Yellow Wife(15)

She clapped her hands to silence me. “That’s enough out of you. Now, do not leave this house again until I give you permission. I will not die in this bed.” She gripped the covers as another contraction rolled through her. “Deliver me from this baby. After that, we will see about Ruth.”

I got down between her legs, hoping that Mama would hold on.





CHAPTER 7




Delivery

It took two risings of the moon before the baby crowned and another full hour before I caught it. Missus gave birth to a tan baby boy with ears that promised more pigment. I cut the cord and handed the baby to Lovie for cleaning. Missus moaned in an exhausted delirium. The infant had started a light cry, and Lovie rocked it while I helped Missus deliver the afterbirth.

“Shall I fetch a wet nurse from the fields?” Lovie held the baby toward Missus Delphina.

“No one else,” Missus murmured as the child’s cries grew louder. She looked at the baby and, after taking in his skin, turned on her side like she did not hear, refusing him. The boy cried and cried as I mopped up the mess from the birth. Finally, Missus reached for the baby and gave it her breast.

I packed Missus with towels to catch the bleeding. When the boy had his fill, she handed him over to me like it pained her to touch him. The child had almond eyes like Essex’s with rounded cheeks and a fuzzy patch of hair. Just looking at him made me mushy, and I knew I would do whatever it took to take care of Essex’s son. I swaddled the baby in a blanket and hummed in his ear while Lovie spooned more soup into Missus’s mouth. After she ate, she fell into an exhausted sleep. Lovie steered me out of the bedroom. Once I closed Missus’s bedroom door, she muttered, “Go see ’bout Ruth.”

She carried the baby to the nursery and shut the door behind her. Outside the air did not move. I could not remember the last time I’d had more than an hour of sleep. Essex had a two-day start, and thus far he had not been missed. Still, I worried over his safety. When I climbed the ladder to the loom house, I heard Aunt Hope singing softly:

There is a balm in Gilead

To make the wounded whole

There is a balm in Gilead

To cure a sin-sick soul

The odor of Mama greeted me before I even laid eyes on her. Aunt Hope had a rag and cool water beside her bed, and I knelt, then swabbed the sweat from Mama’s forehead.

“How is she doing?” I asked, though Mama’s dull skin, hollowed-out cheeks, and swollen thigh conveyed it all.

“Ain’t good. Lord have mercy.” She grabbed my hand.

We both watched over Mama in silence. Then Aunt Hope asked about Missus.

“Had a boy.”

“And?”

I nodded my head in a way that conveyed our suspicions.

Aunt Hope wiped her hands on her apron. “Trouble ahead. I’s best get on up to the big house.”

“See if you can convince Missus to send for the doctor. Tell her how bad Mama is suffering,” I said hoarsely.

She nodded her head and let herself down the ladder.

I slipped in and out of sleep as I sat next to Mama. She moaned and seemed to have small fits in her slumber. The sun had dipped behind the house by the time she opened her cloudy eyes.

“Mama.” I caressed her face as our eyes locked on each other’s. The intensity of her gaze took me by surprise. I felt the depth of her love, though no words passed between us. For a moment, my mind went empty of everything but her. Then she motioned with a bent finger to the brown jar. I held it to her lips and she swallowed. She lifted her mouth and breathed into my ear.

“?’Member who you are Pheby… Delores Brown.”

“Mama, save your strength.”

“You ain’t nobody’s prop—” She drooled saliva and then her face went limp.

“Mama!” I shrieked.

But she was gone.

First came shock. Then the wail rumbled deep down in my gut until the grief gurgled up in my throat. Agony poured from my lips as if I were being decimated like a hog. Felt that way, too. Into her warm chest, I sobbed. How was I meant to go on without my mama? I slipped to my knees, held my head in my hands, and wept.

I knew I should get back up to the big house, but I could not make myself move toward the ladder. I did not know how much time had passed when Aunt Hope came for me. When she took in the scene she swooped me up in her arms and held me tight.

“I’s sorry ’bout this,” she said, as she patted my back. “Ruth ain’t deserve to go like this.”

I could hear flies already flitting around, and Aunt Hope moved to cover Mama’s body with a white sheet.

“Know it’s hard, but you got to keep goin’. I didn’t know my mama at all. Thank God you had her long as you did.” In that moment, I did not feel like the lucky one.

She wiped the dampness from her eyes with the back of her hand. “We need our heads right now. Snitch sniffin’ ’round the kitchen asking me questions about Essex. Think he might make his way to the house for a word with Missus.”

It took a few moments for me to comprehend.

“Needin’ your smarts, gal, to get him off the trail.”

I rose, feeling crippled; kissed Mama’s forehead; and pressed my hands against my cheeks, hoping they would arrange me into some sort of order.

The temperature outside had dropped to a chill, and there was no sign of the moon. Snitch stood at the foot of the back steps, with his whip hanging around his neck like a snake hungry to strike. His left cheek was puffed up with tobacco and he smelled like whiskey.