From her deerskin pouch, Angelica removed a small, six-sided divining crystal that her grandmother had taught her to use. She prayed for insight and healing the way her Cherokee ancestors had. The fact that there were no symptoms on day four stoked Angelica’s confidence, giving her false hope.

On day five, she lamented turning down the painkillers as it felt like (she assumed) she was in labor. She staggered to the medicine cabinet, desperately grabbing for something, anything. She fumbled with the childproof lock on an Ibuprofen bottle and emptied four tablets into her palm, but it was too late for it to help. Angelica fell to the cold hard bathroom floor, and for ninety minutes endured constant pain. No cycle of contraction and relief; only contraction. No one with her to help her, to comfort her, to tell her it would all be all right. She prayed that God was with her, but if he was, why had he allowed this to happen in the first place?

And suddenly it happened.

An explosive discharge as Angelica struggled to her feet to get to the toilet, instinct driving her there. With blood dripping out of her, she finally passed the large chunk she had feared. As she did, the pain subsided just enough for her to catch her breath and wipe the sweat from her forehead. She burst into tears, uncontrollable sobbing, needing to see what had just dropped out of her, but afraid to look. If it was Nancy, if she really WAS dead, then it was over. It can’t be over...it can’t be, Angelica had thought. She buried her head in her hands and allowed herself to cry for several moments before doing what she had to do for her daughter. Finally, she rose, turned around and tried to compose herself. Trembling, she overcame the fear and allowed her eyes to drop.

And there it was. An umbilical cord, clearly visible, wrapped around a thick, translucent sac. Inside the sac was Nancy. Tiny, precious, oh so precious, little Nancy, only an inch long. The doctor had told Angelica it was too early to determine the gender, but Angelica knew. It was a girl, and she had named her after Nancy Ward, one of the most respected of all Cherokee women. Now she would have to bury her, having never spoken to her. Having never kissed her. Having never nursed her.

Angelica burst out crying again, screaming hysterically and pounding her fists against the wall before sliding down in the corner of the bathroom. She wrapped her arms around her knees and wept loudly for no one to hear, immersed in her suffering.

At first she had no idea what to do with Nancy’s remains. How could she know? She carefully gathered them, placed them in a Ziploc bag and put them in the freezer until she could sort it out. This had infuriated her husband Blake when he called home from an overnight hauling job to Savannah. One that just couldn’t wait, Angelica thought, leaving me to carry this burden alone.

She said nothing more to Blake about it. Instead, she simply went to the hollow, empty nursery, sat down in the rocker and began to sew a tiny cloth bag from a yard of printed fabric she had purchased in Clayton. The fabric was intended to become Nancy’s first Easter dress. Instead, Angelica would place Nancy in the bag, bury her and plant a fig tree to remember her. A tree that Angelica would nurture and protect from the grip of winter with a blanket so that it would flourish and have the life that Nancy was denied.

Family, friends, everyone offered sympathy. They were so sorry for her loss. They said they knew what she must be going through. They really said that! And then everyone said the thing that troubled her most of all. The thing they all are trained to say from the time they begin Sunday school, the thing that she too had believed all her life but in that moment, had begun to doubt.

“God has a plan.” Or, “God works in mysterious ways.” Those were the two empirical statements that her Baptist brethren would close with, saving them as trump cards in troubling times when no other words could console, explain or comfort. God has a plan. Yep, conversation over. Can’t question that one...God has a plan.

“What plan?” Angelica recalled screaming at the time. “WHAT PLAN?”

Angelica was as much a believer as anyone, rarely missing a Sunday in the Sandy Creek Baptist Church off Warwoman Road. She was baptized there when she was a child for goodness sake! Reading the scripture, believing the scripture, consoling others in times of grief, hugging them and whispering comforting thoughts like, “He’s in a better place” or “God has a plan.” Oh, how she regretted saying that now. Did that really comfort anyone? God answers your prayer, gives you the gift of life within you, a baby, a child, and then rescinds the offer once you’ve bonded? Why? So you can pass some ridiculous test that He has for you? Angelica began to stew, partly at the maddening thoughts that ran through her mind, but mainly for allowing herself to remotely question God. At the time of the miscarriage, those emotions threatened to overwhelm her if she gave them the slightest opening. But she was spiritual, a believer in God and, at heart, eternally hopeful. No, she refused to question God’s will.

Two years had now passed, and she came here to tell Nancy that she was five-months pregnant and that a brother was on the way. Oh God, please let it be true, she prayed silently, as she knelt to work a new raised garden bed she had built a few feet from Nancy’s Tree. Angelica plowed her hands into the rich black soil that she had been nurturing since spring with grass clippings and last winter’s leaf cover. She let the soil sift through her fingers, approving of its tilth as she reached for a bag of bone meal, holding it in her lap so that she could see the label. “Black Rock Organic Bone Meal,” she mouthed softly. One perk from Blake’s work, she thought; free, organic bone meal. Pulling the string, she opened the bag and closed her eyes as she worked it into the soil with her bare hands. She rocked her head from side to side in the gentle breeze, relishing the opportunity to nurture and care for the soil.

“There we go, Nancy, all done,” Angelica whispered. “I’ll have asparagus planted in here before the end of the September, well before the first frost.” Angelica rose from the raised bed and looked over her secret garden, a place of peace, love, hope and solitude for her, but it was solitude that she didn’t want. Blake had never even stepped into the garden and wanted no part of it once she told him of her plans for Nancy. He kept his distance from her secret garden and increasingly, from her.

She didn’t know what he was going through or why, but it was obvious that Blake was changing. Every day he seemed a little more distant, a little angrier. At what, she wasn’t quite sure. They had been married for eight years, and like many marriages, the first year was the best, when Blake was so grateful for the love and support Angelica provided just after his injury and car accident.

One blessing from the accident, if you could call it that, was that the settlement from the accident helped them to pay cash for their home and to start married life without debt. Blake stayed home recovering from his injuries and unable to work dependably for three years. Once he was able to work, he was forced to find something that didn’t require him to exert himself. Even sitting more than a few hours in one position became excruciating for him so he spent another few years just doing odd jobs. As time went on, he became more anxious about what his identity would be.

Then, God had shown the way, Angelica believed, when a local winery on Lake Burton with struggling sales asked Blake to use his football ‘name’ to market and deliver their wine to restaurants in Athens, Savannah, and even Atlanta. Blake did have some connections, mainly with restaurant owners in Athens, and figured he could use them to start a small business. He contacted other wineries and farmers in the area and began selling to restaurants for a fifteen percent commission on all sales. The restaurants were happy, as were the wineries and farmers, but Blake wasn’t.