“You will stay with us,” Alan stated as he stared at the ghostly figure that resembled the Tamara he had known. They were seated around the kitchen table, awkward with each other. Tamara seemed uncomfortable in the warm, sunny kitchen. She couldn’t remember if she had ever been in such a place.
The brothel she had grown up in had a large agreeable kitchen, but this one she sat in was someone’s home. The brothel was not. She looked down at her narrow fingers, examining the dirt beneath her broken nails.
“You know that will cause problems for you all. I ain’t married and I have a young ‘un.”
“Tamara,” Jobeth reached across the table and grabbed the girl’s hand reassuringly. “You are family. We want you and the baby with us. It does not matter what others think.”
Tamara smiled weakly and took another bite of the stew Jobeth had given her. It was her third bowl. She had to admit that Jobeth was a good cook. The stew hit the spot in her empty stomach. It felt good to be in Alan and Jobeth’s home. She stared at their concerned faces and put down her spoon.
“Well,” she said, sipping some of the hot tea Jobeth had placed in front of her. Jobeth is determined, Tamara thought, to pump me full of food. “I guess you all are wondering how I got ma self in such a state.”
“Whenever you’re ready, Tamara.” Alan said softly, unable to look at her.
Guilt engulfed him as it had Jobeth. He was proud of how he had changed their lives for the better. Seeing Tamara brought back bad times when things were so difficult. Had the rest of their little group done as poorly as Tamara?
He hoped not.
“If yah all are willing to have me and the kid, I feel it’s only proper to tell you how I got the whelp.” Tamara took another bite of stew and tried to prevent the juices from dribbling down her mouth.
“When we all split up back at the old house, Oliver and I headed out and pretended we was married . . . seemed the proper thing to do when we was in towns and stuff. Well, Oliver,” Tamara snickered, the love in her eyes plain to see, “he took the pretending as real. I suppose I am to blame for going along with the little devil.” She looked at Jobeth and felt a twang of jealousy.
Jobeth had a good life with Alan. Oliver had turned into a drunk and would never amount to much, but they had some wild times gambling and making love. They had fooled no one with their marriage facade. No one believed Tamara and Oliver were wed. She looked too much like a saloon girl and he was a typical gambler.
“But a girl needs some lovin’ once in awhile and Oliver sure did feel good,” Tamara said with a twinkle in her eye, remembering their crazy times together. It had been a roller coaster of emotions. One day they were flying high and just as quickly the next day, crashing low.
Jobeth flushed and looked toward the bedroom where Shawna sat on the bed with the baby. She breathed a sigh of relief. Shawna had not overheard Tamara talking. The bright child was too excited about the baby with the dark curly hair, so much like Tamara’s, to be concerned with the adults’ conversation in the kitchen.
Tamara could not help but notice how she embarrassed Jobeth. Normally she loved to shock people like Jobeth, but a wave of remorse filled her. She had been starving when Jobeth found her. It had become so bad that Tamara had decided to let some of the stinking men who knocked on her door bed her for money.
News of her arrival had spread fast. The husbands of the good town had come with hats in hand feebly asking for her services. She was disgusted at how they ogled her, as all men did, and sent them away, saying it was still too soon after the birth. Now her money and her food had run out. She planned to let the next man who came calling into her door. In fact, she thought it was a customer when Jobeth arrived. Jobeth didn’t know it, but she had saved
Tamara from selling herself. Saved her from a fate worse than her mother’s. Her mother had at least had a clean, fancy brothel to live in with warmth and food. There was always the company of the other girls to fight off the loneliness and despair. If the townspeople shunned them, they at least had each other for comfort and it did not seem as hurtful when surrounded by your peers.
Tamara shook her head. Alan and Jobeth had no idea how hard it was going to be now that they had taken her and the baby in. They would be frowned on by their neighbors, especially the men. Tamara was familiar with half of the men folk. They had looked forward to her speedy recovery from childbirth.
When they found out that the town whore was staying with one of the respected citizens of the community, all hell would break loose. It was all right if Tamara knew who each man was, but an entirely different story if she spoke up to Alan and Jobeth. It was not going to be easy, but they seemed willing to deal with whatever came about. Alan and Jobeth were not fools. They knew what the town thought of her and what would happen to their social status once it became apparent that they called her family.
“Anyway,” Tamara continued, “Oliver had a habit of leaving for days. Usually he spent the time drinking or gambling our money away. I was used to his whoring around, but the last time he left a week went by, then another, and he still didn’t come back. By then I had learned about the tot. I thought no babe of mine is gonna have a drunk for a daddy who’s never there for her ma. So I left.”
“Did you love Oliver?” Jobeth asked, remembering the boy with the beautiful blue eyes and brute personality. He was definitely a charmer with his sweet-talking ways. Jobeth glanced at Alan and warmth filled her heart. He was no Oliver. Alan was so reliable, so sweet. He would never abandon her or Shawna.
“I still do,” Tamara said matter-of-factly, staring blankly into space. Her eyes glazed over and one had to wonder what secrets lurked behind those dark pupils. In the next room the baby began to cry. Tamara’s eyes slowly focused.
Jobeth stood automatically, her body instantly responding to the child’s sad wail and went to the other room to retrieve her.
“I think she’s hungry,” Shawna said, leaning over the beaten cradle Jobeth had dragged over from Tamara’s shack.
“There, there little one.” Jobeth gently picked up the tiny infant and cradled her to her chest. The smell of soiled diapers and baby vomit lingered in her nostrils. She made a mental note to bathe the baby after Tamara fed her. Jobeth smiled. She had some baby clothes she had sewn for Heather’s impending birth in her dresser. She had just laundered them so they would be ready to give to Heather when needed. Jobeth could not keep her heart from skipping a beat thinking how lovely Tamara’s baby girl would look in them. She even thought Shawna might have some diapers from her dolls that would fit the infant.
“Tamara?” Jobeth beamed, coming out of the room, cradling the baby in her arms. Shawna followed close behind. Tamara glanced briefly up from her bowl of food to Jobeth, who stood with the child comfortably in the crook of her arm. The infant seemed content for a change. “I have all sorts of baby clothes here that will fit this precious darling. If you wouldn’t mind, it would please me to let the baby have them.” Jobeth proudly placed the squiggling child into Tamara’s arms, where she proceeded to pull out a sagging breast to feed her.
“Sure.” Tamara shrugged, uninterested. Alan turned away red-faced and coughed. Tamara, choosing to ignore him, paid no attention to Alan’s embarrassment.
“I have chores,” he said uncomfortably, getting up from his chair.
“All right,” Jobeth clapped her hands together trying to cover up his discomfort. Alan hastily left the house and Jobeth sat back down in his chair. Her eyes were unable to leave the sight of the child hungrily nursing from her mother.
“What’s her name?” Jobeth asked as the baby’s eyes opened and looked toward her. Oliver’s exquisite blue orbs stared out of the tiny face. Jobeth could not believe how beautiful the infant was.
“Haven’t named her yet,” Tamara said a little frostily.
“How old is she?”
“A month. Hey,” Tamara said, changing the subject, “where is Jonah?”
Jobeth tilted her head down, dreadin
g what was to come next. It was going to be hard telling Tamara the awful news about Jonah.
Tamara seeing Jobeth’s reaction instantly became nervous and the baby fussed at her breast.
“Tamara, there is no easy way to say this. I have terrible news . . .” Jobeth began. Tamara listened with no emotion showing on her face as Jobeth told her the details of the last years. She recounted with sorrow, the events leading to Jonah’s death, omitting the facts that Jonah had helped her deliver her son and consequently bury him. There were certain subjects she did not wish to share about her life. Subjects that would always be personal to just her.
When Jobeth finished, Tamara looked blankly with no trace of emotion.
“I need to lie down,” she responded dully. Jobeth nodded and showed her to a room. The frail woman sank into bed exhausted, leaving the baby in Jobeth’s care. She did not come out of the room for the rest of the night. Jobeth had to send Alan to a neighbor’s in search of a bottle to feed the hungry infant.
She was relieved no questions were asked of him. There would be plenty of interrogation later. Jobeth just wanted to settle Tamara and the baby in first.
Later that evening the baby woke. She cried for sometime before Jobeth went to get her. As she opened the door quietly, she was assaulted by the smell of dirty diapers. Tamara slept like the dead, not even stirring as her daughter cried out in hunger. She picked up the soaked, squirming bundle and quietly changed her so as not to wake Tamara. Jobeth then went to rock the baby in the other room. She hummed as she fed the infant a warm bottle of goat’s milk; her heart feeling full as she looked down on the content babe gulping from the bottle. She couldn’t help but to love the child instantly. It wouldn’t matter what the town’s people said, Jobeth wouldn’t lose this baby too.
Tamara was staying.
Tamara did not do much but stay in the room given to her. She was like a ghost that only showed herself at dinner. Every morning Jobeth would peek into the room Tamara shared with the baby and without fail Tamara would be staring out the window from her bed, her dark eyes no longer flashing with fire, but dull, the fire extinguished.
She immediately began neglecting the baby from the first night, letting her cry until Jobeth came to rescue her. It was Jobeth who would change and feed the infant. Tamara seemed to be finished with breastfeeding, just as her milk, which had been weak to begin with, went dry.
Jobeth didn’t mind. She loved caring for the child Tamara and Oliver had created. She could sit for hours looking at the blue-eyed beauty, touching her tiny toes and fingers. Every moment with Tamara’s child was like a lost moment with Jobeth’s son.
As much as they hated to create more lies, Alan and Jobeth made up a story to tell everyone. They said Tamara was Alan’s cousin they had not seen for many years. She was family and they could not turn her away. Although Jobeth’s friends said they understood the situation she and Alan were in, the friends Jobeth had once longed for stopped coming over. She was no longer invited to any social gatherings in return.
Shawna too was shunned, no longer popular with her peers. The parents of the children did not want them associating with a child whose cousin was a woman of ill repute. It was apparent to Jobeth that her family was no longer accepted in town. It bothered her at first, but then she would look at the smiling baby cooing in her arms and know she had made the right choice.
Shawna adored the baby, too, making the sacrifice of losing her friends worth the pain.
“She is such a joy, Jobeth. This baby has brought so much joy to our home,” Shawna would say every time she saw the smiling cherub. Jobeth agreed.
The only thing that bothered Jobeth was that Tamara still had not named the baby. The infant was three months old and they still did not know what to call her.
Shawna was the one who began to name the baby unofficially. While leaving for school she would come over to the plump child sleeping in Jobeth’s arms, rosy lips all puckered up, and kiss the healthy infant’s cheek.
“Good-bye, little Joy,” Shawna would whisper as the baby stirred in her sleep.
Three months later, Jobeth woke as she always did. She turned over carefully, so as not to disturb Shawna who was sleeping peacefully beside her. Shawna’s hands were tucked safely under her chin with her long blonde hair fanned out
on the pillow like gossamer.
“Shawna, time to wake up, sweetie,” Jobeth whispered, gently getting out of bed. Shawna moaned, trying to wake up. This was a familiar pattern for the child in the morning. Jobeth smiled lovingly as she watched Shawna struggle with sleep. She patted the little rump reassuringly and went to wake Alan in the loft.
She placed her hand on the bottom of the wooden ladder and called up to him.
“Alan! Morning!”
There was no response.
Jobeth began ascending the ladder, knowing full well he would not budge from bed till she was all the way up.
“Alan.” Jobeth stepped off the ladder and padded over to him. He was asleep on his bed with his back toward her. “Time to wake up, sleepy head.” She sat down on his bed anticipating what was to come next. Alan turned around and encircled her waist in a great big bear hug. She fell into his arms willingly.
“How I love being awakened by you,” he muttered, kissing her softly on the neck.
“How I love you,” Jobeth giggled, kissing him playfully on the lips.
This had become their morning routine. Although they had not proceeded past kissing and petting, Alan and Jobeth were more in love than ever.
“Lay with me?” he asked, patting the blankets beside him. Jobeth shook her head.
“I need to get to Joy. She is probably starving and soaking wet by now.”
Bending down, she kissed Alan one more time. “I will meet you downstairs for breakfast.”
“Abandoned by the woman I love, and for what?” he jested, lying back on his cot. His naked chest glistened with morning sweat. “A dimple-faced baby who melts my heart with a gurgling smile. Uuuhh.” He sighed. “The women in my life!”
Jobeth laughed at him as she proceeded to descend the stairs toward Tamara’s room. She had not felt right taking the baby out of her mother’s room, even though it was apparent Tamara was going to have nothing to do with her daughter.
She walked up to the door and stopped. It seemed awfully quiet behind the shut entrance. Feeling nervous for some unfathomable reason, she grasped the round metal knob with a sensation of foreboding. Opening the door she felt her mouth fall open and heard the baby begin to cry. Next thing she knew Alan was beside her, looking frantic.
Jobeth was screaming.
Chapter 15 —