The Runaway Midwife Read online

“Oh, it always runs. Well, almost always,” Jed comments.

  “The lake on my side of the island is as smooth as glass today,” I share.

  “That’s always the way it is. If it’s rough on the west side, it’s smooth on the east. It depends on which way the wind is blowing.”

  “Kind of like life. Sometimes it’s rough; sometimes it’s smooth. It depends on how the wind is blowing.”

  CHAPTER 24

  Border Patrol

  As we enter the pub, I’m alarmed to see two new Canadian Customs agents in uniform at the counter ordering food, a man and a woman. I quickly lose my appetite and would like to get out of the pub, but I have no excuse so I suggest a table as far away from them as possible.

  “Let’s sit over here. It’s quieter.” I lead Jed to the darkest corner and position myself with my back to the officers. Everyone in the pub, except the female Customs officer, the waitress and me, is male. “How come so many men?” I ask Jed in a whisper.

  “There’s a work crew from the mainland here this week, setting up a couple of solar panels on the north end.”

  “It takes this many construction workers?”

  “It’s a government project. Lots of people are getting into it. Money to be made.”

  When the door opens again, I duck my head down as two more Customs agents enter. What is this? A convention? These are the ones I saw at the airport and they take a table right next to ours.

  “Hi, Stan . . . Hi, Elroy. Haven’t seen you for a while,” Jed greets them.

  “We been around,” the older of the two men jokes.

  “Where’s your sidekick from the winter, the red-haired kid?” Jed asks.

  “Oh, they transferred him last month. You know the young agents don’t like it here for long. Not enough action. They want to be at the big border checkpoints so they can catch a terrorist or drug dealer. Elroy and I will be transferring back to Windsor ourselves tomorrow. Those are our replacements up front getting lunch.”

  I lift my head. So that’s why no one from the border patrol realizes Sara Livingston didn’t enter Canada in the usual manner. The Customs officers are apparently transferred regularly. Since I arrived in late February but didn’t start moving around until spring, there’s a good chance the new officers never noticed me and, unless there was a reason, they would never look back on their records to see when and where I entered Canada. . . .

  The waitress comes over to our table. She’s a small woman, maybe twenty-eight, with an upturned freckled nose and a pink uniform top that says KRISTIE.

  “What you having, Jed? The usual?” She stands very close to him, leaning on one hip and flashing her eyes. Is she flirting? (Jed gives me a half smile, letting me know he gets the irony, since he’s not interested in women.)

  The nurse practitioner is a good-looking man, tall with clear skin, strong arms and straight teeth. He’s also competent and kind. I’d be attracted to him myself if he hadn’t told me his sexual orientation. Then again, he’s probably only in his late thirties and that would be like robbing the cradle.

  “No, maybe something different, Kris. Any specials?” he asks.

  “Corned beef and cabbage, your fave.” She hands us a laminated menu that’s curled at the edges with the lunch items printed on both sides.

  “Get whatever you want—my treat,” Jed says to me. He turns to Kristie. “I’ll take the corned beef . . . Put us both on my tab.”

  “You want a beer, hon?” the waitress asks him.

  “No, I’m working . . . Kristie, this is Sara Livingston. She’s the nurse who helped with the little boy we had to transfer to Windsor Regional the other night. She’s going to give me pointers, on occasion, with women’s health. You know that’s not my specialty.”

  “Oh, the cat woman. That’s great!” Kristie sits down at our table, crossing her legs, her skirt hitched up to her thighs. “People have seen you walking that orange kitty. You gonna do paps and everything? Lots of us need paps and birth control pills, but Jed doesn’t like to do gynecology.”

  “Kristie!” That’s the cook calling, indicating that there are orders ready. The girl gives me a little squeeze on the arm and hurries off.

  “I’ll have fish and chips,” I yell after her . . . “And a diet Pepsi if you have it.”

  Elsa

  Back at the clinic, wondering what I’m getting myself into, I put on a medium-sized gray scrub top that matches Jed’s. “So how do you want to do this? Give me a rundown. Have you seen this woman before as a patient?”

  “Yes, but only for her yearly physicals and blood pressure.”

  “Well, what’s her story?”

  “Elsa Aubrey is a sixty-one-year-old married woman with vaginal bleeding, ordinarily very healthy. That’s all I know.”

  “Is she on hormones?”

  He consults her yellow manila folder. “Not as far as I know.”

  “Does she have any history of cancer? Or family history of cancer?”

  “No.”

  “Is she sexually active?”

  “God, I don’t know! I guess so. She’s married, but maybe they don’t do it anymore.” His face turns beet red.

  At 1:15 P.M., the door opens and a very short woman with gray curls and square rose-colored glasses comes in, looking tense.

  “Hi, Elsa,” Jed greets her. “This is Sara Livingston, RN. She’s going to assist me with your visit.”

  “It’s a pleasure,” she says, clearly looking like it’s no pleasure and she’d rather be going down with the Titanic.

  “Come on back.” Jed opens the door to the exam room and shows the patient to a guest chair. He takes the rolling stool and I stand in the corner.

  “So can you tell us more about what’s going on?” Jed asks. “When did the bleeding start and have you ever had anything like this before?”

  “It happened the first time a week ago. Then it happened again today.”

  That’s all she says and Jed just sits there staring at a poster about the importance of vitamin D, so I take over. “Mrs. Aubrey, are you having any cramps with the bleeding?”

  Here she hesitates. “No . . .”

  “Any problem with vaginal dryness? Any pain with intercourse?” Poor Elsa’s face is now as red as the nurse practitioner’s.

  “Yes to both questions. Intercourse hurts because of the dryness. Then the bleeding starts.”

  I don’t have the heart to ask this poor lady, in front of Jed, about any possible exposure to a sexually transmitted disease, so I just proceed with the exam. “We’re going to step out while you take off your bottoms and then, just as a precaution, I’m going to do a pap test and an infection check. But most likely the cause of the problem will be something simple and easy to take care of,” I reassure her.

  Five minutes later I’m done with the exam.

  “That wasn’t so bad,” Elsa says, smiling for the first time. “I didn’t sleep last night I was so nervous. I haven’t been checked down there for ten years. Thank you for your gentleness. And thanks to you too, Jed, for your sensitivity. So what do you think the problem is?”

  I explain about vaginal atrophy. “The vaginal mucosa gets very dry and thin. It’s a normal part of aging, but it makes it difficult to have marital relations and many people, even after menopause, want to have sex. I’m pretty sure that’s the cause of the bleeding because it seems to happen after intercourse. The good news is that there are medications that can reverse the problem.” I smile. “Just as a precaution I’d advise an ultrasound. Can you arrange that on the mainland, Jed?”

  In the end, Jed sets up an appointment for the ultrasound in radiology at Windsor Regional. He calls in a prescription to the hospital pharmacy for a vaginal estrogen preparation and we send Mrs. Aubrey on her way.

  “That was definitely worth the fish and chips!” Jed exclaims as soon as the patient is out the door. “God! I could never talk to a woman like that. You were wonderful.”

  “Thanks.” (I would like to tell him that
it comes with years of practice, but I keep that to myself.)

  “Here, let me give you a hug!” He takes me in his arms and gives a good squeeze while rubbing my back and he doesn’t let go until two cars pull into the lot. “Shoot,” he says. “Looks like the clinic is going to get busy. I’ll call Pete Dolman to take you home.”

  “It’s okay. I can walk,” I protest, not wanting to be around the cop any more than I have to.

  “No. No. I insist!”

  Howling Dog

  Sorry it took so long to get here. I was on the opposite side of the island checking out a complaint about a howling dog.” Dolman excuses himself when he arrives at the clinic thirty minutes later. Once in the squad car, moving toward Gull Point, we are quiet.

  Finally the silence feels too creepy, so I speak. “Do you ever get bored here?”

  “No. Do you?”

  “Not really,” I answer, staring out the window as we pass cottonwood, maple and oak trees that are just beginning to bud out, little flames of green, reaching for the sun. “I have a schedule. I exercise or walk on the beach every day. I do a little house or yard work. I play with my cat. I watch the birds. I read. I write.” (This last part is a lie. There’s really no writing going on, except this journal and my notes about birds.)

  “But I meant your job as a police officer. Most people in law enforcement seem to enjoy the rush of danger and Seagull Island isn’t exactly a hotbed of crime.”

  “We have a few emergencies a month, some of them serious, but most of them not. It suits me fine. Mostly, I just patrol the roads, keep an eye on the empty cottages, get involved if there’s a domestic dispute, help people who run out of gas and occasionally drive drunks home.

  “In the summer it’s a lot busier, but still not too bad. I was shot in the arm in a gunfight when on duty a few years ago in Toronto.” He pauses and then goes on. “I don’t tell everyone this . . . I killed a kid, just a nineteen-year-old. That was the end of that. My wife left me and I quit the force.” He turns to see my reaction, but with his sunglasses on I can’t see his eyes so I can’t tell how he’s feeling. Killing a kid has got to be traumatic.

  “Your wife left you? Right after all that happened?”

  “I know it sounds harsh, but she’d begged me for years to give up law enforcement. She was so afraid something would happen. She’d threatened to leave and then when I actually got shot she said, ‘That’s it!’ I wasn’t critically injured or anything, just my arm. Killing the boy was the real wound. Not that I had much choice. It was him or me.”

  We pull into my drive. “Would you like to come in?” I ask to be polite, praying he’ll refuse. (Every time I run into the cop, I end up sharing a little bit of information I’d rather keep to myself. He’s friendly enough, but still a threat, and sooner or later he’s going to get suspicious . . . if he’s not already.)

  “By the way, did you get your phone?” he asks, getting out of the squad car. “Can I have your new number? You know, just in case I want to warn you that a tornado is coming or to provide some other public service.” He grins, knowing he seems overprotective.

  I scratch it on a piece of paper and he copies it down in a little blue book. “What else do you have in there about me?”

  He reads it off. “Sara Livingston, new winter resident. Lives alone at Seagull Haven. Writer, Registered Nurse. Blond, late forties, approximately five foot six, a hundred and forty-five pounds. No vehicle. No phone.”

  “Really? You have a whole profile on Sara Livingston?”

  He flashes the notebook, but I can’t see what’s written except the phone number, so I don’t know if he’s kidding. “Do you keep notes on everyone on the island?”

  “Actually, I keep notes on everyone who lives here year-round or who owns a cottage. Then, like I might have told you, once or twice a week I go around checking on a couple of disabled or vulnerable islanders who live alone.”

  “Now that I have a phone, I was thinking I could call the ones you worry about. Sometimes I feel I should do something for other people, not just for myself. I could call a few times a week on days that you aren’t going to visit.”

  “You’d want to do that?”

  “Well, I’m a nurse, I have the time and now I have the phone. Might as well give it a try.”

  “That’s great. Nita Adams hurt her hip and can’t get around. She and Terry Jacob, who’s a paraplegic, have no family here and everyone else is so busy working two or three jobs just to make ends meet, they don’t have time to visit . . . I’ll get you their numbers.”

  The cop’s cell phone whistles once. He looks at the text message then frowns. “Shit! Pardon my language. The dog that’s been howling and driving the neighbors crazy just escaped from its kennel and bit someone. Now the victim’s threatening to get out his gun.”

  CHAPTER 25

  Tough Love

  This morning, I lie in bed remembering a nightmare that woke me up around three. Peter Dolman and I are walking on the beach when he pulls a gun. “You’re under arrest,” he says. Terrified, I break and run, but he’s right behind me. I stumble in the sand, but get up just as the cop grabs my arm . . . “No! No!” I yell as I struggle to free myself. “No! No! No!” Until the sound of my own cries wake me.

  What was that about? I’ve never been much for premonitions and signs, but the dream was so real. I haven’t seen the cop for over a week, but I must double my caution when I’m around him, be friendly in an ordinary way but keep up my guard. When I escaped to this island, it all seemed so simple. I would reinvent myself and blend in, but I never counted on the local people’s curiosity or a cop with a mind for sniffing out trouble.

  At noon, when the phone rings, I don’t get such an adrenaline rush this time. It’s getting to seem almost normal.

  “Hi. Sara? This is Peter Dolman. I wonder if I could ask you a favor.” (Oh yeah, I think, just what I didn’t want. More cop contact. Maybe the dream was a premonition!)

  “That depends. I’m really busy with my writing, kind of at a critical point. I just started a new chapter.” Liar. Liar. You are just playing with your cat! “What is it you need?”

  “Well, I got a complaint about the hippies and I need to go talk to them. Wade seems like a nice enough guy, but I’ve never been to their commune and I thought it might help if you came along since you’re on friendly terms.”

  “What’s the complaint? Anything serious?”

  “No, that’s what’s so aggravating. I don’t know if I told you, but people who leave their vehicles at the airport have to purchase a hangtag or get a fine. Well, the hippies didn’t buy the parking pass, even after I left three notices on their van, so now the township wants me to go collect the fee, plus an extra fine for ignoring the warnings.”

  “Wow, that’s kind of harsh.”

  “I know! It’s stupid. I’ll buy you dinner later, if you’ll come.”

  “I could just pay the fine and purchase a sticker for them.”

  “You’re kidding, right? That sounds like the opposite of tough love. Good thing you aren’t a mom.” Whoa! That was a low blow and he doesn’t even know he hurt me.

  I take a deep breath and consider my options. I could stick to my story and say I don’t have time to assist him, or I could go along and stay on friendly terms. Somewhere I read about two groups of anthropologists exploring in cannibal country. One group moved into the village and became friendly with the natives. The other group kept their distance and camped outside the tribal compound. They got eaten. After all, it can’t hurt to get on the police officer’s good side by helping him out.

  “Okay, I guess I’ll come, but you don’t have to buy me dinner. I understand the whole situation is weird.”

  “Could I pick you up around four?”

  “That will work.”

  When I hang up, Tiger still wants to play, but my energy has been sucked out of me. The cop inadvertently stabbed a hole in my mother heart. He’s right. Discipline was never my strong poi
nt. I was a pushover and inconsistent. Now I sit on the couch, thinking about Jessie. I tried to be a good mom. I thought I did anyway, but maybe I didn’t try hard enough. I stare at my hands and then wipe away tears.

  The Scenic Route

  I’m reading a new book I found on the Nelsons’ bookcase when the cop shows up . . . It’s called Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Since I’m Sara Livingston, it seemed a good pick. “You have the freedom to be yourself, your true self, here and now, and nothing can stand in your way,” the author writes. I put my bookmark in the page. Do I have the freedom to be my true self? I don’t think so. Not with the secrets I hide.

  “Hi,” the cop says, coming up on the porch and knocking. “I really appreciate this. I’d rather face a gang of thugs than a peace-loving commune.” He gives a small grin.

  “You do look kind of nervous. Did you shine your badge?” He’s sporting a full uniform with button-up shirt and tie, complete with the hat, the sunglasses and a heavy belt with a flashlight and a holster for Mace or some other deterrent.

  This time we take the scenic route north, as if we are out for a Sunday drive, probably because Dolman is dreading his errand. Instead of heading inland on Middle Loop, where there’s just flat agricultural land, rocks, orchards and pasture for sheep, we follow the lakeshore on the west side up Sunset, windows open, the wind in our faces.

  Everywhere there are fruit trees, but most of the blossoms are gone. Two cars approach and Dolman does the island greeting. (Funny to see a cop giving the peace sign, but why not?)

  We pass the ferry dock with the little white ferry. We pass the clinic and the pub. We pass the auto repair place and the ice cream stand, which now has a placard out front.

  OPEN FOR THE SEASON: WE ALL SCREAM FOR ICE CREAM.

  “You know it’s June when they put out that sign,” Dolman comments.

  “That’s the Estates, isn’t it, where the richie rich live?” I ask as we pass a cedar-and-stone entrance sign.

  “Yeah, but not everyone who lives there is rich. I live in the Estates, for example, in a four-bedroom stone ranch. Too nice of a place for a guy like me, but I got it for a song when the housing market crashed. A sporting-goods manufacturer from Toledo had to sell his second home. I use only one bedroom, the kitchen and the den where I have a gym and wood-working shop.”