The Runaway Midwife Page 15

  So far no one has been killed or permanently maimed, Helen says, but the township board now restricts automobiles, except for disabled birders or people over fifty-five and their grandkids under ten. Everyone else has to walk or bike. Also, according to Molly Lou, the count is all on the honor system, but there’s a highly coveted award at the end of the weekend.

  So far today, everything is calm, except for the disagreement about the pelicans, and I listen as I work to the names of the birds as they’re called out. Some are familiar—great blue heron, American robin, Canada goose. Some I’ve just learned to identify—bufflehead, lesser scaup and merganser. And some I’ve never heard of before—brown creeper, American coot and northern shoveler.

  It’s a soft sunny day with big puffy white clouds sailing past on the breeze and the bright blue lake in the distance. After the birders turn in their lists, some grab a bite to eat and stand around talking. Others just hop on their bikes to look for more birds.

  Apparently there are even bird-watching teams and some are sporting matching T-shirts like THE MERRY BAND OF BIRDERS, THE BLUE FOOTED BOOBIES and the CLEVELAND NIGHTHAWKS. This all-male group wears black baseball caps with white nighthawks on the front and wraparound black shades, very intimidating.

  “Hey, babe!” A low voice interrupts my observations as a tall man leans over me. He has on shades, a faded green T-shirt that says I HUG TREES and his arms are tanned and tattooed. At first I think it’s one of the hippies from New Day, but when I see his gray-blue quick eyes, I jump up and nearly knock over the table.

  Lenny

  Lenny! What are you doing here? I didn’t know you were a birdwatcher. Where are your binoculars?”

  He gives me a wide smile and a short laugh. “I enjoy nature, but I’m not a birder. Too much work to remember their names. I brought the Cleveland Nighthawks over in my boat early this morning.” He indicates the men I’d been watching just minutes before. “I thought I could stay at New Day with Rainbow and Wade, but they have all their extra rooms rented and even some cots in the loft of their barn. Any chance I could invite myself over and use your couch?”

  “I guess. Sure, why not?”

  “You going to the Birder’s Banquet at the Cider Mill tonight? It’s pretty entertaining.”

  “I don’t think so. I didn’t buy a ticket and I heard it’s sold out.”

  “Yeah. It sells out every year, but one of the Nighthawks broke his leg skiing at Vail and he gave me his tickets. I’ll take you to the banquet if you’ll lend me a bed. What do you say?”

  I’m suddenly aware that Helen, sitting next to me at the hot dog table, is as still as one of the black rocks in the green pasture across the road. I glance over and the expression on her face would freeze hell. She’s the mother of Charity, the girl who was viciously raped years ago, and hates hippies, I remind myself.

  “Can you excuse me, Helen? I’ll be right back.” I stand and lead Lenny into the crowd where he gives me a big hug, almost lifts me off the ground.

  “Hey!” I cry out.

  “What? We’re still engaged, aren’t we? You look great! Got a tan. Look like a real islander.”

  “We were only engaged for five minutes and that was months ago, but it is nice to see you.”

  “I really appreciate your taking me in. My other choice was to sleep on the boat, but there’s a wind coming up and it will be choppy.”

  “What time is the banquet?” I ask, glancing back at the refreshment table. Lenny gets out the tickets and looks them over.

  “Seven o’clock.”

  “Is it fancy?”

  “Nah. I’m just wearing jeans and a button-up shirt.”

  “Okay. Do you want to meet me at my cottage? I have a few more hours before I can leave. My neighbor Molly Lou is bringing me home. You don’t have a vehicle, do you?”

  “Brought my ten-speed bike over in the boat and I’m docked at the sailing club on the east side, not too far from Gull Point. I’ll find you. Then we can walk back to the Cider Mill together.”

  Our refreshment stand, I notice, is now inundated with customers so I quickly give Lenny directions, then hurry back to our table.

  “He’s an old friend,” I tell Helen as she watches Lenny get on his bicycle and ride away.

  “You’re a grown woman, Sara,” she says. “But be careful.”

  Wine and Moonlight

  That was fun. I didn’t know birders could be so amusing,” I comment as Lenny and I return from the Cider Mill. I hang up my sweater and take off my scarf. I wore my black knit slacks to the banquet, black flats, my blue Target T-shirt and the silk rainbow scarf, the best I could do for the occasion. Lenny has on black jeans with a checked black-and-white long-sleeved shirt with the sleeves rolled up. We’d walked home under an almost full moon and it’s now after eleven. His ten-speed is parked on my porch along with the ancient rusted Raleigh.

  “I know what you mean. The first time I went to one of these affairs, I was mildly shocked. That bit with the trio from Toronto dressed up as turkey vultures singing Bob Marley’s ‘Three Little Birds’ cracked me up. How’d the song go?”

  “Don’t worry ’bout a thing,” I answer, imitating the singers. “ ’Cause every little thing gonna be alright.”

  “Every little thing gonna be alright,” we sing together.

  “It’s nice to have you here, Lenny.”

  He comes up from behind me as I’m putting our containers of banquet leftovers in the fridge and wraps his arms around me, but before I can squirm away, he lets go and then I think maybe I liked it.

  “It’s nice to be here,” he says. “I had a good time. Want a glass of wine? Where’s your bottle opener?”

  “I guess I could have another small glass.” I open the top drawer next to the sink. Lenny has purchased two bottles of apple wine from the gift store at the Cider Mill.

  “Which one?” he asks.

  “Apple Rosehip? We can sit out on the upper deck and look at the lake.” It’s possible I am already a little tipsy. Each banquet ticket had included two glasses of wine along with the meal of roast lamb, grilled portabella mushrooms, asparagus and wild rice with spinach. (The organic veggies all from New Day Farm.)

  Five minutes later we’re up in the gazebo, looking down at water as still as molten silver under the moon. “Nice place,” Lenny observes, putting the uncorked bottle down by his feet. “I can see why you like it.”

  I take a deep breath and smell the pines and the lilacs out by the picket fence, a nice surprise. All winter, I just thought they were scraggly old bushes that needed to be cut back; now they’re full of the fragrant purple blooms. Little waves lap gently against the sand below.

  Something about Lenny relaxes me. Maybe it’s because he knows I’m in Canada illegally and doesn’t care. Maybe it’s just the way he is, a person without expectations.

  He reaches for my hand and covers it with his bigger hand, long fingers, big veins. For some reason, I don’t pull away. It’s probably the moonlight . . . or maybe the wine.

  “So what have you been doing with yourself, Lenny?” I ask, just to fill the silence.

  “I was in Mexico for a few weeks. Then I came back to help my mother move into a retirement home and then I went to Italy, but that was a short trip.” (This was something I hadn’t expected.)

  “What were you doing there? I mean, what was the purpose of your trips, business or pleasure?”

  “Business.” That’s all he says, then he puts one finger to his lips. “Listen . . .”

  “What?” He puts his warm hand on the back of my neck and turns my head toward the sound.

  “Listen,” he says again. Then I hear it.

  Whip-poor-will. Whip-poor-will. I smile and we look at each other.

  “I haven’t heard a whip-poor-will in ten years,” I tell him.

  I didn’t mean it to happen. It’s just that he was so kind and his hands so warm. After the whip-poor-will we walked on the beach, took off our shoes, rolled up our
pants and waded into the water holding hands. It was cold and I was laughing. Then I tripped on a rock and he caught me. That turned into a long hug and I felt something I haven’t felt for years . . . a pleasure like pain in my lower pelvis . . . and my knees almost gave out.

  Lenny’s nice shirt was up on the deck and his torso was bare. Oh, I know I shouldn’t have, but we kissed so softly and it seemed at first rather innocent. “Sara,” he said into my ear as if he was calling me.

  In time, we finished the wine up in the gazebo and then he led me down to the cottage, singing, “Don’t worry ’bout a thing. ’Cause every little thing’s gonna be alright.”

  And it was . . . My past and my future disappeared and there was only Lenny’s strong body over mine, like a quilt of moonlight.

  WHIP-POOR-WILL

  A medium-sized brown and gray spotted bird, seldom seen but occasionally heard

  Range: Eastern US and southern Canada in summer

  Winters in Florida

  Nests on the ground in the woods

  Is active at night. Seen in clearings

  Diet: Insects

  Voice: Whip-poor-will, whip-poor-will

  Size: 9 inches

  Wingspan: 19 inches

  Morning Has Broken

  Seagulls cry. Tiger is meowing for breakfast. I’m alone in my bed, but it’s clear I wasn’t always alone. Lenny’s backpack is on the floor along with his loafers, his jeans and an empty condom wrapper on the dresser.

  I smile to myself, my body at peace.

  “Morning has broken like the first morning, Blackbird has spoken like the first bird.” Lenny sings the old Cat Stevens song, and there’s the smell of pancakes coming from the kitchen. “Breakfast,” he calls.

  I think of our lovemaking. It was the first time I’d had sex with anyone other than my husband in a very long time and it surprised me in its intensity . . . but now I’m embarrassed. This is a man I was naked with only a few hours ago, not just naked of clothes, but all the way naked, down to my soul . . . now I have to go have breakfast with him and act normal?

  “Coming!” I pull on my blue T-shirt and a pair of shorts. I forget the bra but stop in the bathroom to wash my face and run a comb through my hair.

  Lenny is turned away, still singing, “Mine is the sunlight. Mine is the morning.” And I sneak up behind him and wrap my arms around him, press the side of my face against his warm back. He’s wearing only his knit boxers and I feel a familiar stir, but step back. At 8:00 A.M. I’m no longer under the influence of apple wine and moonlight . . .

  “So what do you have to do today?” Lenny asks reaching across the table for the maple syrup.

  “Nothing special. I’m on my own. My days are pretty free. I’ve helped at the clinic a few times and I write. I do yard work and I’m going to start calling some of the older or disabled people around the island a few times a week to make sure they’re okay. It’s a pretty boring life, but I like it.”

  “No job you have to go to?”

  “Nope.”

  “No social life? I thought you were friends with Rainbow.”

  “I was.”

  “Was?” He pauses with a two-inch square of pancake on his fork and holds my eye.

  “Yeah. I think she’s mad. It’s kind of dumb really. There’s this provincial cop, Peter Dolman—a nice enough guy, I guess, but he asked me to go with him to the commune to present them with a fine for parking illegally at the airport. He’d never been to New Day before and wanted moral support.

  “Rainbow and Wade weren’t even home and the fine was five hundred dollars! Outrageous! The commune folks were pissed and I felt like a fool for even being there. Five hundred! I shouldn’t have gone. Now I think Rainbow sees me as the enemy.”

  “We could go over and visit. Maybe that would melt the ice.”

  I make a face. “I don’t know . . .”

  “Come on. I don’t have anything else to do until this evening when I take the guys back to Cleveland. I’ll bike back to the marina, get my boat and pick you up out in the cove in an hour. Then we’ll cruise up to the north end. There’s a place we can anchor just across the road from the farm. I’ve done it before.”

  I take a big breath. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained, I guess.”

  Lenny takes my hand and kisses the palm.

  Drum Circle

  I’m nervous,” I tell Lenny as we secure his long white-and-yellow speedboat about twenty yards out and wade into the shore. “Maybe this isn’t such a good idea.”

  “Shush,” he answers, taking my hand. “We can’t go back now.”

  We arrive at New Day just as the commune is setting out lunch on picnic tables under the shade trees. Wade greets Lenny with a big hug. “Hey, man! I was hoping you’d come.”

  “Wade and I went to school together years ago, at Bowling Green State University just south of Toledo,” Lenny explains.

  I sit next to him and Wade with a group of birders from London, Ontario, and try not to look at Rainbow, who is running back and forth to the kitchen. The food is delicious. Citrus chicken with walnut pesto as well as green salad with black beans, kale and rice casserole for the vegetarians—a special spread for the visitors.

  After lunch, John, who I’ve never heard speak before, stands up and tells people how much the commune’s support has meant to him this year.

  “When I came back from the war in the Middle East, I was a lost soul. I got into some bad stuff on the streets of Detroit. I met Wade and Rainbow from New Day while hitchhiking across Canada and that changed my life. They accepted me as I was, a broken warrior . . .” Here he stops and wipes his eyes. “I guess I just want to say thank-you. Thank you, everyone.” He glances around the circle and then looks down.

  Wade lifts his glass of wine. “Amen, brother,” he says, and there are tears in his eyes too.

  “Enough of this,” John shouts and lifts a wooden drum over his head with his one hand. “Let’s hit the beach. Everyone’s welcome!” With that, we all leave the tables and follow his lead. Rainbow is on the porch steps passing out all kinds of percussion instruments. Small and large drums, cymbals, rattles, tambourines, even pots and pans with spoons for banging. I grab a wooden block and a mallet, not meeting her eyes. As we head down to the beach, Rainbow catches up with me and puts her arm around my waist, a generous gesture.

  “I’m sorry about the whole thing with Dolman.” I broach the subject cautiously. “I had no idea what I was getting into when I agreed to come to the farm with him. He’s not a bad guy, really, and he thought the township fine was as stupid as I did. I felt like one of the bad guys.” I let out my air in a long sigh.

  “Forget about it. It was partly my fault. I’m in charge of paying the bills and because we didn’t have the money, I kept putting the parking pass warning on the bottom of the pile.” She gives me a little squeeze. “Wade and Dian went to the township meeting. They’re going to let us work it off by mowing the grass in the campground. It actually might turn into a paying job. John’s really into it. He loves to drive the big tractor.”

  Rainbow’s carrying a wooden drum with spirit animals painted on it. Cars are parked along the road and more people are assembling, some with trashcans, some with real bongos. One fellow I’ve never seen before has a steel drum, the kind they use in the Caribbean.

  I’m surprised to see Jed here too, carrying a guitar and a wooden flute. Wade and Lenny are building a driftwood fire. I can’t believe I am sitting here with a bunch of hippies, but they aren’t all hippies, some of the people seem to be cottagers and there’s Kristie from the pub and a couple of Mexican guys from the orchard.

  Just as the sunset fades in a blaze of red, Boom goes a bass drum . . . Boom answers a bongo . . . Bam . . . Bam . . . Bamity bam bam come in the others, slowly at first and then picking up speed.

  I can’t help it. The music is infectious. I begin to tap my wooden block in rhythm with the others. The sky turns purple and the flames of the campfire rise. I forge
t everything but the drums . . .

  I forget Rainbow and Wade and Lenny. I forget Jed and John. I forget the kids running around the circle. It’s the music and the firelight that transfix me and the feeling of oneness with the other drummers. I have never experienced anything like it . . . except maybe sex . . .

  CHAPTER 28

  Dank and Sour

  In the days that follow my brief affair with Lenny, loneliness stalks me. I was feeling almost happy, living a solitary life in Canada, but when Lenny entered me, he left a hole and it’s now filled with rusted water, dank and sour.

  “I am rock, I am an island.” I sing the Simon & Garfunkel hit. “I have my books, and my poetry to protect me . . .”

  As I sit on the deck, looking out at the water birds, I find myself comparing my husband with Lenny. Did I let my marriage go too easily? Maybe . . . Probably not . . . Maybe. (I go back and forth.)

  Richard and I were married in a church, but not a Catholic one because I wasn’t Catholic. We had a small wedding at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Ann Arbor with a few of the sisters from the Little Sisters of the Cross, our college friends from the University of Michigan and Richard’s siblings and parents.

  “Until death do us part,” we had vowed. I try to remember the last time we were close. For sure when Jessie was a baby and when she was in grade school, but then Richard began to travel for his research.

  It wasn’t that I didn’t care about the issues that compelled him. I understood that global warming was real and threatened the planet; it was just that we were living in two different worlds. My life revolved around Jessie and the mothers and babies I cared for. His life revolved around his colleagues, the polar bears . . . and other women.

  Richard isn’t a bad husband. He’s good at saving money and pleasant to look at. He’s six feet two inches, a hundred and seventy-five pounds with straight teeth and green eyes. He donates to the Nature Conservancy and the World Wildlife Fund. He went to his daughter’s soccer games. He fixes things around the house and even occasionally cooks. He takes the cars to have their oil changed. He doesn’t gamble or drink to excess. He’s not evil or abusive, but how many chances do you give a man who’s unfaithful?