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Drunk with righteous indignation, I enjoy the hot rush at first, but the cool night air sobersinto the black "Patience?"

Maybe I should get on Star and ride somewherebut where? To the vet’s? I don’t think soinstead, I head down across the pasture to the creek and sit on a flat rock, listening to the water There’s the s When ets too cold, I wander back to the barn

It’s not just that Bitsy did a delivery without ht, the woman needed her, and who a elseShivering, I quietly pull open the barn door and seek the warain "Patience?" She sounds like she’s crying

Prepared to sleep curled in the loft, I grab Star’s horse blanket and cli a solo delivery; it’s that each day I feel her slipping further away And why shouldn’t she leave? She has a community with the Hazel Patch folk She has her brother Thomas in Philly She has her lover, Byrd Bowlin!

I squiret comfortable That’s when I feel it, not a kick or a thump, ’s unmistakable I placeinside

How could I have not noticed? But then I haven’t been stomach sick or any ular, when did I have ure it out There was only one night I could have gotten pregnantThrough the cracks in the barn walls, I see the lights in the house go off

"Moonlight," I whisper to the constairs "We’re going to have a baby!" For a few minutes, I lie in the dark, overjoyed, but that doesn’t last

Fears swiftly besiegeout of their paper nest How can I tell the vet he’s going to be a father? But how can I not tell him? On the other hand, how can I raise a child alone? Despair follows fear The shaossipI’ll be an outcast My short-lived career as a h it’s chilly in the barn, I wait a few hours, until Bitsy must be asleep, then sneak into the house, crawl between the war out theMaybe Bitsy will help me She likes kidsno, she wants to be with Bowlin How about Becky Myers? No, she’s too proper, and anyway she’s far away in Virginia by now Mrs Maddock? Ridiculous! I’ve had one intimate talk with her That , while Bitsy’s out in the barn hfor a way out I try to remember what Mrs Kelly told ht cause my period to start

My recollection is that she once advised Molly Doyle, who already had nine children, tobrew of both herbs and then drink it three tiularity," she told the frightened woman "God will decide if you are to have another child"

At the tiood Catholics I asked Mrs Kelly, in the self-righteous way that the young will do, "How could you, a estion? You’re basically telling her how to have an abortion"

"You could look at it that way," Sophie responded, "or you could think of the mother as a person Can the poor woman survive another baby? Catholic, Baptist, or Hindu, every woe to absorb and nourish another child without beco Sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t It’s up to the Lord who lives and who doesn’t"