Passion Bearers

The death

Tess gave birth to Tara on a stormy winter night, when the snow was pouring down from heavens. The midwife could barely get there in time for Tess' birth, huffing and puffing as she arrived all red-cheeked through the door.

It was an agonizingly slow birth, full of screaming and yelling. While Polly and Ada were there with her to attend to her needs, Martha was by herself in the other room, too heavily pregnant to help. Tess thought for a moment, that she might die giving birth to this child, while in the throes of pain-induced delirium.

But, once the baby came out, Tess decided that all the pain was worth it. When Polly handed her the baby, Tess started crying from happiness, watching her child, pink as day, squirming in her arms.

She named her Tara Martha Shelby, by the names of both her own and Tommy's maternal grandmothers. Tara looked so much like Tommy, even more so than Charlie, who had Tess' mop of brown hair and freckles. Tara was all sun-kissed skin and black hair with eyes the color of winter seas. She reminded Tess so much of Tommy that it caused her heart to crush in both happiness and despair. Tess missed him so much, so much that even looking at their daughter was painful.

Nonetheless, despite the dark times they were in, despite the war that seemed to have no end and the absence of Tara's father, they threw a small celebration. Polly and Ada cracked open of champagne for those 'special days' and poured it for the girls, giving bittersweet smiles, since they were the only ones they could give.

Even Martha came back down, looking drained and pale, as if she had been chewed out of the ocean. Tess, Ada and Polly all exchanged worried looks, as they did often these days. Martha had been growing weaker as her stomach continued to swell. It was worsened by the fact that she didn't tell John of the condition she was in due to her pregnancy, neither did she allow the others to. Polly predicted it would all end in disaster.

Tess didn't want to agree, but the rational side of her did.

She tried to push these thoughts away as she progressed through life, mostly writing letters to Tommy back and forth, trying to keep him updated on the baby. Slowly, his responses began to get shorter, more removed, more distant. It felt just like before they had gotten close and Tess could feel a wall building between her and Tommy. While he was never a man of many words, he would always make it a point to leave her hopeful messages. He would write to her in subtle ways of how he missed her, by saying he missed their Sunday roasts and quiet days at home. All that was suddenly disappearing.

Tess never really loved anyone, at least not in the ways that she loved Tommy. She couldn't navigate the paths of love, neither could she navigate the paths of marriage. She didn't know if it was the war or the fact that he didn't need her anymore. Tess didn't even know that if telling him that she loved him would change anything. So, she just let him slip away. She let him without knowing that perhaps, it had been one of the greatest mistakes of her entire life.

But, Tess didn't even have the time to think about the distance between her and Tommy because slowly, Martha's due date was approaching. She began to look completely washed out, refused to eat and had nightmares often, not being able to sleep alone. Even her two eldest, Matthew and Mary, who were now four, began seeing changes in her.

It all culminated on a bleak winter morning, when Martha's water broke and she began having contractions. The midwife came quickly this time, but did not seem hopeful from the moment she saw Martha. Tess tried her best to help her out through her long birth, tears blurring her eyes as she watched blood ooze out of Martha slowly. Even Polly was crying, praying by Martha's bedside, clutching her hand in a tight grip.

When the baby finally came out, everything seemed to lighten for a moment. It was like a light in the dark, a match in an endless tunnel of despair. When Martha was handed her baby, she looked so happy, so pleased, that Tess thought that for a moment, it would be alright.

" Call her Katherine", she said to Tess, her eyes shining with a strange, almost euphoric emotion,

"That's what they were going to call my sister when she was born. They were going to call her little Katie. Call her after my sister".

Tess nodded, stroking Martha's hair as the midwife frantically tried to stop her from bleeding. Ada was full out sobbing in the corner as she watched one rag after another soaked in Martha's blood. Polly continued praying, her hand clutching Martha's hand even tighter. Tess stood there, both in and out of consciousness. She looked into Martha's eyes as life left them, turning glassy, lifeless.

The moment she saw death settle in her eyes, Tess let out a scream, collapsing on her knees. The baby cried in her dead mother's arms, it's screams echoing those of Tess'. Because, just like everyone in the room, the child had witnessed its' mother dying and nothing was worse than that.

The midwife later said that it had been postpartum hemorrhage, whatever the fuck that meant. She lost too much blood, she said. There was nothing anyone could do. But, Tess felt partially responsible as she listened to the midwife say these words. She wanted to say that she could've stopped it. That she could've convinced Martha to abort the baby, but she didn't. She couldn't say it into her friend's face and now, she would bear the responsibility for it.

They buried Martha in the next three days, in a small church a little outside Birmingham, where her stillborn sister, Katherine, was buried. It was snowing heavily on that day, just as it had when Tess was giving birth. All of Martha's children, including Katie, who was in Ada's hands, were there, bawling their eyes out. It hurt Tess to look at them, to see all of them together and knowing that they were just a hair away from becoming orphans. Four children, their mother dead, their father at war.

It hurt Tess even more to think that John could not be there to bury his wife. John was probably the most feeling of all his brothers. While he looked tough and strong and almost impenetrable, he loved his wife dearly. Tess knew that losing her would devastate him so the role of informing was handled by Polly, who was the only sane one through this whole ordeal. Tess couldn't imagine the pain of telling a husband that there was no wife to return to. She couldn't imagine the pain of being told that the person you were waiting to come back to, was gone.

It all made her think of Tommy, who had begun writing to her more and more rarely. These days, she heard more of him from Arthur, who wrote regularly to his aunt to tell her how they were all doing. He said that Tommy got injured but survived, but he mentioned that he did not think his brother was sound of mind anymore. It scared Tess to think about Tommy all broken, alone, in those tunnels. She wanted to march up to 10 Downing Street herself and tell the Prime Minister to bring him back home.

Instead, Tess flooded Tommy with letters. She asked him of his health, she told him of Tara and Charlie. She even sent him a picture of all of them, in desperation to get any reply back.

There were none.

And there would be none until October of 1918, four years since he left and three since he last wrote to her that she got one letter from him, containing one sentence.

I'm coming home.