The Reluctant Midwife (33 page)
Read The Reluctant Midwife Online
Authors: Patricia Harman
Today was my first day back at work and though the sun was shining and I was happy to be returning, the drive there depressed me. On both sides of the road, as I approached White Rock, there was nothing but blackened forests and fields, and then around a bend there was the camp, an island of green that stood like a testimonial to the men who fought to save the trees.
“Boy, am I glad to see you!” Boodean exclaims as I walk into headquarters. Mrs. Ross greets me with a cup of coffee and two new starched nurse uniforms and that gift lifts my spirits some. “The nurse from Virginia treated the lads okay, but wouldn't let me do a damn thing. Said I wasn't a
real
medic.” You can see her words hurt him.
I make a list of supplies we need from Stenger's Pharmacy and then we get busy with three patients one after another, a case of poison ivy, a boil the size of a half dollar that I let Boodean lance, and finally, just before lunch, a new man who worries me, Joe Morgan, who'd just transferred in from a CCC camp in Pennsylvania.
“I don't know what's wrong, ma'am,” the very tall, thin corpsman
tells me. “I'm thirsty all the time. I even have to get up at night to drink and I can feel my heart pounding. Not only that, I'm losing weight, no matter how much I put down my gullet.”
I suspect he has diabetes, but when Dr. Blum comes he will decide.
Finally it's chow time. When Boodean and I enter the mess hall, tears spring to my eyes. These young men, the Forest Army, many from the poorest and most disadvantaged homes, are my knights in shining armor.
Snake, the boy who almost chopped off his own leg, strolls over to our table, with only a slight limp. “The trees finally came,” he tells Boodean. “Morning, Miss Becky. We're going to start planting this afternoon.”
“Trees?” I ask.
“Yeah, the new super ordered a boxcar of jack pine and some wild grass seed to prevent erosion on the hillsides. It's one of the missions of the CCC camps, reforestation, and boy do we have a lot of
reforestation
to do!” You can tell he likes the way the new word sounds.
“Do you want to go with them?” I ask Boodean. “Sounds like fun.”
“I wouldn't mind.”
In the afternoon clinic, I see some of the corpsmen injured in the fire, per the routine of the substitute nurse, and at the end of the day, Rusty hops in supported on his one foot and two crutches.
“Howdy, Miss Becky. Nice to see you back,” he greets me cheerfully.
“My mother and father in Indiana sent you a note. He hands me an already opened envelope and I pull out a five-and-dime greeting card with a hummingbird on the front. Inside it says simply,
“Thank you. Our sun is our hope. You saved him.” Son
is spelled
wrong, but it doesn't matter, I know that Rusty is their shining sun and it brings tears to my eyes.
“Aren't you going home, Rusty? I'm sure you could. They would give you medical discharge. I can fill out the papers if you want.”
“No, I'm happy here. I get three squares a day, medical care, and my ma gets her check. It means a lot to them back in Indianapolis.
“Major Langford, the new camp superintendent, gave me a sit-down job in the woodshop, learning to make furniture. I can do it all on a low bench so I don't have to stand, and he's looking for someone in Pittsburgh who can make me an artificial foot. My only problem is the itch.”
Here I raise my eyebrows. Another case of the crotch itch?
“Where exactly does it itch?” I ask, thinking this will be awkward if I have to examine his privates with Boodean off planting trees.
The young man looks confused. “My foot, of course. My left foot. The one the doc took off!”
“Oh.” I start to giggle and I can't stop. “It's called
phantom pain
when a limb is removed, but I guess you have phantom itch!” Now Rusty is laughing too.
“Go ask the cook for ice to put on your stump the next time you get the itch and dunk your stump in cold water to numb the nerves.” With my home remedies I'm getting more like the midwife every day.
Home . . . I'm going home. My auto has been tuned up and filled with petrol by the motor pool guys. I have twenty-five dollars cash money in my pocket, my vacation pay, and two new army-issue nurse uniforms.
It isn't until I pass the Hucknell place that I roll down the window and slow the Pontiac. It's a sight from a CCC poster.
All across the scorched earth, CCC corpsmen march in a line, planting tiny jack pines. The boys have their shirts off, with burlap bags of seedlings tied to their belts. They take a few steps, slash a hole with their ax, kneel down, put the seedling in, stand and stomp the soil around it, then take a few more steps and do the same thing again. Someday, fifty-foot pine trees will grow here, reaching up to the sun, a memorial to the Forest Army.
Forty minutes later, I wind up Wild Rose Road, looking forward to taking a walk and lying on the grass down by the stream, but something looks different.
I can't make it out until I pass the Maddocks', but as I get closer I see that there's a new picket fence around our front yard. I love picket fences, but who put it up? Surely Patience and Hester don't have time for such fancies.
Jumping out to inspect, I find that each picket is handmade, painted white, and not only that, on the pointed end of each staff, someone has carved a delicate daisy. Our house is encircled with flowers!
There's only one person who could do this and I run inside, prepared to thank him, but the parlor is empty, the bedrooms are too. “Isaac!” I call. No answer. Just to be sure I poke my head in the kitchen and am shocked to find a mason jar filled with lilacs on the table. It just about floors me and I plunk down in one of the wooden chairs to take it all in.
What's gotten into the man? You'd swear we were courting. It's then I notice a child's sketchbook.
Confessions of a Silent Man
it says on the cover in Blum's neat print. Has the doctor been keeping a journal too? Did he leave it here for me? It seems obviously a gift, along with the flowers and the beautiful fence, but what if I'm wrong? What if he left it on the table by mistake? If it's not meant
for me and I read it, I'd be as rotten as he was. . . . I lift up the cover and glance at the first lines.
“Syndactyly! The word erupts out of my mind like hot lava out of a volcano. Syndactyly is the medical term for webbed toes. I would tell Becky, but then she would realize I've been reading her journal.”
All afternoon I hold back and then about four I open the doctor's journal and begin to read. By eight o'clock, it's too dark to see and I wonder vaguely what's happened to Isaac. Probably off with Daniel helping with lambing; it's a busy time of year. I get up to light the kerosene lamp and start a fire in the cookstove. I have no intention of cooking, but the house is getting a little cold. So far, I've read up to:
I miss Becky. She has cut me off, called me a dickhead and a bastard!
I take a big breath and tighten my mouth, remembering when I said those words. I really should stop reading, not because I'm doing something wrong. I'm sure now that Isaac wanted me to read his journal, but I fear hearing his thoughts will have unintended consequences. The words are drawing me in, drawing me closer to a man I never really knew. Still I go on, wanting to hear what he will say next.
Outside the night grows dark and the spring frogs sing. Where could Isaac be? For so long I resented his presence, even tried to think how I could get rid of him. What if he just packed his stuff and hit the road, and the sketchbook is his parting gift?
I continue to read, but leave the last few pages because I don't want it to end. What will I do then? And how will I talk to this
new Isaac when he comes back. (
If he comes back
, the old worried Becky thinks.)
I lay the sketchbook aside. Somehow, I now
want
Isaac to read my journal, read all I've written since I found a new hiding place, so before retiring, I hang a lantern on the porch and leave him a present, my journal, next to the flowers. . . .
Upstairs at my bedside, I stand for a moment in my nightdress and then do something I haven't done in a long time, kneel down on the floor.
The prayer is one word. “Thank you. Thank you for repairing what was broken, what was torn, what was bleeding.
Thank you
.
May 16, 1935
Early this morning, as soon as Becky left for the CCC camp, I began installing the picket fence that I'd been working on in the loft of the barn for the last month. It only took a few hours because the staves were finished last week; all I had to do was put in the posts, screw on the crosspieces, and nail up the wood. While I was working, I tried to decide if I should leave my notebook for Becky. In a way, I felt she deserved to know who I am, a broken man, trying to knit the bones of my life back together
.
Finally, I did it. I left my journal on the kitchen table, and to be sure she noticed, went out in the field and picked her some flowers. I had never picked flowers for a woman before
.
Just as I finished, Daniel Hester sped up Wild Rose in his beat-up Ford. “Can you clean up, Blum? We got trouble. Judge Wade just called from Liberty. Social services out of Charleston are coming into town this afternoon to take the Hucknell girls away. They're going to split them up. Dump them into four foster homes in four separate counties.”
“The hell they are.”
“Well, we'd better get going if we want to stop them. I
already alerted Maddock and he's putting on his Sunday best. You talk with Becky about adopting Sally?”
Here there's a pause. “Not yet. I was mulling it over. You know me, I'm not much of a talker.”
“Dammit, Blum. We discussed it with Maddock for a couple of hours after the burial. You said you'd talk. Can you call her? Adoption is a big commitment.”
“There's no phone at the camp, remember . . .”
“Well, hell! We have to act fast. Patience thinks it's a great idea, and she said Becky would too. If we take the twins and Maddock takes Sonya, Sally could live with you.”
I recall how Sally clung to me at the burial service, how I wiped her tears. “No, we have to do it. I'll just hope for the best. If Becky doesn't agree, I'll be a solo father like the widower, Walter Schmidt. He does okay with little Petey.” Hester turns the Ford around and I run for the house for a clean shirt and tie
.
“So, fellas, what can I do you for?” Linkous asks when we're seated around his desk. He's trying to talk like a good ol' boy, but everyone knows he went to law school at Yale
.
Daniel cuts short the chitchat. “We want you to draw up adoption papers for four children and we need them today.”
“You need them today? What's going on, boys? This is mighty short order. My secretary took the day off to see her sister in Torrington.”
“I can type,” I interject. (I might as well say something. The last time the lawyer saw me, Becky was wiping drool off my chin.)
“Well, well, Dr. Blum. I heard you were back with the living. You can type, huh? So what's the deal?”
“The Hucknell children? You heard about them?”
Linkous whistles. “Everyone has. It was in the paper. A tragedy. Real shame. How're the kids holding up?”
“They're doing as well as can be expected, but we just heard that the girls are due to be picked up by the Children's Home Society out of Charleston today and then placed in four different foster homes all over the state.” That's Daniel making a long story short
.
“At the funeral the other day, the three of us had discussed taking the sisters, but we didn't know things were moving so fast. We need to make our adoptions official before the social workers get here.”
Linkous whistles again. “Any next of kin? We'd have to get approval.”
“None,” adds Maddock. “Judge Wade investigated. He's the one that got in touch with the Children's Home Society a few weeks ago.”
“So do you know these children, any of you? Do your wives agree? Women do most of the raising.”
“I've known them for a long time,” I put in. “Nurse Myers and I were friends with their mother and used to visit them regularly.” I don't mention that I haven't really talked about the adoption with Becky, and before Linkous can sense my discomfort, Daniel breaks in again
.
“Patience and I will take the twins, Sunny and Sue. We have an extra bedroom. The Maddocks will take Sonya, and Blum will take Sally, the oldest. She has a bond with him. We all live within two miles of one another so the sisters will see each other every day.”
“Have you talked to Judge Wade about this?”
“Yes,” says Daniel. “He called us this morning and that's our next stop.”
“It all sounds good to me, except Blum you haven't exactly
been a model citizen for the past year. Do you even have a job?”
“He works as my assistant,” Daniel reveals
.
“And I'm starting at the White Rock CCC camp as their part-time physician in a few days.”
“I heard you were mighty helpful the night of the wildfire. That has to count for something. . . . Well, men, let's get to work. I'll look up the form for adoption and you start typing, Blum, but you'll have to type one copy for each of the girls with carbon paper behind it. This has to be perfect, so don't make any mistakes. If you erase on the carbon it looks like shit.”
Maddock and Hester go on to Judge Wade's, and I sit down at the Remington. Three hours later, the other two are back and I'm on the last line of the third form. I said I could type, but I'm only using two fingers. Daniel looks at his watch
.
“Judge Wade's fine with it, but we have to be in court in an hour. Mrs. Wade put in a good word for you, Blum.”
“Shhhh. I have to concentrate. One more document to go.”
“Did you stop by the Stengers'?” Linkous asks. “Tell the girls?”
“Shhhh!” I say again and the three go in an adjoining room and close the door
.
It isn't until a quarter to four that we have the forms ready
. West Virginia Petition to Adopt
they read at the top. The three of us straighten each other's ties, and then, with Linkous in the lead, run across the street to the courthouse
.
“Where's the fire?” the sheriff asks, poking his head out of his office. “You still talking, Blum, or do I have to come out and harass you?”
“Nice to see you, Hardman!” I respond, letting him know that I still have my tongue
.
We skid into the courtroom just in front of the social workers, two gray-haired ladies in almost identical navy suits and black pumps. The Stengers sit in the front row of wood benches with Sally, Sonya, Sunny, and Sue, who are all dressed in starched print dresses that must be hand-me-downs from the Stengers' own girls. They even have shoes on
.
Linkous presents the petitions to adopt even before the ladies get seated. Judge Wade looks the forms over and asks the Stengers if they think this is a good idea
.
“We know all the parties involved and think they are fine people,” Mr. Stenger offers
.
“It would be a terrible crime to separate the sisters,” Mrs. Stenger adds. “In my opinion it would cause lasting psychological damage.” I always forget Mrs. Stenger has a college degree and can sound like a professor when she wants to. No one mentions that Becky and I aren't man and wife
.
Things are going just as we hoped when Judge Wade decides that he ought to at least get the social workers' input and I inwardly cringe. Bad idea
.
“So, Mrs. Jenkins and Mrs. Quinn. Do you have anything to present to the court?”
“I certainly do.” The taller of the two comes forward with four manila files. “Considerable effort has been spent in finding these placements. It's not easy to locate foster homes for females. In hard economic times, everyone wants males to help with the farm work. Girls are seen as a liability.”
“That's enough of that liability talk!” interjects Mrs. Stenger, reminding the woman with a fierce glance that the
four little sisters can hear what is said. “Just let the judge see what you've got.”
“Mmmmm,” Judge Wade says, thumbing through the paperwork. “I see. A chicken farmer and his wife. A widowed dressmaker. The owners of a roadside café, and a couple that plays with a blues band out of Wheeling. This the best you could do?”
The tall lady lifts her chin defensively, but doesn't answer the question
.
“Well, I'm sorry, ma'am, but the petitioners have you beat. We have a doctor, an engineer, and a veterinarian here. All have their own property and the little girls can stay right here in Union County. All four petitions to adopt approved!”
He pounds his gavel three times. Then with a grin, pounds it three more, and we all stand and cheer. I am so happy it's all worked out I forget, for the moment, that I still have to tell Becky
.
After that, we go back to Stengers' for dinner, pack up the girls' things, and drive home. They don't have much. Everything they owned or loved burned up in the fire
.
It's a long, dark ride back to Spruce Mountain and to keep the girls from being anxious we sing songs. As we get closer to Wild Rose Road I'm getting anxious myself, contemplating the enormity of what I have done
.
I suppose the Hesters could have taken Sally, along with the twins, but it seemed too much to ask. Now here I am, a father, and if Becky agrees, she's a mother, but are we a couple? Can we be a family?
Hester stops at the Maddocks' first and Milt has to carry Sonya inside because she's asleep
.
“Sally and I will walk from here, Dan. It's a nice night,” I say, standing next to the Ford
.
“Sunny and Sue, give your sister a hug. Sally's going home with Dr. Blum. We'll all see each other tomorrow,” Daniel instructs, and when they reach over, the little girls have tears in their eyes
.
“Good luck,” Daniel whispers and I know he is thinking of Becky
.
It's after ten as Sally and I amble the rest of the way up Wild Rose Road, and I'm glad that Becky will be asleep. Before I left, I hurriedly fixed up my bed for Sally and laid a little wooden doll I'd carved under her pillow
.
“Does Miss Becky like me, Dr. Blum?” Sally asks in a soft voice, taking my hand. Above us the Milky Way trails like a scarf across the black sky and the spring frogs sing in the wetlands. “She loves you. She loves you like a mother and she doesn't even know it yet.” I reach up and grab a handful of stars and give them to Sally. She takes them in her little hand and presses them to her heart
.
Passing through the arched gate in the picket fence, I realize that with the hectic process of getting the adoption accomplished, I'd almost forgotten about putting it up. Becky has hung a lighted Coleman on the front porch, and I take it as a good sign that she's seen the flowers and accepted the gift of my journal
.
“Here, Sally,” I whisper. “Sit on the sofa while I take off our shoes.” Through the kitchen door, I notice that my sketchbook is gone and in its place is Becky's leather-bound journal with the little red ribbon marking her place
.
“Be quiet now. Miss Becky is asleep. I'll show you your room.” We creep up the stairs, she changes into her nightdress, and I tuck her in, something I've never done before, tucked a child into bed
.
“I like the doll,” she tells me. “I'm going to name her Willa.”
“Do you think you can sleep? I could sit here for a while.”
“I'm okay. Thank you.”
“I'll be downstairs on the sofa if you need anything.” I give Sally a kiss and step out of the room
.
“Isaac?” Becky calls in a soft voice from across the hall. “Isaac?”
“Isaac? Who's with you?” Blum stands at my bedroom door in the shadows and I beckon him in. There's just enough starlight to see each other.
“Sally Hucknell,” he whispers and closes the door.
“You brought her home?”
“I brought her to
our
home. I might as well get it over with. I've been scared to tell you. We officially adopted Sally today. Judge Wade signed the papers. The Maddocks and Hesters took the other girls. Your name's on the document. I can get it off later if you want. Did you read my journal?”
The man can see that I did. It's open on my bedside table and he has my journal under his arm.
“I'm sorry I didn't talk to you about the adoption.” He sits on the edge of the mattress. “Hester, Maddock, and I discussed it after the burial, but I was still getting my nerve up to mention it to you. Then the vet found out this morning that the social workers were coming today and they were going to split the girls up. We had to move fast or it would be too late. If you don't want any part of it, I can do it alone.”
I take his hand and have him lie down. Even fully clothed his
body warms me. “I guess it's okay. We can try. She's a nice little girl and she needs a family. Are we a family?” There are tears in my eyes, but I don't think he sees.
What is a family?
I ask myself.
They come in so many different forms and it's been so long since I had one
.
“Becky,” Blum whispers again. “I'm sorry. Sorry for everything.”
I answer by turning over and pulling him around me, his front to my back, spooning together.
We sleep all night like that, neither moving, the cells of our bodies weaving together.