Maude Page 14

  A really bad wave of pain rolled over me. I sat up a little and braced myself with my hands behind me. I pulled up my knees. Mom Foley pulled back the covers, then sat on the side of the bed, giving me a single command, “Push!”

  I took a deep breath, held it, and pushed as hard as I could. Mom Foley nodded in satisfaction. “One more will do it.”

  I relaxed as the pain let up, but it was followed right away by another. Again, I took a deep breath and pushed. I could feel it when the baby slid free of me. The old woman laughed sharply and held it up for me to see. “Look at him, a big fat boy, just like I told you,” she said, her eyes shining. The baby had long, thick black hair. His grandmother rubbed the herbs over him and began chanting in a low voice. He let out a scream and then began crying shrilly as most newborns do. His grandmother laughed again. “Listen to him!”

  She laid him down and picked up the roll of string, cutting off two lengths and tying them on the cord. Then she picked up the small knife and cut the cord between the two knots of string. She wrapped the baby in a blanket, picked him up, and left the room.

  I waited for her to come back, but she didn’t. After a while I began having sharp cramps. I knew this time that it was the afterbirth. After a few minutes it came out and the cramping stopped. I lifted my head far enough to look at it.

  There was more blood than I expected. I waited and waited for George’s mother to come back and do something to stop the bleeding, but there was no sign of her. I tried to call out, but I was so weak I couldn’t raise my voice. I finally closed my eyes and let myself sink into the blackness.

  It was still daylight when the sound of the baby crying woke me. I wasn’t sure how much time had passed or where the sound was coming from. I struggled to get up, but was too weak. The best I could do was prop myself up on the pillows. The crying kept on and grew louder.

  Mom Foley came in the room with him in her arms. She stood over me and stared at me with a look that could freeze water. I reached out my hands for my baby, but the old woman waited, her look changing to one of satisfaction as I struggled to reach my screaming child. She finally stuck the baby in my hands and stormed out of the room. I held the baby with one arm while I unbuttoned the neck of my nightgown. When I was finally able to hold him to my breast, he latched on right away.

  When he was finished eating, I inspected my son. His grandmother had cleaned him up, and I could smell the sweet herbs she’d rubbed on his body. He had thick black hair, almost two inches long, and his skin was the color of new strawberries. I didn’t have any idea how much he weighed, but knew it had to be well over nine pounds. Lulu had been only two-thirds as large when she was born, and they told me Lulu weighed a little under seven pounds.

  I unwrapped his blanket and examined his body. He was long and thin and had beautiful hands with long fingers and long feet.

  I waited, but it didn’t happen. The feeling of love that came over me when I had Lulu didn’t come. He went to sleep. I gazed at him, waiting for it, and waiting. There was something missing. I held him in the crook of my arm and dozed off again myself, still lying in the bloody, wet, and now cold, bedding.

  The slamming of the screen door told me that Lulu had come home from school. She came running up the stairs to my bedroom and grabbed up her little brother. “Look at him, Mommy, he’s beautiful. He’s just like a little papoose.” She ran her hand over his hair.

  They weren’t words I liked, but they were true. I took hold of Lulu’s arm and said, “I need for you to go fetch Clara for me, Lulu. Give the baby to George’s mother to take care of until you get back.”

  Lulu minded me and went to get the neighbor. In a few minutes Clara was there. She had a joyful face that faded to worry as soon as she saw me. “Are you all right? Did you have a hard time of it? I didn’t see the doctor’s buggy, or I would have come over and helped.”

  I tried to talk in my normal voice but a whisper was still the best I could manage. “George’s mother brought him by herself, but I need you to help me clean myself.”

  “Didn’t she clean you up after he was born?”

  “She just took him and left me here. I think I bled a lot, Clara, because I’m so weak, I can hardly move.”

  Clara pulled back the blankets and gasped. “You mean she didn’t even deliver the afterbirth? Good Lord, Maude, you could have died!”

  I put my finger over my lips. “I don’t want Lulu to know.”

  Clara nodded. She pulled the chair next to the bed and took a blanket off the stack of linens that I kept nearby. She shook it out and then draped it over the chair. She leaned over me, “Wrap your arms around my neck and hold on, Maude, I’m going to sit you in the chair so I can clean the bed.”

  I shook my head. “I’m too heavy for you, Clara. You’ll have to get George’s mother to help you.”

  “After the way she left you, I wouldn’t ask her help for anything.”

  I wrapped my arms around Clara’s neck, and she put her left arm under my knees and her right arm around my waist and half-lifted, half-slid me into the chair. She cleaned the bed, and then she washed me. I was so embarrassed. “I hate it that I can’t do this for myself, Clara.”

  “Nonsense, I may need you to take care of me someday.”

  “Where’s the baby?”

  “He’s down in the kitchen with Lulu and his grandmother. The way they’re making over him you would think they never saw a baby before.”

  “I’m glad they love him, Clara.”

  “Of course they love him. Everybody’s going to love him.”

  “Clara, can I tell you something awful and you won’t hold it against me?”

  Clara stopped her washing. “You can tell me anything, Maude.”

  “I fed him and looked him over and I waited, Clara, but it didn’t come.”

  “What didn’t come?”

  “When they put Lulu in my arms for the first time, my heart swelled up with so much love that I thought it was going to bust right out of me.”

  “I felt the same way.”

  I looked in Clara’s eyes. “I didn’t feel any of that with this baby, Clara. What’s the matter with me?”

  “You’re just wore out, is all. When you get back on your feet you’ll be fine. He’s a beautiful, healthy boy. You’ll come to love him in no time.”

  I nodded, but I knew in my heart that I would never feel the way I ought to feel for this baby. Clara finished her cleaning, slipped a fresh nightgown over my head and guided it down over me. She pulled up the covers.

  “There, good as new. You rest now. I’m going downstairs and get you something to eat.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “I don’t care. You have to eat something, and you need some water to drink or you won’t be able to make any milk for that little boy.”

  Clara went out and I dozed off. It felt wonderful to be clean and dry and warm. She brought me a tray with dinner, and I ate like I was starved and fell back to sleep. When I awoke again, Clara was sitting in the chair next to the bed. It was dark outside.

  “What time is it?” I asked, still half asleep.

  “It’s almost eight o’clock. You had a good sleep.”

  “I need to pee.”

  “All right, do you think you can get up to use the chamber pot or should I get something to slip under you in the bed?”

  “This is embarrassing, Clara. I don’t think I could make it outside. I’ll try to get up and use the jar.”

  Clara pulled the ceramic bowl out from under the bed. Once again, Clara helped me out of the bed, then held my nightgown up so I could squat over the bowl. It took a few minutes, and Clara was relieved when I was finally able to pass water. It was an important sign that things were all right ‘down there.’ She helped me back in bed in a sitting position and tucked me in.

  “Now, I’m going to fetch the soup I made special for you.”

  She was back in a few minutes with a bowl of chicken soup and some slices of bread. I hadn�
�t realized it until I smelled the rich broth, but I felt hungry again.

  She said, “You eat that and I’ll take the pot out and empty it. I’ll be right back.” I finished my meal and drank a glass of water.

  When Clara came back, I asked, “Where’s George?”

  “He’s downstairs. He joined them in admiring that baby. He wanted to see you, but I ran him off. I told him you needed your rest.”

  The sound of the baby’s crying reached us, and Lulu brought him to me this time. “Grandma said that he wanted his supper, and you were the only one that could give it to him. It looked to me like that made her mad.”

  She handed me the baby. I held him to myself and fed him again. My milk was in, and this time it didn’t hurt. As soon as he went to sleep I handed him back to Lulu. “Put him in his cradle, Lulu.”

  The cradle had been cleaned and furnished with the bedding that Lulu and I made together and placed in the corner of the room, but when Lulu picked up the baby and started in that direction, the cradle was gone.

  “Where is it, Mommy?” Lulu asked.

  I pursed my lips. “I think Mom Foley has put it in her room. Take him to her.”

  Lulu left, cooing to the baby. Clara stood and stretched her back. “All the better that he’s in her room. You can get more rest that way. I’ll go on home now, Maude. If you need me for anything at all, send Lulu to get me, and I’ll be here in a minute. I don’t care if it’s the middle of the night.”

  I caught hold of Clara’s hand. “I don’t know what would have happened to me if you hadn’t come, Clara.”

  She smiled and leaned over me and kissed my forehead. “Us women got to stick together, Maude. I’ll tell George he can come up now.”

  In a few minutes George came in. He sat on the bed next to me and took my hand in his. He looked awkward, as if he were embarrassed to be touching me. “He’s a fine boy, Maude. You did good. I’ve never seen Ma so happy.”

  I decided to keep his mother’s treatment of me quiet. “That’s good, George. I’m glad you’re happy with him.” George undressed and got in bed. He was asleep in a few minutes.

  Chapter 20

  It was several days before I felt well enough to go downstairs. Mom Foley took care of the baby, bringing him to me only when he cried to be fed. He was always clean and seemed to be well cared for. When Lulu came home, she visited me and then went to see her baby brother.

  Clara came over twice a day to look after me. She became my lifeline, bringing me my meals, listening to me, praying with me and seeing to my needs. George came and went as he always did. His life didn’t change one bit.

  One day, about a week after the baby came, I woke feeling stronger. I got out of bed and dressed. The effort tired me, so I sat and rested for a while. I could hear my family chattering downstairs in the kitchen. I made my way down, hanging on to the bannister and sitting down to rest for a few minutes every few steps.

  When I finally reached the kitchen, Mom Foley was holding the baby and rocking it. Lulu was eating her corn meal mush, and George was eating his black-eyed gravy. Lulu jumped up and hugged me. “Look, Mommy’s here.”

  Worn out by the trip down, I plopped in the chair. Lulu patted me on the back. “Do you want a bowl of mush?’

  I smiled at her. “That would be nice.”

  Lulu got a bowl, spooned it out, and put it in front of me. Between bites I said, “I guess we ought to name the baby.”

  George’s mother looked down at her grandson with love. “His name is William, after my father.”

  I was shocked and a little angry. It had never occurred to me that I wouldn’t get to name my own baby. “I thought your father would have had an Indian name, him being pure-blooded and on the council and all that.”

  Mom Foley glared at me, and answered hatefully. “Many of my people took English names years ago.”

  I looked at George, who ducked his head and kept on eating. Lulu chimed in. “We’ve been calling him William all along, Mommy. Can’t he keep it?”

  I sighed. “It’ll do. We’ll call him William.” I looked at George, who still had his head down. “William James Foley.”

  George looked up in surprise, but I returned his stare, and he dropped his head without objecting and went back to his greasy breakfast.

  I really surprised myself with my speaking up like that. After I had time to think it over, I hoped that calling my baby James would help me to come to love him the way I did Lulu. I realized it wasn’t natural, the way I felt. It wasn’t that I hated him, or even felt bad about him. I didn’t feel anything at all about him. He was only another person in the house. I went back upstairs, and when I had taken my Bible out of the bottom drawer of the bureau, I wrote the name on the line under Lulu’s.

  I fed William and held him every day, but it was as if I were doing it from a distance. Each time Mom Foley came to take him back, I felt relieved that he was out of sight. It bothered me that I wasn’t growing to love my own baby, but I didn’t know what to do to make it happen. I prayed about it every night for several months and then just gave up. I thought if I did my duty to the child, maybe in time I would love him, but deep inside myself, I knew it would never be the way I loved Lulu.

  Chapter 21

  A year later, William was toddling around the house. George had taken to calling him Willie and Lulu called him Bud. Since the name Bud appealed to me, that’s what I used, too. George’s mother still called him William.

  His doting grandmother had been urging him to give up nursing and drink milk from a cup. She gave him a cup at every meal, and although I would have rather nursed him for another year or so to help keep from getting in a family way for a while I didn’t say anything to her. I didn’t see why my mother-in-law kept giving William the cup and almost gloating when he would accept it, until one morning in October.

  It was still my habit to do my own laundry on a Tuesday, and I’d changed the bedding and gathered up my wash in a basket to take outside. George hadn’t gotten around to running a water line inside the house yet, and I still had to do the wash on the back porch. I held the large basket against one hip with my right hand and the bannister in my left as I started down the stairs.

  I heard quick footsteps behind me and then I was hit hard in the middle of my back with such force that I went rolling head-over-heels down the stairs, bouncing off the landing, and then crashing to the floor by the front door. The breath was knocked completely out of me, and I lay there on my back wondering if anything was broken. I opened my eyes and there was Mom Foley at the top of the stairs, grinning down at me.

  The old woman went back to her room and came out carrying William. She walked down the stairs, stepping over the laundry that had scattered, and went right past me. By then, I was able to sit up. I seemed to be all right and grabbed at the skirt of the old woman as she swept past. “Why did you do that?”

  Mom Foley gave an evil smirk. “I was hoping you’d break your neck, and I’d be rid of you.”

  I let go of her skirt, and she went to the kitchen, smiling and humming a song to her grandson. I sat still for a while and then bent first one leg and then the other. I tried out parts of my body until I was satisfied my bones were all right and then got up and gathered my laundry from the steps. I picked up the basket and went to the kitchen. George’s mother was holding William on one hip while she stirred a pot on the stove.

  I couldn’t stand it anymore. I slammed the basket down on the table. “I’ve never been anything but nice to you. Why in the world would you want to hurt me?”

  The old woman didn’t turn around, just kept stirring. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “If you don’t want to hurt me, why would you push me down the stairs like that?”

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” Mom Foley said, finally turning to look directly at me. “I said, I wanted to be rid of you.”

  I know my face went white and tried to catch my breath. I lived right in the house with someone who wanted me dea
d, and I believed she would keep trying until she killed me or someone stopped her.

  My heart pounded so loud I could hear it. I ran out of the house and over to Clara’s. I beat on the back door. Clara opened it, and her eyes grew wide when she saw the look on my face.

  I grabbed Clara’s hand. “She tried to kill me, Clara, and I don’t think she’s going to stop trying until she does it. She told me right out that she wants me gone.”

  Clara pulled me into the kitchen and sat me down at the table. “Oh, Maude, what are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know what I can do. Tell George? He won’t do anything.”

  “Maybe you should tell Doug Graham. As deputy, he can arrest her.”

  I shook my head. “Then what? It’d be my word against hers.”

  Clara stood and stomped her foot, her fists clenched as tight as her teeth. “You’ll just have to take the children and leave him.”

  I looked up at her. “Where would I go? I can’t make enough money sewing and doing laundry to take care of myself and raise two children.”

  “Oh, God, Oh, God, this isn’t right,” Clara moaned. “What are you going to do? You can’t just wait around to see what else she tries. She might feed you poison, or God knows what else.”

  “I don’t know, Clara. Let’s try to think up every possible way she might do it, and maybe I can just be careful not to give her the chance.”

  So, we two, kind-natured, Christian women sat at the table and discussed ways to kill someone and make it look like natural causes, then listed ways to keep from being a victim. When we were sure we’d thought of every possibility, we both knelt by the table and took turns asking God to keep an angel on guard over me and to change the old woman’s heart.

  Satisfied that we’d done all we could, I hugged Clara. “I don’t know how I could live in that house if you weren’t here,” I said to my friend, and then I went back to the house, sick with being afraid.

  I stayed in my room and sewed until George came home. When I finally went downstairs, my family was sitting around the table, looking for all the world like a normal family. No one would have thought that one of them wanted to be a murderer.