The Reluctant Midwife (4 page)

I'm sitting in the wet grass in the ditch with tears in my eyes, trying to figure out how the jack works, when a low hack driven by a black man wearing a yellow slicker pulls up to the side of the car.

“Ma'am.” He steps out of his vehicle and tips his broad-brimmed straw hat. “Preacher Miller of the Hazel Patch Baptist Fellowship. Can I be of some assistance?”

I catch his eyes on Blum, probably wondering why the man still sits in the car while the woman struggles with the jack.

“It's me, Reverend, Becky Myers. I met you one time at the hospital in Liberty. The home health nurse . . . It was after the cave-in at the Wild Cat Mine. You were one of the men who brought in the bodies. And that's Dr. Blum. You probably met him sometime too. He's . . . He's not well.” I leave it at that.

“Miss Myers!” The preacher tips his hat once more and gives me a big smile that lights up his dark face. His eyes are brown and soulful. “So nice to see you again. I heard you and Dr. Blum moved away to Virginia. Are you back to set up your clinic or just visiting?”

“No, we're back. It's a long story. Right now I'm trying to find Patience Murphy, the midwife. Mr. Maddock, on Wild Rose Road, told me she's married to the vet. Am I headed in the right direction?”

“Not far at all.” Reverend Miller is already rolling up his sleeves and soon has us back on the road.

“Just two miles ahead on the left. You'll see a sign that says Daniel Hester, DMV, Small and Large Animals, with a little sign below, Patience Hester, Midwife, Small and Large Women.” He chuckles at the joke. “Say hello for me.”

As we pull across a small wooden bridge that spans a bubbling creek and into the tree-lined drive of Daniel Hester's farmyard, my heart leaps. Here I hope I will find friends.

The two-story stone home, with a porch on two sides, is surrounded by mowed grass. I can tell Patience lives here, because there are bunches of herbs hanging under the porch eaves: tansy, feverfew, mint, and echinacea are the ones that I recognize, but there are a dozen more. The midwife is also an herbalist and uses them to help heal her patients.

There are chickens in the yard scratching for insects and four horses and three cows in the field. The cowbells tinkle, but other than that it's so quiet, I decide Patience and Dr. Hester must both be out delivering babies, a little boy or girl for her, a calf or lamb for him.

Unsure what to do, I take Blum's arm, head for a wooden bench under one of the giant weeping willows, and take a seat. The long drooping branches are just budding out, covered in yellow, like palpable sunshine, and with the tip of my finger, I reach out to touch them.

We don't have to wait long. Within twenty minutes, a dusty black Olds rolls across the bridge and stops behind our Pontiac. My friend has come up in the world. She once rode a horse to births, before that a bicycle.

I take my time rising, watching as Patience gets out of the vehicle. She's a small woman, thin, but sturdy, and pretty, with high color. Her brown hair, which she used to wear long, is shoulder length now, and she peers through her wire-rim glasses at our Virginia license plate.

“Hello!” she calls out, looking around, and when she turns, I'm startled to see she has a toddler on her hip.

“Over here.” I step from under the long willow fronds. “Patience! It's me, Becky Myers.” If I had been apprehensive at all, my questions about our friendship evaporate in the time it takes a wide smile to rush across her face.

She plops the child on the grass, and with open arms runs toward me, her red-and-black-plaid farm jacket flapping like wings. “Becky!” Laughing as we embrace, we almost fall over. Though the midwife is small, she's as strong as a pony.

“Chiggers,” I say indicating the baby. Patience doesn't get it. “Chiggers,” I repeat, thinking she must not know about the troublesome insect that burrows under the skin and itches like crazy. “On the grass. They're everywhere in Virginia. Very much a problem for the young and tender.”

“Oh, chiggers. Yes, we have them. Danny gets them once or twice in the summer and me too, but since it's cooler here in the mountains, they're not so much of a problem. You
are
the same old
worrywart
, Becky Myers! Come inside.”

It's then that she sees Dr. Blum, still sitting immobile on the bench under the weeping willow. “Oh, you have someone with you! A new beau?” She's probably kidding, but I don't find it funny.

“No, it's Dr. Blum. He's not well. The physicians at Johns Hopkins
think it's a stroke or maybe catatonia.” I wave my open hand in front of his face. “Anyway. He's all gone. . . . We've come to ask for your help.”

At the kitchen table in the stone farmhouse, Patience and I catch up over coffee. Silent as a sphinx, Dr. Blum sits staring into space on a stool in the corner.

I take in the room. . . . There's a green enamel wood cookstove against one wall with a wooden box filled with split oak, shelves filled with glass canisters of beans, cornmeal, and flour, and a sink with a small red metal water pump. In the corner is a large Frigidaire, which means that the Hesters have electricity and probably a phone. This must be heaven for Patience, who used to live without any such conveniences.

“What happened?” Patience asks in a low voice, indicating the doctor with her eyes.

I tell her the story, how Priscilla Blum died when her auto crashed through the guardrail into the ice-covered James River and how, after that, the doctor just collapsed, lost his mind.

“Up until then he'd been his normal self. He'd actually done four surgeries earlier that day. One was an emergency appendectomy that went horribly wrong and the patient died on the operating table. . . .”

“Maybe the two deaths on one day were his breaking point, or maybe he had a stroke from the stress.” That's Patience.

“Maybe so.”

“He's lost so much weight.” She studies the doc and I look at him from her eyes. She's right. He's lost around twenty pounds and
his once strong jaw has gone slack. Not only that, his brown hair is thin and dry. Not a healthy-looking specimen.

“I feed him, feed him with a spoon three meals a day,” I respond defensively. “But he doesn't care about food or anything. I was sympathetic in the beginning. Really, I was, but I expected his disability to be temporary. Now, I don't know. . . . I'm just frustrated. In all this time there's so little improvement.”

“This happened a year ago?” We watch as Danny, Patience's toddler, approaches the doctor and runs a little metal truck up his leg. For just a moment, I think Blum sees him, but then he goes back to the blank stare again.

“Yes, a year ago, during a snowstorm. Like I said, as a last resort, I took him to Johns Hopkins, but it cost a fortune, and they were no help. After about a year, his brother, the older Dr. Blum, had no sympathy at all. He bellowed at Isaac to snap out of it, thought he was faking. Just a few days ago, he abandoned us altogether and we were left on our own. . . .”

Here I trail off. I don't tell Patience how I prayed on my knees for my colleague, to a God I couldn't locate. I don't tell her how at first I would stroke Isaac's head and his shoulders after I bathed him, hoping I could bring him back. I don't tell her how once or twice I slapped him, I was so mad.

We both turn to the sound of an auto rattling up the drive. “It's Daniel,” Patience says, standing.

From the kitchen window, I watch as the veterinarian opens the trunk of his Ford Model T, removes a satchel, and sets it on the top of the car. Then he pulls out some rope and pulleys and other bizarre-looking veterinarian equipment and carries it into the barn. He's a tall man, with an outdoor look, wearing a long brown canvas coat.

A few minutes later, the kitchen door slams open and the vet comes in and picks up his little boy. “Who have we here? I wondered about the Virginia license plate!” he says with a lopsided
grin. His light brown hair is receding in front, and his large hands are chafed and rough.

“It's Becky Myers and Dr. Blum!”

“Well, hello! What brings you back to Union County?” He leans over to shake the doctor's hand, and when there's no response, frowns and looks at me with concern.

“Dr. Blum is . . . I don't know how to put this . . . disabled.”

The vet looks him over as if assessing a lame horse.

“What can he do?”

“Nothing.”

“No one knows what's wrong with him,” Patience puts in. “It might be the shock of his wife's death, a stroke, or possibly catatonia. Remember? We heard about her accident.”

I take up the narrative a second time, giving the history and what the doctors proposed. “The neuro men at Johns Hopkins said there was nothing they could do, except electroshock treatment and there was no guarantee with that.”

“So why'd you come back?” That's Daniel, looking deep into Dr. Blum's pale eyes. “A damn shame! So why'd you come back?” he asks me again.

“Well, he told me to.”

“That doesn't sound catatonic.”

“It wasn't a conversation, just one word . . . no, three words in all. . . . After his brother disowned him. We were out of money and owed three months' back rent. Since he couldn't take care of himself, I'd moved him in with me, and I was tearing my hair out about a probable eviction when he opened his mouth and offered an alternative. ‘Home. West Virginia.' ”

“That's all he's said in a year?” Patience moves to the sink to pump water.

“Yes. That's about it . . . until yesterday when he spoke again. After the lawyer told us that his house had been sold . . . we
were sitting on Main Street in his Pontiac, broke with nowhere to go. I'll be honest, I was crying when Dr. Blum spoke for the second time. ‘Patience' he said. At first I thought he meant to be patient and have faith, then I realized he meant Patience, the midwife.

“We drove up to your old house on Wild Rose Road, hoping to find shelter and found you were gone, but camped there anyway, feeling lost. Mr. Maddock was the one who told us you'd moved to the other side of the mountain.” Here I clear my throat and take a moment to get up my courage.

“I was hoping we could stay there for a while, take care of the empty house for you. . . .” I trail off, suddenly embarrassed. Asking for help isn't something I'm used to.

“Of course . . . of course,” Patience reassures. “You'd be doing us a favor. We thought of selling the place, but no one can afford to buy it now . . . except the very rich, who are already hovering like vultures, taking advantage of the foreclosures and bottomed-out land prices.”

Here her face gets pink and her voice crackles. Hester reaches over to pat her arm. The midwife, I recall, has always been something of a leftist, sympathetic to the poor and suspicious of the rich.

“There've been hundreds of drifters and homeless passing through, but we've been reluctant to just let a stranger move in,” Daniel adds, standing to let his dogs in, two beagles and a three-legged mutt. “We might even have some furniture in the barn and some of Patience's kitchen things and linens. You could stay here with us for the night, and in the morning we'll look around.” He stands and gives his wife a kiss on her neck.

“Come on, Blum. Time to milk.” He takes a bucket and then pulls Blum through the door.

I shake my head. He still doesn't get it, or else he's trying to
prove some point, and I watch through the kitchen window as the men cross the farmyard.

Hester has his arm linked through Blum's as if they were old chums and they probably
were
associates, both college-educated doctors. Tears come to my eyes for what's been lost, tears for the vet's kindness, tears for the long, lonely way ahead. I wipe them with the back of my hand, before Patience can see, then I tell her about my emergency delivery on the roadside yesterday.

“I must say I was proud of myself,” I end the story. “Bernice didn't even have a perineal tear.”

“Sounds like maybe you have a knack for this. Maybe you should be a midwife,” Patience kids me. She knows that being near a woman in labor terrifies me. “Anyway, you should keep track of your births. Start a journal with the dates, names, and details of what you think is important. You never know when you might need it.”

“It's not like I'm going to attend many more deliveries, but you're probably right. If something bad happened, the board of medicine might someday investigate. I'm a registered nurse.”

Patience shakes her head, laughing. “Becky. Becky. Becky.”

“Well, they might!”

Today I cannot be sure, but I think the doctor reacted when our new dog, Three Legs, licked his hand. It may have been reflex, but he appeared to reach up and ruffle his fur.

I shouldn't really call the golden mutt
our
dog. He's really
mine
. I feed him and I take him in and out of the cottage to do his job, but it's Isaac he's taken a shine to. The vet says it's sometimes that way.

At first I was horrified to be given a pet. We scarcely have enough food to feed ourselves, but what could I do? The veterinarian and midwife are our benefactors and I wasn't in a position to argue. Daniel led Three Legs right up to Blum, who sat in the gray, weathered rocking chair staring into space. Then the vet took Isaac's flaccid hand and made him stroke the dog's big yellow head.

“See,” he addressed the canine. “This is Dr. Blum, your master. Do whatever he says.” Here he winked at me, acknowledging the irony . . . since Blum never says anything.

It's been more than a week since we moved into the little house at the end of Wild Rose Road and we are slowly getting adjusted. I've replaced the glass in the broken window and repaired the roof. Patience and Dr. Hester generously brought over a box of linens,
dishes, a rocking chair they found in the barn, and two braided rugs. They also gave us a basket of meat, eggs, milk, and bread, which we needed badly.

Now, Dr. Blum and I sit on a wooden bench on the porch while I sort through the dandelion greens I've picked for our midday meal.

“It seems wrong that I have to eat the weeds that other people pull out of their front yards . . . like I've failed somehow,” I say to my mute companion.

Blum's expression is as blank as the blue sky, but I shrug and keep talking. “I know there are people poorer than us, but just look at you. You're wearing some of Daniel's old work clothes, a flannel shirt with a hole at the elbow and frayed denim pants. I'm wearing a pair of stained slacks and an old sweater, torn at the waistband.”

I stop myself and stare out across the fields. . . . “No, that's wrong. I have to stop feeling so sorry for myself and try to look for the positive.

“For example, look at the base of the old oak where daffodils are blooming in clusters, and in the distance see how the river glimmers in the morning light. There is always the Hope.” I think this is funny, and when I look over at Blum, for a moment he appears to share my amusement, but I'm probably wrong.

“Okay, Dr. Blum,” I start out at breakfast. “I can't put it off any longer. This morning we are going into town to find some kind of work.”

To get ready for my job-hunting expedition, I settle on a brown skirt, a yellow middy, and brown flats. My town clothes are a little
out of date, but of good quality, and I worry that I won't look as desperate as I truly am. I also worry about the doctor, unsure what I will do with him if I
do
get a job, but decide I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. At the last minute I spiff him up too, with a shirt and a tie.

Our trip into Liberty is uneventful until we cross the Hope River. Just before the bridge, a large newly constructed billboard confronts us.

“
JOBLESS MEN KEEP MOVING. WE CAN'T TAKE CARE OF OUR OWN. —LIBERTY CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
.” I read the sign out loud and cringe, wondering how people will respond to a
jobless woman
. As in most small towns, people get employment through family and friends, but we have no family and not many friends.

The first stop I plan to make is the grocery store, which thankfully is still open. (So many of the stores are not.) As I cross the bridge, a sleek red Packard with a silver winged goddess on the hood comes up behind us and honks.
Why such a hurry?

On Main Street, I pull up to the curb and watch as a driver in black exits the Packard and opens the back door. A woman of about fifty, wearing a white coat and hat, gets out and waltzes into Ida May's House of Beauty. She trails a fur stole, and it occurs to me she could be a movie star, but then why would she be in Liberty?

“Okay, Dr. Blum. I have to go into the general store. You must stay here. Do not move from this seat! Do you understand?” I slow my speech, pounding out each word, take his chin in one hand, and turn his face to mine. “Do you understand? Don't move!” Of course he makes no response, and why do I think he would?

The little bell on the glass door of Bittman's Grocery rings when I open it, but there's no one behind the counter and many of the long wooden shelves are bare. “Hello!” A man wearing a clean, worn
brown apron steps out of the back carrying a case of canned pork and beans.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Bittman,” I say, and put on a bright face. “Do you remember me, Becky Myers? I was the home health nurse in Union County a few years ago.”

“Yes, of course. My wife, Lilly, went to your baby classes with our first child, and you were friends with Mrs. Blum. I was sorry to hear of her death and . . .” Here he hesitates. “And the doctor's infirmity. Mr. Linkous was in and told me what happened.”

The grocer is a tall, lean thirty-year-old with arms so long his wrists show at his cuffs. He has brown hair and brown eyes, and at a distance could be a ringer for the actor Gary Cooper.

“
Infirmity
is putting it nicely, because he can't speak or do anything for himself. I hoped by bringing him home, he might heal, but so far, there's little change.”

Bittman clears his throat and squints. “I heard about the mix-up with the bank and the doctor's house, and we are right sorry for that. Mr. Linkous feels bad too.” He looks around the empty grocery. “You probably noticed, we're one of the last places open . . . but we're still holding on.” Here he picks up a rag and starts wiping the counter, studying the pitted wood as if there were some spot that needed polishing.

“The doctor and I are living in Patience Murphy's old place. . . . I'll need a few pounds of white beans, a small ham bone, and a tin of lard . . . two pounds of flour and an onion. How much will that be?”

“One dollar and five cents. The ham bone is only nineteen cents a pound, a good deal.”

I make my purchases, still trying to get up my nerve to ask about work. Silence swallows the air between us. Finally, I spit out the words. “Do you know of any jobs, Mr. Bittman? I don't mean just nursing, anything at all. I'm our sole support now. . . .” I trail off and then add, almost under my breath, “I would even work in trade, take barter instead of cash. . . .”

“I'm sorry, Miss Becky. There's no work anywhere. You see how it is. Even
able-bodied men
can't find anything. Half the county has moved on. . . . Hey, Junior,” he calls. A little kid with red hair sticks his head though the open door of the back room.

“Bring out that box of apples for Miss Becky.”

“No, please. I can't afford them.”

“Oh, there's no charge. They're headed for the trash or Mr. Mintz's pigs. Bottom of the barrel went bad and spoiled, but if you cut off the rotten places you can make some nice applesauce. I'll carry them out to your car.”

“Well, thank you. Thank you so much. I'm sure we'll love them,” I murmur as we load the crate into the trunk. Bittman stares at the doctor through the passenger window, then taps the glass.

“Howdy, Doc.” When there's no response, he taps again and then shrugs. “You take care now, Miss Becky, and don't be a stranger.”

Three blocks down Main we pull up to the curb, this time at Stenger's Pharmacy. I repeat my instructions to my mute companion, this time shortening the command: “Stay!” Like he's Three Legs the dog. “Stay!”

As if the six-inch gap will entice passing customers in, the front door of the pharmacy is propped open. “Mr. Stenger?” I call, pushing it wider and looking around. Except for a scrawny orange cat on the counter, the shop appears vacant. “Mr. Stenger?” I call again louder, and a short, round man with a balding head and one lazy eye comes out of the back carrying a bucket and mop. He wears a long white cloth coat with a crooked red bow tie, and the
store smells like carbolic acid and something sweet, probably Lilly of the Valley Toilet Water. (I used to buy it here in better days.)

“Oh, hello. I didn't hear you come in. . . . Is that Becky Myers? Nurse Becky! I heard you were back.” He leans his mop against the wall, moves toward me, right arm outstretched and I shake his soft hand. My hands were soft once too, but as I look down I notice a little grime under the nails. Without hot running water,
I've become a country girl
.

“What can I do for you?” Stenger asks. “Is the doc all right? I heard he'd suffered some sort of fall.”

“No, not a fall. We don't know of any injury. Some of the specialists at Johns Hopkins thought he might have had a stroke. Others say it's catatonia, a neurological condition brought on by hysteria or maybe shock.”

“I know about catatonia. Part of my training was at the State Asylum for the Insane in Weston. You'd see those people, the catatonics, walking around carrying a doll or dancing with a broom. It's like they're ghosts.”

“Yes, that's what he's like, a ghost of himself. It's pitiful really.”

The pharmacist shakes his head and leans on the counter. “So what can I do for you, Miss Becky?”

“I need to find work.” I don't lead up to it this time, just dive right in.

“Whew! You and everyone else in the good old USA. Papers say twenty-five percent of the nation is unemployed, but in West Virginia it's worse.” He indicates the headlines in the
Charleston Gazette
on a newspaper rack in the corner:
UNEMPLOYMENT REACHES 80 PERCENT IN UNION COUNTY
.

“That's like no jobs at all. Eighty percent! Most of the mines have shut down. . . . Hear about the strike in Toledo?” He pushes last week's paper across the counter.
AUTO-LIGHT STRIKE IN TOLEDO. 2 DEAD. 200 INJURED
, reads the headline. “Six thousand union strikers fought fifteen hundred National Guardmen.”

“Listen, Mr. Stenger, I know it's bad all over, but I'm desperate. Can you think of any work at all?” The pharmacist turns back to his mop and bucket. “I wouldn't ask you, but we're almost out of money. We have no supplies put ahead and. . . .”

In better times I would never have gone on like this. Mr. Stenger sets the mop aside and reaches under his white pharmacist coat for his wallet.

“No, I didn't mean
that
! I have never asked for handouts. I just need a job.” He pulls out a two-bit piece and forces it into my hand. I have no choice but to accept it or the coin will fall in his bucket.

“Don't tell the missus,” he says, going back to his work. “You see what even a trained pharmacist has come to—I now mop my own floors.”

“I could do it. I would be glad to.”

“The store is closed now, Miss Myers.” He rings the water out of his mop and swishes it across the wooden floor, almost chasing me out, and we're both so embarrassed I don't say good-bye.

Despite the fact that this twenty-five cents will help keep us going for another week, it burns in my hand, and my cheeks burn too.
How embarrassing!
And Mr. Stenger's calculation of my ability to get work is more dismal than I imagined. I blink back the tears, ashamed by my weakness, and step off the sidewalk.

That's when it hits me. The passenger-side door of the Pontiac is half open and Dr. Blum is gone.

“Mr. Stenger!” I run back to the pharmacy and pound on the glass door. The pharmacist opens it, but holds the orange cat back with one foot. “The doctor! He's disappeared. I hate to ask you, but can
you help me find him? He could get run over or hurt by someone who doesn't understand his problem.” I wring my hands like a heroine in a silent movie.

“Now, now, Miss Myers. Don't cry. Liberty isn't very big. We'll find him.” He slips off his lab coat, locks up the pharmacy, and joins me on the cracked walk. “He can't have gone far. You head down to the courthouse and ask the fellows on the steps. I'll head up toward the church.”

Frantically, I hurry along past the closed sweetshop, the closed dry goods shop, and the volunteer firehouse, but Isaac has vanished! How many times have I wished to be free of him, now he's gone! I should have been watching him closer.

Embarrassed, I ask the men lounging on the benches if they've seen a strange fellow in a white shirt and tie, with a vacant look, walk by. They all shake their heads and look at me funny so I turn and run back to the car.

Where could the doctor have gone?
Like Mr. Stenger says, Liberty's not a very big town. You can pretty much see the length of Main by standing out in the street. Could he have wandered down an alley?

Just then I spy Mr. Stenger leading the doc by the arm in my direction.

“Where did you find him?”

“He was in the soup line down at the Saved by Faith Baptist Church, three blocks away. The fellows weren't sure if he smelled the hot food or just wandered there by accident, but one of the drifters gave him a cup and pushed him in line. They could see there was something wrong with him, thought maybe he was deaf and dumb.” The doctor still carries an empty tin cup and there's food on his face.

Stenger eyes the cup. “No one knew he was a physician, thought he was a bum just panhandling through town, until he got up to the front of the line and two of the church ladies serving
food recognized him. They'd heard you were back so they sat him in a chair with a cup full of beans and that's where I found him.”

“He fed himself?” I ask, amazed. “He hasn't done that since he took his spell.” Stenger doesn't get the significance. “You fed yourself!” I say to Blum, almost laughing, but he doesn't seem to hear.