by Merry Farmer
“Mrs. Pycroft?”
Alex whipped around at the sound of Mayor Crimpley’s voice. Crimpley and his wife had just exited the town hall, dressed for the wedding. They couldn’t possibly have seen Lawrence or they would have been screaming to high heaven. Alex had to act.
“Mayor—oh!” She leaned heavily against the wall, pretending to have a contraction.
Of course, within moments, she wasn’t pretending anymore. It was almost a relief to be able to genuinely moan in pain and fear as her muscles hardened.
“Good heavens,” Mrs. Crimpley cried out, shying away from Alex. “Whatever are you doing on the street if it is your time?”
“Where is your husband?” Crimpley asked with hardly any compassion at all.
“He’s gone to the church,” Alex wailed. She peeked to the side of the building out. Lawrence and Barsali were both out of the building, pressed against its side. They clearly saw her, and Lawrence looked as though he were debating coming over to help her.
“We must take you to the church at once,” Crimpley said. “That way Dr. Pycroft can…take care of you.”
Alex was too overwhelmed with pain and panic to know whether she should go with them or find another way to keep the mayor distracted while Lawrence and Barsali escaped. “I…I don’t know,” she said, gripping Crimpley’s arm when he glanced toward the town hall with a frown. “I…oh!” She let out a genuine cry as wetness poured down her inner thighs.
The last people she wanted to rely on in a crisis was Mayor and Mrs. Crimpley, but she could feel how desperate she was. Worse still, they were close enough to the church for her to see a wagon pull up and a cluster of people, including Flossie, climb down and rush across the church yard.
As that group disappeared into the church, Alex also caught sight of her possible salvation. Mother Grace and Elsie, along with Marshall’s girls, were rushing to the church from the opposite direction, as though they were anxious to get to the wedding before it started.
“Mary,” Alex cried out as loudly as she could in her condition.
She saw Mary pull up short and point to her before squeezing her eyes shut and doubling over in pain. Half a minute later, she peeked up to find Mary, Mother Grace, and the girls running toward her.
“Well then.” Mayor Crimpley cleared his throat. “It looks as though you have proper assistance now. Come along, Maude.”
Under any other circumstances, Alex would have gaped in shock at the coldness of the Crimpleys’ abandonment. But in that moment, she was too terrified of her own situation to care what they did. “I need to get back to the hospital,” she sobbed, hating herself for breaking into tears as Mother Grace and Mary each looped an arm around her back to support her.
“You certainly do, my dear,” Mother Grace said in a surprisingly soothing voice.
They started back up the street to the crossing, but Alex gasped and said, “Wait, wait.”
She turned, searching for Lawrence and Barsali. They were no longer pressed against the town hall wall. For a moment, she was worried that they’d been caught when she was in distress and not paying attention. But then she heard the cry of a whippoorwill. She sucked in a breath and glanced around, finally spotting Lawrence and Barsali what seemed like an impossible distance ahead of her, slipping around the corner of The Fox and the Lion.
“It looks as though that is well in hand,” Mother Grace said, pushing Alex on. “Whatever that was.”
“Lawrence broke Barsali out of jail,” Alex crossed, walking on. “Or so it appears.”
Mother Grace just hummed, as though she found it all interesting but had other things to do.
“Is Alex having her baby?” Molly asked as their group headed across the street and on to the hospital.
“It appears so,” Mother Grace said.
“Hurrah! A baby,” Martha shouted. She and Elsie grasped hands and skipped merrily at the back of their odd procession.
Alex managed a weak smile for them—which seemed impossible since she was also weeping pathetically, but she supposed that was what labor did to one—then focused all of her energy on getting to the hospital.
“Here we are,” Mother Grace said, gesturing for Molly to run ahead and open the hospital door. “We’ll just get you comfortable, and then we’ll bring this baby into the world.”
“I’m not ready,” Alex said, feeling marginally better as she crossed into the waiting room.
A few coughing people rested on the benches. They perked up when Mother Grace led Alex through the room. Nurse Stephens was heading down the hall toward them as they walked out the other side of the room.
“Gracious, is it time?” she asked, bursting into a smile.
“No,” Alex wailed.
“Yes, it is,” Mother Grace said firmly.
“But it can’t come now,” Alex said, sniffling and definitely not feeling up to the task of delivery. “I’m not ready. Marshall isn’t here. The wedding.”
“Never you mind about the wedding,” Mother Grace said. “Mary, run to the church and fetch your father, though I’m perfectly capable of bringing a baby into the world,” she added in a muttered aside. “You, nurse, please take the younger girls somewhere else.”
“Aw,” Molly complained. “I want to see my new sister or brother being born.”
Mother Grace laughed humorlessly. “Childbirth is no place for children,” she said. “Go with the nurse.”
“Come along, girls,” Nurse Stephens said. “We have cakes and pencils and paper for drawing in the cafeteria.”
The younger girls cheered and rushed on to the end of the hall. Part of Alex wanted to laugh at their innocence, but she gulped instead.
“Now then,” Mother Grace said, all seriousness. “Where should we go?”
“In here,” Alex said, sniffling and nodding to the examination room closest to the office.
“On we go.” Mother Grace steered her into the examination room. “Now, let’s get you out of this fine gown.”
“I don’t want to undress,” Alex told her, moving to the examination table and gripping the edges.
“Fine,” Mother Grace said. “If you want to destroy a lovely gown in the process of labor, I won’t stop you.”
Alex was in no mood to be condescended to. She sent Mother Grace a loathing look, then sighed. “All right. Can you help me?”
It felt awkward to have a woman she felt so at odds with help her to undress. The act was so intimate, but at the same time, it was necessary and Mother Grace was the only one on hand who could help.
“Would you like me to hang this somewhere?” Mother Grace asked once Alex stepped out of the gown.
“I don’t know,” Alex said, breathing deliberately as another wave of pain snuck up on her. “I’m not sure I’ll ever need it again.”
“What?” Mother Grace said, hanging the gown on the hook where Alex and Marshall usually kept their medical coats. “You aren’t planning to have a gang of children?”
Alex let out an ironic laugh. “One is enough,” she said, mustering up the courage to pluck loose the ties of her petticoat. Although the garment was likely already ruined by her water breaking. Not that she couldn’t have it cleaned. She shook her head, wondering how she could think of something so mundane at such a time.
“So now you know,” Mother Grace said in a wise voice, helping Alex step out of her petticoat.
“Know what?” Alex panted.
“That motherhood isn’t for everyone.”
Alex swallowed as a chill passed down her back, in spite of the intensity of the situation. Her pain ebbed for a moment, so she pivoted to face Mother Grace, leaning against the examination table, and said, “What do you mean?”
“Only that not every woman has the natural inclination to be a mother, to dedicate her entire life to her children,” Mother Grace said.
A twist of shame filled Alex. “Are you saying that you think I’ll be a bad mother?” she asked. And instantly, something within her answere
d that she would be terrible. She could barely cook. She dreaded domestic duties. She’d hated having the baby within her make her increasingly incapable of being the doctor she knew she was destined to be. She’d even entertained the idea of ending her pregnancy. Inadequacy must have been written in every line of her face.
But rather than scoff at her or pull away in disgust, Mother Grace rested a hand on her cheek, gazed fondly into her eyes, and said, “Now you know how I felt all those years ago.”
An overpowering burst of understanding hit Alex. “You didn’t think you could do it,” she said, just above a whisper. “You didn’t think you could raise him on your own.”
“I knew I couldn’t,” Mother Grace said, lowering her eyes. “Oh, I tried. For about a fortnight, I tried. He was my son and I loved him more than anything I’d ever known. In spite of his feckless father.” Her voice hardened for a moment. “I did everything I could think of to take care of him, but I was utterly alone. I was living in the forest in a tent. I hadn’t even started building my house yet. And Marshall wouldn’t latch onto me. He cried all the time. He was cold, but I didn’t have clothes for him. When he finally did eat, it wasn’t much. He was up at all hours. I barely slept, barely ate myself.”
Alex caught her breath in a sob, her heart going out to the woman who she’d disliked so much just moments before.
“In the end, I forced myself to take Marshall into town, to leave him at the orphanage,” she went on. “I was so exhausted by that point that I didn’t even make it back to the forest once I’d given him up. I crawled into a field—a field that happens to be Jason’s hotel now, and don’t think I haven’t recognized the irony of that—and fell asleep. When I finally did make it home, I slept for days. And when I finally started feeling whole again, I regretted what I’d done with every fiber of my being.
“I went back to the orphanage, but before I could bring myself to go inside to take Marshall back, something inside of me froze.” She took a deep breath, straightening. “I knew it would happen all over again, that I would feel inadequate, I’d want to get rid of him once more. I knew that we would struggle, that I wouldn’t be able to feed him, and that I’d lose patience. At least at the orphanage he could eat. So I left him there. But I never truly left him, as Marshall seems to think. I always watched out for him, and for Jason and Lawrence. But I couldn’t be a mother. I didn’t have it in me.” She met Alex’s eyes.
“But…but they call you Mother Grace,” Alex said.
Mother Grace laughed. “I didn’t come up with the name. I can’t remember which of the boys did. Believe me, the irony wasn’t lost on me when the name stuck.”
Alex regarded her for a moment, taking in everything she’d said. “So are you saying I’m not really a mother either?”
“Do you think you are?” Mother Grace asked in return.
Deeper guilt settled over Alex. She was a doctor. She was a wife. But she’d never truly seen herself as a mother. Her face pinched as the urge to cry overcame her once more. “Why am I doing this?”
Another contraction struck, and she gritted her teeth and doubled over in pain. Mother Grace rushed to her, looping an arm around her back. “The difference between you and me, my dear, is that you are not alone. You have Marshall by your side, and he’s the best father I know. This little one will have three sisters watching over him or her. And you have friends, family. I had none of that. You will be just fine. I’ll be there as well.”
“I couldn’t do it without all of you,” Alex managed to squeeze out before the pain became too much.
“That’s what I’m telling you, my dear. You won’t have to,” Mother Grace said, hugging her sideways as best she could. “Now, stand with your legs slightly apart. I want to see how close this baby is to coming.”
Few things had ever been as awkward for Alex as spreading her legs and leaning forward against the examination table as Mother Grace sat on the floor to see whether the baby was coming. Even more awkward was having the examination room door fly open in the middle of the examination.
“What’s happening? How far along are you? Is everything all right?” Marshall blurted as he stumbled in.
Mary was half a step behind him, but at the sight of Alex in such an undignified position, she gasped, turned around and fled from the room.
“Everything is moving along splendidly,” Mother Grace reported pushing herself to stand. “She’s not quite there yet, but it shouldn’t be long.”
“Why do you have her in that ridiculous position?” Marshall demanded, crossing the room to Alex’s side. “You should be lying down,” he told her.
He could have said anything, could have insulted her or gushed with praise. Alex would have reacted the same way. “Marshall,” she moaned his name, turning and throwing her arms around him as best she could.
“There, there. I’m here now.” His tone instantly changed to soothing and loving. He hugged her back, rubbing her back. “Everything will be all right.”
Alex gulped and nodded. He’d told her the same thing so many times, and every time he’d been right. She trusted him now by second nature, even though every physical sense she had was reeling.
“You’ll get cold if you don’t put on something other than this chemise,” he said, moving into action. “And you really will be more comfortable lying down.”
“She’ll do just fine standing up,” Mother Grace argued. “It’s better for the baby.”
It was a small miracle that Marshall didn’t argue with her, but he didn’t heed her either. Alex followed his lead as he helped her up onto the table and found a blanket in one of the cabinets to cover her. She was settled just in time for another powerful contraction that left her crying out in pain. It was a second miracle that Mother Grace didn’t push back and demand Marshall follow her instructions, but rather took up a post at Alex’s head, holding her hands.
“Not much longer now,” she cooed. “Marshall is here. He knows what he’s doing.”
The contraction passed and Marshall took a moment to step aside, wash his hands thoroughly, and put on a lab coat. The reprieve barely lasted a moment, though. The urgent, squeezing, impossibly painful need to get the baby out descended on her again in a heartbeat. Alex couldn’t think of anything else but the need to push and the way her body felt as though it were being forced to do things it simply wasn’t designed to do. She lost track of time, lost track of everything.
At least until the examination room door burst open once more and Jason stepped into the room. “This one?” he asked someone behind him over his shoulder. A second later, he turned back to the room just as Alex let out an agonizing cry. He matched her cry with a wordless shout of his own.
“Alex?” Flossie stepped past Jason into the room, her eyes going wide. She had a baby in her arms and looked as though she’d been run through a wringer, but that didn’t stop her from calling out, “You can do this, Alex. If I could, you can too.”
Of all wild things, that was enough to give Alex strength. She gritted her teeth and bore down as Marshall called out, “The head is coming. One strong push and it will be here.”
Alex would have nodded if she could, but all she was capable of was pushing. She didn’t even notice if Jason and Flossie had left or the door had been closed, and frankly, she didn’t care. She pushed with all her might, feeling as though she were being rent in two.
A moment later, the pressure loosened with a rush and a cry split the air. A baby’s cry.
“It’s a boy,” Marshall shouted jubilantly. “A healthy baby boy.”
Alex collapsed back onto the pillows that had been piled behind her back on the examination table, weeping in relief. Her body went limp, and though she was aware that something was still going on between her legs, she didn’t care.
“It’s a boy,” Marshall repeated in a softer voice a moment later, shifting a warm, writhing, fussing bundle into her arms.
Alex’s tired eyes popped wide as she glanced down into the face
of her son. He was pinched and howling, pink and messy, but he was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. Tears spilled madly from her eyes as she hugged him close, leaning into Marshall as he closed his arms around her. Her heart felt full to bursting, both for Marshall and for their boy. And she knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that she would love her baby and be the best mother that any son could have.
Jason
Nothing about the day had turned out as Jason expected, and yet he wouldn’t have changed a thing about it.
“Are you comfortable?” he asked Flossie, hovering by the side of her hospital bed, ready to plump pillows, rub her feet, or feed her grapes if she wanted it.
Flossie huffed an impatient sigh. “I’m fine, Jason. I don’t need to be here. You could have taken me home.” Her frustration was undermined by the dark, tired circles under her eyes, and by the way she beamed down at the baby in her arms.
Jason sank to sit on the bed with her, kissing her cheek, then stroking his son’s head. His son! “I can’t believe we did this,” he whispered, grinning like a fool when the baby opened his mouth in a huge yawn.
“That feeling never goes away,” Marshall told him from his seat on the bed beside Flossie’s, where Alex was cradling their newborn son. “Every child is a miracle,” he went on, bending over to kiss his son’s head.
“He’s so tiny,” Alex said, her voice soft and laced with emotion. “Look at those fingers.”
“Born on the same day,” Colin Armstrong said from where he stood at the foot of the beds. “They’re certain to be lifelong mates.”
Jason glanced to the man with a frown. He had no idea how Armstrong had wedged his way into such a private moment. It probably had something to do with the fact that Arabella had insisted on tending to Alex and Flossie as a symbol of her gratitude and devotion to the women. Where there was Arabella, there was sure to be Armstrong.