She withdrew into herself, became distracted, distant. Steven and Barbara noticed but chalked it up to impending motherhood, the natural fears of a first-time mom. And Sophia stood more often at the window, staring at the road stretching beyond the town.
She no longer waited for Victor. That hope was dead. She just looked at the road, as if trying to glimpse her fate lying beyond the horizon.
April was fickle. It drenched the town with rain, then teased with warm sun, then startled with sudden frosts. Sophia moved heavily around the house, her belly huge, like a ripe watermelon.
Barbara fussed over her daughter, preparing for the birth, boiling sheets, sewing diapers from old shirts, brewing herbal teas. «Any day now!» she’d say, eyeing Sophia with worry and tenderness. «Almost time!» Sophia nodded, rubbing her belly.
The baby inside was restless, kicking and turning, eager to meet the world. At night, when back pain kept her awake, Sophia spoke to her unborn child.
«Easy, easy!» she whispered. «Just a little longer, and you’ll see the sun. And Grandma.
And Steven, who’ll be a real dad to you.» She tried not to think of Victor. Since that cruel letter from Dennis, Sophia had banned herself from dwelling on her city life.
She decided it was the past, someone else’s, far away, belonging to another woman. Now there was only the town, Steven, the baby in her womb, and endless gratitude for this chance to start over. But sometimes, in that liminal space between sleep and waking, Victor appeared to her.
Not the mocking fiancé of the DA’s daughter from Dennis’s letter, but the real one, with his quiet voice, attentive eyes, gentle touch. And then Sophia woke with tear-streaked cheeks, a sense of loss no amount of Steven’s care or preparations for the baby could ease. One evening, as an April breeze tugged at the curtains and Barbara cooked dinner, Sophia felt the first contraction.
A sharp pain shot through her lower back, radiating downward, bending her double. She cried out, clutching the table’s edge. Barbara turned, worry flashing across her face.
It’s started? Sophia nodded, unable to speak. The pain faded as quickly as it came, leaving an odd emptiness. «Too soon,» Barbara muttered, approaching her daughter.
«Five weeks early. Lie down, rest. I’ll send Steven for the midwife.»
Sophia obeyed, settling onto a bed with fresh linens. A strange calm washed over her. Just yesterday, she’d been terrified of childbirth, gripped by panic, vision blurring, fists clenched.
Now fear receded, leaving only clarity and resolve. Steven arrived minutes later, breathless, sweat beading on his forehead. He rushed toward Sophia, but Barbara stopped him at the door.
«Not now. Go get Agnes. Tell her
the waters haven’t broken, but contractions have started.» Steven nodded, casting one last look at Sophia before bolting out. Barbara knelt by her daughter, placing a cool hand on her burning forehead.
«Hold on, darling. A woman’s lot is to endure.» The second contraction came sooner than expected.
Sophia gritted her teeth to keep from screaming. She recalled stories from town women about childbirth. How to breathe right, not to push too soon, to save strength for the crucial moment.
Agnes, a wiry old woman with sharp, youthful eyes, arrived as contractions grew frequent. After examining Sophia, she shook her head. «It’ll be a long labor.
First ones always are.» And so began the wait.
Steven was sent out of the house. Men had no place near a birthing woman, per the town’s age-old custom. He went to a neighbor’s but returned hourly, peering through the window with a silent question. Barbara shook her head each time.
«Not yet, she hasn’t delivered.» Night fell over the town. Candles flickered in the room, casting eerie shadows on the walls.
Sophia tossed on the bed, gasping from pain. Contractions rolled in relentlessly, no respite. Her face paled, lips bled from biting, sweat streamed down her temples.
«Something’s wrong,» Barbara whispered, glancing at Agnes. «It’s taking too long.» The old woman frowned, checking Sophia again.
The baby’s big. And not positioned right. «We need a hospital, but how, at this hour?» Barbara clenched her fists.
The county hospital, twenty-five miles away, had an ambulance. But how to get it here, with roads too rough for cars? How to get her daughter to the hospital when every move caused such pain? «Steven!» she shouted, rushing to the porch. «Hitch the horse, we need to get to the county!»
But it was too late. When Barbara returned, Sophia was screaming, gripping the bed’s iron frame. Her water had broken, blood pooling.
«Hold on, sweet girl!» Agnes chanted, rubbing Sophia’s belly with herbal salves. «Help your baby, don’t give up!» Sophia closed her eyes, summoning her last strength. Images flashed before her.
Her mother’s outstretched arms, Steven at the gate, Victor in the rain, tiny fingers clutching hers. «Help me!» she pleaded silently to no one. «Help me live!» For him.
For all of them. At three in the morning, a sharp knock came at the window.
Barbara rushed to the door. The town doctor, a young man fresh from military service, stood there. «Steven told me!» he panted.
«I trained some. Maybe I can help?» Barbara yanked him inside, not letting him finish.
Any help now was worth its weight in gold. The doctor examined Sophia, listened to the baby’s heartbeat, frowned. The baby’s in danger.
And the mother too. «We need to act fast!» He opened his battered medical bag. The tools were sparse, but better than nothing.
He sterilized them with alcohol, prepared clean cloths. «Hold her tight!» he told Barbara and Agnes. «This will hurt.»
What followed burned itself into Barbara’s memory as the worst night of her life. Her daughter’s screams, blood soaking the sheets, the doctor’s pale face, his trembling hands working some medical miracle. Then—a sharp, piercing cry of a newborn.
Vivid, alive, cutting through the deathly silence that had settled in the room. «A girl!» the doctor gasped, handing the tiny, slippery bundle to Agnes. «Healthy!» Sophia propped herself up, one last act of will, one final effort.
Her eyes sought the baby. «Let me see!» she whispered. Agnes brought the swaddled infant.
Sophia touched its tiny face with trembling fingers. Smiled an otherworldly smile. «Emily,» she said clearly.
Her name will be Emily. Then her head fell back on the pillow, her hand limp on the sheet. The doctor rushed to her, searching for a pulse, attempting CPR.
But it was too late. «Bleeding,» he told Barbara, avoiding her eyes. «She lost too much blood.
I couldn’t do anything.» Barbara didn’t hear him. She stared at her daughter, so peaceful, so beautiful even now, with a waxen face and a frozen smile.
Stared, unable to believe her bright, defiant Sophia would never open her eyes, never laugh, never say, «Mom, forgive me.» The baby’s cry snapped her out of it. The tiny girl, her granddaughter, all that remained of her daughter, wailed, demanding attention, demanding life.
«What have you done?» Barbara whispered, looking at her daughter’s body. «What have you done to me, my girl?» The door burst open. Steven stood there.
One glance at the bed, at Sophia’s still form, at the crying baby in Agnes’s arms, and he understood. His face twisted, as if struck, his knees buckled. He collapsed by the bed, grabbing his wife’s lifeless hand, pressing it to his lips.
«No,» he repeated, rocking back and forth. «No, no, no.» Barbara approached, resting a hand on his shoulder.
«We have a daughter, Steven.» Sophia named her Emily. He looked up.
Tears brimmed in his eyes, tears he couldn’t shed. He looked at the baby Agnes held. «Give her to me,» he said hoarsely.
Agnes handed him the bundle. Steven took the baby awkwardly, cradling her against his chest. Tiny Emily quieted, as if sensing safety.
Steven gazed at the newborn, at her red face, her wrinkled fists, the dark fuzz on her head. Then he looked at Barbara. In his eyes was such resolve, such strength, that the old woman’s heart ached.
«I’ll raise her,» he said. «I’ll be her father and her mother.» Barbara nodded silently.
Then she approached the bed to close her daughter’s eyes. As she performed this final motherly act, thoughts swirled in her mind—of fate’s strange ways, taking a daughter and giving a granddaughter. Of how the baby, born full-term and large, didn’t match the timeline of Sophia and Steven’s marriage. Of how the newborn’s eyes, dark as ripe cherries, resembled neither Sophia’s blue nor Steven’s gray. She knew, or guessed, the child wasn’t Steven’s. And she knew Steven guessed too.
But she saw the tenderness with which he held the baby, the pain and love in his gaze at his dead wife. Why speak the truth if it only wounds? Barbara thought, covering her daughter’s face with a clean cloth. Let Sophia’s secret die with her.
The town funeral was simple but dignified. Sophia was buried in the small cemetery under an old oak.
People came to say goodbye, even those who’d judged her for her city life, her divorce, her quick remarriage. Death erases all grudges.
Barbara stood by the grave, her face stone-like. Beside her, Steven, holding the swaddled Emily. They didn’t cry.
Not the old woman who’d lost her only daughter, nor the young man who’d buried his beloved. Tears would come later, in private, in the night’s silence. For now, they had to hold on.
For the tiny being who needed care, attention, love. Weeks later, while sorting Sophia’s things to make room for Emily’s dowry, which they’d need to gather from infancy, Barbara found a diary. A worn notebook in a vinyl cover, tucked at the bottom of a suitcase among winter clothes.
At first, Barbara set it aside, unwilling to invade her daughter’s privacy, even after death. But something—curiosity, motherly worry, or a longing to hear her daughter’s voice again—made her return to it. That evening, when Steven had gone to help a neighbor with a roof and Emily slept, lulled by a lullaby, Barbara sat at the table and opened the diary.
Sophia’s handwriting, sharp and resolute, danced before her eyes, blurred by unbidden tears. «I never thought I’d keep a diary like some schoolgirl,» Sophia wrote in the first entry, dated the day she arrived in the city. «But I need someone to talk to, even if it’s just paper.»
Barbara turned the pages, sinking into her daughter’s secret life, her thoughts, doubts, and loneliness among people. And amidst it all, lines that seared her heart like acid—entries full of turmoil, passion, guilt, and fear. A story of secret meetings, stolen hours of joy, wrenching doubts.
Finally, an entry about the pregnancy. A baby inside me. Victor’s, I know it.
I can’t tell Dennis. He’d either kill me or ruin Victor’s life. I know what his jealousy can do.
Victor says we’ll leave. He’ll take me and the baby. We’ll be happy.
But I’m scared to believe. I’ve heard too many promises in my life. Barbara read, tears streaming down her wrinkled cheeks.