Cutler 05 - Darkest Hour

a piece of cheese under the plate," she said, winking.
    I shook my head.
    "If Papa says only bread and water, that's all I'm to have. I'm doing penance," I told Vera. My voice was unfamiliar, even to me. It seemed to come from another me, a smaller Lillian living within a bigger one. "I am a sinner; I am a curse."
    "Oh no you're not, dear."
    "I am a Jonah, a Jezebel." I took out the piece of cheese and handed it back to her.
    "Poor thing," she muttered, shaking her head. She took the cheese and left me.
    I drank my water and nibbled on my bread and then went to my knees and recited the Fifty-first Psalm. I repeated it until my throat ached. It grew darker so I lay down and tried to sleep, but shortly afterward, the door opened and Papa entered. He turned on my lamps and I looked to the doorway to see he had been followed by an elderly woman from Upland Station I recognized to be Mrs. Coons. She was a midwife who had delivered dozens and dozens of babies in her time and still did so even though some said she was close to ninety.
    She had very thin gray hair, so thin a good part of her scalp was visible. Over her lips, a dark line of gray hair had emerged and looked as distinct as a man's mustache. Her face was thin with a long, narrow nose and sunken cheeks, but her dark eyes remained big, even looking bigger because of the way her cheeks had sunken and the bone of her forehead protruded against her paper-thin, wrinkled and spotted pale skin. Her lips were as slim as pencils, but dull pink.
    She was a small woman, not much taller than a young girl, with very bony arms and bony hands. It was hard to believe she ever had the strength to urge a baby into this world and certainly much harder to believe she could do it now.
    "There she is," Papa said, nodding at me. "Go to it."
    I cowered back in my bed as Mrs. Coons approached, her small, bony shoulders turned down, her head tilted toward me. Her eyes narrowed, but her gaze was piercing. She scrutinized my face and then nodded.
    "Maybe so," she said. "Maybe so."
    "You let Mrs. Coons look you over," Papa ordered. "What do you mean, Papa?"
    "She's gonna tell me what went on here last night," he said. My eyes widened. I shook my head.
    "No, Papa. I didn't do anything bad. Really, I didn't."
    "You don't expect any of us to believe you now, do you, Lillian?" he asked. "Don't make this harder for everyone," he advised. "If I have to, I'll hold you down," he threatened.
    "What are you going to do, Papa?" I looked at Mrs. Coons and my heart began to pound because I knew the answer. "Please, Papa," I moaned. My tears came quickly, hot, burning tears. "Please," I begged.
    "Do as she says," Papa ordered.
    "Pull up your skirt," Mrs. Coons demanded. She was missing most of her teeth and those that remained were dark gray. Her tongue flickered in between them. It looked moist brown, like a piece of rotting wood.
    "Do it!" Papa snapped.
    My shoulders shaking with my sobs, I raised my skirt to my waist.
    "You can look away," Mrs. Coons said to Papa. I felt her fingers, fingers as cold and as hard as spikes, take hold of my panties and her nails scratch my skin as she drew them down over my knees and down my ankles. "Raise your knees up," she said.
    I thought the breath had gone out of me. I gasped and gasped. It made me dizzy. Her hands were on my knees, pulling them up and pulling my legs apart. I looked away, but nothing helped. The indignity was carried out. It was painful and I screamed. I must have fainted for a moment, too, because when I opened my eyes, Mrs. Coons was at the door with Papa, assuring him I had not given away my innocence. After he and she left, I lay there sobbing until my eyes were dry and my throat ached. Then I pulled up my panties and swung my feet over the bed.
    Just as I started to stand, Papa returned, followed by Emily. He was carrying a big chest and she had one of her plain, sackcloth dresses folded in her arms. He put down the chest and gazed at me, his eyes still full of anger.
    "People are coming from every corner of the county to that boy's funeral," he said. "Our name is on everyone's lips, no thanks to you. Maybe I got Satan's child in my house, but I don't have to make her a home." He nodded at Emily who went to my closet and began pulling my nice clothes off the hangers. She piled them without regard at her feet, throwing down my silk blouses, my pretty skirts and dresses, all the things Mamma had taken great care to have made and bought for