Page from a Tennessee Journal (AmazonEncore Edition)

to escape a glance of the top of the child’s head.
    “She don’t look no different there than anywhere else.” Alex shot her a puzzled look.
    Of all the pains that had ravaged her body in the last hours, this one hurt her heart the most. Alex reached around for one of the unused cloths and wrapped it around the squirming, squalling infant.
    “This ain’t warm enough.” He looked for another clean drying rag, found none, and grabbed an unsoiled corner of the bedcover.
    The baby’s cries settled into soft little mews. Carefully, Alex stood, holding the infant in his arms, trailing the end of the cover behind him. He walked to the safe and returned with a Mason jar. He handed it to Annalaura.
    “Take a sip of this.” He sat down beside her with the baby still in his arms.
    Annalaura turned her head as she brought the cup to her lips. She sipped Aunt Becky’s best medicinal whiskey. Its smooth warmth soothed her all the way down to her ravaged insides.
    With one hand Alex took another cloth and finished wiping away the blood between Annalaura’s legs. As he held the baby in the crook of one arm, the color of the infant’s still damp hair registered in Annalaura’s mind. Tuft s of burnished gold covered the child’s head, and Annalaura fought against a fresh wave of misery.
    “She don’t look real. She looks just like a doll.” Tossing the rag on the pile of tousled covers, Alex turned the baby toward her.
    Before she could shout her no, it was too late. Annalaura got a full look at the child she had just delivered.
    “What’re we gonna call her?” Alex looked down at the drowsy infant girl.
    Even with her head still clouded over worse than a winter’s day, Annalaura already knew that she had asked too much of Alex. If he’d been in Becky’s cabin, even little Henry would have seen that the mind tottering on the edge of some unreal place was not Aunt Becky’s. It was Alex’s. What are we going to call her? There could be no “we” when it came to this baby. Not in all of Tennessee had there ever been a “we” for a colored woman’s baby with a white man. Annalaura looked at Alex as he held the child like she was that newborn calf he talked about. He touched her soft and gentle like she was the pure gold the wise men brought to the Baby Jesus. Didn’t he know, didn’t he understand that he could have no parts of this baby? No white man could claim a colored child as his own. What little bit of a mind she had coming back to her, Annalaura had to spend on easing Alex out of the cabin and away from all thoughts of a “we.”
    “Becky say it might be best to let the child stay down county fo’ a bit.” She said it gently.
    “Down county? Why would I want her there? No, my daughter ain’t leavin’ Lawnover.” He snapped his head toward her, his voice carrying a sting in it.
    Annalaura squinted over Alex’s shoulder. How much time ’til daybreak? How much time until John found her and the child? How many more hours until he found Alex and pulled out that pistol? She shut her eyes tight as turmoil roiled up in her chest again. She had to find the strength to bring Alex back to his senses and wash his mind clean of any thought of a “daughter.”
    “Baby’s mine, Alex.” She let the words flow as soft as she could. “It can’t be none of yours.”
    His eyes stayed on her face, and a slow smile started at the corners of his mouth. All the words went out of her head when Alex leaned forward to brush his lips over her cut and bruised mouth.
    “I know she’s mine, Laurie.” The words were low and sure. “I know it more sure than anything. I can feel it all the way here.” He tapped the pocket of his gray shirt. “She’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, and she belongs to me.”
    Annalaura sat stiff on the bed, afraid to move, wondering if he was going to kiss her again.
    “Dolly, I want to call her Dolly.”
    Alex reached to stroke the side of Annalaura’s cheek. She closed her eyes and for a moment breathed in the healing touch of his hand. The soreness melted away quicker than any Cherokee salve Rebecca ever rubbed on her. Annalaura forced her eyes open to stare at the glare from the lamp. She needed its hot, yellow light to remind her that the devil had lost one battle to take her away with him this night. If she couldn’t set her mind on the right road and put away those other thoughts, that red-coated fella was there to remind her that he wasn’t through with