The Reluctant Midwife (6 page)

Outside, another day fades. Inside, flames crackle in the heater stove and there's the cozy smell of woodsmoke. Yesterday, I discovered a small pile of split oak under the porch, enough to build an evening fire, but it won't last long, and hopefully it will soon be warm enough that, except for cooking, we won't want a fire. Lamp oil will always be needed, but for now we have the three candles I brought from Perrysville. I am loathe to spend our last dollar on kerosene, because we might need it for food.

I let out a breath and stand up. “Bedtime,” I tell the doctor and begin our ritual.

First, we march to the outhouse. I wait outside while Blum relieves himself. Then he waits for me. This is progress, I have to admit; I used to have to stand right beside him and hold his male organ. Next, we return to the kitchen to wash in the white enamel washbowl and then brush our teeth with baking soda.

This is one of the things Dr. Blum and I have in common . . . or
had in common
, I should say. . . . We once shared a keen desire for scrupulous oral hygiene, and I still spend at least two minutes on each of us brushing with our Reputation toothbrushes. Isaac sits
on a wooden kitchen chair in a trance with his mouth as wide as a baby bird's. I actually think he likes it.

Finally, I remove his clothes and pull on his long white cotton nightshirt. Then I lead him to the sofa and cover him with Patience's green quilt. (He still refuses to go up the stairs to the other bedroom.)

My day is almost over. I blow out the candle and for a minute sit in the rocking chair next to him. “Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep . . .” I whisper. “If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. . . .” Before I'm through with the children's prayer, Isaac is already snoring.

That's when my real prayer begins, a prayer with few words. “Thank you for all that we have and help us get through tomorrow. Help us. Help us get through tomorrow.”

Tomorrow
, I think.
Tomorrow or the next day, though I dread it, I will look for work again
.

At dawn as yellow light slides over the mountains, I wake to the sound of someone clunking around downstairs.

Yanked out of a net of strange dreams, I sit up in bed, the hair on the back of my neck standing on end. Definitely movement . . . and I fear the worst . . . that one of the traveling men has come into our house, one or several!

A woman alone with a companion who's no help; we are sitting ducks. And where's our guard dog, Three Legs, when I need him? I yank on my pants, pull a sweater over my head, and rush down the stairs, yelling more aggressively than I feel, “Who's there! Who the hell is down there?”

I discover Dr. Blum standing in the middle of the front room looking lost and holding his penis. Three Legs stands at his feet looking up with a big, wet grin.

“For god's sake, Isaac!” I admonish. “What the hell are you doing?” It's clear what he's doing, he's trying to go to the bathroom, but we have no indoor toilet and no porcelain potty either. Still upset, I roughly push him out to the porch and point to the rail, waiting to see if he will get the idea. He doesn't.

“Oh, Isaac!
Come on!
” I howl as he pees on the porch floorboards. Then I let out the breath I was holding. “Sorry . . . You just are so much work to take care of!”

“The truth is, I was scared, you know?” I continue my monologue. “I was scared! I pictured a couple of vagrants stumbling around downstairs, rough men who could hurt us.” I am still shaking, almost crying, and I have to wipe my eyes before I can see. Finally, I calm myself.

It's then that I realize the importance of Dr. Blum's action. He was actually trying to take care of himself. Somewhere between unbuttoning his long underwear and opening the door and walking to the outhouse, he apparently forgot what he was doing, but he was actually trying.
He was trying
.

“Come on, Blum,” I command. “Just get in the car.” The doctor and I are dressed for another day of job hunting, and though I put on a little makeup, my mood is not great. After talking to Mr. Stenger and Mr. Bittman last time, I feel sure that looking for work will be futile, but I have to keep trying.

I stop with one foot on the running board. A pickup, throwing
dust, is moving our way. It pulls up in front of the gate, and a muscular man with thick, dark hair and a small beard jumps out. He's wearing the regulation farmer's coveralls in striped denim and the cloth stretches across his biceps. “You the nurse?” There's the bulge of chewing tobacco in his right cheek.

I fold my arms across my chest. “I am.”

“My name's Simon Markey from over Snake Hollow. My wife's paining bad and Patience Murphy, the midwife, said I should get you. She said to tell you
come fast
.”

“What's the trouble? Is Patience already there?”

“No, ma'am. She's in Delmont delivering another baby. I called her at home and the vet told me where she was and then when I tracked her down, she told me to fetch you, that you'd sit with my woman until she could get there.”

Oh, Patience! How could you do this? Even looking for work sounds more fun than sitting with a woman in labor
.

“
She'll likely be back in Union County within an hour or two. We need you bad, ma'am.”

“Is this your wife's first baby?”

“Yes and she's not doing well. Please come. She's crying something awful.”

“Did you leave her alone?”

“Neighbor girl's sitting with her now, but she don't know nothin'. Just a kid. Never saw nothin' born before but a calf and a set of kittens.”

I let out air in a long sigh.
My favorite things!
Blood, goo, fear of something being wrong with the baby, and a screaming woman . . .

“Well, I'll have to bring my charge. He's disabled and I have no one to watch him.”

“You mean Dr. Blum? I guess I can mind him if you tend to my honey. He's not dangerous, is he?”

“You've heard about him?”

“Most of Union County has by now. They say he's not himself. Brain injury in an auto accident or something.” I don't stop to contradict another variation of Isaac's story. It's as good an explanation as any, and though Blum wasn't actually
in
the accident he became a victim.

“Okay, Isaac, change of plans.” I run back inside for my black leather nurse's bag. “We're going to a delivery. Hopefully, Patience will be there soon.”

Maybe we'll earn a dollar, I think. Maybe Mr. Markey is one of the few farmers in the area who are still doing well. Who knows? I consider with optimism, maybe we'll earn a whole fiver.

The anxious father-to-be takes off in his truck, spitting gravel, and I follow in the Pontiac, trying to keep up.

The Markey home is a surprise. It rests on a flat overlooking the Hope Valley and though his road, “Snake Hollow,” sounds forbidding, the setting is beautiful. The two-story brick dwelling, once painted white, looks out across the hills to the spruce, pine, and hemlock mountains on the other side of the river, and his fields are green and cut short by the black-and-white cattle that graze there. I'm just getting out of the car, taking in the idyllic setting, when a scream cuts the fresh air.

“Eeeeeeee! I can't do this anymore! Simon Markey, you better get in here! I can't take it, I tell you!”

Simon looks at me apologetically. “You go on in, Nurse. I'll watch your mister.”

He's not my
mister
, I want to tell him, but decide to let it go.
God knows what the rest of Union County thinks. Simon hands me my satchel and nods toward the house. A thin, dark-haired girl with a prominent overbite runs out the door.

“Gotta go now, Mr. Markey. Ma will be needing me at home.” She doesn't stop to say good-bye. Just runs off down the dirt road on her bare feet, her black braids flying. I can't say I blame her. With the next scream, I feel like running myself.

“What's your wife's name again?”

“Dahlila.”

“Dahlila,” I whisper under my breath.
Dahlila, you better stop screaming, because I can't take it
.

“Hello?” The screen door creaks behind me as I enter a well-appointed parlor with a new blue-embossed davenport, matching wing chair and rocker, oak end tables, and a whatnot shelf with a collection of glass and ceramic dogs and cats. The floor is covered with a flowered carpet too nice to walk on, and in the corner there's a shiny coal stove with a silver ornament on top. A radio on an end table is turned up high and a blues song, “Hard Times Now,” blares throughout the house, probably Simon Markey's attempt to drown out the screams.

“You heard about a job, now you is on your way. Twenty men after the same job, all in the same ol' day. Hard times, hard times . . .”
(It could be my theme song.)

“Dahlila? It's Nurse Becky Myers, come to sit with you. Patience, the midwife, sent me.” My reference to Patience is supposed to give me legitimacy, though in the arena of childbirth, I'm a fish out of water.

“Dahlila?” I call softly again, pushing the door open at the top of the landing.

“Are you okay?”

“No, I'm
not
okay! Do you think I sound okay? I thought this was supposed to be easy.”

A woman in her midtwenties, with one long blond braid coming undone, sits in the middle of a rumpled four-poster bed. The sheets and blankets have fallen to the floor and her bottom half is naked. On top, she still wears a striped pink satin chemise.

“You thought having a baby would be easy?”

“My sister says it is. I can just hear her. ‘If the doc hadn't checked me, I wouldn't have known I was in labor! Forty-five minutes later my baby was born.' ”

“Well, that isn't usually the case. Mostly it takes a long time, at least half a day, sometimes two.”

“Two!” She begins the high-pitched wail again and I realize I've made a tactical error. “No. No. No! I can't do it. I won't. Get that man in here. Simon, I will kill you! I swear I will. This is all his fault for wanting a son.”

She starts to huff with contractions and I wonder when Patience is going to get here. She better hurry or I'll have to do this delivery myself. My stomach grips at the thought of it, and my eyes get tight around the edges.

“Dahlila,” I say when her contraction is over, being careful not to upset her again. “Watching you, I have a feeling your baby will be here sooner rather than later. I'd like to get the bed made and things ready for Patience. Do you think you could help me? Just be a little quieter so I can think.”

The woman drops her shoulders and takes a big breath, then another. She's has a Northern European look, lean and tall, the kind of woman you'd picture in a movie, lounging against a bar in a low-cut dress, only her flawless skin is makeup-less and her blond hair is tangled and matted. “You think so? You really think the baby might come soon?”

“Oh, yes. I'm almost sure of it. When did the pains start?”

“This morning about six when I got up to use the bathroom.”

“Has your water bag broken?”

“No, nothing.”

“Have you voided recently?”

The girl looks embarrassed. “You mean tinkled?”

“Yes, urinated or defecated. Where do you usually go? Do you have an indoor water closet?”

“Oh, yes. Simon had it built when we first married. He is so good to me.”

“Why don't you go down the hall and see if you can
tinkle
while I change the linens. It's not good to labor with a full bladder, makes it hurt more too.” Here she stops for a minute to do her huffing and I glance at my watch. The contractions are every four minutes.

Grateful I thought to bring Dr. Blum's delivery pack in my nurse's bag, I quickly lay out what I think Patience will need while Dahlila goes down the hall to the bathroom. “Mr. Markey,” I yell down the stairs. “Do you have hot water and sterilized linens? I want to get every thing ready.” No answer. “Mr. Markey?”

Tarnation! Where is he?

Two doors away, I can still hear the laboring mother breathing through her contractions. “Stay right there on the commode, Dahlila. I have to be sure we have warm water and a few other things.”

“Mmmmmm,” the girl says.

It takes two trips up and down the stairs, but at last I'm back in the bedroom with a pot of hot water and the bundle of sterilized sheets and rags that Dahlila must have fixed up.

“You okay?” I yell in her direction, though I figure she is, since she's no longer screaming.

“Mmmmmmmmmmm,” she says again.

There's nothing like the efficiency of a nurse, and within minutes the bed is prepared, padded, and ready. I check the cradle in the corner and open the curtains, hoping to catch sight of Patience speeding this way, but there are just the green peaceful fields. Simon and Dr. Blum are nowhere in sight. Maybe it's better that way.

Just then, it comes to me that I haven't yet checked the fetal heartbeat, which is actually the first thing I
should
have done, so I dig out my stethoscope and hurry down the hall to escort Dahlila back to the bedroom. I'm alarmed when I get there to see her leaning over the sink, her fingers gripping the porcelain.

“Come on, Dahlila, let's get you back in bed.” I half pull her down the hall to the bedroom, but before she can climb back into the four-poster, she has another contraction and gets down on her hands and knees on the floor. “Oh no, that's not the way! Look, I've made the clean sheets all nice for you, and I need to check the baby's heart. . . . Honey!” Dahlila rotates her hips in a strange, erotic way.

“Mmmmmmmmm!” she groans.

“Honey . . . ?” Then her water bursts and all hell breaks loose.