The Runaway Midwife Read online

  Sitting in the Volvo, staring out at the creek where a solitary mallard circles in the rushing brown water, I see only two choices: get on a cruise ship and follow my friend Dr. Karen Cross into the dark Atlantic . . . or flee.

  CHAPTER 3

  Liar

  The first lie I tell is at the Mountain State Federal Bank and my boldness shocks me.

  “My husband and I are buying a fixer-upper over by the university and we can get it cheap if we bring the down payment to the owners in cash,” I explain in a hushed voice to the young teller behind the counter. His name tag says Matt and he has one gold earring.

  “The sellers insist on cash. They’re old and don’t trust anyone,” I rattle on, elaborating more than I need to. “Do you have $10,000 on hand?”

  “Can I see some ID, Mrs. Perry? We don’t usually get requests for cash in this amount and I’ll have to ask my manager.”

  “That’s fine. It’s Doug Frazier, isn’t it? I was his wife’s nurse-midwife when she had her second baby.” Matt leaves and shows the withdrawal slip and my driver’s license to a tall man with a little goatee. The man studies the slip and comes over.

  “How about a bank check, Clara?” Doug asks pleasantly. “That would be safer.”

  “No, I need cash. I don’t want to lose this house. My husband is over there waiting.” Hot sweat trickles down between my breasts. (This is a joint account and I’m worried they’ll want Richard’s signature.)

  “How’s the baby?” I ask just to be friendly, but I can’t remember if it’s a boy or a girl.

  “Growing like a weed.” He smiles and initials the withdrawal slip. “It’s almost closing time. We can replace what you’re taking with more cash from the main branch tomorrow.” Then he goes back to his desk and Matt takes me into a glass enclosure next to the vault. “Wait here.”

  I glance at my watch. It’s already four and I want to get out of town before Richard gets home. He’s interviewing a new candidate for the biology department today and we’re supposed to take her out for dinner. When the teller returns, he hands me a manila envelope.

  “Is this ten thousand? I thought it would be bigger.”

  “Yes. There are a hundred hundred-dollar bills in a pack,” the young man explains as if it ought to be obvious, so without counting, I put the money in my green L.L.Bean canvas briefcase and ask to be shown to our safety deposit box.

  Matt takes a ring of keys out of his pocket and I give him my little key in the tiny red envelope. Then he allows me some privacy while I carry the family safe box to a table and unlock it.

  Like Silas Marner, my philandering professor husband has been hiding his money away since he heard on NPR, back in 2008, how the whole banking system could crash in one day. He also just received a small inheritance from his aunt Ida. I don’t know how much. He said it was none of my business.

  There was a time Richard and I shared everything and made decisions together, but it’s been years since that happened. More and more we lead separate lives, and to be honest I can’t remember what it felt like to be close. All the things I loved about Richard have turned against me. His calm has been substituted with detachment. His skill in worldly matters and his ability to manage money have become a means of control. His affection for my sensitive nature has been replaced by cold scorn.

  I used to be amazed by my patients who stayed in loveless marriages for convenience, but now I understand. In my case it’s not the nice house or the combined income or even the children (Jessie’s almost an adult). I just don’t have the strength to face a contentious divorce.

  And there’s something else. If I use Richard’s infidelity against him in court, it will come out that he’s been cheating off and on for years and I knew about it. That will make me look like a fool. A small point to some, perhaps, but despite how it looks, I have my pride.

  WHEN I OPEN the safety deposit box, I’m surprised to find two more bundles of hundred-dollar bills with red rubber bands around them. This could be another twenty thousand in cash, possibly more. I put them in my briefcase along with the other money. There’s nothing much else in the metal container, but our daughter’s birth certificate, our passports and the titles to our vehicles.

  I grab the paperwork for the Volvo, then open my passport and study my photo . . . shoulder-length dark hair with a strand of gray at the temple, blue eyes, a nice enough smile with straight white teeth, a wholesome-looking person, not beautiful, but friendly-looking and kind.

  The passport expires in less than a month. Too bad I didn’t renew it, but then, I won’t need it where I’m going and besides, it would be too easy to trace. I drop the little blue book back in the box; touch my daughter Jessie’s birth certificate, saying goodbye; and snap the lid to the metal box.

  Snow is blowing in sideways when I leave the bank. At the stoplight before the entrance to the I-79, a blond woman in a blue parka stands in the median, not six feet away, holding a cardboard sign that says EVERYONE NEEDS HELP SOMETIMES.

  Ordinarily Richard and I, on principle, don’t give money to panhandlers. “They’ll just use it for drugs or alcohol,” my husband insists, but it’s four in the afternoon and twenty-seven degrees out, so instead of averting my eyes, I roll down my window and hand her a twenty.

  “God bless you, ma’am,” the woman says, tears in her eyes. “God bless you!” It’s the tears that get me. I am truly touched and think of reaching into my briefcase and giving her one of my hundred-dollar bills, but the light changes and I drive north alone.

  Runaway

  All night I flee through the sleet and snow, my hands like claws on the steering wheel. The blacktop is as slippery as shampoo, so I can only go about fifty miles an hour and once I see flares, flashing lights and three ambulances. A semitruck and an SUV are folded like cardboard over the guardrail and I pass at a crawl, sucking in my air. I’m not good on ice.

  Around one in the morning, I pull in at a truck stop, lock the doors and sleep a few hours. Afterward, wondering if they are already looking for me, I buy coffee, drive around back, run over my laptop, stomp on my cell and throw them both in the Dumpster. Clara Perry is disappearing little by little, but it’s not without cost. Every thirty miles, I break down in tears. Once I even have to stop, I’m sobbing so hard.

  Pittsburgh . . . Cranberry . . . Kent . . . Akron . . . Cleveland . . . I pass the exit signs on the freeway. It crosses my mind I should stop again to rest, maybe check in to a motel, but I keep pushing north as if a pack of gray wolves is hot on my tail.

  BY DAWN I pull into Sandusky, Ohio, and find a Target. It takes me a minute to unbend my body, but I slosh through the snow and into the bright white lights, where I purchase a new laptop, a prepaid cell and, because I’d left home with only what I had on, a red parka, two pairs of jeans, two pairs of black knit slacks, two sweaters, hiking boots, four colorful tees, underwear, a backpack and a soft flannel nightgown, things I’ll need in the north country.

  Just before checkout, I remember to buy toothpaste, shampoo and other toiletries . . . and in an effort to conceal my identity, a tube of bright red lipstick, a multicolored silk rainbow scarf, a black beret and a pair of weak off-the-rack glasses that I don’t need for reading.

  IT’S NOT LIKE this is the first time I’d thought of disappearing. Three years ago, when Richard had his first affair, I’d had repetitive fantasies of escaping my life, but I loved my patients and my work as a midwife, and Jessie was still in high school, so instead of leaving I went to counseling, enrolled in a yoga class and devoted myself to my family. Always responsible, it was my job to stick it out, be the good mom, hardworking midwife and loyal spouse.

  What I’m doing is crazy, risking my life running like this through a near blizzard. It’s the act of a madwoman, but that’s who I am—a person who, wild with grief and fear, has lost her foundation and is flying like a lone swallow in front of the storm.

  CHAPTER 4

  Blocked

  Sandusky, Ohio, home to Cedar
Point amusement park on the southern shore of Lake Erie, is a ghost town in the winter, so the rooms at the Lakeland Motel are dirt cheap and the out-of-the-way run-down establishment, with free breakfast and Wi-Fi, suits me just fine. Best of all, when I gave the night desk clerk a story about losing my pocketbook, she let me check in without ID. I used my dead friend’s name. Karen Cross.

  Unfortunately, Seagull Island, my destination thirty miles out in the middle of Lake Erie and just over the Canadian border, is proving harder to get to than I’d imagined. For one thing, in my fantasies it never occurred to me that the ferry wouldn’t run in the winter. For another, even if it normally did, the lake’s frozen over.

  YEARS AGO, A lifetime ago, when I lived in Michigan, the nuns at Little Sisters of the Cross took us on an outing to Seagull Island. It was only a weekend, not a big deal, and I’ve never mentioned the trip to anyone, not even to Richard, so it seemed, in my daydreams, a good place to hide.

  There were six of us girls and two nuns who came into Canada across the bridge from Detroit. It was the first time I’d ever been to a foreign country. Not that Canada is very foreign. The people look like us, speak the same language and watch the same TV shows. The only obvious differences are that they have strange money, there’s rarely any gun violence and they cheer for unfamiliar sports teams.

  We little band of nuns and female students drove in the convent van from Windsor, Ontario, to Leamington, with Sister Jean, my guardian, at the wheel, then took the ferry across to the island. I remember we had a choice, Pelee Island or Seagull, but the sisters chose Seagull because it was less well-known. I can still see the blue sky, the sparkling water and in the distance the green island getting closer.

  I was fifteen, had only been at the boarding school for a year and it was my first outing since my parents died. Maybe that’s why the place made such an impression. Sometimes, I think, as a person emerges from great pain, the world seems brighter, the flowers more colorful, the sound of the wind in the trees more intense.

  “WHY DO YOU want to go to Seagull? There’s nothing up there this time of year but ice and snow,” the motel desk clerk asks. Her name is Ivy. She has jet-black short hair, a nose ring and a tattoo of a rose above her left wrist. The nose ring makes my heart sore. Jessie has a little stud in the side of her nose. I was furious when she got it, but I’d like to kiss that nose now.

  Not wanting to seem too mysterious, I use the cover story I’d come up with on the drive north through the storm. “I’m a writer. I’m going there for the peace and quiet and to finish my novel.”

  “What’s it called? Your novel . . .” Ivy asks, staring at a rerun of M*A*S*H on the lobby TV.

  “Alone,” I respond slowly as I try to come up with a title and plot. “It’s the tale of a woman who’s marooned on an island back in the 1870s.”

  “Huh,” Ivy says, still staring at the screen. “Seagull is dead this time of year, but there are two ways to get there, Cullen Airlines in Sandusky or the new outfit, Red Hawk, in Lorain. Cullen is reliable and has been around for a long time, but Red Hawk is cheaper.” She gives me a map and marks the small airports. “Don’t forget you’ll need your passport.” That brings me up short.

  “Just to get into Canada? I didn’t bring one.” (I picture that little blue book back in the safety deposit box. Damn!)

  “No one used to need one, but that’s changed. You know, terrorism and all . . .”

  The phone rings. “Lakeland Motel, how can I help you?” Ivy answers with false sweetness. “No, ma’am, we don’t allow pets. You can try Super 8.” She hangs up, rolls her eyes as if that was the dumbest question she ever got and turns back to the TV.

  “Be sure to take food. Cost you an arm and a leg if you don’t,” she says when a commercial comes on. “It’s been years since I’ve been there, but I remember that much. The islanders have to bring in everything by ferry or air. You staying at one of the B and Bs?”

  “No, I’m renting a cottage that I found on the Internet last night. The family that owns it lives only twenty miles away, so I drove over this morning and paid in advance. Thanks for your help, Ivy. I guess I’ll try these airlines. See what they say.”

  I wave goodbye, but then return to the desk. “Can I ask you who cuts your hair?”

  “Melissa, a few blocks east at Hair Palace. Tell her Ivy sent you. She’ll give you a deal.”

  BACK IN MY room, I fall on the bed and bury my face in the pillow. Up until now I was running on adrenaline. Now I’m running on empty.

  I open my new laptop. The photos of Seagull Haven, the little house I’d found, pop up on the vacation website. One bedroom, a kitchen, a living room with a fireplace and a two-level deck with a gazebo overlooking Lake Erie. What else could I want? Things were going so well until this hitch with the passport and I’ve already given three months’ rent to Mrs. Nelson.

  “I’LL GIVE YOU a discount, five hundred a month, because the house has been empty for almost a year,” the woman told me when I talked to her in the living room of her two-story cedar house near Findlay, Ohio. A white Honda parked out front had a logo in blue that said, HOPE HOSPICE, WE CARE.

  “No one has been there since my husband, Lloyd, was diagnosed with cancer. You’ll have to do a little cleaning, but there’s a washer and a dryer and linens in the bathroom cupboard. I can’t remember if we made the bed. He’ll never see the island again,” she whispered. “It’s pancreatic cancer. Very bad.”

  Mrs. Nelson was so upset, she didn’t even write down my name or have me sign a contract, just took the money and gave me a hand-drawn map. It was like I was doing her a favor just to go there and check on their place.

  “Wanda!” the hospice nurse called from deep in the house. “I need some help!” And the lady showed me the door.

  OUTSIDE THE WIND roars in from the west again, slams against the motel and shakes the window glass. I put the pillow over my head. Seagull Island. Seagull Island. There just has to be a way to get there!

  White Rock

  In the dream, Karen and I are flying, two hawks rising into a cloudless blue sky. I see her yellow beak, the ends of her wide flat wings and her beady black eyes, ringed in gold, and my heart swells. I am in love. Then we dive straight down toward the Hope River, rejoicing as the air rushes past our faces. “Kreeeee,” we cry as we descend. “Kreeeeeeeeeeee! Kreeeeeeeeeeee!”

  I wake, wipe my eyes and stare at the motel’s popcorn ceiling. It’s been almost six months since Karen’s suicide. Six months of talking about her death to patients every day. There’s no way around it. She was so beloved by the women she cared for that when I meet them in the exam room, I can’t ignore Karen’s absence, can’t pretend that we aren’t all still grieving.

  “My name’s Clara Perry, nurse-midwife,” I introduce myself if the patient and I have never met. (If we know each other I just give her a hug.) “I’m sure you’ve heard that Dr. Karen is no longer with us.” The woman’s eyes get wet and I hand her a tissue, then I take one too.

  “Is it true? What they said in the newspaper, that she committed suicide?”

  “Yes, it appears to be. I didn’t see the actual security video of her jumping from the cruise ship, but her husband did. It was awful, but he had to look to be sure. She didn’t leave a note. . . . I talked to her myself that very morning by cell phone. There was no indication she was sad or distressed. She seemed completely normal. We planned to go to a concert at the university when she returned . . .”

  The conversation goes on for another few minutes. The patient, like the rest of us, is still in shock, wanting to know what happened to this seemingly normal happy physician. “Could she have had cancer?” the woman asks. “Was she having an affair and something went wrong? Was her marriage breaking up?”

  “I don’t think so,” I answer. “I don’t believe so. She was my friend. She would have told me. I think she would anyway.”

  I REMEMBER THE dream about the hawks diving together . . . Last fall, a month or so
before she left on her cruise, Karen and I hiked the trails of the White Rock State Park, built by the Civilian Conservation Corp over half a century ago and only an hour from Torrington.

  We stood on the rock lookout next to the fire tower and stared out across the West Virginia mountains, row after row of ridges on fire, oak and maple at their autumn peak. At the bottom we could see the river, a ribbon of silver they call the Hope, winding down to the lake. There was no wind, not a leaf moved in the blanket of trees.

  “Don’t you wish we could fly?” Karen asked, as she stepped on the bottom rung of the split-rail fence that protects visitors from falling off the high cliff. She opened her arms wide and looked so joyous standing there!

  “Fly!” she yelled, and her voice came back as an echo. “Fly . . . Fly . . . Fly . . .”

  I hear it still, “Fly . . . Fly . . . Fly . . .”

  Oh, Karen . . . Why did you do it?

  CHAPTER 5

  Red Hawk

  The small airport, located along the railway tracks on Route 2, just east of Lorain, is about thirty-five miles from Sandusky. There’s a low brick building that looks like a diner and a huge open metal hangar that holds two small planes. A Piper Cub, with the image of a red hawk on its tail, is strapped down on the runway and the orange windsock is stiff in the wind.

  I park the Volvo next to three other vehicles, pull my beret down over my forehead, wrap the rainbow scarf around my neck and put on the glasses I bought at Target. Then, in case they’re already looking for me, I lean down to wipe more mud on my license plate.

  “CAN I HELP you?” a man at the desk inside asks. He wears a blue sweater with a red hawk embroidered on the front, a handsome guy with auburn hair and a two-day growth of beard, probably an air force vet from Iraq or Afghanistan. “My name’s Ben Walker, I’m one of the pilots.”