Free Evening Snow Will Bring Such Peace by David Adams Richards Page B

them.
    “Well–”
    “Ha–”
    After a while, Adele left the room.
    She went upstairs and walked about in a circle.
    No, she didn’t like Ruby, she didn’t like Cindi, she didn’t like Ivan, she detested Ralphie and hated Thelma, and Vera and Nevin were dupes and fools, and the whole lot of them were twits, especially Olive, so there had to be some way to get the child away from her and head to Nova Scotia, or at least to Sussex. And if that didn’t come about, she would end up drowning her own daughter, whom she detested the sight of anyway.
    And, thinking of this, she headed back down the stairs and marched into the living room, only to find no one there. Then she went into the kitchen.
    When she walked in her daughter was sitting on a chair with three big cushions under her, so she could reach the table where the glass of milk was.
    “Hello, Dell,” the little one said. Then, as always when she saw Adele, her movements became cautious. As if she was used to having Adele pounce on her. The cushions on which she sat seemed to overflow the chair.
    She was so tiny her head seemed no bigger than an orange. Her hair was blonde and wispy, as fine as a spiderweb. Her little eyes were black. Her three favourite dolls were sitting in chairs about the table also, each of them on cushions as well. She wore one red sock, the other was in the far corner of the kitchen, lying heel up near the stove. When Adele saw this, she stopped and looked about as if confused. Her face changed.
    “Where Walphie?” the child said.
    “There,” Adele said. “You have to have every cushion in the house down in the kitchen though, don’tyou? And the arm of Snoopy is torn off again – I noticed that right away!”
    With this, Adele smiled. The little girl stopped smiling and reached clumsily for her milk.

    Everything was Vera nowadays. The family revolved around her now. Vera was practical-minded. Vera gave piano lessons to little “underprivileged” children from Barryville. Vera belonged to “concerned and forward thinking” women’s rights organizations. Vera was going to have her child at home – in her own bedroom and not in some “sterilized foreign” atmosphere created by the hospital.
    All of this had Dr. Hennessey upset, but Vera had gone instead to Dr. Savard, who said it was a perfectly reasonable thing to wish. That is, she wanted a midwife. This idea for Thelma was “new and fresh.” And Vera was something of a saint for being as she was.
    Unfortunately Vera didn’t remember that Hennessey had helped deliver children all over the river – from a wagon to a half-ton truck. That old Mrs. Garrett’s children had all been born in the bed where they were conceived, and it was not such a strikingly new idea at all. What was new was only the attitude developed because of other criteria, and Hennessey was worried because of Vera’s health, which had been so bad a few years ago.
    But, in fact, Hennessey was looked upon as old-fashioned and out of touch, and, of course, a woman-hater, while Savard was looked upon as a person who understood the problems of modern society and was willing to challenge them – all because of a birth at home, of which Hennessey had done over a hundredand Savard had not yet done one. Also, Vera went about mentioning words like “birthing.” It was “birthing” this and “birthing” that with Vera. The old doctor visited, took her blood pressure, weight, and checked for too much fluid. But the doctor, though he disliked the idea, realized that she was set on it.
    As far as Adele was concerned, this made the baby-to-be a rather political baby-to-be, and not just an ordinary baby like hers was – which was born in the men’s washroom of the community centre. But Vera was adamant about this, and her health wasn’t good.
    Adele, of course, hated the whole idea of Vera’s pregnancy, of her going to have the child at home – or what she hated was the climate about the two opposing