The Midwife of Hope River
Page 87
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Drunk with righteous indignation, I enjoy the hot rush at first, but the cool night air sobers me.
“Miss Patience,” I hear Bitsy calling into the black. “Patience?”
Maybe I should get on Star and ride somewhere . . . but where? To the vet’s? I don’t think so . . . instead, I head down across the pasture to the creek and sit on a flat rock, listening to the water. There’s the smell of the fallen leaves on the ground and frost coming. When my butt gets too cold, I wander back to the barn.
It’s not just that Bitsy did a delivery without me. She’s right, the woman needed her, and who am I to be so sanctimonious? It’s everything else . . . Shivering, I quietly pull open the barn door and seek the warmth of the hay.
“Miss Patience!” Bitsy calls out the back again. “Patience?” She sounds like she’s crying.
Prepared to sleep curled in the loft, I grab Star’s horse blanket and climb up the ladder. The real issue isn’t Bitsy doing a solo delivery; it’s that each day I feel her slipping further away. And why shouldn’t she leave? She has a community with the Hazel Patch folk. She has her brother Thomas in Philly. She has her lover, Byrd Bowlin!
I squirm and turn over to get comfortable. That’s when I feel it, not a kick or a thump, more of a tickle. It’s been over twenty years, but the feeling’s unmistakable. I place my hands on my lower abdomen. There’s something moving inside me, something alive.
Quickening
How could I have not noticed? But then I haven’t been stomach sick or any more tired than usual. And my periods, always irregular, when did I have my last one? The flutter inside happens again! No need to figure it out. There was only one night I could have gotten pregnant . . . Through the cracks in the barn walls, I see the lights in the house go off.
“Moonlight,” I whisper to the cow downstairs. “We’re going to have a baby!” For a few minutes, I lie in the dark, overjoyed, but that doesn’t last.
Fears swiftly besiege me like wasps dropping out of their paper nest. How can I tell the vet he’s going to be a father? But how can I not tell him? On the other hand, how can I raise a child alone? Despair follows fear. The shame of it! The gossip . . . I’ll be an outcast. My short-lived career as a midwife will be over.
Though it’s chilly in the barn, I wait a few hours, until Bitsy must be asleep, then sneak into the house, crawl between the warm covers, and lie staring out the window. Maybe Bitsy will help me. She likes kids . . . no, she wants to be with Bowlin. How about Becky Myers? No, she’s too proper, and anyway she’s far away in Virginia by now. Mrs. Maddock? Ridiculous! I’ve had one intimate talk with her. That makes us best friends?
In the morning, while Bitsy’s out in the barn milking Moonlight, I pore through my obstetrical textbook looking for a way out. I try to remember what Mrs. Kelly told me about tansy and pennyroyal, two herbs that might cause my period to start.
My recollection is that she once advised Molly Doyle, who already had nine children, to make a strong brew of both herbs and then drink it three times daily. “The tincture will sometimes restore regularity,” she told the frightened woman. “God will decide if you are to have another child.”
At the time I was shocked; they were both good Catholics. I asked Mrs. Kelly, in the self-righteous way that the young will do, “How could you, a midwife, a bringer of life into the world, make such a suggestion? You’re basically telling her how to have an abortion.”
“You could look at it that way,” Sophie responded, “or you could think of the mother as a person. Can the poor woman survive another baby? Catholic, Baptist, or Hindu, every woman has her limits. And can the family manage to absorb and nourish another child without becoming paupers? The herbs aren’t that strong. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t. It’s up to the Lord who lives and who doesn’t.”
Now here I am considering the concoction myself. I press my hand just above my pubic bone. How many months has it been since I was with Hester during the thunderstorm? Early August, late July, and it’s now mid-October. Around fourteen weeks! According to DeLee, too early to feel movement. Too late for a miscarriage. But Dr. DeLee doesn’t know everything.
October 13, 1930. Waning moon still high in the pink sky at dawn.
I might as well record it. Day before yesterday, Bitsy delivered her first baby alone. The mother is Mildred Miller’s cousin Fiona Lincoln from Cold Springs. Very short labor, less than one hour. No time for me to come. No problems. Present were Mildred Miller and Bitsy. Male infant. Weight unknown.
Liberty
Air crisp as an apple right off the tree. The smell of frost on the fallen leaves. It’s almost dark, and over the mountain, the three-quarters moon rises, big as a goose egg.
“Is that Maddock?” Bitsy asks as we ride up Wild Rose Road on the way back from the grove where we have been gathering hazelnuts. We never talked about our fight, just got up the next morning and went on with our work. Then we got so busy cutting wood, it seemed as though it never happened. Bitsy still doesn’t know my condition. A gunnysack, half full of the small soft-shelled sweet nuts, rattles over my lap. “Is that Maddock? There by the fence.”
The man stands at his mailbox wearing a dark coat and hat; all I can see in the dim light is his white, deadpan face. He puts out his hand like a traffic cop.
“Sheriff Hardman’s looking for you,” he announces, and the peace of the evening drains out of me. This is the last thing I was expecting. With my worries about my pregnancy, our other troubles have taken a backseat. The lawman’s visit could be anything: more questions about Thomas, questions about the baby I buried behind the barn, or even the long-feared arrest for what happened on Blair Mountain.
“Do you know what he wanted?” I act as though it’s no big concern, as though Hardman is likely to visit any old time, but inside I grow cold.
“The grocer’s wife is in labor, the blind woman. Her husband, Mr. Bittman, asked Hardman to get the midwife right away. My Sarah told him I would drive you.” He looks away, embarrassed to seem neighborly. My stomach is still in knots, but maybe the copper was only trying to be helpful.
Forty-five minutes later, after rushing home to clean up, get our birth kit, and take care of the animals, we bump into Liberty in Mr. Maddock’s Ford pickup. The entrance to the Bittman apartment, located above the grocery, is up the back stairs.
“Miss Patience,” I hear Bitsy calling into the black. “Patience?”
Maybe I should get on Star and ride somewhere . . . but where? To the vet’s? I don’t think so . . . instead, I head down across the pasture to the creek and sit on a flat rock, listening to the water. There’s the smell of the fallen leaves on the ground and frost coming. When my butt gets too cold, I wander back to the barn.
It’s not just that Bitsy did a delivery without me. She’s right, the woman needed her, and who am I to be so sanctimonious? It’s everything else . . . Shivering, I quietly pull open the barn door and seek the warmth of the hay.
“Miss Patience!” Bitsy calls out the back again. “Patience?” She sounds like she’s crying.
Prepared to sleep curled in the loft, I grab Star’s horse blanket and climb up the ladder. The real issue isn’t Bitsy doing a solo delivery; it’s that each day I feel her slipping further away. And why shouldn’t she leave? She has a community with the Hazel Patch folk. She has her brother Thomas in Philly. She has her lover, Byrd Bowlin!
I squirm and turn over to get comfortable. That’s when I feel it, not a kick or a thump, more of a tickle. It’s been over twenty years, but the feeling’s unmistakable. I place my hands on my lower abdomen. There’s something moving inside me, something alive.
Quickening
How could I have not noticed? But then I haven’t been stomach sick or any more tired than usual. And my periods, always irregular, when did I have my last one? The flutter inside happens again! No need to figure it out. There was only one night I could have gotten pregnant . . . Through the cracks in the barn walls, I see the lights in the house go off.
“Moonlight,” I whisper to the cow downstairs. “We’re going to have a baby!” For a few minutes, I lie in the dark, overjoyed, but that doesn’t last.
Fears swiftly besiege me like wasps dropping out of their paper nest. How can I tell the vet he’s going to be a father? But how can I not tell him? On the other hand, how can I raise a child alone? Despair follows fear. The shame of it! The gossip . . . I’ll be an outcast. My short-lived career as a midwife will be over.
Though it’s chilly in the barn, I wait a few hours, until Bitsy must be asleep, then sneak into the house, crawl between the warm covers, and lie staring out the window. Maybe Bitsy will help me. She likes kids . . . no, she wants to be with Bowlin. How about Becky Myers? No, she’s too proper, and anyway she’s far away in Virginia by now. Mrs. Maddock? Ridiculous! I’ve had one intimate talk with her. That makes us best friends?
In the morning, while Bitsy’s out in the barn milking Moonlight, I pore through my obstetrical textbook looking for a way out. I try to remember what Mrs. Kelly told me about tansy and pennyroyal, two herbs that might cause my period to start.
My recollection is that she once advised Molly Doyle, who already had nine children, to make a strong brew of both herbs and then drink it three times daily. “The tincture will sometimes restore regularity,” she told the frightened woman. “God will decide if you are to have another child.”
At the time I was shocked; they were both good Catholics. I asked Mrs. Kelly, in the self-righteous way that the young will do, “How could you, a midwife, a bringer of life into the world, make such a suggestion? You’re basically telling her how to have an abortion.”
“You could look at it that way,” Sophie responded, “or you could think of the mother as a person. Can the poor woman survive another baby? Catholic, Baptist, or Hindu, every woman has her limits. And can the family manage to absorb and nourish another child without becoming paupers? The herbs aren’t that strong. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t. It’s up to the Lord who lives and who doesn’t.”
Now here I am considering the concoction myself. I press my hand just above my pubic bone. How many months has it been since I was with Hester during the thunderstorm? Early August, late July, and it’s now mid-October. Around fourteen weeks! According to DeLee, too early to feel movement. Too late for a miscarriage. But Dr. DeLee doesn’t know everything.
October 13, 1930. Waning moon still high in the pink sky at dawn.
I might as well record it. Day before yesterday, Bitsy delivered her first baby alone. The mother is Mildred Miller’s cousin Fiona Lincoln from Cold Springs. Very short labor, less than one hour. No time for me to come. No problems. Present were Mildred Miller and Bitsy. Male infant. Weight unknown.
Liberty
Air crisp as an apple right off the tree. The smell of frost on the fallen leaves. It’s almost dark, and over the mountain, the three-quarters moon rises, big as a goose egg.
“Is that Maddock?” Bitsy asks as we ride up Wild Rose Road on the way back from the grove where we have been gathering hazelnuts. We never talked about our fight, just got up the next morning and went on with our work. Then we got so busy cutting wood, it seemed as though it never happened. Bitsy still doesn’t know my condition. A gunnysack, half full of the small soft-shelled sweet nuts, rattles over my lap. “Is that Maddock? There by the fence.”
The man stands at his mailbox wearing a dark coat and hat; all I can see in the dim light is his white, deadpan face. He puts out his hand like a traffic cop.
“Sheriff Hardman’s looking for you,” he announces, and the peace of the evening drains out of me. This is the last thing I was expecting. With my worries about my pregnancy, our other troubles have taken a backseat. The lawman’s visit could be anything: more questions about Thomas, questions about the baby I buried behind the barn, or even the long-feared arrest for what happened on Blair Mountain.
“Do you know what he wanted?” I act as though it’s no big concern, as though Hardman is likely to visit any old time, but inside I grow cold.
“The grocer’s wife is in labor, the blind woman. Her husband, Mr. Bittman, asked Hardman to get the midwife right away. My Sarah told him I would drive you.” He looks away, embarrassed to seem neighborly. My stomach is still in knots, but maybe the copper was only trying to be helpful.
Forty-five minutes later, after rushing home to clean up, get our birth kit, and take care of the animals, we bump into Liberty in Mr. Maddock’s Ford pickup. The entrance to the Bittman apartment, located above the grocery, is up the back stairs.
