Fifteen November 1970
FIFTEEN
“Hey, Kiju.” I walked through the door, and the smell of baking bread met my nose. I found this odd, since Saturday was bread day and this was Wednesday.
“We are going away for a few days. Pack a bag. We are going to catch the six thirty train.”
My grandmother didn’t leave home. She stayed where she was with the exception of shopping for things she couldn’t make or grow herself.
“You can miss a couple days of school. It won’t hurt. You’ll catch up.”
“Where are we going?”
“To visit Sally. I got a letter today. She’s expecting this new baby any day and wants us to be there. She can’t travel because of all the children, so we are going to go to her.”
“How long are we staying?”
“Until the baby is born.”
I hated missing school, but I was excited to see Ben and Sally and the boys, and maybe John if time allowed.
I emptied my backpack and filled it with clean underwear and socks, a clean pair of jeans, a few sweaters and Wuthering Heights, a dull book but required reading for English class.
When we arrived in the dark, the two oldest boys met us at the train and insisted on carrying our bags from the station to the house.
Sally sat near the stove, sewing socks. Her feet were shoeless, swollen and red.
“In all my days, I don’t think I’ve been happier to see two people.” She laid her sewing on the egg crate beside her that acted as a small table and tried to lift herself up but fell with a thunk back into the chair.
“You stay right where you are. We are here to make sure you can welcome this little one with peace. A little sad that the tree has been unable to witness the last two.” She removed her coat and handed it to the oldest boy and made her way over to Sally.
She sat down at her feet and took one in her hands. “Aliet, tea,” Kiju instructed.
I handed my coat to the same boy and made my way to the stove as Kiju worked the soft pads of her fingers into the hard muscles of Sally’s feet. Sally let her head fall back and made a little noise of pleasure.
Big Ben had left to deliver a bundle of kindling to an older couple on the other side of town who were nervous about falling on the ice. They paid him in chickens, which was just as good as money.
“Feeds this gaggle of boys we have here,” he said that night as we sat around the table eating a roasted chicken with potatoes, carrots and a thick, rich gravy made with real butter and fat drippings. Kiju had brought the bread and Big Ben smothered it in molasses. It was a festive atmosphere.
“What do you think, Kiju? Sally thinks this one is a girl,” Ben said.
“Oh, I never like to guess, but I suppose Sally would know. She’s the one who carried all the others.”
“This one just feels different,” Sally said as she reached over to wipe molasses off the chin of her youngest. “You brought the teas and everything you need?”
Kiju looked at her incredulously, as if she could ever forget such a thing, and Sally apologized. Both women laughed.
We settled into Sally’s house as though we’d been living there all along.
We shared a small bed previously occupied by the oldest boy, who now slept on a pile of blankets on the floor of his brothers’ room, never complaining, because he said the floor was closer to the heat coming from the wood stove downstairs.
All day Thursday I sat with Sally, a small fireplace emitting just enough heat to chase the cold away. Around mid-afternoon, Sally got tired.
“Do you want me to help you to bed? Kiju says that naps are healthy.”
“No, I like it here in the front room. The boys will be home soon and it will get loud. Not that I mind. A quiet child makes me nervous.”
“I was a quiet child.”
“True, so maybe not all quiet children.” She laid her head back and closed her eyes.
Word had gotten around the small village that Kiju and I were there, and John’s mother sent a note that John was in school during the day and in the woods on the weekends, but she would be sure to tell him that I was there when he got back. She said he would be so happy to see me.
It was just after breakfast on our third day there when Sally let out a groan from her chair by the fire.
“Here we go,” she said to Kiju.
Kiju turned to Ben. “Ben, you take the little ones and skedaddle. Aliet and I have this.”
“Are you sure you don’t want me to stay?”
“We don’t need you, you did your part.” She winked at Big Ben and he blushed redder than the sunset.
He gathered his boys and headed out the door. “When my daughter is born, send for us at my brother’s place.”
“Will do.”
Sally was in the early stages of labour. Her brow was still dry and her breathing regular. We helped her upstairs and propped her up in the bed she shared with Ben and the occasional child afraid after a nightmare or a thunderstorm.
“For the first time in a long time, I have the bed to myself.” She laughed as I came in with a warm cup of tea fresh from the kettle. “And what is this one meant to do?”
“How do you not remember after four babies?” I asked.
“Aliet, when you have a baby, you will understand. I don’t remember much, just the sound of that cry and the feel of their skin.
If we remembered every detail, we’d probably never do it twice.
I remember enough to tell them their stories.
The pain, I like to forget.” Sally closed her eyes and held her belly, breathing calmly through a contraction.
Kiju walked in, wiping her hands with a dish towel. “Sally, I was thinking that Aliet could help you to bring your daughter into the world. I will be here beside her, of course, but it would be good for her.”
Sally looked at me and I looked at Kiju. Surely, she couldn’t mean it. My job was to steep the tea that Kiju had already made, pass blankets when needed and sing the songs. I remembered the fear I had the last time Kiju had asked me to help, only a few short years before.
“That would be nice.” Sally smiled.
“Kiju, no. I can’t.”
“Yes, you can. You know what I know. You just need to put it all into practice, and if there is anything that town meeting taught me, it’s that we have to make sure we remember. It’s up to you now.”
The room suddenly felt small and unbearably hot.
The air had a heavy quality as it seemed to push its way into my lungs.
A pot of hot water sat in the corner, and I thought it was giving off far more heat than it should.
My eyes seemed wetter than usual, a glaze of moisture thickening on the surface. I tried to blink it away.
“What if I don’t know what to do?”
“Do you think I’m just going to head down to the community hall for some bingo?
I’m going to be standing here right beside you.
” She leaned in closer as Sally gripped the sheets during another contraction.
“This is important, Aliet. It’s important that you know.
That you remember.” And she kissed my forehead and let her cool lips stay a little longer than usual.
She patted my back and went to check on the tea.
I wanted to help Sally, to be a part of her daughter’s birth story.
I wanted to make Kiju proud, to let her know that those people at the town meeting were wrong, that we could do this, we should do this.
But the reality of it was a little too terrifying.
It’s an important thing, to help usher life into the world, to gently coax a new soul from a place of warmth and safety to a sometimes cold and ugly place.
It has to be done with love on the mind.
There can be no anxiety, no fear; the baby might feel it, might carry it with them.
At that moment, as I took the seat at the foot of the bed and pulled the sheet back to check on Sally, I knew I could do this, the technical part.
It was the other part I was scared of, the responsibility of ensuring joy.
Behind me, Kiju started to sing her song and the world seemed to come into focus.
The room was bearable again and the pain on Sally’s face held something so primal and yet so beautiful.
“Okay. I’m ready.”
“Now check Sally, see how the baby is coming along.”
Kiju talked me through checking Sally, to see how long it would be before the baby made its way down the birth canal and into the world. Sally was the perfect patient. I washed my hands in the bucket of beech leaves and bark steeped in hot water that had been set beside me.
“Not long now, Sally. She’ll be in your arms soon,” I said with a confidence I wasn’t sure I had.
I moved around to stand at the side of the bed and laid my hands on Sally’s protruding belly.
I looked over at my grandmother and she nodded.
I started to push, gently, to see how the baby was positioned, to see if she needed any help getting into the right place for birth, but everything seemed to be right, the head was down.
Sally started to moan, her eyes closed, while Kiju sang in a low voice.
The window was open, and the cool breeze gifted by the bay and a chilly November was welcome.
Sally’s breathing got heavier as the song grew louder.
The thought that women preferred twilight sleep to our birthing songs made my heart sink, if only for a moment.
I was brought out of my reverie by the sound of a grunt.
“I think I need to push,” Sally whispered through clenched teeth. “I need to push.”
“Okay, let me get back down there to catch her,” I said with a smile, and wiped her damp hair away from her eyes.
She lifted herself up on her elbows, the strain of it reddening her already blushing cheeks. I sat on the stool and dipped my hands one last time in the hot water, taking in the antiseptic scent of the tree.
“Okay, Sally, I’m ready,” I said.