Speak Through the Wind (33 page)

It was time.

Her window was wide open, and the white lace curtains billowed with the sea breeze. When the contraction subsided she climbed out of bed and walked over to the window. She knelt in front of it and propped her elbows on the sill, clasped her hands together, and bowed her head.

“This is the day, Lord, that my child will be born.” The lapping waves filled the silence as Kassandra searched for words. “You have my son. Please, my Father, let me bring this child into the world.”

Her answer was the continuous motion of the sea.

She thought about that night, months and months ago, when she knelt at another open window, flames raging behind her, smoke filling her lungs. Not a day went by that she didn’t thank God for saving her that night—saving her from the hell she had created for herself. Every day she thanked Him, too, for His forgiveness for the sin that nearly consumed her every bit as much as that fire. Now she asked to be saved one more time.

“Protect me, Lord,” she prayed, “from the pain of losing this child. Keep me strong, and bless me with this life.”

She felt the tugging of the next pain across her back and braced herself to stand, clutching her bedpost and breathing deep, until it subsided. The moon was bright and full, casting an iridescent glow on the sandy beaches. She thought back to all those other women she and Imogene had helped through their labor, and one directive was constant. Walk.

She knew the plan was to call for Doctor Hilton, even though Kassandra said time and again that she would be fine, as long as Mrs. Hartmann was present to assist. But Mrs. Hartmann said she had no intention of helping with the birth of this baby, and Mariah Brown’s offer to be of support was overlooked in favor of calling in the trusted family physician. But Kassandra did, after all, know a few things about the progression of labor, and as her water hadn’t yet broken, there might still be hours before the doctor’s presence would be needed.

Kassandra took Imogene’s shawl from the chair it was draped on and wrapped it around her shoulders. She made no noise on her way through the house, pausing just long enough to smile at the slight snoring coming from the other side of Mrs. Hartmann’s door.

Outside, she promised herself that she would not walk far, always keeping the house in her sight. The sand was cool beneath her toes, and the effort it took to walk through it energized her muscles. She counted the laps of the ocean between contractions, their numbers decreasing as the sky grew gray. She walked, her hand braced to her back when the pain intensified. Then, just as the first pink of dawn peeked into the sky, she made her way back to the house and into the kitchen where Mariah was already up, making breakfast.

“Mariah?” Kassandra said, surprised at the calmness of her voice. “You need to go into the village for the doctor.”

“What were you thinking? Out there on that beach all alone in the dead of night? With the … the baby coming?”

“Walking is good, Mrs. Hartmann,” Kassandra reassured the pacing woman. They were in Kassandra’s room now, and Kassandra was safe in her own bed, obeying what Mrs. Hartmann was sure would be the doctor’s orders once he arrived.

“You’ll have to forgive me if I don’t acknowledge you as an expert on such things,” Mrs. Hartmann said.

“I think I know more than—”

Kassandra’s words were lost in the onslaught of a new birthing pain, the strongest one yet.

God help
me,
God help
me,
God help
me.

She distinctly remembered those hours alone in her flat, waiting for Imogene, not knowing the grave danger her baby was in.

“Mrs. Hartmann,” she managed to say as the contraction subsided, “I need you to look. To check and see that the baby is—”

“I’m not your midwife,” Mrs. Hartmann snapped, stopping midpace to face Kassandra with her hands on her hips. “Perhaps if you’d called for the doctor earlier, you wouldn’t be relying on me now.”

“I just need to know if the baby’s head—”

“Don’t speak to me of babies’ heads. Leave that for the doctor.”

Just then there was a clamor downstairs, to which Mrs. Hartmann exclaimed, “He’s here! Thank God!” and left Kassandra alone in the room to run downstairs and usher Dr. Hilton in.

She had met him just once before, shortly after her arrival, in a very proper interview in the front parlor. The only other doctor she had ever known was the kindly physician who nursed her back to health after being struck by Reverend Joseph’s horse. He had been full of humor and life. Doctor Hilton, however, was nothing like that. Elderly, yes—nearly seventy, he had been present for the birth of Mrs. Hartmann herself—but there was no humor about him. His first visit with Kassandra consisted of little more than a tremulous grip of Kassandra’s hand and an assurance that everything would be fine. Just fine.

Now here he was, the sky outside not yet bright enough to constitute true morning, and he was as perfectly attired in his suit and hat as he had been on that first conversation in the parlor. He walked in, discarding his jacket and rolling up his sleeves.

“Well, now, miss Kassandra,” he said, adding an r to the end of her name—
Kassandrar
—“it seems it’s time to have this baby.”

Mariah followed close behind him with a kettle full of warm water that she poured into the basin on the washstand. Doctor Hilton washed his hands and positioned himself at the foot of Kassandra’s bed, where he drew aside the covers and lifted her gown. Mrs. Hartmann, who stood just in the doorway, gave a little gasp and turned away.

“I hear you went for a walk this morning?”

Kassandra nodded and made an affirmative noise, the current contraction making conversation uncomfortable.

“Best thing to help the labor along as far as I know.” Dr. Hilton continued in his conversational tone, sometimes talking to her, sometimes to Mrs. Hartmann, but always in such a flat, pragmatic tone that no one overhearing the conversation would ever be able to guess at the momentous event taking place.

When Kassandra told Dr. Hilton she felt it was time to push, he merely said, “Well then, push.” When she felt the need to stop, he said, “Well then, stop.” At times he seemed nearly as puzzled at his presence there as she was.

After nearly thirty minutes of Kassandra’s attempting to push the baby Dr. Hilton took one peek under the sheet, and his demeanor changed. “Well, now, from the looks of this here, we have a baby.”

Kassandra’s groans throughout had been matched by those of Mrs. Hartmann, who was eager to be sent on any minor errand. Now, at Dr. Hilton’s announcement, she left to fetch the bag he’d left in the parlor and to alert Mariah to heat more water.

Kassandra barely heard any of the words spoken by Dr. Hilton, and their atonal quality gave her no indication as to the progress or health of the baby. She was certain only of the commands of her body and the prayer in her heart that had been reduced to only one word.
Please.

She heard the doctor say something about the head, and then the
sholdahs.

Then, the healthy, piercing cry of her child. Her daughter, according to Dr. Hilton.

The baby’s cry brought Mariah clattering into the room. She elbowed her way past Mrs. Hartmann, who hadn’t taken a single step into the room in all this time.

“Oh, she’s beautiful.” Mariah held out a clean linen towel into which Dr. Hilton deposited the wet and squirming baby “She’s a keeper, this one is.”

Kassandra lay back, exhausted on her pillow. “Thank You, God,” she said, over and over, tears flowing freely and puddling in her ears. “Let me see her,” she said, holding out limp and exhausted arms to receive her child.

“Let me clean her up first,” Mariah said, “so you can meet her proper.”

“No, please, please—”

“There’s time enough for that later.” Dr. Hilton redirected Kassandra’s attention to the aftermath of her labor.

Kassandra propped herself up on her elbows and struggled to get even a glimpse of the baby girl who continued to fill the room with her welcome wails. She saw nothing but Mariah’s back, bent low over the dressing table now covered with a thick towel. Mrs. Hartmann, though, from her vantage point of the doorway, would have a clear view, and Kassandra looked to her to ask about her daughter. But the expression on Mrs. Hartmann’s face stopped Kassandra from asking anything. Her eyes, so fixated on the child, bore a longing that Kassandra had seen only in the eyes of the starving children in the streets of the city

“One last push,” Dr. Hilton said, and Kassandra complied.

“May I see her now?” Kassandra asked.

Mariah turned around with the blanketed bundle. “Of course you can.”

“I think you should rest first.” Mrs. Hartmann walked into the room and stood in front of Mariah, blocking Kassandra’s view. “Don’t you think, Dr. Hilton?”

Dr. Hilton exchanged a pointed look with Mrs. Hartmann before opening the large leather bag on Kassandra’s bureau and rummaging through its contents.

“No!” Kassandra ignored the pain in her body and worked to sit up in her bed, even attempting to swing her legs over the edge. “I do
not
need to rest! I need to see my baby!”

But her weakened body would not obey. She felt paralyzed, and the helplessness took on the tinge of panic as she saw Dr. Hilton dip a bottle of clear liquid over a clean white handkerchief and approach her.

“Now, Kassandra,” he said in that matter-of-fact manner of his, which sent chills through her body “You’ve been up most of the night. You’ll need your sleep.”

“What are you doing?” Kassandra said.

She wasn’t referring to the doctor’s suspicious ministrations, but to the vision of Mariah Brown handing her child over to the waiting arms of Mrs. Hartmann. That was the last sight Kassandra had before the handkerchief was placed over her mouth and nose, and all conscious thought disappeared.

he second time she woke up, she was on the floor. Mariah knelt beside her, wiping her brow with a cool cloth as she held Kassandra’s head in her lap.

“There now,” she was saying, “that’s it. Wake up. Help me get you back into bed.”

Kassandra didn’t want to get back into bed. Even in this groggy state, she wanted to find her daughter. But Mariah was not one to be denied, and the two women struggled together until Kassandra was back in the bed, sitting up on newly propped pillows.

“Where is she?” Kassandra asked, surprised at the thickness of her voice.

Mariah busied herself helping Kassandra take a sip of water and smoothing out the covers. “I’ll get Mrs. Hartmann in here,” she said.

“Not her. My baby.”

“You just rest,” Mariah said, patting Kassandra’s leg before leaving the room and closing the door behind her.

“No!” Kassandra’s voice croaked with the effort, but Mariah didn’t return. Kassandra continued to holler—calling for Mariah, calling for Mrs. Hartmann, calling for her baby—until her throat was raw and the door opened again at last.

This time, it was Mrs. Hartmann who came through, scowling and asking Kassandra if she had gone quite mad.

“Where is my baby?”

“Calm down, Kassandra.”

“I will not calm down. Where is my daughter?”

“We need to talk.”

“We do
not
need to talk. I need to see my daughter.”

Mrs. Hartmann moved a chair close to the bed and sat on it. She reached for Kassandra’s hand, which was clenched into a fist, and covered it with her own. The gesture was fraught with such unwarranted and unprecedented affection that Kassandra dreaded what she had to ask next.

“Is she … is she all right?”

Mrs. Hartmann looked at her, seeming to deliberate her answer. How many answers could there be? Yes, she’s fine. No, she’s sick. She’s sleeping. She’s—

“I’ve hired a wet nurse from town,” Mrs. Hartmann said, as calmly as if she were announcing that they were having pork chops for supper. “It’s really the thing to do. All the experts say so The baby is with her.”

Kassandra tried to wrap her mind around what Mrs. Hartmann just said, but it didn’t make any sense. She had been prepared to hear the worst—had steeled herself against the idea that this child, too, had died before she got a chance to hold her. But that she had simply been taken away? Why would she hire a nurse when Kassandra was perfectly capable of taking care of her child? She stared at Mrs. Hartmann and inwardly, silently, begged for an explanation.