The Reluctant Midwife Read online

  The seizure lasts ten minutes and then Linus Boggs from New Martinsburg is dead.

  Washing Death Off

  It’s dark by the time I cross the Hope River, and the campfires of the homeless under the bridge throw flickering light on the stonework. I’d stayed two hours after the boy expired, cleaned up his soiled underclothes, washed his body, and with Boodean’s help wrapped him in a clean sheet for the undertaker. Then I finished my nurse’s notes, filled out the death report, and called Dr. Crane on the shortwave radio.

  “You did what you could,” the physician said, trying to comfort me. “It wouldn’t have mattered if I’d been there. Without a neurosurgeon and an operating room, he couldn’t have been saved. Even if you had tried to get him to Torrington, that’s a three-hour drive and he would have seized and expired in the truck. You did what you could,” he said again. “I’ll contact the next of kin.” And that was the end of it.

  Now I walk through the Hesters’ side yard toward the house, carrying my little black medical bag. Daniel and Dr. Blum are waiting on the porch and don’t say a word, not that the doctor ever says much.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” Daniel asks, gently leading me inside. I shake my head no. “Mrs. Stenger called,” he goes on. “She heard about the boy’s death from Sheriff Hardman, who got the shortwave radio call and had to notify the mortuary. . . . Patience wants you upstairs. Can you take her some tea?”

  This seems like an odd request, but ever the nurse, I carry the tray up to her room. The midwife is waiting for me.

  “Sit here,” she commands, patting the side of the bed. I haven’t the strength to argue. “Did you eat?”

  “I’m not hungry. . . . Oh, Patience. He shouldn’t have died,” I let loose the tears. “I went to lunch, so sure I’d done a good job and that he was going to be okay. I set his arm in a cast and everything. The physician at the other camp said his death was inevitable, that I wasn’t to blame, but it shouldn’t have happened. He was just a kid, really.”

  Patience pours hot water in a cup, but forgets the tea ball, and instead takes a cloth, dips it in the warm water, and wipes my face. Tenderly, she wipes my hands and neck. She pulls up my sweater and undoes my bra. She drops a long white flannel nightgown over my head, like I’m a child, and pulls me down on her bed.

  “You can sleep here.”

  “I’ll be better downstairs.”

  “No, you won’t. You’ll sleep with me. It’s healing to lie next to someone after a great loss. Once I had a woman die in labor; she seized too. Eclampsia. I slept with Daniel that night. He washed the death off me.”

  There’s no arguing with the midwife. We sleep together in her bed, both in our flannel gowns, Daniel politely taking the sofa.

  In the night I dream of falling. Linus and I are falling from the tower. The earth is rushing toward my face, but Patience catches us.

  February 27, 1935

  I am worried about Becky. The death of the young man, Linus, has hit her hard and she’s withdrawn and not herself. If a pan drops or little Danny makes a loud noise, her head jerks up as if expecting disaster. At meals her hands shake.

  I have lost patients; every physician has. If you work in the medical field long enough, you will lose a patient whether you are a physician, nurse, midwife, or vet, but you can’t blame yourself.

  Easy to say and I say this now, but I blamed myself plenty after the pharmaceutical man expired. The thing is, I never should have operated on him. As soon as I heard his name, I should have thrown down my scalpel and insisted the nurse find another surgeon. The trouble was, he was in shock, and if I hadn’t tried, he would have died anyway. That’s what I tell myself now, but I doubted it then.

  I watch Becky closely, worried the death of the corpsman will be too much for her and she will slip into the same black hole that I did after Priscilla and John Teeleman died. The sky is gray. The woods are gray. The snow is melting and dirty and gray.

  Leicester Longwool

  “I’m so glad you don’t have to go to the CCC camp for a few days, Becky. It was nice of them to give you the time off. You need to rest,” Patience says. We are all up in the Hesters’ bedroom listening to her read a bedtime story from her Hans Christian Andersen book, and Danny, in his blue footie pajamas, is snuggled between his mother and father where he can see the pictures. Blum and I sit in the extra chairs.

  Patience is right. I need the rest, but not just sleep. Since Linus’s death, my confidence has gone and I find myself expecting disaster wherever I turn.

  “Once upon a time, an old poet, a really nice and kind old poet, was sitting cozily by his potbellied stove eating apples . . .” The phone downstairs rings shrilly two times and a cold dread runs through me. Not a birth. Not a birth. After Linus’s death, I feel so weak, as if all the courage has drained out of me. There’s no way I could go out in the cold and face another mother alone.

  Daniel groans, jumps off the bed, and stomps down the stairs to the telephone. “Hester here. . . . How long? . . . Okay. . . .” I can’t hear what’s said on the other end, but he clumps back upstairs. “Well, Blum . . . looks like we’re needed.”

  “Oh, hon, do you have to go out?” Patience asks.

  The vet shrugs. “It’s one of Walter Schmidt’s sheep, his prize ewe. You know him, hon. His wife died of pneumonia a couple of years ago and he’s raising his boy and taking care of the farm alone. The ewe is carrying triplets. Huge. Why don’t you come, Becky? It will be fun and it won’t take long. Patience will be okay for a little while, won’t you, babe?”

  “That’s okay. I’ll stay and put Danny to bed,” I offer.

  “No, go,” insists Patience. “It will do you good, after witnessing death, to witness new life. It will be healing. Danny’s almost asleep already. Just take him to his crib, Daniel.”

  I’ve had an afternoon nap and everyone has been so kind to me, I have no good excuse to stay home, so thirty minutes later, Daniel, Dr. Blum, and I pull into a small farmyard on Elk Run. In the clearing, the lights of the Ford illuminate a henhouse, a barn, and a two-story log dwelling, and I’m surprised at the humble setting. When Hester mentioned the prize ewe, I’d assumed we’d be going to one of the bigger spreads.

  The vet gets out his doctor’s bag and hands it to Blum, then the two men head for the barn. I follow, unsure what my role will be.

  “Hello!” Hester booms out. “Hello!”

  A child wearing a woolen knit cap and a plaid wool jacket peeks out the double barn doors. Inside, there’s a kerosene lantern hanging from a beam and in the center of the circle of yellow light a farmer kneels next to the biggest sheep I’ve ever seen, a strange creature with strings of long, curly wool hanging all over it.

  “Is the lamb dead, Pa?” the little boy asks.

  “No, watch. It’s still wiggling.” He turns toward the door. “Hester, thank God you’re here. Hated to call you at night, but this ewe is really suffering. She’s the one I got at the auction last year, a Leicester Longwool. Can’t afford to lose her. Been laboring now for five hours. I can’t get her to stand on her feet and she’s stopped straining, a bad sign.”

  “Have you been inside to feel around?”

  “Yes, but only once. I remember what you told me when you came out to help with the foal last spring. A farmer should go in once and if he can’t figure out what to do, right then, he should call the vet.” He sits back on his haunches and smiles, and I notice one of his front teeth is missing. Except for that, he’s a handsome man with a brown mustache who reminds me a little of Hemingway. “I know it will cost me an arm and a leg, but I can’t find the head and there’s three legs presenting.”

  Daniel throws his coat to me and hangs his hat on a post, then walks over and squats next to a bucket of steaming hot water and begins to scrub his hands and arms with a bar of lye soap. “These are my assistants, Dr. Blum and Nurse Myers. You know them?”

  The farmer looks over, but the sheep is so exhausted she doesn’t even lif
t her head. “Nice to meet you. I’ve heard you were back,” he says this to Blum and then tips his hat to me. “Nurse Myers . . . This is Martha.” He stokes his ewe’s head and puts his forehead to hers.

  Gopher

  “I’ll need the rope in the trunk, Becky. Can you get it, please?” Blum is now taking his turn soaping up. “Oh, and bring the old blanket.”

  Now I see what my role is. Gopher! Go for this. Go for that. I push open the big doors and the little boy follows. “Can I help you?” He’s a pleasant little fellow of about seven, who wears tiny spectacles and his voice is deeper than what you’d expect.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Petey. Peter Schmidt, I mean.”

  I open the trunk of the Ford and feel around in the dark for the blanket. The ropes are harder to find. They turn out to be a bundle of cord and I hand this to Petey. As we reenter the barn, the doctors are waiting. The little boy hands the cord to Dr. Hester, who hands it to Blum. I shake out the old wool coverlet. “Here?”

  “Little more toward her back side.” The vet points with his boot as he rubs some lubricant on his right hand, all the way to his elbow, then lies down on his side on the old lap robe. With the three-foot-long cord, a slipknot at the end, he works his way into the ewe’s vagina.

  “Well, this is a challenge!” He smiles his crooked smile. “Good thing you called me. It’s going to be tricky. The first thing I have to figure out is which lamb the legs belong to.” I’m surprised when Petey comes over and leans up against me. Maybe he misses his ma, I think, imagining what it would be like to be the mother of such a child.

  “Baaaaaa!” Martha cries. “Baaaaaaaaaa!” She struggles to get up, but Blum and Mr. Schmidt hold her in place. The farmer whispers something into her ear to keep her calm. Other than her cries there’s only the hiss of the Coleman and the snorting and footfalls of other larger animals in the dark recesses of the barn.

  “Mmmmmmm,” the vet moans. “She’s straining against me. Trying to push my arm out. This is a real puzzle. Another rope please.”

  Blum fixes a loop at the end of another cord and hands it over. If I ever had any doubt that Isaac can understand, it’s obvious that he does. He even anticipates what the vet will need next. Daniel screws his face up as the ewe tries to expel him. “Baaaaa!” She shakes her head and almost gets up.

  “Let her,” Daniel orders. “Let’s see what happens.” Blum and Schmidt back off as the sheep springs to her feet. Hester still holds the ends of the cords. “I’ve got them attached to two fetlocks that I think are from the same lamb, so let’s hope I’m right. We’ll let her strain again and see if we can help her.”

  I look at my watch. It’s now ten P.M. Petey yawns, but Daniel’s guess is right: the first lamb comes out with traction from the cords and the next two lambs follow without a problem. In a little more than thirty minutes, three miniature sheep are wobbling around in the straw, trying to get to their mother.

  “By God, that was slick! Thanks for coming out, Hester!” the farmer expresses his appreciation. Then in a much quieter tone, “I can’t pay you anything now, but you know I’m good for it.” The vet doesn’t show his disappointment, but hearing Patience talk, I know they have bills to pay too, the mortgage on the Hesters’ large farm, for one.

  “That’s okay, I know how tight cash money is. You’ll get it to me when you can, or we’ll work out a trade.”

  Back in the Ford, we all sit up front, me sandwiched between the two men. I smile in the dark. Patience was right. I’m glad I came. Seeing a birth when I have no responsibility is uplifting. Linus is dead. He has left this earthly home for a new one, but three fuzzy new lambs are born. Life is a circle, renewing itself, one way or another.

  It’s almost midnight as we drive home and there’s a light snow, big white flakes coming down from the west. Hypnotized, I watch them dance in the headlights. It’s so peaceful; twice I fall asleep and when I wake I find my head on Blum’s shoulder. The second time, his arm is around me.

  Finally, we bump across the wooden bridge and into the yard.

  “Better check the stock before bed,” the vet says as he turns off the engine.

  The minute Blum opens the passenger-side door I know something is wrong.

  33

  Red

  What alarms me as I stand outside the Hesters’ stone house is the sound of Danny crying from his dark bedroom upstairs while the light is still on in Patience’s room. “I’ll see what’s going on.” I enter the kitchen and take the stairs two at a time while the men head for the barn.

  “Patience?”

  “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  I push open the door. What in heaven’s name? My first thought is that someone has spilled paint on the bed, but that’s absurd. Patience is lying in a pool of her own blood, and the red spreads down the sheets to the floor.

  Tears run down the midwife’s white face and she speaks slowly as if drugged.

  “I shouldn’t have done it. . . . I was having bad stomach pains and thought it was because I was constipated so I convinced myself maybe I could have a bowel movement in the commode if I squatted and strained. When I got up, the blood came and I realized the pains weren’t from being blocked up. Oh, Becky, I’m so scared!” She lets out a sob, just as Daniel enters.

  “God in heaven!” His face turns gray. “Fucking hell. Fucking hell,” he curses, looking around at all the red, as upset as the time we found him in the ditch saying he’d killed his wife. “Oh, Patience, honey.” He collapses next to the bed, kneeling in the blood and taking his wife’s face in his hands.

  Blum now stands in the doorway wiping Danny’s tears, but when he takes in the scene, he whips around so the child can’t see. It’s not easy to estimate the amount of blood when it’s spread all over the place, but from all the surgeries I’ve assisted with, it looks like a couple of pints. The human body I remember contains eight to ten. If she loses much more, she’ll go into shock.

  I put my hand on her uterus. It’s rock hard but there’s a baby inside, so old Mrs. Potts’s hemorrhage tincture can’t help us. “Daniel, quit blubbering and let’s find out what’s going on. Can you take her blood pressure?” I fly downstairs, grab my medical kit, and return, flinging the cuff and stethoscope across the bed.

  “Patience, listen to me. Take slow, deep breaths. I’ll do a vaginal exam and see if we have time to get to Torrington.” I’m surprised to hear myself speak with such authority. I almost sound like a midwife.

  “Oh, Becky. The pain. It’s here all the time and it just gets worse with contractions. I feel like I’m going to rip apart.”

  “I know, Patience.” I suck in a big breath and blow out through my lips. “I know. But breathe. Breathe like this. In . . . Out . . . In . . . Out.” I demonstrate and she copies while I sit down on a corner of the wet bed, warm with Patience’s life fluid, and pull my red rubber gloves over my shaking hands.

  Abruption

  “Blood pressure, seventy-six over fifty. Pulse one twenty,” Daniel spits out. He’s quit crying and wipes his face and nose with a clean corner of the sheet.

  I slide my fingers into Patience’s vagina and another blossom of blood spurts out. Blum now stands at the door again, but without Danny. Somehow, he’s gotten the child quieted and back in bed, probably gave him a cookie.

  “I’m abrupting. I know I am. The placenta is shearing off,” Patience whispers. “I’ve already lost two babies this way.” Another twisting pain comes and she stops to get through it, sweat beading on her brow. The contractions are two minutes apart.

  “Only four centimeters dilated,” I report to the group.

  “Shit,” says Daniel. “I was hoping for eight or ten.”

  “Check our baby. Check the heartbeat.” That’s Patience. She’s weak but still with us, the infant her chief concern.

  “Do you think we can make it to Torrington?” Daniel turns to me. “The snow’s really coming down now, but I could put chains on.”
/>   I take Dr. Blum’s stethoscope, place the silver headpiece over my brow, and lean down to listen to the fetal heart rate. At first I hear nothing and hold up my hand to quiet the room. Then from underneath Patience’s rapid pulse, I catch a slower tick tick and tap the air with my finger to show them the rate. Daniel looks at his watch.

  “Eighty,” he announces. “Too slow?” Patience starts crying again.

  “Oh, save my baby, Becky. I’ll push now! I can push! I don’t care if my cervix rips.” She sits up in bed and another half cup of blood spurts out of her.

  “What’s it supposed to be!” Daniel yells at me.

  “One hundred and twenty to one hundred and sixty.”

  Patience begins to breathe as if she’s been running, gulping for air. “Daniel, turn up the light. It’s getting dark,” she cries and then collapses back on the bed. He reaches over, his face almost as white as hers, and takes her pulse again.

  “One eighty, maybe. I can barely feel it.”

  Shock

  “Time to go,” Hester says, pulling himself together. “We have to cut. We have to do a cesarean section. Here, Blum, give me a hand. We’ll move Patience down to the kitchen. The bottle of ether is in the hall closet. Becky get the table ready and pull it away from the stove. Ether is flammable. Then build up the fire and put on a pot of water.”

  “Daddy?” It’s little Danny calling from his room.

  “Not now, honey. Go to sleep. Mommy’s sick and we have to take care of her. Be a good little boy.”

  “Daniel, can you do this? Patience is your wife,” I question. “Maybe I should do the surgery. I don’t want to, but I think I could. I’ve seen the operation so many times. She’s your wife, Daniel.”

  “We don’t have time to argue, Becky. She’s going into shock. Just do as I say. How different can a woman be from a horse or a cow? I’m a veterinarian surgeon. A surgeon. The question is, can you do the anesthesia? That will be critical. Can you do the ether?”