PIERCE FARM
“Sally isn’t dying,” I tell William Pierce. “She’s in labor. Pray tell how that would be my fault?”
Instead of answering me, he looks to his wife, and what passes between them is a kind of marital shorthand known to every couple who has been wed for any length of time. They can read each other’s expressions. The lift of an eyebrow. The flare of a nostril. Gritted teeth and lifted chin and eyes that gloss over with anger and fear. Volumes pass between them before William points his finger at her.
“You explain it,” he orders, then he turns on his heel and leaves the bedroom, slamming the door on his way out.
“Please excuse my husband,” Bonnie Pierce says. She is unperturbed by his outburst. “William is the sort of man built for having sons. Instead, he got five daughters. He’s never quite got the hang of it.”
“There’s no one to blame but him. Sally is your youngest. He’s had plenty of time.”
“You can give a man all the time in the world, but he’s never ready for his daughter to turn up pregnant. He wasn’t with the others. And it’s no different with Sally.”
Well, isn’t this a day of revelations.
“How long have you known?” I ask.
“Almost three months. I discovered her secret the day after North’s second hearing, in January. I walked in on her while she was standing in the washtub. There was no hiding it then.”
“And did you tell William?”
“Not right off.” Bonnie levels me with an appraising glance. Looks me over head to toe. There is a frankness in it that I appreciate. “He would have only been angry with Sally. We kept it from him as long as we could. He’s known for a month.”
“It is hard to hide a pregnancy that long.”
“My husband is many things, Mistress Ballard, but attentive is not one of them. And it is winter. And we all do what we can to stay warm. She’s tall and stays bundled. It would have been harder in summer, no doubt.”
“You do not seem much distressed by her condition.”
Bonnie shrugs. It’s more accepting than nonchalant, but still, I am surprised given William’s pious outrage in court this year. “She didn’t get into this situation by herself.”
Sally’s forehead is beaded with sweat, and her eyes are scrunched closed. She does not see the curious glance I throw in her direction.
“Are you saying this child was forced upon her?”
Bonnie laughs. “Not to hear her tell it. From what I can gather, my daughter was an enthusiastic participant.”
A stone settles to the pit of my stomach.
Mentally, I turn back the clock. The last time I saw Sally was at the hearing at the end of January. Her father had forced her to testify—again—about all she’d overheard the day I was in Rebecca’s sitting room. The blizzard was howling in from the east, and I thought nothing of the fact that she’d worn her riding cloak during the hearing. Half the people in Pollard’s had done the same that day. Six months. She would have been roughly six months pregnant. Give or take.
How did I not know?
And at the Frolic a week earlier? I only remember thinking that she’d looked rather buxom, that her dress had been cut to accentuate that part of her figure. Had it been loosened elsewhere? There was nary a whisper in that room about her changing figure. Because no one had noticed.
Because no one has seen her since. Because.
Because…
All five of the Pierce girls inherited their looks from their mother. The auburn hair and the hazel eyes and the full lips. The height they got from their father, however, and this, I think, more than anything else, has enabled Sally to keep her secret. A long body, coupled with a long torso and a generous bosom, can hide a multitude of sins. Especially early in a first pregnancy.
“Sally?” I ask.
She ceases writhing on the bed and looks at me, then shrinks back, her pretty eyes clouded with pain. She is afraid. Both of what is happening to her and of me as well. When I set a hand upon her bare foot, her flinch confirms this suspicion, and this saddens me nearly to the point of tears. I have never had a laboring woman respond to me this way. I have only ever seen relief in their eyes.
“There is something I must ask you.”
“No.” She shakes her head.
“The father,” Bonnie whispers. “She thinks you’re asking about the father. I’ve done the same, a hundred times at least, and she’d tell me nothing other than that she loves him and went to bed willingly. If you can get it out of her then you’re more of a miracle worker than people say.”
“I am not asking you about the father,” I tell Sally.
Not yet, I think.
Sally visibly relaxes. “What then?” she pants.
This conversation would have been far easier three hours ago, before transition, and the otherworldly sense of agony it brings. The brain ceases to function. The body knows nothing but pain and the desperate need for survival. Lucy, my oldest daughter, has three times forgotten her own name in transition. Names and numbers cease to exist. Reality shrinks to a pinpoint of primal existence.
“I need to know if this child is early or late. I need to know when you last bled. The life of your baby may depend on it.”
It is a miserable thing I am asking of Sally Pierce as she lies on her bed, head thrown back, sweat beading on her lip. I do not think of myself as an unkind person, but this is perhaps the cruelest thing I have ever done, asking a laboring woman to do math.
“Summer.” The word is hissed out between clenched teeth, and I wipe a bit of spittle off my chin with a wrist. “Mid July, I think.”
I count backward and am relieved to determine that we are well within the window for viability. She’s at term.
Bonnie Pierce clears her throat. “I stopped keeping track of their cycles years ago.”
“It wasn’t your job to do so. I know nothing about motherhood other than children will do what they will do and there is not a damn thing you can do about it.”
So far as I can remember, my mother never cursed in all her sixty-eight years. And I’m by no means a sailor, but I find that every year that passes, I grow more comfortable with the art. And if I never really liked Bonnie Pierce before now, I am sorry, because she laughs at that.
“Every one of my girls has found themselves in this position.”
When I look at her in surprise, she laughs again. “Didn’t know that, did you? None of them hid it nearly this long, but yes, all of them took a turn around a hayloft once or twice and ended up thick at the waist before their wedding. I just didn’t…” She pauses to gather her thoughts. “With the others I knew what they were up to.”
“My oldest daughter as well,” I say, and if two women can become friends with one admission, we just have. “Time will tell with the others.”
Bonnie Pierce shrugs. “I’ve always wondered if it was a trait I passed on to them. William married me quickly, of course, but I wasn’t much of a maid when he did.”
I am tempted to tell them both about the woman that Ephraim Ballard married—and the scandal that enfolded us—when Sally screams.
Here it is, then. She’s ready.
It isn’t fast and it isn’t easy and it isn’t enjoyable for a single one of us in that room. It takes Sally Pierce nearly two hours to heave her child into the world. The damage is no worse than what I often see in rooms like this. But she will require stitches, that much is sure.
“Hello, little one,” I say, and if my hands are shaking as I lift the squalling newborn and inspect him, it is only because I know what is coming.
He is beautiful. Big. Healthy. Not a single deficiency that I can detect. I want to pull him to my chest. Cradle him. Kiss his face. Sniff the dark, chaotic hair. This instinct is so strong that I hesitate to hand him to his mother.
But there is Sally with her arms held out, waiting to receive him. This girl who has always managed to avoid directly meeting my gaze has no such trouble now. Those big, calculating hazel eyes challenge me to ask the question required by law. She has waited for this moment, defying all other attempts to coerce her into speaking the father’s name.
I will not give in so easily, however. I take a different tack instead. After wrapping the baby in soft, clean linen, I hand him to her and watch as she puts him to her breast.
I watch her first awkward attempts.
I watch the grimace and hiss of pain when he finally latches on.
I watch Sally watch me, and though it is cruel, I let her squirm in silence. Then I pull needle and thread from my medicine bag.
“You shouldn’t feel much,” I tell her. “But if I don’t do this, you will bleed for days.”
The only sound is that of a newborn grunting and gulping as he tries to eat his first meal. Every few seconds Sally winces. Hisses. Yet I don’t know if this is because of the vice that has attached to her left nipple or because of my needle. There is no bringing new life into this world without pain, however, and sometimes it assaults us at both ends.
“What did William mean?” I ask Bonnie. “When he told you to explain her situation?”
“He thinks I know who the father is.”
“Do you?”
“Honestly? I haven’t the slightest idea who it could be.”
“I find that there are many mysteries in this world. But I do not consider the father of this child to be one of them.”
Bonnie Pierce, God bless her, gives me this moment. She does not ask me to clarify, but rather allows me the pure, unadulterated pleasure of stealing every ounce of thunder from her daughter. There is no surprise here, and Sally takes no victory.
Once the stitches are done and the thread has been clipped, I sit back on my stool. Take in the full measure of this girl who has caused such trouble over these last few months.
“You have a beautiful boy,” I tell her. “What will you call him?”
I know the answer already because I have seen the truth of it with my own eyes, yet it is a hammer to my heart when she speaks the words aloud.
“His name is Jonathan. After his father.”
Sunday, April 18—Clear and pleasant. Birth. I was called from the Hook to attend Sally Pierce who I found to be in labor. She was safe delivered at 1:00 p.m. of a fine son. Her travail was severe, but she managed well, and I left her cleverly with her own mother. Sally declared that my son Jonathan was the father of her child.
I break the quill. That’s how hard I press against the paper. It snaps in half, in my hand, and I sit back to watch the ink run down the pad of my thumb. I do not typically pour my feelings into this book of mine, but today there is so much more that I want to say. Yet I am out of ink. I’ve used the last of it just now, and I’ve no energy left to wander down, in the dark, to the mill, where Ephraim has left the other disk. So I wash my hands instead and go to bed. But I do not sleep. I lie awake, aware that my son never came home tonight, and I wonder if he is out cavorting around, or whether he has gone to meet his newborn son.