Nobody's Child (16 page)

Breaking a path through tall grass, two-thirds the way up the slope, Laura Ann looked back at Sophia.

She'd disappeared.

Laura Ann dropped the sacks and dashed back down the trail of bent grass. Thirty feet back, she found her friend, lying on her side in the pasture, motionless. “Sophia!” she cried out, dropping to her knees. No response.

Laura Ann put a hand to Sophia's face. Sweat sheeted off her skin, yet she felt cool. The arteries in her temples flared, throbbing in a rapid beat. Laura Ann could barely feel a pulse at her throat. She panted in shallow rapid breaths.

“Sophia!” Laura Ann cried again.

She had little time. Sophia needed to cool off fast. Laura Ann pulled her T-shirt off and raced back down their path toward the creek. Clad in a sports bra and jeans, she plunged headlong through the hayfield, headed for water. Half a minute later she bounded up the grassy trail, clutching a soaked shirt.

“Can you hear me?” Laura Ann asked as she squeezed a pint of mud-tinged water on Sophia's throat, and then draped the damp T-shirt on her forehead. She patted her on the cheek, then took Sophia's cool clammy hands in her own and massaged them, desperate for some response.

Sophia didn't move.

Relaxing on the front porch in the late evening, Laura Ann slowed her rocker to match Sophia's cadence. “I don't remember any of it,” Sophia said. “We were talking about cutting the field by hand, and the idea of all that manual labor in this heat made me sick. I went from nauseous to dizzy in a heartbeat, then lost my balance. I woke up here, lying on the porch.”

Ian sat on the front steps, his back to one of the white posts, whittling on a stick while the women talked. “Sounds just like heat exhaustion. You don't remember the tractor ride?” he asked, holding up the point on the stick to get a better view of his handiwork.

“No. How did you get me up on the porch, Laura Ann?”

“After you woke, I ran to the barn and got the big tractor. It has a front-end loader. I sort of rolled you into the bucket and drove you up here, then rolled you back out at the steps.” She pointed to tractor tracks in the front lawn.

“Just like that?” Sophia asked with a laugh. “Cooled me down with a bunch of sweaty flood water, scooped me up in a dirty tractor bucket, and dumped me on the porch?”

“It worked,” Ian said. Then he added, with a chuckle, “By the way, I used that loader to move manure last week.”

Sophia's jaw dropped and her eyes went wide. “Cow manure?” she asked, dusting off the back of her arms like there might still be some on her.

“Don't worry,” Laura Ann said. “It was dry.”

The three sat in a comfortable silence, watching the sun set in a clear summer sky. Ian reached across the porch with his stick to tap Laura Ann's sandal.

“Great dinner. Loved those pork chops.”

“You outdid yourself,” Sophia said. “I adore your kitchen, by the way. It's been years since I cooked with gas.”

“Don't need much electricity out here,” Laura Ann replied. “Gas stove, gas heat, gas refrigerator, gas freezer, gas hot water, gas generator. And all the natural gas is free. The oil well's on our property — up there,” she said, pointing toward the ridge.

“That, and some batteries for the radio,” Ian interjected. “By the way, I brought you one of my walkie talkies, Laura Ann. If you two ever need to reach me.” He picked up another piece of wood and began to whittle again. “The radio is in my bag.”

“I appreciate that,” Sophia said, her tone more somber than it had been all night. “We might need it.”

Sophia bit her upper lip, and then folded her hands, fingers interlaced. She looked down at her stomach. “Something's not right. With me.”

“What do you mean?” Ian asked. He dropped his new piece of wood and turned to face her.

“Ian's an EMT, Sophia. He carries his medical bag with him everywhere.”

“Always,” he replied. “So what's the problem? Besides the heat stress, I mean.”

Sophia took a long deep breath, and then continued. “I've never been this dizzy before, even on hot days. Today when I stopped to sit on that bench and call my office, I couldn't stand up a moment longer.”

“How often does this happen?” Ian asked.

“It hasn't. At least, never like this. I'd get a little woozy once in a while, and I chalked it up to the pregnancy. I walk about a mile every day back home — but never on a day like today.”

“I'm guessing it's the heat and the humidity, but let's see what we can find out,” Ian said, springing up to go in the house. A minute later, he emerged with a long gray tote bag lined with red piping, red handles, and a large red cross.

“You weren't kidding,” Sophia said, her mouth agape.

“Game wardens draw gunfire sometimes,” Ian remarked. “It pays to be prepared. And I enjoy it.”

“You're one handy man to have around,” Sophia said.

A few minutes later, after poring through a medical manual in his bag, Ian stood next to Sophia and spoke in a serious tone. “Your blood pressure's pretty high. One fifty over a hundred. That puts you at a greater risk of heat exhaustion.”

“I've never had high blood pressure. Always low. Could it be the pregnancy?”

“That's possible. You might have gestational hypertension. It's not uncommon in some pregnant women … although you don't fit the profile. You're young and thin, with no previous history of high blood pressure. Or, it could be something a little more complicated, a problem your doctor would need to evaluate.” He put the blood pressure cuff back in his bag. “You could see a doctor in Sistersville. We have a hospital here.”

“Could this affect the baby?” Laura Ann asked.

Ian picked up his EMT manual, thumbing through it. “Perhaps. The book says to watch for toxemia or preeclampsia. Those can affect the child, and might result in a premature birth or a low birth weight. Worst case? They can lead to seizures.”

Everyone grew quiet with his last word.

After a long pause, Sophia drew in another long breath, then asked, “What other symptoms does it talk about?”

Ian raised an eyebrow. “Persistent headaches, blurred vision, sensitivity to light. And pain in your abdomen.” He paused. “Any of those bothering you?”

She nodded, lowering her head to massage her temples. “Not before. But now? A splitting headache. I thought it might be from dehydration.” She lifted up a half-finished glass of water.

“Might be.” Ian looked at Laura Ann for a long moment, then back at Sophia. “But if it's not, we could leave right now. It's getting dark, but I could have you at the hospital in ninety minutes.”

“On the canoe?” Laura Ann exclaimed. Sophia waved him off. “No. That's okay. I mean, it's just a headache.”

Laura Ann left her chair and sat at the foot of Sophia's rocker, her hand on her friend's forearm. “Falling out in the field might be more than a headache, Sophia. We don't have to wait. Ian can get you out this minute.”

She patted Laura Ann on the hand and shook her head. “I'm too stubborn,” she said with a smile. “Let's sleep on it. I'll probably feel lots better after some rest. Besides, if we do have to make that trip again, I'd rather cross the whirlpool in daylight.”

Ian nodded and repacked his bag.

“I'll be up early,” Laura Ann said. “First light.”

“Not me,” Sophia replied, standing up. She wobbled a bit once erect. “But don't eat right away. I want to cook breakfast. My gift to you both.”

Ian beamed. “You're on!”

Yellow shafts of light danced with the flicker of a kerosene lamp, a gentle golden glow illuminating the living room and the world beyond it. Another lantern in Laura Ann's bedroom cast a yellow pool of light on the end of the porch.

“He's snoring.” Laura Ann pointed through the window at
Ian, stretched out on the sofa, too long to fit, but too tired to notice. “He stayed up all last night to help people dig out in Middlebourne. No wonder he's exhausted.”

The flicker of flames made the pickets of the porch railing appear to move in the dim golden light, and faint shadows shifted on the grass beyond. Laura Ann stood with Sophia at the rail and gazed out into a humid June evening. The end of day gathered both women in its arms as beetles buzzed in dark air, alighting on the screens.

“How long has your family been here?” Sophia asked, turning to sit on the rail of the porch. Her features were a gentle brown in the lamplight, her hair a dark skein in the dim glow of the distant flame.

“We've lived on The Jug since 1796. My great-grandfather George Gregg—five greats — built the mill at The Jug handle where the crossing washed out. He's the one who cut through a low ridge to build a mill at the bend. He sold The Jug to his sons at ninety cents an acre. His grandson Thomas bought up most of the property, including the acreage we farm today. The property passed down through family, and most of them eventually sold their shares to the state for a Wildlife Management Area.” She waved her hand toward the dark. “Our farm is all that's left of the original homestead. A hundred-seventeen acres.”

Sophia stared out into the night. Tree frogs chirped in the limbs of walnuts and sweetgums that surrounded the sides of the house, a gentle background to the night's peace.

“I have no idea about my family history,” Sophia said, her voice subdued. “We just were. I had grandparents, but don't know anything about them. My father didn't talk about relatives much, and my mother was an orphan.” She clung to peeling paint, her fingers tracing some invisible figure in their touch on the old rail. After a time she asked, “Did your dad talk about his family?”

“All the time.” Laura Ann moved a step closer to Sophia. “We'd recite our ancestry for fun. It became a game.”

“Ancestry?” Sophia asked with a chuckle. “How far back can you go?”

Something warm swelled inside her. Maybe that's the way Daddy felt when she'd asked him about his family. “We go back to 1403,” she said. “Daddy was named for Angus Dubh Mackay, a fierce chief of his clan. His name meant ‘Black Angus' in Gaelic. The Mackays were descended from Picts, the ancient tribes of the north. The McGehees spring from the Mackay line, and became cattle herders in the northernmost lochs of Scotland. They used to battle the Sinclairs — Momma's clan — until everyone sort of settled down during the seventeenth century.”

“Keep going. Please. I need to hear this.”

“Honor was strong in our clan and it bred tough warriors. Our family never backed down. The Mackay motto is
manu forti,
or ‘with a strong hand.' “ She hesitated, and then added, “An old Gaelic proverb says, ‘Better a swift death in battle than a slow one in bed.' Daddy repeated that saying every morning at breakfast.” She sighed, adding, “Angus Dubh died of an arrow wound in the Battle of the Sutherlands.”

Laura Ann took a long look at the dark, her eyes imagining boundaries for their property beyond the limit of her vision. “In 1792 our Scottish relatives were kicked out of their homes in a horrible land grab called ‘The Clearances.' My relatives emigrated to the United States and settled here, in mountain lands. McGehees, Mackays — and Sinclairs, Momma's family. They married into the family lines of Scots who'd come over a hundred years earlier, like the Greggs from the southern highlands, who came with William Penn in 1682.”

“Tell me more, so that I can make it mine.” She put her hand to her belly. “And make it his.”

“Daddy and I used to sing our ancestry.” Laura Ann hummed
the tune to herself for a moment, tears welling in her eyes. Not since Daddy's last days had she recited their family tree. It percolated up from deep inside, like a nursery rhyme she'd learned and could never forget. Salty joy ran from her eyes into the corners of her mouth as she recited her legacy, the eight generations who had farmed this land.

Laura Ann wiped her eyes on the back of her hand, reliving fond memories of Daddy singing to her on the old Ford tractor when she was a little girl, sharing his roots with her. Deep taproots that now took hold in the womb of another woman.

Sophia reached to her left and pulled Laura Ann into a hug. They stood, united in arms, swaying to the evening song of tree frogs. “Would you ever leave?” Sophia asked, her voice a sweet harmony to the night's sounds.

“No. This is what I was raised to do,” Laura Ann replied. “To be. And to be here. To move the farm forward another generation. And to raise a family.” She looked back, Ian asleep behind her. Her gaze lingered on his long frame, legs dangling over the edge of the couch. She wanted to give him a bed. She would, in time.

“Did your dad ever think of leaving, of breaking the chain?”

She pondered her friend's words, Sophia unaware of Laura
Ann's history, of her father's last wish. More tears welled up, but she set her jaw, breathing deep. How to explain this?

Laura Ann pulled at Sophia's elbow, tugging her gently to turn about on the porch. She pointed up to the beaded board ceiling. A mud nest snuggled into the corner, five yellow-white beaks visible over the edge of the cup-shaped nest. To their left, two adult birds rested on a ledge.

“Do you see those barn swallows?” she asked, pointing to the adults. “They return to that spot every year, building a mud nest in the spring. Every year they lay eggs, every year they raise chicks. Every year they leave. But they always return, to that very corner. Not to the other end of the porch, not to the eaves. Just to that corner.”

She pulled at Sophia's arm once more, moving closer to the sleeping adults. “Every fall they migrate six thousand miles to South America. They fly hundreds of miles a day to lands I can only dream of. But they always come back. To this home, and to that very spot, to raise their family.”

In the dim light of the kerosene lamp, she could see their colors. Perhaps she saw them in her mind, mixing with the partial shades visible in the lamplight. Orange-brown throats, a sharp black bill, pointy black tails that spread to reveal a beautiful fan of white markings underneath. Darting birds that raced from point to point above the yard, gathering bugs for food. Food that fed pink-orange furry throats peeping for attention, bugs that spilled out of tiny yellow-white bills clamoring for yet another insect morsel.

“I am that swallow,” Laura Ann said, taking Sophia by the hand in the dim light. She squeezed for emphasis. The words panged her, sparking an irresistible desire to place her fingers on Sophia's stomach, to reconnect with a part of her that she'd lost forever.