PROLOGUE
Big Sur, California, 1967
The fog was as thick and white as cotton batting, and it
hugged the coastline and moved slowly, lazily, in the
breeze. Anyone unfamiliar with the Cabrial Commune in Big
Sur would never know there were twelve small cabins
dotting the cliffs above the ocean. Fog was nothing
unusual here, but for the past seven days, it had not
cleared once. Like living inside a cloud, the children
said. The twenty adults and twelve children of the commune
had to feel their way from cabin to cabin, and they could
never be sure they'd found their own home until they were
inside. Parents warned their children not to play too
close to the edge of the cliff, and the more nervous
mothers kept their little ones inside in the morning, when
the fog was thickest. Those who worked in the garden had
to bend low to be sure they were pulling weeds and not the
young shoots of brussels sprouts or lettuce, and more than
one man used the dense fog as an excuse for finding his
way into the wrong bed at night — not that an excuse was
ever needed on the commune, where love was free and
jealousy was denied. Yes, this third week of summer,
everyone in the commune had a little taste of what it was
like to be blind.
The fog muffled sound, too. The residents of the commune
could still hear the foghorns, but the sound was little
more than a low moan, wrapping around them so that they
had no idea from which direction it came. No idea whether
the sea was in front of them or behind.
But one sound managed to pierce the fog. The cries came
intermittently from one of the cabins, and the children,
many of them naked, would stop their game of hide-and-seek
to stare through the fog in the direction of the sound. A
couple of them, who were by nature either more sensitive
or more anxious than the others, shuddered. They knew what
was happening. No secrets were ever kept from children
here. They knew that inside cabin number four, Rainbow
Cabin, Ellen Liszt was having a baby.
In the small clearing at one side of the cabin, nineteen-
year-old Johnny Angel split firewood. The day was warm
despite the fog, and he'd taken off his Big Brother and
the Holding Company sweatshirt and hung it over the
railing of the cabin's rickety porch. Felicia, the
midwife, was inside with Ellen, boiling string and
scissors on the small woodstove, and he told himself they
needed more firewood, even though he'd already chopped
enough to last a week. Still, he lifted the ax and let it
fall, over and over again, mesmerized by the thwack as it
hit the logs. Every minute or so, he stopped chopping to
take a drag from his cigarette which rested on the cabin
railing, and he could feel his heart beating in his bare
chest. The hand holding the cigarette trembled — from the
strain of chopping wood, he told himself, but he knew that
was not the complete truth. He winced every time a fresh
shriek of pain came from the cabin's rear bedroom, and he
was quick to pick up the ax again, hoping that the
chopping would mask the sound.
When would it be over? The labor pains had started in
earnest in the middle of the night, and as he and Ellen
had planned, he'd run — stumbling in the darkness and the
fog — to the Moonglow Cabin to awaken Felicia. Felicia had
grabbed her bag of birthing paraphernalia and returned
with him to Rainbow, and she'd held Ellen's hand, speaking
to her in a calming voice. It had shocked him to see Ellen
in the glow of the lantern. She looked terribly young,
younger than eighteen. She looked like a frightened little
girl, and he felt unable to go near her, unsure of what to
say or how to touch her. How to help. Her face was sweaty
and she was gulping air. Johnny was afraid she might throw
up. He hated seeing anyone throw up. It always made him
feel sick himself.
He'd left the two women together and walked outside to the
woodpile. But he hadn't known it would take so long. How
many hours had passed? All he knew was that he was on his
second pack of Kools, and the menthol was beginning to
make his throat ache.
Felicia had asked him if he wanted to be in the room with
Ellen, and he'd stared at her, wild-eyed with surprise at
the question. Hell, no, he didn't want to be in that room.
So he'd left. Now he felt like a coward for declining the
offer. He knew that some men were fighting for the right
to be in the delivery room these days, and that two of the
men here at Cabrial had stayed with their women while they
delivered. But he was not like those men. He couldn't
imagine being any closer to Ellen's pain and fear than he
was right now. Besides, that was no delivery room Ellen
was in. She was lying on the old double mattress on the
bare floor in the tiny bedroom they had shared for the
past six months, her butt resting on newspapers, which
Felicia claimed were made sterile by the printing process.
Felicia was no obstetrician. She was not even a real
midwife, merely the mother of four kids who were, right
now, playing hide-and-seek in the fog.
When he and Ellen had first talked about it, the idea of
Felicia delivering their baby had sounded fine, even
appealing; after all, women used to help other women
deliver babies all the time. But now that it was
happening, now that Ellen's screams made the hair on the
back of his neck stand up, many things about the commune
that had previously sounded appealing seemed ludicrous.
His parents had rolled their eyes in disgusted resignation
when he told them that he and Ellen were moving into a Big
Sur commune. He told them about the large stone cabin that
housed a common kitchen and huge dining room, where the
commune residents took turns cooking and cleaning up and
doing all the other tasks that were part of living
together in a group, and his mother had asked him why he
never bothered to help her cook and clean up. His parents
scoffed at the names of the cabins — Rainbow, Sunshine,
Stardust — and they showed real alarm when he told them
there was no phone on the commune. Then they threatened
him: If he dropped out of Berkeley and moved into the
commune, he could expect no more money from them for
school or for anything else, ever. That was fine, he said.
There was little need for money in the commune. They would
live off the land. They would take care of each other.
Right now, he would give just about anything to have his
mother with him. She had no idea he was about to become a
father. Wouldn't she be mortified to know that her first
grandchild was being born this way, far from medical care,
not to mention out of wedlock? Johnny could only imagine
what she would say about the ritual that would follow the
birth, when Felicia would take the placenta and bury it
somewhere on the commune grounds, planting a tree, a
Monterey cypress, above it, tying the baby's spirit to
this beautiful place. Johnny loved the idea, despite the
fact that he had not even known what a placenta was before
moving here.
The thirteenth child. He was adding freshly split wood to
the pile by the cabin porch when it suddenly occurred to
him that his son or daughter would be the thirteenth child
on the commune, and although he was not ordinarily
superstitious, that thought filled him with fear. He
didn't want his kid to start out with the deck stacked
against him. Lighting another cigarette, he wondered if he
and Ellen had treated this whole pregnancy as too much of
a lark. They'd talked about how the baby would look. They
would never cut his hair. They would let him run around
naked, if that's what he wanted. He'd never be ashamed of
his body. He — or she — would grow up here in the Cabrial
Commune, free of the stifling rules and restraints of the
rigid world outside, being taught by other adults who
shared their values. They'd discussed names: Shanti Joy,
if the baby was a girl, and Sky Blue for a boy. He'd
imagined his son or daughter one day going to school in
the northernmost cabin, where two of the women and one of
the men spent most weekdays teaching the commune's
children. It had sounded like the perfect way to live. Now
he feared they were playing with fire.
Arms aching, he lit another cigarette and sat down on the
porch step just as Ellen began to wail, and he squeezed
his eyes shut against the sound. Did he love Ellen? She'd
looked like a stranger to him when he'd brought Felicia
back to the cabin earlier. A young girl, glistening with
perspiration, strands of dark hair stringy around her
face, her body taking up far more than her share of the
mattress. God, she'd put on a lot of weight. She was going
to end up looking like Felicia, like a big earth mother
type with long, frizzy graying hair. Ellen already had the
bones for it. He growled at himself. Shouldn't matter.
Looks shouldn't matter at all. He'd probably look like
hell himself if he were in her position right now. He was
a son of a bitch for even thinking about it.
Crushing the butt of his cigarette beneath his sandaled
foot, Johnny stood up. He ran his hand over his dark,
sparse beard, the beard of a boy, not a man, and stared
into the fog. If the day had been clear, he would have
been able to see the ocean from here, beyond a few of the
other cabins, beyond where the cliffs plummeted down to
the sea. Today, though, his gaze rested on nothing more
than drifting clouds of cotton.
He became aware of the silence almost instantly. The
wailing and moaning had stopped, and he turned toward the
cabin door. Was it finally over? Shouldn't the baby cry or
something?
He heard the rapid pounding of footsteps across the
splintery living-room floor of the cabin, and Felicia
pushed open the screen door. Her face was flushed, and she
looked like a wild woman.
"Get help, Johnny!" she said. "The baby's not breathing.
Get that woman who came last night. Penny's friend.
Carlynn. She's a doctor."
He turned and ran in the direction of Cornflower, Penny's
cabin, hoping he'd be able to find it quickly in the fog.
He'd managed to find her cabin in the middle of the night
several times during the past couple of months, when Ellen
had encouraged him to go to the older woman for sex, since
she had not felt up to it, and sure enough, his feet
seemed to know the way.
He remembered seeing the new woman in the dining room the
night before, but he hadn't known her name. She was an old
friend of Penny's, someone had told him, just here for a
visit. He'd found himself staring at her. She was a small
and slender woman with large blue eyes and shoulder-length
blond hair that framed her face in an uncombed, unkempt
and utterly appealing way. She was probably in her mid-
thirties, nearly his mother's age. But she didn't took
like anyone's mother. Nor did she look like a doctor.
He burst into the living room of the cabin to find Penny
and Carlynn sitting on opposite ends of the old sofa,
sewing. They looked up at the sudden intrusion, hands and
threaded needles frozen in midair.
"The baby's not breathing!" he said.
In an instant, Carlynn dropped her sewing and ran toward
the door. He and Penny followed close behind.
"Which way?" Carlynn called as she stepped into the fog.
Johnny grabbed her arm and ran with her toward Rainbow,
but he stopped short at the front step of the cabin.
"In there," he said, pointing.
Carlynn wrapped her hand around his wrist and nearly
dragged him up the steps with her. "Your girlfriend will
need you," she said, and he knew she was giving him no
choice.
The inside of the cabin was hot from the woodstove, the
steaming air hitting him in the face as he ran with
Carlynn through the living room and into the bedroom.
Ellen was crying, shivering as if she were cold, and she
reached a hand toward him. A strange scent, a mixture of
seawater and copper, filled his head and made him feel
dizzy, but he sat down on the bed next to Ellen. Holding
her hand, leaning over to kiss her damp forehead, he felt
a tenderness inside him that was so sudden it made his
chest ache and his eyes bum. He kissed her fingers, rubbed
her arms. He was a weak and stupid idiot for making her
endure this alone, he thought as he bent over to hug her.
He should have been with her throughout the whole ordeal.
Her legs were still spread, her feet flat on the mattress.
From where he sat, Johnny had a clear view between her
knees of Felicia and Carlynn hovering over something. His
child. The thirteenth child.
"The cord was wrapped around her neck," Felicia said to
Carlynn.
Carlynn nodded. She leaned over the infant and puffed into
the baby's nose and mouth. Johnny waited for the cry, but
it was only the sound of Ellen's weeping that filled the
room.
Carlynn puffed some more, and then Felicia sat back on her
thick haunches, tears in her eyes.
"She's gone," she said, touching Carlynn's shoulder.
"She's gone."
"No!" Ellen wailed, and Johnny leaned over to press his
wet cheek to hers. "No, please."
"Shh," he said.
Carlynn lifted the baby, and for the first time Johnny
could see the infant, her tiny arms flopping lifelessly at
her sides, her skin a pale, grayish blue. Carlynn held the
baby in a strange embrace, her hands flat against the
infant's chest and back, her lips pressed against the
bluish temple. The woman's eyes were closed, her lashes
fluttering slightly against her cheeks, her breathing slow
and deep, and the room grew still. Ellen stopped crying.
She lifted herself on her elbows to be able to see better,
and for a moment, Johnny wondered if Carlynn were mentally
ill. What was she doing?
Carlyan drew in a long, deep breath, then let it out in a
slow wash of warmth against the baby's temple. Within
seconds, the infant let out a muted whimper. Johnny
listened hard, praying for another sound from his child.
Carlynn breathed again against the baby's temple, and
suddenly a cry filled the room. Then another. The baby
grew pink between the woman's hands, and in the hushed
room, she wrapped a piece of an old flannel blanket around
the infant and handed her to Ellen.
Johnny leaned over to nuzzle his woman and his child, a
wrenching ache of love and gratitude in his chest, while
outside the cabin, the fog rose into the sky, and for the
first time in a week, Big Sur was bathed in sunlight.