Page from a Tennessee Journal (AmazonEncore Edition)

warning, really. But, there had been the weight. She reckoned she had put on fifty pounds. She stared at Tillie’s midsection. Sitting out front like a watermelon, the baby didn’t seem to take up much more than twenty pounds. Maybe it had been Eula’s extra weight.
    “Did you speak to your momma or Wiley George?”
    “I told Momma, and she says pains are natural.” Tillie blushed and looked down at the floor. “’Course, I didn’t tell Wiley George. But, Aunt Eula, I don’t think pains are natural. If I don’t eat me some starch, I could lose this baby.” Tillie’s wide-opened eyes stared at her.
    “Hush, girl. You’re not about to lose Wiley George’s baby.” At this moment, it was 1893 and Eula was a twenty-two-year-old mother-to-be. She closed her eyes to gather strength before she gave Tillie a reassuring nod.
    “But, how do I know that? Did you know that your baby was gonna be born dead?” Tillie’s hand flew to her mouth almost before the words squeaked out. “Aunt Eula, I didn’t mean it. It’s just that I’m so worried.”
    Moving like a woman twice her age, Eula’s leaden feet dragged across the floor to the other side of the table and Tillie. She pressed the girl’s head against her chest.
    “No, I didn’t have no warning that the baby wasn’t going to live.” Eula clung to Tillie. Her disembodied hand stroked Tillie’s hair. “I didn’t have no pains and my breathing came easy.”
    “I know you did all you could to have Uncle Alex’s baby.” Tillie hung on so tight that Eula couldn’t catch her breath.
    “That was twenty years ago.” Eula fought one hand free and reached for the back of the chair to steady herself.
    “I know Uncle Alex don’t hold it against you. Even Momma says he don’t.” Tears spilled. “Twenty years? Didn’t you and Uncle Alex try to have another baby?”
    An eerie silence draped over Eula’s kitchen as the sadness that she could never fully lock away—those precious moments waiting for her baby to take that first breath that never came—pushed out.
    “Of course we did, sugar. The good Lord just didn’t see fit to send us another.” Eula dropped to the chair. She reached for her niece’s hand. “I’ll ask Alex to speak to Wiley George. He’ll hire on your own girl.”
    After those first months, she and Alex had never mentioned the baby again. Even the cradle her husband had fashioned himself was covered with heavy burlap and stashed in the back of the pantry. She’d never before asked a real favor of Alex, but she knew that at the mention of a baby, he would do what she asked. She patted Tillie’s hand. “By March, you will have you a fine, healthy child.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
     
    “You can’t go to school today.” Annalaura stirred the egg in the cast-iron skillet with one of the new forks Alex had given her.
    Declaring it done, she reached for the bread she had already sliced and covered with two strips of bacon. Hurriedly, she slid the scrambled egg onto the bread and reached for a second piece to lay on top. She paid scant attention to Cleveland sitting on the edge of his mattress, rustling the corn husks as he rocked on his bed in his little alcove.
    “Why not, Momma? You’re makin’ lunch for Doug. You’re lettin’ him go to school today. Why can’t I? You know my leg is as good as new.” The petulance that should have shadowed her eldest boy’s voice was absent—replaced with a knowing resignation.
    Annalaura wrapped the sandwich in butcher paper and placed it in the pocket of Doug’s oversize hand-me-down, but serviceable, corduroy coat. Sitting on one of their two new kitchen chairs, Doug finished lacing up his winter boots. With her mind refining every word of the pleas she was going to have to make, she barely noticed any of her children.
    “’Cause I said so, that’s all.” Her voice snapped in the frosty air.
    The silence from Cleveland’s corner, when there should have been great protest, finally pushed aside her carefully practiced speech. She turned toward her boy. A sudden shaft of remorse brought her up short.
    “’Sides, I need you to look after Lottie and Henry. You can go to school tomorrow.” Cleveland sat in his nightshirt watching Doug slip into his new jacket. The middle boy patted the pocket where Laura had put his dinner as he bounded across the floor toward the ladder.
    “You goin’ somewhere, Momma?” Cleveland asked, moving to his feet to grab Henry’s arm as the youngster