“Patsy! Paaatsy!”
Running to the door, I poke my head into the arctic world and gasp as the glacial air greets me. “What?” I shout back. It’s pitch black outside, no moon tonight and colder than hell. We’ve lost our thermometer under the snow, so I don’t know how cold, just colder than hell.
“Come out here. Get Mica. Come now.”
“This better be good,” I say under my breath as I bundle us up, tie my rainbow scarf over my lower face, and check Mica’s scarf too.
“Listen,” Stacy whispers when we reach him, standing with his buckets next to the spring. “Listen . . . .”
I wait, balancing Mica on my hip and staring at my baby with big, expectant eyes. Mica imitates me, giving the same exaggerated round blue eyes back.
Then I hear it, Ping. In another few seconds, Pung. In five or ten more . . . Peng. Pong. Then Ping again, like notes on a distant marimba. Every few seconds from near or far, Ping. Pong. Pung. Soft or loud, high pitched or low, from ten feet away or down by the river, the forest is making slow music.
“What is it?” I whisper.
Stacy shakes his head and shrugs. “The trees are singing.”
“No, really.”
“It’s the sound of the sap freezing and breaking in the bark, that’s my guess. Maybe the reason we never heard it before is, we never stood out in the woods when it was thirty below.”
“It’s a hymn!”
Ping . . . Pong . . . Pung . . . Ping . . . Peng . . . Pong. There’s nothing but pure white untrampled snow and the smell of the balsam and fir. We lean against each other listening to the woodland concert until we’re too cold and we must go back inside.
Malcontent
One day fades into the next. White clouds in rows like fish scales. This morning, I take Mica for a ride on a toboggan that I’ve rigged with a wooden box. He laughs, stretching his red-mittens hands straight out, his white-blond head falling back as he bumps. Later we plant sticks in the snow and call them flowers. Mica is my little pal. When we lie by the river in the sunshine on a leftover piece of Styrofoam, next to the curved cedar, there’s no sound but water gurgling under the ice.
Such a simple, decent life, yet something is missing, and often these days I’ve been frustrated, worrying over our lack of progress, getting upset because nothing ever gets finished. I find myself thinking about people in town, wondering how they are doing. I work on the series of childbirth classes that I’ve been trying to start but now probably won’t.
Our house is warm and tight now, but it’s still a dump, and Stacy isn’t concerned. His mind is on higher things, nonviolent revolution, saving the planet, stopping the war. Who can find blame?
I try to console myself. What does it matter about the cabin? Take it easy. You have a roof over your head. You’re warm. You have a wonderful family, a bed, a place to cook and play. There are plenty who don’t. My pep talk only works until I can’t locate the toilet paper or a book on childbirth I’ve laid aside; then I’m just pissed. It all feels so futile.
CHAPTER 6
Break in the Weather
“Anyone home?”
It’s a brilliant day and I stand at the door, screening my eyes from the snow’s intense glare. Jody Innis picks her way down the path, pink, radiant, and very pregnant. “What’s happening, little boy?” She grabs Mica, laughs, and throws her long blond braid back over her shoulder.
This is our first human contact, apart from each other, since we went into Duluth for provisions in early February. Mica’s as excited as I am but Stacy will miss the visit. He’s packed a lunch and gone to cut wood on the other side of the river.
Jody, tall and fair, a Scandinavian goddess, has been my friend since we moved to Duluth. We came across each other at a women’s meeting at the university. I sat next to her on the hardwood floor, and when I noticed she laughed at the same things I did, I knew we’d be pals.
“It’s so good to see you! Tell me everything,” I demand over raspberry tea. “Have you decided which hospital you’re going to? Did you call Dr. Leppink, the family doc in Two Harbors? He’s the best.”
I recall Stacy’s and my decision to have our baby in the hospital. We wanted to deliver at home, but there was no midwife. After much research and serious discussion, we chose tiny Two Harbors Hospital, thirty miles north, the only hospital where Stacy was allowed in the delivery room.
There are two larger, better-equipped hospitals in Duluth with OB specialists, but neither institution allows natural childbirth or the father to be present during labor. At both St. Luke’s and St. Mary’s every woman gets a spinal or gas, whether she needs it or not. Her hands will be strapped to the delivery table and her legs tied open in stirrups. When the infant is delivered, always with forceps over a large vaginal incision, it will be spanked and whisked to the nursery. No gentle natural deliveries. No holding the baby. No nursing immediately after birth. No father present. Nonnegotiable.
“Yeah, I called Leppink’s office,” Jody responds. “They want three hundred dollars up front for the delivery. That’s just the doctor’s part. It’s another three hundred for the hospital stay, and they asked where I’d gotten my prenatal care.” I had forgotten how much it costs. Stacy and I were working then and paid a little each week.
“You’ve been going to the Health Department in Duluth, right?” It’s been months since I’ve seen my friend, not since the fall teach-in. “You went there a few times anyway.”
Jody doesn’t answer but reaches down for Mica and lifts him up to her lap, or what’s left of her lap, now mostly round belly.
“You never went?”
Her hazel eyes dart away like trout in the clear Lester River. “I went to the clinic one time, but I didn’t like the nurses. Their faces are hard and they asked me to fill out a form saying who the father was . . . so I left.”
“Listen, not getting prenatal care is messed up. So what if they give you a hard time? At least they can tell if the baby’s growing and if it’s healthy. They’ll give you free prenatal vitamins and pamphlets to read.”
Jody pats her protruding abdomen. “My baby’s growing just fine. Frog got vitamins at the whole-food co-op . . . and I read some library books.” She changes the subject. “The cabin looks great. I haven’t been here since you put in the windows and shelves. It’s so cozy.”
I glance around the room at our handiwork. We have made some progress. The cupboards are up. There’s a fold-down desk in the corner, a painted toy box, even new quilted cushions on the window seat.
“Don’t try to distract me. Who are you going to get to deliver the baby? And where?”
Jody, like most of us, is a college dropout but she isn’t dumb.
“Everything’s gonna be fine. Women have been having babies for millions of years. All you have to do is listen to your body.” She’s winging it here, I can tell. She has no clue of the intensity of the experience that is before her. Frog, her boyfriend, an artist who spends most of his day stoned in front of the woodstove, isn’t any better. They live out on Zimmerman Road in an insulated shack that’s both his studio and home. Frog lets Jody use his beat-up Ford pickup whenever she needs to go somewhere.
I pour each of us another cup of wild raspberry tea, made from leaves we collected at the edge of the clearing, then get out cornbread and peanut butter. “You want me to go over the childbirth breathing?”
Jody shrugs. “Sure . . . I was thinking maybe you could be my coach. Frog’s not much into it.”
All afternoon we practice the hee-hee and hoo-hoo that Stacy and I learned in Lamaze class in Minneapolis. That’s why I put up the signs at the library and am trying to get the classes started. Few others would have the money or the will to go to such lengths.
Near dusk, Jody leaves us, waving good-bye as she heads up the trail. The pregnant Madonna worries m
e. It’s one thing to be brave about childbirth. Every woman needs to be brave; it’s another thing to be foolhardy.
Invitation
“Well, come on in!” Ila hollers from the kitchen as Barney opens the glass storm door. Inside, the house is dark, with three high, small windows curtained in yellowed lace. There’s the smell of old things, like a grandma’s house, and something fragrant from the kitchen. On every surface rests some sort of knickknack.
Barney and Ila Olsen, our closest neighbors, the couple Stacy met that dark night he stayed away from the cabin so long, have invited us for Sunday lunch. Mica toddles over to the ceramic owls and lambs, shepherdesses and clowns. “Do you like my pretties?” Ila asks. She’s a small, round woman in her late seventies, with thin white hair pinned under a hairnet and very pale blue eyes.
Barney pulls his heavy body up from a worn easy chair and puts the more breakable trinkets on high shelves. You can tell his back hurts him. He’s a big man with a reddened farmer’s face and a three-day growth of white whiskers. “No-no,” he tells Mica. His dark eyes are hard but his voice is gentle.
“Come on to dinner now,” Ila calls from the kitchen. Except for Jody, these are the first people we’ve seen for weeks. We thought when we moved to the land that we would make friends with the locals, that they would become our community, but with six months of winter, our transportation difficulties, and our workload on the homestead, socializing is difficult.
At a sunny table covered with a blue-checkered cloth, we take chairs, waiting, unsure if the couple will say grace. I put Mica’s hands in his lap. Sure enough, Barney bows his head and mumbles, “Lord bless this food that Thou has bestowed . . .” I don’t catch the rest, he says it so fast.
“Do you like Swedish meatballs?” Ila asks, reaching across the table with a ladle. I meet Stacy’s eyes. We’d talked about whether we’d stick to our vegetarian principles, and decided to be polite and eat whatever was served unless there were eyeballs actually staring at us. Swedish meatballs hardly seem like real meat.
“Sure,” Stacy responds. “Love ’em.” I say a silent thank you to the cow that gave us his life, and dig in.
Ila’s upper arms jiggle as she plies us with food. Besides the main course, we have a feast of Wonder Bread with real butter, green beans with bacon, mashed potatoes, and, for dessert, red Jell-O, which Mica can’t get enough of. This is not our usual organic whole-food diet, but it’s delicious and I have second helpings of everything, hoping I don’t seem too greedy.
Barney and Ila never had children. They live as isolated as we do. We linger all afternoon in their three-room cottage, chewing the fat. I’m careful not to get into anything political, not wanting to alienate our new friends, but Stacy plows ahead. Turns out, Barney agrees with us about Vietnam. Thinks the whole civil war is none of our damn business.
“We saw some strange tracks back in the woods the other day,” Stacy announces. Barney’s head goes up.
“Tracks, ya say?”
“Yeah, big ones. Huge!”
I jump in. “We followed them along the river, winding in and out of the swamp, but a storm was coming and we had to get home. Big ones like this.” I demonstrate with both hands curved and wide. “With claws!” I was a theater major before dropping out of San Francisco State University.
The old man catches Ila’s eye.
“We couldn’t decide what they were,” Stacy continues mildly. “You have a guess? I figure it was one of Rob Bailey’s big dogs.”
“Could be, but you better not go down there no more; stay close to your cabin.”
I squint. “You think it’s bear?”
“Could be.”
“But it’s too early for that. They’d be hibernating, right?”
Barney tips his head sideways and scratches his bristled cheek. “Could still be sleeping, but they might not. We’ve had some warm days . . .”
I glance at the golden light coming in through the window and realize it’s nearly four. The winter days are short in the North and I’m not in the mood to meet a large, hairy, flesh-eating animal out after dark. “I guess we’ve better get going. The supper was wonderful, Ila. You’re a great cook.” The old lady giggles and looks at her man.
“She oughta be good. She’s had plenty of practice feeding me these last fifty-two years.” Barney pats his round belly and stands to help Stacy get Mica into his carrier. “You all need any help over there this spring, give me a holler. I got me a newfangled rototiller.”
Hiking home in the gloom, I listen for sounds of a large prowling beast as we pass through the deepest part of the swamp. My stalwart companion warbles to Mica. This old man, he played one. He played knick-knack on my thumb . . .
“Stacy,” I whisper. “You think there really could be bears?”
Spring
CHAPTER 7
Teacher
“So here’s the deal,” I tell everyone sitting on the floor and sofas of the community room at the library. “There’s nothing magical about childbirth breathing. It just keeps you calm and gives you something to do when you want to run away, which you can’t, so you might as well settle down and do your job.” The expectant mothers look nervous but the fathers laugh at my little joke.
With Courtney’s help, because she works as one of the librarians, I’m finally back on track with my classes. I managed, after the big blizzard, to call her from Rob’s trailer out on Dahl Road. She reassured me that she’d covered for me, had the names of the people who showed up, and offered to call them and put up new signs.
“I won’t kid you. Contractions hurt. If yours don’t, let me know!” This time everyone laughs. Some childbirth teachers don’t mention pain, they call it “pressure” or “discomfort,” but I want the couples to have a realistic understanding of what they’re in for.
Most of these women are now close to term, and I admire them for trying to get all the information they can before the biggest adventure of their lives. Three couples are planning to go to St. Mary’s and three to Two Harbors Hospital. One single mom hasn’t made up her mind. My heart goes out to her and I’d like to be her coach, but I have no phone and no way to travel from the homestead if she goes into labor at night.
“Can you go over the pushing part one more time?” a bearded guy with a leather headband asks. His wife, a pale blond, cuddles between his legs. “What exactly is the guy supposed to do?”
I go over the positions for pushing, how the mother should be as upright as possible. I tell them about back labor. “Get on your hands and knees if that feels better. You can sit straight up or you can see if the nurses will let you squat in the bed before you go into the delivery room. The nurses at Two Harbors just leave you alone if you take off your hospital gown.” The pale blond turns red and I realize I’ve probably gone too far.
“They don’t know anything about natural childbirth, but they won’t interfere. I wish now that I’d tried squatting. I might not have had to have forceps . . .
“Another tip: try to stay home as long as you can.”
Fever
“Shit, I got to throw up again! Can you get me the bowl?”
Stacy pukes and I hand him a washcloth. I feel like Clara Barton, Civil War nurse. Outside, night is falling; the first star already shows, low in the sky.
Mica coughs over and over; his cheeks are flushed. Stacy vomits again but it’s only green bile. Both of them have fever and diarrhea, and I can’t say I feel so great myself, but I still have to do evening chores. There’s no one but me.
Though it’s officially spring, there’s still a foot of snow on the ground. I bundle up, strap on snowshoes, and waddle like a duck out to the woodpile. The wind almost takes my breath away.
“Do you think we should try to get into the city?” I ask, lying down beside Stacy when I come back inside. He’s as hot as
the cookstove. “Mica’s not getting any better, and he’s had a fever for two days. I’m worried. If we could get to Rob Bailey’s house early in the morning, we could catch a ride to Duluth. I could carry Mica if you could walk on your own.” I stare at my companion’s exhausted pale face, his matted hair.
“I might be better by tomorrow.”
“Yeah, but you might not. One more day of this and you could be so weak I won’t be able to get you out. My bowels are starting to cramp, too, and my chest feels heavy.” I stand in an effort to strengthen my argument.
My lover, a Taurus, is a stubborn man. He doesn’t change course easily, so I press on. “If I get sick, we’re really in trouble. Who’ll bring in the wood? Who’ll keep the fire going and get water? Mica’s dehydrated. We’ve got to get him to a doctor.”
Stacy lifts himself up on his elbow, studying our son, who sleeps with one limp hand dangling out of the covers. “A hundred years ago, and in third world countries even today, there would be no doctor. The body can heal without medicine.”
I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and try again. “Are you hearing me? He’s not drinking or nursing. I’ve experimented with everything. Water, peppermint tea . . .” Our eyes meet. At last Stacy gets it. This is serious; we have to get out.
“Get me some honey and tea. Even if I vomit most of it up, it might give me strength.” Stacy pulls up to test himself but falls back on the bed. He’s so feeble he can hardly stand upright to pee. Like a tree rotted at the base, he wavers when I hold out the potty.
Before bed, I check the heater stove again and break up some kindling. Mica keeps throwing his covers off. Stacy moans in his sleep. A watchwoman guarding the flame, I sit on the side of the bed until my head drops. I’m all that protects my family tonight from the deep arctic cold.
Arms Wide Open Page 4