THE KENNEBEC RIVER         

I pull Brutus to a stop in the middle of the boardwalk outside Cole-man’s General. The snow is all but melted in town, there are muddy tracks cut down the center of Water Street, and the snowdrifts are shrinking on either side. The Kennebec groans on my left as the ice splits and forms small glaciers that crash against one another in the building current. It is an astonishing thing to behold, though not altogether safe. The river often floods when it opens, and the banks have been known to shear away as those blocks of ice roll and tumble downstream.

The squirming infant in my arms cries out again. The child is hungry and cold and fussed all the way here as I held her against my chest, snuggled in tight beneath my riding cloak. She needs a mother but has none. And I have been asked to do the unspeakable.

We begged. Cajoled. Both Doctor and I did all we could to urge Rebecca to put the girl to her breast, but she refused. Would neither look at nor hold the baby. An hour, then two. Surely, we thought, Rebecca would relent. But she hadn’t.

“We cannot hide this much longer,” Doctor whispered, placing the writhing bundle in my medical bag. “You must go. Now.

We stood in the hallway outside Rebecca’s room, listening for Isaac.

“I cannot… I have never…”

“The child is not safe here. You told me as much when you came to my cabin in January. She does not want this baby. Nor can we blame her.”

“It is wrong.” I shook my head. “I cannot—”

“If you love her, you must do this,” Doctor said. “Leave Rebecca to me. Take care of the child.”

I left, carrying my medical bag. Doctor will tell Isaac that the child was dead born, that we have done our duty and buried the remains. She will lie so that Rebecca can heal. Perhaps. One day.

Once astride Brutus and away from the tavern, I pulled the baby from my bag and tucked her tight to my chest, praying that my angry, tired steed would not throw us both to the ground. I walked Brutus through the Hook, keeping a finger beneath the infant’s nose to make sure she was breathing. Every outraged, hungry cry was a reassurance that she was not stifled beneath my cloak. All the while my heart raced, and my thoughts did their best to keep up.

But now I must make a decision, and there are no good ones before me. I look to the river, listen as the blocks of ice scrape and grind together. I could do as Rebecca asked. No one would ever know. No one will ever come looking for this child.

But that is unthinkable.

Hungry and confused, she cries out in my arms once more, and I pull her close.

“Sshh.”

Dawn is still hours away, and the sky above is spread wide, midnight blue and littered with stars. The shadows mingle, dark and darker, all around us. Brutus twitches beneath me, impatient, and I settle him with my voice. A pat of my hand.

The baby shifts in my arms. Whimpers again.

“I know, I know, little one. It is cold. And I am sorry.”

But I have made my decision now and will not turn back.

I peel back the blanket until I can see the wide eyes and the tip of that tiny nose. I think of the daughters I buried so long ago, of their graves, two hundred and twenty miles away in Oxford, three in a row, beneath an oak tree. They are lost and gone, and I would give most anything to hold them again. I would give my own life if it meant they could have theirs back.

“What your mother does not yet understand,” I tell the baby, my voice choked with emotion, “is that there are some losses in this life that we do not live long enough to fully grieve. And I’ll not give her another one.”

I tuck the baby girl under my riding cloak once more—safe from the cool night air—and turn Brutus onto Winthrop Street.