The Runaway Midwife Read online

  On the way home, Jed is unusually quiet. He seems sad about something, but maybe he’s still hung over. Coming along Grays Road through the woods, he swerves suddenly, stops the Jeep and jumps out.

  “Did you see that?”

  “What? Where?”

  “Look!” He puts his arm around my shoulders and turns my head to the left. Just in front of the headlights, two eyes shine in the dark.

  “Is it a cat?”

  “No, a fox, maybe a gray fox. They’re common in Ohio and Michigan, but are on the endangered species list in Canada. The only place they’ve been spotted before is on Pelee Island. The Nature Conservancy had scientists on Seagull, trying to find one. Thank God we didn’t hit it.”

  When I get home, I put on my summer nightgown and stay up until two, thinking Lenny might still come after the taverns close, but then it starts to storm and it seems unlikely, so I go to bed.

  THE SQUALL BEGINS with lightning and thunder so close it shakes the cottage. Flash and boom. Flash. Flash and boom. I’m in the middle of a war zone and wonder what primitive people in tents or grass huts would think. Do they assume God is angry? Do they fear for their lives?

  The thunder is so loud that at first I don’t hear the rap on the window. “Sara,” a man’s voice whispers from outside. “Sara, let me in! I know you’re in there. It’s Lenny. Let me in.”

  Shocked by his urgency, I turn on the bedside lamp, throw a flannel shirt over my thin summer nightgown and hurry to the door. “What’s wrong? You’re out of breath.”

  “You don’t want to know. I just need to rest and think how to get out of here. They saw where my boat is docked. They know I’ll be coming back for it.”

  “Do you think they might come here? Who are we talking about anyway?”

  “You don’t need to know. Just turn off the overheads and light some candles. I came down the beach and through the woods at the end of the point and they’re in an SUV on the road. If someone didn’t know you lived here, they’d drive right by.”

  I do what he says, turn off the lights, lock the door again, then take him by the arm . . . “Come into the bedroom and I’ll dry you off. It’s not the Nelson men, is it?”

  “Jake and William? No. The Nelsons confine themselves to white-collar crime.”

  Lenny comes to the bedroom, lays a pistol that he pulls out of the back of his jeans on the dresser and drops onto the bed. My eyes get big. What kind of mess have I fallen into?

  “How do you know the Nelsons anyway?” Lenny asks after I take off his wet clothes and cover him.

  “Their parents used to own this cottage.” I crawl in beside him. “The men and their sister were here the other day, and if they’re looking for you and know we’re involved, they may come back.”

  I stumble on the word involved. Are we involved? It seems presumptuous. For all I know Lenny has a honey in every port from Lorain, Ohio, to Paris.

  “God no. They’re little fish in a big pond.”

  “These other guys are big fish?”

  “Yeah, big.”

  “You’re mixed up in something, aren’t you? Do you need help? I can call Sergeant Dolman. I have his number. He’s a cop here, but not a bad cop. Maybe he can help.”

  “Pete? No. I just have to get off the island. . . .” He pauses in thought. “I’ll get my brother-in-law at Red Hawk to fly in tomorrow morning and pick me up and then I’ll leave the country for a while. Someone can come back for the boat next week.”

  “Shall I make you some coffee? A sandwich? I have some money. Do you need money?” (I feel like I’m in the middle of a TV cop show and I’m not sure whose side I’m on . . . the good guys or the bad.)

  “No. Thank you anyway, Sara. You’re a sweetheart. I just want to sleep until it starts to get light. And, Sara, you can’t mention me to anyone. I don’t want you mixed up in any of this!” He grips my hand and I nod soberly. “Now, can you rest with me?” he asks.

  There is no lovemaking this time, just the comfort of each other’s bodies. Lenny holds on to me as if I were a life preserver in the middle of Lake Erie and when his breathing slows I know he’s asleep. Once in the night he kisses me on the back of my neck and I shiver. “I’ll miss you,” he whispers. “I’ll miss you.”

  When I wake, Lenny is gone.

  CHAPTER 34

  Roadhouse

  Best pizza on the island,” Jed tells me a few evenings later after we’ve ordered a pepperoni and black olive to share. “Way better than the Black Sheep.” I invited him out because I still owe him for helping me fix up the house and yard, but really because I want to find out if anything strange happened after the folk concert.

  We’re sitting in the Roadhouse at a table that looks out on the marina. Ten sailboats are docked and their masts look like naked black trees against the pale lilac sky. Each sailboat is doubled in the calm water and the reflections shimmer when a trawler comes in.

  I take in the Roadhouse. MUSIC, FRIENDS, FOOD the sign says over the long oak bar. The large room with wooden tables and red-and-white-checkered tablecloths is almost full, a good crowd for a Wednesday and the guitarist is just tuning up. Jed waves hello to a few of the locals.

  “Do they have music here every night in the summer?” I ask.

  “No, not usually, but the musician on stage was at the folk fest last year and is now in love with Seagull Island. It happens a lot.” There’s a pause as we listen to the first few lines of her song, a familiar tune. “There is a house in New Orleans they call the rising sun . . .”

  Jed stares out the window at a small white bird that’s struggling in the wind. The bird takes a vertical plunge into the water headfirst. “What kind of a seagull is that?” I wonder out loud.

  “It’s not a gull. It’s a tern. They’re smaller with more pointy wings and they do that incredible dive when they see a fish.”

  “And it’s been the ruin of many a poor girl, and me, oh God, I’m one . . .” We listen to the vocalist until she’s done.

  “Anything happen at any of the taverns, after you brought me home the other night?” I ask, trying to sound casual.

  “You mean the fight? Peter tell you about it? It was kind of weird. A couple of gangbangers from Cleveland got into it with some dudes from Toronto. Knives were flashed, but no guns. Dolman and I broke it up. He thinks they were arguing about a drug deal.

  “It could have been worse,” he goes on. “Serena runs a tight ship.” He nods toward a beautiful woman behind the bar with smooth olive skin, a long black ponytail and dangling turquoise earrings. “She even hired a bouncer for the festival. I left about 1:00 A.M. Everything had calmed down by then, but the joint was still rocking.”

  “So you didn’t see what the fight was about? I didn’t think there were drugs on Seagull.” (I’m thinking that Lenny arrived at my house just after two.)

  “You kidding?” Jed says. “There are drugs everywhere, sister. Oxycontin, morphine, speed, heroin. Everywhere.”

  COMMON TERN

  Common on open water

  Nests in large colonies on beaches

  Range: US to Canada

  Diet: Feeds on fish by diving headfirst into the water

  Congregates in flocks for feeding frenzy

  Voice: A descending keeeeyur also a high kit

  Size: 12 inches

  Wingspan: 30 inches

  Secret

  This morning the sun rises into a clear blue sky and a tiny bird about the size of my thumb darts among the zinnias out by the picket fence. It has a long beak and tiny legs and zips around like a helicopter. It’s the first hummingbird I’ve seen since I left West Virginia and I wish that I had a hummingbird feeder.

  I’m mulling over how I could make one when Molly Lou pulls into my drive and gets out of her Subaru, carrying an old dented mailbox. “Thought you could use this. We got a new one and Eugene Burke says he’ll deliver your mail if you put it on that old post by your driveway.”

  “Well, that was nice of you!” I
greet her. “Come in and have some ice tea. Where’s Little Chris?”

  “He’s with his daddy. I wanted to talk to you alone.”

  This gets my attention and I go very still. From my experience as a midwife, women don’t start a conversation that way unless something’s wrong. I wait, but she’s not ready.

  “Is this tea herbal?” she asks, tasting it.

  “Yes, it’s peppermint. I dried it myself from some mint plants I found on the side of the house. What’s up, Molly Lou? You and Big Chris doing okay?”

  It’s then that the woman breaks down in tears and cries so hard and loud that even Tiger backs into a corner. “I’m so sorry!” she keeps saying as she takes another tissue and wipes her eyes. “I’m so sorry!”

  “What is it, Molly?”

  “You can’t tell anyone! You swear?”

  “I won’t tell. You know I won’t.”

  She takes a deep breath and blows it out, takes another one like she’s getting ready to dive underwater and looks right at me. “Last Christmas just before the final ferry of winter went out, I had an affair.”

  I wait, wondering how else she can surprise me, but when she doesn’t go on, I ask the next question. “Does Chris know?”

  “Chris can never know! The trouble is . . . Well, the trouble is I feel so guilty I can’t look at him. I finally moved upstairs to the spare bedroom. We haven’t made love in eight months.”

  “Were you a good couple before? I mean, were you close?”

  “Yes. Well, yes and no. We had a big fight around Thanksgiving about finances. He wanted to buy another tractor and I put my foot down. That was the last time we made love and then this thing happened . . . You’re going to think I’m terrible.”

  (Lord, I think, maybe that floozy at the Roadhouse was right. Seagull Island is a hotbed of infidelity.)

  “Wait a minute, Molly. Doesn’t Chris ask why you don’t want to be with him?”

  “I told him I’m going through premature menopause and I’m hot flashing so bad we can’t sleep together. I told him that’s why I can’t make love. He doesn’t know much about women.”

  “So was it a long affair? I mean, you don’t have to say who the other man is, but do you still see him?”

  “He’s gone back to Mexico. It was one of the migrant laborers at the Cider Mill Farm, a boss of the crew who worked in the orchards. I met him at the country store. We were just flirting around. I never knew his full name. Then one night it happened. We were in the Subaru behind the Black Sheep Pub.” Here she starts crying again.

  I feel like saying, Molly Lou! You have got to be kidding! But I keep my face still. As a nurse and a midwife, I hear all kinds of stories and I never want to show that I’m shocked. “So what are you going to do?” I step into the bathroom for a tissue.

  “I don’t know. I’m afraid if I don’t start making love with Chris I’ll lose him, but I feel so dirty . . . and I love him, Sara. I don’t know what I was thinking. I guess I wasn’t thinking . . . and there’s something else. Ever since I was unfaithful . . .” (Here she looks away.) “I have a smell. Jed told me a long time ago that you know about women’s things. What should I do?”

  “Are you asking me what you should do about Chris and your marriage or the smelly discharge?”

  Molly looks at me with her big blue eyes still full of tears. “Both. What should I do about the discharge? I think it’s an infection but I can’t tell Jed. And what should I do about Chris? I can’t lose him.” She says this last part again.

  I pour us another cup of tea to give myself time to think. “Did you use a condom?”

  Molly Lou shrugs meaning no and I can’t help it, I roll my eyes, then I let out a long breath. “You could go to a physician in Windsor.”

  “But don’t you see? It can’t be anyone who would put it on my health record.”

  She begins to sob again until I move over to the sofa and hold her in my arms, absorbing her sorrow, accepting her imperfections, agreeing to help her find a clinic in Detroit.

  “I’ll have to be off the island all day,” Molly thinks out loud. “If I take the 8:00 A.M. ferry to Leamington, I can drive to Windsor and then across the bridge to Detroit. I’ve never done this before by myself. Chris always drives. Maybe you could come with me . . .”

  “Sorry, Molly. I can’t go back to the States.” (Here I bite my tongue, but Molly is too involved in her own crisis to think about what I’ve said and she doesn’t ask why.)

  “You must not tell anyone,” Molly Lou warns me. “Chris is already hurt and angry. If he found out I was unfaithful and had a sexually transmitted disease it would be the end.” Here she breaks down again. “I miss him so much. At night I hear him moving around in the bedroom below and I want to go down and snuggle up with him, but I can’t.”

  She dries her eyes again and stands to wash her face. “I have to go home now and make Chris his lunch. You probably wonder why that’s so important . . . always making him lunch. It’s because I feel so guilty. I’ve been unfaithful and I’m no longer a real wife, but I can still feed him . . .”

  RUBY-THROATED HUMMINGBIRD

  A small gray and green bird

  with a slender long downward-curved bill

  Males have a metallic ruby throat

  Flies fast but can stop on a dime

  It can also hover and adjust its position up and down

  Habitat: Lives in fields, yards and parks

  in the eastern US and southern Canada

  Winters in Central America

  Loves sugar water feeders, but lives on nectar and bugs

  Voice: a distinct high-pitched twitter

  Midwives Help People Out

  The first thing I do in the morning is bike to the ferry dock and do some research on my cell phone. Then I bike back to the cottage and call Molly Lou. “Can you talk?”

  “Chris and Little Chris are out on the tractor.”

  “The way I see it, you have three problems. The first one is finding out if you have an STD. Hopefully, it’s something that can be cured with antibiotics. Some viruses stay with you for life.”

  “I know about herpes, HIV and vaginal warts. I looked them up on the computer. You don’t think I have them, do you?”

  “I can’t say if you’ve been exposed, but you haven’t seen any lumps or bumps in your private area, have you?”

  “No . . . nothing.”

  “Well, that’s a good sign. I got you an appointment next Tuesday at a Planned Parenthood office near Wayne State University in Detroit. It will cost seventy-five dollars. They don’t ask for ID or an address and you can call for the test results. I’ll write it all down. Can you drive in the city?”

  “I will. I have to.”

  “Once you come back and are treated, the next challenge will be learning to forgive yourself. You did something stupid. We all do stupid things now and then.”

  “But how will I ever get back with Chris?” She sniffles.

  “I don’t know, Molly. I’ll think about it. Where there’s love, there’s a way.”

  “Thank you, Sara! I had no one else I could turn to.” We hang up and I look over at Tiger.

  “Pretty strange. I left my husband because he was unfaithful. Now here I am helping an unfaithful woman. The difference is Molly Lou had only one episode. She didn’t do it over and over again and she’s truly remorseful.” My kitty comes over and licks my hand. I pet his head and he purrs. “What kind of craziness have we gotten ourselves into, Tiger?”

  Then I remember that I’m a midwife and this is what midwives do. Like the medallion I still wear around my neck says, MIDWIVES HELP PEOPLE OUT.

  CHAPTER 35

  Threats

  For five days the wind blows and big waves march across the cove with military precision. At night they roar and I leave the window open in my bedroom so I can hear them.

  Molly’s visit to Planned Parenthood goes well. She has chlamydia but not gonorrhea and if she takes all her antibiotics
(and I’m sure she will), it will be gone. She has to wait another week to get the results of her blood tests for HIV, herpes and hepatitis, so we hope for the best and go on as before, while Chris, puzzled and angry, receives his lunch exactly at noon.

  FOR TWO NIGHTS it rains and I try not to dwell on Molly Lou’s situation. How ironic that I’m playing marriage counselor when I couldn’t keep my own marriage together! Finally it clears, a beautiful day with whitecaps, blue sky and blue water.

  It’s time to visit Terry Jacob, the weaver. (I’m ashamed of myself really. Though I’ve called her four times, I’ve never been to her home.)

  I’m just getting on my bike when I see in the distance the white convertible. It’s the Nelsons. Damn! Maybe I should have told them in person about Lloyd’s new will, but not wanting to get involved, I just gave the document to Peter and let him take care of it.

  The BMW pulls up in a cloud of dust. “So what the hell were you trying to pull? Hiding that so-called handwritten will from us.” The younger brother, Jake, jumps out of the vehicle with his hands balled in fists, but his sister pulls him back.

  “Jake,” Charlene shouts. “Calm down. Let’s talk about this civilly.”

  “I don’t know what there is to talk about,” I defend myself. “I found Lloyd’s will in the top of the closet. It looked legitimate, so I took it to Sergeant Dolman to get his opinion.”

  “Why didn’t you notify us? Why Dolman? How do you think it made us feel, having to learn about this from our lawyer?” Jake towers over me and fires his questions like bullets from an automatic weapon.

  “Can we come in?” Charlene asks. “Sit down and have a talk?”

  “There’s nothing to talk about. The will is legitimate or it’s not. That’s for the courts to decide. What do you want from me?”

  Jake looks at Charlene. “Well, we have some questions. When did you find the handwritten will? Before or after Lloyd and Wanda died?”