wants her to stay in bed until after the baby comes.”
“When’s that?”
“Around the first of July. I worry about her in that little burg, with the doctor twenty miles away. She’s not a kid.”
Aunt Betty was Mama’s older sister. She lived a hundred miles away in Morgan Lake with her husband, Stan Weller, who traveled for a farm implement company. Last Christmas at Grandma Browning’s in Blue Lake, Aunt Betty and Uncle Stan had told everybody that they were expecting a baby.
“It’s about time,” Grandma Browning had declared happily. Aunt Betty and Uncle Stan had been married eight years, and Grandma thought they should have had a baby by now.
“It isn’t as if we haven’t tried,” Aunt Betty had told Grandma, smiling and acting embarrassed. Everyone laughed. I laughed, too, but I didn’t know why.
There was a lot about having babies that I didn’t know. For instance, if the stork brought the baby from heaven, why did the woman get fat and sick? Cynthia Eggers in Mama’s bridge club had had a baby a couple of years ago. Although I’d only been four, I remembered it very well because it left so many questions unanswered, questions I pondered again and again at nap time, lying in the crib listening to the sparrows in the parking lot, or at bedtime after my prayers.
I had asked Mama questions at the time, but the answers led me into wider circles of mystification. “How come Mrs. Eggers is fat?” She’s going to have a baby. “Where does the baby come from?” God. “But how does God get the baby to Mrs. Eggers?” The stork flies down from heaven with the baby. “What’s a stork?” A big bird. “How does he carry the baby?” The baby is wrapped in a blanket, and the stork holds the blanket in his bill. “Don’t a lot of babies fall and get killed?” No, I never heard of one falling. “Howcome you have to go to the hospital to get the baby?” Because the baby is tiny and helpless, and the hospital is a safe place to keep it for a few days until it’s stronger and used to being on Earth. “Why doesn’t God keep the baby in heaven until it’s stronger?” I don’t know.
I thought that God didn’t always use good judgment in the way He ran things. If Mama or Grandma Browning or Grandma Erhardt were running the world, they would never entrust a baby to a big bird.
“After school is out, I think I’ll take Lark and go stay with Betty until the baby comes,” Mama said.
“Can’t your mother go?” Papa wanted to know.
“With her broken ankle?”
“I forgot.”
I was excited at the prospect of going with Mama to Aunt Betty’s. For one thing, I would not have to worry about my fingernails and the cemetery while I was away. How many Mondays would we be gone? I wondered. Already I feared next Monday. I had been sore on my bottom all day at school. At recess I stayed away from the slide and even the swings.
Biting my nails was “a nasty, unattractive habit.” I was willing to admit that. And it ruined the appearance of my hands. I could see that that was true. I yearned for long, shapely nails like the ladies in magazines had. Mama had said she would paint them with pale pink polish if I let them grow. I dreamed of resting my chin on the palm of a hand with long pink nails and having strangers remark to Mama, “Your little girl has beautiful hands, such long nails. She should be in a magazine.”
I couldn’t figure out why I bit my nails. I did it without thinking. Suddenly I would find my fingers in my mouth and not know how they came to be there. Papa found this hard to believe.
Papa wanted girls and ladies to be pretty and obedient and holy. That didn’t sound unreasonable, even if it was impossible. I got down from the crib and tiptoed to Mama’s bureau for a handkerchief. In the mirror I caught sight of my face, puffy and red from crying. My mousy hair hung in defeated remnants of what had early in the day been curls. I looked like one of Cinderella’s
“When’s that?”
“Around the first of July. I worry about her in that little burg, with the doctor twenty miles away. She’s not a kid.”
Aunt Betty was Mama’s older sister. She lived a hundred miles away in Morgan Lake with her husband, Stan Weller, who traveled for a farm implement company. Last Christmas at Grandma Browning’s in Blue Lake, Aunt Betty and Uncle Stan had told everybody that they were expecting a baby.
“It’s about time,” Grandma Browning had declared happily. Aunt Betty and Uncle Stan had been married eight years, and Grandma thought they should have had a baby by now.
“It isn’t as if we haven’t tried,” Aunt Betty had told Grandma, smiling and acting embarrassed. Everyone laughed. I laughed, too, but I didn’t know why.
There was a lot about having babies that I didn’t know. For instance, if the stork brought the baby from heaven, why did the woman get fat and sick? Cynthia Eggers in Mama’s bridge club had had a baby a couple of years ago. Although I’d only been four, I remembered it very well because it left so many questions unanswered, questions I pondered again and again at nap time, lying in the crib listening to the sparrows in the parking lot, or at bedtime after my prayers.
I had asked Mama questions at the time, but the answers led me into wider circles of mystification. “How come Mrs. Eggers is fat?” She’s going to have a baby. “Where does the baby come from?” God. “But how does God get the baby to Mrs. Eggers?” The stork flies down from heaven with the baby. “What’s a stork?” A big bird. “How does he carry the baby?” The baby is wrapped in a blanket, and the stork holds the blanket in his bill. “Don’t a lot of babies fall and get killed?” No, I never heard of one falling. “Howcome you have to go to the hospital to get the baby?” Because the baby is tiny and helpless, and the hospital is a safe place to keep it for a few days until it’s stronger and used to being on Earth. “Why doesn’t God keep the baby in heaven until it’s stronger?” I don’t know.
I thought that God didn’t always use good judgment in the way He ran things. If Mama or Grandma Browning or Grandma Erhardt were running the world, they would never entrust a baby to a big bird.
“After school is out, I think I’ll take Lark and go stay with Betty until the baby comes,” Mama said.
“Can’t your mother go?” Papa wanted to know.
“With her broken ankle?”
“I forgot.”
I was excited at the prospect of going with Mama to Aunt Betty’s. For one thing, I would not have to worry about my fingernails and the cemetery while I was away. How many Mondays would we be gone? I wondered. Already I feared next Monday. I had been sore on my bottom all day at school. At recess I stayed away from the slide and even the swings.
Biting my nails was “a nasty, unattractive habit.” I was willing to admit that. And it ruined the appearance of my hands. I could see that that was true. I yearned for long, shapely nails like the ladies in magazines had. Mama had said she would paint them with pale pink polish if I let them grow. I dreamed of resting my chin on the palm of a hand with long pink nails and having strangers remark to Mama, “Your little girl has beautiful hands, such long nails. She should be in a magazine.”
I couldn’t figure out why I bit my nails. I did it without thinking. Suddenly I would find my fingers in my mouth and not know how they came to be there. Papa found this hard to believe.
Papa wanted girls and ladies to be pretty and obedient and holy. That didn’t sound unreasonable, even if it was impossible. I got down from the crib and tiptoed to Mama’s bureau for a handkerchief. In the mirror I caught sight of my face, puffy and red from crying. My mousy hair hung in defeated remnants of what had early in the day been curls. I looked like one of Cinderella’s
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