JEWEL (14 page)

“Sure, ” he said, and tore at the paper, had it off in a second. He held the white box, opened the lid, and reached in with two fingers, brought out a small red change purse with a gold clasp. He held it up to me, his grin gone to a true smile, lips together, head tipped to one side.

“It’s beautiful, ” I said. “Thank you, Burton.”

“For you, ” he said. Then he opened the clasp, turned the purse over, and a shiny gray penny fell out. He held it up, said, “For good luck, ” and dropped it back in, snapped closed the purse. He looked up at me again, his face the serious one of an eight-year-old bent on instruction. “Now don’t you ever spend that, you here? That will bring on bad luck. And you don’t want that.”

“Not at all, ” I said, and solemnly shook my head.

He scooted back, made way for Wilman, who moved closer, and I wondered what I could say about a second change purse.

He paused a moment before he opened the lid, two fingers tapping the white cardboard. Then he opened it. He reached in, pulled out one end of a piece of red yarn, pulled it higher and higher until out came a pinecone tied at the other end. On each leaf of the cone was a dab of gold glitter, and as he held it up, the pinecone slowly turned on its own, first one way and then the other. He held it away from him, and I could see behind it the fire in the fireplace, that pinecone slowly moving, surrounded by the soft orange light.

“It’s beautiful, ” I said, and my heart filled up with the pride and sorrow and joy only a mother can feel for her children.

“He made it himself, ” Burton said, and reached a finger over to touch it. I thought Wilman would have pulled it away, but he didn’t, just let his brother touch it, watched it swing to the left and right, still twirling.

“It’s beautiful, ” I said again, those the only words coming to me.

Wilman nodded, satisfied.

Annie sat next to the tree, the naked doll still in her arms. She looked at the pinecone, then turned her eyes to me.

Nye-nye lay on the floor next to her, and she took a fistful of it.

She stood, and the four of us my husband, my two boys, and me watched as she came toward me, dragging the blanket behind her.

She made it to me, and held out the hand with the blanket. “This is a present, ” she said, and I glanced at Leston. He shrugged, shook his head.

“This is a present, ” she said again. “This is for you when we sleep.

You can use nye-nye when we help Brenda Kay sleep. She needs our help.”

Slowly I reached for the blanket, certain that was all I could do, take the gift from my child, thank her.

My fingers touched the blanket, and I held it there a moment, the two of us touching, her eyes on me. I said, “Thank you, Annie, ” and she let go. I nodded, felt my chin about to give way, felt my eyes filling up.

“You’re welcome, Momma, ” Annie said, and if the feeling I’d had looking at the pinecone on a string, the change purse in my lap, had been a mixture of joy and sorrow and pride, the blanket I held up to my chest and covered my last baby with now let in a new feeling, one that’d been somewhere inside my head and heart and wanting in for a long time, fear.

Fear, because now it was clear and strong even to my Annie, my youngest until three months ago, that something was wrong here, and that Brenda Kay sleeping this much had something everything to do with it. That fear I’d put off believing in for the last month or so walked right in Christmas morning, three of my children smiling up at me, my oldest in a war somewheres and carrying in his shirt pocket a picture of green crayon stick figures sleeping away, Billie Jean practicing how to be a woman in an upstairs room right now, the gift of a compact and cherry Lifesavers suddenly a nail in her coffin and mine both, me pushing her to grow up when there was nothing for it really, growing up, family here and around and always with you is what mattered, I knew, especially now, when I’d finally recognized in the small gift of a ragged blanket that my baby Brenda Kay was wrong somehow, that something in her was wrong.

Still my children smiled, and I looked at Leston, saw him smile, too, then lean toward the heap of wood on the hearth, toss into the fire another chunk. I watched as sparks flew up, disappeared into the chimney, Wilman still holding high the pinecone.

CHAPTER 9.

BUT I LET THAT FEAR HOLE UP INSIDE ME UNTIL FEBRUARY, PRAYING each day something might happen, that my baby would smile up at me when she came to, that she would roll over, that the sound of a baby’s laugh might escape her and make its way into the house. Nothing came. Now she was five months old.

I told Leston after the children were in bed that we needed to take Brenda Kay to the doctor.

“Why? ” he said. He looked up from the cigarette paper he held at his fingertips. He looked back to the paper, pulled from his shirt pocket the small sack of tobacco he kept there. He pulled the drawstrings loose with his teeth and free hand, tipped in the tobacco. He licked the edge of the paper, rolled it with just his thumb and those two fingers. I’d seen him do it a hundred thousand times, his moves so smooth and quick.

When he was finished he didn’t put it to his lips, only held it there in his fingers. He was waiting for me.

“I don’t know, ” I said, giving him the easy lie, the one I wanted to believe myself, the one would absolve me from taking her in earlier, me hoping for some miracle to turn things round, God’s big hand changing the world. I knew what was wrong, though I couldn’t say exactly what, My baby sleeps too much, my baby can’t roll over at five months.

I swallowed, whispered, “Something’s wrong, Leston.”

Dr. Beaudry’s office was above the hardware store in Purvis, the door into the place at the top of a steep set of stairs on the outside of the building. Leston went up first, me behind him, carrying Brenda Kay wrapped tight in blankets against the damp cold, the sky bruise blue, rain coming.

We hardly ever saw a doctor, living as far out as we did and having children up until then who’d remained fairly healthy. We’d been here before to set a broken arm James got when he was eight, jumping out of a haymow playing cowboys and Indians one Saturday afternoon, Wilman was here for a nail he’d stepped on while making his way to the outhouse one summer night, him the one who’d left the board and nail on the ground late that afternoon after giving up on a tree fort he and Burton were building.

But Dr. Beaudry acted as though he knew us all the same, ushered us into his office after Leston had knocked but once. He offered us cups of hot coffee, his smiling eyes all the while working over what little he could see of Brenda Kay, still in my arms. “No thank you, sir, ” Leston said, and I knew he meant no coffee for the both of us.

We took seats in hard straight-backed chairs, Dr. Beaudry on a stool.

He was a few years younger than us, though his hair was gone except for a brown fringe just above his ears and collar and a tuft above his forehead. He had on a white coat buttoned up almost to his neck, black pants and shiny black boots, and sat with his hands laced in front of him.

“So, ” he said, still smiling. He looked at me. “What might be the problem here? ” “She’s been sleeping ” I started, but then Leston cleared his throat, and I glanced at him.

His eyes were on mine a moment, then turned to the doctor. He seemed to square his shoulders, sat straighter in the chair. He said, “She’s sleeping all the time. My wife says there’s something wrong with the baby, seeing as how she’s sleeping so much. Can’t roll over yet, either.”

He looked back to me, and I thought for an instant I’d seen something in his face, maybe in his eyes. There was something, I was certain, but then the look was gone, his eyes back to the doctor. He was only my husband again, a man who figured he had to be in charge of this strange and ugly visit, whatever the reason.

But I wanted to say to him right then, right there, is’s my baby. I wanted to say to my husband it was me to tote the child day in, day out, to nurse it, let it sleep with me every day all day long.

And it was me who’d put off finally coming here so long, whatever guilt accrued for that waiting all mine.

So I turned from Leston, looked straight at the doctor. I said, “My baby is not well, ” me full aware I’d used that word my, as though the child in my arms belonged to me and me alone. I said, “She’s nowhere near being as far along as the rest of my children were at her age.

That’s why we’re here.”

I paused, looked at Leston, still sitting up straight in the chair, his bottom on the very edge of the seat, his back not even touching the back of the chair. He held that same old hat with both hands, his jaw set, eyes hard on the doctor, and I wondered if he’d even recognized what my words’d tried to say, is 2s my baby.

“Well, ” Dr. Beaudry said, and lost the smile. He let go his fingers, reached out to me and the baby. “Just let me take a good look-seev at this baby, ” he said.

I hesitated a moment, not certain of what was going on inside Leston’s head, not certain what was going on inside mine, my baby and whatever was wrong with her, whatever I’d kept to myself these long months, was about to be revealed. Then I gave her up to him.

He held her in his arms, jostled her a little, said, “Baby Brenda? ” “Brenda Kay, ” Leston said. He hadn’t moved, hadn’t even blinked yet.

“Her name is Brenda Kay.”

Dr. Beaudry glanced at him, tried to smile. “Brenda Kay it is, ” he said, and looked back at the baby. “Baby Brenda Kay? Baby Brenda Kay?

” I said, “She was up for a while not long ago. She was up two hours ago, so she’ll probably not come awake for you.” My voice seemed frail in the room, too small for the importance of this place.

Still he jostled her, though he was looking at me. “How long was she awake? ” I looked at my lap, afraid again of giving the wrong answer, the one that would show to him I’d been a poor momma to this child.

But it was the truth he was after, I knew, the truth, too, what I was looking for. I wanted to know what was wrong with my child.

I swallowed, said, “Twenty minutes.” He said nothing, and I looked up at him, saw him tickling her chin.

“Brenda Kay, ” he said, “pretty baby Brenda Kay.”

“Tickling her seems to do nothing, ” I said.

“Doctor, ” Leston said, his voice low and flat. He still hadn’t moved.

“We didn’t bring her here to be tickled. We want to know what is wrong with her.”

“Leston, ” I said, tried to make my voice sound as reproachful as I could muster. Still his eyes didn’t move from the doctor.

“Well, ” Dr. Beaudry said again, but now he stood, made his way from the office toward the door that opened into his examining room, the room where James’ arm’d been set in plaster.

He reached the door, opened it. White light fell into the room, and I could see beyond him those white walls and white cupboards.

He stopped, turned to us, Brenda Kay held in one arm. He smiled at the both of us, said, “Who’d like to come in and supervise this little hoedown? ” I looked at Leston. Though I knew it could only be me, something made me turn, look.

He nodded once, as though the decision were his to make. He let his eyes fall to his lap.

I stood, followed the doctor in.

* i *

Naked and on her back on the examining table, Brenda Kay looked like a different child, though I’d seen her this way as many times as a mother would. But here it had to do with the lights, severe and bright to show off whatever might be wrong. Her legs seemed shorter, thicker, her forearms smaller somehow. She lay with her arms held against her chest, her hands just beneath her chin, her legs out straight, eyes closed, mouth open. Her hair had started coming in now after she’d lost it early on, hair the same copper Leston’s had been the day I first saw him, and she was putting on weight, though I knew she was truly small for what five months ought to be.

Dr. Beaudry first pulled her fingers out straight, bent her arms at the elbows, then examined her toes, bunched up and curled, too, like her fingers. But Billie Jean’d been born sucking at her first finger, kept it there for near on till she was two. Who was to say, I figured, that toes and fingers curled down and held tight wasn’t just how this baby was formed inside me, what she would outgrow?

He bent her legs at the knees, pushed and poked her tummy and sides and underarms and chest. He opened her mouth wide, peered inside. He looked in her ears, peeled back an eyelid, covered the eyeball with the palm of his hand and quick took it away, then did the same with the other eye.

He propped her up, listened to her heart in front and back.

He lay her down again, and went back to her eyes, opened them again, let the lids close. Finally he stopped, held her head with both hands, Brenda Kay still sound asleep. He stood there in the hard light of the room, and looked at her face, looked and looked. Then with one thumb he gently touched an eyelid, let the thumb trace its outline.

He wouldn’t look at me after that, and I knew whatever was wrong was real. Softly he rubbed a hand on her chest, said, “I hope this doll-baby isn’t getting cold in here.” He touched her forehead with his fingertips, said, “You can go ahead and bundle her up.”

“What’s wrong? ” I said, that word wrong a dull hammering in my ears.

Whats wrong? Whats wrong?

“You just bundle her up good and warm, and I’ll be out with you in a minute.” His eyes nearly met mine, but didn’t as he touched me on the arm, fiddled with the pile of clothes and blankets. He turned away from me, went to the counter on the other side of the table, started writing down whatever words he was keeping secret from me.

I dressed Brenda Kay, my bottom lip between my teeth the whole time, my baby limp as I struggled with first one arm, then the other.

Dr. Beaudry came out holding a piece of paper, looking down at it.

Leston and I hadn’t spoken yet, in my eyes when I came out of the examination room enough fear, enough tears ready to go, to signal him no words were needed. I’d only come back to my seat, Brenda Kay in my arms.

He’d reached over one hand, placed it on my knee. Next had come Dr. Beaudry’s voice as he spoke on the telephone, the sound of words behind a closed door, even the pauses between them as he listened to words I would never know, all as dark and heavy as the sky outside, Leston’s hand the only comfort I knew.