Gran never brought up our loss, and I never mentioned it. I put fresh flowers or greenery on the grave every day. I sang softly while I worked and spoke quietly to the grave. I prayed, too, but I never exchanged a word about it with any living soul.
The next grocery delivery came about two weeks after the storm. By then, the power company and phone company had cleared enough of the downed trees to restore services. After the utility workers left, I took the chain saw and removed the rest of the tree blocking the drive, leaving the larger parts of the trunk. I’d have to hire someone else to split it for firewood, but at least I could get in and out of the Hollow now if I wanted. I didn’t want to, though, and I didn’t go anywhere. We did wonder why Mildred hadn’t been by to check on us.
“Maybe she’s still clearing debris herself,” Gran said. “Did you try calling her again?”
“Yes, Gran. Her phone’s still out.”
“Well, she hasn’t missed a visit in more than a decade. She’ll be showing up anytime now, I’m sure.”
I knew better. Something bad must’ve happened. As a dedicated nurse and a family friend, she would’ve found some way to get here when she realized she couldn’t call us. I’d been worried about how to explain our own grief to her, fearful the fault for our loss would fall on me due to something I’d done or not done. And yet, I’d also wanted her counsel. Gran had gone back to dozing. I’d never felt so alone.
When the groceries were delivered for the first time post-storm, we didn’t answer the door. I’d hung a note on the door telling Eva to leave the goods on the porch. When I went to the window and peeked around the curtain, I saw it was her son, Anthony. I rushed out to the porch and caught him before he reached the truck.
“Oh, hey there, Hannah. Need any help?”
“No, we’re good.”
“Lost a tree, I see.” He pointed at the branches and leaves still littering the ground, and at the most obvious part, the trunk.
I nodded. “We did.”
“It was a mess all around.”
For a moment, I had a brief flare of hope that maybe the extent of the storm damage across the area explained Mildred’s absence, but then Anthony spoke again.
“Did you hear about Mildred Harkin?”
“No,” I whispered.
“I’m sorry to be the one to tell you. She had a heart attack during the storm.”
My lips parted as I intended to say something, even to just echo his words, but nothing came out.
“Apparently she was attempting to pull some branches off her car and keeled over. Must’ve had somewhere to go that couldn’t wait. Her neighbor found her shortly after the rain ended, but it was too late.” He gave the yard another look. “If you need any help, let us know.”
I’d forgotten about the wood, but Anthony noticed.
“You want someone to take that wood? I know a fella who’ll split it, take some, and leave you some. Want me to have him call?”
“Sure. That would be great.”
He left. I carried the grocery box inside and set it on the kitchen table. What would I say to Gran? Too many losses. How could we bear them? Would the county send a new nurse? Mildred’s loss was a sign—a sign to keep my own counsel because with Mildred gone, there was no one with whom I could discuss what had happened to us. Selfishly, I found a small, warm comfort imagining Mildred had likely accompanied Ellen, had seen her safely arrived to where I would someday greet her again.
Thereafter, we always left the note on the door for grocery deliveries. Eva came a couple of times and put the box on the porch. The first time, she stared at the door and the note for long minutes before leaving. Eventually, she stopped coming, and Anthony took over full time, and he had more interesting things on his mind than our personal business.
The only person who ever asked after my baby was George Bridger, and that was no doubt because he was being polite, not really being a baby sort of person and not knowing of our loss. I walked away. He joined Gran for a cup of coffee, and she must’ve told him about our grief because he never asked again. He always looked at me a bit askance after that, as if he thought he’d angered me and didn’t want to risk ticking me off again. Or maybe he was afraid my grief might be catching or would demand some sort of response from him. He was a lonely man and didn’t interact much, but I let him go on thinking it. So long as he didn’t ask me questions.
The propane deliveryman was the only other person who came out during that time, and he’d never known about Ellen or the pregnancy. Aside from George Bridger, no one knew about our loss, and I wanted to keep it that way. As long as it wasn’t official, there was still some part of her alive in my heart. The world, if it knew, would ask questions and make judgments and force me to speak of it. As far as I could tell, Gran hadn’t told the man in Mineral who paid our tax bills and whatnot. In my head, he was a kind of clerk with a long beard and angel wings who wore a brown suit. Brown, I guess, because she’d called him Mr. Browne, and wearing angel wings because he sent us money from time to time. And the long beard? Maybe because he seemed like Santa sending us gifts of money.
We saw few people. After Mr. Bridger’s last encounter with me, he didn’t wander in as often, and I began to feel badly about it.
In February, on the day when Ellen would’ve turned one, I stayed in bed until Gran started poking at me with her cane. I expected her to cater to my right to be miserable and grieve. I saw by her face that she, too, was grieving, but today I couldn’t help her. I obeyed her cane but went outside and spent the warmest part of the day in the pottery cabin. I hadn’t been in here since I’d lost my baby girl. It was too cold to work the clay, but I did anyway. Not on the wheel but on the table. I sculpted a small child. The figure was rough. Before I was done, my heart failed me, and I left it unfinished, knowing that meant it could never be fired or glazed. It would be a simple dried clay form, subject to breakage with the least jostle. Fragile.
I washed my hands at the outside pump. The cold water set me to shivering and drenched my shoes. I went back inside, still not speaking to Gran, and started a hot bath to thaw myself out. My hands had cracked from the cold air and wet clay, and they were bleeding. Later, I noticed I must’ve been crying because raw, chapped tracks marked my flesh from my eyes to my neck.