00 9781771089661 by Louise Michalos

Author:Louise Michalos
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing
Published: 2021-04-27T14:21:00+00:00

It was later that afternoon when Marilla, carrying a fresh loaf of bread wrapped in a tea towel, knocked on the back door of Rachel Lynde’s home. Her husband opened it and beckoned her inside.

“I’m so sorry,” Marilla started to say, but Thomas, too emotional and too embarrassed to be seen so, waved her words away. “She’s waiting for you.”

He carried the bread into the pantry, leaving Marilla to make her own way upstairs. The house was quiet, the curtains were drawn, and though the afternoon was bright with sunshine, the hallway was heavy with gloom. Marilla stopped to gather her strength. All through the night she had been tormented by guilt at having pulled away from Rachel in recent weeks. But the very thought of seeing the baby nestled in her arms had filled Marilla with such hate, it nearly took her breath away. And now she could not dispel the awful feeling that somehow her resentment at having to watch Rachel and Thomas live the life she’d lost had somehow caused this.

She knocked before pushing the door open and stepped inside. When her eyes adjusted to the light, she could see quilts piled high on the bed and the faint outline of Rachel’s head, where clumps of dark brown hair fell across the pillow.

“Rachel. It’s me, Marilla.”

The quilts moved and a hand reached out. Marilla walked to the side of the bed and gently held it.

“I’m so sorry, Rachel. I know how difficult this must be for you.”

The blankets shifted and Rachel struggled to sit up. “How would you know?”

Surprised by the unexpected tone in Rachel’s voice, Marilla stood motionless and stared.

“How could you possibly know? You never carried a child inside you.” Rachel held back tears while her rage mounted. “You never had to bury your baby girl,” she shouted.

The word bury hung in the air between them and Marilla watched as it made its way into Rachel’s heart, turning the unimaginable suddenly very real. Her face registered the truth and she started to panic. “Oh my God, she’s in the ground. My baby is in the ground.” She pushed back the blankets and started to flail, getting more tangled with each movement. “I need to hold her.”

Marilla reached for Rachel and tried to soothe her. “You can’t, Rachel, she’s gone.”

“But you don’t understand. I never got to hold her…I never got to kiss her.” Rachel struggled and started to scream. Marilla held her back while Thomas’s footfalls pounded on the stairs. He rushed through the door, gathered Rachel, screaming and flailing, and laid her back on the bed.

She watched from the doorway as Thomas rocked and hushed and whispered tenderly to his wife, then stepped into the hallway, closed the door, and hurried downstairs. With every step, Marilla’s guilt lessened, and in its place simmering anger, unleashed by the shock of Rachel’s words, filled her chest. Instead of heading toward the lane home, Marilla gathered her skirt and started to run, the fury of having to

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