Bone House_ A Novel - Betsy Tobin [39]
What I saw next I have since tried to forget. I saw my mother pull the arm as far as it would come, and then taking up a knife, I saw her cleave it from the body. It fell loose onto the floor, like a tiny stick of kindling, then she reached both hands inside the womb and pulled forth a mass of blood and bones and membranes, quickly stuffing all of it into a sack of hemp which she had ready at her feet. After a moment’s hesitation, she picked up the arm and dropped it in the sack. She crouched in silence by Dora’s side. After another minute, she reached again between her legs, and I thought another child would emerge, but this time it was only blood and membranes. These she stuffed as well into the sack, then bundled it tightly and carried it to the door, depositing it just outside, only a few feet from where I crouched in the darkness.
She returned then to Dora, who squatted silently against the bed, chest heaving, her face turned toward the wall. She had not seen what I had seen, though I have no doubt that she must have known. My mother picked up a cloth and began to wipe the blood from between her legs, and when she was through she eased her up onto the bed. Dora’s hair was matted with sweat and when she turned over I saw that her eyes were dull and lifeless. My mother covered her with bedclothes and within moments she had closed her eyes and fallen into sleep.
I looked down at the bloodstained sack lying just outside the door and felt my stomach heave. I stood and backed away from it, turned and ran as fast as my legs would carry me to the cottage. Once home I climbed into bed and lay awake shivering in the darkness, my throat bone-dry, my body taut with memory. How had she known the baby was dead? I asked myself over and over. “I must act quickly,” she had said. Had she sacrificed the child for the mother? And would she have done the same to me, in order to save herself?
When she returned I feigned sleep, scarcely breathing as she readied herself for bed. Once or twice when her back was turned I opened my eyes to look at her. I do not know what I expected: a mark or sign of what had happened, I suppose, but I saw nothing other than the usual weariness. In the morning, she went about her business as usual. Finally, when I could stand it no longer, I asked about the baby, and she told me only that it had been born dead. She said nothing of the other: the dangling arm, the bloodstained cleaver, the roar of anguish, the bag of hemp. Nothing of the things that mattered, the things that plagued my mind.
It was some days before I saw Dora, and when I did she too bore no trace of what had gone before. She was splitting logs with an ax in the clearing behind her cottage, and I approached slowly, cautiously, as if she was a creature too delicate to behold. But of course, she was not, and as she turned and caught my eye, I saw nothing of her previous anguish. She stopped immediately and laid the ax to rest, extending a hand toward me. I moved slowly, my feet sluggish with the memory.
She must have sensed my unease, for she planted herself upon a thick stump of wood and pulled me onto her knee, her great arms wrapped round me in the kind of embrace my mother never gave. I buried my face in her neck and breathed deeply of her smell: strong and mossy, the damp, wild scent of the forest. She held me there upon her for a long time, rocking me slowly to and fro, and for those few minutes I imagined that it was I, not the other, who had sprung from between her legs.
I never heard another word about that baby. It lived and died within me only.
Chapter Ten
After my mother returns I go in search of Mary at the alehouse. When I enter, the room is full and noisier than usual. Mary is behind the bar filling jugs of ale as fast she can. She catches my eye and nods toward the kitchen, and I go within where it is warm to wait for her. It is some minutes before she is free, and I occupy myself with a joint