Laurie Alice Eakes - [Midwives 03]

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Laurie Alice Eakes - [Midwives 03] Page 33

by Choices of the Heart


  Not on the outside. Insides could break too—parts that caused a body to lose blood inside, where nobody could fix it.

  If only Rafe would get there. Doctors knew so much more about the workings of a body’s insides. Esther had some knowledge but mainly about the working of a woman’s particular parts.

  “Have you felt the baby move recently?” Esther asked.

  “Yes’m,” Bethann said. “Before the pains started.”

  That was good as far as it went, but the baby couldn’t keep moving outside the uterus. Never had Esther seen a six-month, let alone younger, infant survive. She could only hope to save the mother.

  Save her to hang for murder?

  “There was a struggle,” Griff said, still looking at his sister and not at Esther. “She said Gosnoll hit her belly.”

  Mrs. Tolliver started to cry.

  Esther gasped. “Self-defense then?”

  She and Griff exchanged a glance, swift, full of understanding.

  He nodded. “If you find evidence she’s been injured thatta way . . . I won’t look.”

  She knew he wouldn’t. He was a gentleman for all his homespun clothes and rough speech.

  She drew up the quilt and Bethann’s night dress. A purpling bruise marred her belly. It could have happened in the fall. But it was the size of a man’s fist.

  “Yes,” Esther said. “There’s a bruise I can testify to.”

  Griff’s free hand curled into a fist on his thigh, and a muscle in his jaw bulged. “If Gosnoll weren’t dead, I’d—”

  “No, Griff.” Bethann spoke more strongly. “It’s done. Let it be done.”

  “And let’s get this baby born.” Esther brought back her smile. “It shouldn’t take long now.”

  But it did. The morning wore into early afternoon. Phoebe and Rafe arrived, and still Bethann’s labor pains continued, but weaker. Bethann was weaker.

  “Will you examine her?” Esther asked Phoebe. “Perhaps I’m missing something.”

  “I doubt you are.” But Phoebe performed the same examination. When she straightened, she shook her head, then jutted her chin toward the door. “I’m going to get my husband.”

  “Why?” Griff asked the instant Phoebe departed. “Why’s she going after Dr. Docherty?”

  “Because this calls for a doctor, not a midwife.” Esther dropped to her knees beside the bed and took Bethann’s other hand in hers. “Your travail is going on too long, and your pains aren’t strong enough to bring out the baby. So the doctor is going to use his forceps.”

  “Can’t you?” Bethann asked.

  “I’m not allowed to as a midwife. I’d have to be a doctor.”

  “She don’t want no strange man touching her,” Mrs. Tolliver said from the far corner of the room.

  “He’s a fine doctor, trained in Edinburgh, Scotland,” Esther said. “He’s helped many bairns, as he calls them, come into the world. He helped at the births of his own children—”

  “Esther,” Griff said quietly, “be quiet.”

  She was talking too much again, masking anxiety behind a spate of words.

  She substituted actions for words—wetting a cloth and wiping Bethann’s perspiring brow, laying her hand on the too-small mound of Bethann’s belly and counting the minutes before the feeble contractions, washing her hands. She dropped the soap, picked it up, and started to apply it to her palms again.

  Until it disappeared from her hand. “Sit down, Esther.” Gently, his hand beneath her elbow, Griff led her to the chair he’d occupied.

  “But where will you sit?” Esther protested.

  “I can stand. She wants you.”

  “Me?” Esther dropped onto the chair and leaned toward Bethann. “What is it?”

  “I’m a-dying,” she whispered. “Must . . . tell . . .” A stronger contraction left her sweating and gasping.

  Esther sponged her brow. “Good girl. Keep that up and we’ll have that baby here in no time.”

  “Dead.” Bethann’s lips formed the word without sound. Then aloud she said, “I thought he killed it. So I . . . shot him.”

  Momma had never prepared Esther for this situation. She’d had answers to everything imaginable in the birthing chamber. None of them had prepared her for this one.

  Rafe and Phoebe entered at that moment, preventing further speech. For all his size and seafaring past, Rafe was the tenderest of physicians. He approached Bethann’s side and took her hand in both of his, then spoke to her in an undertone. “So you are having a wee bit of trouble, are you? You have two ver’ fine midwives here to attend you, but I have a trick or two us doctors wisely keep to ourselves. Otherwise they would be putting us out of business. May I try?” He glanced at Griff. “Mr. Tolliver, I am wondering if you would prefer to be elsewhere. This can be a wee bit unpleasant.”

  “No!” Bethann cried. “Stay.”

  Griff’s face paled in the afternoon sunlight pouring through the window, but he crouched at Bethann’s side and laid his hand on her head. Though he didn’t so much as move his lips, Esther knew he prayed for his sister.

  If ever a body needed prayer, it was Bethann Tolliver. Her baby was most certainly dead already. Her chances of survival weren’t much higher. If this birth didn’t kill her, the Gosnolls would see her hang. This time the mountain folk weren’t likely to keep their information to themselves, or they just might hang her themselves.

  “God, where is Your love right now?” Esther didn’t realize she spoke aloud until Phoebe rested a hand on her shoulder.

  “God is here right now with His love. It’s we who don’t ask for it.”

  “Don’t . . . deserve . . .” Bethann cried out as Rafe took out the forceps.

  “What’s that?” Mrs. Tolliver exclaimed.

  “They do look wicked, do they no?” He flashed Mrs. Tolliver his still charming smile. “’Tis nae so bad and will help things along. Now just you lie there still, Miss Bethann, and let me do the work.”

  The forceps drew the too-small infant into a world it would never know. And with it came the blood. Too much blood. Blood that wouldn’t stop as long as it had a supply to draw upon.

  “I’m sorry,” Rafe said, and his face and voice rang with sincerity. “There’s damage inside from the look of it. A rupture.”

  Mrs. Tolliver began to sob. “My child. Not another one.”

  Phoebe went to her, not the first mother she had comforted.

  “The last one,” Bethann whispered. “It’s over. I started it. It ends with me.”

  “You didn’t start it.” Griff spoke through clenched teeth. “Pa started it with his desire for revenge for ruining you. And the Brookses continued it, and—” He dropped his head onto the pillow beside Bethann’s head. “Yes, it ends here, but you didn’t start it.”

  “I did. God . . . not forgive me for this.” Bethann’s voice grew so weak Esther leaned toward her to hear.

  The others stood in silence. The yard and forest beyond lay still as though holding their breath.

  “God always forgives if we ask,” Griff said. “There’s a Scripture about no condemnation . . .” He gave Esther a helpless glance.

  “‘There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.’” She and Phoebe quoted the words together from the eighth chapter of Romans.

  A slight smile curled Bethann’s thin and now bluish lips. “Then forgive me for this, Jesus.” She turned her head toward Griff. “I lied. It was some artist man. It weren’t never Henry’s baby the first time.” Her breath sighed out, and for the first time since she met her, Esther saw Bethann Tolliver look at peace.

  Griff appeared as though she had ripped his heart from his chest with her bare hand. His face whitened, his eyes turned a colorless gray. Without a word, without a sound, he shot to his feet and strode from the room, allowing the door to slam behind him.
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br />   Mrs. Tolliver commenced to weep uncontrollably. Rafe led her from the chamber, murmuring something about a sedative draft. Esther and Phoebe remained to clean up the blood before flies swarmed through the open window.

  “She found her peace,” Esther said. “She died free of a huge burden.”

  “And what a burden.” Phoebe removed the sheet and canvas from beneath the body with the ease of experience. “She lied to get revenge on a man who spurned her love and started a family war.”

  “Yet she never stopped loving him.” Esther started for the door. “I’ll fetch a pail of hot water.”

  “Don’t.” Phoebe glanced toward the window and the setting sun. “Go find that young man of yours before it gets too dark.”

  “I can’t go after him. You said yourself—”

  “I was wrong. Go.” Phoebe made shooing motions with her hands. “Rafe will come back and help me with the rest. If ever I saw a young man in need of being loved right now, it’s him.”

  “But he rejected me the other night.”

  “Did he? Or did you run away?”

  “I—he—”

  The scene flashed through her mind, her leaving him. He hadn’t spoken, but she had just burdened him with an unpleasant—to say the least—tale about herself. She hadn’t given him time to think, just presumed and departed.

  As she hadn’t given God time to heal her wounded spirit, just presumed He wasn’t with her and ran away from Him too.

  The time for running away had ceased. The time for running toward was now.

  Esther spun toward the door.

  Griff wasn’t in his room, the kitchen, or the parlor. He wasn’t in the barn. The children swarmed around her, asking a dozen questions. She shooed them away as Phoebe had sent her packing, wanting the answer to only one question: “Have you seen Griff?”

  “No, ma’am,” Ned said, “we ain’t.”

  “Haven’t,” Liza corrected him. “Is Bethann—”

  “I need to find Griff.” Esther started for the forest. She knew where he’d be.

  He sat cross-legged beside the waterfall pool with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. He didn’t so much as lift a finger when Esther clambered down the ravine and slid down to the rock beside him.

  Esther ventured an opening. “She died at peace with God at the end.”

  “Whereas I may never know peace in my heart again.”

  “Griff—”

  “Esther, go away.” He sounded weary. “Your fine friends are here. Go back with them. The scandal will go away in time. He’ll hurt some other female and everyone will believe you. You can have your old way of life back.”

  “You mean the one where I thought nobody was good enough for me except the richest man on the eastern shore?” A surge of anger bubbled up in Esther’s veins. “You mean the one where I flirted and teased and didn’t care whom I hurt because I was amused? I don’t think so.”

  “Well, you can’t have a life with me.” He turned to glare at her. “I don’t want you.”

  Esther caught her breath. “B-because I was right? I’m not good enough for you?”

  “No, because I’m not good enough for you. I was a fool to think for a minute maybe it didn’t matter. But now I know for certain.”

  “You don’t know anything if you think that.” The words burst from her loudly enough to echo off the rocks and be heard over the waterfall. Think that. Think that. Think that.

  She liked the sound of it and stood to raise her voice a bit more. “My frivolous behavior led to a woman’s early labor and death.”

  “And my sister is a murderer.” Griff stood with his sleek grace and took a step toward Esther. “Did you get that? My sister lied, and four families have been finding reasons to kill one another off for years. Poor Hannah isn’t right in her head. Lives are ruined.”

  “So what does that have to do with you?”

  “I’m responsible for my family—”

  She took a step toward him and poked a finger in his chest. “Did you make Bethann go astray? Did you make her love the wrong man? Did you make her lie and start a feud? Did you make your father go after Gosnoll with a gun? Did you—”

  He caught hold of her pointing finger and pressed her own hand to her mouth. “Esther, be quiet. I can’t think with you yammering on like that.”

  “Yes, you need peace.” She didn’t try to remove the sarcasm from her tone.

  “If I truly wanted peace, I wouldn’t have ever thought of marrying you.”

  The past tense of his words drained the fight out of Esther. She dropped her hand to her side and stared at the ground. “That’s what Uncle Rafe said. If you’re a man of peace, you won’t want to marry me.”

  “A wise man.” He shoved his hands into his pockets and turned away. “It’s getting dark. You should leave.”

  “You mean run away?”

  “Something like that.”

  If she looked up to find that the cliff side had crushed down upon her chest, she wouldn’t have been surprised at that moment. She could scarcely breathe. She certainly couldn’t move. She could barely keep standing.

  “What if I want to stay?” she managed to ask.

  “Then I’ll go.”

  “Why? You love me. I love you.”

  “Esther.” He faced her, his hands on his hips now. “You were right happy enough to leave me behind before. Why won’t you go now when I want you to?”

  “Because you don’t want me to. You just think you shouldn’t let me stay because of Bethann.”

  “I let you go because I thought we couldn’t bear up under another scandal here.”

  “Were you going to come after me?” She glided toward him a half step.

  He braced his legs as though expecting her to throw herself at him. “I was going to come after you.”

  “And I was coming back.”

  Their eyes locked for a moment, then Griff looked away. “That was before we knew about Bethann. I reckon that changes everything.”

  “Not for me it doesn’t.” She slid another half step forward, tilted her head, started to caress his stubbled cheek, then stopped, tucked her hand behind her back, and gave him a direct look. “I’m here.”

  “You shouldn’t be. You come from finer folk.”

  “Ha! I’ll have to tell you about those finer folk, like my father fighting a duel and Uncle Rafe being a privateer—and Aunt Phoebe! No, Griff, those finer folk don’t have spotless pasts either. And you know I don’t. I’m ruined as far as most men are concerned.”

  “Not to me.”

  Ah, the rocky cliff finally rolled off of her chest.

  She rested her other hand on his shoulder, sidled just a bit closer. “We didn’t lie to Bethann at the end, Griff. The Bible doesn’t lie. ‘There is therefore now no condemnation.’ That isn’t a lie after all. We are not condemned because of what we’ve done or, worst of all, what others have done to us. Can you tell—”

  He laid his fingers on her lips. “Miss Esther Cherrett preaching to me about God’s redemption?”

  “I am a preacher’s daughter.” She smiled at him.

  His face remained grim. “But you thought God no longer loves you or cares about you.”

  “I did. I may have moments of doubt again. But when Phoebe asked me if you left me or I left you, I realized I’d gone away before you had a chance to think about all I’d told you and make up your mind for yourself. It made me realize how I thought God had abandoned me that night and I gave up on Him. He hadn’t given up on me. Nothing can separate us from the love of God. Nothing. We can run as far and as fast as we can, and He still loves us. I don’t have that same kind of all-forgiving love, Griff Tolliver, but if you try to run away from me, I’ll come after you, still loving you.”

  He grinned. “You’ll chase me until I catch you?”

  “Something like that.” And she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him.

  She kissed him until he kissed her breathless. Then
they sat on the side of the pool with their feet in the water and watched the stars waltz across the sky and light the waterfall to liquid silver.

  “We should go,” Griff said. “Your reputation will be broke to bits.”

  “I guess you’ll have to marry me then.”

  They laughed and stayed where they were, watching the sky, listening to the waterfall’s continuous splashing and the sporadic noises of a forest at night.

  “When will you marry me?” she asked.

  “This ain’t—isn’t a leap year. You can’t ask me to marry you.”

  “I didn’t. I asked when you would marry me.”

  “Next time the preacher comes around?”

  “Two weeks or so? I can manage that, except . . . I’d like my parents here.”

  “Then we’ll go to them.”

  She stared at him. “You’ll get off this mountain to do that for me?”

  “I will. Gotta ask your pa for permission.” His hand closed over hers. “Will he give it?”

  “Of course. I always get what I want.”

  He groaned. “Then I pray we don’t have daughters to get spoiled like that.”

  “I want at least one. It’s tradition to have a female healer in the family. Then lots and lots of sons to grow up just like you.”

  They talked about their future, what they’d build for a school, a place where Esther could do her doctoring, a new manager for the mine. They talked of how to heal the rift with Zach.

  “Find him a fine wife,” Esther said.

  And when the sky began to pale and a few birds stirred in the trees, they gathered the strength and will to leave the waterfall to return to their families. Hand in hand, they strolled down the mountain and into the sunrise.

  Epilogue

  “I want . . . to see . . . my husband.” Esther Cherrett Tolliver spoke through teeth gritted against the pain of another contraction. “Now.”

  “A birthing chamber is no place for a man,” Momma declared. “He can see you afterward.”

  “After won’t be for hours.” Esther breathed more easily. “I don’t have your ancient years of experience, Momma, but I know I want to see my husband.”

 

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