Tally Has Her Baby!!!
A. Blinken Well, she did it! Tally had her baby, Granny helped her. Brighid Bonnie Herman was born 11:47 AM, August 15th, 2008, weighing 10 lbs 6 ounces and parting in just under eleven hours. Tally and baby Brighid are doing wonderfully.
Tally and the baby slept a few hours but were alert before nightfall. Tally was walking the next day, against the advice of everyone but Granny.
Brighid is the fifth child to be born in the cabin, Granny told me.
Tally’s mom wants her to move down to town, closer to everyone, but Tally has decided to stay a few more days or a week up at Granny’s. Partly, I think, because she fears that, since the baby is here, once she leaves she’ll never come back, and partly because she doesn’t want Tomy’s mother to see the baby.
We’ve all been very busy. This is the busy time of year when those who will have work have found it. Lots of people work overtime just to get in what hours they can. Randy is down south driving a gravel truck back and forth on the levies. Honey has been working Saturdays and I’ve closed my shop half the week and gone to work part time with the County, doing tree falling and brush clearing along the roads. I’ve been too tired zip my fly by evening.
I have spent time with Granny and Tally, though, all the time I could. The cabin, as it often has, became a house of womanness, with Tally getting unbelievably bigger and bigger. Not just her belly, but everything, including her mind, including her heart. I sat many evenings playing pinochle and listening to girl bands and being the butt of jokes from Granny and Tally against all mankind, and I do mean men kind. Still, I loved having the privilege of being part of all the fecundity and reproduction. I’ll never forget it.
Now that I see little Brighid, I deeply regret every stupid, heartless thing I said about Tally or her little kid. Granny was right, it doesn’t matter how a person gets started, what matters is how family does for it after that. She’ll always have a place in my family and anyway, Tally flattered me by saying I contributed more to Brighid that Tomy did.
Lots of people have offered help to Tally. That is also what Granny said, that having the baby would make Tally a mother, and mothers get help from the village.
Now that the baby is here, I’m aware again that winter is coming in a few months, and that Granny will be alone again. Even greatly pregnant, Tally was a strong and capable person. With her gone the human mass in the cabin is cut to a third, and the number of hands reduced by more than that. Granny’s thumbs have gotten loose and grating, and this is summer; when winter comes they’ll hurt and hurt.
I thought this last night, standing in the cabin with the two Brighids, one tiny and young in my arms, the other tiny and old by my side. I must have had a "look" because Granny slapped my face. "Stop it, A.B.," she said, "you’ll get morose and I’ll have to send you home."
Tally has talked of moving to the Bay area, to care for rich old ladies as they die. It’s an important job, one she can do, and one she can raise her baby at, but I’ll miss her, and I hate to see another little local baby going south to grow up.
I’ll close up the shop early tonight and head up to the cabin with fresh fruit and some yogurt, and probably a small bottle of something brown for Granny. We’ll lay out on the granite rocks by the creek, they’ll still be hot from the sun but the air will be cool. Granny is cooking a beef roast because she says Tally needs the essence.
Honey works late tonight. Like a lot of folks around town, Honey and I have had some rough places recently. We work too much, see each other too little, and to be honest, going through the pregnancy with Tally has changed me a little, and I don’t know what that means, really.
All the work is offset by all the street celebrations, some to bring in tourists, but some just because it’s summer, we live in a beautiful place, and we like to go outside and eat, drink, smoke pot and bullshit. These periods give people a chance to fight in the street once in awhile, relieving pressure that would be dangerous if let loose in a house in the dead of winter.
I love living in the mountains.
Gotta go,
Aaron
