The Secrets of Midwives (2 page)

“I made it.”

They swiveled, then beamed in unison. Grace, in particular, lit up. Or maybe it was her orange lipstick and psychedelic dress that gave the effect. Something green—a bean, maybe?—was lodged between her front teeth, and the wind had done a number on her hair. Her bangs hung low over her eyes, reminding me of a fluffy red sheepdog.

“Sorry I'm late,” I said.

“Babies don't care if you have dinner plans, Neva,” Gran said. A smile still pressed into her unvarnished face. “No one knows that better than us.”

I kissed them both, then dropped into the end chair. Half a chicken remained, as well as a few potatoes and carrots and a dish of green beans. A pitcher of ice water sat in the center with a little mint floating in it, probably from Gran's garden. Gran reached for the serving spoons and began loading up my plate. “Lil hiding?”

Lil, Gran's painfully shy partner of nearly eight years, was always curiously absent for our monthly dinners. When Gran had announced their relationship and, as such, her orientation, Grace was thrilled. She'd yearned her whole life for a family scandal to prove how perfectly tolerant she was. Still, I had a bad feeling her avid displays of broad-mindedness (one time she referred to Gran and Lil as her “two mommies”) were the reason Lil made herself scarce when we were around.

Gran sighed. “You know Lil.”

“Mom's not the only one who can bring a partner along, Neva,” Grace said. “If you'd like to bring a guy alo—”

“Good idea.” I stabbed some chicken with my fork. “I'll bring Dad next time.”

Grace scowled, but one of my favorite things about her was that her attention span was short. “Anyway, birthday girl. How does it feel? The last year of your twenties?”

I speared a potato. “I don't know.” How
did
I feel? “I guess I'm—”

“I'll tell you how
I
feel,” Grace said. “Old. Feels like yesterday I was in labor with you.” Grace's voice was soft, wistful. “Remember looking down at her for the first time, Mom? All that red hair and porcelain skin. We thought you'd be an actress or a model for sure.”

I swallowed my mouthful with a little difficulty. “You're not happy I followed you into midwifery, Grace?”

“Happy? Why, I'm only the proudest mom in world! Of course, I still wish you'd come and work with me, doing home births. No doctors hovering about with their forceps, no sick people ready to cough all over the precious new babies—”

“There are no doctors or sick people at the birthing center, Grace.”

“Delivering in the comfort of one's own home, it's just…”

Magical
.

“Magical,” she said, with a smile. “Oh! I nearly forgot.” She reached for her purse and plucked out a flat, hand-wrapped gift. “This is from your father and me.”

“Wow … You shouldn't have.”

“Nonsense. It's your birthday.”

Gran and I exchanged a look. Of course Grace had ignored the no-gifts directive—the one thing I'd wanted for my birthday. I hated gifts: the embarrassment of receiving them, the awkwardness of opening them in public, and, if it was from Grace, the pressure of ensuring my face was adequately arranged to demonstrate sheer delight, a wonder that I'd ever been able to get through life before this particular ornament or treasure.

“Go on.” She pressed her hands together and wriggled her fingers. “Open it.”

An image of my thirteenth birthday flashed into my mind—the first time since elementary school that I had agreed to a party. Maybe the fact that I was in the middle of my second-ever period and was cramping, bleeding, and wearing a surfboard-sized maxi pad in my underwear skewed my judgment. Grace wasn't happy when I insisted we keep it small (just four girls from school) and she was positively brokenhearted when I refused party games of any sort, but she didn't push her luck. With hindsight, that should have been my first clue. My friends and I had just gotten settled in the front room when Grace burst in.

“Can I have your attention, please?” she said. “As you know, today is Neva's thirteenth birthday. We are celebrating her becoming a teenager.”

She looked like a children's stage performer, smiling so brightly that I thought her face might crack into three clean pieces. I willed her to vanish in a cloud of smoke, taking with her the previous thirty seconds and the crimson crushed-velvet dress she had changed into. But any notion that this might happen faded along with my friends' smiles.

“My baby is no longer a baby. Her body is changing and growing. She's experiencing the awakening of a vital force that brings woman the ability to create life. You may not know this, but the traditional name for first menstruation is ‘menarche.'”

Panic broke out; a swarm of moths over my heart. I no longer wanted Grace to disappear and take the last thirty seconds—I wanted her to take my future. To take Monday, when I would have to go to school and face the fact that I was a social outcast, now and forever. To take the coming few weeks, when I would have to go about my life, pretending I didn't hear the whispers and snickers.

“In some cultures,” she continued, oblivious, “menarche inspires song, dance, and celebration. In Morocco, girls receive clothes, money, and gifts. Japanese families celebrate a daughter's menarche by eating red rice and beans. In some parts of India, girls are given a ceremony and are dressed in the finest clothes and jewelry the family can buy. I know for you young ones it can seem embarrassing or, heaven forbid, dirty. But it's not. It is one of the most sacred things in the world, and not to be hidden away, but celebrated. So, in honor of Neva's menarche, and probably some of yours too—” She smiled encouragingly at my friends. “—I thought it might be fun to do like the Apache Indians here in North America, and—” She paused for effect. “—dance. I've learned a chant and we can—”

I can't believe I let it go on for as long as I did. “Mom.”

Grace's smile remained in place as she met my eye. “What is it, darling?”

“Just … stop.”

I barely breathed the words, but I know she heard them, because her smile fell like a kite from the sky on a windless day. A steely barrier formed around my heart. Yes, she'd gone to a lot of trouble, but she'd also left me no choice. “Dad!”

Our house was small; I knew he would hear me. And when he appeared, his frantic expression confirmed he'd heard the urgency in my voice. He surveyed the room. The horrified faces of my friends. The abundance of red everywhere—Grace's dress, the balloons, the new cushions, which amazingly, I had only just noticed. He clasped Grace's shoulders and guided her out, despite her determined protest and genuine puzzlement.

But now, as Grace hovered over me, I didn't have Dad to help me. I turned the gift over and began to open it tentatively, starting with the tape at one end.

“It's not a puzzle, darling. You're not meant to unpeel every little bit of tape, you're meant to do
this
!”

Grace lunged at the gift with such vigor, she rammed the table with her hip. Ice cubes tinkled. The water pitcher did a precarious dance, teetering back and forth before deciding to go down. Glass cracked; water gushed. A burst of mint filled the air. I shot to my feet as the water drenched me from the chest down.

Usually after a commotion such as this, it is loud. People assigned blame, gave instructions, located brooms and towels. This time it was eerily quiet. Gran and Grace stared at the mound that was impossible to hide under my now-clinging shirt. And for maybe the first time in her life, my mother couldn't seem to find any words.

“Yes,” I said. I cupped my belly, protecting it from what I knew was about to be let loose. “I'm pregnant.”

 

2

Grace

“You can't be pregnant,” I said. But as I reached out to touch Neva's round wet belly, I could see that she was. And reasonably far along. Her navel was flush with the rest of her stomach. Her breasts were full, and I was certain if I looked under her hospital top, I'd find them covered in bluish purple veins. “How … far along?

A touch of pink appeared in Neva's cheeks. “Thirty weeks.”

“Thirty—” I pressed my eyelids together, then opened them again, as if doing so would render the news less shocking. “
Thirty
weeks?”

It wasn't possible. Her face was fresh and clear of spots and she didn't appear to be retaining water. Her wrists were tiny. She didn't have any additional chins. In fact, apart from the now-obvious bump, I couldn't see a single sign of pregnancy, let alone a third-trimester pregnancy. The whole thing was very hard to believe. “But … your polycystic ovaries!”

“Doesn't mean I can't get pregnant,” Neva said. “Just that it's a little less likely.”

I knew that, of course, but it was too much to comprehend. My daughter was pregnant. I was a midwife. How was it possible that I hadn't known?

A steady stream of ice water dripped off the table's edge, landing at Neva's feet. The way she stared at it, you'd think she'd never seen water before. “Your table's going to stain, Gran,” she said slowly. “Have you got any paper towels?”

I stared at Neva. “Paper
towels
?”

“I'll get the paper towels,” Mom said. “Grace, take Neva into the front room. I'll make tea.”

I followed Neva to the front room, observing her closely. Her waddle now was so apparent, I couldn't believe I'd missed it. As she lowered herself onto the sofa I noticed she looked pale. Her skin was translucent—so fair. I could practically see the blood moving about underneath. When she was little, that skin had been a liability. In the summers, I'd had to keep every inch of her covered up, which was against my instincts to let her run naked and free. But to see her now, so perfectly alabaster, without so much as a freckle—it was worth it. She ran a hand through her auburn ponytail, which was thick and glossy and another pointer to her pregnancy I hadn't noticed.

“I'm sorry,” she said. “I wanted to tell you earlier, it's just taken me some time to get used to the idea. I haven't told anyone apart from Susan, and that's only because she's doing my prenatal care.”

I nodded as though it were perfectly reasonable to hide a pregnancy for thirty weeks. Though, in some ways, it
was
classic Neva. Once, when she was in elementary school, I was greeted at the school gates by her teacher, asking why we hadn't attended the school's performance of
Goldilocks
. It turned out Neva had been cast as one of the three bears. When I asked her why she didn't say anything, Neva had simply said, “I was going to.”

“So … I'm sure you have questions,” Neva said. “Fire away.”

My mind began spewing out possibilities. Why hadn't she told us earlier? Had she had proper prenatal care? Would she consider a home birth? Was I the last to know? But one question was more pressing than the rest, and I had to ask it first.

“Who's the father?”

Something in Neva's face captured my attention. It was as though she had closed up. It was strange. It wasn't a difficult question. And she
had
asked what I wanted to know. She hesitated, then looked at her lap. “There is no father.”

I blinked. “You mean … you don't know who the father is?”

“No,” Neva said carefully. “I mean … I'll be raising this baby alone. For all intents and purposes, there's no father. Just me.”

A tray clattered against the coffee table and I glanced at Mom. If she'd heard, she wasn't giving it away.

“I know this is a shock,” Neva said. “It was a shock to me too. Especially given that—”

“—the baby has no father?” I didn't mean to sound judgmental, but I think I did. I couldn't help it. It was an even more unsatisfactory answer than her not knowing who the father was. How could the baby not have a father? Unless … “You mean a sperm donor?”

“No,” she said. “Not a sperm donor. Though you can think of him that way if you like. Because he's not going to be involved.”

“But—”

“Well, this
is
big news,” Mom said, pouring the tea. “How do you feel about it, dear?”

A touch of color returned to Neva's face. “I guess … excited. A little sad I'll be doing it on my own.”

“But you won't be on your own, dear,” Mom said. She handed me a cup of tea.

“Of course you won't,” I echoed. “The father might want to be involved, once you tell him. Stranger things have happened. And if he doesn't, good riddance! Your father and I will do anything we can to support you.”

“Thanks, Grace. But like I said—”

I banged my cup onto the table, spilling a little into the saucer. “Neva. You don't have to be cryptic, darling. Honestly, I don't care who the father is. This is my grandchild. This baby will know nothing but love, even if its father isn't part of its life. But at least tell us who he is.”

Neva's jaw clamped shut. She met my eye, almost defiantly. And I knew the subject had been closed. Despite my shock and frustration, a pleasant surge of adrenaline rushed through me. It started in the sternum, then spread pleasantly through my center, like ice cream into hot pudding. Neva didn't do things like this. She never got into any trouble, not interesting trouble. She'd always been so bookish that I'd actually looked forward to her teenage years, when I was sure she'd come into her own and make her mark on the world. But her teenage years had come and gone and her twenties were worse. She'd studied hard, then loyally followed Mom and me into our profession, where she'd quickly eclipsed us both in skill and success. Now, at twenty-nine, Neva was rebelling. And despite my desperation to know the parentage of my grandchild-to-be, I was excited.