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It took all of five minutes. And then the next contraction came, and it pulled tight, and Maya wrapped her arms around herself and bowed her head, and made a sound from down deep in her chest.
Vidalia was peeling the wet blankets and sheets off the bed, but she stopped, and her head came up. “Is that the second contraction?”
“Mmm.” Maya managed that and nothing more, but accompanied it with a fierce nod.
“And the first was when you called out?”
“After,” Maya told her. And she knew damn well it hadn’t been very long. She pried her eyes open, saw her mother look at the wind-up clock on the bedside stand. She didn’t look away until Maya sighed her relief and sat a little straighter. Her mother finished stripping the bed, carried the bundle of covers to the bathroom and came back with fresh linens. How she managed to be so fast and efficient in almost total darkness was beyond Maya. She thought her mother could probably do just about anything. Thank God she was here!
“There now,” Vidalia said. “I’ll throw fresh blankets on there, and it will be all ready and waiting for you when we come home from the hospital.”
Maya licked her lips. “Dammit, I was supposed to get married today,” she moaned.
“Watch your mouth, dear.”
“I don’t want my babies illegitimate.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, child, it’s the twenty-first century. What kind of a modern woman are you if you still think a baby needs its father’s name to be considered legitimate? I mean, really, who made that rule? When did the mother’s name become so unimportant?”
“Mom, this isn’t exactly the time for feminism or politics.”
A throat cleared, and Maya looked to the doorway, seeing Kara and Selene standing there, looking frightened.
“Um…Mom, can we talk to you a minute? Out here?” Kara asked.
Vidalia lifted her brows. Maya held up a hand. “No. Whatever’s wrong, you spit it out right here, right now. I’ve got a right to know.”
Kara looked at Maya. Then she looked at Vidalia. Vidalia heaved a mighty sigh, and gave a nod. “Go on, what is it?”
“Mom, there’s a blizzard going on out there. No power, no phones, at least two feet of snow piled up, and some of the drifts out there are higher than my head. Wind’s blowing something fierce. I can’t even see from the house to the barn.”
Frowning, Vidalia went to the window, parted the curtain. “Where’s Melusine?”
“She went out anyway. Bundled up and said she thought she could make it to the barn, get the generator started,” Selene said softly. “We told her not to go, but you know Mel.”
“Lord have mercy,” Vidalia whispered.
Maya bit her lip, but the cry was wrung from her anyway. Tears sprang to her eyes this time, the pain was so intense. Her sisters huddled around her, and Vidalia looked at the clock. “Four minutes,” she said. Shaking her head slowly, she looked at the ceiling. “Lord, if you’re still owin’ me any favors, now would be a fine time to pay up on ‘em. “Then, she stood straighter, lifted her chin. “All right, all right, we have what we have, we may as well deal with it. Kara, get that mattress cover from the hall closet, and get it onto this bed. Bring extra blankets, too. Selene, did you gather up the lamps and candles?”
“They’re right here. I brought the whole box.” As she spoke, she turned back into the hallway, bent to pick up a large cardboard box and brought it into the bedroom.
Vidalia went to the round pedestal table by the window and, taking the tablecloth by its edges, gathered it at the top, lifting a dozen framed photos, trinkets and knick-knacks all at once. She set them in an out-of-the way corner. “I want you to put every one of those lights right here, in this bedroom window, and fire them up. Tie back the curtains, well out of the way. We’ll need the light to work by, and if they’re bright enough, they might help Mel keep her bearings.”
“What if they don’t, Mom?” Selene was already unloading candles and kerosene and oil lamps from the box onto the table.
“Don’t you worry, Selene. Vidalia Brand is not going to let any blizzard take one of her girls. Now you just do what I told you, quick as you can. There’s work to be done. I need rubbing alcohol, scissors, that ball of string from Maya’s sewing basket….”
* * *
Caleb thanked God for Ida-May’s suggestion about clinging to the guardrails at least a hundred times before he made it to the traffic light. The snow was blinding, the wind constantly driving his body off track. He could have veered off course and not even known it. It was impossible to tell the road from the ditches. There was nothing but snow. White, ice-cold snow, crotch-deep and stubborn as hell. With every step he took, his legs and borrowed boots were pushing massive amounts of the stuff. It was unbelievable.
He had to let go of the guardrail and cross the street now. The rail was on the left-hand side, and the street he wanted was on the right. He turned, aimed the flashlight Ida-May had given him, hoping to pinpoint a spot on the other side so he could have something to aim for. But the light couldn’t cut through the wall of slanting snow. He started forward anyway, but a gust caught him and sent him stumbling sideways. He fell over, snow in his face, even inside the fur-trimmed hood of the late innkeeper’s parka. Shaking himself, Caleb rose to his hands and knees, got slowly to his feet. He was off track, turned around already. He’d lost his sense of which way he’d been facing, which way he wanted to go.
Tipping his head back, he turned in a slow circle, aiming the flashlight upward, until finally he saw it reflected back at him from the traffic light above. And when he found it, he realized he could just manage to make out the shapes of the cables that held it suspended above the street. He’d been on the left, so the shortest stretch of cable was where he’d been. The longest stretch was a map pointing the way to the other side of the road.
Bowing against the wind, he walked, stopping every three or four steps to look up at the traffic light and its cables to keep his bearings. And eventually he reached the spot where the cable ended. Again he shone the light. What now? Nothing to go by, no guardrails. He battled his way forward, facing directly into the biting wind now, took a few steps, then a few more. And at last his light gleamed on what turned out to be the reflective numbers on the door of a house. He was looking for the first house on the left. Joe Petrolla’s place. He didn’t know if this was the first house, or if it were on the right or the left. It was as close as he could guess, though.
His entire body shaking, he managed to get up the sidewalk to the front door, and then he banged as hard as the oversized mittens would allow.
