Call Your Daughter Home

It is now September, and Retta writes a letter to Odell asking for news. Her husband has been gone for two weeks, and she’s concerned. One night, two horsemen come to her door. One is Nelly’s father, and the other is her betrothed. Nelly was in the ninth month of a difficult pregnancy when she was helping Retta prepare for Homecoming Camp. Nelly’s father says the girl is in now labor but may die. Retta has acted as a midwife to the Indigenous, Black, and white communities of Branchville and immediately goes with the men to see if she can help.

Once she arrives, Retta sees that Nelly is attended by her own mother, Ado, but the baby is a breach birth, and the umbilical cord is twisted around the child’s neck. Retta works feverishly to save both mother and daughter. She tells Nelly, “Command her home. Make her mind! You are the mother!” (181). After a harrowing delivery, the daughter lives, but Nelly dies.

Gertrude is aware of a sickness spreading through the community. Her sister-in-law, Marie, hasn’t come to work at the Sewing Circle. Berns is ill, too. During the week that follows, many more seamstresses succumb to the epidemic.