Caroline: Little House, Revisited(79)
“Here, now,” Mrs. Scott said, leaning across the bed for the baby. But Mary put her face beside Carrie’s crinkled red ear and whispered, “Shhhhhhhhhh.” Carrie did.
Mrs. Scott chuckled. “She’ll make a good little mother herself one day,” she said, and Mary glowed.
Mrs. Scott would have stayed Saturday, to get supper and help with the children’s baths, she said, but Charles presented her with an enormous jackrabbit and insisted she head home in time to roast it for her family. “I can manage the supper and the bathing,” Charles promised.
And he did. He fitted a spit into the fireplace and turned two plump prairie hens on it until their skins glistened and the juice ran hissing into the coals. Then he carefully carved a breast from the bones and brought it to Caroline on a plate, alongside a heap of sliced Indian breadroot and a bowl of blackberries bobbing in fresh milk. Mary and Laura washed and wiped the dishes while Charles brought in the washtub and put water on to boil.
Caroline watched him line the dishpan with a towel, then mix hot and cold water and dip his elbow in to test it. He set the pan down on the hearth and came to the side of the bed. She started to shift the baby toward him, but Charles reached up over her head, into the crevice formed by the meeting of the wall and the roof and brought down a bear grease tin. He opened it and laid a tissue-wrapped packet in her palm. “For you and Carrie,” he said.
Caroline turned back the soft blue wrapping. Inside lay a creamy cake of pressed soap, pale and smooth as butter. The faintest whiff of roses brushed her nostrils. Her lips parted in wonder. “Charles, where did you ever—”
“On our way through Independence.”
Months ago. She saw herself sitting on that wagon seat outside the store, wary of the Indians, wishing that Charles would only hurry. And all the while he had been inside, picturing this moment in his mind and choosing something small and fine to mark it. With all his worries over prices and land offices, he had thought of this—of her. She looked up at him, her eyes welling. “Oh, Charles.” It was not much more than a whisper. He rubbed at the back of his neck, sheepish and pleased, then bent to gather up Carrie for her bath.
Carrie squalled until she vibrated with fury, perfectly incensed by the touch of the water. Mary and Laura scrunched up their shoulders and covered their ears. Charles was not perturbed. He bathed Carrie with the sweet white soap, toweled her dry, and folded her into a clean flannel blanket, humming as he worked. “Clean as a hound’s tooth,” he pronounced, fitting the baby back into the hollow of Caroline’s arm.
Caroline touched her lips to Carrie’s fine black hair and breathed in. The scent of pollen still tickled her nose, but the raw newness of it was gone, shrouded by the smell of the store-bought soap. She kissed the baby’s head, smiling over the pinch of disappointment in her throat. “Thank you, Charles,” she said.
When the girls had had their turn in the washtub—they’d splashed more than they’d scrubbed, but Charles made sure to soap their hair and kept the suds from their eyes—Charles refilled the tub and draped the wagon cover between the bedstead and the mantel, screening off the hearth for her.
Caroline stood gingerly, her feet wider apart than usual. Between her legs it felt as though there was not enough space for what had always been there. One foot, then another went into the washtub. She gripped the rim and crouched slowly into it.
The water was so soft and warm, it felt like part of her. “Oh,” she breathed, more quietly than the crackling fire. She sat still a full minute, letting it touch her. Then Caroline unpinned the broad linen band Mrs. Scott had put around her the day Carrie was born and unwrapped herself. Her middle eased out like a flounce, the skin shirred around her navel. She sighed. The delaine, folded in tissue in the trunk at the foot of the bed would not fit her now, nor for months to come. A frivolous thought—there was no call for such a dress in this place. She washed herself tentatively, wondering whether the soap would mask her own smell the way it had changed Carrie’s newborn scent. The blood turned the cloth and then the water faintly pink.
Carrie’s voice sputtered on the other side of the canvas, and Caroline felt the tingle of her milk. In a moment it ran in hot rivulets down her wrinkled belly. It was true milk now, white enough to cloud the water where it dripped. She felt an easing in her breasts, the relief of a pressure so gradual that the building of it had barely registered. Caroline gazed fondly at the tub, the fire. There could be no pleasure in lingering now. It was a shared thirst. Carrie cried, and Caroline’s chest opened like a moistened sponge, as if to absorb the child back into her.
Caroline stood and peeked over the wagon cover. Charles was perched at the foot of the bed, swaying forward and back to soothe the baby as best he could with no chair to rock her. “Hush, Carrie,” he chanted. “Hush-hush-hush. Ma’s coming; Ma’s coming just as soon as she can.” Carrie took no comfort from his assurances. Her voice turned gravelly and her fists balled.
“Unbutton your nightshirt,” Caroline whispered as she toweled herself. He gave her a dubious look. She nodded encouragement, and Charles did as he was told. “Lie down and put her across your chest,” Caroline said. He laid the baby with her head over his heart, just as a woman would do. “Now nest your hands around her. She’s used to being held tight as a bean in its shell.”
His hands blanketed Carrie’s little body. One breath, then two, and the tempest subsided. The baby hiccoughed and blinked, as if shocked by her own contentment. Caroline smiled to herself, knowing the feel of those hands spanning her waist. A flicker of envy warmed her skin at the thought of what it would be like to fit entirely within them.