It is a perfectly bone-chilling January Monday, and downtown Roe, only two blocks away, creaks along on the edge of hibernation. The sounds of passing engines and the stern groan of the 10:00 train are swallowed up in the cold white of the morning. The bare oak and pecan in my pocked front yard are still, and the birds’ nests tucked in the knobby branch elbows look abandoned from my kitchen window.

The pot of chicken on the stove boils and spits. The meat is just beginning to separate from the bone, and bubbles of fat roil at the surface of the water. I’ve just sprinkled flour on the countertop where I’ll roll out the dumplins and slice them into neat strips.

Chicken ‘n’ dumplins are my very favorite fare. I’ve loved them all my life, from the first time Mama Dellie made them for me out at her farmhouse in Baskin. No one makes a pot of chicken ‘n’ dumplins like a Louisiana woman, and no Louisiana woman makes chicken ‘n’ dumplins like a Rosalind.

I’ve been anticipating the deliriously tasty flavor of this meal all morning, and I ought to be thinking how wonderful it will feel in my pregnant belly, but instead, I’m wondering with rising panic why my contractions aren’t passing as they usually do, what I’m gonna do with the chicken if I have to call Mama.

And I’m thinking what a bastard Darren Cheatham is and hoping he loses his job today because he slept in with a hangover. I’m hoping he drank himself sick last night, out with his friends and whatever airheaded girls they happened to pick up along the way.

I’m hoping he’s livin’ it up and milking his youth for all its worth, racking up memories and stories to tell over Jack Daniels, thirty years from now, when he’s doing the same thing he’s been doing for three years.

I’m hoping he establishes himself such a consummate loser, I’ll feel not a pang of sorrow or regret that he lit on my leaf long enough to dust me with his seed before he flitted off again to some other flowerbed.

Damn you, Darren Cheatham. Damn you to hell and JD.

My chicken is cooked through. I turn off the burner and roll out the dough, wrapping my hands tight around the rolling pin as a band of pressure cinches around my abdomen.

The kitchen is too hot. I shuffle to the dining room window, leaving a trail of flour across the floor. Outside, frost clings to the grass and pon-pons. Tree bark is frozen on the trunks. Across the street, Miss Gladys’s chimney puffs away. A fat ribbon of smoke turns up into the air and disappears into the low winter clouds.

The glass is cold to the touch, and I press my forehead against it, fighting the odd fever that’s made its way from my torso up to my face. My belly knots up again, and this time, it takes my breath away.

“Mama!” I gasp, knowing full well she won’t answer me. She’s over at Vera Laughlin’s house helping her plan the menu for Casey Laughlin’s engagement barbeque.

I lean against the window and wait for the contraction to subside. It seems like a mile to the other side of the room where the phone is, but I make it, and by the time Mama’s on the line, I’m doubled over on the floor, barely able to talk to her.

#

“I got ta go, Vera.” Eileen yanks her glasses from her face and starts stuffing papers into her purse.

“Everything alright?” The first thought in Vera’s mind is something’s happened to Paul. Eileen is not an urgent person, and Paul’s not the healthiest man in town. As many blackouts and faintin’ spells he has, it seems only a matter of time before Eileen’d get a phone call to rush herself down to Roe General.

“Everest’s goin’ into labor,” she says.

“Well get goin’ then,” says Vera.

“I’m really sorry to leave you with all this, hon—“

“No, no--leave it all right here, Eileen. Don’t worry ‘bout us. You go on an’ take care of Everest.”

“Thank you, Vera.” Eileen yanks open the door, and a blast of cold air sends notes and magazine clippings swirling to the floor.

“Call me an’ tell me how it goes!”

#

Eileen’s hands ache as she wraps her fingers around the cold steering wheel. She says a little prayer before she turns the engine and gives an audible “Amen” when the car grumbles to life. She’s always been conscientious about how she treats her Chevy. It was the first car she ever owned. Mama Dellie revealed the depth of her generosity when Eileen went off to college back in ’67. That morning after breakfast, Daddy Vernon led her out to the car stall, and instead of there being only his mule of a truck sitting in the shadows, there was a brand new copper-colored Chevy, white-top and white-walls.

Daddy Vernon pulled his felt hat down low over his eyes, but Eileen could see the corners of his thin lips upturned just a hair, and she knew he’d cracked his sternness for a fraction of a moment.

For twenty-three years, Eileen had babied that car, for it had not only served as her primary source of transportation--it was by now an heirloom. Daddy Vernon’s been gone for fifteen years, but the Chevy goes on.

And it goes on because Eileen has never failed to allow the engine five solid, undisturbed minutes after she cranks it up. Not the day Everest came down with scarlet fever back in Kindergarten, and Eileen had to rush her to Roe General before that fever topped 104. Not the day Daddy Vernon’s 10 acres went up for auction, and Eileen wanted to be there to see who in Baskin most badly wanted that fine piece of land they were willing to pay fair price for it. And not the day Everest graduated college summa cum laude and Eileen had seven minutes to get to the auditorium before Everest made her speech.

Always, the engine would have its time, but this sleepy January morning in Roe, Louisiana, Eileen--for the first time--would not wait.

#

“Where’s Mama Dellie?” Eileen speaks as evenly as if she were chatting about the sermon on a Sunday afternoon, but her shoulders shake under her brown crocheted sweater, and she unconsciously tucks the ends of some undone yarn into the pea-sized hole on her cuff.

Aunt Helen says they’re going through the preserves, bringing out the persimmon and fig jams and moving the newer jars from past fall to the back of the shelf. She says Mama Dellie’s back in the cupboard with a flashlight, getting another tray.

“Well, I’m at the hospital here with Everest--"

“Is she havin’ that baby?”

“Yes, she is, Aunt Helen, an’ I need you to drive Mama Dellie down here quick as you can.”

“Well, alright, hon. Just sit tight a minute....Adele!”

Everest lies stiff as a board on the plastic-covered pillow behind her head. Her chestnut hair sticks to her plum-flushed cheeks, and it reminds Eileen of how her daughter looked when she was little, bawlin’ her heart out when she’d hit her head or fall flat on her face.

Everest hasn’t been crying, but even at eighteen years old, a full-grown woman, she manages to resurrect Eileen’s memories of early motherhood, when Everest was knee-high and full of temperament.

Everest begins to squirm as another contraction settles into her body, and she clutches at Eileen’s hand as if the grip will keep her from falling off into oblivion.

“Breathe through it, Honey,” Eileen says. “Take your time--"

“Adele!”

Eileen hears Mama Dellie far from the receiver, and it takes forever for Aunt Helen to communicate the news. There is shuffling of the phone, and Mama Dellie’s voice comes quiet and concerned on the line. “You’re at Roe?” she asks.

“Yeah, Mama, I’m at Roe. Now, Aunt Helen’s gonna drive you over here, alright? But you need ta bundle up real good, cause it’s mighty cold an’ I don’t wantcha gettin' sick, alright?”

“Alright, you don’t worry ‘bout me. Helen’ll get me there alright. You just take care o’ Everest an’ tell ‘er I love ‘er.”

“I will, Mama.”

“Alright.”

“Be careful.”

“I will. Bye-bye, now.”

A tear squeezes from the corner of Everest’s eye, and she turns to Eileen wide-eyed and panicked. “Mama!” she cries. “I don’t think I can do this!”

“You hang on tight,” Eileen says and pats her hand. “You’re doin’ wonderful, Everest, an’ before you know it, you’ll get to see that beautiful child o’ yours.”

Everest sobs and tugs the gown away from her neck. A nurse adjusts the tube dangling from Everest’s wrist and eyes the numbers on a nearby monitor. “Won’t be long now,” she says. “Your contractions are getting longer and closer together.”

“Mama Dellie’s on her way,” Eileen says as Everest begins to relax again.

“Don’t leave me,” says Everest.

“I’m not goin’ anywhere, Baby. I’m stayin’ right here, and when Mama Dellie gets here, she’ll stay here, too. We’re goin’ to see this baby born.”

Eileen’s throat tightens suddenly and unexpectedly; emotion comes quick and unannounced these days. She was certain her heart broke harder than Everest’s did when that Darren Cheatham took off in the beginning. She wanted nothing more in the world for her daughter than a man who would be strong and naturally affectionate--Everest's equal. She’d spent years praying God would bless Everest with a fine husband and offer one Rosalind some respite in love and life. But when Everest called crying that Darren had taken off to Tennessee with no warning, Eileen gave a solemn nod to the Creator, finally understanding this purpose would be assigned for a fourth generation.

Darren Cheatham would never see his child--not the birth, not a birthday, not a graduation or a wedding. Everest would not enjoy the abundant joy in partnership. But today, this child will have much more than that.

#

Even through the foggiest milk-eyes in town, a person can see how much Roe has changed over the years. And how little. Those red-brick schoolhouses weren’t there but maybe fifteen years ago. Everest was the first Rosalind to attend Kindergarten there. Back when Eileen was that young, Adele sent the little girl across town to Dewey Primary. All the children in Roe went there, including the children from the towns surrounding: Baskin, Murphy, Winner Bell. There were many, many mornings like this one that Adele would rise up before the sun to cook up some biscuits, eggs, and bacon for Eileen.

No matter the weather, Adele would tug on her burgundy leather driving gloves, tuck her folded hanky into her patent handbag, shrug on her heavy tweed coat with the plastic quilted buttons, and top her head with her pretty taupe fedora trimmed with the grosgrain ribbon. She’d see that Eileen’s socks were smooth and neat, that her petticoat was discreetly hidden beneath the hem of her dress, and there were no grains of sand in the corners of her eyes.

Then, Adele and Eileen would climb into Vernon’s truck and make the fifteen-mile drive to Roe for the school day.

Sometimes, Januaries back then were just as this one, smokey as a mountaintop and biting cold. Adele missed the days when Eileen would watch with wonder as the cotton fields, cows, and hay bales slipped by along the highway-side, and she would ask if the cows ever got cold, and if a little girl could lay down in the cotton fields like she were laying on a cloud, and if she might have her own horse one day.

Roe has changed, and today, Aunt Helen prattles on about the mysteries of modern medicine and how a woman used to never worry about whether or not her husband would videotape a delivery because a man wouldn’t step foot inside the ward.

It was decades ago--a lifetime--when Adele sat alone in the hospital lobby, enduring the steel and flabbergasted eyes of the staff while her fluid-soaked skirts clung to her quivering calves. Adele Rosalind staggered through the hospital doors after catching the bus from her apartment across town. By the time she reached the first nurse, her contractions were squeezing her in half, and she could not catch her breath long enough to tell the nurse her last name.

The nurse, however, knew all she needed to know. There was no wedding ring on the young woman’s hand, no despairing young gentleman lovingly guiding her at her elbow, no ecstatic mother or mother-in-law clucking instructions. This young lady’s life story was revealed in three seconds, and the nurse led Adele to a familiar corner on the far end of the “special” ward.

Six hours and forty-two minutes later, in the presence of a mother and two strangers, Rita Rosalind came into a gleaming, sterile, echoing world, and the only thing that flashed hotter and redder than the hairs of her head were her cries.