Olivia, Mourning (42 page)

They rode aimlessly through the countryside. When they entered the next town Jettie nodded at a long storefront with a sign that said “Eating House.”

“Guess we best stop.”

“If you want,” Olivia said. “I’m not hungry.”

“You just haven’t gotten around to noticing that you are. Pregnant women are always hungry. Look, there’s a livery right up the street.”

Olivia silently got out of the buggy and followed Jettie back towards the restaurant.

“I can’t force you to eat,” Jettie said, “but I ain’t driving home with my belly howling like a banshee.”

“You can beat a dead horse, but you can’t make it drink,” Olivia mumbled for no reason.

Their eyes met and both women gave a half-hearted laugh.

“See, I knew you was stronger than you been making out to be,” Jettie said, putting an arm around Olivia’s shoulder. “You’re gonna be all right. You’ll see. You ain’t the type to fall apart. It ain’t in your nature.”

Suddenly calm – and hungry – Olivia followed her inside. They were seated at a table by the window and ordered the special: all the fried fish you can eat and a baked potato. Jettie also ordered beer for both of them.

When the waiter was gone, Olivia leaned forward and asked, “What would I have to do, to get rid of it?”

“Don’t rightly know. Drink something I think.”

“Like poison, you mean?”

“If it’s gonna kill the seed growing inside you, it ain’t medicine. But it’s done every day. I ain’t saying there ain’t no danger in it, but it’s not like there ain’t no danger in birthing a baby.”

“How do you get the poison?”

“Go to a doctor and ask for it.”

“Just like that? I always thought they aren’t allowed. I mean, you never hear anyone talk about it. Like it’s a big secret.”

“You gonna advertise in the newspaper if you do it? Most everyone wantin’ it done are girls like you, in trouble. Even if they’re married, doing it for their own health reasons, or cause they got no money, or cause they just don’t want another child, who wants the whole world to know they done that? And ain’t no doctor wants a reputation for bein’ an abortion doctor, cause then tongues start flapping about any woman seen going into his office. So no woman will go near him, even if she all she needs is a check-up, and his practice disappears.”

“So you just go to any doctor?”

“Go to one and ask. He says no, go to another one. Some got religious convictions against it. And ain’t many will do it after quickening.”

“What’s that?”

“When you can feel the baby move. After you’re three or four months gone.”

The waiter approached with their plates and a very large platter of very small fried fish.

“So I’d have to do it right away,” Olivia said when he was gone.

“The sooner, the better. Is that what you want to do?”

“I don’t know,” Olivia said as she picked up a piece of fish in her fingers and took a bite. “Mm, it’s good. Got a great crisp on it, but watch out for bones.”

“I see you learned some Michigan table manners.”

“Manners are an easy habit to break,” Olivia grinned. Now that she was over the shock, she felt a kind of relief. At least she knew what she had to deal with. And that she could count on Jettie to help her through it.

The platter was soon empty and while they waited for the waiter to bring more fish, Olivia asked, “What do
you
think? Do you think it’s wrong?”

“What I think is the last thing on earth that matters.” Jettie folded her napkin. “Ain’t no one got a right to give you advice about this.”

“But I want to know what you think. Is it a sin?”

“No. I think a woman’s got the right. She’s the one gonna spend the rest of her days worrying after that child. And it’s hard enough being a child in this world when you got a mother what wanted you.”

Olivia stared at a knot in the wooden tabletop, trying to convince herself that a child like the one inside her was better off not being born. But she couldn’t hold with that.
People don’t give up their own lives,
she thought,
no matter how bad they are. They hang on, hoping for better, even when they know darn well there’s not much chance of better coming to call. Look at Mourning, born without any parents. Do I think it would be better if he’d never come into the world?

“The quickening,” Olivia said, leaning forward again, “is that when the baby starts to be alive?”

“Lord, Olivia. You’re asking
me
to define the essence of life? There ain’t no doctor or priest what can do that. All I know is, the law allows it and I think that’s all you got to know.” She stopped speaking while the waiter set down another platter of fish. “You got to do whatever your heart tells you to do. I think that’s God’s way of speaking to us. If it feels right, it is right. God don’t give everyone the same answer. What’s right for some other girl ain’t right for you. Why don’t you try deciding to get rid of it and walk around for a few days with that decision in your heart, see how it sits?”

They didn’t talk much on the way home. By the time they arrived, Olivia knew. She didn’t need to walk around for a few days. She wasn’t going to drink any poison. She was going to have the baby.

November was gray, the trees bare. The last leaves blew in circles, close to the ground. Snow was still a month away, but the ground was hard and cold and the wind strong enough to keep folks inside. It was a time of year Olivia had always found oppressive.

One Monday the pile of library books Jettie brought home included some issues of
Godey’s Lady’s Book.
Olivia could tell they were Mabel’s, by the way so many of the pages were dog-eared. She glanced through the articles. Yes, those were topics Mabel would want to return to. She smiled, feeling something close to affection for her sister-in-law.

There were also two issues of
Life in America
and one of a journal she had never heard of, called
Nature
. She flipped it open to the Table of Contents and there it was, “The Wildlife of Michigan” by Mr. Jeremy Kincaid. The article was longer than his usual single page, providing a survey of all the mammals and reptiles that were native to the state. Olivia started reading in the middle, where he wrote about bears.

There was a drawing of a bear standing on its hind legs, its head cocked to one side, as if it couldn’t quite make out what someone was saying. It looked just like the mamma bear they had seen by the river. Olivia wondered who had drawn it for him. She closed her eyes, remembering that day, the caress of the sun on her face, her feet in the cold rushing water. That day she’d thought the most important thing in the world was the possibility of Jeremy’s skin brushing against hers. That the worst thing that could happen to a girl was to not be loved by a man she thought she wanted. It was a story about somebody else.

Cooped up together with nothing but a gray sky to look out at, Jettie and Olivia began to snip at one other. Jettie seemed to grow fussier by the day, had to have things done just her way. Olivia dreaded the early evenings, when she had to put her book down and sit through a tedious description of each customer who’d come in that day. Though she eagerly awaited the rare scraps of gossip about “those Killions” that Jettie picked up in the shop, Olivia felt like shouting in protest at the rest of it.
What do I care if Mrs. Brewster paid you with a Quarter Eagle gold piece? Don’t you know how boring it is to listen to you telling me how many times Mrs. Monroe came back to check on her stupid pudding? And if you don’t shut up about the way Mr. Lindstrom’s teeth click, I’m going to scream.

But somehow their bickering made Olivia feel even more at home. Mrs. Place could go to her room and slam the door without Olivia fretting that she was going to be asked to leave. They had molded themselves into a family of sorts, each taken for granted by the other. It was not a relationship that either would end because of an argument. And Olivia’s annoyance always passed quickly. Her feelings for Jettie were stronger than mere gratitude.

Jettie began knitting and sewing for the baby.

“Just for the beginning.” She peered at Olivia over her glasses. “For the first month. Till you’ve had time to decide what you’re gonna do. No point looking farther ahead than that. You can’t make no decision about giving your baby away till you’ve held it in your arms. Looked into them bright little eyes and fallen in mad love. Or looked into them and not been able to see nothing but the monster what raped you.”

Olivia couldn’t imagine either scenario. The baby wasn’t real to her. It was a concept and a problem, but not a person. She didn’t feel like talking about it and changed the subject. “Does Mrs. Hardaway ever come into the shop?”

“No.”

“What about Lady Mabel?”

“Are you fooling? That woman was born too busy to do her own errands. And now she’s hired a young boy in the store. Sends him with her order, both for Killion’s General and for home.”

“What about Tobey?”

“No. That sweetheart of his, that Emma O’Keefe, does come once in a while for one of my pies, but a mouse has more conversation in it than that girl does.”

“What about when you go to Killion’s General to do your shopping?”

“You know ain’t none a them chat with me. All I can tell you is that both your brothers look to be in perfectly good health.”

Two weeks before Christmas a blanket of snow covered the town. Jettie dragged a scraggly little tree into the parlor, fitted it into a wooden stand, and wrapped a green velvet skirt around it. Then she got a box of shiny red and orange glass bulbs out of the attic and gave Olivia the makings to tie red bows on pine cones, string acorns, and cut out paper decorations. The pathetic tree leaned to one side, but that didn’t matter. Neither of them was alone. During the week before Christmas Jettie made a nightly ritual of pouring two cups of hot chocolate or eggnog and asking Olivia to sing a few carols. On Christmas Eve she poured herself a large glass of whiskey and Olivia couldn’t help wondering if she usually spent Christmas drunk. In past years had she decorated a tree for herself? Or perhaps gone to spend the holiday with the cousin she’d spoken of?

The next morning Jettie sliced one of her special holiday coffee cakes and after they finished their coffee they exchanged gifts. Since Olivia couldn’t go out shopping, she’d wrapped up some of her own things. The first present that Jettie opened was the hairbrush.

“Oh, Olivia, this is just so pretty. Look at that workmanship.” Jettie touched the carved wooden back. Then she turned it over and ran it through her hair.

“It belonged to my mother,” Olivia said quietly and saw the anticipated look of distress that passed over Jettie’s face. “I didn’t want to give it to you without telling you. That wouldn’t have seemed right. But I really want you to have it and I’m sure she would too, in gratitude for the way you’re taking care of her daughter.” Olivia rose to give Jettie a hug.

“Well thank you. You just turn around and sit yourself down on this stool here and let me have at that birds’ nest on your head.”

Olivia sat on the footstool between Jettie’s knees while Jettie brushed her hair, just the way Olivia remembered her mother doing. Then Jettie opened her other gifts: one of Nola June’s bone combs and a volume of Wordsworth’s poems. Olivia had kept it when she returned the library books a few weeks ago, feeling justified in confiscating it, in exchange for all her work.

“And this is for Angel.” Olivia handed Jettie the last package.

Jettie unwrapped the tiny red jacket Olivia had sewn out of an old dress Jettie had cut up for rags. Jettie dressed the bewildered cat in it and danced around the room with her, singing
Joy to the World
.

Jettie gave Olivia two store-bought maternity dresses, a delicate gold necklace, and a beautiful journal. It was just like the one Olivia had bought in Detroit, bound in wine-colored leather, but his one had a metal clasp and lock. Olivia put it to her nose to breath in the fragrance of the leather and then flipped through the empty white pages.

“You like to read so much,” Jettie said, “I thought you might like to put some of your own words down. Keep a memory of this time. Maybe someday you’ll even feel like writing about … that out there. Course, you do that, you got to be extra careful where you keep it. That lock ain’t gonna stop nobody what wants to cut it open.” She pressed the small key into Olivia’s palm.

“Thank you, Jettie. It’s beautiful. How do you always know what I need? I bought one exactly like it in Detroit. Filled it with pictures and stories about everything we did. It’s upstairs in one of the baskets. I do like to write things down. Helps me think them through. I’m going to start right away, before I go to bed tonight. I’ll write all about the lovely Christmas we had together.”

“I’m glad you like it.”

After a few minutes of silence Olivia asked softly, “You never talk about your sisters. Do you know where they are for Christmas?”

“My sisters? Better not to know what they’re up to. They did a good job of raising me up – when they were hardly more than babies themselves – I’ll give them that. But since then … Let’s just say that of the three of us, I’m the one who turned out well. So you can imagine.”