By nine o’clock the pain was almost unbearable. Euphemia’s lower back, pelvis, stomach, and uterus together had turned into a rigid two-thousand-pound stick of dynamite going off at first intermittently and then continuously. Iron cannonballs were rocketing around inside her body, pounding and bashing, desperate for a way out. If anything, the dull warning pain that preceded each explosion terrified Euphemia the most. She whimpered and moaned. She dug her fingernails into her thighs and almost passed out holding her breath. She cried and prayed to God to help her survive. Beside her, in another twin bed, lay her younger sister, Minty, still asleep, but tossing and turning a bit more with each of Euphemia’s muffled moans. Euphemia knew that somehow she had to get out of the house.
By this time it was ten-thirty. Her parents and her other brothers and sisters would be in bed, if not asleep, and if she was stealthy enough she could creep down the hall, down the stairs, and out the back door. If she had time she could make it to the machinery shed.
Euphemia managed to get out of her bed and tiptoe to the door, hunched over, in agony, in tears, but on her way. Just as she crossed the threshold, her little sister woke up. “Phemie?”
“Minty,” said Euphemia, “I’m going to the john, go back to sleep. I’m coming right back.”
But Minty said, “Wait, Phemie, take me with you. I gotta go, too.”
Oh God, thought Euphemia. If she said no, Minty would start to cry and wake up her mother and her life would be over. But she couldn’t bring her with her. Of course not. Euphemia clutched the door frame, trying not to cry. “Listen, Minty, if you promise to go back to sleep right now, tomorrow morning I will give you the best present in the whole wide world. Okay?”
Minty stared at Euphemia and asked excitedly, “What is it, what is it, Phemie?”
Euphemia put her finger to her lips. “Shhh, Minty, it’s the best thing in the world, I told you, but I can’t bring it to you until you go to sleep. Please, Minty?”
“You promise?” said Minty. “Yes, Minty, yes, I promise.”
Euphemia made it out of the house. In the darkness she stumbled and lurched, cupping her belly with one hand, in an attempt to keep the baby in, until she could make it to the machine shed, to the little bundle of hay she had tossed in one corner months ago, before being confined to her bedroom. The effort of opening the heavy shed door helped to break her water. Inside the shed, Euphemia ripped off her coat, her two sweaters, her wet woollen leotards, and stained cotton underwear and sank to the floor, naked, on her hands and knees. It was pitch-black inside the shed. Euphemia, her face twisted sideways on the cement floor, screamed into the darkness, and Hosea Funk was born.
two
When Knute and Summer Feelin’ drove up to the house they could see Tom and Dory standing in the living room, staring out the picture window. Next to them were small bronze statues and clay busts that Tom had bought, and he and Dory seemed to blend in with these things. As soon as they saw Knute’s beater pull up in the driveway, though, they came to life. Dory zipped to the front door and Tom smiled and waved. These days he stayed away from the doors when they were being opened. He couldn’t afford to get a chill and get sick all over again. S.F. ran up to the picture window, flapping like crazy, and Tom gave her a high-five against the glass, smudging it up a bit. Dory came running out of the house saying, “Welcome, welcome, oh I’m sooooo glad you’re both here.” And she scooped up S.F. even though her heart wasn’t in much better shape than Tom’s and then, with her other free arm, wrapped herself around Knute. Tom beamed through the glass.
Dory had prepared a large meal. It consisted of boneless chicken breasts with a black bean sauce, steamed broccoli, slices of cucumbers, tomatoes, and carrots, brown rice, and a fruit salad. Knute could just barely pick out the grimace on Tom’s face when he sat down at the table, rather ashamed and annoyed that all this dull stuff constituted a celebratory meal. And that it was all made especially for him and his fragile heart. He would have preferred a big piece of red meat with lots of salt, some potatoes and thick gravy, cheese sauce to accompany his steamed broccoli, great slabs of bread with real butter to soak up the gravy and juice from the meat, a large wedge of apple pie and ice cream, and four cups of coffee to wash it down.
But, of course, Tom couldn’t eat steak every day, or maybe he could have and it wouldn’t have made any difference. Who knows? Anyway, Knute could tell that Dory felt very good about herself when she prepared the chicken and steamed vegetables, and the fact that they had hardly any taste made S.F., at least, happy.
After lunch Tom did a bit of walking up and down the hall, S.F. went down to the basement to play with the toys, and Dory and Knute had a cryptic conversation about Tom.
“So?” said Knute, and jerked her head in the direction of Tom and the hallway.
“Well,” said Dory, “you know …”
“Mmmmm …”
And then Dory said, “One day at a time …” and Knute nodded and said, “Yup …”
They sat there and stared at their coffee cups for a bit and Dory added in a very hushed tone, “A bit more,” she tapped at her chest, “these days.”
Knute tapped her own chest. “Pain?” she asked.
Dory nodded and pursed her lips.
“Hmmm … well, what does the doctor say?”
“OH TOM, YOU’RE DONE?” Tom had finished his walk and Dory had been timing him. He had walked for eight minutes. Dory was trying to be extremely upbeat about the eight minutes. “Well, Tom, yesterday it was only seven,” and that sort of thing. Tom went over to the picture window and stood with his back to Dory and Knute. He punched his fist into his palm once and then after about thirty seconds he did it again. He slowly walked back to the couch and lay down with a heavy sigh.
After supper (of leftovers), Dory and Knute played Scrabble. For weeks Dory had been playing with “Marie,” a phantom Scrabble opponent whom she had given her own middle name to. Knute asked Dory how she felt when “Marie” won, and she said, “Divided.” Summer Feelin’ had wandered over to the neighbours’ house to play with the little girl, Madison, who lived there. Dory could never remember Madison’s name. “Montana?” she’d say. “Manhattan?” Which got them onto the subject of names, and Dory wondered if Knute had, perhaps, considered calling S.F. just “Summer” instead of “Summer Feelin’”? Knute knew Dory wasn’t altogether enthusiastic about her granddaughter’s name and she told her she’d think about it, although she wondered if Dory was really any authority on girls’ names considering the choice she’d made when her own daughter was born.
“Summer,” Dory said over and over. “If you say it enough times, you know, Knutie, you get that summer feeling. You don’t have to actually say it. The Feelin’ part becomes rather redundant, don’t you think? Or maybe you could change the spelling of Feelin’ to something, oh, I don’t know, Irish, maybe, like Phaelan, or …”
Just then the doorbell rang. Tom woke up from his nap on the couch and Dory answered the door. A large man with a pale yellow golf cap tugged twice at the front of his coat before greeting Dory and stepping inside.
Tom was the first to speak. “Hosea Funk, c’mon in, c’mon in.” And he nodded his head once, in the traditional male greeting, got up from the couch, and stood there in his polo pajamas looking a bit like William Shatner in the Enterprise and smoothed down his hair, which had become mussed from lying down. Dory said she’d make a fresh pot of coffee and told Hosea to have a seat.