“Mean as a wet cat.” Major said it with a warm smile. The combination of words versus his tone made her stomach wobble. He had been good during the labor, working wordlessly, boiling cloth, fetching water, and squeezing Lessie Mae’s hand with patience.
It was an unbearable competence.
I did what Spelman Seminary had trained me to do: I stayed clean, calm, capable. I counted contractions, watched breath patterns, adjusted angles. It was one part science and two parts guts and heart.
And then, blessedly, it happened.
The baby, a slippery, wailing little miracle, emerged without ceremony or apology. Thank goodness, it lacked Lessie’s talent for unnecessary dramatics. It screamed like it had already formed opinions about the world, and, if I’m honest, I respected that.
I wrapped it with one of the cloths from Major’s pile and placed the bundle into Lessie’s arms.
She blinked, eyes glassy with exhaustion, and then, with more pride than I’d seen from a queen in full regalia, she declared:
“Ferdinand Karol Montgomery.”
I froze.
“Karol?” I asked, like I’d misheard or perhaps hallucinated it under pressure.
She looked at me. Smirked. “Karol. With aK.”
My chest felt suddenly, ridiculously tight.
Major, standing beside me with a bowl of now-cold water, glanced over and said nothing. Just smiled in that solid way of his.
And I… I just patted the baby’s head, cleared my throat, and said,“Well. At least he has impeccable taste in aunties.”
I had delivered ababyin a fort held together by termite spit, and now there was a child with a name suspiciously close to my own to prove it. My eyes misted over slightly.
My name would mean something again, I had declared to myself. And so it did.
Major caught my eye, caught my wobbling chin, and his gaze wasn’t full of amusement or challenge for once. Just quiet understanding.
There were too many small moments. The way he caught things before they fell. The way he knew when to pass me something before I asked. The way he had wordlessly handed me his own coffee ration after I spent the morning delivering a baby.
I looked away.
“You hold babies like you hold books,” Major said, lighting a gas lantern. “Like they got chapters in ’em.”
I turned, finally meeting Major’s gaze in the flickering glow of the gas lantern.
“And you hold them like a pro. You probably have a wife in every territory.”
“No wives, no young’uns, either. Just the son of a midwife.”
“So that’s why you’re so insufferably good at everything,” I murmured.
Major tilted his head, considering me. “You say that like it’s a flaw.”
“Itisa flaw,” I shot back, smoothing the creases in my skirts with precise, practiced fingers. “Competence is an invitation. It means people will ask things of you. Expect things of you. You can’t just be good at somethingonetime.” I glanced down at the baby, now sleeping soundly against Lessie Mae’s chest. “Look at me. I deliveredonechild, and if it gets out, I’m going to be sawing off legs in a second civil war.”
Major chuckled, a rich, warm sound that ran straight through me. Tickled something buried. My pulse tripped over itself trying to catch up.
“You’ll do it if you’re asked, though, won’t you? I told you before that I seen you,” he said, and I wondered where he had gotten the straw between his teeth or why I was all of a sudden focused on his mouth.
I only sniffed. “Well, I see you, too.”
He turned, brow lifted in amusement. “Do you now? ’Cause from where I was sitting, you’ve spent this whole wagon ride trying not to. What do you suddenly see?” he pressed, teasing but not unkind.
