The Midwife of Hope River (29 page)

“No, thank you. I have my horse.”

Mrs. Maddock nods good-bye as he bumps her wheelchair across the grass and out to their truck on the dirt road. I look around again for Bitsy. She's still sitting with Byrd, their thighs touching, her hand on her cheek, listening carefully to something he's saying.

I'm contemplating getting on my mare and leaving without her when Samantha, the church soloist, comes over, still carrying Twyla's baby, Mathew, and pushing two shy pregnant girls in front of her, one coffee-colored and one ebony. She stops and introduces them as Harriet and Sojourner Perry, her nieces. Harriet, the smaller of the two, is sucking her thumb. Twyla stands with them, arm in arm.

“I know where you got your names,” I tell the girls. They look up from their white Sunday shoes. “I do. I bet Harriet is for Harriet Tubman, the ex-slave who risked her life to lead over three hundred others to freedom, and Sojourner for Sojourner Truth, the famous black orator who stood for women's and Negroes' rights.”

Harriet takes her thumb out of her mouth and grins. “How'd you know that?”

“Our grandma named us,” Sojourner, the older, adds. Her pink-and-yellow flour-sack dress stretches tight over her belly, which I calculate may be eight months along.

“Where I lived before, we had a book on famous Negroes,” I explain.

“These young ladies are some of Mrs. Potts's patients,” Samantha explains. “I thought they should meet you. They're from Smoke Valley, Kentucky, and are staying with us . . . my brother's girls. We wanted Mrs. Potts to deliver them, but now we have you.”

I feel like a leftover, lopsided red velvet cake at a cakewalk, but I don't think she means it that way.

“When their time comes, will you and Bitsy be there?”

“We'll plan on it,” I say, picking up where Mrs. Potts left off.

“It wasn't so bad,” says Twyla, now an expert on childbirth. “It hurt, but you'll do better if you relax. Try not to tighten up, that's the secret. And don't scream. It just scares the baby.”

36

Third Degree

On Saturday afternoon, I ride my bike down Wild Rose Road and around Salt Lick into Liberty to turn in my birth certificates at the courthouse and pick up supplies, again washing up behind the Texaco station. MacIntosh's vehicle is nowhere to be seen.

When I have to ask the crimped gray-haired woman behind the elbow-high wooden desk for another death certificate, I cringe, but she doesn't say anything. The coroner must fill out one for Kitty, there's nothing about that in the midwifery code. As I leave, I spy Sheriff Hardman standing in the hall and make myself small, trying to slide past him.

“Miss Murphy?”

“Sheriff.” I nod and keep moving, but he reaches out and touches my arm.

“Can we have a word?”

“Uh, I'm sort of in a hurry . . . I need to get downstairs to consult with Mrs. Myers about a pregnant patient.” This is a total lie, but I think it sounds possible.

My excuse doesn't work. He crooks his index finger and motions me into his office. “I just have a few questions. It won't take long.” He sits behind his big wooden desk and motions for me to take the other chair. “Katherine MacIntosh came to me a few days before she returned to Baltimore. She feels certain her husband killed himself. Said he had threatened to do it before. I know you were close to the family. Do you have anything to add? Come clean this time. No more lies.”

I'm staring at a cluster of wanted posters arranged on the wall behind his desk half expecting to see my own mug, but there's no one I recognize. Though the Battle at Blair Mountain seems like yesterday to me, it's nine years ago, probably old news to the rest of the world.

“What did you want to know?”

“Everything you know.”

I take a big breath. “Well, I wasn't really acquainted with them at first. I attended Mrs. MacIntosh in labor. You probably heard.” Hardman nods without expression. Just as I thought . . . probably everyone knows about the dead baby that came alive.

“Mr. MacIntosh was having a hard time financially. Katherine said he was burdened by debt. I didn't learn that until later. The baby was born the day after the stock market crashed.” The lawman nods again.

“Later, after Bitsy got fired and moved in with me, Katherine ran to us twice with bruises all over her upper body. The first time, William said he was sorry, but then it happened again. The second time she came in the middle of a rainstorm, and Mr. Hester, the vet, was kind enough to drive us to Torrington to the train station. She was in the barn the morning you came up Wild Rose Road. I didn't tell you because I thought you might try and take her home. They weren't a happy couple. That's all I know, except . . . well, Katherine said he'd beaten her, many times . . . and like I said, he'd done it before.”

“And Thomas Proudfoot? What do you know about him?”

I tilt my chin up. “Just that he is brave and kind and helps whoever he can and wouldn't kill anyone. I don't think he would, anyway. Kill someone.” Hardman picks up a pencil and taps it thoughtfully on the desk, looking at me for a long time. Outside on the street I hear a woman laugh.

“Can I go?” I consult my pocket watch on a ribbon.

“For now.”

I couldn't get out of there faster!

 

Annabelle

Still sweating, only this time not from the heat and humidity, I trot down the steps, grab my bike, and head around the corner to find the grocery still open. The young Mr. Bittman greets me, takes the four quarters I've just received for filling out the birth certificates, and wraps up my few supplies (a bag of cornmeal, some flour, and a small box of sugar) which I secure in the basket of the bike in a feed sack. Then I head through town. Two miles past the bridge, still shaky after my encounter with the sheriff, I spot a rough truck pulled off in the grass. At first I think it might be Reverend Miller, but a white man waves wildly.

“Lady!” the guy yells. “Hey, lady!”

I stop in the dust.

“My missus. She's carrying a child, and she's paining bad. Is there some woman who could help us? We aren't from around here and must have made a wrong turn.”

“I'm a midwife.”

“Oh, praise the Lord.”

“I don't have my supplies with me, but I just live another mile and a half up the road. Is your woman far along?” He leads me to the front of the truck, where I see three towheaded children under seven sitting in the grass throwing rocks in the creek and a thin blond lady slumped in the front of the cab with her feet pressed to the dash.

The woman whips her yellow bob back and forth and growls.

I know that sound well, and I have no gloves, no soap, no scissors to cut the cord! Nothing.

“Ma'am?” I inquire, opening the passenger-side door and wondering how the hell they'd packed all the kids in. “I'm Patience Murphy, a midwife.” I turn to the husband, who grasps his dark hair in handfuls until it stands on end. “What's your wife's name?”

“Annabelle.”

“Annabelle, I can see you're very uncomfortable, but can you please stop pushing?” This seems ridiculous, phrased so politely. Holding back a baby when it's down in the birth canal is like holding back an avalanche with your bare hands. “My house is just a few minutes away, and if we could get you there, I have everything we need. Can you blow, like this? Hooo! Hooo! Hooo!” I demonstrate. The mother looks at me wildly.

“It's coming!”

“You're probably right, but I'm serious. I have a nice little house down the road. If we can just get you there . . .”

She growls low and pushes again.

“Mister!” I change my approach and turn to the wild-eyed fellow. “Get the kids. We can make it if we hurry. I'll leave my bike and show you the way. Children, come now!” The father tosses the youngsters in and cranks up the engine. I jump on the running board. “Straight ahead! Hooo! Hooo! Hooo! Annabelle! Listen to me. Do like me. Hooo! Hooo! Hooo!”

“Ugghhhh!”

“No, you don't! Blow!”

The lady wails, and I think that the head must be close to crowning. We bump up Wild Rose, and I catch sight of Mrs. Maddock sitting on the porch. Mr. Maddock stands out in the field up on a hay wagon, where a hired man holds the horses. They stare as we speed by in a cloud of dust, me still on the running board holding on for dear life.

“Hooo. Hooo. Good girl.” The truck lurches to a halt at the gate.
“Bitsy!”
My friend runs out the blue door. “Birth satchel.” I don't need to explain further; she leaps back inside.

“Okay, now, Annabelle. Just take little steps. It's not much farther. Children, sit under the tree!” The father lifts them down one at a time and points to the old oak. I have my hand on Annabelle's bottom, and through her worn wet cotton dress I can already feel the top of the head.

“Up you go.” The father and I almost lift Annabelle up the steps, and as she goes into a squat, Bitsy throws my green patchwork quilt down under her.

“Uggggggh!” Annabelle collapses onto her side. Two pushes later, a rosy pink infant is crying in my arms. The mother is strangely silent. The children, unable to help themselves, peek through the porch rails. The father brushes his wife's hair off her damp forehead, then takes the kids back to the tree, where they all sit down in the shade.

 

“Well, I thank you ladies kindly. Ain't no way we can repay you, but when we get settled up north I can mail you a few dollars.” That's Rolly, the father of the family, dark-eyed, dark-haired, and handsome in his worn denim pants and work shirt. Usually people who are down and out want to tell me their story, want to show me that they weren't always so destitute, but this fellow is mum about his history.

I figure he's another miner out of work or maybe a storekeeper who's lost his store, another guy fallen on hard times. We're at the kitchen table, sharing our meager supper of greens and rabbit stew. The children lick their bowls as if it's the best meal they've had in weeks. He doesn't ask our mailing address and I never expect to get a penny, but I know he means well.

By dusk Rolly has retrieved my bike and cloth bag of groceries from the roadside ditch; we've installed the mother on the sofa and set up pallets for the rest of them in the barn. Bitsy and I sit on the porch, watching the clouds turn pink and then red, taking turns holding the baby while the exhausted mother sleeps. They named her Norma.

 

September 8, 1930. Full moon waning.

Norma, daughter of Annabelle and Rolly Doe (I realize I don't yet know their last name), travelers I met on Salt Lick. Female infant, 6 pounds, 6 ounces. The family has three other children and no home. They were on their way north to look for work when they got lost on the back roads and she went into hard labor.

Delivery went fine, out on our front porch. No vaginal tears and only about two cups of blood. I made Annabelle drink a sip of Mrs. Potts's potion, just in case. She was so pale and thin. No offer of payment, but the mister split up a mess of wood. Didn't expect any pay.

 

Foundling

Twice during the night, the baby cries and I tiptoe downstairs, take her out of the basket Bitsy has fixed up and let her suck on my finger. The exhausted mother shifts a little but doesn't turn over. When I try to wake her to breastfeed, she moans and brushes me away. I know from my wet nurse experience that it's better to put the baby to the breast right away, but Annabelle's milk won't come in for a day or two, so I let her be. Mrs. Kelly told me that in the Orient, they don't start nursing until two days after birth and their babies survive.

At dawn the rooster crows, but I put my pillow over my head and hope for another hour of shut-eye. Bitsy wakes me a few minutes later.

“They're gone,” she says, standing next to my bed fully dressed.

“Gone?” I wrench myself out of dreamland (something about flying over Lake Michigan with my arms outstretched). “What do you mean, gone?”

“I mean twenty-three skidoo! No note or anything.” For the first time I notice that she has the baby in her arms.

“Holy cow! They forgot their baby!”

“I don't think they forgot.”

The travelers abandoning their newborn flabbergasts me. Over breakfast we discuss what to do.

“Maybe you could take the baby to the sheriff,” Bitsy offers.

“I'd hate to do that.” I take her in my arms. “Isn't there an orphanage in Union County or somewhere?” The baby starts crying again, rooting at the front of my red silk kimono, and without even thinking I open the front and offer her my breast. She finds the nipple as if she's done it before and draws it in.

Bitsy bugs her eyes and then looks away. “Miss Patience!” she says, her teacup halfway to her mouth. “Is that proper? To nurse someone else's baby?”

“It's okay, Bitsy. I don't have milk, but sucking will give the baby some comfort while we figure out what to do. I was a wet nurse once, you know.” Reflecting, I realize that I've never talked to Bitsy about that part of my past. Never told her much of anything really, fearing once I got started the dike would break and everything would spill out: my days at the orphanage, my life at the Majestic, my teenage pregnancy, the death of Lawrence and the baby, the theft of the ruby ring, my radical days in Pittsburgh . . . and the worst part, the march on Blair Mountain.

Bitsy pushes her chair back. “There's no orphanage. Usually, around here, kin just take care of kin. What about the home health nurse, Mrs. Myers, wouldn't she have some connections?” She stands and puts her teacup in the sink. “I hate to leave you right now, but I've got to go to Hazel Patch. It's about Thomas.”

“Is he okay? The sheriff isn't still watching for him, is he? Katherine was so sure William had committed suicide, I thought the manhunt was over.”

“He's fine. Just laying low, farther up in the mountains.” I watch through the open back door as she heads for the barn, gets her bicycle out, and walks it through the dry grass out to the road. Part of me is relieved to have her gone for a while. Breastfeeding an infant when I don't have milk is causing my uterus to contract, and I'm about to swoon.

“What are we going to do with you, Norma?” I release her little mouth from my nipple, insert my pinkie, and jiggle her up and down. “Your parents are on their way north to find a better life. They just don't have enough money, and there are three other children.” Norma, as if she understands and is really mad about it, stops sucking, spits out my finger, and begins to wail again. What the heck, I guess I can stand it. I put the baby back on my breast and pace back and forth to distract myself. Surely no woman has ever had an orgasm while nursing a foundling. It just can't happen!

 

Angel

As the sun reaches over the trees, Norma finally falls asleep again and I place her in her basket, tucking the blanket around her. She keeps sucking the way infants do when they dream, and I stand looking down at her. Times are hard, but there must be some childless couple who would like to raise this beautiful baby.