Chapter Eighteen
A missed cycle, tender breasts, queasiness—I knew what this meant. I had been through it before.
“I’m pregnant,” I told Addie.
Her eyes widened. “What does it feel like?”
I told her.
Her hand drifted to her belly. “I think I am too.”
We sat with the knowledge for a long moment, the heat pressing down on us, cicadas droning in the trees. Then we found our
husbands and told them together, the words tumbling out almost in unison.
For a beat they stared at us, as if we were playing some kind of trick.
Eng let out a laugh, shaking his head in amazement, and Chang clapped him on the back.
A few days later Addie and I hitched the buggy and made the slow, jostling trip to Wilkesboro to see Dr. Albright, dust rising
in clouds behind us. The town bustled with traders and farmers, and the usual smells—horse manure, roasting chestnuts—made
my stomach lurch. We passed Epps General Store, the courthouse steps lined with men in hats, a barber standing in the doorway
of his shop, a straight razor glinting in his hand. Then we arrived at the doctor’s office, a modest brick building with black
shutters.
“The babies you carry may be fused together,” Dr. Albright told us. His tone was neutral, but his eyes betrayed concern. “There’s
no way to know until the birth.”
Dr. Albright had delivered both Addie and me at Mulberry Farm. He had nursed me through yellow fever when I was twelve, set my ankle after a fall from a horse, lanced an abscessed tooth, tended to me during a mild case of measles. I had never seen him look this worried.
“Why not?” I asked.
“To my knowledge, there is no record of such twins bearing children. But it is true that twin births seem to run in some families.”
“Does it matter if the twins resemble each other?” I asked. “If they’re of the same kind?”
“Well, there’s some thought that when twins are of one likeness—mirror twins or look-alikes, they’re called—it’s more likely
to repeat,” he said. “But much of what we know comes from observation and God’s will. There’s no sure science to it.”
“We married these men, Sallie,” Addie admonished me after we left his office. “You heard their opinion on this. Why should
their children be any less acceptable to us than they are?”
“It’s not just that. How does one even give birth to such a creature?”
“Their mother did.”
“That doesn’t mean we can. And . . . I worry about what their lives will be like. It will be hard for them.”
“Hard for us, you mean.”
“Yes,” I admitted. “For us. And for them. For all of us.”
Dr. Albright’s parting words rang in my ear. Rest assured, I will do everything in my power to ensure the safe delivery of these babies, whatever form they take.
When I felt the first tiny flutters, proof that something was alive inside me, I didn’t feel wonder or joy.
I felt anxious. Each morning, I stood before the looking glass, nightgown pulled tight, hands unsteady as I traced the curve of my growing belly.
Was I gaining too much, too fast? I pressed my palms against the taut skin, searching for the reassurance of a tiny foot or elbow, yet fearful of what I might actually feel beneath my fingers.
“Are we creating a new breed of humans?” I fretted.
“Hush your nonsense,” Addie said. “We’ll be fine.”
I thought of that terrible moment in Mary Shelley’s novel when the creature first opens its eyes and reaches for its creator
with such innocent need, only to be met with horror and abandonment. Had the twins’ mother felt that same revulsion when they
were born? They rarely spoke of her. I wondered if they carried that first rejection with them across oceans, an unacknowledged
wound. Perhaps that was why they clung so fiercely to respectability, to wealth and status, as if they might prove themselves
worthy of the love they were denied at birth.
The kitchen house was the engine that kept the farm running. Grace fed us from its hearth. She woke before dawn to start the
fire, lugged buckets of water from the well to fill pots to boil grits and oats, sliced salted ham and fried it in a cast-iron
skillet, baked cornbread and biscuits in the brick oven. Then she brought everything to the main house to serve us breakfast.
While we were eating, she began washing up. Then she was on to the daily tasks of churning butter, rendering lard, and preparing
vegetables for the midday meal. She harvested beans and stewed them with pork fat. She canned tomatoes with onions and carrots
with dill. By late afternoon, she was chopping chicken and rolling out dough for dumplings. When supper was over, she had
yet more dishes to wash.
There were too many chores for one person, especially with two growing families under one roof.
One humid afternoon, Eng and Chang came home with a young couple, Cato and Phoebe, they had arranged to lease from a neighboring plantation owner, along with their one-year-old, Peter.
Cato got to work right away, hammering together a small cabin for their family.
He would work on the property as a blacksmith.
Phoebe would help Grace in the kitchen house, cooking meals and keeping the fires going, lending a hand with the never-ending laundry.
Beyond the work itself, I hoped Phoebe’s presence would bring Grace some welcome companionship.
As the days stretched longer, the farm shimmered beneath the hot sun. Corn stood tall and unmoving in the fields, gladiolas
flared scarlet in the garden beds, roses opened pale as cream. The last of the honeysuckle drooped in tangles along the fence.
Addie and I were swollen and queasy, our dresses clinging to our backs by midday.
We tried everything to stave off nausea—bread and cheese, tea steeped with ginger and mint, peppermint oil, gargling baking
soda and water. Nothing helped.
Phoebe said she was a midwife and healer. She told Addie and me she’d learned her craft from her mother, blending African
traditions with remedies passed down for generations. She used herbs, bark, roots, and berries to make everything from tonics
for fevers to salves for snakebites to teas to ease the pains of childbirth.
“Do you have anything for pregnancy sickness?” I asked her.
We were in the kitchen house. The smell of stew simmering over the fire mingled with the pungent scent of herbs strung above
the rafters. I sat at the rough-hewn table, shelling peas, watching Phoebe unpack a leather satchel, her baby on her hip.
Through the open door, Cato’s hammer rang steadily as he worked on their cabin.
Phoebe set Peter down on the hard-packed floor with a few wooden spoons to play with. She pulled a small clay jar out of her
satchel, releasing a grassy scent. “Dried lemon balm,” she said. “Steep a handful and drink it slow in the morning before
you take anything else.” She unwrapped a bundle of roots, snapping one between her fingers. “Wild ginger. You can chew on
it, or I can make you a syrup with honey.”
I leaned forward, intrigued. “Where do you find it?”
“Grows along the creek bed. Same as the sassafras I use for fever tea.” Phoebe nodded at the bowl of discarded pea shells. “Most folks toss those, but my mama taught me to dry them for tea. Helps with swollen feet and ankles.” She glanced at my belly. “Might come in handy before long.”
When I confessed my worries about the pregnancy, she shook her head, the beads on her braids catching the light. “No use worrying.
A woman’s body knows what to do.” Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out a small cloth bag. “Try tucking this under your
pillow. Red raspberry leaf. It smells nice, and it might settle your nerves.”
Addie, leaning in the doorway, regarded her with a skeptical eye. “That’s just superstition.”
Phoebe met her gaze. “Believe what you like,” she said mildly. “But it does the job. Same way folks use pine needle tea for
a cold, or willow bark for a headache. Nothing magic about it.”
Addie sighed, folding her arms.
Phoebe held up another sprig. “When contractions start, chamomile tea will calm you.”
“We’ll summon Dr. Albright when it’s time,” Addie said.
Phoebe gathered up the herbs, her movements unhurried.
I held a sprig of lavender to my nose. “And this?”
“Lavender eases a headache, helps you sleep. Soothes a fussy baby.” She scooped up Peter, who’d begun poking at the woodpile.
“I should see how Cato’s getting on. Come on by anytime you want to learn more.”
Sluggish summer days. A yellow shrunken sun, leafy depths of green, the hard, unvarying din of katydids. In the sticky heat,
Addie and I were rarely apart. We napped together on my bed, waking in the late afternoons damp with sweat. We fanned ourselves,
rubbed each other’s backs, brought each other cool compresses.
Phoebe’s remedies wove themselves into my days.
I drank lemon balm tea each morning, chewed ginger after meals, tucked the raspberry-leaf sachet beneath my pillow at night.
Addie scoffed at first, but in time, she started doing these things too.
If nothing else, there was comfort in the ritual: boiling water, steeping leaves, measuring honey.
It gave shape to the hours, to the waiting.
Restless and uncomfortable at night, we often shared a bed, taking turns holding our hands over each other’s bellies to feel
the kicks.
The brothers reacted differently to our pregnancies. Chang focused on the child inside Addie—“he,” Chang insisted, as if the
child’s sex were already known. Was “his” mother sleeping enough? Eating enough? Avoiding exertion, rain, and cold? If Addie
went outside without a hat or woke in the night, Chang would chide her. His joking exhortation—“Keep my son safe!”—carried
a note of warning.
Eng’s attention was of a different kind. He anticipated my needs before I could name them: bringing a pillow to cushion my
back, rubbing my swollen feet. He treated the child growing inside me like a marvel, a treasure. A wondrous and inexplicable
gift.