Jodi Thomas (27 page)

Chance slapped the tiny baby.

Anna waited, her body shaking with a sudden chill.

He laid the baby beside her and wiped out its mouth with his finger. The tiny blue body lay still against the white sheet. He cut the cord with a knife and twisted it into a knot.

“Breathe!” he screamed as he patted the baby’s chest and back. “Breathe!”

Anna knew the child was stillborn even before she saw the truth in Chance’s eyes. “No!” she cried grabbing the tiny body and holding it to her. “No!”

God wouldn’t do this to her. He wouldn’t take the one person in this world who would ever love her. She rubbed the slippery skin already growing cold with death. “
No!
” she screamed trying to make her child breathe. The pain of the birth was nothing compared to the explosion of grief in her heart as she hugged the lifeless body to her.

Chance pulled the baby from her arms. She fought him wildly, but he took her child from her.

“Stay here!” he yelled as he carried the lifeless form to the door.

“My baby,” she cried. “Let me hold my baby.”

Anna tried to follow but she was too weak to stand. She pulled herself to the edge of the bed and forced her weight onto wobbly legs. “Chance!” she screamed as he vanished into the night. “Chance, let me hold my baby.” Anna collapsed beside the bed. She slammed her fist against the rug and cried, “Let me hold my baby.” The room spun around and blackness edged its way into the corners of her mind.

She felt like her sanity might give way at any moment. All these months she’d thought of the child who was heir to all her love; the child that had never taken one breath of life; the child Chance had pulled violently from her and ran with as though her holding it a moment longer would matter. She wanted to die with her baby. She wanted to lie next to it in the ground and never again feel the pain she felt now as she stared into the black silence of the night beyond her door. Her bloodline had come full circle. She and all her kind were cowards. Her baby had not even fought to breathe.

She heard the sudden splash of water. Had Chance thrown her child into the stream so that not even a grave would mark its moment on earth?

“
No!
” Screaming, Anna buried her face in her hands. “
No!
” All she could think of was using the last of her energy to reach the stream and joining her child in death. But she was too weak and the blackness in her brain matched that of the night.

Far away, as if from another world, came a cry. For a moment Anna couldn’t tell if she had imagined the cry or if it was the strangled sob that had been wrenched from her heart and echoed into the loneliness of all her future days. She took a deep breath and listened. Was she losing her mind? Or had a baby’s cry filled the air as strong and crystal clear as the dawn on a summer’s morning?

C
hance stepped from the blackness into the long rectangle of light spreading from the cabin doorway. His bare wet chest glistened, and his hair fell across his forehead in dark locks. Anna stared at him, in too much pain even to allow her hatred to show. He looked so caring, so kind, as if totally unaware of the harm he’d done.

The haunting cry of a baby still whirled about her ears, pushing her closer to insanity. He’d ripped her child from her arms, and she would hear its cry to her death. He hadn’t allowed her to kiss the only thing she would ever love good-bye. Now she wanted to run at him and pound her sorrow into his very heart, but her head swam with the loss of her own blood and she clung to the door frame, fighting the blackness that filtered through her mind like poisonous smoke.

Then she saw it: a small bundle in Chance’s arms. As he neared she recognized the folds of his blue shirt around a tiny wiggling form. Reality and hope began to dance together until each blurred the other.

Reaching the door of the cabin, he shouted, “Anna, get back in bed!”

Anna stared at him as if the devil had just walked past her. “What?”

The black smoke filled her mind, and she felt her body go numb from her limbs inward until there was no strength, no light. As the darkness blanketed her brain, she felt Chance’s strong arm go around her.

Anna awoke slowly, feeling as though she’d been sleeping for centuries. She felt the covers over her body and blinked at the firelight.

“Anna.” Chance’s voice seemed to come from all directions at once. “Anna, please wake up!”

Tears welled up in her eyes as she whispered, “I lost my baby.” The pain of the words ripped at her heart, for even now she could hear the cries of her child.

Lying down next to her, Chance pulled her under his arm. “No, darling,” he whispered. “You fainted, but you didn’t lose the baby. She’s fine.” He lifted the bundle on the other side of Anna. “I wanted to let you sleep, but to be honest I don’t know how to make her stop crying.”

With loving care he held the bundle close to him, but the cries continued. The child was still wrapped in his shirt. “She’s been crying for an hour. I didn’t figure it would hurt her much to yell a while. Might clear her lungs. But I think now she needs something I can’t provide.”

“But . . .” Anna couldn’t believe her eyes as Chance laid the baby in her arms. The bundle couldn’t measure up to a five-pound sack of flour. “How could she be alive?”

“I remembered hearing an Indian woman tell once about throwing her stillborn baby into the river to make the Great Spirit give it life. I didn’t know what else to do when she wouldn’t breathe.”

“It worked?” She was almost afraid to touch the child, as if touching it might somehow make the dream shatter.

“The cold water must have shocked her tiny system enough to get her going.” Leaning against Anna’s arm, he pushed his shirt back enough to see the child’s face. Her hair was almost white and formed curls around her head as she twisted and screamed. Chance stroked one red cheek with the side of his finger. “She’s so tiny, like a picture I saw once of a little angel.” He laughed. “But can she yell. She screamed all the time I was cleaning you up. I finally tried rocking her, but it didn’t seem to help. I made her a bed out of one of your bread pans and set it over by the fire, but she didn’t like that either.” Frustration crossed his strong features.

Small fingers reached up and Anna touched the hand of her daughter. “A girl,” she whispered. The hand curled around Anna’s finger and a bond formed that no power would ever break.

Leaning against the headboard, Chance relaxed. “There was blood all over your gown. I put you in one of my clean shirts. I figured I’d never be able to get one of those frilly, ribbony nightgowns on you.”

Anna looked down and noticed for the first time what she was wearing. The long sleeves had been rolled to her elbows and the collar was buttoned to her neck. She blushed at the thought that Chance had changed her clothes, but the knowledge that he’d saved her and her child’s lives registered more strongly.

Lifting her hand to his face, Anna cupped his strong jaw with her pale fingers. “Thank you. I am in your debt.”

“No,” Chance answered. “I should be thanking you. I got to watch a miracle tonight. I’ve never seen anything like it. Out of all the pain and mess came something so perfect. When I pulled her from the water and she was screaming at me, I thought I’d burst with joy.”

The baby started to cry louder, as if on cue. Chance stood and crossed to the fire. “I’ll put some coffee on.” He seemed embarrassed as Anna started unbuttoning her shirt.

Anna laughed to herself. Here was a man who’d seen her in the worse possible shape. She didn’t even want to think what it had been like to clean her up. And now he was embarrassed to think that she was about to breast-feed in the same room. She unbuttoned the nightshirt and put the baby next to her breast, surprised at her own immodesty.

Chance kept busy making coffee until the child fell asleep. When he returned with a mug of hot coffee, the baby was sleeping beside Anna. He stretched out on the other side of the tiny addition and leaned against the headboard. “What are you going to name her?”

Anna rested her head against Chance’s arm. “I don’t know. What do you think?”

Chance sipped his coffee. “Could name her after your mother or grandmother.”

Anna shook her head slightly. “I never knew my grandmother and I want no memory of my mother.”

He wanted to ask why, but didn’t. He set his cup down and lightly stroked Anna’s hair with his fingers. She closed her eyes and smiled contentedly as he continued to touch her. “My mother was a real fighter, just like this little girl. She wasn’t very tall, but you wouldn’t believe what she could do. I don’t ever remember a day when she didn’t thank God for the wonder of being alive.”

Anna turned so that her cheek touched Chance’s head as he continued to stroke her hair. “What was her name?”

“Her minister father named her Cherish Julia.” Chance smiled, loving the feel of Anna’s hair in his hand. “Dad always said he cherished Julia. I must have been five before I realized that Cherish was her name also.”

“Cherish Julia Wyatt,” Anna whispered. “I’d like to name my baby after her. If you don’t mind?”

Chance leaned over and kissed Anna’s forehead. “I’d be honored, and I think my mother would have been proud. With her hair almost white-blond and her eyes so blue, she’s an angel.”

There was no answer. Anna was sound asleep. Chance watched her for several minutes, then slowly lowered his hand between her breasts. Carefully, slowly, so that he wouldn’t awaken her, Chance pulled the material over her breast and buttoned the shirt.

Just after dawn, activity hit the cabin with full force. Selma and Maggie came running through the trees and when they entered the cabin, they both squealed over the infant like old maids at a bridal shower. Carl showed up a moment later with a cradle in his arms. They passed tiny Cherish around until she began to cry. Then they all stood for a minute listening to her screams as though an orchestra were playing beautiful music right there in the cabin.

Carl and Selma quickly excused themselves with the helpless look of non-parents. After they left, Anna unbuttoned her shirt and fed Cherish without any embarrassment. Chance did his best to act as if nothing unusual was going on, but he couldn’t help but watch her out of the corner of his eye. She knew a woman never breast-fed in the presence of men, but where was she to go in this one-room cabin?

When the baby was fed, Anna gently placed her in Maggie’s anxious arms. The little girl laughed as if it were Christmas and her birthday all at once. She talked to Cherish about all the things they would do as soon as Cherish was bigger. Anna could even hear her whispering, “Call me Maggie, never Aunt Maggie, because after all, we’re closer to sisters than anything.” She rocked the tiny infant. “I’ll never leave you, Cherish. You’ll always have me to depend on. You’ll never have to worry about being left alone with cousins who think you’re a bother. I’ll always be there to love you and give you a hug even sometimes when you don’t really need one.”

Closing her eyes, Anna fought back tears. Maggie’s words made her love the child even more dearly. She wished someone in her life had said that to her just once. Anna would have given so much if just once in her youth she’d had a hug even when she didn’t really need one.

Chance brought her out of her self-pity by sitting down on the side of the bed. He balanced a plate of food on his knee and spread a napkin under Anna’s chin. “You need to eat something.” He stuck a piece of meat with his fork and tried to feed her.

Anna shook her head, her lips tightly closed. When he lowered the fork, she said, “I’m perfectly able to feed myself.”

Setting the plate aside, he lifted her shoulders up until she was sitting, and stuffed pillows behind her. “Then eat,” he teased as he shoved the plate toward her.

Anna tasted the strange mixture of meat covered with a white greasy liquid. She couldn’t suppress a snicker as she asked, “Did you make this, or did Selma?”