But yes, she had raised her hand in greeting.
Julia had never been tall, but now her figure was stooped, her face sunburnt and lined, her clothing faded. One of her arms gripped an infant swaddled in grayish flannel, while her other hand held the small hand of a wan-looking girl of about seven. The girl’s face was thin, framed in a halo of golden strands that had pulled from her messy plaits. Her eyes, a dark violet, sunk deep in their sockets, seemed to mirror the stormy Dakota sky, and her chin was small and pointed. In her arms, she held a cheap, naked doll of porcelain bisque, a Frozen Charlotte, who stared with unblinking painted eyes.
“I’m Magdalena,” the girl said gravely. She curtsied stiffly, then coughed, her chest rattling as she held a grimy handkerchief to her mouth and whispered, “How do you do, Aunt Maud?”
Maud leaned down, smiling brightly at the awkward little girl, hoping to put her at ease, then turned to her sister, who was fussing with the swaddled baby, her thin lips puckered.
Maud reached out her arms—and without a word, Julia handed over the baby. Maud’s heart tugged at the familiar weight of a babe in arms. The baby looked like a little old man with a pale face punctuated by two rheumy blue eyes. He felt limp in her arms.
Maud looked up and met her sister’s glance.
“Darling, darling Maudie. You look ever so much yourself. The last time I saw you…” Maud held up her hand, but Julia continued: “I wasn’t sure I’d ever see you again.”
“This poor little one…” Maud said.
“He’s not holding anything down,” Julia said.
“We’ll nurse him back,” Maud said. “Just like you did for me. That’s a promise.”
“Oh, Maudie,” Julia said. “It is so good to see you!”
* * *
—
BY THE TIME THE doctor arrived, a few hours later, Maud had stoked up the fire in the sheet-iron stove so high that the room was uncomfortably warm. Julia stripped baby Jamie’s layers of clothing, removing his long white dress, his flannels, his binder, and two diapers. Maud floated a soft shawl onto the wicker weighing basket, and Julia held the baby close, covered by a flannel blanket, while the doctor fiddled with the scales, adjusting the weight to zero. Only when all was ready did Julia reluctantly remove the blanket from Jamie’s body and place him in the scale’s basket. Laid out naked on Dr. Coyine’s scale, his layers of swaddling gone, baby Jamie’s condition was visible to Maud for the first time: his sunken body, his bloated belly, the sticklike legs and scrawny arms. His skin had a grayish cast. The doctor fiddled with the brass weights and made some marks with his pencil in a small notebook, then hooked his stethoscope in his ears, lay the bell against the baby’s distended midsection, and listened intently. At last, he gently palpated each quadrant of the abdomen, then placed his two forefingers on the belly, tapping with the other two, to elicit a hollow percussive sound, turning his head to listen to it carefully.
Jamie was strangely passive throughout. Maud knew that most infants would be crying by now, but he appeared to be sleeping, his translucent eyelids fluttering open only to fall shut. At last, the doctor nodded to Julia that he was finished. She quickly threw a thick flannel over the infant, picking him up and holding him against her breast.
“Let’s start with his weight. Eleven and a half pounds,” the doctor said. His voice was gruff and gravelly but betrayed no emotion. “He should weigh at least fifteen by now. He is suffering from catarrh of the bowel. You must follow my feeding instructions precisely.”
Tears glistened in Julia’s eyes as she listened to the doctor’s instructions. Maud gently began to wrap the baby back up: one diaper, then a second, then his binder, then his leggings, until the tiny, shriveled infant was fully swaddled again. Awake now, the baby bleated with little strength. Julia picked him up and rocked him gently, humming softly while tucking the tails of his blanket around his spindly legs. At last he gave up fussing and quieted.
* * *
—
AFTER THE DOCTOR HAD GONE, Maud stood at the stove. Into a clean quart jar, she emptied the contents of one Fairchild’s peptonizing tube, a yellow powder that promised to partially digest the baby’s milk. The smell of the peptonizing powder reminded her of the sanitarium. She poured in a gill of cold water, stirred for a minute, and added a pint of fresh, sweet milk, then screwed on the lid and placed the jar into a bath of warm water. She noted the time on the clock. The doctor had ordered that the baby’s milk be peptonized for fifteen full minutes.
When that had passed, Maud filled the glass bottle and affixed the India-rubber nipple. She scooped the baby up from his cradle and carried him to Julia, who sat slumped over with her eyes closed. Julia looked as if she’d aged a decade in the last three years. Her face was creased from too much sun, her hair had lost its lustrous sheen and was now a faded tawny color flecked with gray, and her body, once gently curved, was now hard and wiry. But it was her sister’s hands that had changed the most—her fingers thickened, her palms callused, her forearms crisscrossed with scars and bruises from fieldwork. On the table next to her, the lamplight shining through its amber glass, was a bottle of Godfrey’s Cordial, a patent medicine.
Maud hadn’t the heart to awaken her sister, so she settled herself into the rocker to feed the baby. She tested the milk on the inside of her wrist, then licked it up. Peptonizing the milk gave it a bitter taste, and the flavor almost gagged Maud as it brought vividly to mind her own long illness and convalescence. She wondered that a baby would take such a strong flavor, but this was what the doctor had ordered.
Baby Jamie would not drink the milk from the bottle. His small body felt limp in her arms, and he kept drifting off to sleep. She tickled his cheek, but he took only a halfhearted suck before turning his head away, the milk dripping down his cheek.
At first, Maud was so intent on the baby that she scarcely noticed Julia’s daughter, Magdalena, who was hovering near the hearth, playing with her doll. She seemed used to being ignored and played quietly, careful not to disturb her sleeping mother. But now and again, she would look up with her deep-set eyes, a watchful expression on her face.
Maud coaxed the infant into swallowing some of the milk. She worried the corner of his mouth with the tip of the nipple, hoping to encourage him to suckle, but it only seemed to irritate him, and after a few attempts, he started to cry. Julia’s eyes fluttered open.
“I must have dozed off for a moment. Oh, now listen to my poor dear thing.”
“Mama!” Magdalena said, but Julia was looking only at the baby, a worried frown on her face, so Magdalena returned her attention to her doll.
Julia reached over and picked up the bottle of medicine from the table beside her.
“Give him a few drops of this,” Julia said. “They call it ‘mother’s friend.’ It always seems to soothe him.”
Maud looked at the medicine skeptically. Matilda had always held patent medicines in great suspicion. “Perhaps we should consult the doctor first.”
Julia shrugged, then uncorked the bottle and poured herself a dose. Maud watched with concern.
“For my sick headaches,” Julia said.
“Come with me, Magdalena,” Maud said. “Let’s go into the kitchen. I’m making a pie, and you can help me crimp the edges.” The little girl’s eyes widened, but the hint of a smile lightened her expression. She quickly gathered up her doll and scampered after her aunt.
“Let me see your hands, dear,” Maud said, filling a washbasin with warm water from the stove.
Looking at the floorboards, the girl jammed her hands into her skirt pockets.
Maud knelt down so that she could look her niece straight in the eye.
“You don’t want to show me your hands?”
Magdalena shook her head, her eyes downcast, a single pucker creasing the center of her chin.
“You can’t help me with the pie unless your hands are clean. You don’t want to help me with the pie?”
A round circle of pale skin showed that the girl had washed her face before setting out, but closer to her hairline was a rim of smudged dirt. Maud held out her own hands.
“Show me your hands, sweet pea.”