The Mountain Midwife

by Laurie Alice Eakes

  “What’s wrong? Did that imbecile say something to upset you?”

  “No, he’s perfectly nice to me. It’s just that I don’t know why you seem to dislike him so much. We’ve been friends forever. He’s a great guy.”

  Heather turned away. “I wish I’d figured out sooner that he’s not a great guy.”

  “Sooner than when? The night your patient got into an accident?”

  Heather pulled into her driveway and rested her forehead on the steering wheel. “So you figured it out. I knew you would. I feel sleazy just thinking about it.”

  “Does he know?”

  “Are you kidding?” Heather flung herself out of her car and slammed the door.

  Ashley followed her friend into the house. “Don’t you think he has a right to know?”

  “No, I don’t. Now drop it or go home.”

  Ashley dropped it. She didn’t want to go home to an empty house. With calls forwarded to her cell, she was reachable at Heather’s, but not if someone showed up at her door. Right then, she feared who might. She didn’t want to be there alone, and she didn’t like leaving her friend alone either.

  Monday she went home to feed the cats. The snow the meteorologists predicted hadn’t materialized, and the sky was merely heavy and gray like Ashley’s mood. She was too restless to stay home, but Heather was at work. So she went into town to get some early Christmas shopping done. At the library, she stopped to see if Hunter was there or had been there. No to both. Annoyed with herself for trying so hard, she retreated to Heather’s and welcomed Rachel’s middle-of-the-night call, if not the reason behind it, then drove her to the emergency room herself.

  “What do I do if they want to admit me?” Rachel asked her.

  “Do what they tell you to. It won’t be for more than a day or two, I expect. They just want to make sure you don’t keep bleeding too heavily.”

  In the end, Dr. White did admit Rachel.

  “Call me if you need anything, Rachel.” Giving Rachel’s hand one last squeeze, Ashley left the emergency room and pulled out her phone.

  She hadn’t checked it for messages for a couple of hours. She had several—Heather, her brother in Atlanta, her sister-in-law in DC, and Hunter.

  Her heart leaped with excitement and anticipation until she read the brief message: SHEILA UNRESPONSIVE. BRINGING HER TO THE HOSPITAL.

  Ashley looked around the waiting room. He wasn’t there. Sure she must have missed him, not sure if she should call him, she started to text him back as she exited the hospital for her Tahoe. Head down, she didn’t see him until she walked straight into his back.

  CHAPTER 26

  HUNTER CALLED HIS dad. He would have preferred to talk to Ashley, hear her calm, sensible words in his ears, if not have her close to him. But she had patients. Her patients came first.

  So he called the man he had always known was his father and then thought wasn’t and now—

  His head spun as he tapped his cell phone screen displaying his father’s number.

  “Hello?” He sounded groggy.

  Hunter glanced at the time. Eight o’clock. Since when was Dad not awake at eight o’clock in the morning on a weekday?

  “Dad, are you all right? I can call back later.”

  “No, no, had to get up to answer the phone. Had a late night is all. What’s going on?”

  “Are you—” He should have thought this through before calling. He didn’t want this conversation over a phone at all, but he didn’t know when he would be able to see his father in person. “Are you alone?”

  “Your mother’s downstairs cleaning before the housekeeper gets here, but I’m alone in the bedroom.” Dad’s voice grew cautious. “Why do you want to know?”

  Hunter took a deep breath, glanced toward the hallway leading back to the emergency room examination cubicles, and rose to walk farther away from the nurse’s station, though that took him closer to the TV. It was turned down low with no one there to watch except for him. Once fairly certain no one could hear him, he took the plunge. “Sheila Brooks is dying. I thought you might like to know.”

  Silence from the other end of the connection.

  Hunter waited.

  Dad sighed. “So you know.”

  “I know what she told me.”

  “And you believe her.”

  “I’m inclined to do so.” Hunter’s throat tightened as it had in Ashley’s Tahoe when he feared he would cry for the first time in a decade. He swallowed twice. “If you tell me otherwise, I might believe you, though.”

  He heard the plea in his voice, the assurance that Sheila Brooks had lied for whatever reason suited her purposes. He hadn’t liked learning he was adopted, that he shared no blood with the McDermotts, the parents nor his siblings. Now he wanted to hear that he didn’t share any blood with them. The deceit felt like too much of a burden pressing down upon him. He propped one shoulder against the wall for support when he truly needed a shoulder to rest his head upon.

  A picture of Ashley flashed through his mind. He shoved it away. “Dad?”

  “I believe she told you the truth.” Dad cleared his throat. “I’m your father by blood.”

  “How could—” Hunter heard his tone rise, saw the woman behind the desk glance his way, and started again. “How . . . Why . . . Does Mom know?” Formed and half-formed questions spilled from his lips in a torrent.

  Dad waited until he fell silent, then said, “Your mom knows. We were both working too hard in separate cities.” Dad’s voice broke. “I can make up a lot of excuses about being frustrated with your mom because I wanted her to pay more attention to Sarah and Michael, though that’s not fair because I wasn’t even home. We still fought about it a lot. I was handling a case in Raleigh that took so much time I just stayed down there, and I was lonely and Sheila was undemanding and sweet.”

  “And beautiful.”

  “And beautiful. I succumbed to temptation, but your mom has given me the forgiveness I don’t deserve.” Another break in his voice made Hunter wonder, worry, if Dad was fighting tears.

  They weren’t an emotional family. They didn’t cry. They didn’t yell. Laughter was genteel and well-modulated. Uptight was the word that came to mind.

  “How could she have raised me?” Hunter didn’t regulate his tone on that one. Days of anguish spilled out in those few words.

  The clerk behind the desk and a nurse approaching from the hallway both stopped to stare. Hunter gazed back until their images blurred through his glasses.

  On the other end of the wireless connection, Dad cleared his throat. “She loves you, Hunter. You know that.”

  He did. All the wrestling of his mind throughout the night couldn’t convince him otherwise. Virginia McDermott had never treated him with any less kindness, generosity, or tenderness than she had her other children. In some ways, he had received more of her time than apparently had Sarah and Michael. She might have done so for the sake of her marriage, but Hunter remembered softness in her eyes when she looked at him, and he knew she loved him for himself.

  That understanding, that acceptance, brought hot moisture to his eyes at last. He felt a droplet slide down his cheek and turned his back on the gawking hospital workers. “She’s a remarkable woman. She—” His throat closed.

  “She gave up a chance at a partnership in her firm to be a better mom and wife.” Dad laughed. “She’s never learned to cook well, but she can bake amazing pie. When I left my firm to start my own, I wouldn’t have succeeded without her.”

  “And you just forgot about Sheila?” Another nurse was approaching him, her face grim. “You just left her to an abusive father?”

  “I gave her plenty of money to get away and start a new life.” Dad’s sigh sounded overly heavy. “She told me to go back to my wife and heal things. She wanted rid of me and she wanted you to have the kind of life we could give you. Your mom wanted another baby. It all seemed right.”

  “Right? You took advantage of an eighteen-year-old girl and c
all it right?” Hunter realized his free hand was balled into a fist and made himself relax his fingers.

  Perhaps this talk was better taking place on the phone.

  “Dad—”

  “I’ve had thirty-two years to beat myself up over this, Hunter, I don’t need you to do it too. You are my son and I’m proud—”

  “But why did you sit there in the den and say nothing about my whole parentage? Why did you let me think—”

  “Mr. McDermott, I’m sorry to interrupt.” The nurse didn’t look sorry.

  “Hold on, Dad.” Hunter pressed the phone against his chest. “Yes?”

  The nurse glanced toward the hallway. “The doctor would like to talk to you.”

  Hunter nodded and raised the phone to his ear. “I’m back, but I need to go to talk to the doctor soon. So why did you withhold this from me?”

  “You are demanding to know why I didn’t tell you I’m your father after you learned about Sheila.”

  “Yes, right.” The sudden elderly gentleman sound of his father’s voice deflated something inside Hunter—anger at the least.

  “For your mom’s sake. I thought I’d have time before you found out, but you didn’t come back. But now you know.”

  “Now I know. Is there anything else I should know?”

  “I love you, son. I know you want to know more about why I made the choices I did, but that your mom and I and Michael and Sarah love you is all you need to know right now.”

  “Mr. McDermott.” The nurse spoke with sharp impatience.

  Hunter cleared his throat. “I have to go, but I’ll call you back.” He drew the phone from his ear and nearly touched the End button, then raised the phone again. “I love you all too.”

  He disconnected and followed the nurse down the hall. Curtained cubicles opened on either side of him, all but one other one empty in a small town where little happened, including illness. Outside the last room, a doctor, his face as smooth as a teenager’s, greeted him in a hushed tone.

  “Mr. McDermott? This is your mother?”

  Hunter nodded. He didn’t trust his voice.

  “Your mother is very ill. We’re doing lab work and it’s not back yet, but, um—” His pale-green eyes shifted to somewhere past Hunter’s left shoulder.

  His first time delivering bad news?

  “She’s dying.” Hunter figured if he delivered the news, spoke the words aloud, they would be easier to manage.

  The young doctor jerked, seemed to gather his wits, and looked at Hunter. “She is quite ill, but we managed to stabilize her. She’s even regained consciousness for a few minutes.”

  “Then what was wrong?” Hunter felt off balance, wholly prepared for the worst and receiving something nearly the opposite in comparison.

  “We found her records and discovered that she has stopped her chemo because it made her too ill. But no one placed her in hospice, where she should be. She’s been medicating herself with illegally obtained drugs.” The doctor’s eyes turned into dagger points fixed on Hunter’s eyes. “Where did she get them?”

  Hunter glared back. “If you’re accusing me of something, just say so. I didn’t even meet her until four days ago.”

  “I’m sorry.” The doctor flapped his hands. “I am still learning how to handle these things. The police will want to know. I have to report it.”

  Was his brother into obtaining illegal drugs for his mother along with selling meth? No wonder he had run.

  “Right now,” Hunter broke into the confused speech, “we need to figure out what to do.”

  “We’ll keep her here to get her system on some safer medications to manage her pain. Then we will consider other options.”

  “May I see her?” Hunter glanced at the room behind the doctor.

  He stepped aside and Hunter entered the room.

  Sheila looked as insubstantial as a child beneath the blanket. But her color was marginally better and her breathing more regular with the help of an oxygen cannula. Her hand rested atop the bedding, and Hunter clasped it in his own.

  “You gave me a scare.”

  “Jeremiah?” Her eyes fluttered open, hope brightening her blue eyes, then dying. “Where’s Jeremiah? Where’s my Racey Jean?”

  “I don’t know.” He felt like a failure for not producing his sister.

  Not that he could, but this must be how Ashley felt when she couldn’t fix the lives of her patients.

  “Find them.” Order delivered, Sheila’s eyes closed.

  When she seemed to have lapsed into sleep or even unconsciousness, Hunter departed.

  The doctor waylaid him outside the room. They discussed Sheila’s condition, her life expectancy, her care. A poor prognosis. Perhaps a month. Hospice.

  He needed to find his siblings for Sheila before it was too late. Ashley was the only person he knew with any hope of finding Racey Jean. Exiting the hospital, he began to text her when someone plowed into his back.

  “Oopf!” he exclaimed and dropped his phone onto the pavement.

  “I’m so sorry,” Ashley cried out behind him. “I just got your text and was texting you back and wasn’t watching where I was going.”

  “It’s all right.” Hunter bent and retrieved his phone. “It has one of those withstand-an-atomic-blast cases on it.” Phone still intact, he shoved it into his pocket and turned to fix his eyes on her, disheveled, tired-looking, the most beautiful thing he’d seen since . . . the last time he’d seen her. “I was just texting you.”

  “Your mother?”

  “She’s pulling through this time.” He glanced around. “Can we go somewhere to talk?”

  “Depends on how much privacy you want. The McDonald’s and the diner are all that will be open right now. Maybe one of our cars?”

  “Sure. Mine is right here.” He gestured to the SUV, then clicked the locks.

  They settled onto the soft leather seats, Ashley stroking her cushion with apparent pleasure.

  Hunter half turned to face her. “Sheila—my mother—” He shifted fully sideways with his back to the driver’s-side door and one arm draped over the steering wheel. “She perhaps has a month to live. The doctor recommends hospice care. I’d like to take her up north, but that would only be convenient to me. She would hate leaving here, I think.”

  He continued, “I need to find my brother and sister. They need to know where their mother is, and she wants to see them. I’ve tried a detective, but no one knows these mountains.”

  “Jase has all the information we do.” Ashley compressed her lips, shook her head, then straightened as though she had made a momentous decision.

  “What?” Hunter asked.

  “I’ll put out the word that Sheila is dying, if I may. If I spread the word through my patients, Jeremiah and Racey Jean might hear it and come out of hiding to see her. And maybe the doctor can use some influence to let Sheila meet her granddaughter. If we put that out, Racey Jean will want to come forward, I think.”

  “And what about if the boyfriend does as well?”

  CHAPTER 27

  THE CABIN OF the SUV grew too stagnant for Hunter’s comfort. He reached behind him and lowered the windows a few inches, took several deep breaths of air that smelled like exhaust and bad hospital food. Bile rose in his throat. He swallowed. He looked at Ashley. “I’ll risk it for me, but you need to lie low.”

  “I can’t lie low and serve my patients and spread the word about your mother.”

  “But this man could hurt you, seriously injure you. I can’t let you risk your safety for my sake.”

  “Racey Jean is my patient. I’m doing this for her sake.” She gave him a half smile.

  And right then and there, in the too-warm SUV with tainted air swirling around them, Hunter fell in love with Ashley Tolliver. It was the last complication he needed in his life right then and the first one he wanted.

  “You are a remarkable woman.” He brushed his thumb across her lower lip by way of the kiss he would not give her in the middl
e of a parking lot in broad daylight. “But keep yourself safe.”

  “I will.” She lifted his hand and pressed it to her cheek, then slid out of the SUV and headed for her Tahoe with her easy, graceful walk that looked unhurried but covered a lot of ground fast.

  He loved her and he didn’t know what to do about it. Hunter locked up his vehicle and headed into the hospital again. Sheila had been moved to a room. He got directions and headed up to find her.

  She was sleeping. A nurse told him she probably would be most of the time. He took a book and settled onto a chair to read and simply be there. His phone demanded his attention, buzzing ceaselessly with incoming texts, the announcement on Mute. After checking to see if any were from Ashley, he ignored the rest. He would continue his conversation with his father in person.

  He remained at Sheila’s side. Sometimes he left for coffee or food, but he returned as quickly as he could.

  After the first day, she woke up for brief spells. She seemed to draw comfort from his presence, but she always asked about her other children.

  “I’m working on it,” Hunter told her.

  Ashley was working on it. With her amazing network, she was asking about his sister and brother by name, telling everyone they needed to come to the hospital.

  They did not. No one came to see Sheila who wasn’t part of the hospital staff, except once. Hunter looked up from dozing in his chair to see the doorway filled with the bulk of a man, not a fat man, just a big one with massive arms crossed over his chest. With the room dim and the light in the hallway bright, Hunter couldn’t see the man’s face.

  “Who are you?” Hunter asked.

  The man slipped away without answering, leaving Hunter with spiders crawling up his spine.

  Though he asked around among the nurses, none knew anything of the evening visitor.

  “Don’t let anyone in Sheila Brooks’s room.” It was the best Hunter could do. “And you have my number if anything goes wrong or anyone shows up here.”

  “Yes, Mr. McDermott.” The nurses on duty on Thanksgiving gave him patient, indulgent smiles and all but pushed him into the elevator. “Enjoy your dinner.”