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“Do contractions mean Momma’s baby is on the way?”
“Of course.”
“But isn’t the baby coming early?”
“That’s the way it is sometimes. There’s no way of predicting exactly when a baby will come. She’s over six months, going on seven, so if the doctor can’t stop the miscarriage, it has a chance to live anyway.”
Oh, golly, I was hoping the baby would have plenty of time to be finished, with hair and little fingernails and toenails. “How long does it take for a baby to be born?” I asked timidly.
“No doubt it will take someone like Lucietta all day and most of tomorrow, knowing how she likes to make even the most simple and natural thing look very difficult and painful.” Aunt Ellsbeth stretched her thin lips into a mean spinster smile. “Spoiled, all her life spoiled, just because she happened to be born prettier than most girls.”
“Has Papa called to say Momma’s having lots of pain? Did he say she was losing the baby?” I wanted to scream at her for saying so little, when it was my mother and my brother or sister involved. The heavy knot in my chest began to weigh more as it grew larger. The rain was forecasting trouble. The nightmare flitted in and out of my thoughts. Those bony people …
“Audrina is spoiled, too,” Vera contributed, “and she isn’t even the prettiest daughter.”
I tried to swallow some awful stuff my aunt had thrown in a blender—a mixture she said would put meat on my gaunt bones and take the hollowness from my cheeks. Vera giggled when she said this.
The bacon was thrown down the garbage disposal, burned to such a dry crisp even my aunt wouldn’t eat it. Grouchy and irritable, Vera complained about the omelettes my aunt had tried to make tasty. “Gee, it’s sure going to be difficult to enjoy food now that Momma isn’t here to cook the meals.” Vera put great stress on Momma, just to watch her own mother wince. Aunt Ellsbeth tried to pretend she didn’t hear the barb.
It was me who cleaned up the kitchen when my aunt went to watch TV, and me who swept the floor as Vera hurried off to finish dressing for school. As I polished the stove, I wondered if I was prettier than Vera, and if I was even half as beautiful as that First and Best Audrina had been. I pessimistically guessed I couldn’t be from all the praise he gushed about her “radiant, transcendent, ethereal beauty.”
“Now you stay home and out of the woods,” warned my aunt from the other room when she heard the back door open. “It’s raining. And the last thing your father said was to keep an eye on you and not let you wander off. If the rain stops, you can play in the backyard—but go no farther.”
“What did he say about me?” asked Vera, all ready to hurry to where the school bus would pick her up. She wore a yellow rain slicker with a hood over her hair.
“Damian didn’t mention you.” How cold my aunt could make her voice when she wanted to. She didn’t care much for her own bastard daughter. I smiled to myself, for it sounded so silly. Many a time I’d sneaked to peek at the television my aunt selfishly kept for her own viewing pleasure, and I knew those soap people were always having babies “out of wedlock.”
“You can’t trust Audrina when it comes to Arden Lowe,” called Vera back hatefully. “You’d better lock the doors, bolt the windows or somehow she’ll slip over to see him. You just wait and see, and sooner or later she’s going to let him …”
“Let him what?” I asked, scowling at her.
“Vera,” called my aunt, “not one more word out of you! Get out of here before you miss the bus.”
Enviously I watched Vera stomp off toward the highway, making the water in every puddle splash. Just before she turned the bend, she looked my way and thumbed her nose. Vera disappeared, and still I stood on, thinking about Momma, hoping it wasn’t hurting too much and that there wouldn’t be a great loss of blood. All pain seemed to come with lots of blood, and lots of mental anguish, too. I already knew about that. Maybe that was the worst kind of pain, because nobody knew about it but you.
Why didn’t Papa call home and talk to me? I wanted to know what was going on. I hung around the telephone so long that the rain went away, and the gloomy quiet house began to wear on my nerves.
When the rain ended, I walked down by the river where our backyard ended. In the weak sunlight under the pale, washed sky, I tossed pebbles into the river as I’d seen Papa do. A week without Momma’s cooking was going to make me lose weight, and I was already skinny.
Papa didn’t call all day long. I worried, fretted, paced the floor, went often to the windows. Vera trudged home, complaining she didn’t like the vegetable stew Aunt Ellsbeth had prepared for dinner. Then I saw Arden come flying down our drive with a huge box fastened to his bike. I ran outside to meet him, afraid my aunt would report his visit to my father.
“Happy birthday!” he called, grinning as he left his bicycle and came running to me. “Haven’t got but a second to stay—I’ve brought you something my mother made for you, and a little something from me, too.”
Had I told him it was my birthday? I didn’t think I had. I hadn’t even known myself until yesterday. His eyes were warm and bright as I tore into the largest box. Inside was a wonderful violet dress with a white collar and cuffs. A small bouquet of silk violets was pinned at the neckline.
“Mom made it for you. She says she can measure anyone with her eyes. Do you like it? Do you think it will fit?”
Impulsively I threw my arm
s about him, so happy I wanted to cry. No one else had remembered my birthday. He seemed embarrassed and delighted with my reaction, then hastily handed me a smaller box. “It’s nothing much, really, but you told me you had difficulty remembering and were keeping a dated journal. I looked everywhere to find you one to match the color of the dress Mom made you, but journals don’t come in violet, so I bought you a white one with painted-on violets. And if you can slip over to our house around five, Mom’s got a birthday cake all decorated just for you. If you can’t come, I’ll bring it to you.”
I wiped my eyes and choked back my tears of gratitude. “Arden, the baby’s coming today. My mother’s been gone since before dawn, and we haven’t heard one word. I’ll come if Papa calls and tells me that Momma and the baby are okay. If he doesn’t, I can’t leave.”
Gingerly, as if afraid I might scream or resist, he hugged me briefly, then let me go. “Don’t look so worried. Babies are born every second of the day, millions of them. It’s a natural thing. I’ll bet your aunt forgot all about your birthday, didn’t she?”
I nodded and ducked my head so he couldn’t see the pain I felt. The pretty little diary he’d given me had a golden key to lock away my secrets. Oh, I had plenty of secrets, unknown even to me.
“I’ll be waiting on the edge of the woods after I deliver the newspapers. I’ll wait until the sun goes down, and if you don’t show up, I’ll bring your birthday cake here.”
