America the Unknown (United States of America #3)

Entry #2

It was between 1526 and 1527 when her eldest sons, the identical twins San Miguel de Gualdape and St. Petersburg, were born.

Allow me to start from the beginning. Many months before those years, Miss Emily had been feeling rather strange lately, and I immediately caught on to it. She looked very pale and simple tasks such as moving around were tiring to her. I immediately became concerned when I saw her condition, and begged her to return to bed and I would call for a doctor. She complied too easily, and she had immediately gone to sleep the second she hit the bed.

But I did not mind this. Rather, I was relieved that she at least was resting. So, in that time, I called for a doctor, asking him to arrive as quickly as possible.

Thank God he was quick.

Miss Emily was still sleeping when the doctor arrived, and did not stir when he approached her bedside. Fortunately, the doctor allowed her to continue her rest as he checked her, finding no fever, no malfunction, in fact nothing seemed out of place, except for one thing.

When the doctor checked her stomach, I remembered feeling physically sick when he paused, his face expressing astonishment and confusion. When he looked to me, I found it a miracle that I could still move.

"As she been with any man recently?" asked he.

I remembered being so shocked by that question that it took me many moments to answer despite the disbelief I felt. "N-No, she has not," said I.

The doctor's eyebrows scrunched in his own disbelief. "Are you positive?" asked he again.

"Yes, I am sure," I said, feeling myself growing irritated, I am once more ashamed to admit. "I have been with Miss Emily for weeks, and she has never invited a man to come inside and privately visit her. Why, she is too young!"

I knew that Miss Emily was much older than I was, but that did not stop me from wanting to defend her. Of course, I knew that girls that reached the age of thirteen were often married off to men older than they were, and they even would give birth to their second or third child by the time they were fifteen, but Miss Emily was physically too young. She had the appearance of an eleven-year-old girl, soon to be twelve, and I refused to believe she would invite any man to privately visit with her, much less conceive a child with her.

The doctor stared at me, neither moving or blinking, and I was actually thinking that he had turned into a human statue, until he looked between Miss Emily and back to me and slowly said,

"That's impossible Madam, because this girl has a child growing within her."

Even when I heard those words, I could not believe it. It was impossible, I thought. There was no possible explanation that Miss Emily could be pregnant. She was too young! Angrily, I ordered the doctor to leave, and he did, but without my noticing, he left behind a note for Miss Emily to find when she awoke from her slumber about this.

I know, I was acting foolish back then, but please remember that I was unfamiliar with nation pregnancies and how they worked at this time. I only knew about our basic biology, and even that was limited thanks to me being a woman, so the only thing I knew was that a man and a woman were needed to create a child. It was why we women were valued only for our ability to bare children after all.

Now, when Miss Emily woke up from her slumber, I was busy cleaning when she found the doctor's note, but her scream almost caused my poor heart to stop. I immediately abandoned what I was doing and rushed to her side, finding her clutching onto the note with wide, tear-stained eyes. A hand was over her mouth, and she was shaking so much she looked like a leaf in the wind.