Page 57 of The Frozen River

“Then allow me the honor.”

Ephraim turned down the bed and left me in privacy to undress. I climbed in, wearing my shift, and expected him to join me, but he wandered through the cabin, blowing out candles. The room filled with the smell of candle smoke, and the only light came from the glowing embers in the hearth. When I heard his clothing falling to the floor, my heart exploded beneath my ribs. There was a weight in the bed beside me. A shifting of air as he lifted the blanket. And then the full length of his body was right there next to mine.

“May I hold you?” he whispered.

“Yes.”

“Come here, then. And let us sleep.”

Ephraim pulled me to his chest and tucked his legs behind mine. If we were vertical, I would be sitting in his lap. But we were not vertical. We were lying in bed, not consummating our marriage. And yet it was the most intimate thing I had ever done.

It was later, as I lay in a stubborn wakefulness, curled against Ephraim’s back for warmth, listening to the slow and even pace of his breathing, that I let my mind wander to all the things we could have done in the dark that evening. I thought about what it would have been like to feel his hands along my body. What places he might have explored with lips and tongue. I thought of a coupling that didn’t involve pain or fear or violence. I thought of myself surrendering to the warm and gentle hands of the man I loved, and my skin grew warm. The desire to roll onto my back and pull him with me was so strong that I could think of nothing else. Instead, I lay there, eyes open, nose pressed against the smooth, warm skin of his back, and I let him take me in thought only.

I was deep in this fantasy when I heard the deep rumble of his voice. “Does it feel good, Martha? What I’m doing to you? In your thoughts?”

I startled and pulled away from him.

“No,” he whispered, reaching back to grab my arm and drape it over his chest again. He placed my hand on his heart and set his own on top. “Don’t stop. I’m certain that whatever it is you’re imagining is something I’m enjoying immensely.”

“I thought you were asleep.”

“I could feel your eyelashes brushing against my back,” he explained. “That’s how I knew you were awake. You were getting warmer by the moment.” Ephraim laughed. “And I cannot help but wonder what you were thinking about us doing in my bed.”

“You said it was my bed.”

“Ah, that it is, love. And when you are ready to have me do in deed what you just had me do in thought, we will find another use for your bed.”

3 A BLIZZARD JANUARY 1790

Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall.

—WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Measure for Measure

FORT WESTERN FRIDAY, JANUARY 1

I spend the first hour of the first morning of this new decade burying a baby. He is dead born. And small. No more than five pounds, and his arrival into this cruel world came well over a month early.

“It seems wrong that he should go into the ground without a name,” Ephraim says.

“She refused to name him. Just as she refused to declare the father.”

He shifts the small, wrapped bundle in his left arm and sets his other hand upon it. “Nathan,” he pronounces.

“Ephraim,” I warn. “We have no right.”

“And who will know?” He looks around. Peers into the dark, cloud-covered sky. The forest. Then those intense blue eyes turn back to me, and I see the lantern light flickering in their depths. Again, he says, “He should not go into the ground without a name.”

I am too tired to argue. My hands are blistered and bloody from digging the hole, and my back aches. “Fine, then. Nathan.”

The grave is deep enough now—over a foot deep and wide—but was a misery to dig, requiring both hatchet and pick. Though Ephraim offered to do it, I’d insisted he stay inside with the family. It is only by luck that he is with me now anyway. The weather turned poor last night, and he was headed to Fort Western as I left. So we’d crossed together, and he met me at the home of the laboring woman once he was done visiting with James Wall.

There was nothing I could do for mother or child. The wee boy was already gone when he whooshed from his mother’s body, and she—terrified and unmarried—had declared nothing, keeping the name of the father secret. She had only cried. Then screamed. Then started to shake. The shaking is normal. Most mothers find themselves unable to stop the trembling after giving birth. But this was different. It came from her core and continued. It was feral and unhinged, and I left the room only when she finally surrendered the tiny body, and her mother took over the vigil. Within moments, the girl fell asleep from sheer exhaustion. She is only eighteen.

Part of my remit, a thing required of me by law to be licensed as a midwife, is to bury a child born dead. Or one that passes while I am present. The requirement is meant to spare the mother this agony, but instead places the hardship directly on the shoulders of the midwife. And in winter—oh God, why must there be such a cruel season?—to shovel away the snow, then hack into the frozen ground, to dig a grave deep enough that any passing wild animal will not interfere. Rocks piled atop are usually needed as well.

In this case, the only possible location was beneath the boughs of a large, sprawling pine. It is the one place where the ground is almost soft enough to dig a grave. Still, it was not easy.

It is now the middle of the night, and I turn to my husband, reaching for the bundle in his arms. He does not hand the baby over immediately. Instead, he looks at the tiny, wrapped, linen parcel, and I see the sorrow pool in his eyes.