lost control of her bladder, when that wasn’t it at all.
“Go on, now, thanks.” She slammed the cab door. But she heard him hollering from inside.
“Ma’am, your purse. Here. No, no, that’s OK, you already give me plenty money.”
The truck wouldn’t move on. She cut across the ditch, hurriedly, and climbed up into the high grass on the other side, and passed into the dense bank of trees, into the soft relentless chorus of the tree frogs. Up ahead she saw light, and she moved towards it, at last hearing the sound of the truck drive away and vanish within seconds in the silence.
“I’m finding a place, Emaleth, a soft dry place. Be quiet, and be patient.”
Mother, I cannot. I must come out.
She had come through the trees into a clearing. The lights she’d seen lay way far away to the right. She did not care about them. It was the great grassy place that lay ahead, and a beautiful oak, immense in size and leaning tragically on its long arms as if reaching out to the woods beyond in a futile effort to join with it.
The oak broke her heart suddenly, its giant knuckled branches, its great sweeps of dark moss, and in the soft glowing starry night, the sky was so bright behind it.
It’s beautiful, please, Emaleth. Emaleth, if I die, go to Michael. Once again, she registered the vision of Michael’s face, the numbers of the house, numbers of the phone—data for the tiny mind inside her, which knew what she knew.
Mother, I cannot be born if you die. Mother, I need you. I need Father.
The tree was so distinct, massive and graceful. Some lovely vision came to her of the forests of olden times when trees like this must have been the temples. She saw a green field, hills covered with forest.
Donnelaith, Mother. Father said I was to go to Donnelaith, that we were to meet there.
“No, darling,” she said aloud, reaching out for the trunk of the tree and then falling against its dark, good-smelling rough surface. Like stone it felt, no hint that it was alive, not here at the craggy base where the roots were like rocks, only up and out there where the small branches moved in the wind. “Go to Michael, Emaleth. Tell him everything. Go to Michael.”
It hurts, Mother, it hurts.
“Remember, Emaleth, go to Michael.”
Mother, do not die. You must help me be born. You must give me your eyes and the milk, lest I be small and useless.
She wandered out from the trunk, to where the grass was soft and silken under her feet, between a pair of the great sprawling elbow branches.
Dark and sweet here.
I’m going to die, darling.
No, Mother. I’m coming now. Help me!
It was dark and sweet here, with heaps of leaves and moss like a bower. She lay on her back, her body pulsing with one shock of pain after another. Moss above, soft moss hanging down, and the moon snagged up there, and so beautiful.
She felt the fluid gush, warm against her thighs, and then the worst of the pain, and something soft and wet stroking her. She lifted her own hand, unable to coordinate, unable to reach down.
Dear God, was the child reaching out from the womb? Was the child’s hand against her thigh? The darkness above closed in as if the branches had closed, and then the moon shone bright again, making the moss gray for an instant. She let her head roll to the side. Stars falling down in the purple sky. This is heaven.
“I made an error, a terrible terrible error,” she said. “The sin was vanity. Tell Michael this.”
The pain widened; she knew the causes of this, the mouth of the womb wrenched open. She screamed, she couldn’t help it, and she felt nothing but the pain grow worse and worse and then suddenly it stopped. Slipping back into ache and sickness, she struggled to see the branches again, struggled to lift her hands to help Emaleth, but she could not do it.
A great warm heaviness lay on her thighs. It lay on her belly. She felt the warm wet touch on her breast.
“Mother, help me!”
In the vague sweet darkness, she saw the small head rising above her, like the head of nun, its long wet hair so sleek, like a nun’s veil, the head rising and rising.
“Mother, see me. Help me! Lest I be small and useless!”
The face loomed above hers, the great blue eyes peering down into