Member-only story
It’s All About Control (‘Country’ 18)
January 21, 1978. Call it practice for life in Vermont. In an ample but barely heated cinder-block hunting cabin, R and I wintered atop a mountain at the edge of New Jersey’s Stokes State Forest, where he took down his first (and only) buck with bow and arrow.
And I huffed and puffed, the weight of nine months of baby inside me taking me off balance. Two and a half days til the due date. Would this miracle emerge on time, according to the midwife’s calendar?
Rubbing a gap in the frost that filmed the downstairs window, I peered into the cold night and watched the Subaru’s red taillights vanish down the dirt road. R had a job as night watchman at a truck stop about 30 miles away, and his departure at 7 pm should get him there on time for the 8 pm start of shift, despite the heavy snow coming down. Since morning at least a foot and a half had fallen, and it showed no sign of letting up.
I washed the dishes, and called my mom to chat. I still felt bad about what I’d answered her the week before. She’d asked, “Can I come for the baby’s birth?” Startled, since I hadn’t even once pictured her involved in this part, I immediately said, “No, Mom. R needs to bond with the baby. This is his time to be there.”
Not that R and my mother didn’t get along — they laughed a lot together. Mom’s pleasure in this second…
