The Personal History of Rachel DuPree_ A Novel - Ann Weisgarber [91]
That done, Mary and John pressed even closer to me, and we stayed like that, holding hands. Together we listened to the night sounds of crickets and locusts calling for their mates as prairie grass rustled in the wind.
I didn’t tell Mary and John that the baby hadn’t kicked for a few days. I didn’t tell them I’d been bleeding off and on. Saying anything more would only scare them worse. Scare me worse too. I had to buck them up. “You’re going to have a new brother or sister,” I said. “Won’t that be something fine?”
They nodded and I wondered if they heard the hollowness behind my words. “Mama?” John said.
“What?”
“Think we could get ourselves a boy this time?”
That made me smile. “We’ll see.”
17
PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR
I got ready for the birthing after the children were asleep. John had gotten two buckets of water like I had told him and had put them on the kitchen table. The small butcher knife was clean, but I washed it anyway. In the bedroom, I hung a lantern from a nail on the wall and put the knife on top of the pine dresser beside the white porcelain basin. Before going to bed, Mary had crawled under my bed to get the basin, the one used only for afterbirth. Without me asking, she washed out the layers of white dust that had pooled in it.
Mary had also gotten out the soft cotton rags, stained from birthings, from my bottom dresser drawer. I had washed, ironed, and folded them into small squares after Emma’s birth two years ago. I put the rags beside the basin and as I did, I knew that this was the last time I’d ever need them.
It would be a comfort to have Isaac’s gold pocket watch with me. Its ticking would fill the quiet and I could count along with it. The watch had belonged to Isaac’s father, and inside the cover was a miniature of Mrs. DuPree and Isaac made when he was six months old or so. He wore a long white gown and sat on his mama’s lap—a young, thin, soft Mrs. DuPree what I had never known.
The pocket watch, like Isaac, had been with me through all my birthings. Isaac liked timing my pains; it gave him something to do when there was nothing to do but wait. But today the watch was with him. He always carried it when he left home, even to go to Al McKee’s. A man, Isaac believed, needed to have a precise awareness of time when he was conducting business.
Good Lord, I thought, I forgot to have Mary get my birthing gown. It was in the bottom drawer of the dresser. Groaning, I bent down and ran my hand inside the drawer looking for it. Instead, my hand brushed against buttons. Like a blind woman, I traced the buttons to the broad lace collar that circled a neckline. It was my wedding dress, folded into a perfect square more than a foot tall. It’d been years since I’d last admired it; I couldn’t remember when. With care, I lifted it out of the drawer and put it on the bed.
I found my birthing gown pushed back into the far corner of the drawer. I shook it out and white dust flew everywhere, making me sneeze. I expected that to bring on a pain, but it didn’t.
I put the birthing gown to my nose. It smelled of soap and sunshine and grit. After each birth, I soaked it a day and a night to get out the worst of the stains. When I wore it for Mary, it scratched my skin so bad that I carried sores on my shoulder blades for a handful of days. But seven births later, the gown was soft from all the washings, even though faint brown stains still showed the birthing of every one of my children.
I put the gown on the bed beside my wedding dress. Taking a rag, I went to the kitchen and dipped it in a water bucket. Back in the bedroom, I got undressed.
The baby heaved as I washed between my legs. I gripped the bedpost and counted until I lost track.
When it was over, I put on the birthing gown and sat in the rocker. Rounder came into the room and with a grunt, settled down on the floor