The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb - Melanie Benjamin [128]
I felt a hand upon my shoulder. Steeling myself against the accusation I knew I would find in her eyes, I took a trembling breath and turned to my sister.
But there was only that now-familiar soft, hopeful light in Minnie’s eyes as she smiled and hugged me to her.
“It doesn’t matter, Vinnie. I’m glad you told me, but—it doesn’t matter. You don’t understand, you can never understand, what it is to have life within you! I’m so sorry that you haven’t had this chance, but I’m so grateful that I am able to! Even if—but I know that God will find a way. I know that He will see me through this. And I promise, this baby will be yours as well as mine. You’re always looking out for me—still! You’re always doing things for me. Well, this is the one thing I can do for you, and I would not wish it any other way.”
I had to leave the room then, coward that I was, that I now knew I always had been. I couldn’t bring myself to witness the bravery in those still incongruously impish eyes, the nobility in that dimple and faint, determined scowl.
All were gone now; she lay, still so patiently, but her body was no longer her own. It was a puffy, stretched, swollen, throbbing vessel for the life within, the life that continued to grow and grow, so obviously not the “fairy child” that we all continued to talk hopefully about, regardless of the facts. Through eyes that were slits, a face too swollen to display a dimple; with hands that were so awkward and puffy, she could barely hold her knitting needles, but still she tried; over an abdomen that stretched her skin as tight as a drum and made it impossible for her to do more than allow an extra pillow beneath her head—my sister prepared for the new life expected.
“What if it’s a boy?” I asked her, as I knitted an absurdly tiny cap out of the softest wool; it was all for show, the tiny layette that Mama, Delia, and I were preparing for her, to ease her mind—as well as Edward’s. He refused to consider the possibility that the child would be normal-size, and forbade us from discussing it.
“She is not a boy, I know it.” Minnie struggled with small knitting needles, trying to maneuver them upon her swollen belly.
“How?”
“Because she is very considerate about when she kicks. A boy would not be so thoughtful.”
“What—what does it feel like?” I was hesitant to ask; I talked about the child in theory, allowing her to dream of it. But I did not like to discuss any of the practical—physical—aspects of what my sister was going through. It was almost as if I could wish them away by not giving them voice.
But by the look of relief—of happiness—in Minnie’s gaze as she considered my question, I had to wonder who I was protecting in this way. Her? Or me?
“Do you remember the time I swallowed a grasshopper?” she asked me.
“Yes.” I laughed; I hadn’t thought of that in years. “You said you could feel it hopping about inside you, and then you started to hop, too; you hopped all through dinnertime, until Mama didn’t know what to do and was about to send for the doctor.”
“Well, it’s like that. Only this time, it’s real; I do feel something hopping about inside me. As if I’ve swallowed a very large, very heavy, grasshopper. Oh!” She gasped, and her hand flew to her stomach.
“What is it? Are you all right? Shall I send for the doctor?” I jumped out of my chair, my knitting falling to the floor. I was halfway out the door when I heard my sister’s happy laugh beckoning me back inside.
“Vinnie—come, quick! She’s kicking right now! Come feel!”
“Oh!” I turned back to her but remained where I was, in the doorway. My hands flew behind my back almost of their own accord.
“Come!” Minnie patted the mattress, one hand still upon her stomach, which twitched, ever so faintly, beneath the sheets. I stared at it in horror.
“No, I don’t want to hurt you, dearest—”
“You won’t hurt me! I promise—come feel her, Vinnie! Come say hello to your niece!”
“No, can’t you listen to me? I