The Reluctant Midwife Page 11

  “Cream?” Willa asks, not her usual talkative self. I pull out one of the wooden chairs. Taking a break with Willa has become a weekly routine and I admire this woman who is raising her daughters and caring for the farm with her husband away.

  “So how’s it going?” I start the conservation. Willa shrugs and when she flips her long blond hair back, I see bruises along the side of her face.

  “Willa!” I point to the area.

  “What?”

  “Your face and neck.”

  “What?” When she covers her neck with her hand, the sleeve of her worn blue-dotted dress falls back and I see more discolorations on her white skin. Purple iris. Pale lilac.

  “Willa, what happened?”

  “It’s nothing. The old man was home.” She turns toward the sink so I can’t see her face.

  “Your husband? He was home? He didn’t hit you in the stomach did he?”

  “No, he wouldn’t hit me there. He knows I’m pregnant again and he thinks it’s a boy.”

  “But what got into him? I thought when he came home it was a happy time for you and the girls.”

  “The children maybe. They love their daddy.”

  “And you? I thought you loved him.”

  She turns and looks right at me now. “Sometimes I do, but not today. Would you love a man who makes you get all dolled up and does this to you? He’s angry all the time and he takes his anger out on me. Each time we do it, he gets rougher in bed. He’s in town now, probably getting loaded, throwing away money we need.”

  I listen with a poker face. It’s something you learn when you are a nurse. Even if the wound is deep and infected, even if it smells bad, you don’t let your revulsion show.

  “You can’t go on like this, Willa. He could really hurt you sometime.” Or kill you, I’m thinking. “And the girls. Do the girls know?”

  “Oh, yeah. I’m sure they know. He treats me bad during the day, especially if he’s had a little hooch, and he treats me worse at night. That’s where he has me. I never cry out. He knows I won’t. It would scare the kids.

  “We used to be goofy for each other, you know, but now he worries about money and losing the farm. Then he drinks.”

  “You told me that he works for the PWA on the highway.”

  “No, he quit there. He’s home for a few days, then he’ll start a different job at Bear Run, a laborer’s position, hauling rock, building a new home for Mr. Kaufman, the big-shot department store owner in Pittsburgh. It’s harder work, but a little better pay.”

  There’s a ruckus on the porch. “It’s my turn.” Susie and Sunny are fighting over Dr. Blum.

  “You sat in his lap last time!” Sunny clings to the doctor’s shirt, almost pulling it off. Susie has tears in her eyes. Sally and Sonya are howling with laughter, but Isaac just sits there, like the monument of Abraham Lincoln.

  “Oh, holy bejeezus!” Willa curses, leaping out of her chair. “Those vixens are so starved for manly attention, they’d follow the mailman into town. I don’t know what I’m going to do with them. . . . Girls! Off!” she hollers and scatters the children away with a broom.

  I follow her out, straighten the doctor’s clothes, and smooth down his hair. “I guess we’d better get going.”

  “I’m so sorry,” she says to me. “Say your apologies, children.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Beg pardon.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Dr. Blum.” That’s me, tapping the physician on the shoulder. “Time to go.” The doctor stands.

  “I’m so sorry,” Willa says again.

  “No harm done,” I reassure, giving the woman a gentle hug so as not to hurt her bruised body. “You need me for anything, send word through Patience, the midwife. I mean anything. She has a phone. You know how to get her? There may be a time you have to get out of here.” I whisper this last part.

  All four of the girls walk us to the swinging bridge, the towheaded little ones holding Isaac’s big hands. When I look back, their mother stands leaning against the peeling porch, her hand on her neck.

  Boom

  It’s Independence Day in Liberty and the Hesters, Dr. Blum, and I stand in front of the pharmacy watching the parade. It begins with the Liberty High School band, wearing their worn dark blue uniforms, playing “The Stars and Stripes Forever.” Then the Negro Drum and Bugle Corp from Delmont struts by dressed in spotless white shirts and black pants with black berets, raising their knees high and holding their proud heads back. Finally, near the end, come the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Charley Roote, dressed in his Spanish-American War uniform, is one of my delivery clients, and he catches my eye and winks.

  “Daniel was in the Great War,” Patience whispers.

  “He never talks about it,” I comment.

  “He can’t. He’s not what you’d call a military man. He tells me stories sometimes, though. He was in charge of the horses for his platoon. One million men were wounded and died, but eight million horses also perished. It was awful. I think he felt worse for the animals than his fellow soldiers. At least the men knew what they were fighting for, or thought they did.”

  The horses in the parade come last, all decked out with red, white, and blue ribbons in their manes and tails, and the vet, perking up, points out the ones that he knows or has treated. Little Danny is amused by their droppings.

  Now it’s almost dark and you can hear the old-timey fiddle music from a few blocks away where Sycamore has been blocked off for a square dance.

  “How about here, ladies?” It’s Daniel, spreading a quilt out among the other blankets on the lawn around the courthouse where people are picnicking.

  “Looks good,” Patience agrees, and we lay out our small meal of cold baked beans, biscuits, and new potato salad.

  A few minutes later, our meal is interrupted by cruel words. “Sit down, bitch! I can’t see through you.”

  All heads turn, and in the growing dusk, I see Willa Hucknell, tending her blond brood, a few blankets away. That must be Mr. Hucknell! I’ve never met him before, and his words rip like a razor through the peaceful families eating their Fourth of July suppers. “I said sit down!”

  The man, a handsome freckled-faced guy wearing a white fedora and white shirt open at the throat, sways above the picnic blanket like he’s two sheets to the wind. “Are you listening, bitch? Are you listening?” He gives the woman a whack across her head. Daniel jumps up, as do several other men, even Blum and, yes, even Patience. Danny covers his ears and I pull him into my lap.

  “Alfred . . . please!” Willa Hucknell begs. She must be so embarrassed, I think. To be treated so roughly in public would hurt more than the slap.

  “You fuckin’ ’shamed of me?” He slaps her again. What’s got into him?

  “Hey there, Alfred. You old son of a gun!” Daniel Hester winds his way through the crowd to get to the Hucknells, trying to defuse the situation. Blum follows like a shadow, increasing their bulk, if not their power. “Ain’t seen much of you lately, Al. Had any more trouble with that three-teated cow?” Hester’s playing the good ol’ boy. He never says “ain’t” at home.

  Mr. Hucknell mumbles something surly and plunks himself down, and Daniel turns back to our quilt, thinking the disturbance is over, but he’s wrong. Loud enough for the whole crowd to hear, Hucknell curses, “Fucking Doctor Hester, the veterinarian, but that cow never was right after he treated her. Charged me ten dollars, the quack.”

  Daniel whips back. “Excuse me. What did you say?”

  A few more people rise to see what’s happening, and some of the mothers lead their children away. There’s a nasal laugh up front and a short, stocky man yells, “Fight!”

  Here Patience gently pulls on Daniel’s shirtsleeve. She’s wearing her second-best dress, a navy blue shirtwaist with tiny white flowers, and in the dusk the white flowers look like stars.

  “He killed out best stallion, Devil, too.” The nasal voice is louder.

  “Those are the Bishop brother
s,” Patience whispers and points into the crowd. “They’d love to start trouble.” A beer bottle flies and shatters on the courthouse steps and at the same time Hucknell jumps up and pushes Daniel and Daniel pushes him back.

  Then all hell breaks loose. Boom! Hucknell hits the vet in the face with his fist as the first of the fireworks goes off at the fairground. Boom! A white trail of light shoots into the night as two men rush forward and knock Daniel down. Boom! The trail of light bursts into red, white, and blue flowers, illuminating the crowd. Boom! Another skyrocket goes up. Blum gets into the scuffle and shows his new strength when he grabs one of the Bishop brothers and throws him through the air. Boom!

  “Oh, shit!” Patience yells, heading into the melee, and I pull her back before she gets hurt.

  “Somebody get the sheriff,” a woman screams. Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!

  Then two more men rush forward, heading into the throng. The bigger of the two puts his size twelve boot in our potato salad while the small guy busts his head right into Blum’s left kidney, a dangerous place, but the doctor swings around and traps the fellow in a headlock.

  Boys on the courthouse steps are chanting, “Fight! Fight!” and by the rocket’s red glare, bombs bursting in air, the melee gets wilder. It’s as bad as a dogfight, and although originally it started with Mr. Hucknell and Daniel, all the men on the lawn are enjoying it.

  Boom! Gold and silver blossoms light up the sky.

  Boom! Red, white, and blue bits of burning confetti float down through the air.

  Danny is crying.

  Boom! White turns into red.

  Boom! Boom! Boom! BOOM!

  Then in the distance a siren goes off. The sheriff, alerted to the disturbance, is coming this way.

  “Hester!” Patience yells.

  “Isaac!” I try, but the men pay no attention.

  The siren gets closer, the rotating red and blue lights of the squad car adding to the fireworks as the crowd rapidly scatters.

  “Later!” growls one of the men moving off. The vet kicks him in the butt and I swear Isaac laughs.

  “I can’t believe you did that!” Patience berates her husband in the backseat of the Pontiac as we drive toward home. I’m at the wheel with Blum at my side. “You could’ve been arrested and locked in jail or, worse yet, had to pay a big fine for disorderly conduct.”

  Daniel grins his lopsided grin, and Patience, I notice in the rearview mirror, is smiling too.

  “You think paying a fine would be worse than me behind bars?”

  “Daddy was bad.”

  “You’re right, my little man. Dr. Blum and Daddy should have controlled themselves. We’re lucky no one got hurt. But goddamn that Alfred Hucknell! I can’t stand to see a man hit a woman, then he called me a quack! The final straw was when the Bishop brothers got into it!”

  “I’ll admit when that slob stepped in my potato salad, I saw red,” Patience adds.

  “Boom!” says Dr. Blum, and shocks the pants off all of us.

  14

  Shame

  Dark night and the wind slams into our little house from the west. I’ve been awake in bed for hours, my mind skittering from one worry to another. It’s not like we’re starving. We get tomatoes, carrots, new potatoes, and greens from the garden. Daniel brings us eggs and milk twice a week in exchange for Isaac’s help with the vet work, and the fish have been a great addition to our diet, but we have so little cash money for kerosene, gasoline, sugar, cornmeal, and beans. I am really worried about what we will do this winter.

  The delivery job is keeping us going, but just barely. There’s got to be something else. I come full circle to the one place I haven’t tried yet, the CCC camp.

  I try to remember the name of the officer I met in Stenger’s Pharmacy? Mr. Wolfe? No, Captain Wolfe. I was reluctant at first to go out to the camp, because of the distance and because it sounded like he wanted volunteers, but now it seems only sensible to at least see if I can get another paying job. Really, it isn’t that far, just three or four miles past Mrs. Stone’s place.

  Across the hall, Blum snores lightly, the sound of a two-man saw cutting pine.

  I picture his body, changed with the physical work. Poverty and the mountain air must agree with him. . . . Some might even find him attractive.

  The wind slams the house again. Then thunder and lightning shake the window glass. The storm must be close. I pull the sheet up under my chin, remembering Mr. Hucknell and the fight, picturing the bruises I observed on Willa’s neck. I’m a public health nurse, for god’s sake, or used to be! Shouldn’t I go to Sheriff Hardman? Would he do anything?

  I run my hands over my own neck, feeling bruises long gone. It stays with me still, like a lump of black coal. The shame of it. I never told anyone.

  The year was 1918 and soldiers were beginning to straggle back from the war. First came my brother Darwin, who returned from Europe without a scratch, but was struck down by the Spanish flu and died at a naval base in Boston a few months later. Twenty-five million died from the epidemic worldwide; twenty-five million in just a few years!

  Then, before the grass even sprouted on Darwin’s grave, my other brother, William, was killed in the Second Battle of the Marne. It broke Father’s heart, the loss of his sons. He closed his practice, drank himself into oblivion, and passed of a stroke three months later.

  I wore black, and it almost undid me, my whole family gone, but then David came home and I wore bright yellow. He was my family now and, like a daffodil, I wanted to make him happy.

  We sold Father’s house and moved back into our little place on High Street. We were young and in love, so I thought it would be fun, but David had changed. He wasn’t the man who had left me. The first thing I noted was that he delegated all the decisions about our home to me.

  “Sure, babe, whatever color you want. A red door, a green door. It doesn’t matter.”

  “Fine, buy a new coal heater. We can afford it. Whatever you think.”

  He didn’t shave, grew a thick, dark beard, refused to go out, and unless I purposely made a lot of noise in the kitchen, he didn’t get up until noon. When I talked about restarting his medical practice his answer was always the same: “Couple of weeks. Couple of months, but not just yet. I need to rest.” He shook his head and I wondered if he still heard the sound of gunshots and grenades, tanks and wounded men screaming.

  Gone was the laughter I remembered, the dancing, and the joy in all things beautiful in the Vermont countryside. Secretly I was hoping for a child, something to heal us, but my husband was withdrawn and didn’t care to be intimate, a big change for him.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” I’d ask as we lay on our backs in our bed in the dark, not touching.

  “What?”

  “The war. What you did. What you saw.”

  “It’s over now.” He would kiss me gently on the cheek, almost like a sister, but he never wanted to be touched himself, and he never tried to enter me. In the night, I would wake and see him at the window, staring out into the street, smoking a Lucky Strike, a sentry on guard.

  After three months, I decided I should move ahead with the practice. If David could just get started seeing patients, I was sure it would take his mind off the war. In a bold move, I leased a three-room office a block off Main.

  The summer before, wanting to contribute to the cause, I’d gone to Vassar for the wartime intensive-nursing course, but the conflict ended before I could enlist. Now, I reasoned, I could be David’s nurse.

  I signed the lease for the office in December, but by February nothing had happened. First, David needed to renew his medical license. Then he had to reapply for privileges at the hospital. These were his excuses for inaction.

  Finally, one evening in front of the fire, I decided to have it out. “What’s going on?” I asked, confronting him.

  David shifts in his chair and hides behind the Brattleboro Reformer. “I just need some time.”

  “But I want to understand. I
want to help. It’s been five months, but you resist me at every turn.”

  David rises and stands over me, his fists balled. “You can’t understand. You weren’t there. You fucking weren’t there! In one day twenty thousand soldiers were killed in battles around the world. It was a fucking horror movie.” He wads up the newspaper and slams out the door.

  Nightmares

  I never knew what would trigger the nightmares—a smell, a noise. David would throw off the covers screaming, horrified by some vision he saw. The first time I tried to wake him, he lashed out at me as if fighting a German soldier and belted me out of the bed. When I hit the floor, I thought I’d broken my arm, but it was just bruised. I was stunned, couldn’t comprehend what had happened.

  “Do you want a divorce?” I finally got up my nerve to ask one Sunday as we were walking to church. It seemed a safe time to broach the subject. Surely, he wouldn’t explode in public. I was wrong.

  “No, I don’t want a divorce!” He stops on the sidewalk in front of the rectory. “I just want some peace and quiet and an end to your fucking nagging. Don’t you get it? Men were killed right in front of me. I dragged their bloody bodies out of the trenches, tried to save them as they suffered. Sometimes I wish I’d died with them!” He shoves me away and I stumble off the high sidewalk and fall into the street.

  The worst part was that Mrs. Stopper, the pastor’s wife, and her three daughters, dressed to the nines, were just coming down the rectory’s front walk. They stopped with shocked faces, turned around, and hurried back inside.

  Once home, David apologized, wept on his knees like a character from a novel, holding me around the waist, begging me to forgive him, and I would have, but the assaults got worse. A slap here, a punch there. He was always angry. If not at me, at the mailman for leaving someone else’s mail in our box, or the stock boy at the grocer for omitting an item he wanted, or his old-maid aunt, his last living relative, who called to check on him once every few days.