Soldier at the Door(22)

A depth of pain Mahrree had never seen before on her mother erupted and filled her eyes with sudden grief. “I think now you can understand, Mahrree. We lost your sister,” she confessed. “You weren’t quite two. She was born early, like Jaytsy, but even smaller. I had pains just as you did with Peto, but we couldn’t stop them. Her tiny little lungs . . . they weren’t ready yet.” Tears slid down her face.

Fascinated and dismayed, Mahrree sat up and took her mother into her arms. “I had no idea! You did have a second child?”

Hycymum began to weep softly. “I shouldn’t be burdening you with this. I thought I was over it, but today, seeing you . . . it just all came back,” she squeaked out between sniffles.

Mahrree handed her back her moist handkerchief. Some things can be shared between mother and daughter.

“A member of the king’s Family Services visited me the day after,” Hycymum said damply. “I was still resting at my mother’s. That representative had The Drink. She said it was obvious I couldn’t birth healthy children. I was half delirious with fever, pain, and exhaustion. My mother, your Grandmother Sakal, tried to stop her . . .” Hycymum shook her head. “I never got to replace my lost baby.”

“Oh, Mother,” Mahrree breathed. She felt guilty that she had two beautiful babies that came out yelling as loudly as their parents. She closed her eyes and wished for something helpful to say. Instead, all she came up with was, “How did you bear it?”

She felt her mother chuckle under her arms. That was the last thing Mahrree expected. Then again, nothing she was hearing or feeling today was anything she expected.

Hycymum pulled back and was actually smiling. “Cloth!” When Mahrree looked at her blankly she said, “No, really. I met another woman who also lost an early baby. Together we made a blanket for our babies. We spent days looking at the market to find the right cloth, and oh! We never had sewed something so beautiful before!” Hycymum smiled tearfully at the memory. “Then together we buried it near the unmarked graves of where Family Services buried our babies. Wouldn’t even let us do that on our own,” she added with a bitter tone Mahrree had never heard from her mother before.

“And then,” she continued, a bit more brightly, “we found other grieving mothers. We helped them make blankets. Then we helped each other make clothes for our surviving children. Then we made curtains and pillows and everything else.”

Mahrree smiled, not realizing she could still do it. “Your decorating friends! All of them lost someone?”

She nodded with a sad smile. “Yes, each one. I guess you feel as much pain for losing a child as you do when you lose the possibility of a child. Mahrree, you’ve joined our club, filled with women forced to take The Drink. And in our club is every mother who’s lived in the past fifty years. They’ll be here again, to help until you get over this. Because they understand.”

Mahrree shook her head in amazement, seeing her mother with new eyes, and seeing her fondness for decorating everything in a different way.

“So it took me only thirty years to finally understand you?”

Hycymum laughed softly and kissed her daughter’s cheek. “You’re doing better than me. I still don’t understand you!”

They sat in silence few moments, both sniffing and passing the soggy handkerchief between them.

“I wished I could have seen Grandmother Sakal trying to take on the official,” Mahrree said eventually.

Hycymum smiled. “My mother was special, much like you. She knew losing my baby didn’t mean I couldn’t have more.” In a softer voice she said, “Did I ever tell you she was expecting five times? She lost three of her babies before she could carry them full term, but was able to carry my twin brothers and me. That’s why she believed I could have more.” She sighed.

Mahrree sighed too. She’d often forgotten her mother had two younger brothers who died as small children from a fever and pox. Suddenly Mahrree wondered if she needed to worry about her own babies—

Oh, there were simply far too many things to worry about today. She was already drowning in dread.

Fortunately her mother spoke again.

“She tried to tell the representative, but of course she wouldn’t listen.” Hycymum reflected for a moment. “Mahrree,” she said in a tone Mahrree had heard from her teenage students when they had news they were sworn to keep secret—except only after they shared it just this once, “I have something I think you’re ready for.”

Again surprised by her mother’s changing demeanor, Mahrree smiled warily. “Might as well, Mother. I’m rather expecting anything now.”