Page 72 of The Frozen River

And they’ve only been married one month.

Tears trickle down her cheeks, and I wipe them away. Then, when I’m sure the girl won’t flinch, I cup May’s face in my hands.

“No baby is conceived apart from the will of God, May. If you are pregnant, it means that you have been touched by Providence, and you will never hear me say an ill word about the child you carry. Nor will I let anyone do so in my presence. Do you understand?”

May nods. Continues crying. I cannot tell if she is afraid or ashamed or simply ill.

The act of mothering is not limited to the bearing of children. This is another thing that I have learned in all my long years of midwifery. Labor may render every woman a novice, but pregnancy renders every woman a child. Scared. Vulnerable. Ill. Exhausted. Frail. A pregnant woman is, in most ways, a helpless woman. Her emotions are erratic. Her body betrays her. Since May Dawin is presently without a mother of her own, I stroke her hair, encourage her to breathe, promise that her stomach will settle. And it does. The wave subsides, and then we are left in the vulnerable aftermath of confession.

I do not make eye contact with May. I do not look at Sam. Instead, I settle my gaze on the crackling fire and I offer them something that I rarely part with: the secrets of our neighbors.

“Every year I deliver children born out of wedlock in this town. You know those names. Most everyone in Hallowell does. They come to court just to hear me say them. Last year there were two. The year before, five. What you do not know is how many of the children I deliver are conceived out of wedlock. Four in ten. An early birth they call it. Premature. And not a one of them underweight. Our Puritan fathers would have us believe that lovemaking rarely happens outside the marriage bed. But I know better than most that it rarely happens—for the first time, at least—within that bed.”

I am astonished to find that Sam is also crying now. He looks as though he wants to pluck May right out of my arms and run away with her. Words can be a gift, but so can silence. And that is the next thing I give to this new family. I rest my cheek against May’s soft brown hair and let the silence settle around us like autumn leaves. I do not stand again until the need for it has dissipated.

“I brought you something,” I tell May. I pick up the bottle. Hand it to her. “It is a syrup of bearberry leaf, cranberry, green tea, and mint. It helps calm infections of the urinary tract. These are common in newlywed women,… a result of… er… overexertion.” I had wondered what it would take to make Sam Dawin blush, and now I know. His cheeks are flaming. “One spoonful morning and night, taken with a glass of water.”

May runs a fingernail over the cork. “Thank you.”

“Now, open your other gift.”

Sam hands the parcel to May and she tears off the paper. The quilt is large, big enough to cover them both, and is made of scraps of fabric that I have gathered and kept over the years for this purpose. Every year I make an extra quilt, sewn in bits and pieces at night before the fire when my other work is done. And every year I choose this same pattern. It is called Wedding Rings, soft loops intertwined and set against a pale background with a solid border. I do this because every year there is a wedding. Sometimes rushed. Sometimes performed according to the standards of our town. Yet each young bride finds herself in a new home and does not know how to make it her home. This, a simple piece of bedding, is the answer. Everyone must sleep, and to do so beneath a warm quilt, tenderly made, is the first thing that helps a house become a home.

Again, there are tears, but happy ones this time.

“I don’t know how to thank you.” May presses the heels of her hands into her eyes.

“You don’t have to.”

I don’t want to overwhelm the young couple any more than I already have, so I say my farewell, then add, “May is lucky to have you, Sam. Do not be overly hard on yourself.”

He and May exchange a look that I cannot decipher, and the reciprocated smile dies on his lips.

BALLARD’S MILL SATURDAY, JANUARY 23

Barnabas Lambard plays the fiddle. I cannot explain why this astonishes me, but it does. He’d seemed a more serious type, I suppose. One does not typically equate a law enforcement officer with being a musician. But those same hands that sent James Wall sprawling to the ground are every bit as nimble with bow and string. He stands on a large stump, in the corner of the mill, sawing his way through a lively rendition of “Soldier’s Joy.”

“I’ve always liked this song,” Ephraim says, bumping his hip against mine. He’s been playing host for the last hour, wandering around the mill, greeting everyone who arrives. “It’s an old Scottish ballad that the pipers and fiddlers would play while soldiers chugged whiskey in preparation for battle.”

“Let’s hope a battle doesn’t break out tonight,” I say as my eyes drift to where Cyrus is spinning Dolly around the dance floor. I have not forgotten what happened at the last Frolic.

Ephraim shrugs. “You know how these things go. It isn’t uncommon for fists to fly toward the end of an evening. After that nasty cider has been passed around for hours.”

“That only happens when one boy thinks another has had more than his fair share of turns around the dance floor with a pretty girl. Were that to happen, I’d put my money on Barnabas. I’ve seen his fists in action.”

“So far Dolly has only danced with her brothers. There’s no reason for him to get jealous just yet.”

There is a cloud of fine, powdered sawdust in the air, kicked up by the swirling, dancing feet of sixty young people as they match the beat of the song. It’s a wonderful kind of chaos, and the mill smells of dust and woodsmoke, joy and sweat, whiskey and apple cider. It also smells of mating. Not sex per se, that is entirely different—though none of the parents here tonight are fool enough to think it couldn’t happen—but mating, that ritual common to all species. The flirting. Posturing. Choosing. Dancing. The occasional kiss, stolen in the dark, hidden from watchful eyes. It all has an ancient smell. Like dark soil and ripe fruit. Like humanity at the most basic, elemental level.

“The world must be peopled!” Benedick so helpfully observed in Much Ado About Nothing. It remains my favorite Shakespeare play for that line alone, though the rest of his monologue about Beatrice’s virtues doesn’t hurt. So it’s no wonder there are fifteen chaperones at the mill tonight, parents gathered along the edges of the room, or sitting in the loft sipping from their own jugs of cider and ale and whiskey, keeping a weather eye on their children below.

When Barnabas grows tired after the fifth song, the dancers take a break. They fill their cups and wander over to the table for a bit of food. John Cowan—the young blacksmith’s apprentice—weaves through the crowd and holds out his hand for the fiddle. He arrived with Catherine Pollard this evening and has been dancing with her since the first song. I look to where Abigail watches him with interest. More refined in her drinking tastes than most, she nurses a mug of mulled wine. It isn’t only John Cowan she’s keeping an eye on tonight, but Moses as well. He didn’t arrive with Hannah given that we’re hosting the dance, but he has stayed close to her side all evening.

“It isn’t easy, is it?” I ask, after making my way to the loft where Abigail leans against the rail.

“What?”

“Keeping your eyes on two at once.”