A TREE BY THE SEA

The Mountain

Summer 1980

Her stomach is stretched and bulging, heavily protruding from the thin t-shirt she donned for bed the night before. There are wet spots along her side where her toddler’s cloth diaper leaked through and soaked the bedding. She kneels with her bare knees in the hard packed dirt poking the embers of a campfire summoning the heat needed to boil water for breakfast. The baby inside her grinds deep into her pelvis. A dull pain wraps around her low back and tightens across the top of her stomach. She shifts her weight uncomfortably and can’t help but grimace. Contractions have been coming stronger over the past weeks. The mid September arrival date predicted for this little one feels like an eternity away even though August is hurrying to an end.

A wooden apple crate sits beside her fire.  It is a cupboard for her clean dishes. …