Early
Fall 2004
She was waiting in the courtyard for Harriet. Thin wisps of clouds, high and lacy, stretched across the sky. A flock of geese, not waiting for the cold, winged south. The sun cast long shadows on the ground, covering the picnic table in thick bands of dark. In the canopy of branches above her head, the leaves were starting to change colors. Reds and yellows played hide and seek among the mostly green leaves.
She fidgeted with the milk she didn’t want but promised him she would drink. He had offered to join her, and she wished she could have said yes, but she wanted him to talk to Bud. Rolling the neck of the bottle between her fingers, she watched the milk bottle form a kaleidoscope of shadows on the tabletop.
“Colonel, sorry I’m late,” Harriet apologized as she plunked on to the metal chair next to her. “The babysitter called and-” Blowing a strand of hair away from her mouth, she waved away the annoyance.
“Is everything okay?” she asked.
“Everything’s fine.” She rolled her eyes. “She couldn’t find something.”
“Oh.” She bit her lip. “Okay.”
Harriet took a deep breath and let it out slowly, letting the rest of the frustration evaporate into the blue sky. She tilted her face up to the sun. “It’s nice out this afternoon.”
“It is.” She glanced around the courtyard, scanning the tall brick building and the trees, studying the angle of the sun on the bricks and ground, before turning back to Harriet. “I’m going to miss being able to eat outside.”
“I’m trying to convince Bud to take a weekend off and go away for a little vacation before it gets cold.” She took a sip of water. “I’d like to go to the Shenandoah Valley or the Smokey Mountains or some place like that.”
“That sounds nice.” Poking at her salad with her fork, she tried to adjust her weight as the baby started to squirm.
“Kicking?” Harriet asked, noticing Mac’s flinch.
“No, not really. Just a little restless.” She rubbed her hand over her stomach. To quell the nerves, to calm the baby. “Harriet?”
“Yes, ma’am?” Harriet asked absently. Her vision was focused on the trees in the courtyard as she tried to plan a weekend away. She could see a small cabin with two bedrooms and a fireplace. The leaves would begin to change colors in the mountains soon. The foothills and lower peaks would be covered in yellows, oranges, and reds. She thought the boys would like playing in the woods. Maybe they could find a low-stress trail and take a long walk. She could show them how to make rubbings of their leaves with crayons. She could almost smell the smoke from the fire at night.
“Harriet,” she repeated, touching her lightly on the hand.
“I’m sorry, ma’am.” Harriet shook her head a little, clearing the leaves from corners of her mind. “I was daydreaming.”
“It’s okay. I just –– I wanted to tell you.” She bit her lower lip again and glanced up at the sky through the tree branches. “Before you hear it from someone else, I got the results from my amnio.”
“You did?” Harriet eyed Mac’s stomach. “I didn’t realize that much time had passed. Everything’s okay, right?”
“Everything’s fine.” She said quietly, “Harriet, I’m having a girl.”
Harriet’s fingers tightened on her sandwich before lowering it to the table. The cabin, brightly lit against the night sky, disappeared slowly, dismantling log by log. She swallowed heavily. Forcing her fingers to uncurl from the bread, she picked up her napkin and wound it around her fingers. Looping it over and under, pulling on the white paper. “I – oh.”
Mac circled the top of her bottle with a finger. Her hand inched closer to Harriet’s but didn’t touch her. “I wanted to tell you before you heard from the office grapevine.”
“Of course.” Harriet blinked. Her heel scraped against the concrete as she shifted in her chair. She tried to focus on the iron tabletop, concentrating on the thin metal lines as they wove together and separated. But she kept seeing Sarah’s nursery, the quilt she bought for the crib. She saw the stuffed giraffe with a soft pink bow tied around its neck.
Mac
pressed a hand to the side of her neck, tapping lightly on her clavicle,
and waited for the silence to pass. “Did I…” she trailed
off. “I didn’t know how else to tell you.”
“Sometimes,” Harriet said, then stopped. “I was going
to say that sometimes I think it’s all a bad dream. I’ll wake
up and it’ll be four years ago and I’ll still be pregnant
with her. But that’s like wishing away Jimmy and I really love my
sons, you know? It’s just – sometimes it sneak up on me and
catches me by surprise.”
“I’m sorry, Harriet.” She leaned forward and laid her hand on Harriet’s wrist. “I really didn’t…”
Harriet shook her head. “It’s alright. What else could you do?” She eased her wrist out from under Mac’s fingers. “I’m not very hungry,” she said, looking down at her sandwich. “If you’ll excuse me.” She couldn’t look at Mac. Didn’t want to see her stomach where her baby girl sat warm and protected.
“Of course,” she murmured, toying with her own lunch. She watched Harriet hurry into the building, never once looking back or looking up to see the people around her.
Harm had been watching them and he waited until Harriet had vanished from sight. “Did it go okay?”
“I guess.” She shrugged. “As well as it could go.”
He nodded at her salad. “You need to eat.”
“I’m not hungry.” She pushed the meal away. “It’s not fair, Harm.” She leaned against his shoulder for a minute, closing her eyes before reminding herself where she was and sitting up right.
“I told Bud,” he said. ““He’ll look after her.”
“That’s good.” She leaned her head into her hand and watched the front of the building. She felt his fingers brush her hair back from her face and she directed her gaze to him.
“Now, let me take care of you,” he offered. She nodded, too tired to remind him she could do that on her own.
The box arrived at her apartment a week later. The blanket was soft and pink, edged with white satin and embroidered with flowers. The card was addressed to the baby and signed with love from her Aunt Harriet and Uncle Bud. She ran her cheek over the cotton before folding it carefully and putting it away. Tucking it in a drawer so it would be safe until the baby came.