The Frozen River

We are in the twilight years of a long love affair, and it has recently occurred to me that a day will come when one of us buries the other. But, I remind myself, that is the happy ending to a story like ours. It is a vow made and kept. Till death do us part. It is the only acceptable outcome to a long and happy marriage, and I am determined not to fear that day, whenever it arrives. I am equally determined to soak up all the days between.

This is what it means to age, I think. The days are long, but the years are short.

Memory is a wicked thing that warps and twists. But paper and ink receive the truth without emotion, and they read it back without partiality. That, I believe, is why so few women are taught to read and write. God only knows what they would do with the power of pen and ink at their disposal.

Like all mothers, I have long since mastered the art of nursing joy at one breast and grief at the other.

It’s an unimaginative accusation and one that I am frankly tired of hearing. Witchcraft. As though there is no other explanation for a woman who excels at her work.

I want the world to remember that small acts, done in love, matter every bit as much as the ones that make the newspaper and the history books.

This is the part no one talks about anymore. Not in civilized company at least. When a war is over, you stop discussing the cost. The reality. The blood-soaked soil or the grave markers or the collateral damage. The ways we kill our enemies in order to claim victory. History is written by the men who live. Not the ones who die. But I’ve heard these stories myself.

Listening is a skill acquired by the doing.

The act of mothering is not limited to the bearing of children.

And then I cry. Mostly for Rebecca and the tiny, unwanted beating heart deep within her womb. But also for myself. And our daughters. And for every other woman who lives, suffers, and dies by the mercurial whims of men.

The joy of having sons is that they worship their mothers. Until one day, suddenly, they don’t. I am not like you, he realizes. We are different. Then, that boy—once small and sweet—begins the long, hard process of separation, until at last he rips the seam. But the holes where mother and son were once knit together remain.

Though you never think it possible, you can celebrate and grieve in the same breath. It is a holy abomination.

and move a section of hair above my right ear to inspect a thick streak of silver hidden beneath the part. I lift it, coiling the hair around my finger, marveling at this single patch of silver. Ephraim shifts on the bed, and I hear the soft pad of feet on the floorboards. “I like it,” he says lifting the streak from my hand. He slides it through his fingers. “It is one thing to be old,” I tell him, “and another to feel old. That makes me feel old.” “Well, it makes me feel like a king.” He smiles at my curious look. “Only a fool would be upset to find a vein of silver running through his beloved territory.

Martha Ballard is the great-aunt of Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross. She is also the great-great-grandmother of Mary Hobart, one of the first female physicians in the United States.

And then I laugh. If anyone had told me two decades ago, when I was buried in small children and endless chores, that one day I would sit at my desk in a warm, quiet house while the snow fell outside and complain of loneliness, I would have slapped them.

you cannot make a child be anything he is not.

I cannot say why it is so important that I make this daily record. Perhaps because I have been doing so for years on end? Or maybe-if I am being honest- it is because these markings of ink and paper will one day be the only proof that I have existed in this world. That I lived and breathed. That I loved a man and the many children he gave me. It is not that I want to be remembered, per se. I have done nothing remarkable. Not by the standards of history, at least. But I am here. And these words are the mark I will leave behind. So yes, it matters that I continue this ritual.

One of the greatest skills that I have as a midwife is to sit in silence. I cannot count the number of times that I have wordlessly held a hand as grief explodes in a room. The only antidote to this kind of despair is to create a bulwark of immovable calm. To sit and be. To pray and offer comfort. To watch the shadows cut tracks along the wall as the sun slowly moves across the sky. To say nothing when there are no words that can console.

How can the court be certain that you and Mistress Foster have not conspired to wrongly accuse Colonel North?” I swallow a sigh. I will never understand why men think that women work so hard to destroy them. In my experience it is usually the opposite.

This, a simple piece of bedding, is the answer. Everyone must sleep, and to do so beneath a warm quilt, tenderly made, is the first thing that helps a house become a home.

It does not matter that I had two more daughters after burying those three. The loss is still as fresh and painful as though it happened yesterday. When they died, generations died with them.

I peer at him, skeptical. “You’ve been reading Shakespeare again.” He shrugs, then yanks the blade free. “I like the way he delivers an insult.

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, the Pulitzer Prize–winning historian and professor, studied the diary and wrote the definitive biography of a woman who should have vanished from history. If not for one diary and the power of words.

As I rise from the table, it occurs to me that part of what I feel, watching them, is a sense of betrayal. I carried these children into the world, paid their entrance fee with dues rendered upon my own

The jury acquitted every man tried of rape that day,” I say after a moment. “But they fined a woman into poverty for spreading lies about a judge’s daughter.

I am not a woman given easily to tears. They’re useless things that serve only to make your voice waver and your cheeks wet.

This is how it has been between us for the last few years. I know why, but still, it hurts. The joy of having sons is that they worship their mothers. Until one day, suddenly, they don’t. I am not like you, he realizes. We are different. Then, that boy—once small and sweet—begins the long, hard process of separation, until at last he rips the seam. But the holes where mother and son were once knit together remain.

I am not God—nor do I desire to be—but, being privy to much of what goes on behind closed doors in this town, I have a rather good idea what secrets might be recorded, then later revealed, if more women took up the pen.

But there is something very important I must know before I can do that.” “What?” “Your name.” “Mrs. Page.” “No,” I tell her. “Page is your husband’s name. And missus is the thing you became on your wedding day. What is the one you were given at birth?