The barren wifeno longer a wife at all, halfwoman, as my motherinlaw liked to muttershe called me Emma, sighing with a sour smile.
Dont listen to her, shouted Shirley, the halfdeaf neighbour, sudden as a thunderclap. God knows what Hes doing. Youre not meant to bear a child yet; He sees the future.
Ive been here five years, Shirley, and Im longing for a baby, Emmas voice broke, tears tracing her cheeks. She rarely spoke it aloud; the ache lived quiet in her heart. She had returned to her home village, ten miles away, to tend her mothers grave, and now sat with the old, halfdeaf neighbour to confide.
Its a sad business, the old woman rasped. But it isnt us who find children; they find us. Be patient, girl.
Hounds howled, sparrows chattered, though the familiar sounds of the hamlet were fading. The little settlement of Hollowford in Yorkshire was dying, its crooked cottages leaning toward the river as if bowing a final farewell.
Emma slipped toward her husbands house in Ashford, a larger village she had to reach before dark. She had always feared the night woods and fieldschildhood terror that clung like a shadow.
Six years earlier she had been left alone. Her father had died after the war, and her mother passed when Emma was still a child. She took a job milking cows on the local cooperative. When she met Nicholas, it was a June summerher seventeenth year and her first season on the farm. The walk was long, but she ran gladly, even as her hands ached from the hard milking.
One morning a slanting rain caught her on the lane. The sky thickened, clouds rolled, and a low growl rumbled. Everything seemed askew, tilted to one side. Emma ducked under a lean-to at the forests edge, sat on the plank, and wrung water from her dark braids. Through the angled sheets of rain she saw a darkhaired youth in a checked shirt and knickershorts hurrying toward her. He slipped under the shelter, grinned, and said,
Now thats a gift! Im Nicholaswho might you be?
Emmas heart hammered; the world was a wash of grey. She stayed silent, edging to the planks edge.
Did the thunder deaf you, or were you born mute? he teased.
Not mute. Emma, thats my name.
Cold? Need warmth? he pressed, staying at a respectful distance. The rain has beaten everything flat. Im with the coop.
He laughed a while longer, then his jokes turned sharper, his eyes lingering on Emmas blouse pressed to her skin. She fled, sprinting through the rain, glancing back as the forest, heavy with looming clouds, loomed like a dark cathedral.
Later, Nicholas returned as a temporary herdsman. Emma watched him with a flash of irritation, but his advances grew earnest; the encounter had left a mark.
She entered marriage with hope, though the future in her husbands family and a foreign village seemed bleak. Her motherinlaw proved stern and ill, offloading much of the household burden onto Emma while watching every chore with hawk eyes. Though the load was heavy, Emma never gave upshe was diligent, sturdy, though the matriarchs rebukes stung. After all, she had arrived penniless, without a dowry, an orphan.
In time the motherinlaw softened, seeing Emmas competence. The other scoldings faded; Emma bore them no longer. Years passed, but no pregnancy came.
Youre a barren hag, halfwoman, the motherinlaw snarled one day. Whats the point of this house without grandchildren?
Emma wept on Nicholass shoulder; he scolded his mother, who only grew angrier. The fatherinlaw stared past Emma, only looking when she set a bowl before him.
Yet Emma clung to hope. She visited the village doctor herself, slipped to the nearby parish priest for herbal brews, and followed every folk remedy for childlessness. Life went on; the Nichols household was modest but not destitute, even in the lean postwar years.
One early morning Nicholas brought half a sack of damp grain.
Oh, Colin, dontdont let anyone hear! his mother shrieked.
Its all of us pulling, not just me. Calm down, Mum.
Emma warned Nicholas against such dealings, but he persisted, bringing odd scraps from the coop.
Sleep fled Emma; she would sit in the dark, legs drawn up, waiting for her husbands return.
One night she gathered a skirt, a sweater, a nightgown, found rubber boots beneath the bed, snatched Nicholass canvas coat, and stepped onto the porch. A November gale tore through the open doors, rain pelted her face. Where was he in this endless storm?
Her feet carried her to the edge of the village; the windows were dark, even the dogs hid. Her beloved terrier, Fenny, lagged behind, whimpering. Emma walked, eyes fixed ahead, searching for Nicholas, then stopped before an old barn at the villages rim.
Beyond lay only field and forestplaces that had always frightened her. She lingered, then turned back. The rain hammered the cold ground, sometimes roaring, sometimes a steady hiss. Through the sound she heard a faint, tinkling giggle. It seemed to come from the barn.
She strained to listen, and Nicholass voice rose, then fell, replaced by a womans laughCatherines, from the neighboring hamlet, who worked with Emma on the coop.
At first Catherine had been lively, outspoken, dreaming of leaving the village for the city, chasing fortune. She sang about a house, a hearth, a garden, and a handsome lad, bragging shed find a wealthy, bald city man.
Lately her laughter had dimmed; the women on the farm whispered that jealousy over a married man had soured her spirit. Emma had assumed it was citybound gossip, never suspecting it was her own husbands secret.
Rainwater streamed down the barns walls as Emma stood frozen, the realization dawning like a cold shock. Catherines sudden, sharp laugh shattered the silence; she bolted, slipping on the slick path, her coat catching on a protruding nail and tearing. She sprinted home, shivering, her skirts tangled.
She burst into the cottage, dumping a sack of straw onto the floor by the hearth, stacking a woven mat atop ither makeshift bed, much like the one shed made for Fennys kennel.
Days grew shorter, colder. The motherinlaw fell ill through the winter. Catherine, in her last days, grew fierce, walking with a limp, taking charge of the household as if she owned it. She sometimes defended Emma when the matriarchs whip cracked too sharply.
Emma spent long hours milking, staring out a tiny window at the white woods beyond the river, wondering if she could ever return to her birthplace. The wind whistled through the thatch, and she recalled her mothers voicewhat would she say now, seeing her daughter tangled in two marriages, two women under one roof?
Winters bleak days passed, marked only by the birth of a small boy in January, a brief flicker of joy. The village midwife delivered him, naming him Edward. Emma watched the child from a distance, heart aching that the baby was not hers, though she prayed and took every remedy.
The motherinlaw clutched at Emma, All for Edward, Emmatell me, isnt he just like Colin?
Yes, he looks alike Emma whispered.
Edward was mostly with Catherine; Emma noticed the boy seemed more attached to her than to his own future.
What now? Rot here in the coop? I wanted to study lab work in the town centre. Colin will never return. I dont know what to do
The coop began to change. Four twobed houses were torn down, new families moved in, and replacement dairy workers arrivedtalkative outsiders willing to work hard. Weekends appeared for the first time. Emma befriended one of them, Vera, who was shocked to learn a wife and a lover shared the same roof.
Leave, Vera advised.
Where would I go? This farm is all I have, Emma replied, shrugging.
Edward grew, toddling on his knees, clinging to Emmas hair, kissing her cheeks with an open mouth, laughing as the sun set. He and Fenny, now grown, wrestled merrily. Emmas affection for the boy blossomed, though Catherines strictness sometimes turned harsh, as if the childs very existence irked her.
On May Day, Emma rolled flour into a castiron pot, kneading dough for pies. Catherine prepared to go to a neighbours fête, slipping on white beads and hurrying off. The motherinlaw settled beside Emma, cradling Edward.
Emma, I must tell you something, the matriarch began, voice trembling. Catherine plans to leave for the cityto study and work. She wants her son with us, but we cant care for him forever.
Emmas eyes widened.
So she hopes youll look after him? the motherinlaw asked, sniffing. Shes a shrew, not a mother Shell abandon her child.
Emma kept kneading, the dough turning sticky with the weight of the words.
What shall we do, Mum? she asked.
The motherinlaw sighed, Perhaps this is Gods plan. You have no children of your own; maybe a child will come to you after all. Colin will return, and hell choose the one who raises his child. She looked at Edward, Hell be ours eventually.
Emma whispered, I dont know.
Later, the village council arrived with two police officers and the coop chairman. The motherinlaw clutched the chairmans lapel, weeping. Emma helped lift the frail matriarch. Fourteen villagers were taken to the council hall, then loaded onto a truck and driven to town for trial.
Emma turned, spotting Catherine standing quietly beneath the birch trees.
The trial shook the hamlet for weeks; no one spoke of it openly, closing doors and shutters. The motherinlaw fell into a deep sorrow, the fatherinlaw grew weak. Emma slept little.
She never resolved anything with Nicholas; she lingered between wife and outcast, her grief and fear eclipsing anger. Divorce was never spoken of.
Days later, Emma returned from the fields with a pail of milk, opened her cottage door and found Catherine seated at the table, hands folded over a swollen belly, with the grandparents opposite.
Good day, Catherine sang brightly.
Good day to you too, Emma replied.
Emma, didnt you hear? Our brother Colin got ten years in prison! Think of it, the motherinlaw whispered, pressing a handkerchief to her eyes.
Ten years? Emma gasped.
Catherine answered, They said he was a state criminal. Almost everyone got a tenyear sentence.
Emma fell back onto the bench, stunned.
Who will free them now? the motherinlaw cried. Youre foolish, Emma! Catherine, confident, declared, If the owners stay silent, Ill say it: Colin meant to marry me, wanted a divorce, but never got the chance. Ill have a child with him, and I wont raise it alone. My father wont let me return home; hes heard the rumors. So Im here to look after your grandson.
The room fell silent. Emma sat, hands folded on the rough cloth of her wartime uniform skirt, eyes fixed on the floor.
The motherinlaw broke first, This is our house; well decide. The grandson will be here. Let Catherine stay; let the child grow under our roof. She burst into tears, wiping her face on an apron.
Emma sighed, Ill take the milk, and began straining it.
Catherine and the grandfather fetched their belongings. The motherinlaw fussed, Where shall the child sleep? On the floor, now that a new baby is coming?
Emma spread a bundle of straw on the kitchen floor, laid the woven mat atop ither new bed, much like Fennys old kennel.
Winter deepened, the motherinlaw grew frail. Catherine, in her final days, grew oddly protective of Emma, sometimes defending her from the matriarchs harshness.
Emma spent her days milking, gazing out at the white woods beyond the river, wondering if she could ever leave. She remembered her mothers voice, imagined what she would think of a daughter living with two women under one roof.
The small boy, Edward, was a bright spot in the harsh January. The village midwife brought him from the maternity ward, wrapped in a thin blanket. Emma tried not to stare, though the childs presence pained her.
One evening, as rain drummed on the roof, Emma thought of escape. She slipped on her rubber boots, pulled on a heavy coat, and walked the damp lane toward the railway. A cart appeared, a gaunt man shouting, Need a hand with that load?
He lifted her sack of belongings, placing it on the cart.
Forgive me, Emma whispered, I must go.
He handed her two tenpound notes, Dont forget them. He turned and vanished into the night.
The next morning a train whistled, its steam smelling of new beginnings. Emma boarded, the carriage clacking over the tracks, carrying her toward a new life in the town of Lincoln, where a weaving school offered a dormitory for apprentices. She had barely enough money for the fare, but she trusted the journey ahead.
Rain fell as she left the village behind, the sound blending with the distant hooves of horses. In the dark wood, a shadow roseher former husbands silhouette, calling her name.
She turned, watching him fade into the gloom, and whispered, Goodbyes are for the past.
The train surged onward, wheels singing, and Emma felt the weight of her past lift, a strange, hopeful dream pulling her toward an uncertain, yet brighter, horizon.
