Sally becomes pregnant with the Burbon baby. Yet again I gratefully and humbly acknowledge the help and support I received from Grand Master dweaver999 and for his permission to publish (see copyright notice at the end of this story).
Of course, I am solely responsible for any and all inaccuracies, errors and omissions.
*
The morning after their confrontation with Eve Burbon, Valerie and Sally were asleep in each other's arms, as Eve and her daughters Naomi and Nicky were up feeding chickens and horses, milking cows, composting manure, and doing the same chores they did every morning.
The breakfast Valerie thought she and Sally would buy the Burbons had long been cooked and eaten by the time Sally and Valerie appeared. Their apologies brushed aside, and after a massive series of hugs and kisses with Valerie's nieces (Sally being introduced as "a good friend", while the girls exchanged a very quick sideways glance), Valerie asked where Joe had gone.
"Out plowin'. Snow's let up, and I heard the trucks out on the road. Ya might be able to get to the Innerstate. The county got cellphones for the plowdrivers, so I'll call Joe and ask. Y'want breakfast? I can cook somethin' for ya."
"Just toast and coffee," said Valerie. "Sweetheart, what would you like?"
"Miss--Valerie," Sally hesitated, glancing at Valerie's nieces.
They didn't need to know about us yet
,
and Valerie said to call her Valerie,
she thought. She went on, "could I have a little more, oatmeal or hot cereal and coffee and toast, please?"
"Got Cream of Wheat, if that'll do ya," said Eve. "Don't got oatmeal. We grow oats, but they're for the horses."
Valerie looked at Sally, with a lot of message in the look. "Oh yes, perfect," Sally replied, and looked at the floor. She didn't stop looking at the floor until her breakfast came.
Eve said, "Naomi, make up some more coffee an' toast, and get out the Cream of Wheat. Make it with this mornin's milk, there's enough for another day. See if we have any sugar, an' if we do, put some in."
"Oh, Momma, why?" said Naomi, in her again-I-am-imposed-upon-voice, but started to work.
Like the sons and the vineyard in Matthew
, thought Eve.
She says she won't but she does anyway.
Sally thanked Eve and Naomi profusely when her breakfast arrived. When Valerie and Sally had finished, with Nicky washing the dishes, Eve called Joe.
"Hey baby, how ya doin'?" Pause. "Clear as far as the Innerstate?" Pause. "OK, Val and Sal are leavin'. Send ya their love, and they'll call us when they get home. Now you drive careful, ya hear? Love ya!"
Valerie would call with the details for Joe. They'd start once Eve knew her baby was coming.
Valerie fretted at the delay. She knew that trying to hurry things would upset the balance she had feared to hope for. But still she thought
There's no difference between those who say 'some day' and those who say 'never'.
Mike's baby, her baby, was everything. Nothing would stop her, nothing could stop her. Not now that she'd gotten almost there.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Two months later, February, four a.m., though it might as well have been midnight. The sky was black, the snow still falling, and Eve could hear the trees creaking with the cold. As she moved from under the duvet, the cold hit her like a punch. She took her robe and wrapped it around her, but it only drove the cold inward, and her breasts ached with it.
Stagger to the kitchen. Water and coffee in the percolator, percolator on electric stove, but don't turn it on until milkin's done. Get eggs and potatoes for breakfast; clean the potatoes and get ready to boil them, let eggs warm up as best they can, and later scramble 'em in with the potatoes in the half-acre frying pan. Get bread (baked only three days ago), slice and put in toaster. Juice from a bottle into glasses (cold enough in here to leave them on the table). Then put two new logs in the fireplace.
God, she felt sick. The room started to move around her. No, it was just the nausea again.
Back to the bedroom to dress, heavy sweatshirt over the bra she'd slept in, leave the long underwear on, ski pants from the thrift store, thick socks, and get the high rubber boots from the mud closet at the back (generations of chickenshit on the soles and beyond), and the Spider ski parka the girls got her for Christmas two months ago. Gloves, wool hat and her muffler, and off to feed the chickens.
She got the can full of dried corn, and walked out into the yard. The cold hit her again, and she staggered again. It seemed to be a permanent condition. The old thermometer on the wall said minus 10--felt like it. The chicken house smelled, but not so bad as the cowbarn would smell.
Feed them, make sure the water basin was full and unfrozen, look for eggs--five, not bad, breakfast for tomorrow.
Back to the house, out of the boots, walk in stocking feet to start cooking. As breakfast would be ready as soon as the cows were milked, wake Joe with a kiss (if bending over didn't start the nausea again). His grunts made her laugh.
"Wake up, honey, gotta work today."
"Oh dammit woman, five more minutes."
"No sir, up an' at 'em. Get ready for breakfast. If you don't want it I'll eat it my own self."
"Yeah, and puke it all over the front doorstep."
"You stop that, it's all your fault," she laughed.
"You said you wanted...."
"Hush your mouth, Joseph Burbon, the girls will be up any minute now."
"No way no how, they gotta be pried outta bed with a crowbar."
There was the sound of a door slamming, followed by "Naomi, you're such a troll, were you raised in a barn? Why do you always slam doors?"
"To wake up the lame and lazy like you, Nicola Burbon, girl slug."
"I'll slug your miserable butt...."
"Girls!" shouted Joe, "is this a house for people or for mules? Stop it now, get dressed and get ready!"
"Yes, father," replied fifteen-year-old Naomi, in her best dutiful-daughter voice.
"Daddy, she's such a pig," whined twelve-year-old Nicky, "you gotta do something about her, she always tortures me...."
