The Smell of Other People's Hou - Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock Page 0,57

I’ll have to get used to not knowing anything about my baby.

It’s obvious now why all these couples keep visiting, but why can’t they just tell me? It feels exactly like Gran ignoring me for months and then one day putting me on a bus.

Sister Josephine has entered the study. She and the abbess are talking so quietly, I have to lean closer to the window to hear.

“I don’t know, they seem a bit young,” Mother Superior says.

“Well, they are married, and certainly older than Ruth,” says Sister Josephine.

“I just wonder…he did seem keen on hunting. What if it is a girl?”

“I’m not sure that’s grounds for being a bad parent,” says Sister Josephine. “Things are changing, Mother; I think girls can hunt. No disrespect, but you’re from a few generations back.”

The abbess laughs quietly. “You know, Sister Josephine, maybe I’m not the one who should be making this decision. What experience do I have besides Marguerite, and now Ruth? She wanted me to give Ruth those flowers, but did you notice she had them in a whiskey bottle? Heavens, if that’s something this generation thinks is appropriate, then I am truly outdated.”

At these words I jump to my feet, or try to. I struggle and pull myself up along the wall. Then, as fast as my body will let me move, I run out to the parking area, just in time to see the lime-green car backing out.

“Stop!”

The man slams on the brakes, looking in his rearview mirror at me standing right behind his car. I am soaking wet, my dress clinging to my round belly, my hair sopping. I must look terrifying.

But the man opens the door and walks around the car. “Are you all right?” he asks me in the kindest voice ever. It reminds me of George back in the Salvation Army, except that this man has steel-blue eyes and a ginger beard. The woman is out of the car now, too, still holding the glass bottle full of bluebells. I stare at the whiskey bottle and feel like I am five years old again; the smell of my parents’ house wraps around me as if someone has put a blanket over my wet, wet shoulders. Her hair looks so much like my mother’s, after my father twirled his bloody fingers in it and they danced in the kitchen.

“What’s your favorite kind of venison?” I hear myself say to the man, who is looking at me the way I’m sure he looks at a deer in the forest. Hesitantly, no sudden movements, so it doesn’t bolt and run away. If he thinks the question is odd, he doesn’t show it.

“I like the shoulder cut,” he says. “But it has to cook all day or it’s too tough.”

I must look disappointed, because the woman touches his arm lightly and says, “I like backstrap. Everyone knows backstrap is the best cut.”

She smiles—a genuine smile.

“Are those flowers really for me?” I ask her.

“They are,” she says. Her eyes take in my round stomach, bobbing like a buoy under my wet dress.

She hands me the bottle and it feels heavier than it looks, as if it holds every wildflower bouquet I have missed since my mother left.

I remember Dumpling’s voice saying, “Sometimes you just have to hold on to whatever you can,” and me saying to Hank, “You mean, like something to look forward to?”

“Would you really love my baby?” I ask her.

“With all my heart,” she says. “And you, for trusting me.”

I stare at the wildflowers spilling out of the whiskey bottle vase, and I know that these are the people that should raise my baby.

I reach inside my pocket for the other half of the red ribbon. I’ve cut it just like Dumpling told me to.

“Will you give this to my baby?” I hold it out to the woman, who takes it gingerly, like it’s the most fragile, beautiful thing she’s ever held.

I don’t know how long the nuns have been standing outside watching us, their habits getting drenched in the rain. The abbess comes over then and really does place a blanket over my shoulders.

“You don’t have to make any decisions,” she tells me.

“No,” I say, “I do. It’s my life. It’s my baby. And I want to know that both of us have something good to look forward to.”

Right then Sister Agnes surprises us by bursting into tears and fleeing back into the kitchen. Sister Josephine and Sister Bernadette look at me and shake their heads,