Anne Shirley Blythe. Leeches oh the leeches a thing of there times and according to a friend who writes copy still used in certain plastic surgery aftercare!
Walter and Jem were fun letters to write that is for sure. So different and of course the person who actually gets it more is jem having felt that sort of love before, or something similar.
Rilla will pull through. Gilbert will allow nothing else after all the near chances with Anne and Joy I cannot imagine he would ever allow his daughter to perish or her child in his hands. Not after she fought so much for herself after the dance.
April 12th 1915
Well, Mother wrote to the Fords and Father puts it in his own words as well and now they are here. Aunt Leslie is to stay until the baby is here, Uncle Owen has a few meetings to go back to, but he will come back eventually. However, Persis stayed behind in Toronto, finishing up school things for herself this time.
Everything is still hushed, Father is worried but doesn't let anyone else see it. If anyone asks why I am not at church, Mother responds that the last weeks are always tiring, and red cross sewing is always being worked on, along with my own little sewing. Which has gathered quite a pile lately, who knew infants needed so many little things? Mother has been knitting and crocheting little things as well to help. Dainty little things I can never imagine being able to make and Aunt Leslie brought a box full of things as well, lace and frills, blankets. Everything I might need, and Persis has been embroidering on them as well, they are rather sweet little things.
Aunt Leslie is not happy though when she sees Father's main treatment which does help a little, even if the leeches have ruined the skin on my arms. He did give me some magnesium the other night to see how I may react to it, and it was fine. He does let me leave my room of course as long I am not doing anything strenuous, I can always lay out on the sofa in the living room. I am instructed to take a small turn about the garden when it's nice out or sit out in the fresh air, exercise is still good for me after all in moderation after some further reading that has come out.
Susan waits on me hand and foot, and Mother helps me in and out of the bath these days. I have gained twenty-five pounds so far, my stomach is stretched out with red marks. Mother says they are normal and she has them as well. She showed me the old faded ones one night when she was in her nightgown that buttons down the front.
I told Ken how strange my body looks these days, how pronounced it is. I measured myself the other day and was horrified at the number on the tape. Aunt Leslie says once the baby is born and sometime after I will go back to my twenty-three inches, I don't see how, but we shall see. Mother reminds me that most men don't care about the size of our waists, and hers hasn't been below twenty-eight inches since before the twins and father seems to love her all the same.
I may have made a face at the implications of her words. She told me not to be so silly, considering I'm having a baby with Ken.
Nan and Di will be home soon as well, they haven't seen me since Christmas, and I think they will be shocked to see me like this. Even Shirley hasn't been home yet since Christmas.
"It's hard to believe that it is nearing that time already, it still doesn't feel real," Mother says quietly. "Everything the past two years, the war, finding her…Kenneth's offer, now this, it's all a little hard to believe at times, or understand why?"
"I understand it, I think I do anyway?" Leslie says after a moment. Looking over to Rilla who was resting in the cool shade of the sunroom with her journal in her lap. "It's really no different than Owen and I?"
"What do you mean by that?' Anne asks tilting her head.
"I know what it's like to have to learn to trust again Anne, I was married off at sixteen Anne you know that. Do you think my mother told me anything other than just lay there and not make a fuss? I had no idea and he was no romantic, I was relieved when he left on the ship, no longer had to deal with him. I was told I wasn't allowed to tell him no and just live with it, deal with it. If you have a baby he'll leave you alone, but those never stuck, and even if I was bleeding he didn't care. He preferred it, at least he had something that made it more enjoyable. When Owen first proposed I told him I wasn't sure…because I didn't know if I wanted to endure that all over again. Again and again, but there he was on his knees. I told him that the only way I would marry him was if we could spend the night together. He was so confused but I told him about Dick, about watching you and Gilbert dance around each other in your honeymoon phase, always touching, smiling, knowing looks, the laughter of being caught by him when you played games with him."
"Oh Leslie," Mother says quietly.
"I mean you must have known with Kenneth's birthday being in June and all?" Leslie says quietly.
"I mean yes, but not about all the other things. I just thought and Owen just got caught up in the engagement," Mother replies.
"No, it was more need to know if it could be different, I didn't think I would get pregnant from it, or for it to stick at the fact."
"Seems like your son inherited that from his father as well," Mother said knowingly, sneaking a look at her daughter, who was pretending not to listen, but her cheeks were red from implementation
"Even afterwards, I still wasn't sure, even after being married to him I would panic thinking about it. It was an adjustment and it took a while before I…found myself being able to anticipate it rather than dreading it."
"I remember Gil and I's honeymoon and how nervous I was. Diana bless her tried her best to fill in where Marilla couldn't, and where Mrs. Lynde had gone overboard with," Mother says with a sigh.
"You were all over each other," Leslie says laughing. "I was oddly jealous of you having it all."
"I was so confused honestly," Mother says after a short pause, and Rilla sees her look over her in the corner of her eye. "When I had been an orphan, at the Hammonds I used to hear Mrs Hammond scream, cry, sob at night when Mr. Hammond would be intoxicated. I learned quickly to never go near their room, to hide away so he couldn't find me. More than once I woke up with him staring down at me. I didn't understand back then, and one of the sets of twins would cry and Mrs. Hammond would yell at me if I didn't soothe them. When you told me your secrets, it all came back to me, what I had witnessed, and what could have happened."
Rilla squeaks at a strong kick and the women look at her and she sighs.
"It was a strong kick," she tells them before turning to them. "If it matters any to either of you, I'm not afraid of Ken, I'm not…I'm not afraid of…intimacy because you told me that what was given in love was different from greed. I couldn't be confused between the two knowing that."
"Still, seeing you in Jem's arms that night…my whole world plummeted and all I could think of was that house afterwards. That is what I kept thinking about…what I had witnessed, how this would change your life." Mother says quietly.
Rilla can only nod her head. "I think I will go lie down before Father finds me for my afternoon check-in." She tells them, gathering her things and beckoning Monday to follow her, not that she needed to, he followed her around and somehow started to alert people to her if he felt something was wrong with her.
Father takes her blood pressure three times a day and tests her urine in the morning most days. Monitoring her as much as the baby, every time he frowns she sighs. This afternoon was no different.
"I'm not getting better am I?" She asks him quietly. "I'm getting worse," she says lifting one of her swollen ankles.
"We're keeping it in check," he tells her. "You are doing brilliantly and that's all I can ask for."
"Even if I am bored out of my mind?" Rilla asks him.
"You are doing it for the health of your baby and yourself," Father reminds her. "Have you read the books I left by your bed?"
"Parts," Rilla responds. "I haven't gotten through everything, but parts of it."
"Good, the more you understand the less unknown it will be for you," Father nods his head at her and leaves her room and she doesn't see his grave face as Mother comes with a tray of food.
She wakes up from a nap and goes downstairs to all the chatter and sees her brother in the kitchen with Susan.
"My Go—lord," he says seeing her after Susan swatted him for almost taking the lord's name in vain.
"I know…it's something else," Rilla tells him.
"Sit," Susan says authoritatively while nudging Rilla to a chair and going for the teapot.
Rilla does as she says lowering herself into a chair. Her blouse is light green, untucked over a dark brown skirt.
"I didn't think you would get so…" Shirley starts.
"Big?" Rilla says sighing. "Yeah, that happens apparently."
"I mean you're far from a whale or ship," Shirley jokes. "Just very pronounced."
"I would be careful about commenting on any woman's appearance while expecting Shirley," Father says coming from his office. "Especially if you ever plan on being married one day."
"That's different though," Shirley says with a grin. "A wife isn't a sister," he grins at her.
Rilla rolls her eyes and takes a drink of the warm milky tea that Susan passed to her.
"Good to have you home," Father said patting his son's shoulder in passing. "School is doing well?"
"It is, just busy, the first and last weeks of term are always the busiest times for us teachers," Shirley tells him.
"Oh I know," Father nods his head. "After tea, I'll see you in the office," he says to Rilla who nods her head.
Shirley looks at her and she mainly shrugs, picking up her tea once more as her blouse sleeve falls to the crook of her elbow.
"What happened?" Shirley sees the bruises and scabs of old leeching wounds. "Why does it look like Dad had leeches on you?"
"It's nothing," Rilla tells him covering herself up.
"That's not nothing, that's—," Shirley retorts and Father clears his throat cutting him off.
"Your sister is fine at the moment, we have everything under control," Father tells him with an intense look telling him to drop it.
"Come on, let's go to the shore, I'll pull you in the cart with the horse. I can't imagine you've been out at all this spring?" Shirley tells her as she sits on the veranda knitting little socks.
"I shouldn't wander so far from the house," Rilla tells him but looks out to the ocean down in the distance.
"You won't be doing anything differently than sitting here," Shirley tells her, pushing into further.
"Go ask father then, if he says it's fine then I will," Rilla tells him, knowing their father most likely wouldn't agree to it at all. Yet when Shirley comes back, he has her sweater for her and her tennis shoes. She looks at him, and he gets down on one knee and wiggles her feet into them.
"Dad said if you just sit there you'll be fine and the sea breeze might do you some good as well," Shirley tells her. "Do you want the camera?"
Rilla can only nod her head, and see's her father in the doorway.
"No galavanting, and if you start getting even a little lightheaded come straight home," He tells her. "You've been good the past few days, might as well enjoy the day."
Rilla only nods her head and takes her straw hat from the hook by the door on the way out.
The dunes are empty, but the sound of the ocean is comforting as Shirley brings them down over the old boat launch on the cart. He ties the old mare and pulls out too old folding beach chairs.
He takes a photo of her on the brownie, not caring if is she telling him not to. That she looks a fright and they she wanted to take photos of the shore, not of herself.
"When are you leaving?" She asks him quietly.
"Not for another year, don't worry," Shirley tells her. "Met a pretty girl though while teaching"
"I thought you weren't doing that?" Rilla looks at him sharply.
"Well it's hard to ignore it when you see them every day," Shirley says sheepishly.
"You are not….you are not courting a student!" Rilla looks at him in shock, stuttering and stammering at the sheer audacity of her brother.
"Oh calm down, she helps her father at the bakery," Shirley tells her. "She finished school last year. I am not Mr. whoever mother goes on about when talking about her school days at Green Gables."
Shirley only stayed until Sunday, before going back to his school leaving Rilla alone in the house until the twins would be home by the end of the month, he wouldn't be home for good until June.
Her head pounding later that evening, tired but unable to sleep she wanted a cool cloth and something to eat as a snack, Mother was in bed, but Father was up apparently Aunt Leslie was over as well still and talking fairly loudly in his office.
"You don't get how hard it is to trust men after that Gilbert." She hears Leslie say in a deathly quiet pale tone. "Don't look at me like that, Yes, even you, because who wants their Father there, and she doesn't want to hurt your feelings most likely. I know a woman doctor, she is more them qualified, and more than happy to take Rilla on as a patient. I would trust her with my daughter."
"She's not going to Toronto Leslie. Also, I'm not letting some half-shot doctor, tell me about my daughter's health, I know her better than anyone else and frankly I am trying my best to keep her calm and healthy right now."
"You may know her as your child, but you do not know what it's like to be her at all Gilbert Blythe. Of course, you don't, you have no idea what it's like to be a woman who has had everything forcefully taken from her. She stressed enough about Ken, this pregnancy, don't make her more stressed about this!"
"You think I don't know how stressful it is on her? That if I could fix it I would? Either way at the end of the day, she learned to trust one man enough to get into predicaments, because apparently your son can keep it in his pants or think long enough to at the very least withdraw. She can learn to trust another in the medical field, without spending days on a train while I am trying to make sure she doesn't go into premature labour or have an aneurysm or seizure when she does.
"First off, that is quite simply not how it works you of all people should know better, and second…my son is not perfect but he didn't do anything that was not asked of him! Second, if you are that worried about toxemia bring her to a goddamn hospital."
"Eclampsia Leslie, pre-eclampsia for her case and they would do that same thing I am doing right now for her. She is home, she is comfortable, and most of all she isn't scared because she trusts me to do what is best for her and I haven't lied to her." Father's voice seethes.
"Stop it both of you," She finds herself exclaiming and they both turn to look at her. Long white chemise and old flannel pants. Hands cradling her child, flushed cheeks show her father exactly what he is worried about. "I thank you for standing up for me Aunt Leslie, I do but Father is right I am comfortable here and have come to terms with everything. I have my friends who keep me company and my family. This baby will be born on the island, now may I have some aspirin because my head is aching something fierce right now?"
"Can we have a moment Leslie?" Father looks at her Mother in law who nods her head and turns to leave the room
Father doesn't say anything but beckons her over grabbing his cuff. She can't say anything but lets him do his thing and checks her for any puffiness or swelling. He breathes a small breath of relief.
"Most likely just a regular headache, you're high, but nothing in what I deem dangerous," he tells her empathetically, rubbing her arm. "Go lie down and I'll get some ice water and rage for you. I don't want to give so much aspirin unless you truly need it."
Rilla could only nod her head and by the time upstairs and washed up for bed he was waiting for her. He tucks her in like a child and caresses her hair for a moment looking at her and her room. A frilly bassinet, little things taking up the space where the other bed used to be that was now stored away, it wouldn't be long now, he just had to get her to the finishing line, particularly alive, because Anne would never forgive him otherwise.