She had been hoeing. She had chopped out the rows only yesterday and the weeds had not had time to come back yet. She had awakened with the feeling that she was waiting for something and had made herself go out into the garden to pass the time. Now she knew what was going to happen. Anneth had always had a special affinity for redbirds, had even told Easter how she and Vine had witnessed a flock of birds converging around their yard. She waited a moment, turning her head slowly to take in all the birds; then she dropped her hoe and stepped out of the garden. As she moved, the redbirds flew away in a noisy fluttering, a pleasing sound like water falling on rocks.
Easter snatched her keys from the nail beside the back door, and as the screen slammed behind her she heard the phone begin to ring. She knew it was Glenn, calling to say that Anneth had started having labor pains just as they got into Black Banks, freshly back from their wedding. She didn’t need to talk to him. She got into her car, sped up the road, and stopped in front of Sophie and Paul’s house, where she kept her thumb on the horn until Sophie stepped to the door, looking out with squinted eyes. Easter leaned over to clatter down the car window. “Come on! Anneth’s having the baby!”
GLENN AND JEWELL were already at the hospital, sitting on the hard chairs in the waiting room. Lolie was there, too, talking loudly into the pay phone. Glenn jumped up when Easter and Sophie came in, coming toward them as if he wanted a hug. Easter folded her arms across her chest, her key ring hanging from one finger and sending out little ringing notes.
“I tried to call you,” he said.
“How did you talk her into it, Glenn?” Easter said. She looked at him a long moment, holding her lips together tightly, as if she were sucking on a piece of hard candy. “You caught her at her lowest and talked her into running off and marrying you. Why would you want that?”
“I love her, Easter.”
Easter let out a scoffing breath. “I don’t understand you, Glenn. And I don’t trust you, either.” She stepped closer to him. “But if you ever hurt her, you mark my words, I’ll kill you.”
He tried to act as if he had not even heard her. “She wanted you to go into the birthing room with her, but the baby just came so quick.”
Jewell stepped forward, smiling. Easter had never met her but could see why Anneth loved her so much. Just the way she stood with her hands clenched in front of her suggested her kindness, her actions the opposite of those of her brother, whose presence took up the whole room. “He’s the prettiest little thing,” Jewell said, and put a hand on Easter’s arm.
“He’s already born?” Easter said, recoiling from the both of them.
Glenn nodded without looking at her.
SHE EASED THE door open, and as soon as she saw Anneth lying there in the gray shadows of the hospital room, she couldn’t help thinking back to when the roles had been reversed, when Easter’s baby had been born. Anneth had walked in without a word and had climbed into the bed with Easter. She had simply lain there with her, helping to soak up some of her grief.
Easter was glad to see that the baby was not there. She had expected that he might be, and she wasn’t prepared for this yet. When she drew near to Anneth’s bed, Anneth opened her eyes and smiled.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t here for you,” Easter said.
“It’s all right,” Anneth said, and patted the bed so that Easter would sit there. “It all happened so fast.”
Easter took Anneth’s hand. “And he’s all right?”
“He’s perfect, Easter. See, I told you he’d be a boy.”
“You know you’ve made a mistake, marrying Glenn, don’t you?” Easter knew this wasn’t the proper time, but the words had to be said. “That man will try to rule your life. Can’t you see that?”
“I see it now,” Anneth said quietly. “I see everything so much plainer now than before.”
“We’ll fix it,” Easter said. “We’ll get you away from him and—”
“Let’s not talk about all that now, Easter. It’ll be all right. Everything will work out just fine.”
The door opened and a nurse stepped in with the baby fussing in her arms. A little shudder ran through Easter at the sound of life. As the nurse made her way across the room, Easter felt her arms opening up, moving to take hold of the child. The nurse bent to put the baby in Anneth’s arms and he stopped crying. Only then did Easter realize how she had fooled herself. This was not her child and he never would be. She saw how Anneth’s body curved in toward the baby’s, the little fist broken free of the tightly wound blanket. She could see the love that Anneth possessed for this baby standing like a mist above the bed. It was that clear and she knew what was going to happen.
She felt as if she was unable to move or even speak as she looked down at the baby. Perfect and moving, even in sleep. Alive. Thin blue eyelids with long lashes, a thick layer of downy hair. The fist clenching itself tighter and tighter, causing the tiny chips of fingernails to grow red and then whiten. A jolt ran through her—pure joy or incubated grief, she didn’t know which.
She leaned down and kissed Anneth on the forehead. Beads of cold sweat met Easter’s lips.
“Look at him, Easter. He’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”
Easter ran her thumb across his forehead. Impossibly soft, brand new. She leaned down to his face and drew in his scent, the cleanest smell, complete newness. She breathed it in as deeply as she could. She searched his face and head for any sign of a coal tattoo, but there wasn’t one. She was thankful for this. Her own baby had been the only one to bear that mark of survival, a sign that this moment of healing would come to all of them.
“You were right, Easter. What you said,” Anneth whispered. “As soon as I had him, I felt like a different person. It was like a light switch being turned on.”
Easter nodded.
“All my life I’ve been looking for magic in all the wrong places,” Anneth said. “Some kind of proof that magic truly does exist in this world. I didn’t even realize that magic was in everything, that it happened every day. But now I know.”
Easter sat on the edge of the bed and Anneth leaned over, trying to open the blanket, but she was too weak. “Unfold that and look at his little toes,” Anneth said. “I love his feet the best of all.”
As her hands worked, Easter tried not to think of her own baby, who had been wrapped in an identical blanket—white with red and turquoise stripes. She refused to let those images ruin this moment for her. She would not go through life looking at this baby and comparing it to her own. That wouldn’t be fair to herself or to the child.
“What name did you decide on?”
“Clay,” Anneth said, still in a whisper, as if terrified of waking the baby. “I wanted to name him something to do with the land. Bradley loved the land as much as I do. So that was the best name I could think of. Do you like it?”
“Clay,” Easter said, holding his hot feet in her hands. “It’s the best name.”
They sat there in silence for a long time, looking at him. When he pursed his lips or wrinkled his forehead in sleep or opened his fist in a sudden burst of unexplained alertness, Anneth laughed. Finally Easter took hold of her sister’s free hand, smoothed her hair back out of her face, and chose her words carefully.
“I can’t take this baby from you,” she said. “You love him, even more than you admit. It was stupid of us to think we could do that, to think that I could act like I was his mother and you just go about acting like he’s just a nephew to you. We were crazy, and I can’t take him.”
“I’m not good enough for him, though, Easter,” Anneth whispered.
“You don’t believe that anymore. I know you don’t,” Easter said. “When you had this baby, you quit believing that about yourself. You can’t tell me you didn’t.”
Anneth tightened her fingers around Easter’s hand. “What will we do, then?”
“We’ll raise him together, Anneth,” she said. “That’s the way we’ve always done things.”
>
Anneth didn’t say anything, but her eyes agreed. When Easter was satisfied with this response, she stretched out on the bed beside Anneth. There was such comfort here, a good silence that can only exist between people who love each other. She put her arm across her sister’s waist so she could touch Clay’s hands. They would lie here and maybe the three of them would drift off into sleep together. She listened to their breathing, quiet and remarkable, a proof of life that sounded like a prayer.
Acknowledgments
A DEBT OF THANKS to Alice Adams, Grant Alden, Billboard magazine, booksellers and librarians across the nation, the Brosi family, Dub Cornett, Cracker, Hilary Elkins, friends at Spalding University’s MFA Program, Shelly Goodin, Joy Harris, Wanda Jackson, fellow members of the Mezzanine Family Troubadours, Ron Rash, Grippo Reynolds, Jack Riggs, Ingrid Robinson, and Brad Watson. Extra special thanks to the following: Mike Croley and Pam Duncan for always being there when I need them most; Jane Hicks for wisdom and words; David Baxter, who gave me a CD called Coal Mining Women; Donovan Cain, Patty Loveless, Deborah Thompson, Billy Edd Wheeler (who wrote the song “Coal Tattoo”), and Zoe Speaks for their music—all of them have mountain souls; Marianne Worthington for being such a good buddy; Kathy Pories, friend and editor. To my good and patient wife, Teresa; my daughters, Cheyenne and Olivia, who give me joy every day; and my entire family, whom I hope to make proud. And to my uncle Sam, who has a coal tattoo.
In memory of those workers killed on February 20, 2003, at the CTA explosion in Corbin, Kentucky; the laughter of Jeanne Braselton; the goodness of my uncle Albert Ray House; the dignity of the Daniel Boone Parkway; and the spirit of all those people who have had to fight for their land, especially Widow Combs, a frail sixty-one-year-old woman who lay down in front of bulldozers to protect her family’s land in Knott County, Kentucky, and was forced away by authorities two days before Thanksgiving Day, 1965.
Published by
ALGONQUIN BOOKS OF CHAPEL HILL
Post Office Box 2225
Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27515-2225
a division of
Workman Publishing
225 Varick Street
New York, New York 10014
© 2004 by Silas House. All rights reserved.
The author is grateful to the University Press of Kentucky for its generous permission to use lines of poetry from James Still’s From the River, From the Valley (© by James Still) and to Iris Books for its generous permission to use lines of poetry from Ron Rash’s Among the Believers (© by Ron Rash).
Excerpts from this novel appeared in slightly different form in Nantahala Review.
This is a work of fiction. While, as in all fiction, the literary perceptions and insights are based on experience, all names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. No reference to any real person is intended or should be inferred.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
eISBN 9781565128590
Silas House, The Coal Tattoo
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