The Midwife

by Jolina Petersheim

  Lydie is almost comatose with exhaustion, so Alice and Charlotte link arms behind her back, maneuver her over to the tub, and lower her into the water. A wave sloshes over the edge, and her submerging nightgown billows like a sail. Lydie sighs and smiles.

  “Lydie,” Thom says, “we’re going to let your body rest here a moment, and then we want you to push for us, okay?”

  A ghost of a smile flickers around Lydie’s mouth, and then her pale face contorts as another contraction comes. But I am relieved to see her roused enough to feel the pressure. In all my years of midwifery, I have never seen someone become so docile when faced with such excruciating pain.

  “All right,” I say, stepping into the bathroom. “You ready to push on the next one, Lydie?” She nods, weak. Alice positions Lydie’s feet against the foot of the tub, so they can give her leverage. “Take hold of your calves, then,” I say, standing behind Alice and holding the lamp high. “That’s right. Now, when the next contraction comes, we’re going to count from one to ten. At one, I want you to take a deep breath and curl your torso forward and then slowly let the breath out while push—” Lydie’s face darkens in a grimace. “This is it,” I say, then begin: “One, two, three . . .”

  Alice plunges gloved arms into water and chants, “Push, push, push,” over my counting.

  Lydie’s pushing slackens when I get to ten. Alice listens to the baby’s heart rate through the fetoscope and holds up a thumb and smiles in relief. Lydie groans softly. Tears leak from the corners of her closed eyes. Maneuvering around the sink, Charlotte spoons cool raspberry tea into Lydie’s panting mouth. Sweat and steam condense on her forehead. Charlotte wipes this tenderly away. Lydie’s breathing quickens. She turns from Charlotte and writhes. The water becomes tinted with blood.

  “Here we go, Lydie,” I call. “Another one. Big breath.” She sucks in air, and her nose sharpens as her nostrils pinch down. “Good. Here we go: one, two, three . . .”

  Alice chants, “Push, push, push . . .”

  “Four, five, six—”

  Lydie cries out.

  I say, “Don’t, Lydie. Put that energy into your push! Seven, eight—”

  Alice says, “The legs are out—it’s a boy!”

  “What about an episiotomy?” Thom whispers beside me.

  “No!” I cry. “She’s got this!” Then to Lydie: “Okay, ten!”

  Lydie lets go of her calves and sinks back against the tub.

  “All right, Lydie,” I say. “You’re doing great. This next time you’re pushing, I want you to reach down and touch your baby’s legs, his tiny feet, and know that you can hold him soon.”

  I can feel Alice and Charlotte studying me, both skeptical and curious. Each of us midwives has our role, and mine has certainly never been the mollycoddling nursemaid. But there is no time to analyze the rebirth taking place inside my heart, as I let the anger toward the Fitzpatricks die. There is not even time to take a drink of water before Lydie grits her teeth, takes a breath, and begins pushing without any of us counting her down.

  Alice rearranges the towel beneath her knees and leans over the tub again. The lamp light shines on Lydie’s wet braids and on the skin of willow bark oil covering the surface of the water. Lydie presses her lips together and curls her torso forward until the sodden bodice of her nightgown is perched over her knees. She expels a fierce breath through her nostrils.

  “Slow it down, Lydie,” I say, as I glimpse her baby’s torso. “I know it’s hard, but this is the part where we want you to go slow and easy. Slow and easy. That’s it. Just keep up a steady pressure.”

  “Good girl, Lydie,” Alice says. “Little pushes . . . little pushes.” Hooking her fingers around one of the baby’s shoulders, Alice pops it free and the other slides out. She turns to us and grins. “The shoulders are birthed.”

  Lydie is so tired that, even during the heightened pain of childbirth, she is fending off sleep. Her eyes remain shuttered as she reaches down to touch the baby’s small shoulders and chest. A smile spreads across Lydie’s face. As often happens when a laboring mother feels her baby’s body for the first time, Lydie finds a reservoir of strength she did not know she possessed. She bears down hard—her face red, her eyes bulging—and expels the child’s head in one protracted push, although there is no longer breath left to sustain her.

  The infant is discharged into the water like an oddly exquisite tadpole. The life source of the umbilical cord is still intact, and though Lydie has lost some blood in the delivery, the water is clear enough to see the boy-child open and close his eyes, searching out this brave new world. Alice’s first reaction is to withdraw the child from the water, but Thom reaches out to stop her. “It’s all right,” he says. “Just let him get used to his new surroundings. There’s no meconium present, so it’s safe.”

  A few seconds pass before Lydie stirs and extends her arms toward her son. Alice draws him out of the tub. Water sluices off his womb-waxed skin and beads across the fair hair insulating his thin, newborn frame like fur. Alice lays him on Lydie’s chest. Staring down at him, Lydie holds one of his fingers, and then kisses the top of his fine, round head.

  “He’s perfect,” she murmurs.

  I look over at Thom and see his green eyes are brimful with tears. Feeling my gaze, he turns and smiles with such bittersweet remembrance, I know that I can forgive him everything.

  Amelia, 2014

  My mom and I and Uriah and Looper are sitting on kitchen chairs we dragged onto the front porch at midnight. We’re drinking weak tea from jelly jars and waiting to hear how Lydie and her newborn are doing. Looper has just stood to find out what’s going on when Wilbur Byler rattles up to Hopen Haus and gets out of his passenger van.

  He fumbles with his keys and drops them to the ground. Picking them up, he squints, trying to see us as clearly as we can see him. “How is she?” he asks.

  Before we can say anything, the screen door smashes open. We all turn to look. Dressed head to toe in black, the head midwife, Rhoda Mummau, stands in the screen door’s black mouth. One hand wraps her ribs and her other arm is extended; her pointer finger like a weapon aimed right at Wilbur Byler’s heart. “You’d better get off my property,” she says and draws in a shallow breath. “Right now. Or I’m calling the police.”

  “What are you talking about?” Wilbur says, but he’s not stupid. He takes one step back.

  “You know full well what I’m talking about.”

  Wilbur turns his head. The headlights light up his profile, showing the fat beneath his chin and making the tips of his ears—peeking from beneath his chopped brown hair—glow red. Then he makes a huffing sound and pockets his keys. He faces us again. “Do these people know what you’ve done, Rhoda?” he says. “Or should I say, Beth?”

  Looper, who has remained standing since Wilbur’s arrival, says, “Watch it,” real low.

  “Or what?” Wilbur laughs.

  “Just mind yourself,” Looper says.

  Wilbur moves closer to the porch. “I don’t have to mind nothing.” For the first time, I can hear the slur in his words and see the wobbliness of his feet. Wilbur Byler’s been drinking. He might even be drunk. “Rhoda’s the one that has to mind herself,” he says. “I know stuff that can throw her in jail faster than—”

  My mom bolts from the kitchen chair like it’s taken all her willpower to stay in the seat. She marches past me to stand at the top of the porch. “Sir, before you start accusing others, I think you should know that you’re facing accusations and being investigated yourself.” Pausing, my mom tucks hanks of blonde hair behind her ears. I watch her diamond studs sparkle. “Were you going to tell Rhoda about the money you’ve been embezzling from the communities?” she says. “The money you’ve been pocketing from the donations Hopen Haus has received?”

  Wilbur just stares at her. His round face looks comical, lengthened by his gaping mouth. “That’s what I thought,” she says. “Now, the best thing that can happen for you and for us is to return
the money you’ve stolen, go up to your little Canadian commune, and—” my mom snaps her fingers—“just disappear.”

  I look at my mom with the same mixture of awe and intimidation that Wilbur—and, I suppose, everyone else on the porch—is displaying. I don’t even know this woman who could find the kindness to defend the same person who took her kid. And for one of the first times in my life, I am proud to be Meredith Fitzpatrick’s daughter.

  “We . . . we have money?” Rhoda finally asks.

  My mom turns from Wilbur and faces the midwife. “Yes,” she says. “McClintock’s son made some calls after Wilbur contacted us yesterday and tracked down a woman who claims she made a sizeable donation after reading your story online—one that you all seem to have never received. McClintock went from there and found that not only has Wilbur been embezzling donations, but he’s been siphoning off money the Dry Hollow Community has allocated for Hopen Haus and funneling it into his own account.”

  Hearing this, Ernest Looper steps down off the porch. Wilbur Byler holds up his hands, fingers splayed wide, and backs up three paces to his van. Keeping one hand at hip level, Wilbur fishes keys out of his pants pocket and opens his door. He climbs in awkwardly, not removing his eyes from Looper, and cranks the ignition.

  Before the vehicle’s interior light fades, Looper, my mom, Rhoda, and Uriah stand in a straight line in front of Hopen Haus and watch Wilbur place his arm on the passenger’s-side headrest and crank the steering wheel hard to the right before shifting into reverse. His knobby tires spit gravel as he slams the gearshift into drive. The passenger van rockets down the lane. This is the fastest, I imagine, that Wilbur Byler has ever gone.

  21

  Rhoda, 2014

  I stare out at the predawn light inching over the horizon and know that today’s the day my daughter leaves me again. She and the entire household are still sleeping, but I have not slept. I have instead sat on this front porch for hours, praying and reading through Lamentations by lamplight in an effort to find solace in the suffering that I am, once again, having to endure alone. I skim over passages until I come to these verses in chapter three:

  I remember my affliction and my wandering,

  the bitterness and the gall.

  I well remember them,

  and my soul is downcast within me.

  Yet this I call to mind

  and therefore I have hope:

  Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed,

  for his compassions never fail.

  They are new every morning;

  great is your faithfulness.

  I say to myself, “The LORD is my portion;

  therefore I will wait for him.”

  I lower the wick of the lamp until the circle of light covering the porch boards is barely distinguishable from the waning darkness. I close the onionskin pages of Fannie Graber’s worn leather Bible, which she willed to me before her death, and pull it close to my heart.

  “Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope,” I whisper, evoking the sound of those words being uttered from between the ailing midwife’s cracked lips. I remember how, crying, I clasped her knotted hand, refusing to relinquish her, though she was only waiting to go home. After my daughter’s loss, I had vowed not to let anyone near me again. But somehow Fannie’s gentle nature had torn down my every fortification, except for my ability to trust in the Savior she loved. However, now that she is gone, I know that though she had provided me with a refuge, she was never meant to be my sanctuary. My hope is found in God alone, and I cannot get through today’s trials or tomorrow’s triumphs without his supernatural strength to guide me.

  In the past month, since I started rebuilding my life from the inside out, I have started to realize that love is not about holding on to someone, but about allowing someone to grow and change and loving them through this never-ending metamorphosis of life that—in the process—sometimes changes us too. Still, at times, it seems unfair that my daughter should leave my life just after I found her, and yet I know I should be grateful that I have found her at all.

  The truth is, the daughter I loved and lost is still missing. Hope is as distant from me now as the day she was taken. But this does not mean that I cherish her memory any less. It means that to love Amelia the way she deserves, I have to relinquish the phantom child who has haunted my life for nearly eighteen years and allow this beautiful young woman to take her place.

  The screen door creaks open and then shuts. Blinking, I turn and see Ernest Looper standing on the front porch, staring over at me. Steam rises from the mug in his hands. “Want coffee?” he asks.

  I clear my throat, averting my gaze as I set Fannie’s Bible beside the lamp. “No.”

  He pauses. I hear him blow on the liquid before taking a sip. “I know you’re hurting, Beth,” he says. “I also know that nothing can really help how you feel, but I have something that might take some of the pain away.” I look up at him. He sets down the mug and, from his back pocket, takes out an envelope. “I could never really find the right time to tell you that . . . well, I didn’t just come here to help you out.” He swallows. “I made a promise to your mom that I’d get this to you.”

  Looper passes the envelope to me. Across the front, in shaky script I almost cannot recognize as my mother’s aging hand, is my name: Bethany. It is not sealed. I flip out the tucked portion, my fingertips tingling with equal parts anticipation and dread, and begin to read:

  Dearest Bethany,

  I know you do not understand how I could have left you and Benjamin, and the older I get, I do not understand it myself. I kept thinking that I had to find a life beyond my family, but now I know that you and your brother and your father were my life. Without you all, I had nothing. It didn’t take me very long to learn this, but I thought it was still too late when I did.

  So I lived in Iowa and worked for many years. Your father and I only divorced five days before our silver anniversary. Right afterward, I moved from my apartment to the suburbs of Boston. Your father told me you were attending college there, and I wanted to be near you. I was hoping that, with enough time, you would forgive me and I would forgive myself, and that we could rebuild a relationship . . . if you would let me. And yet, two years passed and a connection between us was never made. I had found a job working as a nanny to a family in the university. But even though I saw you once— hurrying to class, your head down against the wind—I could not get up the nerve to approach you. I knew you had made it clear that you did not want any contact with us. I do not blame you for this; I only blame myself.

  Then, a few months later, I saw your name in the newspaper and the story about your gestational surrogacy. I read how you had kidnapped the Fitzpatrick child in your very womb and wondered if the way I had abandoned you made you now not want to give that child up.

  I went back to your university and visited your department. I met Dr. Fitzpatrick there. In the months following your sudden departure, I got as close to him as I could. I guess by doing so, I was hoping that eventually I would find you again. I had told no one about our connection. I had reverted to my maiden name, so no one would have guessed that we were mother and daughter. When Thom asked if I knew of anyone who could provide child care in a rather difficult situation, I asked if he would explain the situation to me.

  Thomas Fitzpatrick then told me that the child you, Beth Winslow, had carried and kidnapped had been found in a Mennonite community in eastern Tennessee. He told me that he and Meredith were leaving in a week to bring the child back home, but that they both had to return to work after Christmas break, and they needed someone who could watch the child full-time. I hadn’t even resigned from my former position, but I told Thom I would gladly accept the job.

  I could tell the Fitzpatricks were nervous about becoming parents overnight, and the fact that I had been a mother of two and a nanny for years seemed to reassure them. Do not doubt that I can see the hypocrisy in this. The Fitzpatricks asked me to fly to Tenne
ssee with them and their lawyer. I know it might anger you to learn that I was their accomplice in a way, but I wanted a second chance, Beth. I wanted to do things over with you, and when I knew I couldn’t, I thought maybe I could do things over with your daughter. Though she was not genetically yours, knowing that you had loved her enough to run let me know that her heartbeat thrummed in your veins. Through loving her, I could begin again. I could love her the way I should’ve loved you.

  “You read this?” I ask Looper, my voice hoarse.

  He looks away from the yard but keeps leaning against the porch post, sipping coffee. “No,” he says. “I didn’t think I had the right.”

  I look back down.

  I saw you that day we came to Tennessee to take your daughter—and their daughter—back. The Fitzpatricks carried the child out to the rental car and placed her like a bundled heirloom in my arms. She was half-asleep and fragrant from her nap, and she yawned and cuddled right against my chest as if she had always been there. Thom and Meredith went back inside to gather the rest of her things, and that’s when you crossed the yard and looked at the car—and it seemed that you were looking right at me.

  I could feel your eyes boring through the tinted glass and seeing the woman who had abandoned you holding tight to your child. I wanted to go to you. I hope you know this. I wanted to ask your forgiveness. But I was still too afraid. I could barely recognize you beneath your Plain clothes, and I could see in your bearing that you were stronger than before.

  What if you hated me? You had every right. It was better not to know.

  So I remained silent; I remained a coward. I locked the doors and kissed the child’s warm forehead. I pressed my back against the seat and breathed. I watched you walk up those porch steps like a lamb to the slaughter. Inside the house, I knew, you would learn that you would never see your daughter again. . . .