The man at the door was asking for help with two babies.
I heard that before I learned anything else about him.
I was still in the kitchen when his voice reached me.
He was speaking quickly.
Not angrily.
Not like someone trying to start a quarrel.
He sounded frightened.
I remember stopping with my hand against the table.
I had heard plenty of people asking for help since Thomas died.
I knew how they sounded when something was wrong.
But there was something different about this man.
He was not speaking about himself.
He kept speaking about children.
He said the babies had barely been able to take any nourishment since the previous day.
He was afraid they would not survive another night.
I felt my fingers tighten against the edge of the table.
A baby who could not eat.
I knew too well what could happen to a baby whose body was failing.
I had watched Ada struggle.
I had listened to a doctor explain why he could not save her.
Now another man was standing outside our home, saying that two infants were in danger.
I moved closer to the entrance.
I heard Amos answer him.
His tone was firm.
He told the stranger that the matter belonged with a doctor.
I remember thinking that was a reasonable answer for only a moment.
Then the stranger spoke again.
He had already consulted a physician.
The doctor had advised him to find a woman who was nursing.
A woman with milk.
That was the answer.
I knew it before Amos said another word.
I stood completely still.
That morning, I had poured my own milk onto the frozen ground.
I could remember the basin.
The cold.
The way I had paused before emptying it.
And now there were two babies who could not get enough nourishment.
I wanted to go to the door.
I wanted to hear more.
But Amos was already speaking.
He told the man there was nobody in the house who could assist him.
Nobody.
I felt that word as sharply as if it had been directed at me.
I was standing only a short distance away.
My body was still producing milk.
My breasts ached because I had no child to feed.
And Amos was telling a desperate father that no help existed beneath his roof.
I waited for him to correct himself.
I thought perhaps he meant that I was too weak.
That I had only recently given birth.
That I needed time to recover.
Those were concerns I might have understood.
But he offered no such explanation.
He simply sent the man away.
Then the front door shut.
I heard the bolt move into place.
Such a small sound.
Metal sliding against metal.
Yet I remember it more clearly than almost anything Amos said that evening.
It sounded final.
I could not remain in the kitchen.
I walked into the front room.
Amos was still near the entrance.
Martha stood by the stove.
She was handling her apron, twisting the fabric between her fingers.
I asked who had come.
Martha answered.
Caleb Foster.
I recognized the name immediately.
Nearly everyone around Pine Hollow knew of Cedar Run Ranch.
It was the large spread beyond the creek.
Caleb Foster ran it.
I had never met him, but I knew what had happened to his family.
His wife, Lydia, had died six weeks earlier.
She had been giving birth to twins.
Two babies.
A dead mother.
And a father who had just come to our door begging for a nursing woman.
Until that evening, I had thought of Lydia Foster as another woman who had died bringing children into the world.
I had felt sorrow when I heard about her.
But I had been living inside my own losses.
Thomas had been taken from me.
Ada had been born and died.
I had scarcely possessed the strength to think beyond my own small room.
Now Lydia's story had reached me in a different way.
Her babies were alive.
They needed food.
Their father had been told where he might find help.
And Amos had refused him.
I looked toward the front door.
For a moment, I could not speak.
Then I asked Amos whether he understood what that man had wanted.
Of course he understood.
He had heard everything.
I wanted him to say he had misunderstood.
I wanted him to open the door and call the stranger back.
Instead, he looked at me as though my question itself were improper.
I asked why he had turned Caleb away.
Amos told me that I was not going to spend time in a widower's house feeding his children.
He spoke as though the matter had already been settled.
I remember how strangely calm he sounded.
Two newborn babies were hungry.
Their mother was dead.
Their father had come for help.
But Amos was concerned with whether I should enter another man's home.
I tried to explain that Caleb Foster was not looking for company.
He was looking for someone who could keep his children fed.
Amos did not seem interested in the distinction.
I reminded him that Caleb had lost his wife.
He answered that such a loss did not make the arrangement acceptable.
I could feel myself becoming angry.
That frightened me.
I had spent so much time trying to be agreeable in that house that I hardly recognized the sound of my own voice when I stopped.
I asked him what he expected Caleb to do.
Amos said the children belonged to their father.
Their care was his concern.
Not mine.
I stared at him.
I had no difficulty understanding the words.
I had difficulty understanding how he could say them.
I had held my own baby while she died.
I knew the helplessness of watching a child suffer.
And this man was talking about responsibility as though it were something that could be neatly divided between households.
I said the twins had no mother.
I needed him to understand that.
Not because Caleb lacked a wife who could help him keep his home.
Because the person who would ordinarily have nursed those children was gone.
She would never come back.
I knew exactly what that meant.
Amos's face reddened.
He repeated that the matter had nothing to do with me.
I remember looking at him and wondering whether he truly believed that.
Perhaps he did.
Perhaps, to him, the world consisted of things that were his duty and things that were not.
The trouble was that I did not see those boundaries in the same way.
Not anymore.
Before Ada's birth, I might have kept silent.
I might have told myself that Amos was the master of his own household.
That I was dependent on his generosity.
That I should avoid offending him.
But I had seen how quickly a baby could die.
Those memories left little room for arguments about appearances.
I turned toward Martha.
I wanted my sister to say something.
Anything.
She knew what I had been enduring.
She knew how recently Ada had died.
She knew about the pain in my body.
I had not hidden every sign of it from her.
She also knew what it meant for newborn babies to go without enough milk.
Surely she could say that the children mattered more than Amos's concerns.
I watched her face.
Her mouth moved slightly.
For one moment, I believed she was going to speak.
Then she looked down.
She did not challenge him.
She did not ask him to reconsider.
She stood beside the stove, holding her apron.
And I understood.
Martha would not help me make this decision.
I could not blame her for every choice her husband made.
She had given me shelter.
She had shown me kindness when I needed it.
But in that moment, I felt something close between us.
I had been waiting for her to defend what was right.
She had been waiting for the argument to end.
Those were two very different things.
I looked back at Amos.
I wanted to keep talking.
There were so many things I could have said.
I could have told him about my mornings at the basin.
I could have described the milk I discarded.
I could have asked him how he would feel if his own children were hungry.
But I knew the answer I would receive.
He had already told me.
It was not my concern.
I was angry with him.
I was also angry with myself.
For days, I had been asking why my body continued making food for a child who had died.
Now I had heard about two living children who needed exactly what I could provide.
And I had nearly allowed another person to decide whether that mattered.
I thought of Ada.
Her little mouth moving against my chest.
Her breath catching.
The doctor explaining what no one could change.
I had not been able to save her.
That truth would remain with me.
But it did not mean I should turn away from every child I might be able to help.
I looked toward the door again.
Caleb Foster was gone.
I could no longer hear his voice.
I did not know how far he had traveled.
I did not know what he would do next.
I only knew he had left our house without the help his physician had told him to seek.
And somewhere at Cedar Run Ranch, two babies were still hungry.
I went to the spare room.
I did not announce what I was going to do.
I did not ask Amos to reconsider.
I had heard his decision.
Now I needed to make my own.
When I closed the bedroom door, my hands were trembling.
I stood beside the bed for a moment.
I was frightened.
I will not pretend otherwise.
I knew what it meant to disobey Amos while living beneath his roof.
He could refuse to let me return.
He could decide that my place in the household was finished.
Martha might not be able to change his mind.
I had little money.
I had no husband to protect me.
My body was still weak after childbirth.
The evening was bitterly cold.
And Cedar Run Ranch was three miles away.
I knew every one of those facts.
I also knew that two babies needed milk.
I began collecting my belongings.
Two blouses.
My shawl.
A comb.
My sewing things.
Thomas's Bible.
I placed them together because there was nothing there I could afford to lose.
Then I reached into my pocket.
I emptied the coins onto the bed.
Two nickels.
Two pennies.
Twelve cents.
I counted them, although the amount would not change.
I had once shared a home with Thomas.
We had expected a child.
We had planned a future.
Now everything I owned could be gathered in a few moments, and the money I possessed would fit in the palm of my hand.
I looked at the coins for a long time.
Twelve cents would not provide much protection.
It would not buy me another home.
It would not make the journey safe.
But I had come to the end of asking what would happen to me if I helped.
I needed to ask what would happen to those babies if I did not.
The answer frightened me more.
I gathered the coins.
I wrapped my shawl around my shoulders.
And I made the decision that Amos had already tried to make for me.
I was going to Cedar Run Ranch.
Source: life5.aubtu.biz
