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“I need to bathe you,” Mrs. Fills the Pipe said. I nodded and she began unbuttoning the top buttons of my birthing gown. It meant nothing to me. All I could think of was Isaac. And John. Something bad had happened to them. Isaac said he’d be home by breakfast; he knew I was close to my time. I couldn’t stop the tears. Him and John must be dead.

Mrs. Fills the Pipe lifted my arms and then pulled the gown over my head. It was bloody, and I never wanted to see it again. She let it fall in a heap to the floor.

She bathed me with a clean rag and got me into my nightdress. I was numb to it all. She put her arms around me and stood me up. I cried out as a hot pain bolted up and down my legs and deep into my belly. Mrs. Fills the Pipe looked into my watering eyes. I took a shallow breath, and she walked me to the rocker.

She gave me another drink of the whiskey, and that stopped my crying. Through half-closed eyes, I watched Mrs. Fills the Pipe change the bedclothes. It was a peculiar feeling seeing another woman do my work and touch what belonged to me. I was too hollow, though, to care all that much. When she finished, she put her arms around me again and put me back to bed, this time propped up on the two pillows.

Mrs. Fills the Pipe stood at the side of the bed and gave me a long look. She said, “You need to see him.”

Him. A boy. I glanced over at the covered cradle. “I can’t,” I said, but then I nodded yes. She went to the cradle and got the baby.

The sun had moved to the other side of the house, and the light that came through the small window over the bed was dim.

It had to be late afternoon; there was one lit lantern on the dresser. The baby was as light as a shadow in my arms. He was wrapped in a blanket, and I couldn’t bear to look at him. Instead, I held him close, wanting to cry, but couldn’t. I was all dried up.

“Look at him,” Mrs. Fills the Pipe said.

The steel in her voice made me do it. My baby boy was a light, dusty color and there were purple bruises under his eyes. I put my curved palm over his head, feeling a dent. His skin was cold, and that chilled me, but his brown hair was soft to my touch. I put my finger to his puckered lips—they were dry—and then to his eyelashes. They were my brother Johnny’s lashes, they were Mary’s. Maybe the baby would’ve had an ear for music. Maybe he would’ve had an easy way with cattle, horses, and dogs.

I unwound the blanket. He wore the long white dress and the knit booties that all of my newborns, except Baby Henry, had worn.

Mrs. Fills the Pipe said, “Mary found the clothes.”

The dress was too long and the booties came up to his knees. Liz and Emma had been small babies but nothing like this.

“He’s ready for his journeys,” Mrs. Fills the Pipe said. She was sitting in my rocker.

He had ten wrinkled fingers. I put my fingertip to each one of his. His nails were long. I would’ve had to wrap his hands to keep him from scratching his face.

Mrs. Fills the Pipe said, “For one year the spirit stays here, this place of his birth and his passing. Then the spirit is ready for the journey along the Wanagi Canku—the Milky Way.”

I heard her voice, but I wasn’t listening.

She said, “The spirit travels the Wanagi Canku to the other world. An ancestor will come and show the way to the other ancestors. And to those who are yet to come.”

I took off the booties and counted his toes. Ten. He had long legs. Like Isaac. I felt myself crumpling. Isaac was dead too. Sorrow crushed my chest.

“A year from now,” Mrs. Fills the Pipe said as if I had asked her a question.

After a while I said, “Did he cry?”

“No.”

“Was he breathing?”

She paused, then, “No.”

“Did he even try?”

She shook her head.

I unbuttoned my nightdress, parted the baby’s lips, and gave him my breast. I had nothing to give and he had no reason to take, but I did it anyway. I had to. I was his mother.

Mrs. Fills the Pipe got up and gathered up my birthing gown, the rags, and the bedsheets. Without looking at me, she left the room.

After a while, I