Kit struggled to breathe as she ran from the church house. A current gathered in her throat and she screamed, a dusty wind sweeping the sound across a grove of pecans. She dropped to her knees and pressed her forehead against the warm asphalt. It was shameful of those people to turn down her pleas. They had always attached strings to their kindness. She wished Doc could put a hex on them. And yet, what else did she expect? Shame on her for thinking she could be treated with any kind of fairness. As soon as she found Charlie they would pack up and leave. There was something batting in her chest, like a bird thrashing around in a cardboard box. If only she could touch Charlie, to tangle that hair in her hands and draw her close.
When the numbing came on, it was unwanted.
“No, please, no,” she whispered. The feeling started in her face and rolled down her insides like wet paint. Her hands tingled and cramped before she ceased to feel them at all. She pressed her nails in her cheeks, clawed for a feeling as if she could dig it up. Soon, she felt nothing but a void.
When Doc caught up to her, Kit had no idea how long she’d been on the road. Her mind was stunned still, she moved slowly, automatically. The passenger door of Doc’s van groaned open and Doc helped her in, gently manipulating each limb as if she were made of glass.
“I can’t take it,” Kit suddenly said, her voice sounding as if she were at the bottom of a well. And once her mouth started moving she found she couldn’t stop. “I can’t not know where she is. He can’t have her, he can’t take her from me, oh God, I want to die, please let me die before I see him lay a hand on her—”
“Hush, now, hush,” Doc said, her green eyes worried and big. “She’ll be okay, we’ll find her, babe.”
“You don’t know that!” Kit shouted. To hope was too painful. She couldn’t feel her arms and feet. She was crazed with a need to move. “I let him in. I was weak, and I missed him. I let her meet him, even though I knew he could be dangerous, even though I knew she would love him.”
The guilt was too much. She screamed so hard her eardrums popped, and Doc clapped her ears to block the noise. Kit couldn’t get a full breath and began gulping at the air. “Oh my god, the coyotes, those little pups. It wasn’t mercy, he helped me kill them to see if I was wicked, to see if I could kill. And then Warbucks.” She winced as she recalled the great heap of the stallion covered in blood. “That was murder. He did that to punish me. Or to warn me.”
Doc took her arms, but Kit shoved her back, clawed at the door handle. “Get back, now, Doc. I don’t want to hurt you. You got to let me go.”
Doc pulled Kit into her arms, her strength completely overwhelming. Kit lashed out and flailed and bit at Doc’s hand. She hadn’t felt this small since she was a girl. Doc held tight, her arms thick and strong as thighs. Kit thrashed until she was sapped and hung limp in Doc’s embrace. Doc turned her around and draped Kit over her shoulder like she was burping a baby. She stroked her back and hummed a sad song.
Kit’s skin burned where Doc touched her, but with every pass of her hand the hurt felt more like warmth, and there began a melting within. She hung across the soft, broad shoulder and felt her breath align with Doc’s, her heart slowed to a gentle rhythm. She lost all sense of being separate. A memory burbled up, springlike, and enveloped her.
It had been the end of a hard freeze, the first day of thaw. A scattering of birdsong cheered the air that had hung silent and dour for a week. The grasses, once furry with frost, now hung wet and limp; the sun had burned a hole in the cloud cover, dispersing the frigid fog.
Kit had been clearing fallen branches from the yard for firewood. Some were as thick as her waist and ten feet long, but she’d hoist them over her shoulder and lean forward to drag them to a bonfire in a clearing. Aunt Eleanor had said the labor would come on slowly, feel like gas pains or cramps. She wondered, what with her condition, if she would notice the contractions at all. Instead, they came on like a hot summer storm, suddenly and violently with thunderclaps and lightning. Pain in her body was new to her, a sobering shock, but instead of bracing against it, she followed it, knowing through some timeless medium that this was good for her, it was the pain of creation.
She staggered inside, falling to her hands and knees every time a surge came on, and climbed on the bed. After several hours of spasms, she began to quake. She vomited and collapsed, shivering and stripped of all her strength. She felt for the first time that she could not do this alone. Then her baby drove forward and when she reached down she could feel the slick top of its head. One last surge of strength helped her rise and try again, fearing if she could not deliver now they both might die. She squatted and held on to the brass footboard for balance, feeling her hips split by unimaginable pressure and pushed, and a spreading force like the hands of God drew her open. The baby came faceup and still ensconced in the caul, like a new foal. She cupped the head in her hands and pushed again with a wild growl and pulled her baby to her chest. She lay back and wept, such relief and sweetness enveloped her and all she could see was the child in her arms. She peeled away the membrane and wiped the muck from her baby’s eyes and cut the cord with some sewing shears. She lay upon the baby a soft blanket to keep her warm. All on her own, the baby found her breast and began to nurse. They fell asleep together on the bed, breathing as one. She woke up to contractions and saw she was delivering the placenta, just like Aunt Eleanor had said would happen. In the moments after, when she lay the baby in the Moses basket and got up to wash her hands and between her legs, she missed the baby so much she was weeping. She found a pitcher and a cup on the dresser and filled them both with water and set them on the nightstand. Drink as much water as you can hold, Eleanor had said. When she was clean, she wiped the baby with a damp cloth and dried her well so she didn’t catch a chill. She wrapped her in a thin blue blanket that had belonged to Eleanor’s daughter, Emily, and lay down with her in the old brass bed. The baby was tired, and Kit was, too, and they slept there all night and into the next afternoon, waking only to feed.