Night Song for a Firstborn

Contents

Chapter one

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter five

Chapter six

Chapter Seven

In a Land of Wild Honey

A Hunter’s Moon

A Kentucky Christmas

Blackberry Wine

Roses in a Glass Cage

Chapter one

Crows, ragged and shining, glided gracefully like ancient creatures hovering over a new earth. They wove their blue black wings through the top branches of a dead tree in our backyard. I had not paid much attention to them until Annie stood there immobile, her blue eyes fastened upon them, her fingers gripping the window ledge. Party hats and candy wrappers littered the living room. The night before we had celebrated her third birthday. She was wearing her new yellow dress which looked like a crushed butterfly now. She stood at the picture window, fear in her eyes as she watched the crows. Her face was the delicate pink of a conch shell. The back yard was a wooded lot with a wild marshland and natural springs. I knew I must look terrible , my dirty hair in a ponytail, paint spattered shorts and t-shirt, bare feet. Annie turned to me and said

Mommie pick me up.

I picked her up and closed the white drapes so she could not see the crows. I held her in the rocker, feeling the beat of her heart. I was afraid to look in her eyes because I knew I would see the fear in them. For a long time I had known there was something wrong with her. The expression in her eyes had changed since she was a baby. I could see the fear in them. I wanted to be held like a child myself. We rocked back and forth while a breeze blew against the drapes. I had known something was wrong but no one would listen to me. Not Eric, who had just left in a crisp Summer suit and white shirt his thick dark hair neat and curly. He would not look at Annie’s eyes or listen to anything about the crows. Last year Annie had screamed when the doctor touched her but he told me all two year olds behaved this way. But now…..

We would stay away from the window today. Hot sun poured through the drapes. I listened to the calls of crows and jays and could smell some kind of bloom in the breeze. The marshland in back of the house throbbed with life, sea birds that flew in from the Lake, pheasants who strutted like wooden toys, rabbits that skittered through the marsh reeds. Wild willows danced in the wind and over the hot sand dragon flies patrolled on intricate wings. Blue-black snakes sunned themselves and the wind, lifting the Poplar leaves, sounded like satin.

Annie’s eyes were closed and she slept. When Beth began to cry, I carried Annie back into the baby’s room and stood her up and she whined from sleepyness. While I changed Beth’s diaper Annie clung to me, her arms wrapped around my legs.

Mommie, pick me up

Just a minute Annie.

At one year Beth lay there on the changing table and smiled, showing her new teeth. She looked at me with clear blue eyes and kicked round pink legs while I dressed her. She laughed, pleased with herself, happy with the language of my fingers that sang quiet songs to her. Beth and I were meshed. A stab of pain reminded me that I had not felt this way when Annie was a baby. I was tired now, hot, and the room seemed far away. I picked up Beth and put her in her canvas chair and gave her a teething biscuit. Annie and I sat on the floor then pulling out toys from a toybox. We made circus parades. I made the animals jump and talk. The pink rabbit nuzzled her under the chin and she smiled. I made a fuzzy turtle creep up her leg. The hot wind that parted the curtains was fragrant with mown grass. The boats printed on her curtains sailed gently. When she saw the wind move her curtains she was afraid again. I knew she was afraid of seeing the crows. She was in a far country I thought. Wind trembled a Cotton wood near the window.

Beth began to cry for lunch. I didn’t know how long we had sat there. I carried Beth across my hip while holding Annie’s hand and we went into the kitchen. At the sight of the living room drapes Annie looked frightened again. I settled Beth in her high chair and turned on the radio. President Eisenhower was visiting Japan. Then there was loud music and I turned it off. I heated hot dogs and baby food. Inside me there was the darkness I could not explain to anyone. Whatever was wrong with Annie was my fault. These thoughts were like a litany, a chant that rose up through my mind like a wreathe of black smoke that twists up from a fire. There was this searing fire down beneath the calmness I pretended. It had to be my fault that something was wrong with Annie.

I cut up the hot dogs and gave Annie a jar of baby applesauce while I fed Beth. While they ate I sipped black coffee. The room seemed strangely lit, garish, like neon lights on a city street. Annie’s mouth was smeared with ketchup. There were red blotches on her dress. I looked away for a minute thinking of all I had to do and then screams jolted me out of my thoughts. Annie had hit Beth with a spoon and a bump was rising on her forehead. I wanted to scream at Annie. I gave both of them a cookie and put Beth in her playpen in the living room. I looked through a small opening in the drapes and saw a sandpiper dive among the reeds. A river of life flowed by out there. Then I saw the crows. Why did they live in a dead tree? I thought of the day when I almost ran my car off the road to watch a huge black crow swoop down and take a bite of some dead animal lying by the side of the road. Was this what crows did, peck away at something dead until it was only a clean white bone?

I put Annie in her bed and rubbed her back, sang to her. Her spindly body lay stretched out across the sheet. In sleep she seemed peaceful. Beth had fallen asleep in her playpen. Soon they would be pulling at me again, pressed against my arms and legs like baby ducklings.

Annie is being born into the world. I have the psychological bones of a child and carry around a heavy burden. All the fires and floods of my ancestors I carry around. Annie is exquisitely formed with a mop of dark hair and perfect rosebud face. The labor room is white and full of voices but I am concentrating on the searing pain. I do not even know that I cannot bond with this child. After Annie is born the nurse hands her to me but I do not hold her long because there is a wall of pain, the afterbirth. I tell the nurse to take her back, that I might drop her. Then I am wheeled away to my room. Eric is here and smiles at me and gives me a kiss. He is excited because he loves children . After he leaves I look out through the window at the dusky light. Summer sounds are outside. The day in June is beautiful. I do not even know that Annie is waiting to be molded by me in her little steel crib. At the moment there is only triumph, the feeling of just having had a baby.

Eric is here watching me dress Annie for the first time. She is on my hospital bed sound asleep. I can hardly wake her to feed her. When we leave the hospital people look at us and smile. A new baby. Annie is dressed in a kimono that I sewed by hand. At home now I listen to the Summer song of birds. Eric puts on a record and Bach floats through the room.

When Annie is three weeks old she throws up her bottle and I take her to the doctor who says she has an ear infection. I hold her all that day and rock her, silently crying because she is sick for the first time. When Eric comes home Annie is crying and he lies on the bed with his shirt off and puts Annie on his bare chest. It always stops her crying. I think about Eric. His disapproval is like a cloth of stone that I wear and it weighs me down. I am twenty one now, getting thin and have dark circles under my eyes. Annie tracks across my heart. Her footprints are indelible. I am depressed but do not know why. I am so in love with Eric who only married me because I was pregnant. He does not want me but I try to be what I think he wants. I think that if I work hard enough he will love me.

With both of them asleep I washed the dishes quickly and put a load of diapers in the wash. The crows were silent now and there was a lazy afternoon look to the light coming in the kitchen window. I did not know what the heavy load was that was pressing against me. I put the ironing board up in the living room and opened the drapes so I could look out over the marshland. Why had my fingers been numb as stone when Annie was born? My touch had not spoken to her newborn body. With Beth my hands were as warm and alive as glowing coals. My hands sang to her, told her she belonged to me, to the wild marshland and all the web of life around us. But Annie felt an alien here. I knew it even if she could not tell me because she knew no words for it. Shaking, heart pounding I called the doctor. He was out of town. After unplugging the iron I lay down on my bed and tried to sleep, to find a way out of this darkness. In a half sleep I saw the crows hovering around the windows, over Annie’s crib, their shadows shutting out the light.

At night I put Annie and