anything I do will ever change him; he can do as he pleases as long as I can have the one thing I’ve always wanted. Once there’s a child inside me, nothing else will matter.