And then was lonely, not the loneliness of a child or the aching want of love felt when meeting Norman but the sharp desire for her mother, needing her mother there and then in the room with her, that need a brittle ache, a gorge in her soul: her mother. And that ache magnified with knowing nothing of where her mother was or how, even trying to see her, to envision or conjure something of her face. She would be a young woman still; for the first time Leah realized this. They knew nothing of each other. If there had been a way to send word someway she would’ve but there was none. Not even a letter. It had been as if in fleeing the old life she’d fled all the way into herself. Alone. How else to judge yourself and measure what distance covered if not through the reflected lens of parent or sibling? All this gone from her. And the wanting, the desire, was as if attempting to send a letter to a younger self. And so this left Norman. She felt a great fear of him, never once expressed and never would be. How could she explain that what she loved terrified her? He would understand and seek calm for her and so misunderstand completely. What she feared could not be reassured. The ones that can so simply destroy can never know they hold that power. Told to his face he’d laugh it away or at most watch her as a stranger for a day or two before falling back to his old easy rhythm with her. She knew his life too was shaped by hers but his was of solid construction: of granite rock, hardwood, black-turned earth. Hers was not even spiderweb but the dew-beads strung there on a summer morning.

And thought then again of her mother, birthing Leah at fifteen or sixteen, younger even than when Leah left home, birthing her in the small rank cabin alone with only the old woman Rey for aid. Rey probably all the help she needed, looking at Marthe Ballou sleeping in the corner, her mouth sagged open. Those old women always around someway. Witches, nearly. Knowing more than is good for them to know until you need them to know it. And wondered how her mother must’ve missed her own mother then, the little girl having a baby alone far from home. And was less lonely then, as if seeing all this stretching back made more sense for where she was lying and how. As if someway her mother was there with her. Knowing she would want to be was as if she were. Leah held her hands up over her face and between contractions wept silent into them. Oh God she wanted her mother.