The Midwife's Dilemma

by Delia Parr

  But she knew exactly where she had to go.

  She walked out of the cottage and locked the back door, then took her time as she walked along the dirt path that led through the woods. She was grateful for the shade that protected her from the hot, late-July sun.

  She noticed some of the mountain laurel lining the path on either side of her was still in full flower, the best time to make remedies from the evergreen. Stooping down, she put on gloves and stripped some leaves from their crooked stems in order to dry them. Others she would pound into a powder she could use to reduce fevers. She took even more to bake in lard to make a different remedy and made a carryall with her apron to cradle her fragile collection.

  She resumed her journey, but decided to stop and stoop down one more time to take a few pale pink blossoms from another mountain laurel.

  “I like to pick flowers. Can I help you pick some?”

  Startled, Martha nearly let go of her apron but caught herself just in time. When she looked up, she found Cassie standing just a few feet away. “Goodness, child! I didn’t even hear you coming down the path.”

  Cassie giggled. “That’s because I walk quiet, like a little deer. At least that’s what Mr. Fancy says. He’s around here somewhere, but you don’t need to worry. He’ll walk along out there and watch over us on our way home,” she offered, looking deep into the woods.

  Martha heard just the hint of a man’s chuckle coming from the woods and shook her head. She was curious about what Cassie was doing here. “Did you come all this way to find me?”

  “Mama asked me to fetch you back. Miss Fern wants everyone home for supper on time tonight.”

  “It’s a good thing she sent you. I haven’t given a thought to the time,” Martha admitted as a flush of guilt warmed her cheeks and reminded her she had been late for the past two days.

  “That’s okay. Mama says you’ve been working real, real hard.”

  “Too hard, I fear,” Martha said, then turned and started them both walking back home again. She never did see Fancy, but she heard him in the woods as they made their way along the path and caught just a flash of the sun when it hit one of his earrings, just as they turned down the alley leading to the back door of the confectionery.

  Although a host of tantalizing aromas greeted their arrival, Martha found the kitchen abandoned. Other than a dozen skyberry tarts cooling on the table, there wasn’t a single pot on the cookstove or a place set to eat, and she looked to Cassie for an explanation. “Would you happen to know where everyone might be?”

  “They’re waiting for us in the yard, right behind the place where they’re building the new church.”

  Martha cocked a brow. “Of all places, why are they waiting for us there, especially since Fern is so worried about having supper on time?”

  “Because we’re not having a regular supper. We’re having a picnic supper tonight! Won’t you please, please hurry and wash up? I want to get to the picnic,” Cassie replied, a grin teasing her lips and delight lighting her eyes.

  Martha nearly groaned but managed to return half a smile. She’d had every intention of having a quick supper and hanging up some of the mountain laurel leaves in her room to dry before calling it a day, although baking the rest of the leaves in the oven would wait until tomorrow.

  Feeling a bit grumpy, she deposited her bounty on top of the table. “Maybe you can put these flowers into some water so they don’t wilt. Just don’t touch anything else, especially the leaves,” she cautioned and headed for the staircase. She wondered if she should take a good dose of belladonna to forestall the new aches and pains in her back that she knew would be coming after sitting on hard ground instead of a chair to eat her supper, but she decided to wait until right before she went to bed.

  Yet less than half an hour later, she was sitting on something worse—the front seat of a farm wagon. With her travel bag, birthing stool, and bag of simples bouncing around in the back, she was traveling some thirty miles north with Kenneth Rhoads to deliver his wife of their fourth child.

  Unaware that Liza Rhoads was even pregnant in the first place, she could not argue the point that calling for a midwife a few days before the woman expected to deliver was a good idea, especially when there was such a long distance to travel. She could, however, take argument with her back, which did not wait for more than a few miles before it protested every bump in the unpaved road with spasms that nearly took her breath away.

  Gritting her teeth, she was grateful that she was able to salvage one element of the picnic supper she had left behind. After making certain that Mr. Rhoads had no interest in sharing her treat, she nibbled at one of the three skyberry tarts she had packed for herself. And she was just brassbound enough to finish the other two, despite the fact that she knew very well that sweets were no substitute for the belladonna she had forgotten to take for her aching back before she left.

  Indeed, if she had her way, a spoon of honey and a piece of a sugarloaf would be the only remedies anyone would ever need to cure their ailments, but they weren’t.

  Pity that.

  Three days after Martha arrived, baby Rhoads had yet to decide it was time to enter this world. She did not expect that would happen for another couple of days, although she did hope the rain that had pelted the area since she arrived would stop.

  She had expected to be living temporarily with a typical homesteading family in an isolated cabin on an ordinary plot of farmland in the wilderness, but she had not been to the Rhoads homestead for more than three years. What she did find when she arrived was astounding.

  Kenneth Rhoads’s cabin was now one of five that made up a family compound where he and his three brothers, as well as their respective families, lived in separate households in cabins arranged closely together in a pattern that resembled the crescent of a waning moon. They worked the land together, worked a common kitchen garden together, shared the fruits of their collective labor, and served God together as one very large extended family.

  With each short break in the rain, adults and children alike were able to escape from one cabin to play or work in another, and the three sisters-in-law made sure the very pregnant Liza had an hour or two each afternoon to rest by taking in her children. Martha also had the opportunity to visit with each of the four families while waiting for Liza’s labor to begin. She also took turns sharing her meals with each family.

  But at the end of the day, instead of sleeping on a cot in a crowded household, she retired to a fifth cabin, located at the western end of the crescent next to Kenneth and Liza. Come fall, the cabin he originally built when he first arrived would become home for Mr. Rhoads’s younger sister, who was expected to arrive with her husband and only child. One bedroom had been set up as a birthing room, and Martha had been given the other room, an oasis that offered her another surprise: privacy.

  Lying in bed for the past two nights, Martha had listened to the rain tap a constant, but peaceful, rhythm on the roof above her. Drop after drop, the rain shifted time and time again from a sprinkle to a soaking downpour, creating nature’s hymns to accompany her prayers.

  Tonight when Martha knelt down by her bed, she was determined to decide how she would spend the rest of her days. She prayed silently but fervently, worshiping God, praising Him, and asking Him to guide her to make the right decision. When she finished, she crawled into bed, curled on her side, and folded her hands beneath her cheek before weighing her options.

  “Should I marry Thomas when he returns or not? I suppose the answer depends on two very different things. What do I really want and what can I have?” she whispered.

  What did she want?

  First, a home of her own. Thanks to her children’s generous gift, she could have that home, with or without Thomas, although she did not take the time to consider how different her home would be if she lived there with Thomas or alone.

  She also wanted the companionship and support of a loving spouse that she thought she had lost forever when John died.
She could only have that if she married Thomas. He was a most unexpected gift, one that would satisfy longings buried so deep in her heart that they had only recently resurfaced.

  She sighed and snuggled deeper under the covers. There were other things she desperately wanted, too. Wearied by her work as a midwife, she wanted a different life, a respite from nonstop work that would allow her to choose how she would spend her days.

  She wanted the freedom to travel to Boston to visit Oliver and his family or to spend time here in Trinity with Victoria and the grandchildren she hoped would come in time. Now that she had the funds to do all that, the only thing holding her back was the fact that she had yet to find a woman willing to replace her as midwife, and she feared she would not find her anytime soon.

  She lay very still and let all of these thoughts simmer together in her mind as her longing for Thomas stirred her emotions.

  Yet no matter how very deeply and surely she wanted to marry him, doubt gave her pause. He had promised her that if she married him when he returned, he would be patient and supportive until her duties as a midwife were over.

  For the first time since he had renewed that promise and presented her with a new proposal, she knew that the questions she had about his ability to keep that promise were the crux of her dilemma and the reason that she had not been able to make a decision before now.

  She knew he meant to keep that promise, but would he? Truly, could he? Not very likely, if she considered that he had originally promised to be patient and wait to marry her until she had found someone, only to prove himself otherwise within days. How many times had he asked her since then to marry him, often twice in the same day, so they could go to New York together as husband and wife? Three or four? Or more?

  Troubled, she wrapped her arms around her waist to consider what might happen if she did marry him when he returned. What if it turned out that he could not be as patient as he had promised to be? What if he grew so frustrated when their lives together were constantly interrupted when she was summoned away that he eventually lost his patience and insisted that she give up her work as a midwife, even before she had a replacement? What would he do if she refused? Would he try to use his authority over her as her husband to force her to stop? Would she let him?

  Her eyes welled with tears. She loved him with all her heart and trusted that when he had made this promise to her, he had every intention of keeping it. As often as she had been frustrated by the fact that he knew her well, to the point that he could almost read her thoughts, she realized that after twenty-five years, she knew him well, too.

  Well enough to know, in her heart of hearts, that even though he meant to keep his promise to be patient as she continued her work as a midwife, he would resent all the time they would spend apart. Eventually, his resentment would build, and her disappointment in him would grow to the point that the love they had for each other would slowly but surely be destroyed, along with their marriage.

  She refused to let that happen.

  Swallowing hard, she tightened her resolve and wrapped it tightly around her heart, where her love for him would always be true, protected by her dreams of what could have been.

  She now knew what her answer to Thomas must be—and would be—unless by some miracle one of the women she had approached was waiting for her to return to tell her she had changed her mind and would take over Martha’s duties. Or, by a more incredible miracle, a woman who was already a midwife in her own right arrived in Trinity.

  Her tears began to trickle down her cheeks. That such a miracle would occur seemed impossible, even for God. She had only one hope left: to eliminate her dilemma by convincing him to wait to marry her until she was no longer bound by her duties as a midwife.

  If she failed, the only answer she could give him then would break her heart and his.

  And this time, there would be no second chance . . . for either of them.

  28

  Baby Alexander arrived the next morning, but to Martha’s profound dismay, she did not return home to Trinity for many, many days.

  Summoned by families in the hinterlands who took advantage of the fact that a midwife was in the area, she had remained for nearly four weeks. She had even been desperate enough to expand her search for her replacement to include this area and had spoken to more than half a dozen women, despite the fact that it would take a good two years to train any one of them. As she had feared, none were interested, primarily because it would have meant relocating the entire family to be closer to Trinity, and the offer of having a rent-free cottage to live in did not sway them at all.

  She was bone-weary and travelsick by the time she finally made it back to town. And she carried no small measure of guilt for abandoning everyone in Trinity for so long. Now that the month of August had almost entirely been spent, she held no hope that Thomas was still away, which meant she would probably be giving him her decision in a matter of hours. Victoria, though, was probably back from her wedding trip, which meant there was a joyous reunion waiting for her, too.

  She deeply feared the outcome of the former, but she looked forward to the latter.

  It was well after dark when she returned and long after everyone else in Trinity had taken to their beds. Except for a lantern she needed to guide her way, she left all the rewards she had received in the alley near the front of the building, rather than the back door, to keep noise to a minimum. The kindly tinker who had brought her the final ten miles home had stacked a fair number of boxes and crates there, but she was confident they would be perfectly safe there until morning.

  With her heart racing in anticipation, she entered the back door and slipped into the confectionery. Although no baking had been done for hours and hours, the aroma of sugar and spice and everything sweet and gooey lay heavy in the air.

  She grinned. Yes, now she could believe she was actually home!

  She tiptoed down the hall carrying the same things she had taken with her. With her still-lit lantern and travel bag in one hand and her birthing stool and nearly empty bag of simples in the other, she would have looked like a pack horse if anyone had been awake to see her. She felt like one, too, and only one thought kept her from literally falling asleep on her own two feet: Tonight she would finally sleep in her own bed.

  The blistering heat of the day, unfortunately, had barely abated. Her well-soiled travel gown was limp, and her chemise was pasted to her skin. Covered from head to toe with fine travel dust, she moistened her lips and tasted pure grit.

  Anxious to quench her thirst and wash her face before crawling into her own bed, she set down everything but the lantern at the bottom of the staircase and turned around to walk to the pump and fill a pitcher of water to carry up to her room.

  “Jane!” she gasped. Shocked to find anyone in the kitchen at this hour, especially in the dark, she rocked back on her heels and stared at the woman, who looked like she had been dozing at the table before Martha startled her awake.

  Wearing only a thin robe and nightdress, Jane leaped to her feet, nearly knocking over the glass of water in front of her. “Martha! I’m so sorry. I-I didn’t mean to frighten you by being here, but no one else is ever up at this hour. I never even heard you coming down the hall, let alone the alley. I must have dozed off for a bit,” she explained in a voice just above a whisper.

  “There’s no reason to take any blame for not hearing me. I was deliberately trying to be very quiet.” Martha followed Jane’s lead and kept her voice low to keep from waking the rest of the household.

  “You would’ve seen me if I’d bothered to light a candle, but that might have been even worse, considering the fact that I fell asleep.”

  After Martha put the pitcher of water onto the table, she set her lantern on the floor so the light would not shine directly into their eyes and plopped down into a chair. “Is there a particular reason why you’re sitting down here in the middle of the night?”

  “Other than the fact that I’ve had more trouble sleeping
lately than I usually do, it’s the heat, and tonight is especially warm,” Jane admitted. “I finished the water I’d taken up to my room and came downstairs to get more, but it was so much cooler here I thought I’d sit awhile.” She rose, took a glass from the cupboard, and set it down in front of Martha.

  Martha swiped away a limp lock of hair that fell in front of her eyes before taking her seat again. “I’m hoping you’ll be able to tell me that my daughter is back home again.”

  “You’ll be happy to know that she is. Or at least she was. She stopped by the day before yesterday to tell us that she and Dr. McMillan were leaving for a few days to visit her Uncle James and Aunt Lydia in Sunrise, but that she was hoping you’d be back home again by the time they returned. In fact, there’s a letter from her that came some weeks ago waiting for you upstairs in your room. And you have several letters from Mr. Dillon waiting for you to read, too. From all I’ve heard around town, he’s been delayed in New York, and I don’t think he’s expected back for a good while yet. I put all your letters in your room to keep them safe.”

  Overjoyed to learn that her daughter had returned from her honeymoon, she was equally disappointed that their reunion would be postponed for a few days, though it pleased her Victoria had gone to visit family in Sunrise. Martha also couldn’t deny she was relieved to know of Thomas’s delay. “How on earth did you get Wesley Sweet to turn over my mail to you?”

  Laughing, Jane shook her head. “I didn’t. Mr. Fancy did. He used the note you’d written out once before, giving him permission to collect your mail, as well as your daughter’s. Since you keep such irregular hours and might return when the general store is closed, he said he wanted your correspondence to be here waiting for you so you wouldn’t have to wait to collect it.”

  Martha furrowed her brow for a moment before she smiled. “I’d forgotten all about writing that note for Fancy. I hope Bird didn’t cause any trouble for you while I was gone.”