She was my baby. My Ellen. Whether there was breath in her lungs or not. I had a duty to her.
I left the chair and the porch and entered the house. Gran had sat herself in a chair in the living room. Her face was red and pale all at once. She was panting through parted lips, her chest rising and falling in a quick, jumpy way. Her hair was wet and stringy. It clung to her forehead and cheeks. I noticed her state only peripherally as I carried Ellen past. Gran’s eyes were big, her expression stricken, but I couldn’t feel her pain. I was too full up with my own.
In my room, I laid my baby on the bed and opened the blanket. Her face and body were perfect. Not a mark. I tried one last time to wake her, not able to see how this could have come about, but the effort was too cruel to both of us to try more than once. I washed her body and pinned a fresh diaper on her, and then re-dressed her in the same gown. It was my favorite, and it had meaning. Gran’s mother and other family, perhaps my own mother and father, might recognize the dress and know who she was when she arrived in heaven. It was a light thought—a thought without weight because I had to keep certain things at a distance.
Nobody was coming to clear the downed tree. I would have to do it myself with the chain saw or wait until the power company came to check on the outage, and they’d help me. But such help could be hours or days in coming, depending on how widespread the storm damage was.
No help was coming. This was on me.
I’d heard of crib death. I didn’t know if that’s what had happened, but there was nothing to indicate otherwise. She was as beautifully perfect as she’d been when I put her down for her nap, except now she was limp and cold. Her lips were tinted the soft lavender of a summer sunset, but there was no pink in her cheeks, no life in her flesh.
I brushed her brown-gold curls, kissed her perfect cheeks and smooth forehead, and then wrapped her again in a dry, fresh blanket. I took a clean sheet from the linen press and spread it on the bed. I laid her in the middle of the sheet and, kissing her soft cheeks one last time, I folded the fabric around her with all the love in my heart.
Tucked in is how I thought of it. Her mama was tucking her in.
Inside, I was breaking. Only great care could hold me together. And I had to hold it together. If not me, then who? Who else would take care of this?
Not Gran.
Not the hands of strangers when, and if, they ever showed up.
Human noises—breathing hitches and exhales, wet-sounding, almost painful in their gasping, were coming from the next room.
No help there. Not to be received or given. This was on me.
How would I explain it to people? My poor, sweet babe was gone, lost to me—an unworthy mother who must’ve done something wrong. That’s what their eyes would say, and their mouths might say it, too.
I should’ve kept moving, but I let in these thoughts, and my heart failed me. My legs got weak. I sat in the chair in my bedroom and held the bundle. Gran was grieving and calling out questions and saying something about fetching Mildred.
But we had no phone service, and it was too late. The fact was it had been too late even before I’d known there was a problem.
Gran’s breathing was ragged, and her voice was hoarse. “Hannah.”
I nodded, yet stayed in my chair. I wouldn’t go to Gran, but I owed her some words. “She’s gone. She didn’t wake from her nap.”
It seemed indecent that a few words, such simple words, could represent something so unthinkable and horrendous.
“Child, call Mildred.” Gran had made it to the doorway. She was standing there, held up by the doorframe and her cane.
“Phone’s out and the drive’s blocked.” I tightened my arms and shrank back. There was a high edge to my voice that hurt my head. It rang in my ears, but with a nails-on-chalkboard edge that seemed to be growing in my head. An answering wail echoed in my body, like a vibration from within the earth, shaking below me and inside me. I tried to speak. I opened my eyes, but everything around me was awash in red.
A sharp, hard pain stabbed my leg. My vision cleared enough for me to see Gran, closer now, the tip of her cane hovering near me.
“Hannah, child, stop that screaming.” She stumbled forward and ended up sitting on the bed, shaking her head and repeating, “I can’t lose you, too, Hannah.”
I dragged in a breath and tried again. My voice was no more than a hoarse whisper.
“She’s gone, Gran. Gone too long. There’s nothing anyone can do to help her. If they can’t help her, then they can’t have her.”
There was a long pause before Gran spoke. Her tone was stronger, and there was steel in her words as she demanded, “Help me to my bed, Hannah.”
I looked up. Her face was wet. Tears flowed from her eyes and followed the wrinkles in her cheeks, then dropped onto the bodice and skirt of her dress. I looked beyond her to see that, somehow, the afternoon had slipped away, and evening was pressing in on us.
“Yes, ma’am.” I put my bundle carefully onto my bed and took Gran’s arm.
I helped my grandmother back onto the living room bed. The mattress sagged and sighed as she returned to her place. I pulled the light coverlet up over her legs and hips. Despite it being high summer, she tended to feel the cold in her extremities.
“Bring her to me.”
My mind blank, I stopped. I glanced toward the bedroom. Had Gran not understood?
“Bring her,” she repeated. “Now, Hannah. Bring her here. Ellen and I will nap together again for a while.” She fixed her teary eyes on mine and spoke a truth we both understood. “Grand’s shovel is in the shed.”
I brought Ellen to her. It was a good thing. Horrendous to settle Ellen in Gran’s arms as if to nap, but it was also right, because I had decisions to make and work to do. That work was unspeakable and horrific, but it was also a duty of love, and the task had fallen to me.
I carried Grand’s shovel across the creek bridge and up the slope to the cemetery. There, I dug a hole beside his grave—between his and my mother’s grave where Gran had intended to be buried. She would now rest on the other side of Grand when her turn came.
Generations of Coopers are buried here, I thought. Our baby will rest between her grandmother and her great-grandfather. Grand would be there to welcome her to heaven, and I presumed my mother would, too, but I hadn’t known her. She’d never felt real to me. Gran would join them there sooner or later and make sure all was right. Sooner rather than later, if she didn’t take better care of herself.
It all made sense in my head while I was digging up the earth and creating a nice, neat pile of dark soil.