I watched Carrie change in the weeks after her affair.  She became quieter and more reserved, even to me.  She used to confide in me, but she got to the point where she would just stare into my glass with an empty sadness.

She also tried to flirt with her husband more, but he had grown colder and more aloof.  He hadn’t wanted to be with her in several months.

Then one day, she walked into the room and set a leather-bound book on my vanity.  She walked back out of the room, but quickly came back with an ink well and pen.  She sat down in front of me and slowly opened the book.  To my surprise, it was blank!  What new kind of human weirdness was this?  Had they learned to read without words?

Carrie took a deep breath, dipped her pen into the ink well, then methodically wrote the words: “I’m pregnant.”

I did the mental math for myself and came to a horrible realization.

I watched as she continued to write:

“I’m pregnant and there’s no way the baby’s Jacob’s.  I’m terrified that he will find out – even as I write these words, I’m terrified he will find them.  He can be so angry, so violent, when someone goes against his ways, and this is far worse than disagreeing on opinion.  I knew this was wrong, and I did it anyway.

“Jacob will not lay with me,” she continued, “so I am unsure of how to make him think the baby is his.  I do not want to start a life of lies to cover my transgression, but I fear I must do something to protect the baby inside of me.

“Oh how I wish I had never gone to see Abraham!  I did not even know him as well as I thought.  And now I must carry the guilt of my actions, and continue to transgress into lies and deceit to try to hide them. 

“I now understand David’s lament in Psalm 51: ‘Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.’

“My heart does cry out to the Lord!  Forgive me!  Protect me and the child I am bearing in sin!”

Carrie’s head jerked up quickly.  She looked toward the closed door, then opened a drawer and slid the book without words inside.  There was a sheet of paper on the vanity, and she began to write: “Dearest Mother…”

Jacob came into the bedroom.  “What are you doing in here?”

“I am composing a letter to Mother,” Carrie said, looking up at him.

Jacob peered over her shoulder.  “It has taken you some time to write, ‘Dearest Mother.’”

Carried sighed.  I could not tell if it was a guilty sigh or performed as an act.  “Yes, I have spent much time trying to figure out what to say. Not much has changed with us.  It is time to plow, but they know that.  I feel like it is my daughterly duty to write, but I am unsure of what to say!”

“Hm.”  Jacob looked rather dubious.  “Well, one of the servants had a question about dinner for you.  Go and assist her, then maybe you can find some intelligence to write a decent letter to your mother.”

“Yes, Sir,” she said, quickly standing and walking out of the room. 

Jacob looked at the top of the vanity.  He seemed to be thinking.  I wondered if he was going to start looking through the drawers, but instead he turned and followed his wife out of the room.

Carrie returned about half an hour later and finished writing both the letter to her mother and in the blank book.  The letter she placed in an envelope, the book she placed back in the drawer.

Carrie began to write in the book regularly.  She never let Jacob see it, and he never had reason to look for it.

To Carrie’s strained relief, Jacob did lie with her a few weeks later, and she did not begin to show for a several more months.  To the outside world, everything seemed normal.  Inside Carrie’s mind and journal, however, there was a strong tempest that raged with guilt, fear, and sadness. 

Dark emotions flowed out of Carrie through both her tears and her pen.  Jacob blamed it on the pregnancy.  How little did he knew how both very right and very wrong he was!

During her pregnancy, Jacob treated his wife with much more love and tenderness than he had ever showed her before.  I had hope for them, and even Carrie began to let her guard down and smile around him again.  It was so good to see her smile.

At night, Jacob would talk about all the things he would do with his son.  The things he would teach him.  The plantation and legacy he would leave.  The wealth he hoped to leave.  Their son would have everything.

Carrie asked what he would do if the baby was a girl.

“It will be a boy,” Jacob said, with a smile and a certain arrogance.

Then in late summer, the baby was born.  Everyone thought the baby was coming too early, and pretended to be concerned. She and I both knew better.

The room was full of hustle and bustle, women running in and out, carrying hot water for the pregnancy, cold water for the mother’s head.  There was the usual screaming that accompanied the birth of a child – mostly from the mother and then, the baby.

The room grew hushed.  Carrie began to cry.  The women assisting her continued to tend to her and the baby, but concerned looks were passed between themselves as they went.  I was afraid something was wrong with the baby, but everything I could see and hear seemed the same as previous pregnancies I had seen.

Then a blanket slipped and I saw the reason for the concern.

It was a girl.