Free A Parchment of Leaves by Silas House Page A

for two or three days when Whistle-Dick’s brother, Dalton, showed up one evening. I was standing on the porch, watching for Saul. She had sent for me to help deliver her baby. Dalton was scared to death and breathing so hard he liked to never told me what was happening. Men ain’t worth a dime around a birthing. I run out of the house without even closing the door behind me. We got on Dalton’s horse and rode to the next creek over—Free Creek—where Serena and Whistle-Dick’s house stood at the mouth of the holler. I found her laying in the bed. She looked like she had just stretched out there to rest a minute. She wasn’t even a bit pale or breathless, and her belly seemed smaller, as if the baby had already made its escape. She had her gown pulled up to her breasts and run her hands over her belly with great, calm strokes.
    As soon as I stepped into the bedroom and shed my coat, she narrowed her eyes as if her sight was failing her and said, “Lord have mercy. You packing one, too.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œYou’re carrying, girl. Didn’t you know?”
    Serena could see things that no one else could, when it come to babies.
    Before I could say anything else, a pain swam through her. It was so fast and hard that I could actually see it stretching over her body. It seemed that every vein in her came to the top of her skin for a moment, then sank right back down into its proper place.
    I bent to go to work on her but was not sure about what I was doing. It didn’t matter, though. Serena had delivered so many babies that she talked herself right through this birth, too. She would holler out what she was about to do, and then she just did it. I suppose the only reason I had been called down there for was the company, or in case something went wrong. Serena hooked her hands up behindboth knees and seemed to pull her legs back toward her as far as she could. At last she pushed so hard that I could see her whole body turning red—it moved from the top of her head all the way down to her feet—and then the baby’s head crowned. I barely pulled on his little shoulders before he burst forth onto the bed. Serena collapsed back, out of breath and panting for air.
    I cut the cord with Serena’s scissors and laid the baby up on her belly. He was a boy, just as Serena had said he would be. He curled into a little ball there on her chest, balancing himself atop her frame. She was too weak to even bring her arms up to touch him, but she did lean her head up enough to kiss the top of his head.
    â€œLuke,” she said. “After my daddy, and the apostle.”
    I nodded to her.
    â€œI know, I ain’t much on church, but I read my Bible right often,” she said between big breaths. “And Luke is my favorite of all.”
    I took Luke to the dishpan of warm water I had waiting and took a rag to him. He was a big baby with many creases and folds where the birthing clung. When I had cleaned out his nose and put the jelly in his eyes and bathed him good, I wrapped him up in a little blanket and held him against my chest. I cradled Luke to me, and I had a glimpse of what it would be like to hold my own. It felt like peace, right there in the crook of my arm.

Six
    S erena delivered my baby the following June. It is an awful thing to say—and something that I will regret until my deathbed—but I cannot remember a thing about the birth. Here is all I know.
    At that time, Saul’s crew was cutting timber way over in Clay County, and sometimes he didn’t get home until far past dusk. It was close to dark, and I was up at Esme’s, watching her can beans. I felt fine and begged her to let me help, but she wouldn’t hear of such a thing. Not because she felt it would be a strain on me, but because she went by the superstition that a pregnant woman canning anything would cause the yield to spoil before winter was good and settled. My water had