The Midwife's Dilemma

by Delia Parr

  “Come if you can. There’ll be plenty,” Fancy said as they reached the fork in the path where they would part ways.

  “I’ll try,” she promised and started alone down the path that led through the woods to the cemetery on the eastern side of town. “Time to be quiet now,” she cautioned, but Bird had not uttered a peep for a good long while and was probably asleep.

  By the time she crossed through the cemetery, she was too tired and too hungry to pay any attention to the progress the builder was making on the new brick church. The last she had noticed, he had still been working on the foundation.

  The thought of the cot waiting for her in her room in the newly renovated confectionery spurred her onward. She was also tempted by thoughts of the basket of food she had brought back with her from the groaning party, a feast she had shared with all the women who had stayed with Belinda during her labor and helped Martha during the birthing.

  An even better thought prompted her to take the food and eat it in bed, lest she fall asleep at the table eating it. She paused for a moment to catch her breath and checked her watch again. It was nearly nine o’clock. At this hour, Victoria was probably still at Aunt Hilda’s, where she usually slept whenever Martha was called away overnight while the Lynn sisters were gone.

  Until they returned, Victoria’s daily routine would not change whether Martha was home or not. She helped Aunt Hilda and her husband with their chores in the morning. After dinner, she spent her afternoons working a bit for Dr. McMillan in his office before spending a few hours writing her poems and stories in his study. In late afternoon, she would check on Aunt Hilda again.

  All of which meant Victoria would not be there to witness Martha’s utterly silly plan to have breakfast in bed and sleep away the day.

  But Martha found she could not face eating a thing or finding a wink of rest until she took care of a difficult task she had been deliberately avoiding for the past two weeks.

  2

  With tears welling anew, Martha entered the stable behind Dr. McMillan’s house, where she used to keep Grace. Rather than rush through her task, she took her time, hoping she might give Grace the final farewell she deserved.

  She passed by the other two horses stabled there and kept one eye open for Leech, the nasty stable cat who preferred horses to humans, but he had disappeared the day Grace died. She could see no sign he had returned, but when she set the basket down, she made sure the lid was latched good and tight just in case he made an appearance and decided Bird would make a tasty meal.

  With Bird properly settled, she gathered up the leather tackle she no longer needed for Grace. Confident that God would provide another horse for her, one way or another, she decided to place everything in the loft next to the saddle already stored there and prayed for the patience to wait.

  With the reins looped over her shoulder to prevent her from tripping, she climbed up the ladder to the loft as best she could without stepping on her skirts. The heat in the loft was already growing unbearable, and she managed to plop down on the saddle before a band of grief tightened around her chest and her tears overflowed.

  Unable to even choke out the mare’s name, she clutched at the reins and dissolved into tears. She had never had the desire or the courage to think about continuing her work as a midwife without Grace. Now that she was gone, the reality of losing her was far worse than she’d imagined.

  Her heart ached as one memory after another flashed through her mind’s eye—those early first days when she and Grace butted heads; how Grace mastered her responsibility to carry the birthing stool, Martha’s bag of simples, and a travel bag; the times they’d traveled nearly fifty miles, which meant staying away for weeks at a time; and finally, Grace as a mature mount, more loyal and trustworthy than most folks she knew, a confidant and a friend.

  When her tears were spent, Martha was able to find her voice again. “A gift, that’s what you were, Grace. A true gift sent by God to carry me safely to help all those women and children. I’ll miss you forever,” she whispered.

  Anxious to get home, she was about to get to her feet when she heard a very familiar pair of voices coming from somewhere below.

  She froze in place, unable to move a muscle.

  Before she could even form the idea that she should make her presence known, she heard a giggle and a manly groan, followed by sounds that made her heart nearly stop.

  Kissing. The young couple was kissing.

  And this was not just any couple.

  This was her daughter and Dr. McMillan.

  And they were kissing!

  Martha bolted upright, bumped her head on one of the rafters, and nearly lost her footing. Reeling from the shock, she grabbed hold of one of the support beams to keep from falling as disbelief surged through her body. She looked down, in the direction of the sounds she was hearing, and saw a flash of lavender skirts.

  They were nearly right below her!

  Obviously they had no idea she was up in the loft, which gave Martha a bittersweet advantage. When she caught a glimpse of the basket sitting in Grace’s stall with Bird inside, her heart pounded against the wall of her chest. Praying that Bird would not burst into chatter and give away her presence, she gripped the beam so hard she could almost feel splinters getting ready to pierce her hand if she tightened her hold.

  She paused for several thudding heartbeats to get steady enough on her feet to charge down the ladder and demand an explanation from her difficult eighteen-year-old daughter. Martha also needed to confront the young doctor, whom she’d been helping to understand that her remedies and methods were often more beneficial to the women and children she served than his more modern methods and packaged medicines.

  Before she could do either, she heard him say words that anchored her feet to the ground and nearly made her heart stop.

  “I don’t understand why you won’t let me talk to your mother to ask for her blessing so we can marry.”

  Victoria sighed. “She isn’t even home. I’ve been spending most of my time at Aunt Hilda’s lately because my mother is hardly ever home. And even when she is, she’s so busy with her duties, she couldn’t possibly have any notion that we’ve grown so fond of each other. I simply don’t see why you’re so intent on rushing the matter.”

  The sound of another kiss sent Martha’s pulse racing and the fingers on her one hand curling into a fist.

  “I want to marry you, Victoria, and I don’t want to wait much longer,” he said. “If there’s anything I’ve learned from losing Claudine, it’s that this life is far too short and uncertain to waste any of the time we could be spending together as husband and wife.”

  The rustling of Victoria’s skirts made it sound as if she had leaned into his arms, no doubt moved by his reference to the death of his young wife. “I’d marry you tomorrow if I could, but you know my mother. She’s bound to tradition. She needs time to adjust to change and new ideas.”

  “That may be true, but—”

  “She’s barely accepted the fact that some of her work as a midwife is being done by you or doctors like you. She’s only recently begun to work with you instead of against you, and there’s no telling how long that will last. If you can just wait a few weeks, I can try to prepare her for the idea that I’m ready to be married before I tell her that the man I want to marry is you.”

  As they began to walk away, their voices dipped to whispers that Martha could not hear. Her relationship with Victoria had never been easy, particularly since her daughter had shown no interest in becoming a midwife, dashing Martha’s hopes that she might one day replace her. But she had been devastated last year when Victoria had run away with a visiting theater troupe. She had spent several unsuccessful months trying to find her daughter before returning home to Trinity, unaware that Victoria had found safe refuge with a prominent young couple in New York City, where she was able to pursue her natural talent for writing.

  During the months that Victoria had been gone, Martha had relied on
prayer to sustain her and her work to keep her busy. She also used that time to reflect not on Victoria’s faults, but on her many qualities, one of which was her honesty.

  Despite how hurt she was now by Victoria’s description of her, she had to admit that her daughter was not entirely wrong about some of what she had said. Martha’s life had always been rooted in tradition, which made raising a more modern-thinking, independent daughter a challenge.

  With her emotions under better control, Martha was still reluctant to say or do anything that might create a deeper chasm between the two of them. She needed to wait until her mind was not befuddled from lack of sleep and her body was not exhausted. More important, she also needed time to pray on the matter. Truly, truly pray.

  She bowed her head and silently beseeched her heavenly Father’s wisdom. When she finally felt the grace of His peace, she climbed down from the loft and made certain the young couple was gone before she hurried out of the stable with Bird.

  Sweating profusely and hungry for both nourishment and her bed, she crossed the covered bridge that spanned Dillon’s Stream and separated East and West Main Street. Before she left the protection of the covered bridge on the other side, she peeked out to make sure she could slip across the street and back home without being seen by anyone, especially Anne Sweet.

  Anne and her husband, George, had returned to Trinity when George resigned his position as a state legislator. Anne’s brother, Thomas Dillon, had resigned as mayor shortly before leaving to escort Fern and Ivy out east, and George had temporarily assumed the duties of mayor until being formally elected.

  Despite the quickening of her heart, Martha set aside any and all thoughts of Thomas for the second time that day. Their relationship was far too complicated and unsettled at the moment for her tired brain to fully comprehend. Instead, she scanned the length of the planked sidewalk across the street, looking for Anne. She did not have the energy to match wits with her, either.

  With little else to occupy her time, Anne spent most of her time shopping and visiting around town as Trinity’s unofficial busybody. A nonstop chatterbox with a nose for gossip, she did not have any malicious intentions, as far as Martha could tell, but she would often piece together bits of gossip and leap to conclusions that were usually wrong, if not totally outrageous.

  Fortunately, Anne was not in sight, but with all the activity up and down West Main Street, it was hard to dismiss the reality that change was coming to this once-sleepy town. To the south, teams of men were already at work deepening Dillon’s Stream. Others were building up the berm on what would soon be Dillon’s Canal, a venture funded by private investments that would link Trinity to larger cities and markets in a statewide system of canals, forever changing Trinity and the folks who called it home.

  Martha looked to the opposite end of town. Against the backdrop of the sound of shovels scraping at the earth and hammers forcing nails into wooden frames behind her, the whine of the saws at the mill drew her attention to buildings under construction. Several new businesses had appeared in the past few months. In addition to the first bank in town, a new boardinghouse provided lodging for many of the new workers, and a newspaper expected to produce its first issue in early fall.

  “Change is inevitable, I suppose,” she grumbled, forcing aside thoughts of Victoria’s plan to marry. Instead she focused on her daughter’s comments about her role as a midwife. Doctors in most of the eastern cities, including Philadelphia and New York, had already started assuming what had always been a midwife’s calling—caring for sick women and children and helping mothers bring new babes into the world. With the trend rapidly spreading westward, and especially with Dr. McMillan here now, Martha knew her role as midwife here in Trinity would diminish. It might even disappear completely in her lifetime.

  But a midwife’s calling was her calling.

  And it was her life.

  Yet at forty-three, she had to admit that after following her calling practically nonstop for the past ten years, her dwindling physical stamina, as well as her lack of a horse, now made her question how long she could continue as a midwife.

  Or just as important, how long she wanted to continue.

  She had been vacillating for months, especially after Thomas Dillon had proposed to her just before he left. She had tentatively accepted his proposal, which forced her to really think about how she wanted to live out the rest of her days.

  But in truth, she was so tired she was giddy at this point, and she did not want to think about Thomas or her calling right now. She did not want to think about Victoria or Dr. McMillan, either. All she really wanted to think about was putting Bird back into his cage, storing Will’s spyglass in a safe place, and getting out of the gown she had worn for the past three days. After climbing into bed, she intended to devour the basket of food she had brought back with her from the groaning party and spend the rest of the day catching up on all the sleep she had missed.

  The rest of her troubles and all of her duties as a mother, as a midwife, and as Bird’s protector would have to wait.

  3

  If this was a dream, it was the absolute best dream she’d had in many months.

  Martha kept her eyes firmly shut and held perfectly still in her cot for fear of bringing this sweet dream to an abrupt and disappointing end. The fact that she had eaten the entire basket of goodies from the groaning party before taking to her bed was irrelevant.

  The aroma of cinnamon and honey was so strong, her mouth began to water. She could almost taste one of Fern’s strudels. Or was it one of her kuchens or one of Ivy’s pies? When she risked taking a deeper breath, she detected just a hint of molasses that inspired visions of thick molasses cookies that were so vivid her sweet tooth begged to be satisfied.

  But when her stomach growled, she realized that unless she ended this dream right here and right now, she would spend every day until those two sisters returned craving their sweet treats beyond all reason—and every night praying for forgiveness for coveting them. Resigned to that sad reality, she sighed and then forced herself to open her eyes and sit up.

  She had pulled back the drapes to let in the warm summer air before she’d crawled into bed. In all truth, the air had turned much cooler while she slept, and the afternoon light coming into the room was dimmed by an overcast sky. Dismissing the muted voices she heard as nothing more than last-minute shoppers passing by on their way home, she took a good long stretch and let go of the silly notion that one of the voices she’d heard had been Ivy’s. But when she drew several deep breaths to clear her head, her heart leaped with pure bliss, then leaped again.

  She did smell cinnamon and honey and molasses and . . . and it was Ivy’s voice she heard. And Fern’s, too. And they weren’t outside at all—they were right downstairs in the kitchen. “They’re home! They’re finally home!” she cried, and her heart whispered back, Maybe Thomas is, too.

  She quickly set that thought aside and slipped a fresh gown on. When she brushed her hair, she remembered the bump on her head a bit too late, but she had no doubt the bump would disappear faster than the memory of Victoria’s escapade would.

  Across from her cot, Bird was in his cage, walking back and forth on his perch, apparently as anxious for a few crumbs of a sweet treat as she was. When he began chirping at her, she chuckled. “You’ll have a treat tonight. I promise.” She then fixed her hair in a simple knot at the nape of her neck like she usually wore and slipped out the door.

  Martha rushed down the staircase, and the lower she got, the stronger the sweet aromas became, overwhelming the smell of raw wood that had permeated the shop after the recent renovations the sisters had ordered before leaving on the trip. Even hungrier to reunite with her friends and to fuel her lonely spirit than she was for sweets, she opened the door at the bottom of the staircase only to discover she had used the wrong staircase. Instead of being in the kitchen in the back, she was standing in the shop at the front of the building.

  Rather than wast
e time and retrace her steps, she practically ran through the expanded shop area, past the new display tables that were still waiting to be filled with all sorts of sweet treats again. When she reached the new swinging door that opened up into the kitchen, she shoved it open. She did not realize she had hit the door too hard until it slammed against an inner wall and swung back again, so fast that the door would have hit her square in the face if she had not grabbed hold of it. Thoroughly embarrassed when she heard several screams of fright, she eased the door open this time and stepped into the kitchen wearing a sheepish grin.

  Before she could offer a word of apology, Fern and Ivy came right over to her and embraced her from both sides.

  Ivy furrowed her brow. “Martha! You’re awake.”

  Martha gave each of them a hug filled with months of longing. “I’m so sorry I frightened you both.”

  “It’s not your fault,” Ivy insisted, slipping her arm around Martha’s waist. “I’ve been having trouble with that silly swinging door ever since we got back.”

  Tempted to remind the two women that they were four months overdue, Martha simply opened her arms and urged Fern to do the same so all three of them could share one giant hug together. “I’ve missed you both something terrible,” she said and urged them closer still.

  “And we’ve missed you, too, haven’t we, Fern?” Ivy offered before she eased back and gave Martha a hard look. “You look peaked.”

  “And a tad thinner, as well,” Fern added, stepping back to join her sister. “Not to worry. There’s a cinnamon strudel in the oven that I made just for you.”

  “And I made a small batch of molasses cookies and a couple loaves of anadama bread, which has a good portion of molasses in it, too,” Ivy added.

  Martha chuckled and shook her head. Without the two sisters here for the past few months to tempt her daily with their sweet confections, she may have lost a bit of her girth, but Fern and Ivy still looked as plump and round as the scrumptious sweets they baked each week. “I hate to admit it, but I’ve actually had a dream or two about anything and everything you bake.”