The Reluctant Midwife (27 page)

“So what's the big deal? They do X-rays all the time.” That's the vet.

“The young man doesn't want one. Thinks they cause cancer. It's going to be a fight.”

“Well, good luck with that one. The captain's a military man. I'm sure he can issue an order.”

The Hesters bow their heads and close their eyes preparing to say the blessing and Blum and I do too. Since Mira's birth it's become a familiar ritual for us.

Daniel starts out and Patience and I join in, but Blum is mum.
God, we thank you for this food. For rest and home and all things good. . . .
I open my eyes to see what Blum's doing and find him looking at me. It's a curious moment, unsettling, and then it is over.

For two days a spring storm, rain and then ice, breaks the limbs off the trees in the yard and higher up in the mountains. I try to call Sheriff Hardman to have him radio Camp White Rock that I can't get in, but the phone lines are down and the thought of meeting Captain Wolfe's ire if I don't show up for clinic tomorrow makes my stomach hollow.

Outside, nothing moves but the tinkling branches. It's late afternoon and we're cut off from the world, and I'm just thinking of doing a watercolor of the crystalline trees when the distant sound of a vehicle alerts me.
Who would be out on an evening like this?

Running to the window, I look down the road and see a tractor with two people on it, both bundled in rubber coats, knit caps, and scarves around their faces. Looking closer it appears there's also a child. The tractor stops at the Hesters' drive and bumps over the wooden bridge.

“What in heaven's name?”
That's Patience, who was awakened by the motor's sound and has come down the stairs to stand next to me.

“Come in! Come in!” she calls from the porch. “Watch the ice.
It's a bad day to be out on the road. Is there some way we can help you?”

“Well, I hope so!” a young woman answers. “It's us! Hannah and John Dyer.” She whips down her scarf and pulls off her cap to reveal two long black braids and a cheerful pink face.

Her husband, a Scandinavian-looking fellow, removes his hat too and, grinning, unwraps the youngster, a girl of about five, a small female replica of her mother, the same black braids and everything. “This is Mary. I thought she could play with Danny.”

I'm still wondering why this young couple would travel over the dangerous roads to make an apparent social call when Hannah brings out a flowered tin box. “Oh, and we brought refreshments. Couldn't have a baby without cookies! I hope you don't mind. I figured it would be better to come to you than to make you come out in the storm.”

(Now I know who the young people are. This is the couple Patience told me about that delivered so beautifully in their farmhouse down by the Hope River five years ago.)

“Well, isn't this nice! How're you doing, Hannah? Are the pains very bad?” Patience gives the mother a hug, looking right in her eyes.

“I'm fine, but the contractions are getting harder. Can we get some music going? I brought a recording of Cab Calloway with ‘Minnie the Moocher' and another of ‘The Saint James Infirmary Blues.' ” She whips off her Mackinaw to reveal a very pregnant abdomen. “Where's your gramophone?”

“I'm sorry, we don't have one. We have a radio though. Becky, can you find something out of Pittsburgh or Wheeling? Try WWVA.” I sit down next to the wooden console and fool with the dial but all I can get is the news, then it fades into static. “Sorry,” I say. “The ice storm must be interfering.”

“Oh, no! We
have
to have music. Maybe we should go home again. Sing, John! I was counting on music!” There's urgency in
her voice and she begins to whirl around like a top. The husband throws his coat on the floor and takes her in his arms.

“One, two, three,” he chants as he leads her in a waltz. “One, two, three.” Then he begins to hum “The Blue Danube.”

As soon as the contraction is over, Patience leads the mother to my bedroom.

“Hannah likes to dance through her pains,” she enlightens me when I return with a pot of hot water and the sterilized rubber gloves.

The young woman is lying on her back, half naked, while Patience listens to the baby's heartbeat. Her five-year-old, Mary, leans on the edge of the bed all eyes.
No modesty in this family!
Then without warning the woman gets frantic again. . . . “Hurry. Hurry. Hurry! I can't stand to lie down when the pains come.”

“One more minute. I just want to verify the baby's position,” Patience responds, pulling on the exam gloves, but Hannah won't wait. She holds out her hands to John, who pulls a long white ruffled skirt over her head and they are off, swooping in graceful arcs.

“
Oh, John, go faster!
We have to outdance the pain! Can't we jitterbug or polka?”

Just then the kitchen door opens and Blum and the vet blow in from the barn. “What's going on? I saw the tractor.” That's Daniel.

“Hannah and John Dyer. Hannah's in labor but we need music. Can you give us a polka?” asks Patience.

Things are moving too fast for me. The mother is a whirling tornado, taking over the whole house, and without Patience's calm I'd be blown away in the storm. I lay out the birth supplies in my
bedroom, which I assume will be the birth room, and then, grateful not to be in charge, crawl up on the parlor davenport to be out of the way.

Singing along in German, Daniel sits down in his work clothes and begins to bang out a lively tune.
“So ei-ne Liech-ten-stei-ner Pol-ka die hats. Die macht Rabatz, mein Schatz! Ja ja ja! Ja ja ja! Ja ja ja! Ja ja ja!”
I have no idea what the lyrics mean but it's a rousing tune and soon John and Hannah are doing the polka, joining in with the “Ja ja ja!” They swoop and turn, occasionally bumping into a chair.

Suddenly, Hannah stops and looks down between her bare feet at a pool of clear fluid on the floor. “Whoops!”

Quick as anything, Patience runs to the kitchen for a dishtowel and wipes the mess up. “Better work your way back to the bedroom,” she instructs, but nobody's listening. The piano music goes on, punctuated by another rousing “Ja ja ja!” Even little Mary gets into the song, jumping up and down, and I can't help myself, I'm singing too. “Ja, ja, ja!” Blum stands in the kitchen doorway eating a cookie.

Suddenly Hannah's eyes pop open and she digs her fingernails into John's shoulder.

“Oh, my God. Something's coming!”

Surely not!

Patience runs to the bedroom for her gloves and kneels down. “It's the head, Hannah. Don't push. Can you walk to the bedroom?” Hannah can't walk, but she can waddle, so she waddles down the short hall into my room, lies on her side, and in three pushes delivers a very pink baby boy. His eyes, like his mother's, are wide with surprise.

That's all there is to it. The mother delivers the placenta, the midwife drops it in the chamber pot, and I put a pad between the patient's legs, though there's very little bleeding.

“Do you want to nurse?” Patience asks.

“You betcha! Come up here, Mary,” Hannah calls to her daughter. “You have a little brother.” John is sitting there too, and the sunset, shining orange, comes through the window, where the storm clouds have cleared.

Meanwhile, Danny and Mira sleep upstairs through it all, and Daniel keeps playing, but he's opened a hymnal and changed the song.

“Joyful, joyful . . . We adore thee, God of glory, Lord of Love. Hearts unfold like flowers before thee . . . opening to the sun above.”

I awake to the sound of water dripping and, when I look out the window, find it's raining. The water coming down the drainpipe is like flute music. Maybe spring really is here!

By midmorning the storm clouds pass and I'm able to drive into Liberty.

“How are the roads?” I ask Boodean when Sheriff Hardman finally gets a connection to the camp on the shortwave.

“Bad,” Boodean answers. “One of the trucks slid into the creek.”

“I guess I better not try to get there then.”

“Don't even think of it. Nuthin' but mud and slick as . . . well you know. You'd be foolish to try.”

“How's everything else? How's Drake?”

“Still the low-grade fever, chills, and the cough. I've been bringing him four meals a day, but he just picks at his food. Captain Wolfe agrees we need to get him to the hospital in Torrington, but he says we should wait until tomorrow. Can you meet us at Stenger's Pharmacy at nine fifteen? Can you do that?”

I agree to the plan. We talk a little about a patient with a spider bite who came into the clinic yesterday and then, “Is the captain still mad at me?”

I hear a long indrawn breath. “Yes, ma'am.”

“Oh, Boodean! What do I have to do to get back in his good graces?”

“Sing a little. Dance a little.”

“Boodean, I'm serious!”

“Me too. Sing a little. Dance a little. Over and out.”

Then just static.

I arrive, as instructed, by nine fifteen and stand in the window of Stenger's Pharmacy watching for Captain Wolfe and Boodean. Snow is already flying again, but not so it would stick, just big, lazy flakes coming down like confetti.

“How's Patience?” Mr. Stenger asks, staring across the counter, one eye on me, one eye wandering toward the window. “I haven't seen her for a long time.”

“She's getting better.”

“Dr. Blum was there and did the surgery, that's what I heard. A hemorrhage, was it?”

“Yes.” It doesn't surprise me that the pharmacist knows some of the details of the birth. I expected it. In a small town word gets around.

“Got something that might perk her up.” Stenger holds out a small brown bottle, labeled Dr. Blaud's Iron Pills. “This is the real McCoy! It would do Patience a lot of good.”

“I usually don't hold with patent medicines,” I hedge. “Dr. Blum used to say that most of them are a bunch of hooey.” I don't know why I invoke Dr. Blum's words. He's no longer an authority on anything.

Stenger continues like a pitchman. “Usually I agree, but I can vouch for this. It actually has iron in it. Does wonders for women with heavy monthlies too.”

I take the bottle and give it a shake. “How much?”

“It's a gift. The midwife took care of my mother one summer when she had ulcers on her feet, the best nursing she ever had.”

“Well, thank you. We'll give it a try. Patience is still rather weak and pale, though she's gaining ground. . . .”

Just then the little bell on the pharmacy door rings and Willa Hucknell and her flock of little blond wrens flutter through the door. For a minute I think of hiding. I've been such a bad friend. I just stopped seeing her when the deliveries dried up, completely forgot she was pregnant, and almost forgot about the bruises.

On the other hand, she never contacted me either, so maybe she feels awkward too. Knowing everyone in town saw Alfred hit her at the Fourth of July picnic probably still hurts, and I have to admit that with Patience's birth and Linus's death, Willa never once crossed my mind.

“Miss Becky. Miss Becky!” the girls cry, coming up to me. “Where's Dr. Blum?”

“He's home,” I reply. “How are you, Willa?” I can tell she's a lot stronger. Her face is pink and her yellow hair, which is now cut short in a bob, is shiny and clean.

“Never been better. Want to see something?” Apparently, she holds me no ill will because she opens the bundle that is pressed close to her chest and shows me a beautiful baby. “It's a boy,
finally!
Alfred Junior.” The white-haired infant looks at me with round gray eyes.

“Do you like him?” the oldest girl, Sally, asks.

“I do. He's beautiful, but why didn't you call me when you went into labor, Willa? I would have come. Who delivered him, anyway? Did you go to the hospital in Torrington?”

“Oh, we didn't go nowhere, did we, Sally? He's three months yesterday.”

“You had the baby at home, with no help? Was Alfred there?”

“No, he was off working.”

“I helped her!” Sally Hucknell crows. “I helped her. Ma calls me her little midwife.”

“You?”

“Yeah. Ma said it was the easiest birth yet. She just lay down, told me what to do, how to check for a cord, and ease the baby out and get it to breathe. I was the first one to know he was a boy, and when Papa got back from his coal mine, he was so happy to have finally got his namesake.”

“His coal mine?”

Sally starts to tell me something, but Willa shakes her head no.

Outside there's the blare of a horn.

“That's my ride, Willa. I'm so happy for you. I'll come by and see you when I have time.” I look at Alfred Jr. and all the happy, loving little girls. Have I so misjudged this family; let the bruises on the mother's face stain the whole picture?

“Can you bring Dr. Blum too?” Sally asks and is echoed by her sisters.

Willa reaches out and touches my hand, and the little boy baby gives me a smile.

“Good morning, everyone,” I greet the men as I climb in the front seat of the captain's personal auto.

Wolfe doesn't even say hello. He glances at his watch and pulls away from the curb. “The roads are bad. We've got to move or
we're going to be late for the appointment.” Drake, looking like death warmed over, is lying on his side in the back with Boodean. He wears his khaki CCC uniform, which is now two sizes too big.

“How's he doing?”

“Maybe a little better.” That's my medic trying to sound optimistic, but I can tell by his eyes that he doesn't really think so.

The rest of the trip is about what you'd expect. Snow in the higher elevations and fog as we come over Hog Back Mountain. Captain Wolfe doesn't say a word except to swear under his breath when we slide in the mud.

“How long has this man been ill?” Dr. Fisher asks me as the hospital nurse and Boodean assist Drake Trustler to back up against the cold glass plate mounted on the X-ray machine. It's a shock to see how weak Drake is. His once muscular body is skin and bones and his forehead is beaded with sweat.

The doctor's assistant is dressed in a white surgical gown with a white puffy hat, and I'm glad I wore my army nurse's dress and white shoes so I look somewhat professional. Boodean is also dressed for the part in his crisp CCC uniform with the medic patch on the shoulder. The captain stays in the waiting room reading the Torrington paper.

“He's been sick about a month, maybe longer.” I hand my report to Dr. Fisher, a tall man, about six-foot-three, with coal-black hair that is greased down and combed straight back. He tosses the file on a desk without looking at it and stuffs the earpieces of his stethoscope into his ears.

“Lungs sound like shit!” he announces in a voice too loud.

My face turns red, but I remind myself that I've heard much worse language at Walter Reed. I wouldn't be surprised if Dr. Fisher is an ex-military man. He has that way about him.

“Yes, rales and rhonchi when he inspires and exhales,” I respond,
but the man cuts me short and motions his nurse to position the patient.

The intimidating X-ray machine is about six feet high, a steel frame with black metal in back and black glass in front. The nurse positions Drake behind the glass, and I must admit, the fearsome medical equipment looks like a medieval torture device.

Dr. Fisher, wearing elbow-length black leather gloves, turns a knob next to a red blinking light and sits down. With a whir, a motor moves the sheet of dark glass against Drake's chest, pinning him in, and all I can see are his eyes, boring straight into mine.

I know what he's thinking.
My mother said never, EVER, get an X-ray!