Nancy nodded slightly.
Turning to me, Anne said, “I suggest you leave her to her work.” Then she adjusted the folds of her skirt and left the room.
I rose to shut the squeaky door and pulled the chair closer to Nancy. I patted her leg through the blanket. “It isn’t right,” I whispered. “A new mother needs rest!”
“I don’t know what’s right.” She stifled a sob. “I feel weak.”
I took her large hand in my smaller one. “Was thy confinement very bad? We feared for thee.”
Nancy’s face crumpled; her tears dropped to Mabel’s flannel wrap. “They cut me with the forceps when they pulled him out. I’ve been sewed, but I can’t stand without passing blood. I can’t sit, either. There’s swelling down there. Doctor Stevens says it’s normal, but…” Her words stopped; her mouth opened. As I stroked her leg and aimed to keep calm, she moved her hand to feel her own forehead. “I’m warm. Should I be warm?”
“I should think so, after such a struggle.” In truth I had no idea.
“My milk has only started coming in.” She sniffed. “That’s what Doctor Stevens said this morning. And William is hungry. I haven’t got enough for two!”
“If only I could help”—for once more I was unable.
She looked at my belly and gave a slight smile. “You’ll have your own soon enough.”
I shivered. “If only I didn’t have to get it out first. How did thee manage for so many hours?”
Nancy’s shadowed eyes regarded me gravely. “What choice did I have?”
A sensible answer to a fatuous query. The supper bell pealed in the hall, and Nancy frowned. “You have to go.”
I leaned and kissed her cheek, then shuffled from the room. As I pulled the thick door shut behind me, I felt that I was sealing her into a vault. The metal hinges squeaked the entire way, so that by the time the door clicked shut, William was awake and wailing.
In the chilly hall, breathing in smoke from the parlor’s fire and the earthy, yeasty odors of our next meal, I leaned my tired bulk against the cold plaster wall and tried to endure William’s protest.
I couldn’t endure it. I opened the door and stepped back into the room. As Nancy nursed Mabel, I lifted William. His lightness surprised me. With his bundled body warming my chest, I swayed side to side and started to sing. In my head I heard Mother’s clear voice joining mine in the one hymn she’d allowed herself, despite the frivolity of singing, because it used Friend Whittier’s words:
O brother man! fold to thy heart thy brother;
Where pity dwells the peace of God is there;
To worship rightly is to love each other,
Each smile a hymn, each kindly deed a prayer.
My chest ached like some gaping hole. William stopped his wails, softening against me. I lowered his tiny form into the bassinet, and he made no protest.
“Now sleep,” I whispered to Nancy.
She looked up, bleak with fatigue, and nodded.
I’m too tired to write more—except to say that I’m still here, one person holding another inside.
NOTEBOOK TWO
The hour is late. All the others are asleep. I’m seated in the second-story bath, on frigid tiles beside a window, for between the cramps and the baby’s kicking, I cannot sleep.
I asked Anne after supper if I might place a sealed letter in my folder here, in case my child should one day seek its origins. She warned me against caring too much for my offspring.
“It’s best to consider the baby like a tooth that must be extracted,” she advised. “An infected tooth you’re better off without.”
“I’d like there to be some words from me, if the child should ever come here,” I said.
“You’re headstrong,” she scolded. “Don’t be a fool. I’m certain no other girl here would even consider leaving a clue to her identity behind.” She said my use of thee and thy alone would give away that I’m a Friend—and did I want my bastard, as she put it, “to roam from Meeting to Meeting in search of its mother”?
I reminded her of what I’d revealed at admittance—that my father had been disowned and I no longer attended our Meeting, which left me with no spiritual home save that inside myself. So my child wouldn’t find me, if it did roam thusly.
Since I couldn’t be dissuaded, Anne bid me to do as I wished.
In the hours between supper and bedtime, in lieu of embroidering, I wrote several versions. I crossed out more than I retained, then burned those tortured pages in the kitchen stove.
With my face and page bathed in milky moonlight, I’ll try once more.
1883. 3rd mo. 18
My dear baby,
I’m writing most of all to say I’m sorry. Thee will be born soon, and in three more weeks we’ll have to part.
Of course thee can never forgive me. No apology or reason can suffice. Yet I want to leave something I’ve touched, a page for thee to hold and read in my absence.
Will thee wish to know thy origins? One day—at how old?—thee might trace thy way back to this charity and learn that being sent to strangers was not thy fault—and see that, without me, thee has gained a better life.
I loved thy father. He seemed sincere and true. We agreed to marry, and I allowed him an intimacy I shouldn’t have. It came clear I’d been deceived, but the force of life in thee carried on, as it cared not how it was planted. So I alone will welcome thee.
Tonight, dearest, we live as one. I believe the moment we meet face to face will be my happiest, and my saddest.
Here is my love. Here are my wishes for good. Please know I’ll send these toward thee, day and night, for as long as I shall live.
What hardships might attack thee—without me to repel them? How this grieves me to consider.
I wish my words could hold thee.
My baby, I honor thy soul.
Mother
Third Month 19
Anne came into the foyer this morning and stood over me while I held a dripping boar’s-hair brush aloft, announcing that I should stop scrubbing the oak planks at once.
“You’ll assist us in the office each morning but Sabbath,” she said. “At least a year has passed since any serious filing has occurred. I was a fool not to enlist you sooner. An educated girl is a rarity here, and I’m certain you can be trusted.”