Chapter Text
The house, somehow, feels a bit emptier than it had ever before.
Midnight walks aren’t uncommon. Midafternoon walks are hardly out of the ordinary. That was the way they lived when they were first married. (Has it really been three years now?–it’ll be four soon.) Small, empty cottage by the beach held the memories of their young love by the seashore and they were content with that knowledge as they explored the town he’d grown up in and the first place where his wife claimed she felt free.
But the walks aren’t just at night anymore. Nor in the afternoon. They’re all day.
Anthony tells himself not to worry. He tells himself that every moment he tries to put his foot down is another moment with his wife more distressed than usual. She is still alive, she is still eating, isn’t that enough?
The house has been quieter since they found out.
Despite the whimpers he hears escape her throat, despite the headaches she complains of, despite the long nights of rubbing her back, despite all of it–they are frozen.
He tries to think back to when his mother would find out, only to remember that he was either too young or too naive to grasp the entire story. With his youngest brother, he only remembers hearing her bed creak and months later, holding a blanket that held the newborn. As much as he wishes he could, he can’t ask the woman now . If he sat down with her to ask whether she was happy or not with every child, she would get suspicious. She would end up asking more of her questions.
His father isn’t here to ask either. Anthony doesn’t think he would want his advice anyway.
The grass is still slick from yesterday’s snow. It hadn’t lasted more than a few hours, but it reminds all who dare to step on the grass to remember it. If it had come in December, his younger siblings would have been delightedly rolling it into clumps and calling the small statue their friend. In February, snow has become a reminder that God is teasing them with springtime. With his line of work, Anthony can’t say he’ll miss the snow when the months finally roll into April. Perhaps, it will be this spring he can finally get his brother to help him with the pathway he’s been planning on paving since they first rented the cottage. They’ll need a pathway more than ever.
For now, he grits his heels into the soft earth as he makes his way along the inclination to home. Soon enough, he can see lavender curtains hanging in the window. It’s rare his wife doesn’t greet him at the docks.
When she didn’t, he would find her sprawled out on the floor like that.
He tries not to worry as he opens the door.
“Jo? Love? I’m home.”
Scaf falls off his shoulder. Coat is shrugged off. He wanders through their home, peeling off each layer as he calls for his wife, not allowing himself to miss the moments when they would come through that door and she would start removing layers for him. He misses her fingers, as cold as they usually are.
Anthony is nearly tripping over his untied laces when he finds her in their spare bedroom. Their budget doesn’t allow for another bed. Any guests or poor wayfaring souls Anthony finds on the side of the road are satisfied enough with the sofa downstairs. There is only a stack of books, a box full of thread and a single chair–parodying the sewing room or perhaps a library of women richer than them. They hadn’t quite figured out what to do with the room aside from this.
Until recently.
A slow smile spreads over his face as Anthony moves closer to adjust her shawl over body. The hearth downstairs must have gone out hours ago. If he wasn’t afraid of waking Johanna, he would climb into the chair next to her. Hold her in his lap, run his fingers through her hair. She needs her rest.
Perhaps, they can once she’s awake. They’ll fold a blanket or two over themselves downstairs, closer to the fire. He’ll kiss her hairline. She’ll tease him for his fantastical ideas.
They could talk like that. He would wipe away her tears again if that’s what she needs.
Yes, they’ll have a talk. She can feel safe and he will soothe away whatever worries plague her mind.
And perhaps , he can even hint at names for their baby.
Two Weeks Prior
It’s funny, this used to happen a lot more often than it does now.
When she was younger, Johanna completely used to the lack of blood. The sight of any on her drawers would be a surprise that would soon cripple her into spending the day on her side in bed. It hadn’t regularly come for years. Then after she donned the itchy uniform at Fogg’s, there was a lack. A lack that went on for years .
During those years, she couldn’t say she missed it. She doesn’t particularly miss it now. There’s more flesh upon her bone; foolishly, Johanna assumed there wouldn’t be a lack ever again. Not since that cycle returned to haunt her the way orphans feel haunted by their parents: a comforting presence, but a haunting still. Who would miss days of nausea and bouts of depression and having to don dresses that showed less of one’s figure?
It’s strange, though, she has still been awfully nauseous.
And, well, not exactly herself.
Not that she was depressed–no, no, no. Melancholy isn’t her nature anymore. Plymouth and Anthony have turned her into a happier woman-girl than she’s ever been before. It was odd. Not a sadness, not a joy, not exactly an irritation, just a cloud over her. Not quite herself.
Then, the issue of dresses and skirts… She hasn’t felt completely comfortable in some of hers lately.
But that’s just silly. It must be her imagining things. Johanna has grown so used to a feminine cycle by now that she’s making herself believe that’s what she’s undergoing at the moment. Even if there isn’t the most basic symptom of womanhood that comes along with it.
That has to be it.
Or it’s a trick of nature. Forgetting what sight makes her most miserable and sending her with everything else instead.
She knows as well as anyone how unforgiving nature can be.
A trick. That must be it. Nothing more, nothing less.
Besides, Johanna reasons with herself, she isn’t the first woman who's never… just a few months ago, Anthony’s sister Betsy had announced another addition to her little family (a family that isn’t very little anymore). Not all women go through such a thing monthly and they’re perfectly fine.
Sitting next to her now, she feels all-too-aware of her sister-in-law’s swollen belly.
“It’s calmed down now,” Betsy is saying as she cuts her mold through wax. “I’m glad it’s not the same with my Sarah. I wouldn’t even be able to look at lavender without getting sick. This baby’s being good to me.”
“What’s calmed?” Johanna asks, aware she’s awoken late during this conversation.
She’s used to hearing about symptoms related to carrying babies. The first conversation about it she’d heard, she’d paled and made up an excuse to leave the room. To talk about such a delicate situation! Just like that! Over tea! In the judge’s world, a woman that’s obviously showing off the baby inside of her should be kept indoors until her figure has returned to a more appropriate shape for society. Nevertheless, to talk openly about such a thing! Why, no one would ever think of it in that world.
But she’s had to adjust. As long as there were Hope women, there was no lack of bulging stomachs and wailings from infants. The family line was a long and wide one.
Sometimes, what the people of Plymouth are willing to discuss versus what was shut away in London still astonishes her.
“The sickness,” Betsy says. It’s never phased her. She simply passes the cinnamon to her. “That’s one of the first indications I’m having another. No monthly and I’m puking my guts up more than a fish on a boat? I know right at that moment.”
“Sick?”
How particular.
“Mighty so.” Betsy glances at Tellie. “You got sick too, didn’t you?”
Tellie nods. “Aye. Last baby boy especially had me running out to the garden.”
“And don’t you forget the headaches!” Maria bursts in. “Terrible, terrible things.”
The three women all nod. Johanna lowers her chin, telling herself she’s trying to focus on the mixture in front of her. The melted wax and bits of herb become a shield from the reminder that Anthony’s younger sister has had a child sooner than her.
Questions on the matter still haven’t hushed down in town. People stare at the young couple–married for nearly four years , no less–without a girl or boy in their arms or an infant to baptize. When will it be? they ask. How much longer ‘til you make a man out of our Hope lad?
There are rumors behind their backs. At church, they wonder if there is something wrong with her.
Johanna can’t deny it. They very well may be right and she’ll never know it. It isn’t as if the midwife could deliver her such information.
Pleasure and babe; that is what a wife is supposed to provide. They have had their wedding night. They had enjoyed many nights since then. It’s not a longshot to think her womb truly is barren such as the women in Biblical times. She is the Hannah of the modern world. But she is not such a holy woman. As much as she worships, there are sins she’s committed not even God could forgive to fill her womb.
Pleasure has come. Not a babe to prove evidence of it.
And the worst part is: Johanna isn’t certain if she’s completely mournful of that fact.
Of course, children will come later, if they do ever come. That is what is expected of a wife. She asked Anthony to wait for their wedding night so they did. They waited until she said so and even waited some more. They are simply waiting if God will send them a Samual-like miracle.
A home with just herself and Anthony is a warm, happy home indeed.
And what child should be punished enough to have to be born unto her? Mother with blood on her hands, mother who was less-then-virgin when she married. Mother who barely knows how to even hold an infant.
She is no Virgin Mary.
“--and, oh! How my belly would throb!”
Johanna looks back up at Tellie. The other women are once again nodding at each other somberly.
“Hurt just as much as the ones my monthly greeted me with. Whose idea was that?” Tellie pauses, the same sort of mischief her little boys display written across her smile. “Oh, sorry, I forget–Eve.”
The others fall into a chorus of laughter. Johanna was taught to take Eve’s sin as seriously as one would take the death of the Messiah. Here, it is a loser subject. Every woman and man gathers in the chapel, humble as they bow their heads before God. Yet after church, there are jokes about the Bible, reminders of when Christ acted less than his perfect self and stories.
“What is all this about?” Mrs. Hope questions with a wide smile as she enters the kitchen. “You all use my kitchen for your soaping, then you laugh about me behind my back?”
Ever afraid of trouble, Johanna shakes her head. However, a sister steps in to make a joke about Mrs. Hope now that she’s there. Mrs. Hope simply rolls her eyes as laughter roars. She sets her basket of herbs in front of Johanna.
“Your sisters are silly girls,” Mrs. Hope whispers to her with a wink.
She gives a weak smile back.
“Is that all true?” Johanna asks before she stops to think. “Do you really get that sick and ache that much when you’re with child?”
Mrs. Hope glances the other girls over , then at her. Whenever Mrs. Hope studies her, Johanna can’t help but feel like she is her governess and she is trapped in some sort of exam. Arms instinctively cover her abdomen. Anthony has since told her about Mrs. Hope’s comments when she was at her sickest. For a moment, it seems like Mrs. Hope can see her shriveled womb instead of her or knows she had missed last month.
“Usually women miss their monthlies and that’s when they know.” Mrs. Hope takes a stack from her basket and begins picking apart the leaves into separate piles. “But yes, sometimes it takes a little bit of good old nausea and an ache here and there to really wake you up. Eve’s punishment, as I’m sure you were told.”
Johanna nods.
“Now get back to your mixing. The other girls will need that in just a moment. Can’t leave them without anything to mold or stiffen up.”
As she sets back to work, she still feels Mrs. Hope’s gaze upon her. When Johanna looks up, the other woman glances back down at the tablespace. She frowns.
“I’m not,” Johanna says, “I’m not in the family way.”
“Hmm?” Mrs. Hope raises her brow. “Wasn’t insinuating you were, child, dear.”
“I was just curious.”
“Alright, lovely.”
Johanna left with pockets full of soap, basket in hand and mind feeling more like a cloud than anything solid. Wasn’t insinuating? Well, it’s hard to believe she wasn’t insinuating anything when she looked at her stomach, as if she expected to find an ocean-sized bump there. Could a woman not ask about these things without everyone assuming everything about her? Mrs. Hope barely knows anything about her, really. She had no right to–
But this is silly , isn’t it? It’s all just a little silly. When in a few months, she and Anthony aren’t announcing an edition, Mrs. Hope will forget about it all.
If it is this silly, why does she feel her annoyance all the way in her ankles?
Because it is irritating. Mrs. Hope shouldn’t assume –
Assume she’s with child?
Despite the fact that she has been nauseous and she has been cramping and she has had a headache or two now that she thinks about it.
Her brows furrow on the way up to the backdoor.
Soap is arranged accordingly in her own basket and spread throughout the house. Some of it will be sold; sailors do love a fresh bar after weeks of living with hardly anything. (And the better for it, they smell .) Johanna busies herself with a hum of Roll the Old Chariot Along before her mind starts to wander back to what happened earlier today. Anthony won’t be home for a while yet. If he was home, conversation would be a delightful distraction.
When she’s satisfied with her work, she makes her way to the spare bedroom. Perhaps, today is the day she’ll finally make it look presentable . A real sewing room like what she dreamed of. Or a real library . Perhaps, she will combine both ideas into the perfect room for herself.
As she sits down, the muscles between her hips seize. Teeth grit. Then, her jaw relaxes. This could be it. And she doesn’t have to think of any baby-related nonsense again. (Or not for a while yet.)
As ladylike as possible (maybe it’s silly, but what if someone was watching?), she lifts her skirts just enough to reach a hand to feel her drawers.
Nothing.
Pushing her skirt back down to her ankles, she leans back.
And tenderly, with the utmost hesitation, she lays her fingertips on her stomach.
It was one missed month. One! One in years. That can’t mean anything. Does any woman really have a regular cycle?
(No, because most women are having babies.)
Hands reach inside her sewing basket. She doesn’t notice she was pricked by a needle until the blood spills onto her skirt. It’s the wrong sort of blood. She never thought she would be praying for such blood.
The pain. The sick. The ache.
The miss.
Is she bigger? Is she getting bigger?
Will she get bigger?
If she is –which she isn’t –but if she is … The image of Anthony’s sisters pops into her head, nursing swollen abdomens. And how they get bigger and bigger and bigger . Not even fully disappearing after they give birth.
She dares to lay her palm on her belly, trying not to imagine herself in the same precarious situation.
She’s better now. Would she still be better even if…?
Johanna shakes her head.
Who could picture her with a baby? She barely even understands how to hold one, doesn’t get on that well with children, and is shy around even older children. Who is she to have one herself?
When she looks down at her corset-less self, she still finds ribs poking out of her skin, trying to escape. That’s not what a mother who is expecting should look like. It could kill her.
She doesn’t want to die. Not now.
There aren’t any mirrors in their house, save for the handheld one Anthony uses to shave. She’s never done well with mirrors, the object that serves to remind her of every flaw, but for the first time in her life, she wishes she had one. That way, she could look. Could see if there is a slope to her belly. If she is…
Her finger is still bleeding. It stings to remind her to wipe away the blood. Johanna throws everything back into her sewing basket before tearing off a spare piece of fabric to hold over the small wound.
Rag still over her hand, she wanders downstairs. A glance at the clock reminds her that Anthony is off his shift. She drops the rag on the table. Without putting a shawl over her shoulders and after barely tying her laces on her shoes, she sets off to greet him. Trying to take deep breaths. They don’t know. She doesn’t know. She can’t act like this around him, he’ll think something is wrong when nothing is .
Anthony meets her along the way with a bright grin. He grabs her by both hands, pulling her into a deep kiss. It’s their tradition. She‘s still shy about people seeing them kiss (especially like that ) in person so once they get far enough away from the dock, he kisses her wide and deep on the mouth and she’ll giggle and swat at him before taking his hand again so they can get home.
Today, all she can offer is a smile. Which is more than she expected of herself. She doesn’t much feel like smiling at the moment.
“Are you alright, Jo?” he asks.
She shrugs. “Bit of a headache. But I’m alright.”
Anthony would be a good father. And she knows how much he wants a family of his own. Part of their reason for purchasing the cottage was to fill it with children. She didn’t expect that until later . Much later.
But she isn’t. She’s just late.
An entire month late.
She asks Anthony about work and barely hears anything he says.
Once they’re inside, she lingers by the door. Anthony tugs off his scarf. She doesn’t realize he’s frowning at her. He brushes his palm across her knuckles.
“Are you alright, love?”
For a moment, she stares back up at his face. Stares with an aching chest and a whirlwind mind. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to collapse against him and just sob? To tell him everything that’s happened and let him take away all the badness of the world and all the trouble that comes from womanhood.
“Fine, Anthony. I’m fine.”
“Johanna.” And their fingers intertwine. “I know you.”
She sighs through her chest. “It’s more than a ‘bit’ of a headache now. I think I need to lay down.”
Before she does, she turns with a smile to it, popping open a button. She can feel him trying to come up with a way to get her to go back upstairs, but she focuses on the buttons and adjusting the coat from his shoulders. As she flips it away, he catches her wrist. Gently, gently, as ever gently as he is. He looks at her with the same tenderness.
“It’s not that bad. Not yet. I’ll lay myself down once I’m down.” She gives a weak smile. “This is tradition.”
“Jo–”
“ Tradition. ”
Finally, he relents. She finishes removing the layers and he helps to tuck them into place. He kisses her forehead, her palms, stray curls. She kisses him on his fine lips when they’re finished.
“My turn,” he whispers.
He scoops her off the ground, causing her to shriek for the pure joy of feeling him around her. As he carries her up the stairs and into their room she giggles, tapping at his chest and reaching for his shoulder.
Anthony lays her on their bed, tugging at her laces. A way others may view as the beginnings of sensual pleasure, but they know. She knows. She trusts. He asks before each layer is removed, if it is alright with her before she rests. Once she is in her shift, he gathers sheets and quilts on top of her, keeping the brisk away from her skin. But what good is cold air when she has his warm lips drawing kisses across her skin?
He ends with another kiss–this time to her forehead.
“Will that do?” he asks.
Johanna offers a smile. A real smile, this time. “As always, you are perfect to me.”
“I’m not perfect–” Another kiss to the top of her head “–but with you, I am all the closer to it.”
He closes the door behind him.
Under the comfort and warmth of the layers, she’s almost forgotten the reason why she was tucked into it in the first place. Then, the thought comes to mind: would Anthony still be able to carry her like that when she’s that big?
If… if she is…
Yet the idea grasps its thorny hands around her chest.
She turns herself onto her side, lifts the pillow to her face and lets herself sob.
The next few days, she doesn’t think of it. Barely acknowledges her entire abdomen (even when her breasts ache after Betsy embraced her). Doesn’t consider monthlies or other aspects of femalehood. There’s no reason to think about it. That isn’t her . She isn’t .
She isn’t sick. She doesn’t hurt. She’s fine.
Even if she is the slightest bit nauseous, she’s become quite good at ignoring it. She’s quite the distractress if she does say so herself. A slice of bread and bit of boiling water put together then served cold does wonders for the stomach. She chews on peppermint leaves and sips weak tea. But all that aching and bloating can’t be because of a…
It is four days later, she gives into her nausea. After cleaning herself up, she spent the rest of the day without Anthony looking up at the ceiling.
Another full month has gone by.
Still no blood.
Nothing seemed wrong to Anthony as they came into bed together. She tucked herself against his body. He kissed her cheekbone.
When Johanna closes her eyes, all she can see is the absence of blood and a belly.
When she reopens them, she sees her husband.
Tomorrow, she’ll have to tell him tomorrow.
Then tomorrow came. The morning was airy. The afternoon was fuzzy. The sun returned to them briefly to say hello before tucking itself back down below the horizon and greeting them with cloudy skies. Still, she feels as exhausted as if she’d been working underneath a bright sky for days. Not quite real.
After returning him home after work, she sits him at the table. Unsure how to begin, she simply stares at him for a moment. He stares back, expression too full of worry and void of most anything else.
Her hands are belly-level.
She hopes that’s enough.
“Anthony, I’m… I…”
It takes him a moment. She should have expected that. She takes a breath.
“ Oh!”
And he knows.
He knows and she is ruined.
It becomes real for the first time. She has not felt the small kick of an unborn child nor has yet known more than bouts of nausea and tenderness, but it is now that it becomes solid and true inside of her.
As her hands hover over her stomach, she knows: there is a child growing in there.
Her child. Their child.
Anthony wastes no time in wrapping his arms around her with a joyous cry. He has wanted this for so long. Too long, perhaps. Now it is finally his. This is the future he’s always seen for himself. Finally, he’s holding it in his arms. Wife and child. In their home that he’s bought for them.
“Johanna! Can you believe this! Can you feel them? When did you realize? Are you alright? Johanna! Johanna!”
Despite the dance in his eyes and the honey dripping from his tone, the tears come wild and fast.
She can hear his mumble, a soft “ Johanna?” but she doesn’t acknowledge it. Why isn’t she happy? Anthony is finally getting what he’s always wanted and… didn’t she always know she was eventually bound for motherhood? This is what her life has prepared her for. She should at least smile . Should be able to muster up some excitement, no matter how dusty it is, for this occasion.
It’s real now. All she feels is alone.
Despite Anthony’s arms around her. Despite the child growing inside.
Women are supposed to be happy when they’re having a baby. They’re supposed to glow. All she is a dull, dull being.
“Jo? What’s wrong? Tell me.”
Occasion after occasion has taught her that there is nothing she could do to make Anthony throw his love for her away. He won’t toss her away in some asylum. He would push her onto the streets for not wanting to lay in the marital bed with him. He only holders her closer and kisses along her jawline. They would fast onto each other. They are each other’s person.
Yet, she doubts. If she told him the reason why, would he be upset with her?
He saw her pull the trigger once but what if this is it?
“I don’t know,” she mumbles into his shoulder. It isn’t terribly far from the truth.
“Are you… feeling unwell?”
She takes a breath in through her nose. “I’m feeling unwell,” she confirms. It isn’t a fib , exactly. It just isn’t fully how she feels. “I think I’d like to be alone for a little while.”
And she rises, ignoring her arms that ache for him. She flees to their bedroom like a thief in the night.
Why doesn’t this feel right? Why isn’t she the wife she is supposed to be?
Present
They do not have a talk. The house continues to stand quiet. The people inside, afraid and uneasy, flitter around the rooms and each other. Both wanting desperately for some connection, yet depriving themselves out of it in case it upset the other. Anthony lays his head next to his wife’s. They still entangle each other. There is hardly any conversation. None of the joy he’d expected when this moment eventually came.
The night is a pitch when he hears fluttering around their room. When he opens his eyes fully, he finds his wife dressed. He shoves his feet through his trousers and into his shoes. With one pleading look, he asks the question of if he can come with her. All she does is nod in return. Anthony grabs her shawls on the way out.
Dead conversation haunts them through the streets. He doesn’t dare upset her. She is content with the silence–or so it seems. He doesn’t know anymore. It has been a week and a half and he doesn’t know anymore.
“I like the name Marianne,” he finally says, just to break the winter chill. “But not as in two different names. With a certain spelling.”
Johanna doesn’t reply for a time, then,
“I think it’s a bit early to be thinking about such things, Anthony.”
Bowing his head, he doesn’t bring up names again.
A few hours later, he wakes up again.
“ Anthony ,” his wife pleads, tone opposite of what it was before. No longer distant, the dullness of it is replaced by an emotion Anthony understands his wife knows all too well: gut-wrenching fear.
“Jo?” He turns over, hands searching for any part of her. When his fingers are wrapped ‘round her forearm, he sits up. “Johanna? What’s wrong? Did you have a–”
“I’m bleeding.”
His eyes have adjusted to the darkness. Instead of Johanna at her usual spot to the right of him, she’s kneeling on the floor beside their bed. Both hands have wrapped themselves around his arm, one perched on his bicep, the other on his fingers. And her face… He’d never be able to burn that expression from his memory.
“You’re bleeding? Like…?”
“I’m certain , I’m certain that I am. That we’re having a baby. I know it. But now I’m bleeding and I…” Breath hitches in her throat. “I’m bleeding.”
Anthony may not know much about matters of the childbed and such, but he knows women aren’t supposed to bleed.
“When did this happen?”
“Only a-only a… I only saw it a few minutes ago. I was getting dressed and-and-and on my drawers… There’s only a little, but it’s blood . I’m bleeding .”
Bleeding, bleeding, bleeding .
They just found out about this baby. How could they already be losing them?
“What if it’s just a little before…?”
Before she could finish that thought, Anthony cups a hand on the back of her head and holds her to his chest. He can feel her chest moving up and down, how rapidly each breath falls. Her hands squeeze around his arm. There is no calming down not now–and how could they? Their baby…
“Do you know? Do you know that for certain? ”
He feels her shake her head. “N-n- no . But– Anthony …”
He pressed a firm kiss to the top of her head.
“We’ll go to Mrs. Crowle–or I’ll go and bring her here.” Anthony talks faster than he thinks, barely considering the hardly risen sun. “She’ll tell us for certain. She knows what’s best for both of you.”
A pause–then he feels her nod.
He lets her go then, staring her in the eye, furrowed brow matching her. Johanna’s eyes aren’t red, she is only panicking. She hasn’t accepted anything quite yet. Either that’s a very good thing or a dangerously bad one.
Anthony lays her in their bed. There’s no time to undress what she has already layered on. Making her remove her corset to get more comfortable would only make her feel anything but. A towel is tucked beneath her. Sheets lay on her paling body. He wipes away the sweat on her brow, makes her promise not to get up and kisses her there before he sweeps out the window.
An undershirt and pair of trousers isn’t much protection from winter, but Anthony moves–mind and body–too quickly to realize the frost biting at his ears and how it sneaks through his shoes to nip at his toes. Town feels terribly far. The midwife’s house even further.
He bangs on the door of the older woman. It is she who answers it. With a mention of how he’s lucky she rises early, she trails behind him on their trek back to the cottage. Back to Johanna.
There, he waits outside the door. Pacing. Chewing his fingernails–a habit he’d left behind in boyhood. They had gone through so much, yet he hadn’t reverted to that state of mind until now. Not when he held a gun to a man’s head. Not when his wife pulled the trigger. Not when they saw the bloody bodies. He has never been more nauseated than now.
Their baby…
None of this was the way he’d imagined. The fantasy he created was a delighted surprise and a loving embrace that swallowed them both whole. Kisses on her belly. Feeling the slope of it. Pretending like they could hear a heartbeat. Discussions about names. Kisses before each bed at night. Feeling their child under their palms. Lullabies that his wife would sing sweeter than the morning lark. A baby.
How could it be gone so quickly?
The midwife yawns as she closes the door behind her.
“What–?”
“Let your wife tell you.” She wipes at the corner of her mouth. “And since you’re both new, I won’t charge you for this. When you tell your mother, tell her that’s me paying her back.”
Anthony barely hears the rest of what Mrs. Crowle says as he dashes into their room. Johanna grabs his hands.
“It’s normal! It’s alright! Everything’s quite alright!”
“It’s–what?”
Johanna pats the space in front of her. Like an obedient child, Anthony sits, unable to resist taking both of her hands in his own. She gives another nod, not quite smiling, but something hinted at there.
“Mrs. Crowle says that this happens to women when they’re just found out. When they’re… new in this. It’s just a trick of nature. As long as I don’t bleed too much before they’re born. If that happens, we’re to fetch her right away. But that hasn’t happened.” She breathes out, a breath it seems like she’d been holding for weeks. “And she confirmed it. I am.”
“You are?”
“I am.”
She is.
Again, Anthony holds her close.
There are no words between them, trusting Mrs. Crowle has let herself out. Johanna pats to the side of her. Anthony obeys. He pats to his chest. She follows, laying her head where his heart is beating.
She is.
There will still be those lullabies. The rhymes. The naming and the gentle kicks. They will have all of it.
He closes his eyes with his fingers tangled in her hair.
When he wakes, she is gone again. His clothes have been laid out where he’d sat that morning. Anthony draps a shirt around himself, but neglects the rest. His toes regret such a decision the moment he steps onto the floor, though he doesn’t return for his socks.
She’s just outside their door, leaning against the way of another. Their extra room with sewing supplies and the stacks of books. Instead of a library or sewing room, in recent weeks it’s become a separate napping room. Anthony lays a gentle hand around her hip, inviting himself into the scene.
“What are you looking at?”
Johanna doesn’t answer at first–the tilt of her head indicates she’s heard him, but has to consider first. He never minds when she hesitates. A habit she’d caught onto in her own childhood, but he now finds as endearing as the sound of her laughter. She glances at the room, then up at him, then back at the nearly empty space.
“The nursery.”