Patterns of Swallows (43 page)

*
* *

The baby was due around the end
of the second week of December according to Lily's best calculations.

That date came and went. Lily
continued to complain about her sore back and her swollen feet and
her increasing girth. She no longer left the house, ashamed to be
seen, though Ruth couldn't understand why she should be more ashamed
now than when she had first arrived back in Arrowhead. But perhaps
it was simply the wound her vanity would have received to appear in
public looking as big as a house.

And Lily was looking, if not
quite house-like, at least comparable to a small bungalow.

"That's going to be a
sizable lad. Or lass," Dr. Moffet told Lily calmly at her last
regular check-up, a week before she was due.

“
Any
time now,” he said cheerfully. “I’ll hope to hear
from you by the end of the week.”

But the end of the week arrived,
and Dr. Moffet was not called for.

Lily grumbled, and Mom pointedly
suggested a little exercise. Perhaps some vacuuming or dusting. But
Lily ignored the suggestion.

Then the end of another week
came, and still Dr. Moffet wasn’t called for. That was the
evening of the twentieth of December.

That evening, a light snow began
to fall.

“
It’s
beautiful out. You should come for a walk with me, Mom. Come out
and enjoy it,” Ruth said, bringing in a snowy armful of
kindling for the fire. She’d paused in the midst of her
wood-splitting to absorb the sight of the snow, floating down like
the feathers of an angel, its colours glittering in the light from
the uncurtained porch window against the faintly pink-tinged night
sky.

“
It’s
pretty enough now, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see it turn
heavy before morning,” Mom prophesied. “We haven’t
had a good snowstorm this year yet. We’re due for one. And
from the looks of that sky, this could be it.”

By morning, Mom was proven to be
no false prophet. There was a clear foot and a half on the ground
that hadn’t been there the night before. The snow was falling
lightly again, having spent its fury overnight on a surprised
Arrowhead Valley.

"Good thing it's a Sunday.
Don't think I'd be making it into work at the packing shed today, at
any rate. Doesn't look like you and I'll be going to church. Wonder
when they'll get the road out to the farm cleared," Ruth said to
Mom as she turned pancakes.

"Wonder if her highness
will want breakfast this morning," Mom said with a flip.

"Seems like she'd rather
have the sleep."

"Well, I can tell you one
thing. She's not getting breakfast in bed, and if she can't get up
when it's hot and ready, she can find herself something to eat by the
time she rolls out of bed."

"Suppose I could call her
and find out if she wants pancakes with us. They are a lot better
hot."

"You can do as you like,
but I don't imagine she'll thank you for it. Probably snap your head
off for disturbing her beauty sleep."

"All the same ..."
Ruth said, climbing the stairs, calling Lily's name.

Lily was already awake. She
rolled over and looked at Ruth with obvious distress in her face.

"Lily! What is it? Is it
the baby?"

"I don't feel too well,"
Lily moaned.

"Are you having pains?"

"Off and on."

"How bad are they?"

"Oh, they're great. Just
fine and dandy. Terrific. Is there such a thing as good pain?"

"Let me get Mom," Ruth
said and ran.

"Is her highness going to
grace us with her presence?" Mom asked.

"No, but the baby might,"
Ruth said, laughing. She couldn't help feeling a little excited
after all.

"You'd better get the
doctor on the phone."

"Should I call him this
soon? Won't it be hours yet? Maybe you'd better check on her. I
have no idea how far along she is. I can't get a straight answer out
of her as to how bad the pain is or how close together the pains
are."

Mom sighed. "I'll go talk
to her."

She came back in a few minutes.

"I think you'd better call
the doc," she said.

"How would he get out here?
By dog sled?"

"Well, you'd better call
him, anyway. See what he says."

But Ruth heard only silence on
the other end of the receiver when she lifted it.

"Phone's dead," she
announced.

As she said the words, the
lights and the radio abruptly stopped on a dime.

"Perfect," Mom
grumbled. "And me with four half-cooked pancakes. We might as
well eat the ones that are ready while we wait for the hydro to come
back on."

"Thank goodness for the
wood stove. We can finish the pancakes on that. What should I do
about the doctor, though?"

"Not much you can do. As
you say, it might be hours till the baby's ready to come. We might
as well eat. We could be in for a long wait."

"I should go check on Lily,
let her know what's happening."

"Sit and eat," Mom
commanded. "You might not get the chance later. Lily can wait
ten minutes till you get some food in you. I told her to try and get
some sleep if she could, so you sit and eat."

Ruth sat and ate.

*
* *

An hour later, neither the
telephone nor the electric was functioning, and Lily had learned what
true pain felt like.

"Should I get some water
boiling on the wood stove?" Ruth asked. She'd read enough books
to know that boiling water was always the first thing asked for by
those attending a birth (at least in books).

"Maybe you'd better,"
Mom answered, looking harried and pulling clean towels and washcloths
off the wooden drying rack by the wood stove Lily was keeping her
hopping. And she was beginning to worry that neither the power or
the doctor would be available for this birth.

"At least you know what to
do if we can't get a hold of Dr. Moffet," Ruth said.

"How would I know what to
do?" Mom asked.

"Well, you've had two of
your own," Ruth said, feeling slightly panicked.

"Sure, but I was busy
having them."

"Well, you'd know better
than I would. It's okay, Mom. We'll do what we have to. We'll
figure it out. After all, women were having their babies at home
without benefit of a doctor for thousands of years before this
century."

Mom was tempted to mention that
women were dying in childbirth at home without benefit of doctor for
thousands of years, as well, but she bit her tongue.

"That baby's coming fast,"
she told Ruth the next time she checked Lily. "I think we'll
have to give up on calling the doctor. Roads still aren't plowed,
anyway. You'd better come up. I'll need your help. I suppose in
theory I know what to do once the baby's out, and Lily will have to
do the part that comes before that for herself.”

*
* *

It was a boy. A perfect,
healthy, beautiful baby boy. But after he was cleaned up, Ruth had
no time to sit around admiring him or even to hold him.

There was so much blood. Ruth
had never seen so much blood in one place before.

She'd never imagined it was like
this. In the books and movies, childbirth was a joyous, if somewhat
painful, event. Books and movies had failed to prepare her for the
reality.

"She's lost too much blood,
and I can't get it stopped," Mom hissed at her, hoping it was
out of Lily's hearing.

Things weren't right. Even
Ruth, with her lack of experience, knew it.

"I'm sorry, Ruth. I think
you'd better try and go for the doctor somehow."

"I don't think the roads
are cleared yet. Not out this far, any rate. I wouldn't be able to
make it in the car."

"Can you slog through the
snow? Just till the main road. Then maybe at the next farm, you
could borrow a car."

"Except that we don't even
know if the main road's been plowed. I have a better idea. Skis.
Lily, hang on. I'm going for the doctor."

"Ruth."

"Yes, Lily."

"If I don't make it,
promise me something."

"Wha'd'y' mean if you don't
make it? You're going to make it. I'll be back as soon as I can
with the doctor."

"But if I don't ..."

"You will. You have to."

"Ruth, promise me."

"What is it?"

"Promise me you'll look
after him."

"The baby?"

"Yes, promise me."

Ruth hesitated. She didn't make
promises she wasn't sure she could keep. But she made the promise to
Lily.

Besides, Lily was going to be
fine. Women had babies all the time. And she'd soon be back with
the doctor.

Ruth hadn't taken out her
cross-country skis since Graham and she ... but there was no time for
old memories now.

As quickly as she could, she
threw on her winter gear and strapped on the skis.

She considered sticking to the
roads in hopes of borrowing a car at the next farm but decided that
taking the short-cut trail to town was her best bet in case nothing
had been plowed yet.

The trail crossed the Arrow
River at the trestle and ran up and over a low piece of Arrow
Mountain around which mountain the main road had been built. The
trail was a more direct route to town.

The trestle was a little tricky
on skis. She forced her eyes straight ahead, not looking down to see
the river between the ties.

Then, there was the climb to be
faced. The trail wasn't steep – not for hiking in summer, but
it was a stiff climb on skis, and she was out of practice on them.
Until the knack of turning her skis out at an angle came back to her,
she found herself slipping back a foot for every two she progressed
upward.

As she climbed, she found the
rhythm of her skis turned into a rhythm in her head that turned into
a song.

"Oh little town of
Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie ..."

At the top of the hill, her
chest heaving, she stopped for a moment to catch her breath and
admire the little town of Arrowhead spread out below her.

Nothing was moving on its
streets. It may, like the little town of the song, have been
sleeping dreamlessly under its snow-laden roofs, the only sign of
life being the woodsmoke rising from the chimneys above the roofs.

And yet.

And yet, under another
snow-laden roof, a life was in danger. Under another of those
peaceful-looking roofs, the scene Ruth had just witnessed which
refused to leave her mind – a scene of bloody anguish and
primal screaming – had taken place. It lent an air of irony to
the song running through her head.

"How silently, how
silently, the wondrous gift is given! So God imparts to human hearts
the blessings of His heaven ..."

If "the wondrous gift"
and the "blessings of God's heaven" had been given on that
first Christmas in a manner even approximating the manner in which
another of God's gifts and blessings had just been bestowed to
humanity, there had been nothing silent and still and dreamlessly
sleepy about it. The beginning of new life was a messy, perilous,
costly business.

For just a moment while she
caught her breath and gazed on her own peaceful, little town, Ruth
wondered about it all and felt sick at heart for all the vast amount
of pain and trouble in the world.

It looked beautiful, but what a
fallen world it was!

*
* *

The streets in town had been
plowed, so Ruth left the skis by Mavis Bilberry's house on the edge
of town and ran as fast as she could on the slick streets, stumbling
in the cross-country boots that weren't made for running. Dr. Moffet
lived five blocks from the Bilberry house.

He came hastily to the sound of
Ruth pounding on his door. He was tying up his bathrobe. He had
probably expected to enjoy a leisurely day in and to stay in his robe
till noon.

"Doc, Lily's had her baby.
She's bleeding a lot," Ruth gasped. She had breath to say no
more.

"Let me get dressed, grab
my instruments, and we'll be on our way," he said.

He wasted no time dressing. He
came back in an odd assortment of garments, slipped bare feet into
high boots, and followed Ruth out the door.

"Wait!" he said once
out the door. "Better take some formula with us. Lily might
not be in a condition to nurse the baby herself. I have a tin in the
house."

He was back in a moment, looking
around.

"Where's your car? How did
you get here?"