The Midwife

by Jolina Petersheim

  “Amelia,” she says. “Oh, sweetheart . . . I’m sorry.”

  Amelia says nothing. She does nothing, until the three of us—mother, daughter, mother—are breathing together as one. Then Amelia opens her arms. Meredith closes her eyes and holds her daughter close. She buries her face in the red twist of Amelia’s hair, crosses her arms behind that long back, and cries. I watch the nodules of Amelia’s spine release, and I know that she begins to cry then too. After a while, Meredith lifts her head. She dabs tears with her knuckle so as not to pinch the delicate skin around her eyes. That’s when our eyes meet over her daughter and through my screen door. I press my fingertips to the dark mesh—feeling a knife in my side—and wonder if this is as close to a reunion with my daughter as I will ever come.

  20

  Amelia, 2014

  My dad jogs up the porch steps, having given us some space. Standing behind my mom, he wraps his arms around her—and so holds me too.

  The picture-perfect family, I think.

  “We’re willing to hear you, Amelia,” my dad says through the thin filter of my mom’s hair. “We talked, and we’re willing to hear you out.”

  I let my parents hold me until I know I’m not going to break apart. Then I push free from them and search their faces, trying to see the strangers who could let their own daughter believe a lie. Wiping tears, my mom straightens her shirt collar. My dad reaches into his pocket and passes her one of the million ironed handkerchiefs he started keeping around when I was a kid, constantly running across the playground with a split lip or scraped knee that he’d clean and patch with a Band-Aid and a kiss. I can’t remember my mom ever kissing anything but my forehead—an affectionate gesture that was as dry as her love seemed to be.

  But now my mom takes the handkerchief and thanks my dad. She won’t meet my eyes. I’m not sure if it’s because she knows something’s wrong, or if she’s just embarrassed that I’ve finally seen her cry. It would’ve helped our relationship if she’d allowed me to see this softer side of her from the beginning.

  “What is it?” my dad asks. I’m not sure who he’s speaking to, until I look away from my mom and see that he’s looking at me.

  I say, “Wilbur Byler told.”

  The sentence sounds ridiculous, like I’m a toddler tattling on a friend. But the meaning’s not lost on my mom. “Told you what?” she says. I notice that she doesn’t try sidetracking me by asking who Wilbur Byler is, and that she tries to keep her expression blank. Still, I can feel the aftershock of my words rolling off her body in a wave.

  “That you hired Rhoda Mummau to carry me,” I say, “because you couldn’t carry me yourself. That she kidnapped me, and you came down here to take me back.”

  Frowning, my mom turns and walks down the porch. Her gaze is fixed on the pond, but I have a feeling she’s not seeing anything except the day she reclaimed me.

  My dad moves forward, as always trying to patch the hole left by my mom’s absence. He opens his mouth to speak. Then stops. He looks over my shoulder for a long time before saying, “Try to understand, Amelia. We kept saying we’d tell you when you were older. . . . But then we told ourselves you just didn’t need to know.”

  My breastbone aches from the violent drumming of my heart. “So you just decided to send me down here?” I fling out an arm to take in the yard, with its ancient trees I had admired and now just see as paper and dust. “To see if I’d figure everything out?”

  Placing his hands on my shoulders, my dad just stares at me. Our eyes mirror each other’s rich green until his pupils expand and the color gleams with tears; I refuse to cry. “I’m sorry,” he says. “We hurt you, Amelia. . . . We hurt you by trying to keep you safe.” His fingers tighten on my shoulders. He stares at me for a moment before spinning my body away from his and facing it toward the door. My eyes flicker at being maneuvered like this. And then I see the outline of a tall woman standing behind the screen door in a cape dress and kapp. Rhoda Mummau, Hopen Haus midwife. My birth mother. My kidnapper. Her strong hands—that have been taking care of my baby and me for a month—are knotted against her chest. I can see how they shake every time she breathes.

  Are my parents now just going to turn me over to her? Are they going to switch ownership like I’m really nothing more than a piece of luggage?

  The head midwife doesn’t push the screen door, and I don’t pull it open. Through the separation, I can see that I do not know her, and I don’t even know myself. We’re like unrelated family or acquainted strangers: a contradiction of terms. The hush of an entire buried lifetime is broken only by our breaths. Then the heavy air is cut in half by Lydie’s animal-like cry. Rhoda turns toward the sound, and seeing her distraction, my body hums with the urge to flee.

  Twisting out of my dad’s hold, I bolt down the porch steps and lose a sandal. I kick the other one off and continue running. My parents call my name, again and again, but over this I can hear another name: “Hope! Hope!”

  My ears ring. I stop and stand frozen on the lane. Turning, I squint against the coming night and can see the shape of my parents. Then I see Rhoda, standing alone, leaning on the porch post like it can keep her from falling. One hand is still pressed against her chest. The other hand’s outstretched toward me.

  “Hope!” she cries again.

  My name was Hope. . . .

  Swallowing tears, I turn and keep running down the lane.

  Rhoda, 2014

  The Fitzpatricks and I watch Amelia’s red hair stream and her legs flash white beneath her dark cape dress. Then Meredith strides across the porch and clasps my arm. I look away from the lane and down at her hand, with its network of fine blue veins and bones.

  “Go to her,” she says. I look up and see desperation carving lines between Meredith’s eyebrows and along the dour rim of her mouth. “Fix this.”

  I jerk my arm out of her grasp. Meredith Fitzpatrick is ordering me about just as she did when I was her gestational surrogate and Thom’s graduate school pawn. I’m neither now, so she has no right to treat me this way.

  Sensing my anger, Thom puts an arm around his wife’s shoulders and pulls her back. “Beth,” he says, not even faltering over the use of my pseudonym, “you heard us try to talk to Amelia. She won’t listen to us. She needs someone from the outside. Someone who can tell her how much we need her with us.”

  Someone from the outside? Is the woman who felt Amelia leap inside her womb truly from the outside? Laughter spews from my mouth—a harsh, sarcastic sound. Thom winces. Meredith’s eyes glint like lapis.

  “You want me to tell your daughter that you have always wanted her, when you are the very ones who wanted to take her life?”

  “That doesn’t matter,” Meredith hisses. “We want her now.”

  “It does matter,” I snap, my chest heaving. “Despite the love I poured into Amelia—despite everything I tried to give her in those months before you separated us—she felt your rejection in my womb.”

  Meredith steps back, cowering in her husband’s leashing embrace. “I didn’t know,” she cries, her words muffled by the handkerchief pressed against her lips. “I didn’t know I would love her in the end.”

  I stare at this beautiful, broken woman and can feel the specter of wrath leave my body—a specter that has possessed it since Amelia was taken from me. I would never have had a second chance at motherhood if Meredith Fitzpatrick had not wanted her child, so I should be grateful to this woman who has destroyed my life. I should be grateful for the time my daughter and I had together, even if it was shortened by Meredith’s decision to take her back. And because I truly love my returned child-turned-woman, I do not want to punish her in an attempt to punish her mother. I don’t want her to be lonely like I was. Like I am. I want her to know she’s loved.

  “That’s where we’re different,” I rasp, but I reach out to touch Meredith’s hand—an olive branch gesture, a bridge traversed. “You loved Amelia in the end, but I loved her from the start.”

  Amel
ia, 2014

  My back stiffens as I hear someone coming down the lane. “I don’t want to talk to you!” I scream. “Neither of you!” The footsteps stop. Curious, I turn from the fence post. Wiping my face, I murmur, though it’s no apology, “Thought you were Mom or Dad.”

  The wind blows, shifting branches and covering Rhoda in the moonlight falling through the trees. Her head is bowed, her kapp glowing silver. Finally, she looks up. Her face is twisted with pain. “I used to be your mom too,” she says.

  Her words throttle me, making it difficult to breathe. I turn toward the fence post again. I don’t know what to say or think. It was easier to do both when I knew nothing, and now I know why my parents hid the truth from me. It wasn’t just because they didn’t want me to know; it was also because they didn’t know how to explain.

  “I don’t remember you,” I say, but the honesty burns. “I don’t even remember my name.”

  The midwife steps closer. I flinch, waiting for her hand on my back, but she doesn’t touch me. Finally, she says, “I just wish you could remember how much you were loved.”

  “Is that why you took me?” I ask.

  She says nothing for so long that I am forced to face her again. The midwife’s eyes are closed, tears threading the strands of her lashes. Then she opens them. This time she does reach out. Her fingers are calloused, but her touch is featherlight against my cheek. “Yes,” she says. “I took you with me because I loved you so very much.”

  On the hill, my mom calls my name. The midwife drops her hand from my cheek and peers into my eyes. “Your parents love you too, Amelia. Please try to listen to them. It will be easier for you both if you can hear each other out.”

  My mom’s getting closer, her footsteps careful as she picks her way down the path. “Amelia . . . ?” she says. I can hear the worry in her voice. We don’t have a lot of time.

  “But why’d you name me Hope?” My throat narrows around that simple word.

  The midwife smiles and looks away. In her profile, I can almost see the woman beneath the sadness. And I let myself wonder how different my life would’ve been if she had raised me instead of my parents. The thought isn’t as scary as it was at first.

  “Because you were my hope,” she whispers. “And you always will be.”

  I stare at the midwife, my mind struggling to understand that my entire life, I have been not only loved . . . but wanted and claimed. Even fought over. In the distance, on the hill, I hear someone striking the triangle that hangs on the porch of Hopen Haus. The midwife tilts her head toward its noise, listening. Then she turns to look at me before stepping into the shadows, allowing my mom to take her place once again.

  Rhoda, 2014

  When I crest the hill—my side aching—I see Thom and Looper out in the yard, pacing like anxious fathers awaiting news about the birth of their daughter or son. Behind them, Alice stands on the porch. An oil lamp is at her feet and her arm poised to clang the triangle again. I step out from behind the oak tree, and she murmurs, “Thank God.” I know by the break in her voice that she has not said this in vain.

  “How’s Lydie?” I ask.

  “Not good,” she says. “The fetal heart rate keeps dipping.”

  “How low?”

  Pausing, she says, “Sixty-five.”

  Through the dimness, I search for Dr. Thomas Fitzpatrick’s eyes. He falters in his pacing, probably wondering if the woman who has despised him for so long actually wants whatever knowledge he has to give. “Any complications?” he asks, walking toward me.

  “The baby’s breech,” I say. “A foot’s already birthed.”

  Alice adds, “And the mother has a fever. Her water broke without her knowing, and we think she’s been in labor for twenty hours . . . perhaps more.”

  I turn toward Alice. “How high’s the fever?”

  “A hundred and one.”

  “Infection,” Thom says, and though I know it’s true, I wish he hadn’t voiced it aloud. “Did you give her penicillin?” he asks.

  “Amoxicillin,” Alice says. “Lydie’s allergic to penicillin.”

  He asks, “How far’s the hospital?”

  Alice shakes her head. “She’s progressing too fast. The baby will be birthed before an ambulance can come out.”

  Thom’s already moving past me. “May I see her?” he says. Alice looks askance. “I studied to be an OB-GYN,” he adds.

  Alice’s expression does not change. Then, resigned, she picks up the oil lamp at her feet. Her skirt swishes as she stands, the wick’s flame illuminating the liquid length of her frock. Shielding the globe, Alice turns toward him. “Follow, please.”

  I am taken aback by Alice’s authoritative manner, but I am feeling so poorly that I do not care. Thom goes inside but holds the screen door open. I walk toward him and, before I enter, glance down at Looper, still standing in the yard. “Don’t let Wilbur Byler set one foot in this place,” I say. “Get Uriah to help you. Call the police. . . . We must keep Lydie safe.”

  Looper stares at me before looking at the door. I can see his comprehension dawn. He glances at his boots and nods. “Tell her I’m praying,” he says.

  “I will.” I turn toward Dr. Fitzpatrick. “I think we need all the prayer we can get.”

  When Thom and I enter the room, Lydie is slumped on the edge of the bed, her small hands opened on either side of her body like wilted tulips. Charlotte takes a tin from her birthing satchel, twists the lid, and kneels before the girl. Propping Lydie’s shoulder with one hand, Charlotte massages salve into Lydie’s skin, and the pungent scent of willow bark oil permeates the room.

  Lydie groans as another contraction crescendos. Though her forehead is a colorless marble, her cheeks are rouged with fever. I am alarmed by her lethargic manner, and when I look over at Thom, I can tell that he feels the same. A gust blows through the open window, and the kerosene light hooked from the beam overhead sputters and flares in its netted bulb.

  Thom crosses the shadowed room and crouches beside Charlotte. “How much blood has she lost?” he asks.

  “Far less than a pint,” Charlotte replies softly. Thom’s confident bearing and British accent are so quietly demanding that, unlike Alice, Charlotte doesn’t question Thom’s right to ask. “But her pressure’s risen, as has her fever.”

  Charlotte finishes massaging Lydie, and Alice gently turns her body so that she is positioned toward the end of the bed. Thom scrubs his hands in the weschbohl and dips his forearms and elbows into the hot water with an efficiency not diminished by time.

  I drag a stool in my awkward left hand and position it toward the end of the bed. “Here, Thom,” I say. “Sit here.”

  Lydie is so tired, she doesn’t even wince when Thom reaches careful, gloved fingers past the baby’s foot to trace the rest of the body still lodged in Lydie’s womb. “I’d say about seven and a half, eight pounds. Pretty large baby to deliver breech,” he says.

  “Do you think we should push her?” I whisper, looking down at Thom.

  He shakes his head. Easing his hands back out, he looks up at us midwives clustered about him, waiting for orders. “Ever heard of a water birth?” he asks.

  We nod, of course, but none of us has ever seen one performed. Fannie feared allowing a woman to give birth in water, in case she or the baby had complications and we could not climb inside the claw-foot tub fast enough to get her out.

  “Water birth’s becoming more popular, especially in—” Thom motions to the oil lamp smoking on the nightstand—“more primitive circles.” He continues, oblivious to my irritation at being categorized in such a way. “I think the water would relax Lydie’s uterine muscles—perhaps removing the cervical lip—and take pressure off her perineum. Otherwise, she is bound to tear.” He stands from the stool, pulls the sheet down over Lydie’s legs, and snaps off his gloves. “Beth?” he says. Alice and Charlotte look confused until they see the direction of Thom’s gaze and know that he is talking to me. “You all have a bathtub here?”r />
  “It’s very primitive,” I murmur sharply. “But yes, we have one down the hall.”

  Thom says, “I need someone to scour it with bleach. I mean, really scrub it down. We’ll need towels and a lot of hot water. I’ll carry Lydie when we’re ready.”

  Charlotte leaves to fetch the water she set to boiling on the stove when Lydie went into labor. Alice looks at me, silently asking if we’re really going to allow Lydie to give birth in a tub. But considering I’ve never delivered a breech birth without a more experienced midwife present, I am relieved to rely on Thom’s knowledge—even as unconventional as that knowledge might be. “We have no choice,” I whisper.

  Alice nods warily. She picks her oil lamp up again. Her cape dress rustles as she swishes out of the room. Lydie opens her eyes just wide enough to look at me. My heart aches at the sight of her strubbly braids and pale, freckled skin. She should be attending Saturday night hymn sings and sewing doilies for her cedar-lined hope chest, not giving birth to a child who was forced upon her by an older man who I am sure abused her trust.

  Making sure Lydie’s still focused on me, I point to Thom. “Lydie, this is Dr. Fitzpatrick, Amelia’s father. He’s going to help deliver your baby tonight. It’s called a water birth.”

  Lydie offers a weak smile. Then her eyes close again.

  When Alice appears to tell us the bathtub has been cleaned and filled, I motion to Thom. Tucking the sheet around her shoulders, he scoops her up, and the thin, floral material laps over his arms.

  The bathroom was converted from a narrow closet, so it is only wide enough to fit the toilet, standing sink, and tub suspended on halved cinder block risers. Rendered useless by my broken ribs, I remain in the doorway but hold an oil lamp to help illuminate the room. Thom eases Lydie down on the closed toilet seat and tests the bath’s temperature with the inside of his wrist. His action is so second-nature that it makes me wonder if it is one he did when Amelia was a child. The thought fills me with both unbearable envy and thankfulness that, though she was not raised by me, my daughter was cared for and loved.