This Life Is in Your Hands_ One Dream, Sixty Acres, and a Family Undone - Melissa Coleman [5]
“Let’s just hope she arrives in time,” Papa said.
Four years earlier, when he was age twenty-six, a child of his own had been the furthest thing from Papa’s mind as he approached the buffet in Franconia College’s dining hall. A small college of three hundred students, it had a campus located on a ridge near Franconia Notch on the site of the once-grand Forest Hills Hotel, affectionately dubbed “the wedding cake.” Athletics included the fringe pursuits of kayaking and rock climbing, and students were required to sign up for work programs—cleaning buildings, serving meals, washing dishes, and other daily tasks.
My mother, age twenty, was on meal duty that day. A slender sophomore in an embroidered Indian shirt, she had clear skin, square jaw, and hazel eyes set off by dark braids falling to her shoulders. Having dropped out of Lawrence University, where her parents had encouraged her to go, she’d decided instead to ski bum in Vermont at Mad River Glen. It was her first act of defiance, and she found reward in the carefree life of the mountains. Come summer she applied and was accepted to Franconia for fall, joining a community that shared her alternative inclinations. Behind the buffet, she glowed with newfound confidence that brought out her natural beauty. When she served Papa a scoop of mashed potatoes, their eyes met, and a spark of possibility ignited.
Mama’s pupils widened in surprise, then contracted as if exposed to too much light. There was a confidence in Papa’s blue eyes and quiet smile that made her heart beat more quickly and set off a sudden flutter in her stomach. Everyone was in love with the handsome new graduate-assistant Spanish teacher; his wiry athleticism and passion for whatever he was doing—for life—drew people to him. He also happened to be partial to petite brunettes.
“I’d like some more, please,” Papa said to Mama, returning for seconds. When he returned for thirds, he invited her to go camping. Back then, teacher-student relationships were commonplace, but Mama told herself she wasn’t about to become a cliché. She said she had a paper due. Papa found her wholesome yet shy manner intriguing. He asked again. Life reached out its hand, the bittersweet smell of fall in the air.
“Yes,” Mama said.
Mama’s water broke on the afternoon of April 9, and events unfolded according to plan—that is, until Eva’s car got stuck in the mud. She had to walk the last mile to the homestead, worrying she wouldn’t arrive in time. Mama was lying in the bed loft in darkness, the contractions rippling the bowl of her belly and clenching like fists between the bones of her hips. She breathed and sweated as Papa held her hand, assured by her confident grip. She’d been through birth before with the goats and knew it would happen on its own.
“Someone’s here,” Papa said as Eva, a middle-aged woman with mellowing Germanic features and short gray hair, bustled in and gave Mama a shot of natural sedative to help with the contractions, then walked down to the Nearings’ to ask Scott to pull out her car. When she returned with Scott, he helped Papa boil water to sterilize the clamps and left them to wait. Around 1:30 a.m., after eight hours of labor, my slimy head crowned. Suddenly Eva was talking loudly to Papa. The umbilical cord was caught around my neck, and my face was turning blue. Eva quickly slipped a finger under and got the cord loose enough to cut. After the head, the rest of me slipped easily free, and I emerged sucking my thumb, apparently unperturbed that I’d almost strangled to death. Eva tied the rest of the cord into a knot, and Papa cut it from my belly button. A girl. They laid me on Mama’s chest, and I immediately began to nurse.
Eva helped clean the loft but saved the placenta, suggesting Mama eat some to replenish the blood and nutrients lost during birth and help contract the uterus. Mama was not offended because she knew the mother goats ate their placentas, too, so she tried it raw, remembering it as tasting