by Zina Abbott
Swen recognized the truth of the statement. But, if he could not live, if he could not return to his Charlotte, what then?
“My wife—my child. When will I see them again?”
“Time as you know it belongs to this earth. Where we go, progress is measured differently. Come. All will be well.”
A sense of peace once again reached out to Swen and he allowed it to envelope him. Swen could not deny the assurances of the messenger or resist the pull. He turned his focus away from the scene in the room and followed as the being led him away.
BRIDGEPORT, CALIFORNIA – March 1882
CHAPTER 7
Charlotte could wait no longer. She had borne a child before. She knew this was not the false labor she had experienced a few times just before she gave birth to Greta. This pain centered in her low back and had been coming at regular intervals, now only about ten minutes apart.
It’s too soon! How can my baby live if she is born too small?
The light peeking through the cracks of her curtains and the sounds of stagecoaches departing told her morning has progressed to the point the breakfast rush had passed. She struggled from the bed, and grasped the posts at each corner of the footboard to keep from falling. After clinging to the last post until the grip of a labor pain passed, she stepped to her door and unlocked it. With trembling fingers she clutched the doorjamb as she leaned her head out into the hallway.
“Mrs. Leavitt? Anyone? Please, I need help.”
Charlotte waited. When no one responded, she called out again. Her second cry for help brought Eliza Leavitt rushing into the front hall of the ladies’ entrance from the kitchen while in the process of drying her hands on a dish towel.
“Mrs. Johansson, is that you? Are you all right?”
“No. I need help.”
No more was said until Mrs. Leavitt had run up the stairs and helped Charlotte back into her bed. Once she realized Charlotte had gone into labor, Eliza promised to send someone for Deborah Easton, the midwife, right away.
“Thank you,” Charlotte said gratefully. Then she muttered, “Oh!”
“What is it?” Eliza asked as she turned back in the doorway.
“I think my water broke. I’ll get the sheet off and put all my towels down on the mattress. Please, just go for the midwife.”
“I’ll bring more bedding and towels up. I’ll also send someone to alert Dr. Sinclair in case the midwife thinks we need him. You stay down.”
Eliza quickly helped Charlotte change the bedding, including placing an oiled cloth underneath in order to set the room up as a birthing room. The midwife, Mrs. Easton, came about the time the pains were only two to three minutes apart. After scrubbing her hands and arms, then checking Charlotte, she assured her patient she would shortly be a new mother.
“It’s too soon,” Charlotte wailed. “Why now?”
Both the midwife and Eliza rushed to assure Charlotte they would give her the best care they could.
“Don’t borrow trouble, Mrs. Johansson,” Eliza counseled her. “It is better for the baby if you can stay as calm as possible.”
Swen. Where are you, Swen? I need you.
Charlotte did her best to follow the advice of both Mrs. Easton and Mrs. Leavitt, but she could not fully shake her worry. However, there was no stopping the birth. She instinctively pulled her knees toward her stomach as she felt the first bearing down pain consume her. “It’s coming! I can’t stop it.”
The midwife pulled the blanket back and her face blanched. She turned to Eliza Leavitt and spoke as quietly and calmly as she could manage. “Please send someone for Dr. Sinclair. Hurry.”
Charlotte cried out in alarm as she watched Mrs. Leavitt scurry from the room. “What’s wrong? What is wrong with my baby?”
“Nothing is wrong with your baby, Mrs. Johansson,” the midwife assured her. “The baby is not born yet. It is just that the afterbirth is trying to come out first. It will be uncomfortable for you, but I will try to hold it back to keep it from tearing further until we can get your baby born. Fortunately, I have small hands, so there will be room for both.”
Eliza returned to the room, this time carrying a pitcher of warm water nested inside two large kitchen bowls. “My man just returned from the hospital and I sent him right back. The doctor will be here shortly. Tell me what I can do.”
The midwife put Eliza to work holding Charlotte’s hand and wiping her brow with a cool, damp cloth in an effort to help the birthing mother stay calm. At the same time, she held back the placenta and a section of umbilical cord while trying to ease the infant’s head out of her mother as quickly as possible. Grateful the baby was on the small side, she knew with the afterbirth tearing away and the cord pinched, she did not have long to get the baby breathing before it died from lack of oxygen.
Mrs. Easton sucked back a gasp of distress as she saw the ropey cord wrapped at least twice around the baby’s neck. She abandoned the placenta long enough to support the head with one hand while unwrapping the cord strangling the baby.
Charlotte’s next hard push deposited the child onto the bed.
“You have a beautiful daughter, Mrs. Johansson.”
“A girl,” Charlotte sighed with joy just before another contraction overtook her.
The afterbirth quickly followed as the midwife cleaned the baby’s mouth, then rubbed and tapped her feet to get her lungs to fill. She began to worry that the afterbirth had been torn away too long, or the cord around the baby’s neck had choked it while in the birth canal and she might have a stillborn on her hands. She sighed with relief when the infant girl squeaked out a cry, and weakly squirmed in her hands. She would have preferred a more lusty cry and for the legs and arms to wave more vigorously, but at least the newborn was alive.
The midwife quietly directed Eliza Leavitt to hand her the string and knife she had set on the dressing table when she first arrived. With shaking hands covered with blood, she tied off the cord and separated the baby from the afterbirth. With one cloth, she quickly cleaned off the infant before she swaddled her in a folded bath sheet and put her into Charlotte’s waiting arms.
“What will you name her, Mrs. Johansson?” Mrs. Easton asked as she went for a bowl to hold the afterbirth. She would examine it as soon as she cleaned up her patient.
Too much blood. Where is the doctor?
“Susannah. After my mother.” Feeling slightly miffed that her husband had been gone three weeks without word, she chose the name she wanted for her daughter. A stab of guilt assaulted her. She should be more worried about his safety than giving the baby the name she chose. But, for the time, she felt too caught up in the joy of bringing another daughter into the world.
“That is a beautiful name,” Eliza Leavitt assured her. Doing her best to anticipate the needs of the midwife, she handed her clean cloths and stacked used ones in a corner to be taken downstairs later.
Mrs. Easton rolled the afterbirth around in the bowl. She could see the place where it had torn. That meant a piece was still inside Charlotte and was probably the reason she bled so heavily. She took the pillow from beneath Charlotte’s head and bent her legs so her knees were propped up. She anchored the two bed pillows on either side of Charlotte’s legs to help hold them in place.
“Mrs. Johansson, I need you to put the baby to the breast. She needs to nurse in order to finish up with the afterbirth.” The midwife shook her head in warning as Eliza Leavitt glanced at the bowl with afterbirth and opened her mouth to speak. Instead, Eliza smiled at Charlotte and helped her open the front of her nightgown.
Eliza, along with the midwife, frowned with concern as they watched Charlotte, an experienced mother, struggle unsuccessfully to coax little Susanna to latch onto her nipple.
“She won’t feed,” Charlotte whimpered in distress. What worried the other two women was the realization that their patient’s voice had weakened within the last few minutes.
The two women turned at the sound of a quick knock on the door which was imm
ediately opened by a man they recognized as Dr. Sinclair. “What do we have here?”
With one hand, Mrs. Easton grabbed the bowl holding the afterbirth, and with the other, she motioned the doctor away from the bed. She pointed out the area of tear. “This tried to come first, before the baby. I held it back the best I could while the baby was being born, but the cord wrapped twice around the baby’s neck. Mrs. Johansson is still bleeding too heavy. We are trying to put the baby to the breast in an effort to get the rest of this out, but the baby seems to be too weak to nurse.”
Dr. Sinclair nodded, then he stepped toward Charlotte.
“Doctor, we have warm water and soap on the dressing table for you to wash with before you examine her.”
The doctor scowled at the midwife, but, following her prompt, he rolled up his sleeves and scrubbed his hands. During this time, Eliza helped Charlotte drape a towel over her exposed chest. With clean hands, Dr. Sinclair proceeded to examine Charlotte, shaking his head at the sight of the blood pouring from her. “How are you feeling, Mrs. Johansson?”
“Weak. Dizzy. All I want to do is sleep.”
Eliza next handed him Susannah. He carefully unwrapped the infant, noting her small size and listlessness. The baby gasped for breath unevenly.
“You did well to try to get the baby to nurse. I see she has not had her first bath. Perhaps bathing her now will revive her somewhat and you can try again. Mrs. Johansson, the midwife has done well to position you with your head down and your knees in the air. I want you to stay flat on your back and rest. When they bring the baby back to you, try again to feed her.”
“I will, doctor.”
Dr. Sinclair struggled to hold back the grimace he felt in response to the patient’s weak whisper. After going over a few more directions for the midwife, he excused himself with the instruction to send for him again if anything changed for the worse.
Eliza turned to the midwife as she followed the doctor out the door. “I’ll come back with something warm to drink. I think we all are going to need it.”
Mrs. Easton washed Susanna, who, she noticed, still struggled to breathe, often pausing for two to three seconds between breaths. Once she had rewrapped the infant in a clean infant blanket, she brought her to Charlotte’s side.
By this time, Charlotte had become unresponsive, unable to wake up when Mrs. Easton tapped her on the hand and cheek. Opening her gown, the midwife attempted unsuccessfully to put the infant to Charlotte’s breast. The baby showed no sign of sucking reflex. Susannah heaved a shuddering breath, and then she stilled.
A knock at the door turned Mrs. Easton’s attention away from the baby long enough to watch Eliza enter while balancing a tray with a teapot and cups.
“How are they doing?”
“They’re both weak. I can’t get the baby to nurse. She seems…” The midwife turned back to the baby with a frown. She unwrapped Susannah and then leaned over and placed her ear against the baby’s chest for several seconds. Tears welled up in her eyes. While still holding baby Susannah next to her mother, she slid down the side of the bed until she sat on the floor, her forehead buried in the edge of the mattress. She whispered, “The baby’s gone. I did everything I knew how, and followed the doctor’s instructions completely, but she’s dead.”
As Eliza moved to Mrs. Easton’s side, she checked Charlotte long enough so know the new mother was still asleep and had not heard. She wrapped her arms around Deborah Easton. “I’m so sorry. I know it must be hard to lose a baby you helped bring into the world.”
“It is. When they are born without problems and turn out healthy, it is such a joy. But times like this make me question why I do this.”
“It is the way of life. You did the best you could, and cannot blame yourself. Even Dr. Sinclair told me as he was leaving you did everything correctly there was to be done. Even he expressed the worry there would be…difficulties.”
“Thank you for telling me. Not all doctors are so generous to midwives. Some think because they sat through a few lectures by men at medical school and read books written by men, none of which have borne children, they are the only experts when it comes to pregnancy and childbirth.”
“In case our patient wakes up, let me take the baby to my room and prepare her for burial. It might be better if we tell Mrs. Johansson about her loss before she sees her child again.”
“Assuming she lives. I worry she is not sleeping, but is passed out from loss of blood.”
Eliza pulled the chair next to the bed and guided the midwife into the seat. Then she poured a cup of tea and handed it to her. “Here, drink this while you keep watch over her. Call me if you need me. I’ll take care of the baby.”
Once she was alone in the room with her patient, the Deborah slowly sipped the tea while she watched Charlotte Johansson hover between life and death. She set the cup down long enough to check her patient and replace the dressings. Then poured herself another cup before she resumed her vigil. As she feared, the time came toward sundown when Charlotte groaned and writhed, as though resisting something. Following that, the woman relaxed on the bed, her breath hissing out of her lungs through almost closed lips as her body stilled. Eyes that had been closed now hovered slightly open, but they no longer held the light of a living mortal.
BRIDGEPORT, CALIFORNIA – October 1884
CHAPTER 8
“I ain’t never heard nothing so sad before, except when they told me my ma died. What about Mr. Johansson? Didn’t he come back for her?”
Eliza shook her head. “No. They found Swen Johansson’s remains up in Lundy several months after his wife and daughter passed. He had been part of a rescue team after avalanches buried people up that way, but got buried by one himself without anyone knowing where he was. He never knew he had a daughter or that his wife died about the same time he did.”
“Ain’t that awful? The whole family’s up and gone.”
“Yes. We were able to discover an address for their family back in Minnesota. We sent their effects back to relatives along with a letter telling them what we knew. Since you can talk to Charlotte, maybe you can explain to her why it is all right for her to leave this earth behind.” Eliza opened the door so Hazel, her tray in her hands, could enter the room. “Be sure to keep your door locked, Miss Jessup.”
“I’ll do it right quick, Mrs. Leavitt. Thank you…for all you done.”
Hazel quickly set the tray on the dressing table and locked the door to her room. She then turned to face the last place she had seen Charlotte.
“Charlotte, Mrs. Leavitt said she ain’t never known you to talk to no one. How is it I can hear you and you hear me?”
“I have reached out to others, but when they see me, they close their spirits to me.”
Hazel decided she would need to think about that for awhile to figure out what Charlotte meant, especially since she heard Charlotte before she saw her. “Mrs. Leavitt done told me about you and Swen. I’m right sorrowful you lost your husband in the avalanches.”
“No, I don’t believe it. He must be alive. He must come back and take care of Susannah.”
“I’m sure he would if he could, but he done passed on, same as you. Mrs. Leavitt said your Susannah done passed while you was sleepin’, just before you slipped away.”
The agitation and fear intensified.
“No! If Susannah died, I would have known. A mother knows these things about their own child.”
“But, you was passed out. Mayhap you nary knew what was happenin’ around you then. You know your Bible, Charlotte?”
“Of course. We went to church when I was a child.”
“I reckon that place they tell of in the Bible where God aims for spirits go directly when they pass from this earth is where they lit off to. Ain’t you been there yet, to see if Swen and Susannah showed up?”
“No. I would not go with my angel when she came for me. I must stay here until I know Susannah will be taken care of. Swen must come for her.”
H
azel had no idea what Charlotte meant by not going with her angel. Something told her it was more important to focus on helping Charlotte with what she feared now.
“Charlotte, I don’t mean you no harm. I’m tellin’ you as a friend. It don’t make a lick of sense you stayin’ on the earth if Swen and Susannah ain’t here no more. You need to go where they be.”
Hazel sensed nothing long enough she began to wonder if Charlotte had quit the room. Then Charlotte’s sadness returned, swamping the room until Hazel found it hard to move and breathe.
“No! You can’t be right. My Susannah must be alive. Swen must come and take care of his daughter.”
“Oh, Charlotte. I’m powerful sorry. But, you’re stayin’ here and feelin’ sorrow all for nothin’. You best go to paradise if you’ve a mind to find them.”
Once again, Hazel sensed a long pause.
“Do you really believe so?”
“I surely do. Life don’t always go as planned. I know that for certain. Best you leave this earth, Charlotte, and go where God meant us to go when we die. I ain’t promisin’ you nothin’, but I figure that’s the best way to see your Swen and Susannah again.”
“And Greta, my firstborn….. No. I won’t leave until I’m sure Swen and Susannah are no longer here.”
“What if he don’t come? What if he can’t come?”
“He must come.”
“You’re a mite stubborn, ain’t you, Charlotte?” Hazel said it with a smile. Too late, she wondered if Charlotte realized she was teasing, or if the spirit would take offense. Hazel waited for an answer, and almost came to the conclusion Charlotte was angry with her.
“I’m desperate. I cannot bear to think I might leave Susannah without someone to love and care for her.”
“Reckon I can feature that. But if I don’t see you in that world of spirits the Bible tells us about when I pass from this life, I’m fixin’ to come fetch you. I’ll go with you to hunt up your Swen and Susannah.”
