“The mines will kill a man before his time,” he’d said. “I’ve got bigger plans.”
Eliza knew he spoke the truth, because her daddy had been laid in the ground the year before his 40th birthday.
As they pushed back and forth in her mama’s porch swing, Martin told of how he was already apprenticed to a Charleston electrician and in five years would be considered a master electrician himself.
“I’m gonna make it big; really big,” he’d said. “A few years from now, when everybody’s looking to have electric lights in their house, I’ll be riding the gravy train.”
He was a smooth-talker who won her over with promises of love and a life finer than anyone in that coal mining town could ever imagine. After painting their future with a rose-colored brush, he’d gone down on one knee and asked her to marry him. A lovestruck woman, Eliza said she’d never wanted anything more in all her life and pressed her lips to his.
A month later, they were married. He took her to Charleston just as promised, but it was a two-room flat on the fourth floor of a building with narrow hallways, strange smells, and the sound of raucous laughter that continued into the wee hours of morning.
While their courtship had been sweet with promise, their marital life was challenging and rough as sandpaper against Eliza’s skin. If Martin had a bad day at work, he brought his grievances home with him and inevitably a cross word escalated into a full-blown battle. He’d complain that she was a terrible cook and a poor excuse for a wife. She’d come right back at him, saying the dingy old apartment was not what he’d promised. For a while it seemed as though the marriage was destined to fail.
Eliza missed Coal Creek, the friends she’d known, the people she’d grown up with, and the church she’d attended. In Charleston she found none of that; there was only Martin and the arguments that seemed to go on forever. On two different occasions Eliza packed her bag and said she was going home to Coal Creek, but both times Martin pleaded with her not to go.
“We’ve gotten off to a rough start,” he said, “but we love each other, and we’ll get through this. Give it time, Eliza, and it will get better. I swear it will.”
In time, her resolve would weaken and she’d grow teary. Then he would lift her into his arms and carry her off to bed.
Oliver was born that first year, and the tiny flat seemed to grow even smaller. With no room for a crib, Eliza emptied a dresser drawer of Martin’s work clothes, padded it with soft cloth, and laid their first child in it. Before Oliver outgrew the drawer, she was pregnant again.
In early December, word came that her mama was sick and Eliza was needed at home. By then the apartment felt almost claustrophobic, so she jumped at the chance.
“It won’t be forever,” she said. “Just until Mama gets on her feet. When you’ve got time off, you’ll come to visit us.”
Weary of listening to Oliver cry and Eliza complain about the apartment, Martin readily agreed. He promised to be there for Christmas and early the next morning bundled Eliza and the baby off to the train station. Once they were gone, he no longer felt the constraints of marriage and spent most of his evenings at the tavern.
Despite his promise, he didn’t make it home for Christmas nor to welcome in the new year. When he finally did arrive back in Coal Creek, Eliza had already given birth to Ben Roland and buried her mama.
By this time, Martin had grown used to coming and going as he pleased, spending evenings at the tavern, and having no one to answer to. To him, this was the best of both worlds. He could enjoy his freedom and still hold onto Eliza. Instead of stating she no longer had ties to Coal Creek and insisting she return to Charleston, he argued for the opposite.
“Let’s keep it this way for a while,” he said. “At least until I’m making enough to get a bigger place where there’s room for the kids.”
It was a lie he told and Eliza eagerly believed. She wanted to be away from Charleston as much as he wanted her to be. In Coal Creek she had friends, and she’d found a peaceful life that was nonexistent elsewhere.
Those first few years, Martin came home every other weekend and at times every weekend. After a week or two apart, they’d fall into each other’s arms and make love with the passion of newlyweds. During the two days he was at home not a cross word was spoken, and it seemed as though their arrangement was the answer to a perfect marriage. While there was not enough time for resentment and petty grievances to build up, there was plenty of time for lovemaking.
As the years rolled by, their family became larger. Dewey came along the following year, then Louella, and after her John Paul. With each new baby, Martin grew less tolerant, quicker to anger, and less inclined to make it home on weekends. When he did make it home, he often spent his time back by the smokehouse where he kept several jugs of bootleg whiskey.
Little by little, their relationship soured. He yelled at the children, she complained about him not coming home, they hauled out the old complaints they’d once forgotten, and found reasons to dislike one another. While the children were what made Eliza happy, they were Martin’s nemesis. After almost nine years together, she saw him as foul-tempered and belligerent, not at all like the man she thought she’d married.
There were times when she regretted not having stuck to her guns and left him in the early months of their marriage, before Oliver, back when she still had other options. Now with five children and a sixth on the way, she had no alternative but to stay.
——————
MARGARET ROSE WAS BORN ON the day Dewey celebrated his fifth birthday. On March 6th, Eliza felt the onset of labor and sent for the midwife. With this being her sixth baby, it was expected to be an easy delivery. Before lunch the midwife settled in, began massaging Eliza’s stomach, and preparing for delivery.
“It won’t be long now,” she said confidently.
John Paul, born thirteen months earlier, had taken less than an hour to make his entrance into the world, but this baby proved far more stubborn. Eliza labored all that day, and by time the moon crested in the night sky the midwife was frantic. She’d never lost a mother or baby but feared this would be her first. Moments before the clock struck midnight, she roused Oliver, Eliza’s eldest.
“Do you know where Doc Perkins lives?” she asked the boy.
He looked at her, rubbed the sleep from his eyes, and nodded. “Down by the bend in—”
“Then get dressed quick. I’m gonna need you to fetch the doc. Your mama’s in a bad way.”
Before the lad had time to pull on his britches and scoot out the door, the clock chimed. Seconds later Eliza screamed, and Margaret Rose slid into the world. It was March 7th.
The midwife stayed for two days to help out. On the second day, she took Eliza aside and told her that two babies having the same birthday was a sure sign.
“A sign of what?” Eliza asked.
“Unity. Those two babies are joined together the same as if they’d been born twins. The boy will be her protector for as long as they live.”
Not given to the belief of such superstitions, Eliza pooh-poohed the thought.
Before the week was out, she knew what the midwife had said was true. While the other children went about their day ignoring the new arrival, Dewey did not. Right from the start, he seemed to take ownership of the new baby. A dozen times a day he peeked inside the cradle, and if the infant so much as whimpered he’d call for Eliza to come and check on her. Once Margaret Rose was fed and diapered, he’d stand there and ease the cradle back and forth until she was sound asleep. Before the baby was two weeks old, he knew how to lift her from the cradle and quiet her crying.