The Reluctant Midwife Read online

  “Survival of the fittest,” Captain Wolfe says again, and then we are silent until we pass through Liberty and cross back over the Hope, where we can see the tents that are pitched in the shelter of the stone bridge. Men are huddled around campfires in the snow and mud. . . .

  “The roads are bad. Do you think you should stay the night at the Hesters’ house and go home in the morning? You’d be welcome, I’m sure, but all we have is a sofa.”

  “No, I’ll be fine. It’s clearing up.”

  We slip sideways on Salt Lick as we plow through a drift, but finally make it home. As he walks me to the door an awkwardness closes around us.

  “Well, I had a lovely time.” I thank my escort as I stand shivering on the walk and I’m surprised when he takes my hand.

  “You’re a beautiful woman,” Captain Wolfe says. “Perhaps just a little too soft-hearted. . . .” When he smiles, his white teeth gleam in the porch light.

  Norman pulls me to him, holds me against his chest, and I think I could rest there forever. Comfort. Safety. “You are a beautiful woman,” he says again.

  When the low clouds open, the half-moon breaks out and illuminates the white world, a world of light and promise.

  January 1, 1935

  There’s something I don’t like about this man, Wolfe. “Captain Wolfe” Becky calls him. I watch the two of them from my dark bedroom upstairs, watch them stand in the snow after their return from the ball. She’s shivering in her thin wool coat and he takes her in his arms, holds her in the moonlight for a full two minutes.

  Becky is too innocent. And I fear he will hurt her. Cut her tender heart open like an apple, and take a bite with his sharp teeth. When the captain walks away, I can hear his saber rattle against his injured knee.

  Prison

  It’s New Year’s Day and I think we all have the post-holiday slump. The house is quiet and there’s a center of gloom around Patience’s room. Each day I take her vital signs, listen to the baby’s heartbeat, and measure with my fingers how much the fetus has grown. I record the amount of fetal movement, the amount of bleeding, and whether there are any contractions.

  The baby is strong, but Patience is not. When I really look at her, I notice that her face is drawn. Her skin is too pale. Her arms are too thin.

  “So? What did you do then?” Patience questions me. I have just told her about the unemployed men picketing outside the Hotel Torrington.

  “What could I do? There was a line of vehicles waiting and more people coming out of the hotel. We had to get in the auto and leave.”

  “Well, you should have done something, at least given them a few coins?”

  “Their signs said they didn’t want handouts. They wanted work, decent jobs.”

  Patience let’s out a sigh and rubs her face. “It’s been so long since I’ve been anywhere but this bed, I forget how hard it is out there. So long as we have food and warmth, I think everyone else does.”

  “Where do you want me to put this?” I’m holding up the beautiful gown.

  The midwife shrugs. “It’s yours. Put it in your room.” I can’t tell if she’s mad at me for not doing something to help the jobless men or just upset because she can’t do anything.

  “I’m sorry,” she explains. “I’ve just got the blues again and I’m envious of you, going out to help people, going to births, going to dances, meeting Mrs. Roosevelt. I feel like the Count of Monte Cristo, locked away in a dungeon.”

  “I didn’t exactly meet Mrs. Roosevelt. She just stopped at our table and thanked us for representing Camp White Rock. She shook our hands and moved on. She shook everyone’s hand.”

  “I know. You told me.”

  Patience is lonely, discouraged, and bleeding again. Not a lot, just a little red on her pad. I look over at the calendar hanging on the wall next to her bed. On each numbered square, Patience has made an X, marking off the days like a prisoner. Now we face January—dark, cold, and lasting forever.

  Sheriff Hardman

  Captain Wolfe puts his dishes and silverware in the bin by the mess hall sink, then stops to chat with the cook, Starvation MacFarland. (I don’t know how the man got his name; no one is starving here!) The captain laughs at something Starvation says, then turns to look out across the mess hall.

  We haven’t spent much time together or gone on another “date,” but every few days he comes by the infirmary to ask me if everything is going okay or if I need any more supplies, and once on a dry, sunny day when the temperature rose above fifty and we weren’t busy, he drove me up the back trail in a CCC truck to show me the wooden fire tower the men are building on top of White Rock Mountain.

  I had never been up there before and the view of the mist and the mountains rolling on, ridge after ridge, took my breath away. Below us, the granite cliffs dropped two hundred feet, and in the distance steam rose from the ice-covered river.

  Working on the tower above were eight young men, carrying timbers, balancing on scaffolding, hammering, sawing, bolting the wooden structure together. The fellows looked so small at the top, like little plastic soldiers.

  “How high is it?” I asked.

  “One hundred and fifty feet. It will be nearly one seventy when they finish the lookout cabin at the top. I’ll take you up there someday when it’s safe.”

  I wrinkle my nose. “Maybe not.”

  “Afraid of heights?” The captain laughs.

  “Just a little.”

  “Miss Becky!” A voice breaks me out of my memoires. It’s Mrs. Ross calling me in her high voice, as she stands just inside the mess hall door. She’s wearing her winter coat and hat and I realize I’ve never seen her in the cafeteria before. She prefers to bring her own lunch and eat at her desk while listening to supervisor Milliken’s big band records on his Victrola. The minute we return, she turns off the machine, as if it’s her guilty secret. “Miss Becky!” she calls again looking around the mess hall.

  “Over here!” Boodean yells and the short round woman rushes across the crowded room. By the look on her white face, I have no doubt something’s wrong. Perhaps one of the boys has been injured.

  “Oh, Nurse Myers! I hate to interrupt your meal, but Sheriff Hardman from Liberty is in the main office and needs to speak to you.” All heads turn and the hall gets very quiet. Most of these young men have had hard lives and know that a summons from the sheriff is never a good thing.

  Captain Wolfe strides over. “Is there a problem, Mrs. Ross?”

  The poor lady is so upset she’s shaking all over. “The sherriff wants Miss Becky, now. Says he tried to reach us on the two-way radio, but couldn’t get through.”

  “I’m sure it’s nothing,” I reassure. “I’ll be right over, Mrs. Ross.”

  “I’ll come with you.” That’s Wolfe, the protector.

  Outside, rain comes in from an angle and I pull my burgundy wool coat closer. The sheriff paces on the clinic porch. He takes a drag from his cigarette, blows out steam with the smoke, and tosses it into the snowbank.

  “What’s this about, Bill?” Wolfe starts out, and I’m surprised that the captain knows the lawman by name.

  “There’s a woman in labor and Daniel Hester, the vet, called and asked me to get Miss Myers,” Hardman explains. “Can you come, Nurse? It’s way out in Hazel Patch.”

  “A birth? A delivery?” Even in the chill, I begin to perspire.

  “Yes.” The sheriff looks at me funny, wondering what else it could be. “One of the colored ladies. The midwife told the vet that it’s her second child and she expects a quick delivery.”

  “Go,” says the captain. “Don’t worry about your automobile. One of the boys from the motor pool and I will drive it out later.”

  “Let’s hit it,” says Hardman, opening the door of his squad car. I grab my nurse’s bag out of the Pontiac and climb in with him.

  “Oh, dear!” says Mrs. Ross, fanning away a hot flash.

  30

  Livia

  “So, do you know what’
s going on?” I ask Sheriff Hardman as we skid out the CCC gate.

  “Sorry, didn’t get the details.” He activates the flashing red lights on either side of the front doors, and then takes off on a small dirt road, a shortcut to Liberty. It isn’t until we’re within a mile of town that he turns on the siren and I feel like I’m a G-man on a Prohibition raid. In another half hour, we’re following a rail fence into Hazel Patch.

  This is the first time I’ve been to the Negro community, and as we wheel through the neighborhood, the siren blaring, small, tidy farmsteads fly by. Most have a barn and farm animals and enough oak and maple trees for a woodlot out back. There are goats and sheep, a few cows and even some horses, and it strikes me that this is what Mrs. Roosevelt is trying to create at Arthurdale, only the people have done it without government help.

  At last we pull into a short drive and stop in front of a weathered clapboard house where a small dark man stands on the front porch waving. Apparently, he’s expecting us, because he shows no surprise as a police car with red lights pulls into his yard.

  “It’s coming!” he shouts. “The baby’s coming!”

  With no time to thank the lawman, I grab my nurse’s bag and run into the house where three colored women push me into the bedroom.

  “The midwife’s here. She’s here!” they tell the very lean mother who half sits in bed, rhythmically swinging her head back and forth. She’s gripping the white sheets, making a low noise in her throat, and an infant’s head, with dark curly hair, shows at the opening of her vagina.

  I take a deep breath. “Hello . . . I’m Nurse Myers the home health nurse. I’m sorry . . . the sheriff didn’t give me your name.”

  “Mmmmmmm,” the mother groans. The short man who was waiting on the porch and who I assume is the father makes a brief introduction.

  “Sorry, I’m Homer Lewis and this is my wife, Livia. Now that you’re here, I’m going to escape down to the Reverend’s house. This is women’s business.” He kisses his wife and steps out in a hurry.

  “Okay, Livia, one or two more pushes and the baby will be out. If you can blow through the next few pains, I’ll have everything ready.” What I’m thinking is, this looks easy. I don’t even need to get vital signs or a fetal heartbeat. It will all be over in minutes.

  “Ladies.” I turn to the three birth attendants, a light brown wisp dressed in a yellow shift; a graying, almost black grandmotherly type; and the third, a coffee-colored girl who could be the laboring woman’s sister. She has the same narrow face, high cheekbones, and almond eyes, and it suddenly strikes me that even though they are all called Negro, they’re as different as a pale Norwegian, a swarthy Italian, and a red-faced Irishman.

  “Ladies, this is what I want you to do. . . .” I give orders like the boss on a PWA road crew and within minutes we’re set up and ready for the birth.

  “Okay, Livia, time to push.”

  The laboring woman doesn’t answer but growls with the next pain, the sound of a mother elephant calling her young.

  There’s timelessness when watching a labor and we slip into the stream. I check vital signs. I check the fetal heartbeat and all is well, but after another ten contractions I look at my watch. This isn’t right. The head hasn’t moved and it’s been forty minutes. I need to take action, but what should I do?

  “Livia, I want you to stop pushing for a few minutes.” I turn toward the others. “A phone? Is there a telephone?”

  “The closest one is at the Reverend’s house. Reverend Miller,” offers the gray-haired lady, her eyes big and round.

  Damn! (A silent curse.)

  “Okay, then, I need someone to run to the Millers’ home and call Patience Hester, the midwife. Who can that be? Who will go?” The young woman in yellow raises her hand.

  “Okay, what’s your name?”

  “Daisy.”

  “So, Daisy, here’s what I want you to say. . . .”

  She bundles up and takes off, a deer chased by a pack of hounds, slipping and sliding in the gray slush. Once she falls, but she looks back, grins, and keeps going. “Tell the Reverend a few prayers couldn’t hurt,” I call after her, but I don’t think she hears.

  It’s only then that I notice the weather, low clouds boiling over the mountains and into the valley. Daisy runs into the wind.

  The Midwife’s Advice

  Patience told me when you don’t know what to do, wipe the mother’s face, so I return to the bedside with a cup of sweet, hot tea, reach for a cool rag, and follow my friend’s advice. Livia’s eyes flutter open and with my little finger I moisten her chapped lips.

  “How much longer, midwife?” she asks me. (Midwife! I feel like an imposter.)

  “I want you to rest another twenty minutes, then we’ll start pushing again.”

  “Is my baby too big?”

  I lean across the bed to palpate the uterus. “I don’t think so. About six pounds.”

  “My other one was seven.” We look at each other.

  Only a few weeks ago, Patience talked to me about obstructed labor. “While you sit on your hands,” she advised, “try to think what could be wrong. Are the contractions too weak? Then strengthen them. Is the mother too tired? Try to get her to rest. Is the baby in a bad position? Correct it.”

  I run over these options while I check the fetal heart rate, then look at my watch again. Where is Daisy? I hope she understands the importance of bringing the midwife’s message back as fast as she can.

  To fill the time, I do something I’ve never done before. I brush Livia’s dark hair between contractions. She lets out her breath and sinks back on the pillows.

  “Thank you, Miss Becky. Why is it you have to go through labor to be treated like a queen?”

  “You are a queen. I’ve never met a woman who was so brave.”

  “I’m scared. All I can do is pray. My body is one solid prayer for my baby.” She starts to contract again just as a horse with two riders gallops up to the house.

  “Did you get her on the phone?” I meet Daisy on the porch, impatient to hear.

  “I talked to the vet, who ran upstairs and talked to his wife, then came back with her message. The midwife says, ‘If you can’t shift the baby, shift the woman.’ ”

  “What?”

  “If you can’t shift the baby, shift the woman.” The girl takes a few more deep breaths and looks right at me. “That’s what her husband reported. He said those are her exact words, ‘If you can’t shift the baby, shift the woman.’ ”

  “That’s all? That’s all she said?” I reenter the house, shaking my head. Outside the window, a few snowflakes drift down.

  “Shift the woman!” Grandma repeats with a toothy grin. “You know. Shake her up. Get her moving.”

  The Power of Snowflakes

  I decide to trust Patience.

  “Livia.” I kneel down by the bed. “How are you holding up?”

  “I can’t do this much longer.”

  “Well, you aren’t going to have to. The midwife sent word that we must get you moving. We’ll try different positions, and if that doesn’t bring the baby, we’ll head to the hospital in Torrington.” There’s a hush in the room.

  “Oh, no! We can’t go there.” Livia begins to cry. “You don’t know what it’s like. The colored hospital is down in the basement. Old people go there to die, but only if they have no kin. I can’t go there! I won’t. I’d rather die here, where people care about me.”

  I am struck dumb by Livia’s words. No one is going to die! Not if I have anything to say about it.

  The first thing we try is walking. I thought this might be too uncomfortable, with the top of the baby’s head sticking out, but strangely it’s not. When Livia gets up, she actually feels better and she tells us her back pain is gone. I have her push standing, with my hands positioned under the baby’s head. We try squatting. We try hands and knees. Still no change.

  Outside it’s getting dark and has begun to snow hard, big wet flakes that slash against
the house and cover the west side of the trees. From far away there’s the sound of a vehicle gunning through the thick white.

  Daisy lights a kerosene lantern, sticks her head out the bedroom door, and says something to the people who’ve just arrived, but I pick up only a few sentences. “She wants to take her to the colored ward in Torrington. You have to make her understand, that just isn’t going to happen.”

  I shake my head, let out a long sigh, and keep going. A few minutes later the familiar words of the Lord’s Prayer come through the wall. (I’d told Daisy to tell the preacher that a few prayers couldn’t hurt. They must have formed a vigil.) Then both male and female voices break out with, “Onward Christian Soldiers,” a strange choice I think to serenade a woman in labor, but it actually gives us strength.

  “Onward Christian soldiers, marching as to war,

  With the cross of Jesus, going on before.”

  Livia’s face and whole beautiful brown pregnant body are now slick with sweat as she pushes and pushes with no results. The rest of the women are working hard too, so I open the bedroom window a few inches to cool us.

  “Oh, can you smell it? Can you smell the snow?” Livia exclaims turning her head toward the fresh air. “I want to go outside!” She looks around for her slippers and Daisy finds them for her as if this was the most natural thing in the world, but I’m horrified.

  “Oh, I don’t think so! The snow is really coming down.”

  “I know. That’s why I want to go out there. I need to feel it on my skin, on my arms and face. I need to feel something different than the pain between my legs.”

  I stand in front of her to block the way. “It really can’t be recommended. Women in labor never go outside, certainly not in the snow. You might catch pneumonia. Now how would that be when you have a new baby?”

  Livia isn’t listening. She’s moving toward the door with determination, and if I don’t move, she may plow me over.