The Birth House. Ami McKay

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      Most days I wake up and say a prayer. I want, I wish, I wait for something to happen to me. While I thank God for all good things, I don’t say this verse to Him, or to Jesus or even to Mary. They are far too busy to be worrying about the affairs and wishes of my heart. No, I say my prayer more to the air than anything else, hoping it might catch on the wind and find its way to anything, to something that’s mine. Mother says, a young lady should take care with what she wishes for. I’m beginning to think she’s right.

      Yesterday was fair for a Saturday in October—warm, with no wind and clear skies—what most people call fool’s blue. It’s the kind of sky that begs you to sit and look at it all day. Once it’s got you, you’ll soon forget whatever chores need to be done, and before you know it, the day’s gone and you’ve forgotten the luck that’s to be lost when you don’t get your laundry and yourself in out of the cold. Mother must not have noticed it … before breakfast was over, she’d already washed and hung two baskets of laundry and gotten a bushel of turnips ready for Charlie and me to take to Aunt Fran’s. On the way home, I spotted a buggy tearing up the road. Before the thing could run us over, the driver pulled the horses to a stop, kicking up rocks and dust all over the place. Tom Ketch was driving, and Miss Babineau sat in the seat next to him. She called out to me, “Goin’ out to Deer Glen to catch a baby and I needs an extra pair of hands. Come on, Dora.”

      Even though I’d been visiting her since I was a little girl (stopping by to talk to her while she gardened, or bringing her packages up from the post), I was surprised she’d asked me to come along. When my younger brothers were born and Miss B. came to the house, I begged to stay, but my parents sent me to Aunt Fran’s instead. Outside of watching farmyard animals and a few litters of pups, I didn’t have much experience with birthing. I shook my head and refused. “You should ask someone else. I’ve never attended a birth …”

      She scowled at me. “How old are you now, fifteen, sixteen?”

      “Seventeen.”

      She laughed and reached out her wrinkled hand to me. “Mary-be. I was half your age when I first started helpin’ to catch babies. You’ve been pesterin’ me about everything under the sun since you were old enough to talk. You’ll do just fine.”

      Marie Babineau’s voice carries the sound of two places: the dancing, Cajun truth of her Louisiana past and the quiet-steady way of talk that comes from always working at something, from living in the Bay. Some say she’s a witch, others say she’s more of an angel. Either way, most of the girls in the Bay (including me) have the middle initial of M, for Marie. She’s not a blood relative to anyone here, but we’ve always done our part to help take care of her. My brothers chop her firewood and put it up for the winter while Father makes sure her windows and the roof on her cabin are sound. Whenever we have extra preserves, or a loaf of bread, or a basket of apples, Mother sends me to deliver them to Miss B. “She helped bring all you children into this world, and she saved your life, Dora. Brought your fever down when there was nothing else I could do. Anything we have is hers. Anything she asks, we do.”

      As I pulled myself up to sit next to her, she turned and shouted to Charlie, “Tell your mama not to worry, I’ll have Dora home for supper tomorrow.” We sat tight, three across the driver’s seat, with a falling-down wagon dragging behind.

      Miss B. began to question Tom, her voice calm and steady. “How’s your mama sound?”

      “Moanin’ a lot. Then every once in a while she’ll hold her belly and squeal like a stuck pig.”

      “How long she been that way?”

      “It started first thing this morning. She was moonin’ around, sayin’ she couldn’t squat to milk the goat, that it hurt too much. Father made her do it anyways, said she was being lazy … then he made her muck the stalls too.”

      “Is she bleedin’?”

      Tom kept his eyes on the road ahead. “Not sure. All I know is, one minute she was standin’ in the kitchen, peelin’ potatoes, and then all of a sudden she was doubled right over. Father got angry with her, said he was hungry and she’d better get on with what she was doin’. When she didn’t, he shoves her down to the floor. After that, hard as she tried, she couldn’t stand on her own, so she just curled up and cried.” He gave a sharp whistle to the horses to keep them in the middle of the rutted road, his jaw set hard, like someone waiting to get punched in the gut. “She didn’t want me to bother you with it, said she’d be alright, but I never seen her hurtin’ so bad before. I came as soon as I could, as soon as he left to go down to my uncle’s place.”

      “Will he stay out long?”

      “More’n likely all night. Especially if they gets t’drinkin’, which they always do.”

      Tom’s the oldest of the twelve Ketch children. He’s fifteen, maybe sixteen, I’d guess. I think about Tom from time to time, when I run out of dreams about the fine gentlemen in Jane Austen’s novels. He’s got a kind face, even when it’s filthy, and Mother always says she hopes he’ll find a way to make something of himself instead of turning out to be like his father, Brady. I can tell she prefers I not mention the Ketches at all. I think it makes her scared that I’ll not make something of myself and turn out to be like Tom’s mother, Experience.

      The Ketch family has always lived in Deer Glen. It’s a crooked, narrow hollow, just outside of the Bay, twisting right through the mountain until you can see the red cliffs of Blomidon. No one here would claim it to be anything more than the dip in the road that lets you know you’re almost home. The land is too rocky and steep for farming and too far from the shore for making a life as a fisherman or a shipbuilder. Too far for a pleasant walk. The Ketches suffer along, selling homebrew from a still in the woods and making whatever they can from the hunters who come from away, men who hope to kill the white doe that’s said to live in the Glen. In deer season they block off the road, Brady at one end, his brother Garrett at the other. They stand, shotguns strapped to their backs, waiting to escort the trophy hunters who come from Halifax, the Annapolis Valley, and faraway places like New York and Boston. The Ketch brothers charge a pretty penny for their services, especially since they’re selling lies. It’s true, there’s been a white doe spotted on North Mountain, but it doesn’t live in Deer Glen. It lives in the woods behind Miss B.’s cabin, where she feeds it out of her hand, like a pet. I’ve never seen it, but I’ve heard her call to it on occasion, walking through the trees singing, Lait-Lait, Lune-Lune. Father said he saw it once, that she’s the colour of sweet Guernsey cream, with one corner of her rump faintly speckled. He came home with nothing that day and told Mother, “It would have been wrong to take it.” Shortly after, at a Sons of Temperance meeting, the men of the Bay all pledged never to kill it. They all agreed that there’s sin in taking the life of something so pure.

      It was nearly dark when we got to the Ketch house, its clapboards loose and wanting for paint, the screen door left hanging. The inside wasn’t much better. A picked-over loaf of bread, along with pots, pans and empty canning jars were crowded together on the table, all needing to be cleared. Attempts had been made at keeping a proper house, but somehow the efforts had gone wrong, every time. The curtains were bright at the top, still showing white, with a cheerful flowered print. Halfway to the floor, little hands had worn stains into the fabric, and the СКАЧАТЬ