The Midwife (23 page)

I point to the rocking chair, and Looper helps Lydie into it as if she is a baby herself. I kneel on the porch beside her and check her pulse. One hundred beats per minute. “How long have you been having contractions?” I ask.

“Since last night. I . . .” Lydie pauses and flicks her eyes at Looper. He turns his head respectfully away. “I had bloody show,” she whispers.

“But your water’s not broken?”

She shakes her head, and her two plaits
 
—furred in the humidity
 
—swat her gently in the face. “I don’t think so,” she says. But the poor girl seems unsure.

“Have you been timing your contractions?” I ask.

She makes a wavelike motion with her hands. “They’re still too
doppish
.”

Irregular, she means. Must be early first stage of labor. This is good. I was in such a hurry to leave and find my daughter that for one of the rare times in my years as a midwife, I forgot my birthing satchel. Plus, I am so exhausted, it would be safer to minister to Lydie alongside Alice Rippentoe’s capable hands. Having taken such pride in being an island unto myself, needing someone else is not easy to admit. Especially needing Alice.

I ask Lydie, “You think you can make the drive back to Hopen Haus?”

She nods and then grips the arms of the rocking chair. Her nostrils flare as she breathes through the contraction. Less than five minutes have passed since the last one, and already they are increasing in intensity, not allowing Lydie to speak. My stomach roils as I comprehend that she might be further along in labor than I thought. I am really not prepared to deliver a sixteen-year-old’s baby in a truck parked on the side of the road.

“Can my
mamm
come?” Lydie says.

From experience, I know that a woman craves her mother’s presence the most when faced with birth or death. This poor child is being faced with both within one twenty-four-hour period. I want to grant her request, but we have no time to lose
 
—nor do we have room for Lydie’s
mamm
in Looper’s truck.

I look over at Looper. “Can you tell Mrs. Risser that we need to leave now?” I ask. “See if she’s able to get a ride and follow us as soon as possible. And can you please use someone’s phone to call Wilbur and ask him where Amelia is?”

“There’s a phone in the barn,” Lydie says. I am about to rattle off Wilbur’s cell phone number when Lydie Risser stares right into my eyes and recites it. Looper nods and walks off the porch toward the barn.

Lydie chokes out, “I’m sorry.” She bows her head.

I kneel on the porch and press the calloused pad of Lydie’s small hand. Her body exudes the energy and the warmth that will propel her through childbirth and the trying months afterward, when she faces life as a single mother in a community filled with picture-perfect families. “It’s all right, my
meedel
,” I soothe, just as Fannie Graber once soothed me
 
—a forgotten kindness restored. “None of that matters now. We just need to focus on bringing your baby into this world.”

Rocking back on my heels, I stare into the yard. The foliage on the trees blurs as my eyes flood with memory. I may not have had the daughter who was taken from me, but I have been surrounded by these precious daughters who have all been as alone in the world as I. For eighteen
years I have taken them for granted. Nonetheless, I vow to open my heart to them, and through that communion, become the kind of mother I have never had.

Wilbur parks, and the fog I’ve been floating in, ever since his leak about my parents, evaporates. Uriah Rippentoe runs out of Hopen Haus like he’s been waiting for us. His straw hat blows off in the yard and snags on a clump of dandelion weeds. His eyes scan me as I get out of the van. I’m relieved to see him, but as I turn toward him
 
—my eyes swollen, my bones aching with shock
 
—I’m also embarrassed by how strange I must look, wearing Lydie’s too-small cape dress and with my hair finger-brushed into a messy bun. I know that Uriah’s not checking out my appearance as much as he’s making sure that I’m all right. However, faced with my parents’ lie, I’m not sure I’ll ever be all right again.

“What happened?” Uriah asks. Then he turns toward Wilbur without waiting for my answer. The two men stare at each other. Wilbur doesn’t blink. The veins throb in Uriah’s hands.

I move between them. “I’m fine,” I say, though my voice is hoarse from crying. “Lydie’s dad died. They buried him today.” When neither speaks, I ask, “My parents been by?”

Uriah says, “Your parents?”

“Yes.” I wrap a hand around my throat, watching Wilbur walk over to his van. “They’re coming down here. They . . . they might be here soon.”

“They’re coming to take you back?”

I nod. My body trembles as I understand what
back
really means: a meeting with a counselor, a doctor’s appointment, followed by a ton of Ivy League college applications. My mom has no doubt taken every step to make sure that my future is only rescheduled, not derailed. But is that what
I
want? I wrap my arms around my thickening waist, wanting to scream
 
—to weep
 
—yet somehow I remain standing. After living in Hopen Haus and seeing cases like Desiree’s and Star’s, I know I’m lucky to have parents who are not only involved in my life, but so hands-on they’d drop everything just to come down here and guarantee my safety. But how can they guarantee my safety while my mom is asking me to harm my child,
her
grandchild?

I came down here to find myself, and instead I’ve never felt so lost. How can a baby be growing inside a body that doesn’t even know its birth mother . . . its original name?

Covering my mouth, I begin to sob. Uriah crosses the short distance between us and folds me into his arms. I rest against him a second, absorbing power from a boy’s touch as I’ve always done; then I close my eyes and picture the two of us hugging with this invisible child between us, a viewpoint that suddenly helps me see our flirtation for what it is. Every time I’ve been forced to face the darkest parts of myself, I have instead turned the opposite direction
and faced someone else. I did this the night my baby was conceived; I am doing this now.

Breathing deep, I blink tears and step back from Uriah, not because I want to, but because my baby deserves a mother who is willing to break the cycle and try to become more than who she currently is. Then I see that Wilbur Byler is watching us. His body is slanted against the hood of his van, which is still ticking with the engine’s trapped heat. His thick arms are crossed. Our eyes remain locked until Wilbur points to me, brings a finger to his lips that is as straight as the barrel of a gun, and shakes his head
 
—a threat that is also the worldwide demand for silence. I continue watching him as he climbs into his van.

His brake lights flash once before he drives down the lane.

I give Looper a pointed glance, and he punches the gas pedal. The truck rattles as the engine accelerates us down Dry Hollow’s coarse county road. Unsnapping her seat belt, Lydie writhes and turns, facing the truck bed. She digs nails into the seat and pants until the dusty rear window fogs with breath.
Not in the truck,
I think.
Please, Lydie. Don’t give birth in this truck.
I delivered Henry and Arlene’s nine-pound daughter in a buggy discreetly parked behind the ticket booth at the annual farm auction in Scottsville,
Kentucky, but I’ve never caught a baby in a speeding vehicle. Lydie’s mother was hoping one of her
Englischer
neighbors who had come to pay their condolences could shuttle her to Hopen Haus in an hour or two, once the majority of the mourners had left for home. Looking at Lydie now, though, I am not sure Rebecca will make it before her grandchild’s birth.

I wedge myself between Lydie’s body and the dashboard, placing my left knee on the floorboard. Gently pushing on her shoulders with the flat of my hands, I press my other knee into the small of her back. She pushes against the seat, bracing against me. Tenderness swells in the forty-five-degree angle of my wrists, and a bottle cap is gouging my kneecap on the floorboard. But I continue administering counterpressure until Looper’s hurtling Chevy dips into a gully in the washed-out lane leading to Hopen Haus.

I topple toward the floor, and my ribs chip against the gearshift. Clenching my eyes, I bite back a moan and can feel Looper’s hand touch mine in sympathy. Lydie emits an unintelligible stream of Pennsylvania Dutch as another contraction assaults her, and no one is able to help her grapple with the pain.

Looper abruptly shifts into park and the truck lurches to a stop. He jumps out and runs around to help Lydie. Crawling out of the truck, I drag a bridal train of sawdust and ten-penny nails onto the flat-topped grass. I limp in Looper and Lydie’s steady wake toward Hopen Haus, holding my right side. My ribs echo with the pulse of the heart beneath them. I try to straighten and wince. At least one of
my ribs may be broken, if not more. My breathing is shallow. These physical limitations do not bode well for delivering a child. I am so focused on the agony of inhaling and exhaling, I am taken aback when I look up and see Amelia Fitzpatrick, in a cape dress and bun, standing on the front porch beside Uriah.

Her red hair is the eye of the vortex swirling around us. I want to dart up those steps and embrace her. I want to hold her against my chest and thank God that she is safe from Wilbur Byler and that she somehow came back to me, even after seventeen years. I want to whisper her birth name in her ear like a prayer. I want to mourn what we’ve lost and rejoice over what we have left, no matter how insignificant that might be.

But as Lydie’s keening reverberates across the yard, I know this is not the time for the mother-daughter reunion for which I’ve always longed. Looper places one arm around Lydie’s back and scoops the other beneath her legs. Her ramrod body loosens in this strangely matrimonial embrace. Tears drip across Lydie’s temples and she bites down hard.

“Breathe through it, Lydie,” I call, though breathless myself. “Don’t fight. Just breathe.”

Uriah scrambles over to the screen door and pulls it open. Looper plods up the steps and turns sideways before carrying Lydie past Uriah and into the darkness of the hall.

“She okay?” Amelia asks. Her fingers hover near her mouth. I can see the thin, pale circle where Meredith Fitzpatrick’s cameo ring used to be. This is the first time
I’ve looked at Amelia as a mother viewing her child. My eyes burn with the intensity of the emotions I feel. I extend my hand to touch this phantom brought to life, this child turned woman. But I retract it at the last moment, fearing that Amelia would prefer not to know the truth.

“Rhoda?” Amelia says.

My scalp prickles as I understand that this young woman will never consider me her mom. I look down. “She’ll be fine,” I say, not knowing if I speak for Lydie or for myself. Then I stare at my daughter for one second more before entering Hopen Haus, knowing that, somewhere in its depths, another mother and her child are waiting to be born.

Fatigue is its own anesthesia, letting Lydie remain half-asleep through two lighter contractions. Alice stands to the right of the four-poster bed, listening to the baby’s heart rate through Fannie’s old fetoscope, its fluted mouth pressed against Lydie’s stomach like a kiss. Alice moves the scope higher and then higher still. Her fair brows furrow. She looks over, and though she is obviously concerned, I am not able to interpret her expression. Straightening her back, she walks toward me.

I push up from the cane-backed chair and hobble over. I lift the edge of Lydie’s sheet with my right hand
 
—and even this movement is almost too much to bear. I turn to the side and wince, trying to keep from gasping aloud. But then Alice Rippentoe’s gasp echoes what I have not uttered.
I look over at her, perturbed that a midwife has emitted a negative sound in the birthing room. A patient is never more attuned to her caregivers’ verbal and nonverbal cues then when about to give birth.

Alice meets my eyes. I follow the trajectory of her pointing finger, and my jaw goes slack. Clutching my side, I shuffle closer. I try to breathe through the panic, as I have instructed Lydie to do. But I can’t. One of the baby’s feet has emerged. It’s really as simple and as complicated as that. Though I assisted Fannie once in the delivery of a shoulder presentation, I have never seen a foot presentation before in my life. And I have most certainly never delivered one. Even if I wasn’t incapacitated by my broken ribs, I wouldn’t know how to begin. Why did I make the oldest mistake in midwifery and assume that the protuberance at the top of Lydie’s womb was the bottom and not the head?

I’ve only delivered one breech baby since Fannie died, and I had Sadie Gingrich to assist me, who had once assisted Fannie and therefore knew what to do when I felt so inept. Everything must be done slowly and precisely
 
—if the umbilical cord gets clamped during pushing and the head is still anchored in the womb, the baby will not receive oxygen through the mother’s blood. The baby will then either be severely handicapped or asphyxiated before he’s even drawn his first breath.