THE DOOR AT BEULAH’S HUT STOOD AJAR. LYDIA AND Sarah stood on the wobbly step of the crumbling shack, while Lydia bowed her head in prayer.
Fibby, Birchtown’s midwife, sat at the table cutting out coloured squares from old rags for her quilt making. Her face was drawn and thin. Her short black braids pointed in every direction like the spines of a sea urchin. “She’s resting now, waiting on her time,” Fibby said, pointing to a narrow wooden bunk in the corner of the room.
“And Prince? How is Prince?”
Fibby pulled Lydia aside. “Hush, Lydia,” she whispered, putting a finger to her mouth. “Beulah is taking it hard. Quiet now. Best not to excite her again. It will be two days. No one came by to take you word that Prince passed on. Come, I’ll show you the pile.”
Lydia followed Fibby quietly to the rear of the hut. Sarah trailed behind. There they saw a pile of rocks just barely covering a body. Lydia knelt beside the pile. She covered her face with her hands and sought comfort in weeping. Sarah knelt beside her and put her arms around her grandmother. Then followed the long moans and praying. And when all the suffering subsided, she and Sarah quietly went about gathering rocks to deepen the pile, making it so neat and high it looked like a tomb.
Back inside, Lydia let out a long, disturbing sigh and patted her chest several times as though she was preparing for a huge event and wanted to be ready.
Lydia looked at Beulah, who was sitting up now, and said softly, “You’re carrying low. That is a good sign. Oh my, it will not be long.” The old woman’s fat fingers rolled around the mountainous belly. Her voice was gentle. “Everything will be alright,” she cooed. “Yes it will.” She continued rubbing Beulah’s belly, staring, trance-like, far off, in a different world … A stout wench, broad and strong, good breeding stock, the auctioneer had said.
She turned her face to Beulah and spoke in a low murmur, “I have to go now. I got to stop at Cecil’s and then go down to Roseway this morning.” She patted the belly once more saying, “I asked the good Lord to keep His eyes on you. He hears ol’ Lydia.” Then in a tender voice that was thin and not so matter-of-fact, she said, “This baby has a special calling, Beulah. It will be the first one in this family to be born free. Imagine that. Born free. A miracle, that’s what.”
“It’s true, Mother Redmond. But it’s not right that the child won’t have a papa.” Beulah pushed her tangled hair back. A tiny smile unfolded as she said, “Prince and I got married as soon as we got here. We had plans. We dared to dream. This place was going to be a new beginning. We planned to raise our children … like proper folks.” The soreness of her loss made her lips quiver. “Why did the Lord have to take Prince after getting free … after all we came through?” The tears streamed down her face leaving long salty stains on her brown skin. “I keep trying, but I don’t know how much more I can take.” Beulah swallowed hard and her misery forced her to sob, and then more pain, and more sobs.
No one spoke. They waited for Fibby to get up and get some rags and the washbasin of warm water. But no, she sat tight and Beulah kept sobbing until Lydia broke in saying, “Fibby, best get things ready. This must be her time.”
“Not yet, Lydia,” Fibby said. “I know the birthing pain. Those wails are not about the baby. They come from a dark place. She’s heartsick, always thinking on Prince.”
Lydia stroked Beulah’s face. “Hush now. It will not be long before you are holding your child. There is joy in that.” She was silent for a minute and then she said, “We made it this far. We got through the first winter. This family is growing.” She looked at Sarah and smiled, “There will soon be four. We must always give thanks for that.”
She placed her hand gently on Beulah’s hair, patting it with her cupped palm as gently as a mother bear. “Don’t you be worrying. This family sticks together. You won’t have to raise your child alone, no Lord.” She cradled Beulah’s head in her lap and wiped her wet face with her coat sleeve. “Oh yes, Beulah, everything is going to be alright. You will see. God is good.” The strains of old spirituals drifted from her lips.
Beulah dabbed away the tears with the edge of the blanket. She was ashen and pale and kept rolling the coarse blanket in her fingers as she rocked back and forth. The old woman squeezed her tightly, with joy hiding somewhere in the creases of her mouth, but her happiness did not last. For a second, she caught a strange look in Sarah’s eyes. The girl was studying her intensely with a look of loathing. She knew the reason and felt guilty for withholding such tenderness from the young one. She knew it was another custom, a slave’s way of avoiding attachment. She shrugged off Sarah’s venom with a smile, for deep down she knew the girl could never hate her.
She turned back to Beulah and as much as she wanted to stay, she said, “Oh my, Beulah, we got to be on our way. The longer we stay the further Roseway gets.”
“You’re leaving?” Beulah asked.
“We will stop on the way back. You just might be a mama ’tween now and then. I guess that child is taking its good old time, but it cannot stay back forever. The Lord is good. Put your faith in Him to see this through.”
Beulah’s eyes strayed to the corner of the room. She turned to one side. Her face became mean and she said, “There’s no God, Lydia. They made God up to keep folks like us from having our rightful place on this earth.”
The old woman’s eyes stretched three times their size and she said, “You rest, Beulah. You need more rest.”
Beulah continued to stare away. “Your God makes no sense to me. Why would God allow so many folks to have so little and all this suffering? Why should we believe that we have to wait until we get to heaven when everything for our joy is right here? All this religion, it was the master’s way of controlling the slaves, but who controlled the master?” Her eyes lit up like a firefly. “We were sent here to die, to rot in this hell.” Beulah’s head fell on her chest. “Say what you like, this place is going to be the death of us all.” Her voice was sharp and angry. “You can have your God, Mother Redmond.”
Fibby spoke up. “She gets this way. Oh my, ever since Prince passed she has been ranting and cursing God. The dear soul even curses me. I don’t know how much more I can take, but after that baby comes, Old Fibby will be gone. I will see that the baby comes into the world, but after that, she is going to need someone to come and stay and help with the child.”
Lydia was stunned. “Cursing God?” Her hands shook as she raised them up to heaven. “Sweet Lord,” she said, “Pay her no mind. She is tired and angry, Lord. You got to be patient with this one. Amen.”
Beulah’s sudden change frightened Lydia. Maybe she was scared. Giving birth was a worrying thing. She thought about losing children, about Dahlia. How on one jet-black night she had awoke from a deep sleep to horrible screams. Screams so loud they could crack bones. A horrible birth, the worst see had seen. She saw Dahlia’s newborn briefly, before the midwife declared the tiny bundle was off to Glory. She recalled that it was One Eye and Soldier who took Sarah’s mother and the child away in a rickety cart. All the slaves in the quarter gathered in the yard and wept hard until the cart disappeared into the night.
Lydia turned to Fibby. “You do your best for her. She’s not herself and needs your patience. This is her first.”
On the trail, Lydia lagged behind, struggling with her thoughts. The sun was brighter now and the autumn leaves glistened. She looked through the trees up at the patch of blue sky and gave her fears and aching heart to the Lord, for the pain was too severe for her alone to bear.