The Midwife (25 page)

Thom crosses the shadowed room and crouches beside Charlotte. “How much blood has she lost?” he asks.

“Far less than a pint,” Charlotte replies softly. Thom’s confident bearing and British accent are so quietly demanding that, unlike Alice, Charlotte doesn’t question Thom’s right to ask. “But her pressure’s risen, as has her fever.”

Charlotte finishes massaging Lydie, and Alice gently turns her body so that she is positioned toward the end of the bed. Thom scrubs his hands in the
weschbohl
and dips his forearms and elbows into the hot water with an efficiency not diminished by time.

I drag a stool in my awkward left hand and position it toward the end of the bed. “Here, Thom,” I say. “Sit here.”

Lydie is so tired, she doesn’t even wince when Thom reaches careful, gloved fingers past the baby’s foot to trace the rest of the body still lodged in Lydie’s womb. “I’d say about seven and a half, eight pounds. Pretty large baby to deliver breech,” he says.

“Do you think we should push her?” I whisper, looking down at Thom.

He shakes his head. Easing his hands back out, he looks up at us midwives clustered about him, waiting for orders. “Ever heard of a water birth?” he asks.

We nod, of course, but none of us has ever seen one
performed. Fannie feared allowing a woman to give birth in water, in case she or the baby had complications and we could not climb inside the claw-foot tub fast enough to get her out.

“Water birth’s becoming more popular, especially in
 
—” Thom motions to the oil lamp smoking on the nightstand
 
—“more primitive circles.” He continues, oblivious to my irritation at being categorized in such a way. “I think the water would relax Lydie’s uterine muscles
 
—perhaps removing the cervical lip
 
—and take pressure off her perineum. Otherwise, she is bound to tear.” He stands from the stool, pulls the sheet down over Lydie’s legs, and snaps off his gloves. “Beth?” he says. Alice and Charlotte look confused until they see the direction of Thom’s gaze and know that he is talking to me. “You all have a bathtub here?”

“It’s very
primitive
,” I murmur sharply. “But yes, we have one down the hall.”

Thom says, “I need someone to scour it with bleach. I mean,
really
scrub it down. We’ll need towels and a lot of hot water. I’ll carry Lydie when we’re ready.”

Charlotte leaves to fetch the water she set to boiling on the stove when Lydie went into labor. Alice looks at me, silently asking if we’re really going to allow Lydie to give birth in a tub. But considering I’ve never delivered a breech birth without a more experienced midwife present, I am relieved to rely on Thom’s knowledge
 
—even as unconventional as that knowledge might be. “We have no choice,” I whisper.

Alice nods warily. She picks her oil lamp up again. Her cape dress rustles as she swishes out of the room. Lydie opens her eyes just wide enough to look at me. My heart aches at the sight of her
strubbly
braids and pale, freckled skin. She should be attending Saturday night hymn sings and sewing doilies for her cedar-lined hope chest, not giving birth to a child who was forced upon her by an older man who I am sure abused her trust.

Making sure Lydie’s still focused on me, I point to Thom. “Lydie, this is Dr. Fitzpatrick, Amelia’s father. He’s going to help deliver your baby tonight. It’s called a water birth.”

Lydie offers a weak smile. Then her eyes close again.

When Alice appears to tell us the bathtub has been cleaned and filled, I motion to Thom. Tucking the sheet around her shoulders, he scoops her up, and the thin, floral material laps over his arms.

The bathroom was converted from a narrow closet, so it is only wide enough to fit the toilet, standing sink, and tub suspended on halved cinder block risers. Rendered useless by my broken ribs, I remain in the doorway but hold an oil lamp to help illuminate the room. Thom eases Lydie down on the closed toilet seat and tests the bath’s temperature with the inside of his wrist. His action is so second-nature that it makes me wonder if it is one he did when Amelia was a child. The thought fills me with both unbearable envy and thankfulness that, though she was not raised by me, my daughter was cared for and loved.

Lydie is almost comatose with exhaustion, so Alice and
Charlotte link arms behind her back, maneuver her over to the tub, and lower her into the water. A wave sloshes over the edge, and her submerging nightgown billows like a sail. Lydie sighs and smiles.

“Lydie,” Thom says, “we’re going to let your body rest here a moment, and then we want you to push for us, okay?”

A ghost of a smile flickers around Lydie’s mouth, and then her pale face contorts as another contraction comes. But I am relieved to see her roused enough to feel the pressure. In all my years of midwifery, I have never seen someone become so docile when faced with such excruciating pain.

“All right,” I say, stepping into the bathroom. “You ready to push on the next one, Lydie?” She nods, weak. Alice positions Lydie’s feet against the foot of the tub, so they can give her leverage. “Take hold of your calves, then,” I say, standing behind Alice and holding the lamp high. “That’s right. Now, when the next contraction comes, we’re going to count from one to ten. At one, I want you to take a deep breath and curl your torso forward and then slowly let the breath out while push
 
—” Lydie’s face darkens in a grimace. “This is it,” I say, then begin: “One, two, three . . .”

Alice plunges gloved arms into water and chants, “Push, push, push,” over my counting.

Lydie’s pushing slackens when I get to ten. Alice listens to the baby’s heart rate through the fetoscope and holds up a thumb and smiles in relief. Lydie groans softly. Tears leak
from the corners of her closed eyes. Maneuvering around the sink, Charlotte spoons cool raspberry tea into Lydie’s panting mouth. Sweat and steam condense on her forehead. Charlotte wipes this tenderly away. Lydie’s breathing quickens. She turns from Charlotte and writhes. The water becomes tinted with blood.

“Here we go, Lydie,” I call. “Another one. Big breath.” She sucks in air, and her nose sharpens as her nostrils pinch down. “Good. Here we go: one, two, three . . .”

Alice chants, “Push, push, push . . .”

“Four, five, six
 
—”

Lydie cries out.

I say, “Don’t, Lydie. Put that energy into your push! Seven, eight
 
—”

Alice says, “The legs are out
 
—it’s a boy!”

“What about an episiotomy?” Thom whispers beside me.

“No!” I cry. “She’s got this!” Then to Lydie: “Okay,
ten
!”

Lydie lets go of her calves and sinks back against the tub.

“All right, Lydie,” I say. “You’re doing great. This next time you’re pushing, I want you to reach down and touch your baby’s legs, his tiny feet, and know that you can hold him soon.”

I can feel Alice and Charlotte studying me, both skeptical and curious. Each of us midwives has our role, and mine has certainly never been the mollycoddling nursemaid. But there is no time to analyze the rebirth taking place inside my heart, as I let the anger toward the
Fitzpatricks die. There is not even time to take a drink of water before Lydie grits her teeth, takes a breath, and begins pushing without any of us counting her down.

Alice rearranges the towel beneath her knees and leans over the tub again. The lamp light shines on Lydie’s wet braids and on the skin of willow bark oil covering the surface of the water. Lydie presses her lips together and curls her torso forward until the sodden bodice of her nightgown is perched over her knees. She expels a fierce breath through her nostrils.

“Slow it down, Lydie,” I say, as I glimpse her baby’s torso. “I know it’s hard, but this is the part where we want you to go slow and easy. Slow and easy. That’s it. Just keep up a steady pressure.”

“Good girl, Lydie,” Alice says. “Little pushes . . . little pushes.” Hooking her fingers around one of the baby’s shoulders, Alice pops it free and the other slides out. She turns to us and grins. “The shoulders are birthed.”

Lydie is so tired that, even during the heightened pain of childbirth, she is fending off sleep. Her eyes remain shuttered as she reaches down to touch the baby’s small shoulders and chest. A smile spreads across Lydie’s face. As often happens when a laboring mother feels her baby’s body for the first time, Lydie finds a reservoir of strength she did not know she possessed. She bears down hard
 
—her face red, her eyes bulging
 
—and expels the child’s head in one protracted push, although there is no longer breath left to sustain
her
.

The infant is discharged into the water like an oddly
exquisite tadpole. The life source of the umbilical cord is still intact, and though Lydie has lost some blood in the delivery, the water is clear enough to see the boy-child open and close his eyes, searching out this brave new world. Alice’s first reaction is to withdraw the child from the water, but Thom reaches out to stop her. “It’s all right,” he says. “Just let him get used to his new surroundings. There’s no meconium present, so it’s safe.”

A few seconds pass before Lydie stirs and extends her arms toward her son. Alice draws him out of the tub. Water sluices off his womb-waxed skin and beads across the fair hair insulating his thin, newborn frame like fur. Alice lays him on Lydie’s chest. Staring down at him, Lydie holds one of his fingers, and then kisses the top of his fine, round head.

“He’s perfect,” she murmurs.

I look over at Thom and see his green eyes are brimful with tears. Feeling my gaze, he turns and smiles with such bittersweet remembrance, I know that I can forgive him everything.

My mom and I and Uriah and Looper are sitting on kitchen chairs we dragged onto the front porch at midnight. We’re drinking weak tea from jelly jars and waiting to hear how Lydie and her newborn are doing. Looper has
just stood to find out what’s going on when Wilbur Byler rattles up to Hopen Haus and gets out of his passenger van.

He fumbles with his keys and drops them to the ground. Picking them up, he squints, trying to see us as clearly as we can see him. “How is she?” he asks.

Before we can say anything, the screen door smashes open. We all turn to look. Dressed head to toe in black, the head midwife, Rhoda Mummau, stands in the screen door’s black mouth. One hand wraps her ribs and her other arm is extended; her pointer finger like a weapon aimed right at Wilbur Byler’s heart. “You’d better get off my property,” she says and draws in a shallow breath. “Right now. Or I’m calling the police.”

“What are you talking about?” Wilbur says, but he’s not stupid. He takes one step back.

“You know full well what I’m talking about.”

Wilbur turns his head. The headlights light up his profile, showing the fat beneath his chin and making the tips of his ears
 
—peeking from beneath his chopped brown hair
 
—glow red. Then he makes a huffing sound and pockets his keys. He faces us again. “Do these people know what you’ve done, Rhoda?” he says. “Or should I say,
Beth
?”

Looper, who has remained standing since Wilbur’s arrival, says, “Watch it,” real low.

“Or what?” Wilbur laughs.

“Just mind yourself,” Looper says.

Wilbur moves closer to the porch. “I don’t have to mind nothing.” For the first time, I can hear the slur in his words and see the wobbliness of his feet. Wilbur Byler’s been
drinking. He might even be drunk. “Rhoda’s the one that has to mind herself,” he says. “I know stuff that can throw her in jail faster than
 
—”

My mom bolts from the kitchen chair like it’s taken all her willpower to stay in the seat. She marches past me to stand at the top of the porch. “Sir, before you start accusing others, I think you should know that you’re facing accusations and being investigated yourself.” Pausing, my mom tucks hanks of blonde hair behind her ears. I watch her diamond studs sparkle. “Were you going to tell Rhoda about the money you’ve been embezzling from the communities?” she says. “The money you’ve been pocketing from the donations Hopen Haus has received?”

Wilbur just stares at her. His round face looks comical, lengthened by his gaping mouth. “That’s what I thought,” she says. “Now, the best thing that can happen for you and for us is to return the money you’ve stolen, go up to your little Canadian commune, and
 
—” my mom snaps her fingers
 
—“just disappear.”

I look at my mom with the same mixture of awe and intimidation that Wilbur
 
—and, I suppose, everyone else on the porch
 
—is displaying. I don’t even know this woman who could find the kindness to defend the same person who took her kid. And for one of the first times in my life, I am proud to be Meredith Fitzpatrick’s daughter.

“We . . . we have money?” Rhoda finally asks.

My mom turns from Wilbur and faces the midwife. “Yes,” she says. “McClintock’s son made some calls after Wilbur contacted us yesterday and tracked down a woman
who claims she made a sizeable donation after reading your story online
 
—one that you all seem to have never received. McClintock went from there and found that not only has Wilbur been embezzling donations, but he’s been siphoning off money the Dry Hollow Community has allocated for Hopen Haus and funneling it into his own account.”

Hearing this, Ernest Looper steps down off the porch. Wilbur Byler holds up his hands, fingers splayed wide, and backs up three paces to his van. Keeping one hand at hip level, Wilbur fishes keys out of his pants pocket and opens his door. He climbs in awkwardly, not removing his eyes from Looper, and cranks the ignition.

Before the vehicle’s interior light fades, Looper, my mom, Rhoda, and Uriah stand in a straight line in front of Hopen Haus and watch Wilbur place his arm on the passenger’s-side headrest and crank the steering wheel hard to the right before shifting into reverse. His knobby tires spit gravel as he slams the gearshift into drive. The passenger van rockets down the lane. This is the fastest, I imagine, that Wilbur Byler has ever gone.