November Rose
Will leaned against the porch rail and tapped his boot against the wide plank floor.
His warm brown eyes stared at the oak door, willing it to open, but it stayed shut. He glanced at his pocket watch left to him by his father
and shook his head.
How much longer could it take for that wife of mine to have our baby?
Earlier in the day, when Carmella first started yelling, Will rushed from the barn
into the house. He thought Mrs. Akins had hurt her.
The midwife shooed him like a pesky fly. “Go on now and git,” she said. “Your place
is outside. Get a move on.”
He wanted to tell Mrs. Akins it was his house and he would wait wherever he damn well
pleased, but that woman gave him a look that said if he didn’t do what she told him, he’d be the one in pain—not Carmella.
Twilight spread across the evening sky, and darkness fell with the silence of a falling rose petal. Will drew
his pouch from a pocket and tapped some tobacco into his corncob pipe. When he struck a matchstick
against the porch rail, a blue spark, followed by the smell of sulfur and a thin plume of smoke, twirled in the chilly air. His cheeks made
sucking noises and his worn boots scraped against the wooden planks as he paced the porch.
The crescent moon ducked behind thickening clouds. As the night wore on, snowflakes
drifted across the fields of his Northern Missouri farm.
Since before daybreak, Carmella had been in labor. She’d been moaning, yelling, and
even cussing ever since.
Will shrugged, wondering why she cussed him. She’s the one who wanted a young one as
soon as they got hitched. And she was always trying to get him into their bedroom, sometimes in
the middle of the day when he had chores to do. Not that Will minded it.
His wife sure could put a smile on his face and make him feel like he was the luckiest man in the State of Missouri.
He hoped for a boy. They would name him
Samuel after his own father, who had passed on after the Christmas. Yep. He knew his first child
would be a boy. Had to be. All the Walde’s first-borns
were.
Will hoped Samuel would be a healthy boy so he could help out around the farm.
His son should be a big one, what with how swelled up Carmella had been the last few months.
Might even be two babies inside her. Maybe that was why she was carrying on and cussing so.
In all his nineteen years, he had never heard such a ruckus, not even when the cattlemen rode into town on payday.
Will gazed out across the lawn at the rock garden his bride added on that spring.
A few weeks ago, the final blush of Indian summer was broken by an ice storm, and all of Carmella’s flowers withered up except for one
scraggly rose bush.
He thought about how his wife loved her rose garden. When he first saw her at the
State Fair, she stood inside the dance hall, her wheat-colored hair aglow. She held a pale peach
rose and rubbed her finger over the petals, looking at it like it was a sack full of gold.
When the fiddlers began the Missouri Waltz, Will asked her to dance. Afterwards they
strolled outside for some fresh air. She told him she was an orphan, living with her aunt and uncle on a farm the next county over.
Will told her about how he hoped one day to move off his father’s ranch and raise
some cattle of his own.
With a faraway look in her eyes, she said, “One day I’ll live on a big farmhouse and
have my very own flower garden.”
“I could tell you like flowers,” he said, pointing to the one she held.
“My momma had a rose garden,” she told him. “Whenever I see or smell one, I think of
her and how happy she was working in her garden.”
“What happened to her?” Will asked.
“She died in childbirth, along with the baby,” Carmella said. “Then my daddy started
drinking moonshine day and night. He wouldn’t talk and hardly ate. Then one day, he just never
woke up in the morning. The doctor said he died from a broken heart.”
Will squeezed her hand, and they strolled over to a booth where a farmer’s wife sold
flowers. When Will told Carmella to pick out anything she wanted, her smile shined brighter than
the fireworks that lit up the sky that night.
After a six-month courtship, Will and Carmella married. He gave his bride a bouquet
of white roses to carry the day her uncle walked her down the aisle. He also arranged for the guests to shower rose petals at his bride when
they left the small country church.
The newlyweds moved onto the 40-acre spread Will’s father gave him as a wedding
present. As soon as his bride unpacked her suitcase, even before she began her first quilt, she
planted a flower garden.
Now all that was left was the one pink rose that had bloomed earlier that morning.
You wouldn’t think something so pretty and frail looking could survive the hard frost, but that rose was surely a stubborn one.
It was quite a sight, with icy snowflakes kissing its soft pink petals.
Will couldn’t remember ever seeing a rose bloom so late in November. Didn’t seem
natural, but Carmella had a way with flowers. His pipe grew cold, and he tapped out loose tobacco on the banister.
He could smell that rose clear across the lawn and up on the porch. The pink blossom was the last thing on his mind when he heard a
piercing wail from the bedroom.
When he rushed inside, he saw a bloody infant flailing its arms, while Mrs. Akins
washed the baby in a basin on the dressing table. The new father smiled when he saw his first
child was a girl. The baby had a mass of dark hair, just like his own, and a dimple in her chin
like Carmella’s.
The midwife dried the baby and wrapped her in a thin blanket before carrying the
newborn to her mother. Lying in bed, Carmella’s head was drenched in sweat. Her matted hair fell
across the pillow. Will brushed away a damp curl and kissed his wife’s forehead.
“She’s a beauty!” he said as he watched her cradle their daughter.
The baby’s pink body against the white sheet reminded him of the rose he had just
seen outside. The young father’s chest swelled, and he wiped his eyes with the back of a hand to
hide his tears of joy.
“I declare, there’s a chill outside that would make a potato’s eyes water,” he said.
Mrs. Akins gave him a rare smile and said, “Son, you’re not the first father to shed
a tear at the sight of their firstborn.”
Carmella grinned weakly at her husband.
“I’m, sorry I didn’t give you a boy like you wanted, Will.”
“Now, don’t you go worrying that we didn’t get ourselves Samuel this time.
Just means we’ll have to try again, that’s all.” He winked at his wife.
Carmella blushed. “Ain’t she the prettiest little thing, Will.
Seeing her makes me want to holler for joy and forget all those months of feeling puny.”
“She sure is, darling. Just like her ma.”
Will peeked under the blanket for a better look at his daughter. “Guess this little apple didn’t fall far from the tree.”
“What’ll we call her, Will? There’s gotta
be a name to suit such a pretty little flower.”
The new father remembered the silky rose flecked with snowflakes.
“I’ll be right back,” he said.
A few minutes later ambled in the room with a broad smile stretched across his face.
His callused hands hid something behind his back.
“What you got there?” Carmella asked.
He bent down to kiss his wife then placed the single rose across her chest.
One of the petals drifted onto the baby’s cheek.
“I’m truly blessed to have such a wonderful husband and beautiful daughter,” she
said. “What shall we call her?”
With the sureness of a man who knew his mind and rarely changed it, Will said,
“November Rose.”
“November Rose?” Carmella rubbed a forefinger against her daughter’s soft cheek. “Ain’t
never heard such a name like that before, but I ain’t never seen such a beautiful baby before, either.
November Rose. I like it. It suits her.”
Mrs. Akins stopped scouring the kitchen and put her hands on the long white apron
that covered her wide hips.
“What in tarnation kinda name is that?” she said, “November Rose ain’t no proper name
for a Christian child.”
Will picked up his new daughter and rocked her in his arms.
“Don’t you fret about it, Mrs. Akins. You done a fine midwifery job, and I do appreciate it.
I don’t mean no disrespect, but we’ll do the naming of our own baby girl.”
The midwife clucked her tongue and returned to cleaning up while mumbling, “Where do
these wet-behind-the-ears young’uns get such confounded ideas?”
Will ignored her vexation. He was busy
counting fingers, toes, and blessings.