A few days passed as Martha recovered from childbirth and the couple acclimated to having having two babies with completely different sleeping schedules than theirs. Since the day the twins were born Joseph and Martha hadn’t talked about their predicament. They had fallen asleep exhausted that night and sent out the word of the birth of their two baby girls in the morning. Joseph figured his wife deserved a few days of peaceful recovery before they spoke of it again. So far no one had noticed, not Helen, not guests and well wishers, or anyone else, but they could not go on like this forever. Eventually someone would notice something if they didn’t come up with a plan.
Martha was sitting in the nursery rocking one of the babies, he wasn’t sure which one, in her arms while the other was in her crib when he found her. He picked up the baby in the crib and began to rock her as well as he came up beside his wife. The baby in his arms yawned and almost immediately fell asleep, feeling safe in her father’s arms.
“Which one am I holding?” he asked. “I still can’t tell which one is which when they are swaddled like this.”
“That one is Erin” Martha said with a smile. “Maybe we should dress them in different colors.”
“That is something we can do, but if we don’t do something soon it will be too easy to tell them apart” he said.
“Right” she sighed “I supposed we would have to talk about this eventually.” She stood up and placed Samantha back in her crib. Joseph did the same with Erin. “Where do we start?”
“We can never tell Erin what she is” he said, figuring this was as good a place as any to begin. “We can’t risk her telling anyone she’s different when she is young. You know how children like to say whatever is on their minds at a given moment.”
“But how will she not notice she is different from other girls?” asked Martha.
Joseph paused, opened his mouth to speak, and then paused again.
“I thought this could be something we would figure out together” he said finally.
“You have no ideas” her words were a statement rather than a question. She too paused to think for a moment before speaking, choosing her words carefully. “Well modesty is already a valued virtue for girls. We can put an emphasis on modesty for both girls. If she has no way of comparing her body to that of others she will have no reason to think there is something wrong with her.”
“Good, good, very good” he said.
“From there we just need to teach her to dress and look the part” she said.
“We can encourage her to take up feminine interests.”
“And dress her in clothes made to hide her unfeminine figure.” She was silent for a moment as what they were planning really hit her. “We’re really going to do this. This is truly something we have to do.”
“Yes it is.”
“It seems so simple, but at the same time there are so many things we haven’t thought about, things we probably won’t even think of until they become a problem. No matter what we do this is going to be difficult to keep a secret. We have to keep it a secret from everyone including her and we have to make sure she doesn’t reveal it accidentally. What if she tells Samantha something?” she said “I remember how close I was to my siblings when I was young. We told each other everything. And what if we have more children? We’ll have to hide this from them too.”
“And what do you suggest we do about that? Not have anymore children?”
“Yes!”
“How are we meant to control that? Are you suggesting we refrain from becoming intimate for the rest of our lives?”
“Of course that’s not what I meant. You’re a doctor, don’t pretend you don’t know of herbal methods of preventing pregnancy” she said crossing her arms over her chest.
“What are you talking about?”
“You really don’t know do you” Martha said. “My aunt was a midwife and she taught me about it. I knew the average man probably didn’t know about it, especially those who aren’t as kind as you, but I figured that if midwives knew about it then doctors would to. But you really don’t know.”
“Then please enlighten me.”
“There are these herbs that can be brewed into a tea that if drunk regularly can help prevent pregnancy. It isn’t completely effective, I have known women who have still become pregnant even while taking it, but many do not. It is the most effective method I have encountered so far.”
“Do you know where you can get some of these herbs? What kind of herbs are they?” he asked.
“I don’t know what they are called, but I can send a letter to my aunt and she can help me acquire some.”
“Please do. I’d like to know a little more about it before you start taking it, but I need some to study it.”
“I can send her a letter right away.”
They continued to talk and brainstorm for quite a while longer, but most of it amounted to repetitions of things they had already said. It did serve to calm their collective nerves and boost their confidence that they could pull this off. All in all they felt they had had success.
As soon as Joseph left to get back to his work, Martha found herself a pen and some sheets of paper and began writing a letter to her aunt. It had been a while since the last time she had seen her aunt. In all honesty it had been before she had married Joseph and she was afraid of what her aunt would think of the man she had never gotten a chance to meet.
Most women came to her and other midwives for the herbs because their husbands abused them and they couldn’t bear the thought of carrying his children not to mention exposing those children to the same abuse they suffered. Her situation was of course completely different, but she knew that without any context that it was likely what her aunt would think. This would lead to her informing her brother, Martha’s father, that she thought something was wrong and cause unnecessary drama that would risk exposing him.
On the flipside however, she couldn’t just tell her aunt and expect her to keep the secret. That option could be just as if not more dangerous. She would have to choose her words carefully. Slowly she dipped her pen in the inkwell and began to write.
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