The Runaway Midwife

by Patricia Harman

  “Hey.” I feel a touch on my arm and jerk around. “Were you going to go by without saying hello?” He swings me around and presses his body against me. I’m just about to tell him in an irritated way to get off, when he kisses me softly.

  “Sorry I didn’t call. I’m kind of like the New Day people that way . . . off the grid,” he apologizes.

  I can’t help but smile. “Are those your friends?” I indicate the men at the table.

  “Naw, just guys from Ohio who are members of the sailing club. I brought them over in my speedboat this time. What are you doing tonight? Want to hang out? Go on a picnic?”

  He’s holding me close, kissing my forehead. Who can say no to a man who kisses your forehead? Who would want to?

  Sunset, Red and Gold

  I catch a ride home with Molly and Chris, and at seven I’m ready and waiting for Lenny on the upper deck, dressed in my orange stretch knit dress. A small bright yellow bird lands on the banister that surrounds the gazebo and looks at me. “Hello, Mr. Finch,” I say. “You’re the first of your kind I’ve seen since I left West Virginia.” Tiger comes over and rubs my leg. He doesn’t even notice the yellow bird.

  “I must be feeding you too well,” I tell my pussycat. “Once you were a wild hunter, now you’re a softie.” As I carry him back down to the cottage, I rub my face in his fur.

  I’d like to rub him all over my naked body, he feels so good, but I know I am only thinking of Lenny. Such strange ideas have never come to me before. And then I hear the boat. SUN DANCER it says on the side, a sleek bright yellow-and-white powerboat with a roll bar and a metal railing around the front.

  When I wade out to meet him, carrying my sandals with my orange knit dress hiked up to my thighs, Lenny has already dropped a short ladder and pulls me up into his arms. I hadn’t necessarily thought about making out in the boat, but I can see that he’s ready. Not only is a quilt spread on the floor, he even has pillows.

  A few hours later, I prop myself up on my elbow and stare down at his face, brown from the sun and wrinkled around the eyes. He is naked, lying on his side with his hands tucked between his legs and I am naked too, my nipples still at attention. The boat rocks with the waves.

  Maybe it’s because he’s mysterious. Maybe it’s because he’s a good lover—patient, generous and kind. Maybe it’s just pheromones, hormones that help bees, bears and gorillas find mates. I sneeze and Lenny wakes up.

  “Did you do that on purpose?”

  “Yeah,” I say, running one finger down his chest. “I want you to wake up and play with me.”

  “Say that again.”

  “I want you to wake up . . .” He puts one finger on my lips and grabs me by the back of the neck.

  “Just the first part . . .”

  “I want you.”

  “Say it again.”

  “I want you.”

  GOLDFINCH

  Male, bright yellow in spring and summer

  Female (and male in winter), speckled brown

  Diet: Eats only seeds with its conical beak, complete vegetarian

  Habitat: bushes and second-growth timber, backyards and parks

  Call Per-chick-ory or some say po-tat-to-chip

  Range: US and Canada year-round, but only where the temperature stays above 0º F

  CHAPTER 30

  Message

  Before Lenny left, I told him the truth. Not all of it, just the part about being on the run and wanting to send word to my daughter that I’m still alive and I love her.

  “The thing is, this letter has to be sent to Australia without a return address and from someplace far away from Seagull Island,” I explain. “She’s studying abroad. Could you mail it from Mexico or wherever you go next? I don’t want anyone to find me.”

  “Is it the law?”

  “Yes, and my husband and the ghosts who haunt me. Can you do this for me? Can you mail it?” I read the short letter to myself one more time.

  Dear Jess,

  It’s me. I know this sounds crazy, coming from your old-fashioned, conventional mom, but I can’t tell you where I am because I’m wanted by the police for manslaughter and for stealing a lot of money (all of it from your father, but you know how he is about money). I just wanted to tell you I’m alive and I love you. You’re in my heart and prayers every day . . . every hour. When things calm down, I will find you.

  Be safe.

  Mom

  I fold the sheet of notebook paper and stuff it into an old envelope I found on the Nelsons’ bookshelf.

  He takes the message and puts it in his shirt pocket and lays his hand over his heart. “You can count on me . . . I knew there was something . . .” Then he kisses my forehead again and then my mouth and he leaves.

  SENDING THE NOTE has taken a weight off my sorry heart. I might be a liar, a runaway, a thief and wanted for manslaughter . . . but at least Jessie will now know that her mom is still living and cares for her.

  From experience I know what it does to you when someone you love just walks away, never says goodbye. Karen did that. She was my friend and then she was gone. Poof! No note. No explanation. I was closer to her than I am to Richard. I can’t imagine what it was like for her husband and children to lose her.

  I go over in my mind, for the hundredth time, the last day I saw Karen. We were walking across the lawn from the hospital to the clinic with our arms around each other’s waists, both wearing scrubs. Her hair was pulled away from her face and stuffed up in her puffy OR cap because we’d just finished a C-section together. The baby was breech and everything had gone well. It was the parents’ first child and they named him Romeo. (We’d had a private laugh about that.)

  “So when you come back you want to go to the concert at the university with me? The Indigo Girls are back in town,” I said.

  “Sure,” Karen answered. “Get the tickets. The cruise is only four days long. I just need some me time and to feel the wind in my hair.” She laughed and I still hear that sound between dreams and waking.

  Six days later I was at Shop ’n Save when I got a text from my fellow midwife Linda. “Call me,” it said.

  It could only mean one thing. I was off duty, but she wanted me to come to the hospital for a second patient in labor.

  “What’s up?” I asked Linda when she answered her cell phone.

  “Are you sitting down?”

  “No, I’m in the store grocery shopping.”

  “Go home and call me.”

  “I won’t be home for an hour.”

  “No. Go home now.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, Linda. My cart’s almost full. I’m not going to just park it and walk out. Call me back again in thirty minutes. I’ll hurry.” What could be so important? Apparently, it wasn’t a woman in labor.

  Thirty minutes later my cell rang again. “So what’s up?” I asked when I heard Linda’s voice.

  “Are you sitting?”

  “Yeah, I’m in the car, but I’m not home yet. Why so mysterious? Is Dr. Agata resigning or something?” I think this is funny, but Linda doesn’t laugh.

  “Pull over.”

  “Oh my God! If you insist.” I take the next side street and park at the curb. “Okay. I’m stopped. What’s so earthshaking that we can’t talk while I’m driving?”

  “Dr. Karen is gone.”

  “I know she’s gone. She’ll be back in two days.”

  “I mean she’s dead. Her husband called Dr. Agata a few hours ago. It’s all over the hospital. Apparently she jumped off the side of the cruise ship during a storm two nights ago. They’ve been searching, but they can’t find her body.”

  She goes on for a few minutes but I can barely hear her. Karen is dead. Karen is dead. Karen is dead . . . as in forever. It can’t be . . .

  The next morning we closed the clinic and Dr. Agata called a meeting of the whole staff. “I know everyone has a lot of questions. All I can tell you is that our beloved Dr. Karen Cross was last seen on surveillance video on the cruise s
hip, on its way to Cozumel, climbing over a railing on a sixth-deck balcony. Her body has not been found and after three days the US Coast Guard has called off the search.

  “I know there has been a lot of speculation about her death. According to Karen’s husband, no suicide note has been found, but the cruise ship video clearly shows her alone on the deck and purposely jumping, not falling. A memorial service is being held next Saturday at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church. Her family asks that, instead of flowers, we donate to the National Breast Cancer Foundation.”

  LINDA AND I went back to the clinic later that night and by flashlight, like a couple of Watergate burglars, went through Karen’s files and then her computer, looking for some correspondence or email that would explain her desperate action, but there was nothing. No letter to indicate a secret love life gone wrong, or copy of an MRI showing an inoperable brain tumor . . . nothing to explain why a successful, apparently happy woman who seemed to have everything, just went off and killed herself.

  I never went to the Indigo Girls’ concert, just gave the tickets to some friends. Richard, wearing a dark suit and tie, accompanied me to the service as if we were actually husband and wife. I couldn’t cry, just walked around giving hugs like Karen would do if it were my funeral.

  THIS EVENING WHEN I go up on the deck to watch the sunset, I hear a strange quivery cry. I look down the shore expecting to see someone giving voice to great sorrow, but the beach is empty. The cry comes again and this time I realize it’s from out on the lake. Two waterfowl are swimming together and as I adjust the Nelsons’ binoculars, I realize that one of them has a baby bird on her back. How incredible! I have seen photos of this before. The mother allows her baby to ride along on top. The bird with the strange cry is a loon.

  COMMON LOON

  A large heavy-bodied, long-necked bird

  Male, distinctive black head, white underbody with white spots on back

  Female, Brown

  Voice: melancholy yodeling

  Diet: Dives for fish

  Range: Summer: all over Canada and northern border of US

  Winter: Both coasts and southeastern US

  Size: 32 inches

  Wingspan: 4 feet

  Nita

  It’s a bright sunny day with a roaring wind and whitecaps as huge as those on the Atlantic, and Peter Dolman and I are on our way to visit one of the women that I’ve been talking to on the phone—Nita Adams. I wasn’t excited about hanging out with Peter Dolman after my crying scene at the Cider Mill, but when he asked me to come, I couldn’t say no. Nita seems like a nice old lady.

  The cop turns the cruiser into a long gravel drive on the interior of the island. Here green fields are dotted with sheep and the long green grass lies flat in the wind. Two white lambs stare as we pass, their short tails wagging like dogs and their brown ears sticking out sideways.

  “Do all sheep have short tails? I never noticed before. Are they born that way?” I ask.

  “No, the owners dock them when they’re young. If you let their tails stay long, they get shit all over themselves.”

  When we get to the little vine-covered cottage on the east side of Gull Point, no one answers. “Nita!” Dolman calls over and over until we just break the door open and find the old lady sitting on the sofa.

  “Oh, Peter!” she whispers, tears streaming down her wrinkled brown face. “You’re my angel. I’ve been sitting here for almost twenty-four hours just praying someone would come. My hip went out again and the telephone is in the other room, so I couldn’t get to it . . . I can’t stand or even crawl.” She wipes her eyes with a faded blue apron. “And I’ve soiled myself . . . It’s my hip. Can you help me?”

  I’m surprised to see that Nita Adams is the elderly black woman I’d seen walking on the beach when I first came to Seagull Haven, the one who makes sun catchers out of beach glass. Dolman lifts her up and very gently carries her into the bedroom.

  The old lady sounded so chipper on the phone when she told me about working on her projects. I had no idea she meant her artwork . . . or that she was the person I’d met before . . . or that she was so frail.

  “Can you put some hot water on, Peter? And maybe make Mrs. Adams some tea and something to eat? Canned soup or something. I’ll clean her up. Mrs. Adams, I’m—”

  “Feed Mr. and Mrs. Doodle too,” Nita interrupts me. I have no idea what she’s talking about, so I don’t even comment.

  I try again. “I’m Sara. Sara the RN.”

  “You’re the girl from Gull Point,” Mrs. Adams comments as I wipe her bottom with a clean washcloth and warm water. “The one on the beach. I recognize you now. All this time, we’ve talked on the phone, I never realized.”

  “I’m not exactly a girl, but it’s funny, isn’t it? I didn’t know it was you either . . . Do you have any medical conditions, Mrs. Adams? I mean besides your hip,” I ask this like a nurse, which actually I am, a nurse-midwife.

  “Just my sugar, honey. I haven’t eaten anything since yesterday at four. Do you still think I need my insulin? It’s in the refrigerator.”

  Three trips to the bathroom for water and clean washcloths and I have Nita cleaned up and comfortable, then I go out to consult with the cop where he’s making canned chicken noodle soup.

  When I enter the large sunny kitchen, I’m surprised to see that the room must also be the old lady’s studio. It explodes with light and color. There are high workbenches and a wooden desk. There’s a small vise, a big magnifying glass and all sorts of small tools. In the windows, on the walls and even hanging from the ceiling are necklaces, earrings, mobiles and sun catchers made of the green, gold, brown, clear and blue glass stones.

  My hand goes to my throat as if to catch a shout of joy. “It’s beautiful,” I say to Peter. “Like standing in a room made of stained glass.”

  “She is a great artist and a great lady,” he answers, stirring the soup and turning to me. His cop hat and sunglasses are on the counter and he has a dishcloth tucked into his pants for an apron.

  “But she’s in a bad way, isn’t she? I can see why you include her in your rounds. If we hadn’t come by, she could have sat there in her own pee and poop and starved to death or died of diabetes. She says she may require insulin. Do you think Jed would come over?”

  “Already called him and he’s on his way. He says she probably needs to go to the mainland for a few weeks to a long-term care facility. They can get her artificial hip back in the socket, her sugar regulated and her strength back.”

  Just then the cop’s cell phone whistles. “Excuse me,” he says and goes out of the room, but I can hear him talking in the back hall.

  “Dolman . . . Yeah . . . I’ll take the ferry tonight . . . Yeah . . . Okay.” When he returns to Nita’s bedroom, his face is dark, almost angry.

  “Sorry, Nita. I’ve got business and we have to cut this short. Sara will be checking on you by phone and Jed’s on the way. You just stay in bed.”

  “WHAT’S UP?” I ask when we’re back in the squad car.

  “Another missing-person case from Windsor. Third one this year. Probably gang related, but there’s some indication the guy was last seen on Seagull Island. They have a man in custody for a related matter on the mainland and they want me to talk to him. No more rounds for today.”

  A missing person . . . I think to myself. Would he wear Timberland boots?

  Discovery

  Feeling slightly less weighted after sending the note to Jessie, I’ve turned over a new leaf and have instituted a self-improvement plan. Every morning I will do yoga and meditate. I will drink eight glasses of water, take a walk and swim . . . unless there’s a storm . . . then I’ll dance inside for exercise.

  It’s on my third afternoon of my crusade for fitness that I hear a vehicle coming down Grays Road. I’m on the beach, a good hundred yards from the cottage, but I hurry home, wondering who it could be. (Now that it’s summer, traffic has picked up and often some tourist gets lost in the boonies.) I hear th
e vehicle pull into my drive, but by the time I get there, it’s gone.

  Thinking maybe someone left a note, I check the screen door, but there’s nothing. It’s then that I notice the old Raleigh is gone, and that sets off an alarm. It’s not just that I was planning on getting the broken-down bike fixed, but the idea of people creeping around and stealing things right off my front porch is disturbing. I don’t usually lock the house, but I guess I will now.

  I look under the bed where I keep my briefcase to see if anything’s missing. There’s no point in counting my money. If someone discovered it, they would take the whole satchel and it appears to be undisturbed. Nevertheless, I decide to find a new hiding place.

  I consider the shed, but it seems too distant and the bureau seems too obvious. Finally, I turn to the small bedroom closet. I don’t have many clothes, but what I have nearly fills up the space. On the top shelf are Mrs. Nelson’s handmade quilts along with an extra fan. I take the canvas briefcase, roll it into one of the quilts, then stand on a chair and push it way back. As I pull out my hand, I feel a flat folder, something I hadn’t noticed before. What’s this?

  The brown packet with the elastic band around it doesn’t look like anything special. It’s the usual kind of file folder you can get at any office supply store. What intrigues me is its hiding place. It must have been something Lloyd or Wanda felt was special.

  Feeling like a sneak, I take it into the living room to investigate. The packet includes the deed to Seagull Haven, a letter about donations to the Nature Conservancy and a handwritten will dated September 2014 and signed by Lloyd Nelson. Could Lloyd have already known he was dying?

  I sit down and read through the short document.

  “I Lloyd Nelson, being of sound mind and body, do bequeath my property, known as Seagull Haven, to the Ontario Nature Conservancy, to be used in perpetuity as a place of peace.”

  There’s more . . . the legal description of the five acres . . . then it’s signed.

  Is this something I ought to give to Wanda? Did she know about it? I look at the property title. The land and house are only in Lloyd’s name. As his widow, wouldn’t she expect to inherit it? I decide that this is not the time to bother her. Probably she knew he wanted to preserve this special place for the use of all who came to Seagull Island, but then why were the documents hidden?