The Midwife

by Jolina Petersheim

  Elmer said nothing at first, just stared. Then he said, “I’ll get Fannie.” I continued focusing on nothing. My distracted gaze watched his white shirt disappear into the gloom.

  Before the surge had ebbed, Fannie came to the door. I could not concentrate long enough to drag my eyes up to her face. Wrapping an arm around my back, she led me through the maze of her kitchen. Die kich, I thought, nonsensically reciting the Pennsylvania Dutch nouns she’d taught me: weschbohl, kochoffe, haffe, messer. . . . Fannie struck a match on the corner of the table. She touched the wick of a lamp. The flame ate the oil-soaked material, flaring it to life. She tried helping me into a chair, but as soon as my backside touched the wood, I cried out and resumed standing. Clutching the back of the chair, I rocked from side to side and growled deep in my throat. Even in my haze of pain, I could feel the pressure and knew the baby was descending fast.

  “Fannie!” I screamed.

  “I’m here,” Fannie said. “Rhoda, I’m here. Just keep breathing. You’re doing great, meedel.” Then she called over her shoulder, “Elmer. Elmer, bring me some hot water in a bucket and my birthing satchel. I’m going to need towels, too.”

  The old Mennonite midwife led me like a sleepwalking child over to her and Elmer’s bed. It became hard to move my feet, but I knew that I could not sit or lie down. I crouched low beside the bed and cried out in anguish. I held the bed post, the ornate wood carvings imprinting my palms. My body knew exactly what to do, yet I knew nothing. Still, Fannie did not touch me. She must have sensed that I could not have stood the pressure of her little finger when it felt my entire body was being torn apart. I gingerly reached down and felt the downy globe of the baby’s head, crowning.

  My strength renewed, I groaned and bore down until my face filled with blood, and I had to bite my lip to redirect the pain. I gave the sum of my energy into that one deep push. Fannie knelt and caught the baby, whose womb-waxed body slipped out as swiftly as my son’s had. I clutched the bedpost with my arms because my jellied legs could no longer support me. I closed my eyes and prayed—thanking God for the baby’s safe delivery and promising that I would cherish her every cell, regardless of how many chromosomes she had.

  “Rhoda,” Fannie said, gently nudging my side. “Stand up, my meedel. Look at your child.”

  I did as she suggested, and my eyes filled afresh. The baby’s ears were whorled like the most intricate shell. Her ten toes were plump and pink, her ten fingers delicate and long. Her head—mottled with that dark, wet hair—showed no signs of the force that had expelled her into our world. I brushed a fingertip down her chest, watching gooseflesh arise on her dappled skin and her rib cage expand and deflate with breath. She opened her eyes and looked at me. She looked at me. She had the same clouded blue irises as most newborns, yet in them I saw reassurance that I was her mother. That though we shared no DNA, during the past forty weeks, the rhythm of my heart had become synced with hers.

  With a clean dish towel, Fannie dabbed the baby’s scalp, then swaddled her in another towel. She passed the child to me—still connected by the limp umbilical cord—and even with the baby breathing easily, eyes wide open, she did not let out a cry. Fannie tucked her into my shaky arms. I leaned my face down to hers. Bathing her in the brine of my sweat and tears, I held her close.

  “What are you going to name her?” Fannie asked.

  I looked down and touched my daughter’s cheek, watching her instinctively root for my breast. I smiled and thought that, in all my life, I’d never known such love.

  “Hope,” I replied.

  11

  Amelia, 2014

  The bedsprings squeak as I throw my legs over the side of the top bunk and jump to the floor. Peeling loose the shirt that’s stuck to my spine with sweat, I look in at Lydie. Her huge stomach rises and falls with each of her breaths. I have to say, it’s pretty annoying that someone thirty-nine weeks pregnant can sleep in this suffocating heat when I’ve been tossing and turning for hours. But I guess it’s because Lydie’s never lived with air-conditioning anyway.

  I tiptoe downstairs and turn the doorknob to the bathroom that smells like some cut-rate porta-john since the plumbing’s about the same as in a third-world country. Somebody’s in there. Of course somebody’s in there when we’ve got four preggo girls beneath one roof, whose bladders have shrunk to, like, the size of lima beans. Sighing, I make sure the floor’s clear of bugs and sink down against the wall. It’s cooler down here by about ten degrees. But I stop enjoying my break when I hear whimpering.

  I scramble to my bare feet and knock.

  “Go away!” this small, scared voice says.

  I ask, “What’s wrong?”

  Nothing.

  “Can you hear me?”

  A bunch of sniffling, then, “Yeah’um.”

  I smile. “That you, Luca?”

  “Who you first?”

  “Amelia. You helped pick weeds with me in the garden. You want to come out here and tell me what’s wrong?”

  “I’m stuck,” he says.

  “Stuck?”

  He rattles the doorknob. “I shut it. . . . Then it stuck.”

  I grip the doorknob and twist. It’s not locked, but jammed. “Move over there near the bathtub, Luca. I don’t want you hit.”

  He calls out, “Okay.” I twist the doorknob hard to the right. Stepping back, I put my weight against the door. It whips open. The knob smacks into the wall, scattering white plaster stuff like powder. Freed, Luca claps his hands and moves into the hallway. His small outline—with all this messy hair and a long nightshirt and white socks pulled up skinny-kid calves—makes my chest hurt. Is this how my baby would look?

  Luca takes my hand though I haven’t offered it. I stiffen at first because I’m not used to little kids, but then I loosen up, and Luca swings our linked arms. He grins up at me like I’m some kind of hero or something, when I just opened a bathroom door. I feel like I’m going to cry for a second. This kid’s so trusting and has no idea that the people he looks up to now will eventually let him down—or at least that’s how it was with me. I was about Luca’s age the night I realized that who I was could never be enough. So at six years old, I closed down my heart and just stopped trying.

  Using my other hand to wipe my eyes, I say, “Sorry you were scared.”

  “I weren’t scared, just stuck.”

  I now try to hide my smile along with my tears. Luca might be a kid, but he still doesn’t like anyone thinking he’s not a man. “Stuck, it is,” I say. “Where’s your mom?”

  “Sleepin’.” He says it as if that was a stupid question.

  “Then let’s take you back to your room.”

  “Nummies first?” Luca scrubs the end of his nose and starts walking down the hall without me. “Grossmammi Charlotte, she be keeping nummies for me in a jar,” he says.

  Nummies? What in the world’s he talking about? I catch up, and Luca again reaches for my hand. He’s just wiped his nose and, having come out of the bathroom, who knows what else. But I let him take it, and we walk down the hallway into the kitchen.

  “Up ’ere.” Luca points to the glass jars lining the back wall of the countertop.

  I hook my hands beneath his armpits and, in one motion, set him on the countertop, like he’s—I don’t know—more air than boy or something. He swings his legs and twists at the waist, reaching toward the jar.

  “Wait.” I get out one gingersnap and pass it to Luca. He takes a bite and smacks his lips, not even caring that these cookies were donated to Hopen Haus because they’re stale. I fluff Luca’s messy hair and swallow hard, knowing I don’t have much time until a choice has to be made. I’ve been rebelling against my mom for years, so you’d think it wouldn’t be that hard. But my entire future’s never been hanging on one decision: go through with the appointment or give my baby up for adoption. Either way, my arms will be empty, a thought that doesn’t relieve me like it would have a month ago.

  I take a big breath. “You’ll be
able to sleep now?” I ask. “Since you’ve had a snack?”

  Luca nods. Sugary crumbs dot the cotton shirt stretched across his lap. The kitchen slowly brightens, but this place has no dimmer switch. I turn and see the head midwife, Rhoda, carrying a lamp. She looks exhausted.

  Remembering how angry Uriah was when he saw me and Luca together, I step back from the kid like I’ve done something wrong. But the head midwife just says, “Thought I heard someone down here.” Crossing the kitchen, Rhoda sets the lantern on the island. Light pools around the globe. “May I have one too?” she asks, motioning to the cookie jar.

  I pass a gingersnap to Rhoda and keep one for myself. Luca reaches for another one and sticks out his bottom lip in a pout. I raise an eyebrow and Rhoda smiles. I give him another one. Then the three of us nibble in silence . . . well, except for the sound of the cookies crumbling between our teeth. To avoid meeting Rhoda’s eyes, I stare at the copper pots nested on the countertop that Lydie treated with some kind of oil until the cracked wood looked almost good as new. While the spiced wafer melts on my tongue, the night my mom let me down floats up through the layers of my mind. I wish it were a memory that I could forget.

  When I was Luca’s age—and gullible enough to think every goal could be reached—I tried to do better than my mom’s expectations. I tried to be the perfect ballerina, the perfect kindergarten student, the perfect daughter, the perfect friend. This determination stopped the Christmas I was six. The dance studio I attended was putting on The Nutcracker. My beginner class made up the mice army, and we’d been practicing our small part since Halloween. My mom came backstage seconds before the curtains were supposed to part. She found me bunched together with my class. We were pulling each other’s costume tails, swiping cheese and nuts from the refreshment table, and doing other things typical of mice.

  My mom shook her head and plucked the piece of cheese out of my foam paw. Without working fingers I’d had a pretty hard time getting hold of it. Tossing the cheese into the trash can, my mom brushed invisible flecks from my shoulders. Then she leaned down and whispered, low enough so no one else could hear, “Now, when you’re up there, sweetheart, don’t forget to suck your tummy in.” She kissed my forehead and left the stage, leaving a trail of nervousness mixed with her perfume.

  During the opening act, I remembered to keep my shoulders straight and my belly button sucked in toward my backbone as I chittered and demi-plié-ed across the stage. Then I saw my teacher, the gorgeous Miss Vivienne, in the wings of the stage, pointing to my cheeks to remind me to smile. I smiled and my tummy poofed out. My shoulders sank. My smile disappeared. I peered into the glare of the stage lights, trying to see if my mom had seen. But I couldn’t see my mom, dad, or Grandma Sarah. I couldn’t see anyone. Sweat trickled beneath my costume. My headband, where my velveteen ears were attached, started to itch.

  The distraction was just for a second. But a second was all it took. I looked down at the black X marks taped to the stage, trying to remember how to begin again. The sugar plum fairy, Cynthia Greenwood, was from the advanced class. Beautiful and slim in her white leotard and sparkly skirt tipped with feathers, Cynthia came onto the stage, smiling and leaping en pointe like her ankles were suspended from a puppet’s string. So, captivated by an audience she couldn’t see, Cynthia did not see the confused mouse from Act I, who was still crouched beside the third X with her pink tail trailing across the ground.

  Cynthia stretched out her toned arms. The swan feather in her headdress fluttered in the wind of her own twirl. She was halfway through her pirouette when she tripped over me and landed—heavily, loudly—on her rump. Cynthia had dreams of dancing with a company. They would’ve never come true, anyway; she was too tall for lifts. But to this day, Cynthia’s mother blames me for her daughter’s settling for an English lit teaching job at Concord Community College. If it weren’t for me, Mrs. Greenwood could have shared with the country club that her daughter was dancing on Juilliard’s stage.

  That night, after the sugar plum fairy’s gawky topple, was the first night my mom didn’t come into my bedroom to tuck me in. Huddled in my canopy bed beside the picture window, I could not sleep. A lump of dread settled in my stomach, as heavy as a stone. This was the first time I’d failed my mom. Getting up on my knees, I crossed the eiderdown and traced the frost spreading across the black windowpanes.

  I tried not to cry. Minutes passed that felt like hours.

  I kept myself awake by pressing my face and fingers to the glass and staring out at the clear December night—waiting, hoping for my mom to come. My fingertips were growing cold and the glass was fogged with breath when my dad came in with a Care Bear TV tray gripped between his hands. He set it on the low table where my nanny, Grandma Sarah, and I had tea parties (and sometimes even my mom, if she was off work). My dad’s sheepskin slippers whispered as he shuffled over to my bureau and switched on the carousel lamp.

  By its glow, I looked at the glass of milk, gingersnaps Grandma Sarah had baked, and a tangerine my father had peeled and divided into wedges, the way I liked it. I tried to smile. But the lump in my stomach left no room for appetite, and I didn’t know how I was going to speak, not to mention swallow, around the sense of failure that I felt, the sense of horrible dread.

  “You feeling okay?” my dad asked, leaning across the bed to plant a kiss on my hair, still sticky with spray from the recital. Neither of my parents had even checked to see if I had brushed my hair or teeth.

  “Yes,” I said. But my voice trembled. I sat up and rubbed my watering left eye with my fist. I already knew that my mom didn’t like to see me cry. I knew that my dad always blamed himself whenever I did.

  My dad walked back to the tiny table and pulled out the chair. He sat down with the table at shin level and his knees bunched up toward his chest. He looked like a giant. Knowing this, he played it up by scrunching his face into a mighty Hulk grimace. This time I smiled. He patted the seat next to him. “Won’t you come sit?” he asked. “I can’t eat these biscuits all by myself.”

  “I’m not hungry,” I said.

  He frowned. “C’mon, honey. You’ve earned it. I’m sure you can eat just one bite.”

  So I climbed off the canopy bed and took the chair next to my dad. He reached across the distance and placed his arm around my back. I leaned toward him, as I usually did. Pulling me into his lap, my dad curled his chin over my head, protective. For some reason, the comforting thump of his heart made me want to sob. How many times had my dad held me like this? How many times had he also come to tuck me in? And yet, the night I failed to meet my mom’s expectations, I found that I only wanted her.

  “You happy, ’Melia?” he asked.

  I nodded against the flannel material of his pajama shirt.

  “I mean it.” He moved me farther up his knee—the playhouse chair creaking with the weight—and searched my eyes. “Are you really happy?”

  I stared up at him and wrinkled my brow. “Does Mommy love me?” I spread a hand across my chest. The tiny fingernails my mom had painted translucent pink that very day glinted in the carousel’s light. “Me?” I repeated, as if there might be some other girl hiding in the window seat or in the Victorian dollhouse, with miniature china displayed inside a cupboard with real cherry doors (the china plates that I later, after another fight, broke on purpose). “Or does she want a different girl?” I looked down and scraped the paint off my nails with my teeth. “One who doesn’t forget her steps?”

  My dad gently took my fingers out of my mouth. Then he clutched me so hard, I thought he would not release me long enough to let me breathe. The mint of his toothpaste and the herbal shampoo he’d used in the shower—his hair still wet and curled over his pajama collar—was a scent as all-surrounding as his embrace. For a moment—just one—I did not worry about how I would ever be able to please my mom or if my steps would ever match the metronome of her demands.

  Instead, I just clung to my dad, and when he told me that I was loved—s
o very, very loved—I tried to believe him.

  Rhoda, 2014

  Standing in the kitchen, the lamplight pouring out like a flood, I sense Amelia’s discomfort. It saddens me for a reason I cannot express. Things are usually awkward between me and the residents of Hopen Haus. But then, things are usually awkward between me and anyone. Since Hope’s loss, I have learned to keep everyone at a comfortable distance: Fannie when she was still alive, my fellow midwives, the members of Dry Hollow Community. Even God. The fledgling steps I had taken to opening my heart to him were halted the winter day life, as I knew it, ended. The resulting lack of intimacy has never bothered me. To be honest, I actually prefer it.

  The wall around my heart makes it easier to perceive these Hopen Haus girls as residents or patients rather than as additional daughters I will lose. But now, I regret the wall between me and this resident, Amelia. I regret not having taken time to get to know this girl when I sensed, two weeks ago, the insecurities lurking beneath her confidence.

  To keep the backs of his bare legs from getting splinters, Luca scoots across the countertop by supporting his upper body with his knuckles, like the limber monkey he is. He rests his head on Amelia’s shoulder. She dusts off her hands and wraps an arm around his waist.

  I watch the two of them and know from the burning sensation behind my eyes that I am about to cry. I glance away from the odd, fine-looking pair and wipe my face. “You’ll make a wonderful mother,” I whisper, mourning all the opportunities I had to be a mother to these girls and instead chose to protect myself.

  The moment I say this, it is as if the warm room constricts. The muscles of Amelia’s shoulders bunch high around her neck. The knuckle above her ring stands out as she clenches the countertop. She retracts her arm from around the child and helps him to the floor. Sweeping some minuscule crumbs from the counter, she brushes them into the sink.