Fire Along the Sky
Page 172

In the almost twenty years of her marriage she had conceived six times. Twice she had miscarried in the first months, but she had borne five healthy children: the twins, Robbie, Gabriel, Emmanuel. Robbie had been stolen away by typhoid at three, and then Emmanuel, last born, had come too early and never caught on to the habit of living, slipping away from them before he had learned to hold his head upright. Nathaniel had carved their graves out of shallow soil and rock.
Not again, she had promised herself then. Never again a small grave. She would put all of her energy into raising the three who were left to her, giving them the best of herself, making them strong. From Many-Doves she had got tea and advice, and from Curiosity, more of the same. What they had not given her, could not give her, were promises. Nature finds a way when she got a mind to, Curiosity had warned her.
What Elizabeth wanted now was to have Nathaniel with her. She would say the things out loud that she could not keep to herself: I am too old for childbirth; I am too old to raise another child; I cannot bear another loss.
He would look at her and hold her and stroke her hair but he would not make her promises either, even out of pity. We've managed worse, Boots, you and me.
But Nathaniel was gone today, and so Elizabeth got up and brushed off her skirts, and straightened her shoulders, and turned back downmountain. If she could not have Nathaniel, she could go to Curiosity.
A daughter. One part of her laughed at the whole idea that Mr. Stiles should be able to smell the child growing in her womb and know it for a daughter. Most likely, she told herself, he suspected that she wanted another daughter. And there was an appealing symmetry in the idea that her last child should be a daughter, as her first had been. Mr. Stiles might be a divining Calvinist, a marble prophet, or he might be nothing more than an observant man, and a devious one.
But he had known a truth that she had not quite admitted to herself. No matter how little she liked the idea, he had been given a formidable gift and tremendous burden.
Elizabeth thought of Jemima Wilde, who had gone away and conjured Mr. Stiles to take her place. A Calvinist among lapsed papists and godless Yorkers, rationalists and Kahnyen'kehàka women doctors, freed black women who owned property and made their own decisions. A fine joke indeed.
Crows called from the jack pines on the ridge. In their raw voices Elizabeth heard Jemima's satisfied laughter.
Curiosity said, “A late child ain't the worst thing, Elizabeth. My Jason didn't come along until I was fifty, and he was the sweetest thing that ever happened to me. I wouldn't give up those few years we had him, not for anything.”
Elizabeth studied the pattern of roses on her teacup and said nothing at all, because she did not trust her voice, or the things that might come out of her mouth.
“A girl.” Curiosity laughed softly to herself. “Just when you about to get Lily settled. The Lord got a sense a humor, that cain't be denied.”
“If Mr. Stiles is right,” Elizabeth snapped suddenly. “I don't see why he should be. More likely he is a charlatan with a sharp eye and a knack for saying the right thing.”
She might forbid herself the luxury of tears, but her voice trembled, and Curiosity heard that.
“I heard stranger things than a man born with a nose like a bloodhound,” Curiosity said, pulling out a stool to sit beside Elizabeth. “And I ain't heard you tell me he wrong about you being with child. I see it in your face, anyway, Elizabeth.”
With one long, bony finger she traced the skin under Elizabeth's eyes. “You always do show the mask earlier than any other woman I ever knowed. You sick in the evenings like usual?”
Elizabeth nodded.
“The child settling in good and solid.” Her eyes narrowed a little, in concern and understanding. “It wear you down, I know it.”
They were silent together for a long moment while Elizabeth thought of the months to come, of discomfort and weariness and of childbed, and the chances that she might not survive it. But if she could get through all that, if she could hold on, there would be another young voice in the house, a new light in the world, Nathaniel's child and her own. If she lived long enough to raise it up.
“I'll be right there with you.” Curiosity was reading her mind, in the same way Elizabeth could sometimes read Lily's mind, or Hannah's. There was no need to list her fears; Curiosity knew them, every one.
She said, “I got something I want you to think about.”
Elizabeth raised her head. Curiosity would be eighty years old in the fall. Every year was carved into her face but her eyes were bright and full of life. Manny is coming home, Elizabeth remembered. Her son is coming home. That was right and good, and the tears that Elizabeth had been holding back began to leak over her face.
Curiosity wiped her cheek with one thumb. “You worried about Daniel,” she said. “But listen to me now, Elizabeth. Right this minute you got to be thinking about you, what you need here and now. I'm thinking it would be good to have you living nearby, at least until this little girl you carrying come along. And I'm getting too old to be rushing up that mountain when I get the idea I want to see your pretty face.”
“This house is filled to bursting,” Elizabeth said, surprised out of her melancholy.
“Well, I wouldn't want you that close,” Curiosity said.
Elizabeth hiccupped a laugh, and then another, and then they were laughing hard.
Curiosity said, “I was thinking of the judge's place, standing there empty so long.” She looked at the kitchen door, propped open to let in the spring breeze. “If you and Nathaniel are of a mind to humor an old woman, I'm hoping you'll move into the village for a while at least.”