The Mountain Midwife

by Laurie Alice Eakes

  Hunter jammed the heels of his hands against his eyes to stop them from throbbing. If the others found out, how would his role in the family change? They would at least act as though nothing had changed. But he would sense the difference, a withdrawal, a sidelong look here and there. His brother might make jokes about how now they understood why Hunter hadn’t gone to law school. His sister would too quickly assure him that nothing had changed. He had been raised right.

  “I suppose I’m ungrateful if I say I don’t appreciate this being kept from me.” Hunter lowered his hands and saw exactly that on his parents’ faces—impatience, even a little anger. “But I’m saying it anyway. No, it goes further than not appreciating this secrecy about my birth. I’m angry with you for keeping it from me.”

  “You have no reason to be angry.” Dad’s irritation rasped through his voice. “You would have grown up in squalor, probably without proper nutrition and certainly no education to speak of.”

  Mom nodded. “You’d probably be a drug addict like most of those people.”

  “Those people?” Hunter gripped the doorframe so tightly he half expected it to pop off in his hand. “Like most of those people? What would you know of them from your cozy house thirty-two years ago?”

  “I read articles.” Now Mom was sitting upright, her spine more stiff than normal, her hands gripped against her middle. “I hear specials on the radio. Those people—”

  “Don’t you mean my people? My relatives? My ancestors? My bloodline?”

  “Your bloodline is fine.” Dad attempted a smile that appeared more like a grimace. “We had it DNA tested a few years ago.”

  “Without my knowledge?” Hunter took so many deep breaths to calm himself he feared he would hyperventilate. “Did you fear that all your careful nurture might end up embarrassing you eventually? What would you have done then, if I’d gotten married and produced a less than stellar child, something that was a throwback to those people?”

  “Hunter, no need to be sarcastic.” Dad tried to look stern with firmed mouth and narrowed eyes. “As I said, your DNA—”

  “Shows your social experiment worked? Nurture beats nature?” Hunter had turned up the sarcasm at least a half dozen notches and didn’t care.

  Anger was easier to manage than outright grief over losing his identity.

  “I guess that means you didn’t even have to tell me the truth, doesn’t it? My children could have perpetrated the lie with the notion they came from old Virginia stock.” His upper lip curled. “The right sort of old Virginia stock, that is, not that other kind that gave rise to those people.”

  “We hoped to spare you—” Mom began, then her lower lip quivered and more tears welled in her eyes. “We never wanted you to feel different or inferior.”

  “But in the end, I am.” All the anger and indignation drained from Hunter, leaving him weak, weary, heavyhearted. “You just made that clear.”

  “No,” his parents chorused.

  “I never meant it that way,” Mom cried. “Hunter—”

  He turned his back on them and headed out the door before he said something truly awful to them or simply blubbered like a baby.

  “Where are you going, son?” Dad called after him.

  “Where do you think?” Hunter didn’t look back. “I’m going to the mountains.”

  “You won’t find anything.” Mom’s heels tapped on the floor behind him. “The adoption was sealed and the lawyer we used is deceased.”

  “I have a name.”

  Sheila Brooks. It sounded civilized, normal, not something out of a Hollywood version of the mountains like Daisy Duke.

  “Every other person down there is a Brooks.” Mom had ceased following him, but her voice rang with satisfaction. “You’re likely to have trouble finding the right one.”

  “But she used a midwife.” Hunter turned back for just a moment, long enough to see Mom’s stricken face. “Surely the mountains aren’t teeming with midwives.”

  CHAPTER 6

  ASHLEY DUCKED INTO the shower, made it as hot as she could bear, and emerged feeling marginally refreshed. Thirty minutes later, she was dressed in her usual jeans and T-shirt with her hair pulled back in its braid, though still damp from a quick pass with the blow-dryer.

  In the kitchen, she turned up the TV and watched the news while she scrambled two eggs in a pan and sprinkled them with Parmesan cheese. With a muffin and a glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice, that was a good enough breakfast.

  The news was much the same as it always seemed to be—wars in countries whose names she couldn’t pronounce, let alone spell, a financier indicted on money fraud of some kind, a drug bust on I-81. And then that man was there again in all his tousled good looks, including the nerdy glasses. This time someone had dug up a picture of him in front of heavy earthmoving equipment. The climate or time of year must have been a hot one, for his shirt stuck to his torso with dampness under blazing sunshine, showing in loving detail that he didn’t spend all his time in front of a computer or whatever scholars did up in the part of the state called northern Virginia.

  “McDermott is a partner in the engineering firm McDermott and Langford and was in Portugal on business,” explained the reporter, who wasn’t half as good-looking as his subject. “Mr. McDermott remains elusive, but we were able to get a few statements from his business partner—”

  The stench of scorching eggs snapped Ashley’s attention back to her breakfast preparations. Looking at the dry mess in the pan, she laughed at herself for getting distracted over a still image on the TV.

  “I doubt even the cats will eat this.” She scraped the glop into the trash and ran hot water into the pan.

  Not a cat appeared to make a liar of her. By the time she finished cleaning up after herself, the broadcast had switched to the weather report—cold and clear, a typical Appalachian autumn. She turned off the set and picked up the kitchen extension to call her elder brother’s wife. Once a nurse-midwife herself, Jennifer was the next-best thing to having her mom to talk to about the events of the night before.

  The dead air on the line slammed home the reminder that someone had cut her phone line in the night. Her phone line, of all things. Why would anyone not want her to be able to call?

  A person who drove off with a baby not a quarter hour old and a bleeding woman.

  Shivering despite the warmth of the kitchen, Ashley dragged on a jacket hanging from a peg near the back door. It was large enough to belong to one of her brothers or her dad, but she didn’t exchange it for her own. Somehow she drew comfort from the scent of aftershave clinging to the collar. She wasn’t completely alone as long as her family’s possessions still lay scattered about the house. They would return.

  Cell phone in hand, she stepped onto the back stoop. Other than a faint hint of wood smoke on the breeze, she detected no sign of human presence nearby. No cars drove down the road. No planes flew overhead. Not even a dog barked in the distance. Yet she had opened the door to a strange man and woman in the middle of the night while her phone was disconnected.

  What was she thinking?

  That a woman in labor needed help. She would do it again. Serving others, healing them as best she could, was her calling, her gift, though at that moment, with the wind sighing through trees half golden-leaved, half denuded of foliage, she felt too vulnerable, fragile in her confidence of her ability to cope with crises. The sun wasn’t even up yet with daylight savings time still in place.

  The cold seeping through the heavy wool jacket and into her bones, she pulled up Jennifer’s phone number and hit the Call button.

  But the phone rang to voice mail. Of course. This was Wednesday. Jennifer taught a women’s Bible study on Wednesday mornings. And now Ashley’s patient was arriving.

  “Jen,” she spoke hastily into the recorded voice message, “don’t call me back. Was up all night and need some sleep. Will call you later after my patients leave and I get some rest.” Hitting End, she turned toward the drive. />
  Two cars chugged up the steep incline to the house. Her first patient, Mary Kate, drove her rusty sedan up the drive a hundred yards behind Ashley’s assistant, Sofie Trevino. Mary Kate opened her door and hoisted herself out at once. Sofie remained inside her vehicle, one hand holding her phone to her ear. She waved to Ashley but kept talking without so much as rolling down her window.

  “Hey, Ashley,” Mary Kate called in greeting as she trudged up the slope to the house.

  As always, she was scrupulously clean despite the fact that her trailer had no hot water. Though faded, her black skirt and white blouse showed not a wrinkle or stain.

  The stains showed themselves in purple circles beneath her big blue eyes, signs of sleeplessness. She worked twelve-hour days at a diner where the prices were cheap and the tips even less. She had no health insurance because she couldn’t afford the premiums, but she made too much money to qualify for Medicaid, so she paid Ashley in crumpled bills straight from her apron pocket. To save the woman’s pride, Ashley took the money, then set it aside in a special fund she kept from such fees in the event that one of her uninsured patients needed hospitalization.

  So far, Mary Kate was doing all right, but the morning sunlight peeking over the mountain showed that her face was a little puffy.

  “Is the baby keeping you awake?” Ashley led her into the house and then the examining room.

  Mary Kate shrugged. “Which one? The one I’m carrying or the one I already got.” She scrubbed her hands over her face and sank onto the daybed, coughing. “Would I be the worst person in the world if I gave these kids up for adoption?”

  “That’s not a joke, is it?” Ashley sat beside Mary Kate and clasped one of her calloused hands in both of hers.

  Mary Kate shook her head. “I know you can do it. You give ’em up to some folks who can’t have kids but have money and can give them a better life. They sure ain’t gonna have one with me working the diner and their dad—” She grimaced.

  Their dad had been in prison for six months for armed robbery. It wasn’t his first offense, so he was going to be there for a long time. He’d been out on bail just long enough to get his wife pregnant—again.

  Ashley reminded herself that Jesus loved him, too, and stroked Mary Kate’s hand. “You love your babies.”

  “I do.” She began to cry. “I love them enough to not want them to grow up like me or their daddy.”

  “Hey. They don’t have to.” Ashely slipped an arm around Mary Kate’s shoulders, far too padded with fat for her small frame, the result of too much of the fried and starchy food that was served at the diner and that Mary Kate received for free and so took advantage of to save money. “I know things are harder for you and them, and there are programs, resources. Let me work on it.”

  Sofie slipped into the room and began to gather up the stethoscope and blood pressure cuff. Ashley shook her head. “Not now,” she mouthed.

  If they took Mary Kate’s blood pressure right then, it might be elevated due to her weeping.

  “When do you have to be at work?” Ashley asked.

  “Not until nine o’clock.”

  “Good. Then why don’t you just lie back and rest here for half an hour before we do our exam.” Ashley stood so Mary Kate could lie back. She covered her with a quilt, then slipped a pillow beneath her feet to elevate her swollen ankles. “I’ll be back in thirty minutes. Don’t worry. We won’t let you be late for work.”

  “I won’t sleep.”

  “You don’t need to. Just relax.” Ashley opened her MacBook and selected a playlist of soothing music. “Half hour.”

  She left the room, Sofie right behind her.

  “She needs more nutritious food.” Sofie began to wrap half a dozen muffins into a foil packet.

  “She needs two months of bed rest.” Ashley scooped up one of the cats and rubbed her face on its silky orange fur. “I see some puffiness in her face that concerns me.”

  Sofie’s eyes widened. “Preeclampsia?”

  “I hope not. She doesn’t like doctors much.”

  “It’s the expense.” Sofie crossed the room and began to scrub at the soaking pan.

  The cat’s warmth and low purr soothed Ashley’s own stress level. “Maybe I can persuade Tim White not to bill her, but me.”

  Although she worked independently, Dr. White was the supervising physician all nurse-midwives were required to work with in the event of a patient emergency. He was a good doctor and a kind man, but he carried far more expenses than Ashley did, including staggering medical malpractice insurance costs far above what Ashley was required to carry.

  “If her blood pressure is even a little higher than what is acceptable, I can be considered negligent if I don’t refer her.”

  “If you refer her and she doesn’t go,” Sofie said, “you aren’t liable for what—”

  Ashley’s lips compressed, and her hands tightened on the cat enough that he squeaked and leaped from her arms with an indignant thud on the kitchen floor.

  Sofie flushed. “That was a stupid thing to say, wasn’t it?” She shoved her soapy fingers into her mass of curly dark hair held off her face with a beaded stretchy band. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

  “I think you do.” Ashley tried to meet Sofie’s gaze.

  She turned away and reached in her pocket for her cell phone. “I need to call my mother back.”

  “What is going on, Sofie? It’s only six thirty in Texas, isn’t it?”

  “Madre was up all night delivering a—” Sofie clamped her hand over her mouth, her dark eyes growing huge.

  “Your mother isn’t supposed to be delivering babies, Sofie.” Ashley hated sounding uptight, but midwives without licenses made life difficult for those like her who had hundreds of hours of clinical training and half a decade of education. “What happened?”

  “I know she isn’t supposed to.” Sofie’s eyes darted around the room, avoiding Ashley’s. “Something happened. Something bad. Something real bad. I don’t know yet . . . I can’t get any sense from my brother, and she is locked in her room . . .” Trailing off, she darted out the back door on a wave of cold, damp air.

  Ashley rubbed her eyes in the hope of removing some of the gritty feel. Instead, she rubbed mascara into them, making the fatigue-borne scratchiness worse.

  She peeked in on Mary Kate, who was sleeping, and then went down the hallway to the office. Although her computer was in the exam room, she kept a print calendar on her desk in the event something happened to the computer. She spent several minutes reviewing her scheduled appointments. Nothing else today unless Kelly Fiske’s baby arrived two weeks early. Doubting that would happen from what she had seen in Kelly’s last exam, Ashley thought to leave a message on her voice mail telling people her phone was out of order and to call the cell.

  She exited through the front door, iPhone in hand, in the event Sofie was calling from the backyard, and changed her voice-mail message on the landline. By that time, the telephone office was open, so she requested a repair be made.

  Now even colder, she shoved her phone into her jeans pocket and returned to the house.

  Sofie sat at the table with both hands wrapped around a mug of steaming coffee and tears tracking down her smooth olive-skinned cheeks.

  “Hey, what’s this about?” Ashley took one of Sofie’s hands in hers. It trembled beneath her fingers. “Your hands are colder than mine.”

  “It’s cold outside.” Sofie freed her hand and dragged a tissue out of her pocket. “I am so sorry. I’m worried about mi madre. She’s such a fool.”

  “Did something bad happen with the delivery she wasn’t supposed to assist with?”

  Sofie covered her face with her hands and rocked back and forth, gasping and hiccuping.

  “Do you want to go home? We can schedule another day to help you study for your boards. Or do you want to talk after Mary Kate leaves?”

  “I can’t.” Sofie shook her head. “I want to go home.” She lowered h
er hands. “I mean, I need to go all the way home, Ash. Back to the Valley.”

  Ashley’s heart plummeted. Sofie didn’t mean the New River Valley there in Virginia; she meant the Rio Grande Valley in south Texas.

  “Only for a week or two.” Sofie spoke too quickly. “You don’t have any births due in that time, and if someone is early, you can call one of the other birthing assistants, or even Heather. You know Heather will do anything for you.”

  She would. The two of them had attended the graduate program in nurse-midwifery at Shenandoah University together. Instead of taking up a solo country practice as Ashley had, Heather chose to join an OB-GYN practice with midwives on staff for hospital deliveries because her husband liked the hours available for her better. Heather could help in an emergency, and Ashley preferred her to most of the subcontracted birthing assistants available in the area.

  “All right.” She hesitated. “What about studying for your certification?”

  “I’ll still study. I promise. And I’ll be back in time to take the exam.”

  “Do you want to tell me what this is about?”

  Sofie bit her lip. “Mi madre—”

  Ashley’s phone vibrated in her pocket, the pulsing signal she had set up to show she had missed a call. Not wanting to interrupt Sofie, Ashley ignored the summons, figuring anything could wait two minutes.

  Sofie rose. “We better wake up Mary Kate.”

  She was right. Still, Ashley recognized a stalling action.

  “We’ll talk later—before you go.” Hoping that was taken as she meant it—Sofie wasn’t going without more of an explanation as to the problem with her mother—Ashley entered the exam room to shake Mary Kate awake.

  As Mary Kate stretched and yawned, her coloring looked better and her eyes clearer.

  “Just how little sleep are you getting?” Ashley asked.

  Beyond the examination door, she heard the backdoor close and Sofie’s car engine rev, and Ashley’s own blood pressure increased with annoyance.