“They give her a name yet?” Thomas asks when Mrs. Miller returns.
“Couldn’t be more fitting.” The grandma laughs, glancing out the window toward the crystalline trees. “An old-timey West Virginia name.” Everyone stops chewing and waits. “Icey.”
“Good-bye.” “God bless.” “Thank you so much, girls!” We are standing on the porch staring out at the glitter that covers every twig and branch. The holly bush by the Millers’ front door is sheathed in ice. Even the power lines that come up the drive droop low and are hung with icicles. Reverend Miller, the grandfather of the infant, stands and stares across the yard. “We don’t have much,” he says, shaking hands with me, “but what we have is yours. Please call on us for anything.”
I cannot help comparing this joyful scene with the Cabrinis’ isolation in the coal camp or the MacIntoshes’ seclusion in their brick mansion. The feeling in this happy home gives rise to thoughts of my time in Pittsburgh with the suffragettes, radicals, and union organizers of both colors, and a shadow passes over me. Gone are those days, and they can never come back. I must stay here, on the edge of the world . . .
When the sun rises over the mountain, we are blinded by light. “Morning has broken,” I sing the old song. “Like the first morning . . . Blackbirds have spoken . . . like the first bird.”
November 28, 1929. Quarter moon waning.
Arm presentation delivered with Mrs. Potts, colored midwife of Hazel Patch. Female infant. Icey Washington. Second baby of Cassie and Darwin Washington. I had to go inside and push the arm back and out of the way while Mrs. Potts held the head down. No vaginal tears. After the birth, the arm was very swollen and blue but seemed to bend without making the baby cry. I was proud of myself for figuring out what to do, but then there was heavy bleeding. Mrs. Potts showed me how to do womb compression, which I had read about, and she gave me her recipe for an herbal tincture. Weight 6 pounds, 15 ounces. Present, Mrs. Potts, Bitsy, who was a great help, and all the Miller women and the other ladies, whose full names missed me.
Afterward I explained everything to Bitsy, just like Mrs. Kelly once taught me. How you have to watch women who’ve had more than five babies for malpresentation and hemorrhage. Their womb is so stretched that a baby can flop around any old which way in there and it doesn’t clamp down well afterward. Bitsy paid attention as if someone’s life might depend upon that knowledge . . . which it someday might.
Payment, one fine ham and a sunrise.
Winter
10
Solitude
“I don’t think I should go!” Bitsy worries as I step out of my high boots after feeding Moonlight. She has just taken a bath in the washtub in the middle of the kitchen, and her body, wrapped up in a sheet, steams when the cold air hits the room.
“Of course you should! The arrangement’s been made, and the MacIntoshes are counting on you. Besides, you’ll have time to spend with your mother. I’m sure she misses you. Katherine and the baby too.” I take my chair and reach for my plate of corn bread and baked beans, salted with the last of the Millers’ ham.
“But I worry about you all alone way out here, Miss Patience.”
This really irks me. “Miss Bitsy,” I spit out, “I’ve told you before to drop the ‘Miss Patience.’ You’re not my servant. Anyway, I got along last winter alone and I can do it again for a few weeks this year. You’ll go and have a good time while Mr. MacIntosh pays you.”
This part I wonder about, since he’s never had the money to pay me.
“He promised he’d give you five dollars for helping Mary over the holidays,” I continue my argument. “Five bucks would go a long way this winter. Maybe you can even bring home some more coal and tea. Maybe some sugar and flour. That’s cash money, and you know we need it.”
“But it’s Christmas. You shouldn’t be alone.”
“Really, it doesn’t bother me. I don’t believe in all that.” I know this hurts Bitsy. We’ve talked religion a few times, how I grew up Presbyterian but lost my faith a long time ago. She grew up in the A.M.E. church, African Methodist Episcopalian, and hates to hear me talking like a sinner.
The discussion is cut short by the sound of an automobile laboring through the mud on Wild Rose Road, and Bitsy runs upstairs to get ready. Mr. MacIntosh is here, right on time, and after he wipes his feet, he takes a seat on the edge of the sofa. He takes a deep breath and looks around curiously.
“How are Katherine and the baby?” I ask to fill the silence.
“Good. Great.” He strokes his sandy mustache. Must have been a real looker when he was young, as handsome as Katherine is beautiful, but worry now alters his face. “Her mother and sisters are coming up on the train from Baltimore for the holidays. Bitsy will be a big help.” Despite their new poverty, the MacIntoshes will put on a big show for their relatives. Upstairs Bitsy clumps around, packing her few belongings.
“Radio out of Wheeling says a massive storm’s coming,” William says, changing the subject. “Big snow from the southwest. They’re always the worst, the ones from the south. You better get some more wood in.” It’s the second time recently that some fellow has felt the need to advise me about basic survival.
I glance toward the window. The shadows of low gray clouds skim over the mountains. He could be right, but the ground’s still bare and the sun shines intermittently. In five minutes, Bitsy is dressed in a full-length navy coat, a hand-me-down from Katherine MacIntosh, and standing on the porch with tears in her eyes. I hold out her Christmas present, a pair of green mittens that I knit for her, and she hugs me so tight I lose my breath. It’s the first physical sign of affection she has shown, and I find myself grinning. Except by a few of my mothers, I don’t get hugged often.
“Really, Bitsy, I’ll be okay.”
Then the sound of the auto fades as it takes the bend on Raccoon Lick and I’m alone. Still no snow, but the air is colder and the pale dove sky has turned slate. “Alone,” I say out loud as I smile, then tidy the kitchen, bring in more wood, and get out my yarn to begin knitting a pair of brown mittens for Thomas.
While I work, I keep an eye on the clouds.
December 18, 1929. Rising moon, half full.
Called to another birth, not four hours after Bitsy left with William MacIntosh.