Veda: A Novel (6 page)

“You’ve been feelin poorly.”

“Not anymore. I feel fine now.”

“Well, I just thought since…”

“You’re embarrassed,” I teased. “You don’t want people to see I’m pregnant. You are happy about the baby, aren’t you?”

“Of course I am. It’s just that—”

“Well I’m goin with you,” I said.

For the first time in my life I felt pretty. My color was good, and I finally had breasts. The bigger I got, the more uncomfortable Raymond seemed. I think my pregnancy bothered him the way my periods did. He didn’t want to be around it. When the baby started to kick, I tried to git him to put his hand on my belly, but he pulled away, said he didn’t care for that sort of thing.

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11

February 3, 1939 (Fri.) [Max 48°, Min 33°.] Cold rain mixed with snow but warming up considerably during the day with a light snowstorm. I went back to work on the WPA today. Our little Rosalie was born at 1:05 a.m. at the maternity home.

W
HEN MY LABOR PAINS
started Raymond froze up like a cornstalk in winter. Stood there wringin his hands and didn’t have the faintest idea what to do.

“Go call my brother,” I said. “He’ll drive us to the maternity home.” Raymond didn’t move. “Listen to me!” I said louder. “Go next door and use their telephone. Call Laird.”

He was only gone a couple of minutes, and when he come back our neighbor lady Mrs. Hancock was with him. She asked me how far apart my pains were and told me to “pant like a dog” when they came. Then she told Raymond to make himself useful and go get my suitcase.

When Laird showed up, him and Raymond helped me git in the car. All the way to the maternity home Raymond set bent over, grippin his stomach like he was the one havin labor pains. The nurse at the front desk told him he was havin a case of nerves. She left him in the waitin room and took me to a ward where another nurse helped me take off my clothes. The pains were comin real close together and I was scared.

“You’ll be fine, dearie,” she said, “it’ll be better once you’re settled.”

She put me on a bed with a rubber sheet on it and brought in a bowl of warm water. She washed my breasts and stomach and all down between my legs. Then she started shavin me down there.

“Don’t,” I said, but she went on ahead, sayin it had to be done.

The pains kept comin, harder and harder, and by the time she was done, I was hurtin so bad she could of shaved my whole head, too, and I wouldn’t of cared.

When I was “settled,” she brought Raymond in to see me. He looked so sickly, she told him he wasn’t no use to me and maybe he should just go on home. He took her at her word and left. He probably wouldn’t of been no help, but I didn’t think he had any business leavin. He was the one got me pregnant and he could at least stay and see how much it hurt.

The pains went on past midnight. I was hollerin and sweatin, and they give me some kind of gas to breathe that made me feel woozy and the doctor was sayin to push. Then I heard him say, “It’s a girl,” and I started to cry. They brought her over and laid her on my chest, and all of a sudden I felt happier than I ever had before in my whole life. She was my very own baby. Mine. Ever bit of that hurtin was worth it. I looked at her, all sticky and smeared up, and I knew I would die before I ever let anythin bad happen to her.

That afternoon Raymond come in all smiles, sayin he wanted to name her Myrtle after his mother but I told him no. I said I didn’t like it and she wouldn’t either. Besides I already had a name picked out. Rosalie. I wanted her name to be Rosalie.

It was nice in the maternity home. The nurses all so cheerful, bringin Rosalie right to my bed, showin me how to change her diaper and clean around her navel. Teachin me how to git her tiny mouth over the whole brown part of my nipple.

They brought her to me every four hours and I held her to my breast. I watched her little cheeks go in and out, uncurled her tiny fingers, and unwrapped the blanket to look at ever single part of her. On the third day, I felt my milk come in. There was a sharp pain and then this warm feelin spread all through me. That’s when I knew I was meant to be a mother, that havin babies was what God put me on this earth to do.

As the days went by I got more sure of myself. I loved holdin my baby, watchin her eyes flutter, seein her squint up at me. As soon as she started to fuss, my milk would start. Just like that. I couldn’t git over how my body knew what to do. I loved watchin her nurse, loved how her little hands kneaded my breasts. It seemed strange, but the way I felt nursin my baby was how I thought lovemakin would be. Who would of guessed I had to have a baby to find out how that felt.

I was there for ten days, bein waited on and gittin to know my baby. Mama, my sisters, people from the church, even the pastor come to visit. I walked em to the nursery window and showed em that of all the babies, mine was prettiest.

We were livin in a flat on F Street that cost twelve dollars a month. It was damp and cold and the landlady refused to turn the heat up. I wore sweaters over my sweaters and wrapped Rosalie in layers of blankets. Raymond got back on with the WPA and was gittin a few days’ work here and there, most of it around Grants Pass, so he was home nights and I wasn’t lonesome anymore. I was thrilled with my baby. I could set for hours doin nothin but watchin her tiny face change, one second all screwed up in a frown, and then all peaceful. I told Mama she was already startin to smile at me. Mama said it was just gas. I knew better.

Rosalie had her daddy’s eyes and dark hair, and while Raymond was happy to take credit for her good looks, he never held her. He acted almost afraid. I didn’t mind all that much, him lettin her alone, ’cause I was happy not havin to share her. I told myself it’d be different when she was bigger. When he could read to her and teach her things. He would like that.

Raymond spent his evenins studyin the Bible and copyin down scripture. And ever night before goin to bed, he wrote in his diary. Sometimes I looked at what he wrote. There was always the high temperature and the low temperature. How this day’s weather compared to other years. Sometimes he mentioned a job he was on, or a meetin he went to at church, but except for way back, when he put in about our engagement and the weddin, and then sayin our baby was born, there was nothin in there about us at all.

.

12

February 14, 1940 (Wed.) [Max 47°, Min. 36°.] Some rain falling last night, but cloudy, cool and damp today. We’ve had 5.07 inches of rain this month and 10.51 inches since Jan 1. The project I’ve been on is finished and I have been laid off from the WPA again. We are going to move in with Mrs. Oliver, a woman we know from our church.

I
WASN’T HAPPY ABOUT
sharin a house, but we were about to be kicked out of where we were livin and I didn’t have a better idea. Mrs. Oliver wasn’t bein charitable. She needed the extra income. We kept to ourselves, but whenever I was in the kitchen she spied on me to make sure I didn’t use her groceries, or didn’t run up the electric bill by turnin on a extra light bulb. She treated me like I didn’t have good sense. Told me a hundred times to mind I didn’t burn the house down.

When Raymond didn’t have work he hung around writin in his books instead of goin out lookin for a job, and it was gittin on my nerves. One of my brother-in-law’s friends who had got on with the Post Office said they was givin the Civil Service test down at the courthouse. “Tell Raymond to go down and apply,” Gabe said. “He would be real good at that kind of work, the way he likes numbers and record keeping and all.”

I tried my damnedest, but Raymond wouldn’t go. He had it in his head it would mean workin Saturdays. Wouldn’t even go find out if it was true or not. The Bible did say to rest on the Sabbath, but it seemed to me if God give a man a family, He’d want him to take care of em. Ever’time Gabe asked me about it, I had to tell him Raymond hadn’t gone. It wasn’t the first time I was disappointed in Raymond, but it was the first time I felt ashamed.

I was pregnant again, Raymond had no work, and ever’body was talkin about America gittin into the war over in Europe. The whole idea had Raymond scared to death. Even if our pastor vouched for his religious convictions, he knew he could still git drafted. He could have to go and be a medic or somethin. So instead of usin his time to look for work, he went up in the mountains and prayed to be spared from military service. “For the sake of his dear little family.”

August 16, 1940 (Fri.)[Max 92°, Min 52°.] Becoming sweltering hot today beginning another heat wave although very cool in morning, The temperature went up to 92°, the warmest since Sunday. Veda went to the Maternity home this evening to await the arrival of our little one.

I spent all day Friday cannin peaches, workin fast as I could to git done before Raymond got home. Once the sun went down, it’d be the Sabbath, and if I wasn’t done by then, he’d be mad. I was sticky and hot, and Rosalie was cranky. She kept grabbin my skirt, whinin, wantin to be picked up. It was nerve wrackin havin her underfoot with all the kettles of boilin water around, and I was worried about her. And havin to reach clear out over my big belly to lift the pots off the stove was killin my back.

Mrs. Oliver wasn’t doin a thing except stickin her nose in ever few minutes to see if I was done yet, and I was itchin to say it wouldn’t hurt her to pick Rosalie up and keep her out of my way. Or tell her if she helped me out she could have her damn kitchen back a whole lot sooner. But I already been got after too many times by Raymond for speakin my mind.

What I wanted to do was set down and put my feet up, but I still had to fix somethin for supper. I looked in our cupboard and decided Raymond’d have to be satisfied with oatmeal. Oatmeal with some of these here peaches.

I was takin the last ten quarts from the kettle when I felt a gush of water. Raymond come in the back door and seen me standin in a puddle, with peach juice runnin down my arms and a screamin toddler wrapped around my legs.

“My water broke,” I told him. “Sabbath or no Sabbath, I’m in labor and there ain’t no stoppin it.”

Robert Raymond came into the world squallin his head off and he didn’t stop for three solid months. Rosalie was such a easy baby, but Bobby was altogether different. When I tried to nurse him he drew up his little legs and screamed bloody murder. I walked the floor with him till I was dead on my feet, and Raymond never once offered to take him. When the cryin got on his nerves, he went out and left me to deal with a screamin baby and a eighteen-month-old that wanted attention.

The doctor said my milk was givin the baby gas pains and I should put him on store-bought formula. A week’s worth cost almost as much as groceries for the rest of us and Raymond didn’t think I should. But he wasn’t the one sufferin the colic. Or the cryin either. So I bought the formula and cut back on what I ate. I didn’t have much of a appetite anyhow.

Soon as I started givin Bobby canned formula, he stopped screamin and turned into a sweet-natured little guy. Slept sometimes four hours before he woke up needin to be fed again. Mrs. Oliver stopped complainin about him, and I started to feel more kindly toward her. It couldn’t of been easy puttin up with our squallin baby all them months.

Rosalie talked early, pickin up words almost as soon as she heard em, and Raymond started takin more interest in her. Teachin her to sing songs like “Jesus Loves Me” and “This Little Light of Mine,” and gittin a kick out of showin her off. Her tries at “Bobby” come out “Bubby,” and Raymond picked it up. Pretty soon we were all callin him Bubby.

But then both the kids come down with the croup, and Mrs. Oliver got all hateful again. Treated us like lepers. Went so far as to mark off a part of the kitchen to make sure none of our things touched hers. I was worried sick about the kids, and so was Raymond. We both set up nights with em. While I made croup tents with blankets and kettles of boilin water and rubbed their little chests with Vicks, Raymond prayed. He wasn’t good at a whole lot of things, but he was awful good at prayin.

.

13

March 10, 1941 (Mon.) [Max 72°, Min 30°.] Clear and sharply cool this morning, with the temperature down to 30° for the first light frost in 3 weeks, but another brilliantly clear, warm, glorious spring day. Yesterday’s advanced summer-like heat has brought the first iris and other spring flowers into bloom and many fruit trees into blossom. Veda and I moved, with our family, into a nice new cabin on I Street today.

W
ARMER WEATHER CAME,
and Raymond got promised several weeks of work helpin a farmer put in crops. I wanted our own place so bad I could taste it, and when Raymond told me there was some new cabins for rent over on I Street, I talked him into movin. He didn’t want Laird to help us ’cause he didn’t approve of his smokin and drinkin, but the folks he did approve of had helped us so many times I was embarrassed to ask em. Besides, I was tired of Raymond sayin, “I can’t in good conscience,” all the time. So I called Laird. He come with his car and hauled what we had from Mrs. Oliver’s. Bea’s husband brought over a davenport and a table and chairs they weren’t usin, and after I put up curtains, the place looked real homey. But sometimes it seemed like the weather was against us. It had started out to be a nice warm spring, then it turned cold again and started rainin. The fields got muddy, and Raymond got laid off. Mrs. Oliver had already got somebody else to move into her place, so the only thing we could think to do was go back to Salem. Myrtle hadn’t seen her grandbabies yet and I hoped she’d like havin em around.

We took Helena’s room again, wedgin the kids’ crib between the bed and the chest of drawers. Raymond got a job pickin beans with his dad and brothers, and my days were spent with Myrtle tellin me I didn’t feed the kids right, I didn’t dress em warm enough, and I was spoilin Rosalie. All the while she doted on Bubby, sayin how much he reminded her of Raymond.

In June we heard the strawberry farms was hirin pickers, so me and Raymond both signed up. I was nervous about leavin the kids with Myrtle all day, but we needed the money and I had to git away from her. It was hard work, squattin all day, duckwalkin up and down the rows, but it felt good to be outdoors. I picked twice as fast as Raymond did, so my pay was more, and at the end of the week we got two pay envelopes instead of one. I was almost sorry when it ended. I liked bein around the other pickers. Lots of em young like me, with husbands that didn’t bring in enough to git by on.