Page 15

Chicago

“Emily! It’s happening.” Annie’s face was ashen, washed of all color by fear and the dim afternoon light as a storm raged outside.

Emily grabbed her hands. “Are you sure?”

“My waters broke. The pains are coming every five minutes. I’ve been counting.” Her eyes were wide with panic.

Emily settled Annie in her bed before telephoning the doctor, but the lines were down. John was out of town on business, and Marta was visiting her sick mother in Vermont and wasn’t expected back for a few days.

“Is the doctor on his way?” Annie asked when Emily returned with towels.

“Yes. He’ll be here as soon as he can,” Emily lied. She sat on Annie’s bed and held her hand. “Try to stay calm, Annie. We could be in for a long night.”

“Thank you for being here with me. I know it hasn’t been easy to be away from Henry.”

But it was more than being away from Henry.

It had been agony, these past weeks, to watch Annie in the full bloom of pregnancy.

A cruel reminder of what might have been.

Emily had tried not to blame Annie for her miscarriage, but the simple fact was that if she’d gone with Henry to Kansas as planned, she wouldn’t have slipped on the ice and fallen.

She could still be carrying their child.

Another contraction rendered Annie speechless.

Everything Emily remembered during her time as an American Red Cross volunteer kicked in as Annie labored through the early evening and long into the night.

As well as her basic training in routine tasks, Emily had helped with whatever was needed, and on several occasions that had meant assisting with a birth.

But delivering a baby alone was an entirely different scenario.

Annie was exhausted and frightened. “Where is the doctor, Em? He should surely be here by now?”

Emily assured her he was on the way and prayed for the baby to come quickly and easily as the wind echoed Annie’s moans and she begged for chloroform to ease the pain. But Emily had nothing to help her, other than her reassurance and a hand for her to grip until her fingertips turned white.

Finally, Annie was ready to push, but despite her efforts, the child wouldn’t come. Emily had seen this before. If the baby got into distress, it could be very dangerous.

“One last big effort, Annie. I know you’re tired, but I need you to bear down. Hard. One last strong push and your baby will be here.”

It was torture to see her sister in such pain, but Emily knew the baby had to come, now.

“That’s it! I can see the head. Push now, Annie.”

Annie let out a great bellow as the infant began to emerge, but Emily could see what Annie couldn’t. The child was blue, the cord wrapped around its neck.

“Stop, Annie! Don’t push. Pant. Blow out the candles like I showed you.”

Annie exhaled in short puffs. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

Emily got to work, remembering the breach babies she’d seen delivered and how to gently turn the infant to loosen the cord before the mother pushed again.

She knew it was painful, but she also knew the danger the child was in.

Annie screamed in pain as Emily inserted her hands and gripped the child as firmly as she dared, rotating it ninety degrees until the cord loosened.

“Now, Annie! Push again. Almost there.”

Annie roared one last time and it was done. The infant slipped onto the bedsheets in a rush of blood and fluid, and Emily got to work, clearing the airways and tying off the pulsing cord. She only relaxed when the child let out its first mewling cry.

“A girl,” Emily said, emotion choking her words. “A beautiful little girl.”

A perfectly healthy baby girl. A little on the small side, but she would catch up. They always did.

All the noise and drama of the birth was replaced with an all-consuming hush as Emily cut the cord, wiped the infant down, and swaddled her in a blanket.

She’d always loved watching this moment, when the nurse placed the child in its mother’s arms, but she delayed and lingered now, fussing with the swaddling longer than necessary as she carried the child to the window, to see her better.

She was as light as a feather, and yet the feel of her in Emily’s arms, the almond-sweet scent of her, was so immense she had to sit down.

The child opened her eyes. They looked at each other, searching for something—someone—familiar.

“Hello,” she whispered. “I’m your Auntie Em.”

“Is everything all right?” Annie asked.

“She’s perfect.” Reluctantly, Emily walked to the bed and placed the child in Annie’s arms. “Congratulations, Annie. She’s beautiful.”

The ache of letting go, the emptiness in her own arms, was unbearable.

Annie looked so peaceful as she gazed adoringly at the child. “Hello, little one. A leanbh. A hiníon . ”

Emily felt a pang of sorrow as Annie repeated the familiar Irish words of affection their mammy had spoken so often. My child. Daughter.

“I’m your mother,” Annie continued. “I’ve been waiting to meet you for a very long time.”

“What will you call her?” Emily asked.

“Dorothy,” Annie said, without missing a beat. “I’ll call her Dorothy. Dot, for short.”

“It suits her. Why Dorothy? Is it a Gale family name?”

Annie smiled. “It was her grandmother’s name.”

Emily stepped from the room, taking a moment alone in the kitchen.

She wished she could leave, wished she could open the door and run away to Kansas to be with Henry.

She made coffee and toast and carried it back upstairs for Annie.

But as she approached the bedroom, she paused on the landing, listening a moment at the door as Annie cooed to the child and spoke to her in a low whisper.

“You have my eyes, and your Granny’s nose, and I just know you have your father’s brave heart and adventurous spirit. He would love you so much, little Dorotea . Maybe you’ll meet him one day and he’ll show you his tricks. Maybe we can be together after all.”

Emily froze. Her heart thumped in her chest. Her mind raced, chasing conversations and moments back through the previous weeks and months. Oh, Annie. What have you done? Whatever have you done?

She rattled the tea tray and stepped on a squeaky board, loudly announcing her presence before she breezed into the bedroom and put the tray on the nightstand beside Annie.

“Thought you might like a bit of something,” she said. She gently pulled back the blankets to admire Dorothy again. “She looks like you, Annie. I don’t see much of John in her, though. Perhaps she’ll take after her father in other ways.”

Annie didn’t take her eyes off Dorothy’s for a moment as she brushed the infant’s cheek lightly with the tip of her finger. “Yes. She will. I’m sure she will.”

—

Emily kept herself busy over the following week, finding excuses to run errands, to get more diapers and other essentials, looking for any excuse to leave the house to escape from the infant’s furious cries.

It was such an infuriating, plaintive sound.

So beautiful.

So heartbreaking.

Annie was an emotional seesaw. Full of love and joy one minute, inconsolably sobbing the next. Emily heard her during the night, crying while she tended to the baby. Marta said it was normal for new mothers to feel bewildered, and not to give it a moment’s thought.

Emily made coffee, baked cookies, set the fire, changed the bed linen.

Annie was so exhausted she hardly noticed Emily was there.

When John returned to admire his daughter, he hardly noticed Emily either.

But Emily observed and heard everything.

Every kiss, every declaration of love, every perfect family moment.

Annie was playing a dangerous game and Emily didn’t want to be part of it any longer.

“I was thinking I would make my way to Kansas,” she said as she watched Annie struggle to change Dorothy’s diaper. “Join Henry.”

“So soon? I thought you would like to stay a while. Get to know Dorothy.”

“I would, of course, but now that John’s back I thought you’d like some time together. As a family.”

Finally done with the diaper, Annie lifted Dorothy to her breast to feed her.

“I suppose I can’t keep you here forever. Lock you up against your will!” She laughed, but there was nothing of humor in her voice or mannerisms.

“Are you sure? I must admit, I can’t wait to see Henry.”

Annie nodded, but she wouldn’t meet Emily’s eyes. “We’ll muddle through. Marta will help until I replace her with someone younger and less prickly. I’ve heard of a young Irish woman looking for a position. John has agreed to interview her.”

She looked so sad and alone that Emily’s resolve almost broke.

“I could stay a few more days, I guess.”

Annie shook her head. “Absolutely not. I’ve delayed you long enough.

You’ll only resent me if you stay.” She reached into the drawer of the nightstand and pulled out a leather-bound journal.

“I got you a farewell gift. It’s not much, but I thought you might like to write it in, keep a record of your life on the prairie. ”

Emily was touched. “That’s so kind, Annie. I will. Thank you.”

There was so much more Emily wanted to say, but she couldn’t find the words.

Thankfully, Dorothy broke the silence with a sneeze that made them both smile.

“I don’t want you to leave, Emily, but I know I can’t make you stay either. And so, we have reached a crossroads.”

“I have to follow my heart, Annie. I know I’m doing the right thing, even if it scares me a little.”

Finally, Annie looked at Emily. “You’re right.

We must all follow our hearts, even when it scares us, because the most frightening thing of all is to not do the thing we are meant to.

” Annie turned her gaze to Dorothy, asleep in her arms. “And even the wrong thing can become the most perfect thing of all.”

That was when Emily noticed that Annie’s precious hourglass had been returned to the dressing table, but rather than the measure of devotion it had once symbolized, it seemed to her now like a dangerous thing, harboring a dark secret within its grains of sand.

—

She left quietly the next morning after John had gone to work and while Annie was still sleeping. Before she left, she lifted Dorothy from her crib and held her one last time, marveling at her miniature fingers and toes, her perfect ears, her precious little face.

“Goodbye, Dorothy. We might not see each other very often, but I hope we will always be friends.” She placed a toy lion at the foot of her crib. “And when I’m not here, this little lion will be your friend in my place.”

She tied a ruby-red ribbon to the crib, remembering the old Irish superstition of protecting newborn babies from being stolen by the fairies.

The house was still and quiet as she crept downstairs, like a breath drawn in and held.

She left a note for Annie, propped against a vase of spring flowers—daffodils and tulips in as many colors of the rainbow as she could find.

She refused to give in to the murky shadows that seemed to tinge the edge of everything now.

A new life was waiting for her. A life full of color and opportunity. And nothing was going to spoil it.

As she boarded the train, she locked Annie’s secret away, concealed it in the deepest part of her heart, where it would never, could never, be found, no matter how many miles from Chicago she traveled or how many years passed. Nobody could ever find out. Not John. Not Henry. Least of all, Dorothy.

The whistle blew. The locomotive lurched forward.

Finally, she was on her way.

To Henry.

To Kansas.

Home.