WHEN JAMIE POINTED the remote control at the front gate, she half expected an alarm to sound and the car to be bathed in bright spotlights and men to appear suddenly and drag her from the vehicle.
Until that moment she had told herself that she could always change her mind. That this was just a trial run and not the real thing.
But in bed early this morning, she had felt a tightening of her abdominal muscles. Not exactly painful, but uncomfortable. She experienced the same feeling again in the bathroom, along with the beginnings of hysteria. Freda had warned her about the possibility of a false alarm. About Braxton Hicks contractions. Sometimes they could be pretty strong, but they came intermittently and then went away. Real labor didn’t go away. Jamie prayed that was what she was experiencing. Braxton Hicks.
She experienced another episode midmorning but nothing else for the rest of the day. She had been thoroughly shaken by the experience, however.
What if the pains she had felt were a lead-up to true labor?
What if her labor started during daytime? She’d never be able to leave in broad daylight, and if she waited until dark, she risked having the baby alone and unattended.
Jamie had known all along that leaving would not be simple. That fact in itself is what finally convinced her. Miss Montgomery and Kelly were not about to allow her just to get in her car and drive away. They would find some grounds to stop her-accuse her of stealing something most likely. And it would be almost impossible for Jamie to prove otherwise. It would be her word against theirs, and they worked for the Hartmanns. In Marshall County, the Hartmanns were above the law.
She knew her departure would have to be clandestine. She needed to get as far away from Hartmann Ranch as she possibly could before anyone realized that she had left.
Getting access to her car had been a major problem. She hadn’t planned to threaten a hunger strike. The words just came out of her mouth. She wouldn’t have done it, of course, at least not to the extent that it would hurt the baby. But Montgomery didn’t know that. Montgomery had called her a “wicked girl.”
Once the car was in running order and parked in the ranch-house garage, Jamie went about the business of packing up her possessions and carrying them out to the car, always accompanied by a gardener or sometimes by Miss Montgomery herself. Jamie made a deliberate effort to be cheerful around Miss Montgomery and Nurse Freda, telling them how excited she was about returning to Austin and continuing her college education and getting in touch with her friends. “I know you think I’m rushing things,” Jamie told Miss Montgomery, “but I’m bored and don’t have anything better to do.”
The garage was locked at night, but Jamie had been able to unlock a window on the back of the building while her current escort was out front smoking and chatting with his compadres.
With the only possessions left in her apartment the articles of clothing and toilet articles she would need for the remainder of her stay, the two rooms looked bare and impersonal. She considered putting back the decorative items that had been in the room when she arrived but decided against it. The bare look signified that the end of her incarceration was near.
With the packing done, she was anxious to leave. Her plan was to wait until the danger of winter storms had passed but not so long that she would be in danger of going into labor. She hoped to have enough time to get herself settled and make arrangements for the delivery of her baby.
Her baby. That was how she now thought of the baby boy she carried. Her baby. Her child. Her son. And with acknowledgment came love. She continuously caressed her swollen belly. Her love for her unborn child made her strong and determined. She must plan her escape thoroughly and well so she would be the one who raised her son.
Since the area north of the ranch was so vast and empty, Jamie was fairly certain Miss Montgomery and Kelly would assume that she would head south to Interstate 40, which would take her either east to Amarillo or west into New Mexico. Jamie planned, however, to drive north into the Oklahoma Panhandle. If all went well, she would have breakfast in the town of Guymon. According to the atlas in the library, Guymon was a town of more than five thousand people, or at least it had been twenty years ago when the atlas was published. It was large enough to have restaurants and motels, and a stranger in town could go unnoticed. Not that she would be staying long.
She tried to imagine what was going to happen at the ranch when it was discovered that she had left. Would Kelly contact the county sheriff and the Texas highway patrol and claim she’d run off with the silverware or the family jewels? Jamie knew that she would feel safer once she crossed the state line and was in a different legal jurisdiction.
Jamie imagined Amanda’s fury when Miss Montgomery called with the news. She would expect her brother to track her down. Jamie hoped to make that impossible.
Just last night she had crept down the stairs in the middle of the night to make sure the security code had not been changed. At the back door, she punched in three fours and a five, then opened the door a few inches. No alarm sounded. The code was still in effect. She went down the steps and tried the code on the back gate. It worked.
This afternoon she and Ralph took their usual walk with Lester following behind. She was too nervous to eat much dinner and flushed most of the food down the toilet so that nothing would seem amiss. Then she took Ralph downstairs for his last outing before Miss Montgomery locked up for the night. Back in her apartment, she put on her granny gown-just in case Miss Montgomery decided to stop by-and pulled back the covers on her bed. She even stretched out on the bed for a while, watching the weather. The weather reporter said that what should be the Panhandle’s last winter storm of the season was now located over central New Mexico. The storm would affect the Texas Panhandle as far north as I-40, with only isolated flurries predicted farther north.
A good thing she was heading north, Jamie told herself. She should have clear sailing.
She forced herself to stay in bed until midnight. Then she got up, dressed warmly, and packed the remainder of her possessions in a plastic bag.
Ralph followed her down the stairs. She paused briefly at the back door, took a deep breath, and punched in the security code. The minute she opened the door, Ralph raced past her, headed down the steps, and lifted his leg at the closest tree.
As always, the backyard was lit by floodlights mounted on the roof of the house, but the gate was close to the house and deep in shadows. She couldn’t read the numbers on the touch pad but counted to the fourth button, punched it three times, and the button next to it once.
Ralph followed her as she hurried across the paved area in front of the garage, then went around back. She put Ralph through the window, then crawled through herself.
The garage door made a frightening amount of noise, but no lights came on in the ranch house. She peeked around the corner of the garage. No lights were on in the employee cottages.
She drove at a crawl past the house and down the front drive. Then, after weeks of agonizing and planning, she arrived at the point of no return.
In her gut, or wherever it was within the human psyche that one puts logic aside and blunders forward if for no other reason than inaction feels wrong, Jamie had found the courage to point the remote at the metal gate and press the button. Ghostly and silent in the darkness, the gate swung open.
She held her breath.
There were no spotlights. No alarm. No men racing toward the car.
“Maybe this is going to work,” she whispered to Ralph, who seemed as apprehensive as she was by this strange late-night outing.
With her heart pounding furiously, she drove through the open gate.
“Oh, my God,” she whispered. She was on the other side. She looked over her shoulder and watched the gate close. The front drive was empty.
So far so good.
Except it was starting to snow. Just a little, though. Just those isolated flurries the weatherman had mentioned. Not a cause for concern.
The tires crunched on the gravel as she turned north on Hartmann Road and drove ever so slowly, squinting into the darkness of the moonless night. She strained to make out the edge of the roadway, which she used as a guide. She wanted to be well past Hartmann City before she turned on the headlights.
The snow was coming down harder now. She replayed the forecast in her head. The snowstorm would be south of the interstate. She was certain of it. The ranch was more than twenty miles north of the interstate.
She would drive out of it soon. At least she hoped so. She’d never driven in snow before.
After she passed the Hartmann City turnoff, she turned on the headlights, which did little to help visibility. All she could see in front of her was swirling snow. She slowed to a crawl, continuing to use the edge of the road as her guide.
The swirling snow was hypnotic. She kept blinking her eyes and shaking her head to clear her vision. Surely the snow would let up soon. She just needed to keep going.
After what seemed like an eternity of tedious driving, she forced herself to relax a bit. All she had to do was inch along and stay on the road.
Then suddenly she saw something other than snow reflected in the headlights. What looked like a pair of glowing coals was floating a few feet above the road. It took her several seconds to understand what she was seeing. The eyes of a deer. She put her foot to the brake.
Only then did she realize how slippery the road had become. The car began to swerve out of control.
As she let up on the brake, she had a fleeting image of the deer leaping into the underbrush along the side of the road.
Somehow she managed to keep the car on the road. Then ever so carefully she slowed to a stop and buried her face in her hands. Why tonight of all nights did the TV meteorologist get the forecast wrong? This didn’t look like isolated flurries to her. She was in the middle of a damned blizzard!
Which made her think of the family that had frozen to death in their truck after being evicted by Gus Hartmann. The McGraf family. Had she already gone past what once had been their property?
She was looking around for some sort of landmark when she felt the beginning of a contraction.
It lasted only a short time and ended as quickly as it came. Another Braxton Hicks contraction. Not the beginning of labor.
She took several deep breaths and put her foot on the accelerator, and slowly-ever so slowly-the car began to move again. The snow was getting worse. No doubt about it. At the rate she was going, it would be a long time before she reached any sort of civilization. Maybe she should turn around and go back. Maybe no one had realized that she was gone. She could get back in bed and try again another night.
The road was narrow. If she turned around here, she would have to be careful not to slide off the road.
Already the snow was drifting against vegetation and blurring the edge of the roadway.
What if Montgomery had already discovered that she was gone? If she went back, Montgomery would have her locked up. In the tower with Mary Millicent. Or maybe in the cellar. She would never have another chance to escape.
She continued driving forward. Her speed barely registered on the speedometer. She leaned forward, peering over the steering wheel. She blinked her straining eyes and almost missed a curve in the road.
As she inched around the curve, another pain grabbed hold of her body. She lifted her foot from the accelerator, clutched the steering wheel, and waited for it to pass.
Not too bad, she told herself. Not the real thing. There was no reason for her to go into labor three weeks early. She was healthy and had had a normal pregnancy. Freda had said so. In fact, Freda had said she was amazingly healthy. Not a single sign of anything amiss. Her blood pressure was perfect. No sign of toxemia. The baby had a strong heartbeat.
She began to inch forward again. At this rate she would reach the Oklahoma Panhandle sometime next week.
But surely she would run out of the snow soon. Just keep going, she told herself.
She checked to make sure the windshield wipers were on the highest setting.
Her neck and shoulders hurt more than the pains in her belly. Jamie rolled her head around in an attempt to relieve the tension in her neck.
The road curved again, and she spotted something just ahead. A mailbox mounted on a fence post. A place where she could turn around-if that was what she decided to do. She slowed to a stop.
Then the muscles in her abdomen began to contract and another pain grabbed hold of her body. She clutched the steering wheel and willed the pain to pass. This one was harder than the other two and took longer to recede.
She turned off the motor and headlights, then waited in the darkness to see if there was another pain. Without the heater, the temperature in the car immediately began to drop. She reached in the backseat for a blanket and covered herself with it. Then she reached for Ralph and tucked him under it, too.
She stroked his head and prayed. No more pain. Please.
What the hell was she going to do if she was in labor? She would have to go back to the ranch. She had no choice. She would be risking the baby’s life if she didn’t.
What if God was on Amanda’s side?
With that discouraging thought, she began to moan. “I’m sorry, God, if I wasn’t supposed to do this, but I was afraid of what was going to happen to me afterward. And I don’t want Amanda to raise my baby. She might not do bad things herself, but I think she looks the other way and lets bad things happen. Please, if you’re mad at me, don’t take it out on the baby. He hasn’t done anything wrong. I want him to live. Please let him live,” she sobbed. But her sob turned into a gasp as another pain took hold of her body.
When it ended, she stared at her watch with its glowing dial, hoping to determine how much time passed in between pains. But when the next pain started, she forgot to check the time. She grabbed hold of the steering wheel and waited for it to end.
Then she forced herself to stare at the watch as she waited. Almost ten minutes passed before the now familiar pain began once again. And ten more minutes before the next pain. When that pain subsided, she actually felt calmer. She knew what the situation was and knew what she had to do. What she was experiencing was not false labor. Not Braxton Hicks. Snow was drifting against the windshield. The roads were becoming impassable. Pretty soon the car was going to be buried. Unless she found some sort of shelter, she and her baby and her dog were going to freeze to death.
Jamie turned on her headlights and squinted to make out the faded name on the mailbox. It was McGraf. There would be no help for her at the end of this lane, but at least she would be out of the weather.
The lane was completely buried under snow, but she was guided by the fence posts that marched along both sides. Just as she pulled up in front of a small frame house with a sagging roof and boards nailed over the windows, she had another pain-a hard pain that took her breath away.
She took a flashlight from the glove compartment, found her boots among the pile of things in the backseat, and exchanged her sneakers for them. At one time the front door of the house had probably been padlocked, but now it stood open. She shined the light around the small front room. The floor was littered with beer cans and trash. A broken chair lay in one corner. She walked over to a stone fireplace. There was cold air coming down the chimney. A good sign. The chimney would draw.
Working in between the pains, she began gathering wood and piling it beside the fireplace-any sort of wood she could find-twigs, sticks, fallen fence posts, the broken chair, loose boards from the front porch. Ralph was always at her side. Poor little dog. How confusing this must be for him. She would have to remember to feed him and put out water for him when they settled down inside.
She slipped and fell several times, at one point striking her forehead so hard against the edge of the porch that she saw stars. Another time she slipped and slammed her hip against a tree.
Once she had a sizable pile of wood, she dug around in the trunk and backseat, locating blankets, quilts, towels, a box with the few dishes and utensils she had kept from her grandmother’s kitchen, and another box with snacks, dog food, and water bottles she’d packed with her journey in mind.
The pains seemed somewhat closer together. Not unbearable but getting harder. She kept fear at bay with busyness. Doing what had to be done.
There were two old mattresses in one of the bedrooms. She dragged them both into the living room, putting the least filthy one in front of the fireplace.
She piled wood in the fireplace then tore open the spare mattress and pulled cotton batting from it to use for kindling. She had no matches but found a tin can among the trash scattered about the house and poked some of the cotton batting inside it. Then she took the can out to the car and used the cigarette lighter to ignite the cotton.
She knew that one was supposed to boil water before a delivery, although she wasn’t quite sure why. Since she had only three water bottles, she filled her grandmother’s soup pot with snow, and set it close to the fire.
What else might be useful? she asked herself.
She would need string and scissors for the umbilical cord. She waited for the next pain to end, then went back out to the car and located her grandmother’s scissors in the sewing stand. In lieu of string, she cut a narrow strip from a towel. And she placed the scissors and strip by the mattress.
She closed the living room off from the rest of the house to prevent heat from escaping and continued making forays outside in search of more firewood and to collect snow to melt in the pan by the fire. She discovered that it took a lot of snow to make only a little water.
The snow was getting ever deeper, but she had no way of knowing how much wood she would need and decided she would keep gathering wood as long as she was physically able. She tore rotting boards from the front gate and a collapsed shed.
She would fall to her knees when the pains began. And moan with Ralph whimpering beside her.
Finally, too exhausted to do anything more, she put out food and water for Ralph and spread a blanket over the mattress by the fireplace. It crossed her mind that she might be preparing her deathbed. And that of her son.
If she thought she was about to die, she would try to open the door so that Ralph would at least have a chance of surviving. But probably he would be eaten by wolves or coyotes if he didn’t freeze to death first.
Before she gave herself over to the mattress, she tried to think. Was there anything else she could do?
She remembered a movie she had seen about a woman having a baby alone on an island in the far north country of Canada. The woman had tied a rope to a bedpost to give her something to pull on while she was in labor. But Jamie had no rope and no bedpost. What she wanted was someone’s hand to hold. Someone’s soothing presence and voice to get her through this.
The only sounds she heard came from the howling wind.
At the end of each pain, Ralph would lick her face and put his head on her shoulder. And she would fall asleep thinking what a good little dog he was. A perfect dog for a little boy.
Then she would awaken to another pain. Terrible, agonizing pain. Pain that took over her body and her mind. Pain that took away her self-control and brought forth frantic thrashing and scream after scream. Pain that made her not care if she lived or died.
She would look at her watch and immediately forget what she had seen. Time lost all dimension. She never knew if the time between pains was seconds or hours. She forced herself to check the fire after each one. And she would reach between her legs, hoping to feel the top of the baby’s head. Then she would sleep until the pain began again.
She knew that it would end only if she could push the baby out of her. Out of desperation, she grabbed hold of her knees and pushed with all her might. Which only increased the pain.
She let go of her legs but felt such an urge to push that she pulled them back again. Toward her chest. It felt as though her insides were being pushed out of her body. She was being turned inside out. But the pushing was no longer a choice. It was something she had to do. Along with screaming. She pushed and screamed. Then dozed. And then she repeated the cycle. Again and again.
After each pain, she reached down between her legs.
He was stuck in there. In the birth canal. They were both going to die. Sooner rather than later, she hoped.
If they didn’t survive, she wondered how long it would be before they were found. Would their deaths even be reported, or would they be secretly buried and forgotten? It really didn’t matter, she supposed. Dead was dead. And with every pain, she felt closer to death. With every pain, she wondered if it was time to open the door so that Ralph could escape.
She grabbed her legs once again. And this time she felt something happening. Something moving. When the pain ended, she reached down once again and felt the top of the baby’s head.
She pulled her legs back and pushed with all her might.
This time when she checked, she felt his neck and a tiny shoulder.
Again she pushed, with all the strength left within her body. “I will not die,” she screamed. “I will not die.”
She felt the rest of the baby slide from her body. He was born.
She rolled onto her side and scooted her body around him. The baby wasn’t moving. His arms and legs were blue. His lips were blue.
She pulled his wet, slippery body toward her and shook him. Then she put her mouth over his and blew air into him.
And again. But to no avail.
“Breathe, baby,” she implored. “Please breathe.”
She stuck a finger in his mouth, which was full of mucus. She suctioned it out with her own mouth, spit out the mucus, and breathed into him again.
Then his little chest moved up and down.
And he cried. A thin, weak cry.
She clutched his slippery, bloody body to her chest. Only then did she realize how cold it was. She was shivering. The fire was almost out.
But there was more stuff happening down there. She pulled a corner of the blanket over the baby’s wet body and waited until she felt the afterbirth come sliding out.
The baby’s crying grew stronger as she tied off his umbilical cord. Then she cut the cord and wiped the blood and mucus from him with a towel, wrapped him in another towel, and laid him on a corner of the mattress. Then she wrapped the afterbirth in the blanket she had been lying on, carried it outside, and shook it into the snow.
A new day was dawning, and the storm was over.
She covered the mattress with a fresh blanket, wrapped a quilt around her shoulders, and turned her attention to the fire, leaving a trail of blood with every step she took. She stuffed the towel she had used to clean the baby between her legs, knelt in front of the fireplace, and blew on the coals. The blowing took such effort. And she felt so weak. But somehow she found the strength to blow again and was able to ignite a fresh wad of cotton batting. Then she continued blowing until it was safe to add more wood.
She closed her eyes, relishing the blessed heat that the fire emitted and worrying that the smoke from the chimney could be seen from the road.
She couldn’t stay here long. Just a few hours to get her strength back.
With the fire going, she turned her attention back to the baby. His eyes were open. “Hello, little guy,” she said. “I’m your mother.”