The House of Closed Doors by Jane Steen

crazy. I remember asking her why Papa couldn’t go into the bedroom to be with Mama; Bet laughed and said that it was women’s work. And then later when the doctor came I argued that he was a man, but by that time nobody was listening to me.”
    I lapsed into silence, remembering my tall father with his flame of red hair bursting into the kitchen where I sat playing with an abacus. He swept me up into his arms to pace with him, up and down the room, until Bet firmly told him that he would make me dizzy.
    He had swung me back down into my chair and taken a seat by the fire, staring at the ceiling where I could hear muffled noises. Outside the snow was swirling; it was almost Christmas, and I had made a line of little snowmen to represent Mama, Papa, myself, Bet, and Daisy. I put an acorn that I’d kept from the fall into one snowman’s arms to be the baby. I did not like our maid, so I left her out of our little snow family. Daisy was bossy, so I made her snowman crooked.
    “Why is baby taking so long to be born?” I asked Papa.
    “Babies take a long time to come, Nellie,” he said, his eyes crinkling.
    I yawned. I had woken up before dawn with the sound of the midwife arriving, and it was now five o’clock. I hoped I would be able to kiss the baby before I went to bed that night.
    The evening dragged on, and the mood of the house changed. Bet was frequently absent from the kitchen, and the maid with her; Daisy played with me but darted out into the hallway whenever she heard footsteps on the stairs. I suppose I fell asleep on the kitchen floor, and Daisy took me to bed; the cold sheets woke me, and I had only just started to drift back to sleep when the screaming started.
    “Nobody came to see if I was asleep,” I told Mrs. Lombardi. “I expect they all thought I was, but I sat up listening, hugging my doll and sucking my thumb until it was red raw. The screaming got worse and worse, and there were voices and feet rushing up and down the stairs and from one room to another. I could hear my father’s voice, frantic to be let into the bedroom, but the doctor shouted at him that he could do no good, they were doing all they could to save my mother.”
    “Was the baby dead?” asked Mrs. Lombardi.
    “I don’t know if he was already dead, or if he died after he was born. By the time the screaming stopped, I was hiding under the bed with my fingers in my ears, trying not to hear any more. I must have spent most of the night that way, and I think I fell asleep eventually. I remember Bet coming into my room and looking for me and scolding and kissing and hugging me all at once when she found me under the bed. And the house was quiet, and it was morning.”
    “And then?”
    “And then after breakfast my father came to me and told me that my little brother was dead and that my mother was very ill. He had been crying; oh, Mrs. Lombardi, I had never seen him look like that before. The doctor left, and the undertaker came to take my little brother’s body; I was never allowed to see him, not even to kiss him goodbye. Bet told me years later that it was better that way, but she wouldn’t ever tell me why.”
    Mrs. Lombardi’s face wore an expression of deep sympathy. “Poor little thing,” she murmured, and I didn’t know if she meant me or my dead baby brother.
    I drew a deep breath, preparing to tell the next part of my tale. A few snowflakes drifted against the pale blue sky, and the room was silent save for Sarah’s soft breathing.
    “Bet said that Mama seemed to improve a little in the first hours after the birth, but then she became much weaker. By that time it was afternoon. My father decided to go fetch the doctor again and left on foot because the quickest way to the doctor’s house was by a narrow path through the woods, which was not suitable for a horse.”
    The very last time I saw my father he was shrugging into his warmest jacket, pulling on his thick boots and sheepskin mittens, and reaching for