All She Left Behind

by Jane Kirkpatrick

  He went from scamp to troubled? And what does he mean that I’ve done enough already?

  Jennie was too stunned to ask, but Josiah did. “Your meaning?”

  “His broken home, of course.” The teacher had gained his voice, no longer intimidated by a trustee’s family before him, and he spoke now to Josiah, not to her. “Divorce casts such a terrible pall over a child. I’ve only had one or two such children in my teaching positions, but they are almost always troubled, conflicted, and sadly, it does not seem to improve with a stepfather, no matter how loving. Forgive me for speaking frankly, Mr. Parrish. These children often create problems at school, have a hard time applying themselves to tasks, are known to run away at a young age or take up drink. It would have been so much better if his mother had not divorced regardless of the issues.” He talked as though Jennie weren’t even in the room. “But of course, that can’t be undone.” He finished with a cheery, “We’ll do our best, I can assure you, Mr. Parrish, despite the challenge.” He smiled and adjusted his glasses over his beak of a nose. Jennie didn’t know what Josiah said next because her fury had closed off her ears.

  “We need to move him from that classroom,” she told Josiah as they exited the room. He had her elbow and had found a bench in the hallway for them to sit on while she took deep breaths. “The man has made a dozen assumptions, all of them wrong, and I fear he’ll promote them rather than face the possibility he might be in error. The university fires people for smoking, but they keep on teachers who demean?”

  “He is said to be one of the best instructors.”

  “He didn’t even speak to me except to chastise me for ‘having done enough already.’ He can’t possibly know what my life is like or the circumstances of my divorce.” She turned to Josiah. “What if he suggests those things to Dougie, makes him think the divorce was all my fault? I didn’t even want it. I tried to work things out.” She brushed at tears, annoyed they came when she was angry. Or perhaps it was the powerlessness. Again. “I only hoped to protect Douglas from the truth about his father. And give him a good life. Oh, Josiah . . .”

  “I know that. It’ll be all right. It will. We’ll work harder to catch Douglas ‘being good,’ as the instructor suggested. And maybe one day tell him about the circumstances of your marriage and divorce.” He helped her stand up.

  She retied her bonnet at her throat, smoothed her skirt over her burgeoning belly well-camouflaged by the hoop. “You know I did my best.”

  He nodded. “And because of something happening beyond your control, a good thing came about, and I will be forever grateful that I have both you and Douglas in my life.”

  She had to believe that this path was somehow a part of a divine plan for her life and for Douglas’s too. If she lost that sense of direction, or if she failed to learn the lessons from what had gone before, Jennie feared she’d repeat them and in the process lose herself. And where would that leave Douglas, Josiah, and this new life she carried?

  29

  Grace

  The contractions came mild at first and far apart. It was a week after their meeting with Douglas’s teacher. Dr. Wythe had moved into the guest room down the hall the week before, prepared to stay until her delivery, his presence a luxury of “society” Jennie was willing to accept. She had plodded through the house that morning like an old, aching horse across a stony field seeking the oat bag at the paddock. Now she sat reading in her room, as she imagined Dr. Wythe did in his, and Van snored in sniffles at her feet. Some questions arose and Jennie pushed to stand and planned to call on Dr. Wythe when she felt her water break. She called out to Lizzie instead.

  “Get Josiah and Ariyah. This baby is arriving!”

  “Shan’t I tell Dr. Wythe too?” Lizzie said from the doorway.

  “Yes, yes. Then come help me don clean dry clothes.”

  The rains had arrived, pelting the windowpanes like an anxious percussionist at the concert hall. Then they’d stop like a hand had silenced the cymbal. A ray of sunshine would pour through the trees, causing ground fog like steam to rise between the shrubs and drift into the firs and dogwoods. Jennie let herself be distracted by the weather while she waited.

  Soon the room bustled with people as Dr. Wythe told Josiah what to do. The carriage was sent for Ariyah, who arrived shortly, she and Lizzie throwing open the curtains to let shy sunshine peek in.

  “Boil the usual water,” Dr. Wythe told Lizzie. “I’ll put my instruments in it. Papa”—he pointed to Josiah—“you’d best wait outside.”

  “Can’t he stay?” If something went wrong as it had with her last child, she didn’t want to face that tragedy without her husband at her side. She thought then this was something she should have discussed previously with the doctor. Somehow Josiah’s presence had never been questioned in her mind.

  “It’s best if he doesn’t. Even stalwart men tend to faint when their wives face the pain of childbirth.”

  “I intend to hold my wife’s hand through it all. I missed my sons’ births. I don’t want to miss this one. Besides, it might be a longed-for daughter.” He squeezed Jennie’s hand. “What kind of father would I be if I wasn’t there for her first look at the world?”

  The doctor frowned, started to speak, but decided against it, pursing his lips instead. Jennie vowed that if she ever was a physician attending a woman’s birth, she’d claim the promise that two are better than one. She remembered the night Peleg witnessed his son’s birth just moments before he died. How grateful they all were for Alex’s sake that Peleg had met his son.

  “Thank you.” She squeezed Josiah’s hand.

  A part of her wanted to remember all the details, seeing through the eyes of a physician, being objective about what Dr. Wythe did or didn’t do, but very soon, not soon enough, all Jennie’s focus went to pain and pushing. She barely heard Josiah’s voice of encouragement, Lizzie’s humming as she fluffed a pillow, Ariyah’s telling funny stories. She squeezed Josiah’s hand. She’d heard women cry out and scream their husband’s name as though tortured. She had no desire to curse her husband until he began to tell her of the practices of Indian women, how they squatted or took long baths, often giving birth right in the bathing tub, “or so I’m told.”

  “I don’t need your—your anthropological explanations at this moment, Mr. Parrish. I would have you keep such musings to yourself. At this time—Oh, oh, oh!” This was followed by both Ariyah and Lizzie halting for a moment what they were doing and a look exchanged and then Jennie’s louder cry.

  She prayed that this baby would be born whole and healthy and come into a world where she knew always and forever that she was loved.

  And so Gertrude Grace Parrish greeted her parents within seconds of her arrival on October 1, 1872, at three in the afternoon: their daughter, who took up as much room as a bouquet of flowers in Jennie’s arms, and within minutes brought a thousand times the joy. Lizzie went out to bring Douglas in. He’d been at school and wore his uniform of brown pants and coat and gray tie. “Meet your sister, Douglas,” Jennie said. “She’ll fall in love with her big brother.”

  “She’s so little.” Douglas gently pushed the receiving blanket she’d knitted away from Gracie’s chin. The baby stared at him, eyes so wide, tiny lips pinching. “She’s the size of one of Mr. Chen’s hams.”

  Josiah laughed and pressed his hand to Douglas’s shoulder as he stood behind him. “Almost as pink too.”

  “Perfect. Absolutely perfect,” Ariyah sighed.

  “We Methodists have godparents at the baptism. Will you do our honors in a few days, Ariyah?” Josiah made the invitation.

  “I’d love that.”

  “And maybe Douglas, would you like to stand with us too? I’m sure you don’t remember your baptism,” Jennie said. “That would make two of you as godparents.”

  “Better than one,” Josiah added and looked at Jennie with such sweet joy that one would have thought she’d changed the world. In fact, she had. They had.

  Later,
Josiah told her he’d had a chat with Charles Winn and the matter of Elizabeth’s will canceling the debt had been “resolved.”

  “How did you know?”

  “I didn’t. I simply asked him if the estate was resolved and he said something about the matter of the outstanding loan still pending. Until then I hadn’t known. You ought to have told me.” He didn’t sound angry, only hurt.

  “I didn’t want anything to come between you and your children, especially money. It can say so much more than it ought to.”

  He nodded. “It’s settled now, as well it should be. We have new things to consider.” He touched their daughter’s tiny nose.

  On the Sunday following Gracie’s birth, the little family with Ariyah, Douglas, and the newest addition stood at the baptismal font of the Salem First Methodist Church. Jennie’s father baptized their daughter, and Jennie heard the words of those agreeing to help raise her in the faith, tears sliding down her cheeks.

  Gracie wore a long white lace dress that had been Jennie’s, her mother having brought it across the plains. Jennie imagined how she’d have lovingly wrapped precious paper in between the layers of the delicate lace and folded it among the few clothing items she could bring. She had anticipated that one day there might be an infant granddaughter to wear it as Jennie had once worn it. Jennie looked out toward the congregation, then back to her gathered family, breathing a prayer of gratitude.

  Norman and Henrietta Parrish had come; so had Samuel. And her brothers George and DW. I should have asked my brothers to be godfathers. Still, she knew they’d be there for Gracie even without the formal words of “godfather” applied to them. She even expressed a word of thanks to Charles who had left her and again forgave him, forgiveness being a journey rather than a destination. He had forced her to leave behind an old path; she’d had the courage to take the next steps onto a new one. If only she could remember that nothing could separate her from God’s love, even when she wandered in those wilderness places.

  Jennie urged Josiah to spend even more time with Douglas, taking him with him when he went to the barns to look after the Angora Cashmere goats. Josiah had purchased them out of California, the entire transaction written up in The Weekly Enterprise, the animals were so rare. He’d gotten them not long before Gracie was born, and Douglas had initially shown interest and had even gone with Josiah to the fair in October, taking with them the chickens the Enterprise reported as “a good display, embracing the finest breeds.” Douglas had paid attention to Quilton those early years, and Jennie thought an interest in animal husbandry might be his future. There’d been no repetition of harming Van after that episode at the coast. But Douglas shrugged his shoulders when Josiah thanked him for his help with the chickens and the goats. “We got written up in the paper, Douglas. You helped do that.”

  “Who cares about that old newspaper.”

  Douglas was good with Gracie, though. He liked holding her, and when they had the photographer come to the house, Douglas insisted she be placed in his arms for at least one of the family portraits. Jennie had high hopes for this family woven into a strong fiber. And truly, who had time to consider medical school?

  By January, Jennie knew she was pregnant again. She’d been breastfeeding so hadn’t thought she could conceive and made a mental note to never tell any patient that breastfeeding was a way to space births. Two babies in so short a time? Was her body ready? Josiah was elated. He took the well-wishes from his friends with good spirit, though Jennie admitted to embarrassment.

  “Goodness,” her mother had said. “Will you be as rabbits?”

  What could Jennie say to her except that she loved her husband and didn’t relish the morning sickness or the challenge of feeding her baby while keeping her body strong for this second child. But she did love Josiah, more than she had ever imagined possible. And he loved her back, allowing her to express worries to him while sharing the joys.

  “What about a wet nurse?” Josiah raised the issue. “Or mix cow’s milk with flour or even try the new Leibig’s Soluable Food for Babies.”

  “You’ve been reading up.”

  He shrugged. “I like knowing what’s new.”

  Formula hadn’t been available when Douglas was an infant. And neither her doctor then nor Charles had wanted to discuss ways to help the baby thrive. Her sister suggested trying the Pratt device, a hard rubber nipple. With cow’s milk and flour mixed, Douglas began to gain weight, but still she wondered if that change might have contributed to his problems now, separation from vital nurture begun at such an early age.

  But the nipple was cumbersome for Gracie’s tiny mouth and lips to suck on, and besides, Jennie liked nursing her babies. She’d felt a failure using it for Douglas, and she could imagine herself nursing Gracie while another baby kicked from her belly. That image became so comforting she decided to keep nursing, then nurse in tandem once the second child arrived.

  She called on Mrs. Sawtelle—Dr. Sawtelle—in February. She was a gangly woman, tall with a narrow face, big teeth that showed often as she smiled. Her blonde hair curled in a cluster at the top of her head. Her eyes stared and she rarely blinked. She had a loud voice that startled Gracie, whom Jennie held in her arms. They met in her home office on Main Street, a few blocks from Willamette where Dr. Sawtelle’s husband was finishing his degree. Rosebushes lined the path that split off from the main house to a side entrance Jennie entered.

  “I’d like you to attend my birthing,” Jennie told her when the doctor brought her into the examining room.

  “Ha. Looks like it’s already been attended to.” She nodded with her chin toward Gracie.

  “I have another due in September.”

  “Breast-feeding?”

  Jennie nodded.

  “An old wives’ tale proven once again to be a poor story. I have some options for you to keep that from happening. Are you able to care for a second child? Do you need assistance with food or shelter?”

  “I’m fine. Truly. I have a loving husband—”

  “Well, I can see that.”

  “A loving husband and a good home. You may know of him. Josiah Parrish?”

  “Ah, that Parrish you’re from. But he’s an . . . older man. I met his wife, Elizabeth, at Willamette before they sacked me.”

  “Elizabeth passed a few years back.” Jennie took a deep breath. “I heard of your dismissal at Willamette.”

  “Did you? For failing anatomy, they said. Of course I had to fail it, my favorite subject. They didn’t allow the female students to do dissection, something about our ‘tender sensibilities.’ Ha. I’ve since informed them that I passed my tests at The New York Medical College and Hospital for Women, not that it mattered to Chase, my old professor.” She washed her hands in a bowl, dried them on a towel. “But let’s not wander that path. We have a new one. A baby. How did your delivery go and who attended you? A midwife?”

  “No, Dr. Wythe.”

  She nodded approval.

  “But I’d prefer a woman and one in Salem. I—I have an interest in medicine myself. I’ve done some reading and applied homeopathic cures.” Why did I mention that?

  “Have you? It doesn’t get the status it deserves, given that it was Hippocrates himself who began the homeopathic study. I find a blend of it with surgery and modern chemicals might be the future. Presently, my homeopathic interest has kept doors closed in some so-called medical institutions and societies as well. Ha.”

  She held a sausage-shaped stethoscope to Gracie’s chest and listened. “Isn’t it grand,” she said, “that this item was invented because a French doctor felt uncomfortable putting his ear against a woman’s breast to diagnose chest problems.” She listened to Jennie’s heart next. “You’d attend Willamette, of course. I wonder what Old Chase would do with the wife of a trustee wishing to perform dissections. I’d like to be there for that.”

  “I have an interest, but college? That’s not likely.” She changed the subject. “My delivery was classic. An easy bir
th, only six hours of labor. I have another child, a son who is nine, and that birth too went well. But I lost a child, Ariyah, at birth. The cord—it—”

  “Ah. I’m very sorry.” She patted Jennie’s shoulder as she rewrapped the blanket around Gracie, then put the stethoscope onto the table. After a moment she said, “But good to know. Was the physician aware of the infant’s distress?”

  “He—my husband then did not go for the attending doctor and instead brought a physician too late, too . . . unprepared to make a difficult delivery.” The memory seared like the touch of a hot poker from the fireplace.

  “Unprepared by drink. That was it, wasn’t it?”

  Jennie nodded.

  “Liquor destroys more people than the mosquito, though it takes longer for the victim to die.” She shook her head. “We’ll be aware then. I have no doubt that Josiah Parrish will call for me well ahead of time.”

  “Dr. Wythe stayed with us. I’d welcome that.”

  “I’m a short carriage ride away, so not necessary. Now, let’s examine you and see where things are. What’s your baby’s name?”

  Jennie told her.

  “Grace. Lovely. My husband has little time for religion, but I think the concept of grace is the apple of religion’s eyes. Come along then, Grace.” She lifted her daughter from Jennie’s arms, held her like a cherished vase, fragile and precious, then laid her on a blanket on a table with a little fence around it so if she rolled over she wouldn’t fall off. Jennie watched with interest the way this woman doctor examined her child, the quiet chatter, large hands gentle on Gracie’s tender skin. “You have a healthy baby. You’re doing a fine job of mothering, Mrs. Parrish.” She handed Gracie back, and Jennie sighed deeply, wearing a contentment she hadn’t known for months, perhaps since Baby Ariyah’s death. “You keep this up and your second child will thrive just as well.”

  Jennie felt light as a butterfly. And meeting a very pregnant woman in the waiting room, a woman from Jennie’s past, didn’t bring back sad memories. Her eyes met Jennie’s and she nodded. Yes, Dr. Sawtelle was just what Salem needed: a doctor to all women. Jennie heard her greet Miss Priscilla warmly as she welcomed her into the examining room.