Whitefern (Audrina 2)

“Okay, okay. Forget about that. There is a woman coming to see you this morning. Her name is Mrs. Matthews. She’s like a doctor. She helps deliver babies when it’s time for them to come out. She will make sure you are pregnant and that you are doing okay, and then she will help us with everything that has to be done. I’ll be with you all the time.”

“You have to be. She has to make sure everything is all right with you, too,” Sylvia said.

I closed my eyes. She was fixated on this idea. Perhaps, though, Arden was right. It would make things easier for her, and for us taking care of her, if she thought it was true and I mimicked everything happening to her.

“Right. Me, too. She’ll be like Dr. Prescott, okay?”

She nodded, continuing to smile.

I still wasn’t sure she understood the significance of what I was telling her. How detailed and scientific should I get? For most women, being pregnant wasn’t exactly a picnic. There was expected discomfort. Sylvia, who liked to rush around the house and practically fly up the stairs, would find it a terrible burden, especially when she was four or five months along, and when she was seven or eight months . . . I simply couldn’t imagine it. It wasn’t only what she would look like and how confused she would be. There were dangers, too, not only to the baby but also to the mother.

However, I decided not to say too much more before Mrs. Matthews arrived. Arden’s advice that morning as we dressed to go down to breakfast was to take it day by day and not obsess about it. He was the one who had warned, “We don’t want to panic Sylvia or frighten her about all this. That could turn out worse.”

“I know that, Arden,” I’d told him. “Will Mrs. Matthews know that?”

“She’s been well informed about Sylvia,” he had assured me. “She is quite capable. We’ll be lucky to have her. She’ll make this far easier than you could imagine.”

Nevertheless, I was on pins and needles until the doorbell rang. I had told Sylvia to go up to her room, change into her nightgown, and wait. She would be examined there. I wanted a few minutes alone with Mrs. Matthews

before she saw Sylvia and before Arden got home, too.

When I opened the door, I found a lean woman, as tall as Arden, with dark gray hair trimmed sharply halfway down her long neck. She had a hard face, her cheeks flat, with skin so white it was almost transparent. Inky blue veins could be seen in her temples. I thought you wouldn’t need an X-ray to discover if she had fractured a cheekbone. Her nose was small but a bit pointed, and her pale pink lips were as thin as string. Her eyes were coal-black with tiny gray spots. She wore a navy-blue coat over a nurse’s uniform and carried a satchel that looked exactly like Dr. Prescott’s, clutching it in her long fingers so tightly I could see the veins in the top of her hand. It was as if she was afraid she’d drop it or have it snatched away.

“Mrs. Matthews?” I asked. I knew it was a silly question. Who else would be at our door precisely at eleven? But I didn’t want to just say hello.

“That’s who I am,” she said. She nodded her head and stepped forward as a way of saying, Please step back and let me in.

It was a gray, cold early-February day. I retreated quickly, and she entered and paused to gaze at the house, her head bobbing from nine o’clock to twelve o’clock to three o’clock.

“It’s as big as I expected,” she said. “Quite cluttered. Family heirlooms, most of it, I imagine.”

“Everything has some memory for us, yes,” I said.

She looked at me, nodded, looked at the house again, and then turned back to me. “You are Mrs. Lowe, then?”

Did she think I was a maid?

“Yes, ma’am. Audrina Lowe, Arden’s wife.”

She studied me as if I really was the one who was pregnant. “I remember you when you were a little girl. You’ve grown into an attractive woman.”

“Thank you.”

“I recall your mother was quite beautiful.”

“Yes, she was.”

“That’s a tragedy we don’t want repeated,” she said, the corners of her mouth drawn in.

“I hope not,” I said. “The very thought terrifies me.”

“As it should anyone. Well, let’s get to it. Where’s your sister?”

“She’s in her room. I’ll take you there. You understand what she’s like?”

“Mentally retarded. I would hate to count how many girls like that I’ve delivered or assisted in delivering. Nature gave them the ability to produce offspring but left them unprotected when it comes to sexual matters, not that some of the smartest girls don’t get into trouble. I’ve had plenty of them, too. Whenever I see that, I believe there very likely is a vengeful God.”

“I wouldn’t categorize her as mentally retarded. She’s slow to understand things, but that’s because she was underdeveloped when she was born prematurely and—”