P.S. Junia still misses you terrible and searches for you everywhere. Sometimes the ol’ girl stops at the clearing of the boarded-up chapel. She whimpers and just makes an awful racket bawling for you. I offer her oat cookies—but no help there. Then I started toting Pennie to the outpost with us on Tuesdays. The sweet cat seems to calm her now.
“Smart kid, and that’s a sure-footed beast she has there for her route,” Waldeen said.
“Thank you for watching over our Honey, sweet Junia,” I whispered, aching to return my daughter to the days of childhood filled with daisy chains, water-worn skipping stones, and the fairy paths of our breathing forest.
Cherishing the news, I pressed a kiss onto her signature.
My first letter from Honey, and holding the actual paper was like holding a hug from her—a homecoming that lit joy in my heart. I folded the treasure carefully and placed it inside my pocket to store in my footlocker later.
“Sweet William’s daughter all grown up,” Waldeen reminisced, then sniffled, smoothed back her hair, and swiped a dishrag across the clean counter.
I reached for the kitchen ledger, flipping the pages, scanning the budget. “Let me check this one more time for you.”
“Eat up, kid,” Waldeen said. “We’re celebrating your good news. Not everyone can become prison librarian.” She rested her elbows on the long metal counter in front of me, propping her chin up on both hands, folds of skin plumbed into pleated stenches of spent lard, five-day-old cooked meats, soured milk, and stale cigarette smoke hovering between us.
“Your favorite. I froze some back in the spring and found ’em while I was cleaning out the freezer.” Waldeen smacked ather apron and then shoved the dish of strawberries and cream closer as I pushed the new kitchen budget toward her. “Eat,” she ordered. “You’ve been looking a bit peaked.”
Suddenly, shadows circled my brain. My belly gurgled a warning, and a slight dizziness swept over me. I blinked and looked away and then stared down at the bowl, trying to murmur my gratitude. The words fizzled down, then rose, ballooning in my throat. Gagging, I jumped up and ran to the washroom to relieve myself.
When I’d finished, I opened the door. Waldeen stood there, blocking me with a hand on her hip. She took a deep drag off her cigarette, then blew it out, sending me reeling back to the toilet.
Heaving again, I grabbed the bowl as the old woman swept up my hair and held it and soothed words above me. “Get it out. That’s it, kid. You’re fine.Fine.”
Swiping a fist across my mouth, I raised my head and stood.
Waldeen was quiet for a moment. Then: “How long ya been knocked up, kid?”
At the sink, I splashed cool water on my cheeks and forehead and met her worried eyes. My embarrassment spread and set me afire, coloring every inch, and I grabbed a tea towel to blot dry my damp face.
“A few months, by the way I tell it,” Waldeen said quietly.
“No, it’s impossible,” I bit. “I was sterilized here in early March.” But still I turned over the thought. Wondered what it would be like having Jackson’s baby.
“No.No, Cussy. You were drugged clean out of your head. They couldn’t sterilize ya until theystabilizedya,” Waldeen corrected. “And Dr. Kennedy’s the only one who performs abortions and sterilizes. He’s assigned in western and southern Kentucky until late summer and then makes his way here. I know because I’ve logged his visits for years. He requests special dishes when he comes.”
The nausea rose with Waldeen’s uncertainty.Sterilize. Stabilize.The words tangled across my mind, bumping into the fear.
I had little recollection of my time in the infirmary. But I’d told my doc they had done it. That was when he arranged for me to be transported to the city hospital. But Doc didn’t perform a personal exam. He’d only checked my vitals and ordered rest while he fought with prison medical to stop testing me.
Growing more confused, I could only wag my head. Then: “I recall a while back Warden saying,There’s still the matter of your appointment with Dr. Kennedy this summer.We’ll have to take care of that.” I thought harder. “I didn’t understand then. But she was talking about the sterilization?”
Waldeen scowled. “Lying, sorry bastards.”
“I came in early March, right after—” I pressed a hand to my belly and slid down the wall, dumbfounded.
“When was your last monthly, kid?” She hovered over me.
“I—I’m not sure if I had one in the infirmary, but…” I ticked off the numbers, visiting the months and days since I’d arrived. “I haven’t had one.Not one, Waldeen. I must be childing. Sure enough, and what Mama and the elders back home had called it,” I said, dumbfounded. “Finally, the baby we’ve been waiting for.”
Still, Waldeen looked at me carefully, as if worried about something more.
“Do ya know when you might have conceived?”
I felt my face warm.
“The first day a woman comes in, they do a pregnancy test, Cussy. Do ya remember this?”
“I don’t recall. They did a lot of things. Took samples of my urine, skin, and blood, but—”
