An Overprotective Mother

Anything For Family...

"Bring the cow in, Meggy. The bears will get her if you leave her out tonight." The 91 year old woman in the bed, hands crippled with arthritis, eyes clouded with age, shook from a palsy Tania didn't quite understand but knew was common in the elderly.

"Gran, it's me Tania. Momma's downstairs making dinner." Tania tucked the ancient handmade quilt her grandmother insisted on keeping on the bed, even in the summer, around the elderly woman's ankles, sighing as she the old woman tsked and waved a crooked finger at her.

"Now, Meg, you mind me. Get that cow in before it gets dark! Go on now, girl!" Granny's brows were knit together, her wrinkles so old even they had wrinkles and her eyebrows had disappeared into oblivion or a wrinkle long ago.

Tania looked down at the woman's wizened face and felt confusion mix with love. Gran had become bed-ridden the year before after some kind of fit left her unable to walk or use her left side at all. Smoothing a tear in the time-worn cotton quilt, the  pink, blue, and white squares just as faded as her gran's eyes, Tania decided not to argue. It was best just to appease the old woman.

"I will, Gran, just give me a minute." Tania went to the window to open it, sliding the glass panel up by the wooden frame. It needed a fresh coat of paint, only small slivers of white remained along the frame but it would have to wait until after she had her babies.

Pressing her hand into her back, the ache almost unbearable now, and walked to the door of her grandmother's room, waiting for the final admonition she knew was coming.

"I'll check now, so you do as I say." Tania didn't have to look back at the woman with her quivering voice to know she was pointing her finger at Tania, once again shaking the digit at her granddaughter. The granddaughter she had confused for her now grown and much older daughter.

Tania walked out with a sigh, down the flight of stairs that went straight down to the lower level, steep pine stairs that scared her before she got pregnant. Clinging to the rail, Tania made her way down to the pine floor, walked out to the space below her gran's window, and knocked on the side of the house.

"Come on now, cow, get on in the barn. Shoo, cow." She called up to the window, pulling one of the shudders until it squeaked before pushing it back against the house.

Tania felt silly but doing this kept Gran happy and that meant she was quiet. If Tania didn't perform this daily task Gran would sit in her room screaming that the cow needed to be brought in. The task was getting too hard as her pregnancy advanced, the stairs a danger she would have preferred to avoid, but anything to keep the peace.

Walking back in Tania saw her mother was once again at the kitchen table, the air now filled with the acrid smell of cigarette smoke and overcooked coffee. Tania glanced at the wood cook-stove and saw the blue and white speckled coffee pot still on the burner, steam pouring out of the spout. Tania sighed and left it, she would scrub the pot out later.

"You're getting awfully sad sounding, Tania. That man of yours run off with some young thing that's not got a baby about to ruin their life?" Meg's words were spoken without looking at her daughter, their cruelty belied by the innocent sound of her mother's voice.

Tania paused, wondering how such stinging words could be said in such a concerned voice. Her mother was a master at cruelty of this nature. She just didn't understand why her mother treated her that way but not her sisters. Her sisters could do no wrong but Tania could do nothing right.

"No, Mother, just tired. I'll go up and take Gran her dinner later. I'm going to lie down now." Tania felt her shoulders slump and wished she didn't feel so tired, so defeated. She might tell her mother off for once if she felt better.

She'd kept herself busy since reading Stan's letter but now she decided it was time to write him, to tell him how much she needed him. Brushing a tear away Tania settled on her side, her box of pink stationary at hand. With a shaking hand she began to write with her blue ink pen, pouring her heart out to her husband. Pleading with him to come home.

She needed him, now more than ever. It wasn't just dealing with her mother, the protection from her that he offered, it was all the uncertainty about what was going on at the hospital. What was happening to all of those women and their babies?

Tania could remember her last visit as though it had only happened a few moment ago. The man had shaken his head, denying Amy's assertion that there were two babies growing in her womb.

"Now, I know you mountain girls like to be dramatic and you aren't too smart, but young lady, there's only one baby in there. It's not doing very well either, are you not eating properly?" The older man's eyes had stared at her through thick lenses, accusing her of things she couldn't even imagine, with a glance.

"I eat what I can doctor, I'm so sick all of the time..." she'd begun, hoping he would have some cure for her or advice but he just waved his hands and went back to his note-taking.

"A little nausea never hurt anybody. Drink some milk, eat a cracker, you'll be fine. Just feed that child or you won't be bringing it home with you in a blanket." His words were spoken without looking at Tania but she gathered what he meant by their tone.

If she didn't eat she would be bringing her baby home in a coffin.

She tried to eat, she really did but her morning sickness had not gone away and she often spent hours hanging upside down from the edge of her bed, trying to get the indigestion that made her chest burn and ache out of her body. A lot of time was spent over a bowl too, her body refusing to even keep weak tea down some days.

She'd tried to tell him about the sickness, about the intolerable heartburn but the doctor had waved away this concern as well. Biting her lip to hide her tears Tania decided, once again, that the man was just like her mother; his mind was made up and there was nothing that could be done about it. So, she'd best just keep her mouth shut.

Tania thought about it all, the cruelty, the never-ending inability to get people to listen to her, and missed her husband more. Stan was her best friend. He was the only one that listened, the only one that took up for her. Tania ached for his presence, calming and peaceful, never quick to anger, and cradled her belly. She felt four tiny feet kicking at her from the inside, four little arms pushing into her lungs. There were two babies in there and she would do whatever it took to protect them.

She already felt the fierce protection mothers felt for their children, and knew that the only thing that mattered was family and soon her family would be her husband and her children. And she would do anything for her family.