The Midwife of Hope River (33 page)

41

Quarrel

Thursday, returning at noon from cutting hay all by myself in the back pasture (Bitsy is off to Hazel Patch again), I'm surprised to find, on the front porch, a cardboard carton with an envelope attached.

Thinking it must be something from one of the families we've helped or maybe another gift from Katherine, I tear the box open. What I find is a collection of medical equipment, a blood pressure cuff, some medicines whose names don't look familiar, and a packet of gauze. There are also two medical books:
Health Knowledge,
which includes everything from care of infants to care of old people, and
Pediatrics, the Hygienic and Medical Treatment of Children,
volume 1. This must be something from Dr. Blum. I go back to the note, folded in quarters on lined paper and taped to the top. It's from Becky Myers.

“Dear Patience, I waited as long as I could, but I thought you might have gone to a birth and I have to leave this afternoon. I'm on my way to Charlottesville to be Dr. Blum's nurse. He wrote me a few weeks ago asking me to come, and I agreed to go because the state is out of money and has cut my funding. Apparently a public health nurse, in these hard times, isn't considered essential. Anyway, it will be an adventure.

“I still worry about you. Please be careful!” She underlines “careful.” Always the worrywart, I think. “The mood in town is ugly. So many of the unemployed are just hanging around. You know what they say: idle hands do the devil's work. I'll send my address when I find out where I'm to live. Wish me luck driving over the mountains.

“All my best. Becky Myers.”

 

I kick the carton across the porch. What good is this stuff if I lose another friend? Katherine's in Baltimore. Bitsy is thinking of moving to Philadelphia. Now Becky's on her way to Charlottesville.

 

By evening Bitsy is still not home, so, in a glum mood, I milk Moonlight early and heat up leftover potato soup, all the while getting more aggravated. Around nine, I hear an engine whining up the road and look out the kitchen window to see Bitsy jump out of Byrd's father's truck. She kisses her lover, long and sweet, then trots into the house, just a little too bouncy.

“Have a good time?” I ask sarcastically, but she doesn't get it. I'm itching for a fight; I just need a topic.

“You bet! I delivered a baby, and Byrd showed me how to drive a tractor! We were helping the Millers bring in the last of their hay.” She pulls out a two-dollar bill and proudly lays it on the table.

“What baby? Whose baby?”

“Oh, this lady from Cold Springs. You don't know her, Fiona Lincoln. She was visiting Hazel Patch and this was her fourth . . . her third or her fourth . . . She's Mildred's cousin, not due for another few weeks, but the baby was fine and breathed right away. When her water bag broke, they called me in from the fields.”

“Bitsy, you can't just go around catching babies whenever you feel like it! You aren't even certified. What if something happened?” In my irritation, I ignore the fact that I'm no great expert. I was only certified a few years ago.

“And besides, you didn't have any supplies. What if the cord was tangled around the neck? What if the feet came first? What if the mother hemorrhaged? You think this birthing business is a lark, but it's truly life and death!”

“Mrs. Miller was there. She's been to four deliveries, and I've read DeLee's text on obstetrics cover to cover. Mildred boiled water and scissors and twine for the cord . . . What was I supposed to do? The baby was coming . . .”

There are tears in her eyes, and even though my attitude is unreasonable, I don't care. I stand and throw my soup bowl into the sink, watching with satisfaction as it breaks and the potato gruel splashes up on the wall, then grab my work jacket and slam out the back door. “You were way out of line!”

 

Drunk with righteous indignation, I enjoy the hot rush at first, but the cool night air sobers me.

“Miss Patience,” I hear Bitsy calling into the black. “Patience?”

Maybe I should get on Star and ride somewhere . . . but where? To the vet's? I don't think so . . . instead, I head down across the pasture to the creek and sit on a flat rock, listening to the water. There's the smell of the fallen leaves on the ground and frost coming. When my butt gets too cold, I wander back to the barn.

It's not just that Bitsy did a delivery without me. She's right, the woman needed her, and who am I to be so sanctimonious? It's everything else . . . Shivering, I quietly pull open the barn door and seek the warmth of the hay.

“Miss Patience!” Bitsy calls out the back again. “Patience?” She sounds like she's crying.

 

Prepared to sleep curled in the loft, I grab Star's horse blanket and climb up the ladder. The real issue isn't Bitsy doing a solo delivery; it's that each day I feel her slipping further away. And why shouldn't she leave? She has a community with the Hazel Patch folk. She has her brother Thomas in Philly. She has her lover, Byrd Bowlin!

I squirm and turn over to get comfortable. That's when I feel it, not a kick or a thump, more of a tickle. It's been over twenty years, but the feeling's unmistakable. I place my hands on my lower abdomen. There's something moving inside me, something alive.

 

Quickening

How could I have not noticed? But then I haven't been stomach sick or any more tired than usual. And my periods, always irregular, when did I have my last one? The flutter inside happens again! No need to figure it out. There was only one night I could have gotten pregnant . . . Through the cracks in the barn walls, I see the lights in the house go off.

“Moonlight,” I whisper to the cow downstairs. “We're going to have a baby!” For a few minutes, I lie in the dark, overjoyed, but that doesn't last.

Fears swiftly besiege me like wasps dropping out of their paper nest. How can I tell the vet he's going to be a father? But how can I not tell him? On the other hand, how can I raise a child alone? Despair follows fear. The shame of it! The gossip . . . I'll be an outcast. My short-lived career as a midwife will be over.

Though it's chilly in the barn, I wait a few hours, until Bitsy must be asleep, then sneak into the house, crawl between the warm covers, and lie staring out the window. Maybe Bitsy will help me. She likes kids . . . no, she wants to be with Bowlin. How about Becky Myers? No, she's too proper, and anyway she's far away in Virginia by now. Mrs. Maddock? Ridiculous! I've had one intimate talk with her. That makes us best friends?

 

In the morning, while Bitsy's out in the barn milking Moonlight, I pore through my obstetrical textbook looking for a way out. I try to remember what Mrs. Kelly told me about tansy and pennyroyal, two herbs that might cause my period to start.

My recollection is that she once advised Molly Doyle, who already had nine children, to make a strong brew of both herbs and then drink it three times daily. “The tincture will sometimes restore regularity,” she told the frightened woman. “God will decide if you are to have another child.”

At the time I was shocked; they were both good Catholics. I asked Mrs. Kelly, in the self-righteous way that the young will do, “How could you, a midwife, a bringer of life into the world, make such a suggestion? You're basically telling her how to have an abortion.”

“You could look at it that way,” Sophie responded, “or you could think of the mother as a
person
. Can the poor woman survive another baby? Catholic, Baptist, or Hindu, every woman has her limits. And can the family manage to absorb and nourish another child without becoming paupers? The herbs aren't that strong. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. It's up to the Lord who lives and who doesn't.”

Now here I am considering the concoction myself. I press my hand just above my pubic bone. How many months has it been since I was with Hester during the thunderstorm? Early August, late July, and it's now mid-October. Around fourteen weeks! According to DeLee, too early to feel movement. Too late for a miscarriage. But Dr. DeLee doesn't know everything.

 

October 13, 1930. Waning moon still high in the pink sky at dawn.

I might as well record it. Day before yesterday, Bitsy delivered her first baby alone. The mother is Mildred Miller's cousin Fiona Lincoln from Cold Springs. Very short labor, less than one hour. No time for me to come. No problems. Present were Mildred Miller and Bitsy. Male infant. Weight unknown.

 

Liberty

Air crisp as an apple right off the tree. The smell of frost on the fallen leaves. It's almost dark, and over the mountain, the three-quarters moon rises, big as a goose egg.

“Is that Maddock?” Bitsy asks as we ride up Wild Rose Road on the way back from the grove where we have been gathering hazelnuts. We never talked about our fight, just got up the next morning and went on with our work. Then we got so busy cutting wood, it seemed as though it never happened. Bitsy still doesn't know my condition. A gunnysack, half full of the small soft-shelled sweet nuts, rattles over my lap. “Is that Maddock? There by the fence.”

 

The man stands at his mailbox wearing a dark coat and hat; all I can see in the dim light is his white, deadpan face. He puts out his hand like a traffic cop.

“Sheriff Hardman's looking for you,” he announces, and the peace of the evening drains out of me. This is the last thing I was expecting. With my worries about my pregnancy, our other troubles have taken a backseat. The lawman's visit could be anything: more questions about Thomas, questions about the baby I buried behind the barn, or even the long-feared arrest for what happened on Blair Mountain.

“Do you know what he wanted?” I act as though it's no big concern, as though Hardman is likely to visit any old time, but inside I grow cold.

“The grocer's wife is in labor, the blind woman. Her husband, Mr. Bittman, asked Hardman to get the midwife right away. My Sarah told him I would drive you.” He looks away, embarrassed to seem neighborly. My stomach is still in knots, but maybe the copper was only trying to be helpful.

Forty-five minutes later, after rushing home to clean up, get our birth kit, and take care of the animals, we bump into Liberty in Mr. Maddock's Ford pickup. The entrance to the Bittman apartment, located above the grocery, is up the back stairs.

Standing on the wooden porch, I knock twice as Maddock pulls away in his truck and am surprised when Mrs. Wade answers. Not her again, Hardman's sister, the woman who drove me crazy at Prudy Ott's birth!

“What took you so long?” she begins by way of a greeting. “We've been worried sick.” Behind her, five people sit at a round oak table, just finishing supper. Lilly, the young pregnant woman, a tall redhead, stares blankly at a space over the stove, but her face is turned our way.

“Oh, Patience,” she says with a laugh. “We're so glad you're here. Mother's been fretting all day, but I'm fine. These are my parents, Mr. and Mrs. Wade, my uncle Billy Hardman, and of course B.K. Is Bitsy here too?”

“Right behind you.” My friend has already moved into the room. She puts down the birth satchel and touches Lilly on the shoulder as Lilly reaches up and hugs her. If Mrs. Wade is still offended by the color of my partner's skin, she knows not to say it. To the blind girl we all look the same, just as it should be.

“You smell good,” Lilly says when Bitsy hugs her.

“It must be Patience's homemade soap. She puts lavender in it.”

“Oh, we must get some for the store, then! Could we, B.K.? Wouldn't that be lovely? If it wasn't too expensive, the women would snatch it up.”

“Yes, honey,” says B.K., standing and placing his dish in the sink.

The beautiful redhead stops her chatter and begins to swing her head slowly from side to side. It's a new gesture to me, but I recognize a contraction when I see one. The room goes quiet, and B.K. steps up behind his wife to rub her shoulders. When she's done, she rests her head on his stomach. “Thanks, hon.”

“Lordy, how long must this go on?” Mrs. Wade wonders.

“Bertha,” Mr. Wade warns, “it's the midwife's job to figure that out. You can take a break now, go back to the spare bedroom, and read.” Bertha slashes him a look but does what he says, clears the table, and stalks out. “I'm going over to my office,” Lilly's father tells us. “Call if you need anything.”

“I better get a move on too.” That's Hardman,
Uncle Billy.
“I came by your place on Wild Rose and waited for a while, but had to get back to town. Maddock bring you? He's an odd duck . . .” The sheriff doesn't wait for my opinion but shrugs into his policeman's jacket. “Give 'em hell, honey!” he encourages his niece.

“I have something of yours, Miss Murphy,” he says to me, then moves out the door.

This can't be good. “Something for me?”

He nods his scarred chin and tips his head toward the porch. Outside a fog has moved in and silenced the street. Hardman pulls out a yellow sheet of paper folded in quarters. “It's been in my top desk drawer for a long time.”