17

The weather was cold for early December. Heather even spotted snowflakes when she stepped out to the privy. She didn’t walk about the village. Sophrena thought it better if she didn’t wander around in her condition. Heather wasn’t sure if that was because of concern for her or worry that the Shaker people might be offended by the sight of her growing shape that not even the fullest skirt could hide.

Brother Kenton said the baby growing was good, but sometimes Heather noted the hint of a frown that accompanied his words. She’d witnessed her mother’s labor to push Lucas and Jimmy out into the world. She’d gripped Heather’s hands so tightly during some of the pains that Heather’s fingers had been bruised and sore for days. Mrs. Saunders, the neighborhood midwife, had encouraged her with soft words and gentle hands. That’s who Heather had imagined helping her birth her baby. Her mother and Mrs. Saunders. But that was not to be. Instead she would have to depend on Sophrena, who appeared uneasy with the very thought of a baby, much less the messy job of bringing that baby into the world. She might just faint dead away and Heather would be without help at all.

When Heather had those thoughts, she squared her shoulders and cradled the round form of the baby growing within her. If that happened, she was strong. Hadn’t she followed after an army? Hadn’t she done that for love? Love made hard things easier and she loved this little being inside her. She loved him so much she could do whatever had to be done to give him life.

Besides, Sophrena was like Heather’s mother. She was like Heather herself. The same blood ran through them all, a powerful connection in spite of Sophrena having removed herself from the family fold. Heather felt the connection every time she looked directly into Sophrena’s eyes. Sophrena felt it too. Heather was sure she did, no matter what she said about the way Shakers believed in a different type of family.

The snow turned to ice and pecked against the windows. But inside the cabin, the fire was warm and the lamps were lit. Food was on the table. All supplied by the Shaker people and carried to the cabin by Sophrena. The two of them sewed together. They ate together. They prayed in silence together, each in her own way, but to the same heavenly Father. They slept in the same room, their breaths mingling in the night air like Heather’s and Beth’s had before she had gone with Gideon.

It mattered not that they talked little and then only of the Shaker beliefs or of how winter was coming early or of the stitches they were making in the unending baskets of sewing. The bond was growing between them nevertheless. She would not desert Heather in her hour of need. Instead she had deserted her way of life to care for Heather. What could make one do that other than love?

And Gideon would come back to Heather. Her prayers would keep him safe and love would bring him back into her arms.

With ice tinkling against the window glass, they ate their night meal Sophrena had had the foresight to fetch early before the ice accumulated. Then as had become their custom, they returned to the chairs by the fire and went back to their sewing until the retiring bell.

On her first days in the village, Sophrena had explained the purpose of each ringing of the bell as it signaled the proper times for different activities. Rising in the morning and retiring at night. Times of rest and prayers. Meals. It tolled for the gathering to worship in their meetinghouse. Heather had come to depend on the bells to give her days rhythm. Up in the morning, eating and praying and sewing, to bed at night.

But all she was really doing was awaiting her time. Pondering this child in her heart as surely the mother of the Christ had once done so long ago. Wondering what lay ahead. Heather’s child was not the miracle the Christ child was, come to save a sinful world. But her child was a gift to cherish. A miracle of love for her.

Heather no longer helped Sophrena with hemming the Shaker clothes. Instead she hemmed small squares of cloth for the baby’s wrapping blankets and made him gowns of the soft cream-colored fabric one of the sisters had woven especially for that purpose and brought by the cabin earlier in the week.

“A sister or brother needs something to wear no matter how small that sister or brother might happen to be,” Sister Doreen told Heather with a peek over her shoulder, as though worried someone might be listening who would find fault with her words. She let her gaze settle on Sophrena as she went on. “Don’t you agree, Sister Sophrena?”

“Yea, the babe will need clothes.” Sophrena looked up from fingering the material with a smile that seemed to put the other woman at ease.

Sister Doreen was short and tending toward roundness. The hair that peeked out below her cap was white, but her eyes carried the twinkle of perennial youth. She never came by the cabin without a gift and without bringing cheer through the door. Something Sophrena seemed to need even more than Heather as the days passed. Although she never complained of being isolated with Heather in the cabin, she had to be missing the companionship of the Shaker sisters she had lived with so long.

This night, with the ice enclosing them and shutting away the world outside the cabin, Sophrena seemed more relaxed in her talking, as if she didn’t have to worry about an improper word being overheard. They spoke of the weather and of how Gideon’s division would be in the south where the air would be warmer.

“Rain is not good either,” Heather said.

“But kinder than ice, I would think,” Sophrena said without looking up from her sewing. She had finished the basket of assigned sewing and was stitching a gown cut from Sister Doreen’s soft cloth. Her stitches were much quicker than Heather’s and the gown was taking shape under her skilled fingers.

“My Gideon never seemed to know how to keep dry.” Heather frowned. “His feet especially. I took care to keep him in clean socks while I was with him, but now I am not with him.”

“A good thing.” Sophrena looked over at her. “In your condition. It is good you are here. Perhaps we can knit him some socks and send them to him.”

Heather dropped her sewing and stared at the fire, barely hearing Sophrena’s words. “But I miss him so much.”

If only she could get a letter from him to know he was all right.