by Grace Yannotta
12
Eleanor dips the cloth into the water and presses it to her daughter’s forehead, swiping past a damp strand of hair. Eleanor feels the need to stay strong on Josie’s behalf, stay put- together, even as she understands that her writhing, perspiring daughter is in no way conscious of anything going on around her. Josephine is four, tall for her age and only getting taller. She totters around on doe legs. She loves new dresses and when her mother makes chicken cutlets and looks forward to the day when she’s finally old enough to go to school with the big girls. She has a smile that makes hours of factory work feel absolutely worth it.
And, an hour ago, the doctor told Eleanor that this fever will either take Josie tonight, or it won’t take her at all.
With shaking hands, Eleanor wets the cloth once more. Josie’s skin has a pallid, porcelain undertone to it, interrupted with a flash of crimson on each cheek. Before, Eleanor never thought that she’d be a dedicated mother—her own mother wasn’t the most active, either; kept her at arm’s length, and she figured that may have been her fate, too.
Eleanor’s husband, Josie’s father, is overseas now, in the same manner he was overseas during the birth of their daughter, in the same manner that he is overseas for two-thirds of the year. When Josephine was born, Eleanor was alone in the delivery room and pleaded for some sort of feeling, a tug, anything with this newborn daughter of hers. Josie blinked up at her with massive brown eyes, reflections of her own, and Eleanor couldn’t bring herself to feel much of anything.
Sometime after Josie was born, her husband’s sister Olivia appeared in the doorway of the delivery room. She lingered before entering the room for just a moment. Even though Eleanor did her best to stick something resembling a smile on her face, Olivia could see through it.
Her sister-in-law has never been the warmest to her, and she was not about to start then. Instead she padded across the room, hair piled in a neat, conservative knot, and sat herself in one of the seemingly uncomfortable chairs next to the bed. Neither of them spoke.
Eleanor cried while giving birth, certainly, because the pain nearly overwhelmed her. Only then, with Olivia and her searching gaze, did Eleanor feel like crying for any other reason.
“He would be here if he could.” Olivia said, and Eleanor nodded, feeling somehow grateful for the absence of her husband, as it prevented a discovery of the numbness she felt emanating from her womb.
Eleanor realized it was probably proper to reply. “I know.”
“Do you?”
A sharp little cry escapes Josie’s mouth and Eleanor finds herself escaping back to reality. It’s no use to think of that time now. It’s no use to think of her husband, either. The only useful thing to do now is to keep her daughter cool, and safe, and alive.
2
Eleanor has been through all of Josie’s books, some of them two times over. There hasn’t been any explicit response from her daughter but if there’s even a chance it’ll soothe her, Eleanor will take it. She wishes she had a decent singing voice. Maybe she’d be able to sing Josie a lullaby. She leans forward and presses the backs of her fingers against her daughter’s forehead.
Still hot to the touch.
Eleanor grits her teeth, retracting her hand as her attention is directed to the doorway of her daughter’s bedroom. Her other sister-in-law appears, the fair one, far kinder than Olivia. It’s the first time Eleanor’s seen Agnes all night. She’s certain that Agnes would have been by her side far earlier if not for the fact that Agnes is expecting in a couple of months and has convinced herself that she’s far more susceptible to illnesses than ever before. And she’s probably right. Eleanor doesn’t blame her.
“How is she?” Agnes asks. Her voice breaks through the shroud of tension and the concept of replying makes Eleanor feel far more tired than before.
Sighing, she shrugs. “Feverish, still.”
Despite being quite a couple of years younger, the lines in the corners of her eyes and the weight near her stomach make Agnes look far older. “She’ll get through it. She’s a little soldier girl.”
Eleanor nods, though she doesn’t quite believe it. Agnes retreats soon after. Once upon a time, she wasn’t living in a too-small house with two of her sisters-in-law, her daughter sharing a room with two nieces. No, once Eleanor lived in a house with far more rooms than was entirely necessary. Someone picked her clothes out for her every morning and unlaced her dress every night. She had three sisters, all lavished in the same sort of easy life, their father’s practice and their mother’s high, social family donating them as many opportunities as were available for women at that time. It was easy, and fine, and when she met Henry Moth, with the sky-blue eyes and rascally smile, she thought she was going to be alright.
He was poor. Or, she supposes, far poorer than she ever thought she would stoop. He was from a long line of farmers, but he had work to do, she remembers him trying to convince her, he was going to break the bank someday, he swore it.
With that sort of charisma, Eleanor believed him. At first her family wouldn’t let her marry Henry, but she begged and pleaded, with those promises of a golden life in love made for themselves fogging her eyes. All her sisters had married someone of or near their stature, and her parents were convinced, positive of the fact that Eleanor would not be able to survive without an abundance of wealth. It was threatening to cut them off from their future grandchildren that finally forced them to give Eleanor and Henry their blessing.
So, Eleanor and Henry became the Moths, and they were happy for a while—truly happy, white curtains and home-cooked dinners, Henry twirling her around their kitchen, Eleanor throwing her head back and laughing, feeling more alive than ever. But soon enough, it became evident that Henry’s business plans would not pay off, not in the slightest, and Henry began to stay out later and later, reeking of alcohol when he arrived home amid the night.
Then the landlord put his foot down. It was either leave or be evicted, they were far too behind on their rent payments, and the fantasy shattered into pieces. No more petite apartment just for two, easy moments between the two of them, as scarce as they were. Now they were sharing a home with Olivia and her equally puritanical husband, lack of freedom squeezing Eleanor like a corset.
But a part of her still held out hope. She still loved Henry, to the bottom of her heart, that even the lack of privacy could not sway her capital-r-Romantic mind. They would get past this—Henry would make it work, he always has, he’s capable, ever so capable.
And then the war broke out, and something so terribly exhausted within Henry clicked. The fastest way to income, to acceptance, and most importantly to glory—leaving to fight. Everyone around Eleanor told her to be proud, and she supposes deep down she was, she is, but it was hard to find pride when just twenty days into her husband’s deployment she discovered she was pregnant. Suddenly, she was stuck in a house with a woman she barely knew. Then, soon after, Agnes moved in as her husband was drafted.
Olivia’s husband died within four months of leaving home. The cramped, frosty home grew more and more claustrophobic. She wrote a letter every couple of days to Henry, overseas and fighting god knows where, and slowly but surely his letters grew shorter and rarer. Currently he writes once a month, if that, so Eleanor knows he’s alive.
It’s times like this that Eleanor wishes she had listened to her parents. Well, not quite that, she thinks as she presses her daughter’s thin hand against her cheek. She wishes she had pushed aside her pride and returned to that looming manor the second she found out she was with child, scandal or not. But she didn’t.
Eleanor cannot take it back.
She presses her lips very softly to Josie’s fingers and counts the hours until morning.
4
Josie wakes up at the time when the sky is between a dark navy and an indigo. Her dark eyes blink open and it kills Eleanor, eats her alive, that flash of fear upon first waking up—that she’s uncomfortable, that she’s scared, that even for a second, she believed she was alone.
“Josephine,” Eleanor murmurs, and squeezes her daughter’s hand. Josie’s eyes glaze over towards her mother, and despite it all her mouth curves into something of a smile. Her fever has not yet broken. Eleanor hopes with all her might that this is a start, and still an ugly voice in the back of her mind can’t help but mention that this could be a last push, a quick goodbye, a final moment with her daughter God might be granting Eleanor before He takes Josie away completely.
The thought makes Eleanor want to vomit. She doesn’t.
“Momma,” Josie says, barely a whisper, but it’s enough.
“Oh, my love,” Eleanor replies and for once she is unable to keep the weight of emotion out of her voice.
Josie doesn’t have the strength nor the acute consciousness to say anything more but continues to look at her, squeeze her mother’s fingers. Eleanor wonders who is comforting who.
They have never needed words.
The period after Josie’s birth proved to be the grandest challenge in Eleanor Moth’s life. She did as she was supposed to. She nursed the baby when she was hungry, she burped the baby, put her down for a nap, whispered little nothings. Everything she was instructed to do. And yet she couldn’t feel a thing. This child in her arms couldn’t have been hers—Josephine felt almost alien. She had always read, always been told, that the bond between mother and daughter should be completely natural.
And yet. And yet.
Olivia suspected, initially, that the distance of Henry was what was causing this complete dissociation. But with every letter arrival, Eleanor’s mood remained despondent, half of them left unread. Olivia never said a word, but Eleanor could see it in her eyes, this disdain for the spoiled woman who married her brother, incapable of truly being a mother. Perhaps she was looking for somewhere to route her grief. Or perhaps she was right.
Eleanor’s guess is that it’s a mix of both.
Nevertheless, Agnes offered her words of support to Eleanor, the tender affections of an aunt to Josie, but there was nothing she could do. It’s not as if Agnes could simply inject those feelings of maternity into Eleanor’s system.
Josie’s never been a sick baby—that’s what keeps grating on Eleanor, that Josephine’s always been stronger than Olivia and Agnes’s children, always been stronger than Eleanor herself, never once downed by the smallest of ailments, no grippes, laden with tears but with none of the tantrums that echo from her nieces and nephews. And here she lays, strong Josephine, boiling over the edge with doubts of survival.
Eleanor wraps her hand around her daughter’s small fingers. She supposes Josie did break down once. She can remember it, clear as day. It was the morning she first really saw her daughter.
A shriek broke Eleanor’s delicate sleep—not like the wallowing cries of a hungry girl, something different, something more, that struck a fear of both God and the afterlife into the marrow of her bones. She scrambled out of bed. The blankets curled around her ankles and she kicked them off, half-tripping, half-stumbling to get there.
Josie stood at her crib, chubby little fingers gripping the wood. The crying had stopped abruptly. The house filled with a heavy sort of silence. Josie looked at her, with those big brown eyes, as Eleanor braced herself on the door handle, trying to regain her breath. She’s always known that she’s loved her daughter, but the thirty-second thought of somehow losing Josephine, Josephine having been in pain, tore her chest apart.
What was wrong with Josie? Eleanor swept over and picked her up, checked her and found nothing. She had no temperature—not like now, not a sizzle, not a touch. Josephine curled into her mother as Eleanor picked her up and even now, Eleanor’s not exactly sure what happened. But something changed. Something grew far easier—suddenly Eleanor found herself being a mother, as if she had been one the entire time.
Well, she had been. But suddenly there was a surreal sort of joy with it, a joy that was supposed to have been there the entire time.
Eleanor sighs and tries to blink the tears from her eyes, wrapping her arms around her daughter and watching as her daughter relaxes into her side, in the same manner as she had years before.
Sometimes Eleanor wonders if Josephine cried that night because she missed her.
6
The sky has dipped from that indigo to something softer, brighter, more impatient. Not quite daybreak, but certainly something soon. Eleanor isn’t quite sure what’s going on—she hasn’t slept in forever, not normally, not since she started taking the night shifts, but she feels wide awake. She must be delirious.
Josephine shivers next to her. One of the trembling spells, she supposes, and while the doctor didn’t give her an exact time, dawn must be arriving soon. Right? Josie must be in the clear.
That ugly voice in the back of Eleanor’s mind suggests that her daughter is shaking harder than ever. And Eleanor’s voice of reason agrees.
She squeezes her eyes shut and prays.
A few moments later the floorboards creak open—her sisters-in-law, one dark-featured, the other spritely as a spring day, with the same long nose they share with their brother. Wordless, the two sit on either side of the footboard. Maybe Agnes reigned successful over her battle with hormonal fear. Or maybe the concept of her dear niece dying just shy of first light overcame the rest of the options.
Eleanor opens her mouth to say something about leaving, that she’s alright, that they’re alright, but in lieu of words escapes a sound soft and animalistic, heavy with grief.
The Moth sisters don’t say a word but reach their hands over the bed and link their fingers through hers. They understand. Agnes’s husband overseas, Olivia’s husband in the ground. The three of them crammed with their children in this waning home, having shared Christmases and Easters and long nights.
Olivia hadn’t liked Eleanor from the start—something about a girl using her brother for a rush of ‘immoral energy’, a rich woman with prospects playing with a foolhardy young man just to taste how the other half lives. It wasn’t the truth, but looking back on it, it wasn’t a full lie either. They still don’t particularly like each other either, and yet now there’s a distinct respect.
The first anniversary of Olivia’s death left her crippled with rotten sentiments. She hauled herself into work with emotions scarcely concealed and returned exhausted. Agnes was out at her own job and Eleanor was left to watch the children. Olivia paused upon entry and as if on cue, a baby’s cry rattled the home—her own son’s. Something about the sound set her off, just as that awful shriek would corrupt Eleanor from the inside-out years later. Eleanor took care of the little boy—a diaper change—and washed off before returning to Olivia.
Her staunch, iron-strong sister-in-law was barely holding herself against the table, weeps racking through her chest. Her legs threatened to give out. Eleanor did all that she could think of, which was to use herself as support, Olivia slumping against her. They both missed someone, but regardless of Henry’s faults, his mishaps, and his flaky ignorance, he was still alive. Olivia couldn’t even say that for herself anymore.
Olivia let herself have a moment or two of that. She brushed herself off. Wiped her eyes. Bustled off in her usual manner to check on her boy. They never spoke of it again. But it became blatantly clear that Olivia owed Eleanor something of an emotional debt, at least in Olivia’s eyes.
And now Olivia rubs her back as Eleanor shakes. The roles are reversed. The scales are evened. In complaining about her family so far away, lavishing in luxury, complaining about her husband so far overseas, her daughter just beyond her grasp, Eleanor had failed to recognize those that were right in front of her.
A shift on the bed disturbs them all. Josie, inhaling rattlingly, her eyes blinking open wide. The three women go silent, watching with wide eyes, letting go of each other and resting a hand upon Josephine.
Oh, daybreak.
Grace Yannotta is currently in her senior year of high school in North Carolina. She’s an aspiring author and an aspiring historian and an aspiring a lot of things. She has work published or forthcoming in Dream Noir, Angry Old Man, Zin Daily, and Anti-Heroin Chic among others, as well as an upcoming astrology column in Dark Wood Magazine.