The Language of Paradise: A Novel (38 page)

Flinging a shawl over her shoulders, Sophy rushes out to meet the wagon. Stops short when she sees who is sitting beside Micah: Papa, or a simulacrum from the beyond, the unmistakable beaver hat low on his brow and his endless muffler wrapping him from neck to nose. Her first thought is that he’s come back to reclaim her, but she has no time to think further for the wagon halts in front of the house, the horse snorting smoke, and Micah circles around to help the transfiguration descend, whereupon it straightens layers of wool and gingham and reveals itself to be Mama.

For Sophy, it is no less a resurrection. She throws her bulk at Mama, all but knocking her over, and buries her face in her bosom. “And you with your head uncovered,” Mama says, patting her sides, appraising as she embraces. “Near eight months gone, and not enough sense to know that cold travels down through the crown.” She clasps Sophy tighter and adds, in a hoarse croak, “God help the child.” The sentiment, so foreign to her usual speech, lingers in the rimy air. Sophy wonders, which child?

They help Mama into the house and settle her by the hearth in the kitchen. The old bustling Mama would have refused a seat and walked briskly through each room, noting what needed doing and attacking the task on the spot. But that vigorous woman has been displaced by her own grandmother, who holds crooked fingers to the fire and declares she is frozen through. They must wait for her to thaw before coaxing off, in turn, the beaver hat, the outermost shawl, a yard or two of muffler.

“She w-would come,” Micah says, “though I tried to stop her. Her chest has been stuffed for days, and you h-hear how her throat sounds.”

“I don’t recall getting an invitation when it was warm and pleasant,” Mama mutters.

While Sophy fills the kettle for tea, Micah goes out to unload the wagon. He returns with a basket spilling over with small garments. Sophy holds them up one by one. Mama’s fingers may be bent, but they have not been idle. There are new things: gowns of soft cotton and flannel, knit caps and vests and blankets, and a stack of snowy squares, finished with a care that belies their purpose. Under these, a long yellowed linen dress edged with lace that has seen three generations through their christenings, more gowns and blankets, and clothing of various sizes, all washed and pressed and preserved by Mama in a cedar chest with sprigs of lavender between.

“I g-gave it a good polish,” Micah says, carrying in the cradle. When he sets it near the hearth, Sophy’s eyes fill. She remembers rocking Micah in this very cradle when she was scarcely more than a baby herself. For a moment, she feels the strength and fellowship of those who endured before her: that long line of bearing women at her back, each of them anxious for the child to come, each looking ahead with joy, and also with dread. Sophy takes one of the worn gowns and lays it in the cradle, smoothing out creases as sharp as seams. Mama has been watching, half-nodding over her tea, but now she darts forward and snatches up the gown.

“Never do that!” She clutches the thin cotton to her chest as if she’d rescued it from the fire. “It’s bad luck to croon over a cradle before it is filled. The Spoiler sees and interferes.”

Shaken, Sophy is tempted to rebuke Mama for her superstitions. Then she remembers the three little girls Mama lost. Three porcelain dolls capped and robed in white, each laid out in her wooden box. She’s rarely given them a thought until this moment, for Mama isn’t one to brood over griefs past. She sees sweet pinched faces, tiny fists peeking out of ruffled sleeves.

Mama takes note of her expression. “Now come here, let’s have a look at you,” she says, glancing sidelong at Micah. “If the young man will take his tea elsewhere? There are rooms enough to choose from.” As soon as he is gone, Mama creaks to her feet and begins to poke and prod expertly beneath Sophy’s apron. “All seems in order, as far as I can tell. You’re carrying low and narrow, which ought to mean a boy, though Mother Nature has fooled me more than once. A big boy for a wisp of a thing like you. You’re like the woman who swallowed the cow, and I suppose you feel like her, too. I doubt you’ll last till January.”

A clamor in the hall. The men have returned early, in boisterous good humor from the sound of it, Leander shouting, “My kingdom for a horse!” and Gideon laughing as he never laughs with anyone else. Gideon relishes these excursions. Leander brings out a bluff, raucous side of him, as if he were made of coarser stuff. It’s not enough for some men to bring angels down to earth, she thinks; they must wrestle them to the ground and rub mud in their hair, all in good fun. They tramp in, bringing the smell of snow with them, Gideon as rosy as a boy. “Sophy, you’ve never seen such a nag as Leander’s honest farmfrau tried to sell us—”

The sight of Mama strikes them dumb. Sophy would swear that Gideon’s color fades on the spot. By now they are so caught up in their grand scheme that they can’t fathom the unexpected. Mama was not planned for; therefore she cannot be here.

Leander recovers first. “Mrs. Hedge, what a delightful surprise! That slybones Micah never told us you were coming. Doesn’t our Sophia look blooming? You see what good care we’re taking of her.”

Gideon surveys the bounty with a wincing smile. “The little one will be well provided for,” he says, “thanks to you, Fanny.” He pats the sleeve of a gown, self-conscious, and riffles the stack of nappies like the pages of a book. With a cautious touch he sets the cradle to rocking, staring at it fixedly as if it were a new invention. Only then does he brush a kiss on Mama’s stiff cheek.

No one seems to know how to proceed after pleasantries have been exchanged. “Well, have you been shown the house yet?” Leander asks. “Let us give you the grand tour, then. It’s changed quite a bit since you saw it last.” He takes Mama’s arm and ushers her into the next room, drawing her attention to improvements they’ve made. Gideon sends Sophy a long, questioning look.
Is this your doing
?

She finds Micah in the pantry. His legs are curled around the stumps of a low stool and he is snoring softly, his head pillowed against a sack of flour on a shelf. His talent for napping anywhere, on the instant, is legend in the family. She makes mouse tracks up his neck to wake him. “Silly, what are you doing in here?”

He blinks, shaking off sleep. “It’s warm. M-Mama brought some food, I was putting it away.”

Sophy lowers her voice. “Gideon and Leander are back so we haven’t much time. Have they told you what they’re planning?”

“You mean about n-n-not talking to the, the b-bah . . . ?” He cradles his arms as the word slithers away from him.

“What do you think about it?”

“It’s d-d-daft.”

So he has known for a while—perhaps before she did. She wonders if he grasps the peril, or if he’s too young to understand that this is more than a harmless whim.

Then he says, “They th-think silence is better than medicine, that it will mend the world, maybe w-wake the dead. They think it will cure
this
.” He points to his mouth. All delivered in a smooth rush, the wit bringing the fluency.

Sophy sometimes forgets how quick his mind is, how much he observes. She reaches for his hand, which feels older than the rest of him, the callused fingers rough in her palm. “Micah, I am depending on you to come as often as you can. I need someone on the outside, someone I can trust.” She looks down at the mound, and his eyes follow hers. “I tell myself Gideon will come to his senses when the baby is born. Once he sees his child and holds him, he’ll throw off Leander’s influence. I pray we won’t need help. But if we should . . .”

He nods and squeezes her hand. She never misjudges his heart. It’s as good as done.

Another thought occurs to her. “Does Mama know?”

“They said not to t-t-trouble her. To keep it to myself f-for now.”

“Perhaps that’s best,” Sophy says. “There’s enough worrying her already. It hurts my heart to see her looking so ill.”

IN THE GLASSHOUSE
, Leander is consulting with Mama about plants. “I’m told we can start bulbs any time and get a jump on spring. Pots of earth have their own beauty, isn’t it so? The city dweller sees plain brown dirt, but the gardener is already imagining a new bloom stirring beneath the surface.” When Sophy comes in with Micah, he gives her a courtly little bob.

Mama dismisses this fancy talk by ignoring it. She confines her attention to the plain brown earth outside, rapidly being coated with a layer of white. “We’d best get going while we can find the road,” she tells Micah. “This is a sticking snow, it doesn’t look like much yet, but could be a heap by morning. Sophy, you had better pack a few things and come back with us. I thought we had a week or two, but sooner would be best. You oughtn’t to be stuck in the middle of the woods in your condition.”

Gideon has been quiet, hanging off to the side while Leander expounds—counting off the minutes, Sophy thinks, until their visitor is gone. Now he snaps alert and puts a husbandly arm around Sophy’s shoulders. “How can you think of it, Fanny? Sophy will give birth at home, as other women do—as you must have yourself. Her home is here, with us. You have my solemn promise, we’ll send for you when the time comes, and the doctor too, if needed. We have weeks to go before we need to worry.”

“Arithmetic doesn’t apply here,” Mama says. “Babies are not obliging creatures, first ones least of all. Her pains could come on at any time, and what would you great thinkers do then? My mother was by my side for a month before Sam, and I had women at the ready for the others. It’s as good as deserting her to leave her alone with a pair of men.” She mutters, as if to herself, “And in December, no less. Never make it easy, Lord.”

Gideon tightens his embrace. “My wife’s welfare is our first concern,” he says. But his voice is feebler than his grip. Sophy senses his confusion. He and Leander have been so busy plotting the baby’s first months that they’ve given little thought to its arrival. She can hardly blame him. She’s known her pains would come, but hasn’t dared to dwell on them. She remembers being taken to see Micah swaddled in the cradle, and Mama on the bed: the flatness of her beneath the covers, and her depletion, the labor of her smile. If there were screams, she’s forgotten; perhaps a neighbor kept her until it was over. Women of the parish suffered from their babies—died of them, too—and after church or over sewing, talked about the agonies endured, not sparing the particulars, and Mama didn’t always shoo her away. That this same course will be worked in her cannot be imagined. Yet, once begun, it must be completed. She will be brought to bed soon, whether she is ready or not.

She might die. Her mother did, of her. Papa never said as much, never blamed her, though he must have thought of his only sister whenever he looked at her. How her questions must have tormented him, and how carefully he had replied, every word a cautionary tale.
What did she look like, Papa? Small, like you. Light on her feet.
Meaning, she was made for dancing, not mothering, and you had better acquire enough heft to avoid her fate. Sophy has never thought of that bedchamber—what child cares to go back that far? —but she would summon it now, if she had any idea where it was. Did her mother give birth in the shelter of the Hedge house or alone in some dingy room, whispering Papa’s name to a landlady who would have sent the mewling infant to an orphanage? All she will ever know for certain is that her mother loved life, clung to it fiercely even beyond the grave. And now Sophy has killed her a second time, evicted her to make room for a new tenant.

“Even a short journey wouldn’t be wise at this late stage,” Leander is saying. “We can’t have her jostled in the wagon. The little one might be shaken from its nest. And in such weather! No, she is better off where she is, safe and warm, with all her familiar things around her, and two loving companions to cater to her. I assure you, dear Mrs. Hedge, all the best physicians would agree.”

Seeing his error, he adds, hastily, “Not that anything can compete with a woman’s experience.”

Micah says, “Well, then, Mama should stay here,” and Mama says, “No, no, I’d only be a burden, I’d rather sleep in my own bed where I can hack and cough without risking Sophy’s health,” and Gideon reminds Mama that they are only a few miles away, and Leander begs everyone to keep calm and remember that birth is a part of nature, animals drop their young unattended, and so-called primitive peoples do the same, he has seen it himself . . .

They are talking about her as if she isn’t here.

Sophy rests heavily against Gideon’s side. If she doesn’t get off her feet soon, she will surely faint. She feels light-headed, light all over, as though her soul fled early, leaving the great bulk of her to travail on its own.

CHAPTER 32

____

NATIVITY

I
T IS NOT EASY TO FESTOON A GLASSHOUSE WITH GREENERY
, but Leander and Gideon are doing their best. Leander, atop a ladder, damns his eyes and other body parts as he tries to pin bunches of juniper and holly to the wooden frames between the panes. His fingers keep fumbling, and the fragile bundles that Sophy tied with thread come apart and litter the floor. He has no right to curse, for it was his idea to garnish the conservatory as the Germans do, Christmas being two days away. “It’s about time we had some vegetation in here,” he said, and, as ever, the others jump to do his bidding. Gideon has arranged numerous pine boughs in numerous crocks. He has run out of containers, but Lem Quinn is still dragging in severed limbs. He reminds Sophy of an automaton which, once set to a task, must repeat it unto eternity.