Winter at the White Oaks Lodge (4 page)

“Are you having contractions?” Ruthie inquired, almost bouncing with excitement. “What names are you thinking of again, Milla? You'll have to pick one so soon!”

Just as she asked, another flowing wave of pain scissored across my belly. I hissed a little, leaning forward, and Dodge patted my left knee. He said, “Hang on, hon, we'll get you there.”

“We'll think about names later,” Grandma told Ruthie.

The pain rippled outward and I groaned. I managed to say, “I hurt, Grandma. I'm so…scared.”

“You're just fine,” Grandma reassured, cupping my shoulder with her mitten. She insisted, “Just fine, Camille. It's a baby, not a dinosaur.”

I giggled a little at that before another giant fist seemed to squeeze my belly. I tried to breathe like the nurse had explained during my last visit, two weeks ago.

“They're coming fast,” Grandma said. “You know what, you may just have a Valentine's surprise.”

***

Mom and
Aunt Jilly arrived just as the nurse handed me the newly-bathed bundle of my daughter. I was sweating and depleted, tears streaming over my face even as I felt a smile spread from ear to ear. Ruthie had been a trooper, witnessing the entire messy miracle without so much as a shudder. Grandma too had been at my side.

“Milla,” Mom said softly, from the foot of the bed. She and Aunt Jilly were still wearing their parkas, both of them teary-eyed and smiling at the sight of my daughter. As one, they moved to join Grandma and Ruthie. Mom leaned to kiss my forehead, smoothing hair from my temple as tears washed over her face. She said, “Look at you, look at my girl. You did so well, sweetheart, so well. Look at your baby.” She bent to kiss the tiny, wrinkly-red face.

“Camille,” Aunt Jilly whispered. “This is a sweet baby girl right here. I can already foresee lots of trouble-making between her and this one,” and she indicated her own belly. “Lots of shenanigans.”

“I'm so sorry we weren't here,” Mom said, her voice choked and gravelly with emotion. “What happened? How was everything? Oh, Camille, I'm so sorry I didn't get here for you.”

“Mama, the baby was practically born already by the time we got here,” Ruthie explained. “The doctor said Camille must have been dilated for the past few days. She was at a seven by the time someone checked.”

“Listen to this expert,” Aunt Jilly joked, catching Ruthie into a one-armed hug. “Ruthann, what do you have to say about the whole thing? Was the birthing experience everything you thought it would be?”

Ruthie giggled while my eyes caressed my new daughter, tucked into a soft pink hospital blanket. She was eight pounds even and I couldn't stop marvelling at how perfect she was, down to her toes. And her fingernails! Again I lifted her miniature hand and examined the bitty little nails; they were too tiny to contemplate. I still couldn't settle on what color I thought her eyes were, though Grandma had said that you couldn't really tell for a few days, if not weeks.

“What are you going to call her?” Mom asked, stroking her cheek with a gentle finger. She crooned, “Hi there, baby girl, what a sweet little baby girl. You'll call me ‘Grandma,' won't you? Oh, my.”

“I was thinking Millie Jo,” I said, clearing my throat in attempt to force away the lump of emotion. “Joelle, really, but we'll call her Millie Jo.”

Mom's eyes flashed to mine and I felt a catch in my heart, reminding me how much I loved her. I whispered, “Was this how you felt?”

She nodded as tears flowed over both of our cheeks. She tipped her forehead to mine and said, “That's a beautiful name, sweetie.”

“It suits her,” Aunt Jilly agreed.

“Everyone decent in here?” Uncle Justin was asking from the hallway then. “We're all out here dying to see the baby.”

“Come in,” I told them. From the waist down I was safely tucked under a hospital blanket and Blythe, Dodge, Aunt Ellen and Uncle Justin all crowded into the room to meet Millie Jo.

March 2004

“Grand
ma, she won't stop crying,” I moaned.
I wanted to sink into my bed and not stop crying either. My head was aching with exhaustion, a light and insistent pounding that centered behind my right eye. My breasts were probably larger than regulation footballs, my nipples at last beginning to adjust to the constant demand upon them. During the first week, they had cracked and bled, and I had cringed every time Millie Jo latched on to nurse. Which was about every fifteen minutes or so.

“Let me walk with her for a minute,” Grandma said calmly, collecting my squalling daughter from my arms. I sank to the rocking chair that was positioned near my dresser. It was three in the morning and a full-scale blizzard was raging outside. It was a late-season snow, especially heavy and wet, and I felt as though it would never be spring again, in both Landon and in my heart. At this moment my entire life was centered around a seemingly never-ending winter in which I was claustrophobically trapped within the house, tethered to a baby who would not stop screaming unless she was eating.

Grandma bobbed gently up and down as she walked the hall; she made a circuit with Millie Jo, coming back into my line of view every ten seconds or so. I felt just this side of insane as I sat motionlessly and studied the slice of light thrown by the overhead fixture in the hallway. My hair was dirty, I had worn the same pair of sweatpants for the past three weeks, my nails were bitten to the quick and my child seemed to hate me. I couldn't reconcile her unceasing weeping in any other way.

I hate this
, I thought, and then instantly cringed from the piercing guilt
. No, I don't mean that. I don't hate my life. I just hate that I'm so tired and nasty-looking right now. I hate that I can't think straight and that my baby won't stop screaming. Why? What's wrong with her?

I slipped a thumbnail between my teeth before realizing there was nothing left to bite. It took me a moment to realize that Grandma had managed to quiet Millie Jo; the absence of sound pressed on my ears, seeming unfamiliar.

“Is she…” I whispered, hardly daring to breathe as Grandma crept soundlessly back into the bedroom.

She nodded and gently deposited Millie Jo onto the bed, where she had been sleeping with me since the night we'd brought her home from the hospital. I waited on eggshells, anticipating the wailing of the fire engine that was my baby's vocal cords, but she curled up on her belly like a plump little puppy and blessedly continued sleeping.

“Thank you,” I murmured to Grandma, tears collecting in my lashes, and she hugged me, patting my back.

“Rest a bit,” she insisted, and I didn't need to be told twice; with great care, as though settling near a bomb that would discharge at the slightest movement, I curled beside my tiny daughter. Grandma went back to her own room, neglecting to click out the hall light, but I was too exhausted to get up and turn it out myself. Instead I let my gaze touch the photograph of M. Carter, just visible in the dim glow.

Who are you? What were you hoping for? What
's your full name?

My thoughts were disjointed, hazy, almost the same experience as being high, which I had been exactly one time in my life, back home in Chicago sophomore year. I drifted for a time, half-dreaming, though still vaguely aware of my surroundings. Sometime later I felt a small stirring, low in my belly, as the man in the photograph seemed to smile for me. I was somehow walking towards him, suddenly bathed in the warm slanted beams of that long-ago sunset. I felt it along my arms and over my cheekbones like caressing fingers and I delighted in the summer evening, the dusty-gold quality of the light that made my throat ache with need. The need for something I could not begin to explain; him, maybe. Need for him. The ground was scented from a recent rain, sharp and immediately recognizable.

“You're here,” I said softly, and heard his horse make a whickering noise.

He said my name then, not Camille, but somehow I knew he meant me, his voice low and warm, familiar somehow, and I felt joy that rushed over my limbs and centered in my heart.

On the bed, eyes closed back in my chilly wintertime room, I twitched and both palms skimmed over my belly and then lower, where I pressed gently. Something built within me, spiraling outwards; it was a sensation that Noah, while inside of me, had caused to happen just once, and only for seconds, but my body understood fully and responded to my own touch.

“Tell me your name,” I begged him, and heard the bass grumble of thunder in the distance, echoing the pulsing between my legs.

I felt prickling drops of rain and before he could answer I shuddered hard against my hands. The moisture on my face in the dream became tears that trickled over my temples as I woke and he was gone.

***

“Milla, can
I hold her more?” Ruthie begged, bending down to trace her finger over Millie's satin cheek. It was a late-March Saturday night and basketball was on the tiny television behind the bar. Aunt Jilly and Mom were busy taking care of the crowd, Aunt Ellen behind the bar while Blythe and his step-grandpa Rich manned the kitchen. Grandma was at the till near the front door and outside the snow had melted at least six inches. Within a few weeks we might even be able to see the porch boards.

“Here, be careful,” I ordered, passing Millie Jo to her, and she sat back down in the booth.

Ruthann grinned big enough to showcase nearly all of her teeth and cuddled the baby close. Tish, beside Ruthie, both of them across from me, leaned over and poked her index finger at Millie Jo's nose.

“God, Tish, don't,” I bitched at her. “What are you doing?”

“Hi pretty girl,” Ruthie murmured. She looked up at me and declared, “She's going to have your eye color, I can tell.”

“You think?” I had been speculating the same thing lately. So far she didn't look much like either me or Noah. Her hair, what was visible of it anyway, was a crow-wing black and thankfully her skin had mellowed from a bright red to a softer pink. She'd gained weight in the past month and was adorable, at least when she wasn't screeching.

“Have you heard from Noah at all?” Tish asked.

I rolled my eyes and asked, “Has the answer ever been different? You asked me last week too.”

“But his parents have come to see her, right?”

I nodded.

“Does he give you money?” Tish persisted.

“His parents are going to take care of it until he's done with college,” I said, still stung deeply into my soul at the shame of this. “I told them I didn't want their stupid money…well, not exactly like that…but they insisted.”

“Aren't they embarrassed that their kid is such a deadbeat?” Ruthie asked, her eyes on Millie Jo, bouncing her gently.

“I would hope they are,” I said with only a little bitterness in my tone. “They've apologized for him about a hundred times. Apparently his program at college is
stressful
and that's why he hasn't called me.”

My sisters heard the venom in my voice and both looked at me with varying degrees of caution. Outside, the sky was the gray of an old tin washtub; inside Shore Leave it was cozy and warm, full of the bustle of a Saturday night crowd, smelling like fried fish and fried potatoes and coffee. I sighed and ran a hand through my uncombed hair; I'd tied it back in a ponytail, but the band had broken and I didn't have the energy to dig through the junk drawer behind the counter for another one.

“Well, you've got us,” Ruthie said, the peacemaker.

I managed a smile for them and then saw Jake coming through the front door. He caught sight of us and zeroed in like a homing pigeon, grinning. He was wearing a red parka and a battered Twins cap, and moved to sit down with no invitation whatsoever. I held back another sigh but scooted over obligingly.

“I just got my acceptance letter to the U of M,” he said jubilantly, referring to the university in Minneapolis.

I tried to be happy for him. Instead I felt only double swellings of jealousy and resentment; I should have been receiving such things in the mail at this point in my life. Immediately my eyes fluttered to Millie Jo, guilt assaulting me for the countless time.

I love you, baby,
I told her silently.
I really do
.
It's not your fault my life is hard right now
.

“Good for you,” Tish said to Jake, leaning over the table on her elbows. She was wearing an old sweater of mine, striped green and cream; I saw that it now bore a tiny hole in the right shoulder. Oh well; it wasn't as though I would be wearing any of my old clothes in the near future. Tugging as unobtrusively as possible at the thick strap of my heavy-duty nursing bra, I felt destined to be this dumpy for the rest of my life.

Jake said, “I'm really excited. I can't wait to live in the city.” He really was fairly clueless, as he turned to me and asked with enthusiasm, “Where would be your top choice, under other circumstances?”

Instead of snapping at him, as my instinct was dictating, I answered honestly, “I always wanted to go to Northwestern, in Chicago. It's where my dad went.”

“And now you're stuck here,” he observed, clearly intending to empathize. He said gently, “In a few years, maybe?”

I shrugged noncommittally.

“How's Millie Jo?” he asked, peering at her in Ruthie's arms.

“She's getting bigger every day,” I said.

“She's just beautiful,” he said and nudged his left shoulder against my right, adding, “Just like her mom.”

I felt the twin beams of Tish and Ruthie's smiles at this pronouncement; they adored Jake and had pestered me about dating him since last fall.

I forced myself to reply, “Thanks, Jake. That's nice of you to say.”

He smiled too, sweetly, and I supposed I should say something complimentary in return. I studied him for a moment, his familiar face under the navy-blue brim of his cap. Like all of us, he was the pasty-white of the northern Minnesota winter months, which made his eyes appear all the more chocolate-brown. He had very long eyelashes but his lips were always chapped. Half the time I found myself secretly imagining passing him some lip balm.

“Milla, the Carter girls just came in for a drink,” Mom said, approaching our table. Her golden hair was twisted high off her neck, her cheeks were flushed and she looked about a thousand times better and younger than me, at least in my cynical, washed-out and bitchy opinion. But her words activated my heart.

Tina, Glenna and Elaine were the grown, married daughters of Bull Carter, of the White Oaks Lodge, my connection to the photograph. I had not yet managed to venture around Flickertail Lake to pay Bull a visit; that his girls were stopping out to Shore Leave seemed like a sign and I felt my spirits lift from down around my ankles to somewhere more mid-level.

“Ruthie, you watch Millie Jo for a sec, all right?” I asked, then nudged back against Jake's shoulder. I said, “I gotta talk to them quick.”

But first I darted through the snowy, slushy yard under the lowering, early-evening sky. I was much more agile than I had been a month and a half ago, though nowhere near my old self. My body, when viewed naked in the ancient bathroom mirror, resembled a stranger's, in no way connected to the girl I used to know. My breasts were so heavy that they were painful on my chest, and leaked milk occasionally, to boot. My formerly pink nipples were now the color of cabernet. I couldn't even begin to discuss my belly, soft without its pregnant girth, my stomach that I had last summer bared with such naïve pride, flaunting its smooth, tan surface in my string bikini.

Quit it
, I reprimanded, dashing out of breath up the steps to my room. I grabbed the picture, kissing his face as I had been doing rather ritualistically lately, and then slipped back into my boots for the return jog across the yard. Once inside Shore Leave, enveloped within its cheerful noise and hustle, I scanned the crowd for the Carter girls, which everyone still called them, despite the fact that they all had married names these days. I spied Glenna, the middle sister, just claiming a barstool, her sisters removing their coats and fluffing their hair before taking seats. I weaseled through the crowd and elbowed up beside Glenna; I knew all of them fairly well, as they came often in the summer and autumn months for dinner, usually bringing their husbands and kids.

“Girls' night out?” I asked.

“Camille! Hi, sweetie!” Glenna said, giving me a hug. “Congratulations on your little girl! Mom said you called her Millie. That's so darling! How are you doing?”

“Thank you. I'm great,” I said. “She's over with Ruthie and Tish right now. How are you guys?”

“Drinking away the winter blues!” Tina informed me, wiggling her eyebrows up and down. The girls all resembled their mother, Diana, who was petite and red-headed. On the three of them, the color translated into varying shades of ruby and russet; it was like a visual of the word ‘red' in a thesaurus. Tina added, “Hon, you don't have to pretend for us. Those first months of motherhood are hellacious. No sleep, no sex, no sanity. You look great, considering!”

Tina, who was a couple of years younger than Aunt Jilly, was just as blunt as my auntie and I laughed a little, saying, “Thanks, I'll take that as a compliment.”

Elaine added, “It's not easy. But you'll love that little peanut more than anything else in the world.”

“I actually have a question for all of you,” I said. All three regarded me with undiluted excitement in their eyes and my heart beat faster. I went on in a rush, “Grandma found this trunk in the attic, and it had a letter and a photograph in it that I'm hoping you guys can tell me about.”

“Ooh, let's see it, is it a dirty picture?” Tina teased, reaching, and I relinquished it to her hands.