At the end of the affair that got Jules Dubois essentially sat in the corner at 45 years old, nine-year-old Louisa Dubois Chennault climbed up onto her Uncle Jules's lap and wrapped her arms around his neck in silent consolation – silent until she decided to be helpful.
“See, Uncle Jules, what you forgot was that the song says Papa don't take no mess, but around here, Mama don't take no mess either.”
Madame Ébène-Cerise Dubois was a quiet woman, deeply loving to her children and grandchildren, nieces, nephews, and the people around her. What no one knew about her until they experienced it was that she could sit you down and shut you up and make you think at will.
Earlier that day, Madame Dubois was home, with Louisa studying and Jules working in the finance markets when the phone rang.
“Bon jour, Dubois et la Maison,” Madame Dubois said.
Jules noticed the sudden concern and concentration in his mother's face, and then what she said, first in French, then in English: “Viens ici – come here, have no fear.”
Madame Dubois put down the phone, and then took another long moment to think before speaking.
“Louisa, go get every bottle of rubbing alcohol we have available, and then come out by the mulberry tree. Jules, go fill our biggest cauldron with water, and start it to boiling.”
About the time Jules and Louisa caught up with Madame Dubois, she had put the bulk of the bedding – all their extra sheets and blankets – down in the shade, but had looped and tied one of the sheets around a stout place where the mulberry tree had a main branch from the trunk.
“Alcohol,” she said to Louisa, and her granddaughter handed it to her. She soaked the sheet tied to the tree along with her hands, and then put a clean pair of gloves on. She then poured the rest of the bottles onto the top sheet on the bedding, and worked the alcohol through with her hands and let it dry.
Just then, a car shrieked to a halt outside the front gate, and a man Jules did not recognize jumped out and ran around the car and opened the door and lifted out a young woman he also did not recognize. The young woman was in hard labor. The man came running with the woman right to the spot Madame Dubois had prepared.
“Put her down – but, child, you must stand and hang on! You are losing too much blood to lie on your back and take time and die – you must stand and squat and live, with your child!
“Louisa, go inside and call 911 – tell them it is a complex labor and to hurry! Jules, go boil every clean towel available for three minutes, and then put those towels in a clean bowl and bring them to me! Then, dissolve salt into the water and bring that to me also!”
A sheet tied around a mulberry tree, a belly and back covered with warm towels tied in place with another sheet, and the quiet but commanding coaching from Madame Dubois – not how most people would think of inducing delivery, but, thirty minutes later, Madame Dubois reached down and pulled out not one but two live babies that she expertly got to breathing and cleaned up with the salt water.
The ambulance arrived to take mother and babies to the hospital, with the father – 45 minutes later, it was all done but cleaning up.
“Wow,” Louisa said. “I didn't know you were a midwife, Maman.”
“We become who we need to be for the people, Louisa,” Madame Dubois said grimly.
“But they're not even our people – they are clearly white!” Jules cried. “We don't even know if they had Covid, and they didn't have masks on or anything! I mean, there are ambulances and hospitals for a reason – we didn't have to have them come in here!”
Madame Dubois's dark eyes flashed.
“Louisa,” she said quietly, “go to your room.”
Louisa went immediately … and cracked the window so she could hear everything that was going to happen next. Madame Dubois spoke all of the rest in French, and never raised her voice, but when she was angry, her speaking voice carried well.
“Correction, Jules: you don't know that couple, but your father and I do know them as people whom we serve. You notice the man had the house number, but then again, you don't own the house to be saying who can come in here any more than you did 45 years ago when I gave birth to you.”
“Ooooooooooooooooooo,” Louisa said.
“Put the window down, lock it, and get away from it, Louisa.”
“Oops – oh, snap!”
Madame Dubois returned her attention to Jules.
“Long ago, there was a heavily pregnant peasant woman, living in a desperate time – the world was under oppression and she was pregnant out of wedlock. It was not even her fiance's child – he too, could have abandoned her on the long and dangerous journey they had to take. Even seeing her condition when she and her fiance arrived at their destination, no one had time and space or care to even provide an indoor space for her to go through labor – and so it was that all the people of Bethlehem missed Christmas, because Mary and Joseph were just nobody to them!”
“Mary's firstborn Son, the Son of God, told us that we were to entertain strangers, and to do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Do you believe what you say you believe, Jules? Does His Word mean so little to you that you would disobey Him when put to so little a test? Do you not know that when you reject those whom He sends to you for help, you reject Him? Do you call Him Lord, but will not do as He says?”
“Well, uh, I hadn't thought about all that coming from the Christmas story.”
“You had better go sit down somewhere, and think about all that.”
Jules was still thinking, quite stung by his mother's words, when Louisa came in to give him a hug and put in her two cents.
“Yes, Maman always catches me by surprise,” Jules said about it. “Now that I think about it … I saw what Covid-19 did to New York City and friends of mine there, and I guess I'm still afraid and not thinking situations through. That poor young woman could have died, now that I think about it, so what were we supposed to do?”
“Just what we did,” Louisa said.
“Yeah, let me go apologize to Maman,” Jules said, and did so.
Madame Dubois wrapped her arms around her son and kissed him.
“I do believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,” he said. “I still have to learn all that it means, and I learned a lot today.”
“I know, my son,” Madame Dubois said gently. “Yes, we risked all our lives to save that young lady and her children, and you and Louisa are younger than I am and had more to risk. We also risked your brother Jean-Paul and your father Jean-Luc, and our business. I thought about all of that … but what else was there to do? We could have said there was no room at the inn. Or, we could live like we believe what we say we believe, and believe in Who we say we believe in.”
“Right – because who wants to miss Christmas?” Louisa said as she joined the hug.
“The choice is made every day,” Madame Dubois said, and gave Louisa a kiss too.