Page 14 of The Frozen River

I keep up with the journals because I enjoy it, but also because it is my job. One of the duties of my profession. As a midwife and healer, I am witness to the details of my neighbors’ private lives, along with their fears and secrets, and—when appropriate—I record them for safekeeping. Memory is a wicked thing that warps and twists. But paper and ink receive the truth without emotion, and they read it back without partiality. That, I believe, is why so few women are taught to read and write. God only knows what they would do with the power of pen and ink at their disposal. I am not God—nor do I desire to be—but, being privy to much of what goes on behind closed doors in this town, I have a rather good idea what secrets might be recorded, then later revealed, if more women took up the pen.

I suspect that I will need to remember the events of this morning, so I reach for quill and ink.

The journal is spread open to yesterday’s entry. As is my habit, I began with the weather, but left the rest of the entry blank so that I might fill it in later:

Wednesday, November 25—Clear and cold. The ice runs in the river.

I break off a piece of ink cake and mix it with water in a small silver dish, the bottom of which is stamped with an image of a man astride a horse. Below it are engraved the words PAUL REVERE SILVER, BOSTON. Another gift from Ephraim. Another bit of extravagance, though this one rather personal. My husband and Mr. Revere formed a friendship of sorts during the Revolution, and the silversmith has never forgotten him as a result.

I dip the quill, tap it twice on the edge of the dish to knock off the excess ink, and continue the entry:

Cyrus, Jonathan, Hannah, and Dolly attended a Frolic at the home of May Kimble. Got home late. Then Jonathan set out for Long Reach, with a raft of boards. Sam Dawin and James Wall with him.

I lift the quill from the page, pausing. The room is no longer cold, so I can’t account for the shiver that crawls up my spine.

It’s only that fox, I think, and look out the window to where I last saw the little beast. She is long gone, and daylight has chased all the menacing shadows from the woods, but I still feel something looming in the distance, a portent of some kind.

“Don’t be a fool, Martha Ballard,” I mutter, then lower both eyes and quill. Before long the gentle scratching continues.

Thursday, November 26—Clear and very cold. Birth. Charles Clark’s third daughter.—I was called by Mr. Cowan to attend Betsy Clark who was in travail, at the second hour this morning. She was safe delivered of a daughter (her third child, all daughters) at the fourth hour. I left her cleverly and was conducted to Mr. Pollard’s. I am informed that Jonathan and others were attempting to go down with a raft and were enclosed by the ice at Bumberhook Point. The ice makes very fast. Sam Dawin fell through as he was attempting to go to shore but was saved….

My hand hovers above the page, and I am about to record the death of Joshua Burgess, but something scratches at the back of my mind, like a tiny itch that I can’t reach, so I flip backward in the diary, searching for an entry that I made last month.

There are no page numbers in my book, but that never stops me from finding an old entry when I need to. The thing about setting ink to paper is that it allows me to remember which side I’ve written on and where along the page an entry lies. I remember ink blots and words I have struck through. Errors and misspellings. Even now, I can see the entry in my mind, see that the top left corner of the page has been torn off and that there is a smudge in the margin. Recalling those details, it is easy enough to locate.

Thursday, October 1—Clear except some showers. We had company this afternoon. Mr. Savage here, informs us that Mrs. Foster has sworn a rape on a number of men, among whom is Joseph North. Shocking indeed! I have been at home.

Oh God, I think, sitting upright on my stool. I have to tell Rebecca before someone else does.

The fact that I refuse to ride sidesaddle or pillion has long since ceased to astonish our neighbors. Such arrangements are neither practical nor timely given how often I am summoned to one emergency or another. There is no use in being ladylike when lives depend on my speedy arrival. Once I have changed back into my riding outfit—a brushed twill skirt with two rows of buttons that, depending on how they are configured, can transform the garment into wide-leg trousers—I go to the barn to saddle Brutus.

Cyrus is there.

For a moment I think it’s Ephraim—so alike are they from behind—and then he turns, and I see the beard.

He catches sight of me in his periphery and startles. But in the time it takes me to blink, his unease is replaced by a quick smile that reaches all the way to his hazel eyes. Then he winces and I see the split lip, the bruised eye. Though I know he doesn’t want me to, I gently set my hand to his face and turn it this way and that, inspecting him.

Cyrus rolls his eyes. Sighs. But allows my ministrations. Nothing is broken. No need for stitches. So I let him go, and step back. These grown boys of mine will allow mothering only in small doses.

“When did you get home?” I ask.

He shrugs, as though time is a construct of little interest to him. And perhaps it is. We do not own a clock, but each and every Ballard—myself included—has an instinct for time, a certainty learned by the angle of the sun and the length of shadows. Even in winter. Even with nothing to work by other than heavy cloud cover and opaque light. Time is a thing we feel, and our days are ordered accordingly.

Brutus hangs his head over the stall door and snorts as though he knows exactly why I’ve come, as though he is displeased to see me.

“I have to take him out again,” I tell Cyrus, with a frown. “I’m sure he’ll be an ass about it.”

He looks to where Sterling is grazing happily in his stall, placid as always, and I know what he’s thinking.

“No,” I say. “Brutus has to get used to me. And riding him is the only way to make that happen.”

When I move toward the tack room, Cyrus waves me away. I watch my oldest son grab the bridle and lead Brutus from his stall. I watch him methodically saddle my horse, testing the buckles exactly the way his father taught him. This is a new thing, his desire to coddle me, to protect. I find it irritating and intrusive. He is beginning to think of me as old.

As soon as Brutus is ready, I take the reins.

“I know what happened at the Frolic.” Those beautiful hazel eyes narrow. He is wary. “And now Joshua Burgess is dead. Jonathan and Sam found him in the river this morning.”

Cyrus stumbles backward as though I’ve slapped him. He lifts his hands, palms out, as though to say he had nothing to do with that.