Susannah Morrow (2 page)

I helped my mother back into the bed, and tried to smile. I watched the window and saw only darkness beyond it, and prayed
for the shape of my father’s shadow. He did not come, and the hours kept passing, quiet save for the rain and my mother’s
groans.

Goody Way leaned down between my mother’s legs, placing her hands hard on Mama’s belly. “Try once more, Judith,” she said,
her voice hoarse with the effort of repeating it. My mother tried, but weakly. Her moan was nearly soundless.

“Please, Mama,” I whispered.

Goody Way murmured a prayer before she sat back again, wiping her bloody hands on the towel lying at the end of the bed.

I stroked back the hair from Mama’s face. “’Twill be all right, Mama.” I had already said those words a dozen times. I looked
up at the midwife. “Is there nothing more to do?”

“Anything else lies beyond my power, child,” Goody Way said softly.

“What could be keeping Father? He’s only gone to Salem Town.”

Goody Way shrugged. “’Tis a black night. The roads’ll be mud to the knee. And he’s carrying another person.…’Twill be slow
going for his horse.”

“He said he would hurry.”

“Five miles to town and back again. Won’t be much hurrying now, I’ll warrant. Your aunt picked a fine time to arrive.” Goody
Way shook her head. Loose gray curls fell from her cap to shiver against her jaw. “Your papa can ill afford to be gone just
now.”

Mama groaned again. Her belly rippled—this time faintly, as though the babe inside were growing tired of the fight. Mama opened
her eyes. “Is your father…?” Her voice was so quiet it was like a breath.

I leaned close. “Hush, Mama, hush. He’ll be here soon. Save your strength.”

“No…’tis too late for that. Is Jude…Is she abed already?”

“Aye.”

“Don’t wake her. Just…tell her…” Mama closed her eyes.

“Tell her what, Mama? Tell Jude what?”

“I fear…the babe and I…We are…both for God.” I felt the pressure of my mother’s fingers on mine, and I tightened my hold,
suddenly afraid to let go. I had known the babe could die, but I had never thought to lose my mother.

“No, Mama. No—”

“Tell Jude…be good for your…father,” she said. “You take…care of…her.”

I tried to keep back my tears, but I felt them now on my cheeks, and my vision blurred. Blurred now, when I wanted so badly
to see her clearly. “This is silly, Mama,” I said. “’Tis only a few hard hours. Father’s coming. Any moment. He’ll have Aunt
Susannah with him—”

“He…loves you, Charity. You…remember that. And God…God loves you too. You must…cleave…to Him. ‘If Christ hath…’”

If Christ hath no possession of thee, thou art possessed by the Devil.
I heard the words that she was too weak to say. I knew them already without prompting. She had said them to me nearly every
day these last months. I twisted her fingers in mine and said furiously, “Father will be here soon. He’ll be here soon, Mama.
Please.”

My mother’s groan sent the tendons in her throat into stark relief. Had she the power to release it, it would have been a
scream. I looked desperately at the midwife.

Goody Way sighed. She heaved herself from the stool, leaving my mother’s legs flung apart and straining. She crossed the room
to the front window.

“What are you doing?” I cried. “Come back here.”

“’Tis in God’s hands now.…” She bent to peer more closely out the glass. “Oh, thank the Lord—here they be.” She threw the
bloody towel to the floor and rushed to the door.

Relief made me light-headed. Father was back; nothing bad could happen now. He would not let Mama die.

“They’re here, Mama,” I whispered. “At last, they’re here.”

Goody Way flung the door open so hard it banged against the wall. “You’d best hurry, Lucas!” she called out, and the wind
whipped her voice right back into the room, along with the rain and a scattering of fallen leaves.

Through the front window, I saw nothing but rain. I heard my father’s footsteps pounding on the ground outside the house,
and another pair too, and then two people were pushing past Goody Way into the room. Outlined in the doorway, against the
gray sky, they were shadows clad in dripping clothing that smelled of wet sheep and horse, mud and sweat. I heard the midwife’s
quick whispers, and I knew what she was telling them—that my mother would die.

“Father,” I said, rising to my feet, “’tis not so bad. I—”

He brushed past me; I doubted he even saw I was there. He was soaking wet, his Monmouth hat sending streams of water onto
his face, his cloak dripping pools on the floor at Mama’s bedside. His gloves were black with rain, but he didn’t bother to
take one off as he reached for Mama’s hand—the one I’d dropped when he came rushing over. “Judith,” he said, “I’m sorry to
be so late.”

Mama’s eyes fluttered open. I thought I saw the ghost of a smile on her lips. “Lucas,” she said. “My…dear. I am…not afraid.”

My father motioned to the doorway, sending water drops scattering across Mama’s bedcovers, and there was a desperation in
his gesture that matched my fear. “I’ve brought your sister.”

Mama tried to turn her head. Her face was shiny with sweat, her gaze dull. “W-where? Sus…annah?”

“I’m here, Judith.” The voice was low and soft. For the first time, I looked at the woman who had come inside with my father.
My aunt Susannah.

In the candlelight, she was only a bundle of clothing: a dark woolen cloak with a hood that covered her head and hid her face,
sodden russet skirts that dripped as she moved. She left wet footprints as she came toward us. I could tell nothing about
her. She was only shadows and the glisten of candlelight where it hit here and there on her face—a cheekbone, a nose.

She smelled of fish and lemons, molding leaves and rain, and those smells seemed to make the blood scent of my mother stronger.
She came up between my father and me, and he backed into the bed curtains to give her room, gave her my mother’s hand. Her
own were gloved in black so that it seemed Mama’s pale fingers floated in the darkness. “Judith,” she said. “Judith, I’ve
come all this way. I forbid you to leave me now.” She said it lightly, as if nothing were wrong, and I wanted to scream at
her,
She’s dying, can you not see?

But then, my mother smiled, and it was not a feeble smile like the ones she’d given me or my father. It was the first real
smile I’d seen on her face since this labor had begun, and with it came a light in her eyes that stunned me, that raised a
blinding hope in my own soul. “Oh, Sister,” she said, “I have longed so to see you…again.”

I glanced at Susannah then, to see what it was about this aunt I’d never met that could make my mother smile this way, but
the hood still shielded her face. My father gestured to Goody Way, and the midwife scurried over, settling again between my
mother’s legs, looking doubtful.

“I hear you’ve a babe waiting to be born,” Susannah said. “What think you, Judith? Shall we try again?”

An hour ago, my mother had barely been able to move. Ten minutes before, she had said she and the babe were for God. But now
she tried to sit up. My father lifted her, helping her to settle against the bolster. She dug her elbows into the feather
bed, and her face contorted, her whole body went stiff. She screamed. I pushed in to help her.

“Charity,” my father said harshly. “Go on. ’Tis no place for a child.”

“But, Father, she needs me—”

“Your mother has Susannah now. Go on.”

I could not make myself go. I could not leave my mother. Hope had settled into me now, but I knew it was a fragile thing.
Everything could change in a moment, and I was afraid to walk away.

“Once more, Judith,” Susannah was saying softly.

I reached out to touch my mother’s bared leg; her skin was wet with sweat.

“Leave us, Charity,” Father warned.

Goody Way looked at Susannah. “You’d best make her hurry, or we’ll lose the child—if we haven’t already.”

Susannah leaned close to my mother’s face, whispering something, and I could no longer see Mama, only the back of my aunt’s
head, the water-soaked dark of her hood. I stepped back toward Goody Way because I had to—Susannah was filling up all the
space—and the gathered bed curtains draped over my shoulders and against my arm. I thought if I stayed there, I would be half
hidden, my father would forget me, but when I looked up, it was into his angry eyes.

“Please don’t make me leave her, Father,” I said, but just then Mama cried out, and if there had been any relenting in his
gaze, it was gone. I stepped away from the bed.

“Again!” Goody Way shouted.

Mama’s groan sounded like death. I jerked around, ready to run back to her side, but her scream stopped me. Then there was
the sound of a baby’s cry, thin and breathless, so quiet it was unearthly. The baby was born; ’twas a miracle. A miracle that
Mama had lived, that the babe I’d been sure would die was crying in this dark, close room. For a moment, I was dumbfounded.
I saw Goody Way lift the child, the jerking of its arms and legs, and praise for the Lord’s kindness spilled from my heart
in such a rush I could scarce control it.
Thank you, Lord. Bless you, Lord…

Then I heard the silence. My prayers fell away. I glanced at my father, who wasn’t looking at the babe at all, but only at
my mother.

Mama raised her hand. I was relieved until I saw how weakly she did it, how it seemed the motion took everything she had.
In the quiet, her whispered “Susannah” was unbelievably loud. My father turned away. My aunt leaned close to hear my mother’s
faint words, and suddenly I went numb.

My mother was dying. Everything in the room pointed to it, every little sign and movement. I heard a rush of air—the hush
of her spirit passing—and I knew: God had taken her to punish me.

It was all I could do to keep from shouting
No!
when my aunt raised her head.

“She’s gone,” Susannah said.

My father went still; he closed his eyes and I saw his lips move:
Dear Lord, bless my poor Judith.

“No,” I whispered.

“I’m sorry, Charity—”

I shook my head, stumbling across the room. They stood back for me, but I would have gone through them to get to her. I fell
into the bedstead, my eyes too blurred with tears to see anything but shadows, and then I sank to my knees beside the bed.
“Mama,” I said, choking through my sobs. I fumbled for her hand, and when I found it, I clutched it hard; I held it so she
could not leave me. “Mama.”

It seemed I cried for only a few moments when I felt my father’s hand on my shoulder, when I heard his quiet voice. “’Tis
enough, Charity,” he said. “She was a righteous woman. There was no sin in her. She is with God now.”

No sin in her.

My body went cold. God had taken her, but the sin was mine.
The sin is mine.
All she had done was to keep it secret to protect me.

I squeezed Mama’s too-thin fingers and pulled them to my lips, tasting the salt of my own tears on her fingertips. Then I
laid her hand gently on the bed rug and backed away, my tears for my mother still blurring my vision. I heard her last words
to me ringing in my ears—
God loves you
—and I knew it wasn’t true. She was dead, and it was my fault. God did not love me, because if He had, He would have left
my mother to prove He could forgive such a stupid, sinful girl.…

“She is at last relieved of the misery of this world, Charity,” my father said quietly. “Would you cry for such a blessing?”

’Twas all the grieving I was allowed for my mother, and I tried to pretend it was enough. I wanted to fall to my knees and
sob my sorrow and desperation against her cheek—but I was too old for such grief now. My father’s hand did not leave my shoulder,
and I felt his pride at my reserve and reveled in those few moments of his approval even as I thought I would be sick.

Then my father reached over and folded my mother’s hands upon her chest. When he knelt at her bedside, I moved into place
beside him. Goody Way handed the babe to Susannah before she joined us, and together we stayed while Father’s prayer filled
the parlor. “Dear Lord, we have been but lambs in the wilderness, led by this good woman. She has ever been Thy servant in
word and deed, and we celebrate her return to Thy bosom and pray that Thou wilt lend Thy servants remaining here on earth
guidance.…”

I noticed that my aunt was not kneeling beside us, that she had stepped back toward the fire. She was not even listening to
my father’s prayer. Instead, she was bouncing the baby and fumbling with the blanket Goody Way had wrapped around it, making
little clucking noises. Suddenly she threw back the cowl of her cloak, and I saw my aunt for the first time.

I could not look away, even as my father’s prayer droned on. Susannah’s hair was not covered by a cap, but pinned in a great
heaviness at the back of her head. Some of it fell over her shoulders like sooty shadows.

She was beautiful.

It startled me. I had expected her to be old—after all, I thought of my mother as old, with her tired eyes and her hair nearly
as gray as it was brown—but Aunt Susannah did not seem old. She was so beautiful that for a moment I fancied ’twas not the
fire’s gold she was reflecting but some light that came from inside her, something so bright that I suddenly knew where my
mother had found the will to birth that baby. She had caught some of that spirit in Susannah Morrow’s face. I wondered that
it had not been enough to keep her alive.

As if my aunt sensed I was looking at her, she glanced over at me. For a moment, our gazes held, and she smiled. It was tender
and sad and familiar. It was my mother’s smile.

It struck me so hard I had to turn away. In the last months, I had seen that expression whenever Mama looked at me—that terrible,
sad smile that only reminded me of how close I had come to damnation, of how all the prayers in the world might yet not bring
God’s forgiveness.