Beyond: Book Four of the State Series

by M. J. Kaestli

  Ruth cried out and gripped the sheets again. Once the contraction was over, she laid and sobbed. There were no words which could be said that could change this or make it better.

  “Hope, do it now.”

  Hope jumped up and ran to the sink, vomiting bile. She wiped her mouth but stayed hunched over the sink as her entire body shook. “I can’t.”

  “You can and you will! This is your job, Hope. There is not a midwife in history which hasn’t had to do this. It will never get any easier; you just have to do it.”

  Hope shook her head, refusing to look back at her. “No, I can’t and I won’t”

  “You’re going to kill her, Hope! She’s going to die because you won’t do what needs to be done. This is a natural part of life! It’s just a fact. Not all babies make it into this world. You already know the baby won’t make it, so now your job is to save the mother.”

  Her entire body was trembling. She tightly gripped the sink for support and couldn’t let go.

  There were two choices when a baby was obstructed: save the baby, or save the mother. To save the baby, she needed to break the mother’s pelvis to enable the baby passage. The mother would die, but the baby might still deliver healthy and strong. The other option was more gruesome than she could consider. It still involved bones breaking, but it wasn’t the mother’s bones which would have to give. This action guaranteed the baby would die, but it was more likely to fit through the birth canal.

  “I can’t.”

  Miriam cursed and moved quickly. The deed was done in moments and Ruth cried out as the baby shifted position.

  “Is my baby dead?”

  “It was never really alive, and it never had a chance. Even if you could have carried full term, your hips aren’t ready to spread enough for a baby. Maybe you can learn from this and make your girls wait to get married, unlike your parents.”

  Hope retched into the sink again. This time, her sickens came from Miriam’s words. It was one thing for her to speak to Hope so cruelly, but it was wrong to say such things to this poor girl at a time like this. A deep burning in her gut manifested. Miriam had always rubbed her the wrong way with her abrupt and judgmental nature, but this was a new low.

  Ruth screamed out, and Miriam instructed her to push.

  “Good. I can see the head now. Just one or two more of those and you’ll be done.”

  “My baby,” Ruth sobbed.

  “Hope, pull yourself together and come help her.”

  She wiped her mouth clean and the tears from her cheeks. Somehow on her shaky legs, she walked over to Ruth, taking her hand just as another contraction came.

  Ruth pushed again and Miriam with her experienced hands deftly removed the small, limp figure. She quickly wrapped the lifeless body in a sheet.

  “Good job, Ruth. It’s all over now.”

  “Can I see my baby?”

  “No. We never let you see it after an obstruction. It’s best to just let it go, Ruth.”

  “Was it a girl or a boy?”

  “Ruth, I’ve seen this enough, you don’t want to know. It will only give you nightmares if you see it, hold it, name it or know the gender. Just accept it’s gone, and let’s focus on keeping you healthy so you can try again.”

  Miriam stood and walked over to the door and called Hope to her. Once Hope approached, Miriam handed the little bundle to her. “Here, you have to take care of it. I need to stay here to make sure your negligence doesn’t kill her.”

  She didn’t want to be the one to have to bury it; she didn’t want to even see it. If she were allowed to simply place the swaddled mass in the ground, it might be okay. As the fabric was too precious, they always buried their dead naked regardless of age or size. She would have to see it. She would know if it had in fact been a girl or a boy, and she would have to see how the procedure had left it disfigured.

  Miriam may have spared Ruth from her nightmares, but she gave them to Hope instead.

  Chapter 20

  The sun was rising as Hope began the long walk towards her home. She had finished with the burial of little Mark, and on trembling weak legs, she pushed forward. Her entire body was weakened; she couldn’t walk far before she needed to stop for a break, resting on the cold, hard ground.

  Although she knew logically Joshua was right to go home and sleep, she resented having to make this walk alone. Miriam shouldn’t have made her dispose of Mark’s body. Hope shouldn’t have had to see the disfigured little body when she herself was expecting. Most women started their midwife training before they got married, and especially before they conceive. They would become at least a little desensitized to losing a baby before starting a family of their own.

  What Miriam had done was wrong. As she was a woman of reasonable intelligence, Hope figured she had done all of this out of spite. Miriam would always treat her horribly because she was more intelligent and an outsider. It was as simple as that. Until Miriam died or was too old to continue with her duties, she would do whatever she could to make Hope’s life as miserable as possible. It was so clear to her now. Hope had thought Miriam spreading rumors about her and Reuben had come from a genuine concern for his wife, but she knew better now. Miriam had taken a disliking to her before they met. Everything Miriam had done since had been a product of her feelings of disdain.

  A more horrible thought then struck her: How can I trust Miriam to deliver my baby? Would Miriam go so far as to hurt me or my baby? Would she increase my chances of infection? It is common enough for women to die in childbirth. Would she be purposefully negligent to get rid of me?

  Hope’s tears suddenly dried as a crippling fear took over her. Her entire body quivered as she replayed the images in her mind. Her breathing became raspy and strained. She tipped over on her side and curled up in the fetal position as her body shook, her teeth chattered, and spasms radiated from her core. Her mind lost the concept of where she was or what she was doing, where she was meant to be. All her mind could comprehend was that little broken body in her arms.

  She didn’t hear or see Joshua approach. Before she realized he was there, he had swept her into his arms. He carried her the rest of the way to their home and lay her out on their bed. He pulled the blankets up around her, tucking her in securely and then kissed her hand.

  “I’ll go fetch Miriam and have her look you over.”

  Her eyes bugged as a tension locked her entire body in a rigid position. She squeezed his hand with all her might. “No, don’t. Please no,” Hope shook her head manically back and forth. “No! Not Miriam. I can’t have her near me.” Her body convulsed in a sob, but she refused to release Joshua’s hand.

  He hesitated momentarily and sat on the edge of the bed. She nestled her damp face into his hand and he carefully maneuvered to lay next to her while not removing his hand from hers. They lay together while she cried. She couldn’t tell if it had been an hour, a minute, a day. She cried until there were no more tears left inside of her.

  Once her tears lessened, Joshua gingerly took his hand away to fetch her some water. He gently encouraged her to sit up and drink. The trembling in her core lessened. Joshua crawled into bed next to her and they lay intertwined while she drifted off to sleep.

  It was the mid afternoon when Hope woke up again. Looking down at little Mark’s body was the last image in her mind when she fell asleep and the first thing she saw as she woke. Her chest clenched and she fought back the urge to once again retreat into the fetal position and weep. Joshua was in the kitchen and she needed to talk to him: now.

  She threw the covers off and jumped up so quickly her head spun as she walked into the kitchen area. His head snapped in her direction upon hearing her wild raspy breath.

  “Hope, what are you doing up? I think you should go back to bed. I’ll bring you something to eat.”

  “No. We have to leave. Let’s pack right now and just go somewhere else, somewhere new.”

  Joshua grabbed her hands and gently urged her back into the bed. “You ju
st need some rest. I know you had a hard night last night.” He guided her down on the bed and rubbed her head. “You just need more rest. I’m gonna take care of you, don’t worry about a thing.”

  The soothing nature of his touch and words brought the emotions she was trying to control to the surface. Her body trembled and shook again with sobs and she could hardly speak. It would be nearly impossible to make him listen to her if she couldn’t properly speak for herself.

  “We have to go. I can’t stay here. I can’t do this.”

  He shifted so he could properly embrace her while still stroking her hair and face. “Miriam said the first time will be the hardest. She said you would need a bit of time to get yourself back together.”

  She nearly tasted bile as he said Miriam’s name. “When did you talk to her?”

  “I popped out this morning while you were sleeping. Everyone knows what happened and you need a little break.”

  “Is Ruth okay?”

  “Physically, yes. There was no harm done. Miriam said you did a great job with what you did and she should have no trouble with her next baby.”

  “She said I did a good job?” Hope knew this wasn’t the right thing to focus on but her stomach sunk as she heard him say the words Miriam supposedly passed on.

  How could Miriam bully her last night yet tell Joshua and the rest of the village she had done a good job? Only the three of them would know what had really been said, what she had accused her of—and Ruth could be too grief stricken to remember. It seemed the vile words were for her benefit alone. The people in the community knew she was clever, which meant Miriam could only call her a whore and spread rumors about her to soil her name since she couldn’t accuse her of making a mistake or being slow. What Miriam said to her last night wasn’t completely true either. She hadn’t thought about it in the heat of the moment, but she hadn’t let Ruth’s labor go on too long. She had simply tried to get Ruth to deliver instead of immediately assuming the worst.

  She focused on evening out her breathing to lessen her tears. He needed to hear her out and to understand she was thinking clearly.

  “I will never have a life here. Miriam hates me and wants to make my life miserable. I don’t trust her to deliver our baby.”

  “Now Hope, I know Miriam’s been a bit of a gossip around town, but she wouldn’t hurt you or our baby. She said it’s hard to lose your first baby, even harder as you’re expecting yourself—”

  “Please. I can’t do this. I can’t do what she told me to do. I wasn’t cut out for this. If we run away, we can start a life just the two of us. There is so much land, so many places we could go. Maybe we could even go to live with Clint’s people. If we did, then I could help them build and help with the war—I would be more useful there than I am here.”

  “We can’t go anywhere when you have a baby on the way.” He squeezed her hand. “You’ve just got to have faith.”

  “Faith? Faith in what? You think God will keep Miriam from hurting me and our baby?”

  “Faith we’ll get through this. It will all work out, you’ll see. Please, Hope, just get some rest.” He resumed gently stroking her head and back. “I promise you, it will be a little better tomorrow, and a little better the day after and the day after that. Ruth knows you did everything you could to save that baby, but it just came too soon.”

  “That baby could have lived but Miriam wouldn’t even give it a chance!” Her words came out much sharper than she intended but her mind was manically shifting from terror to rage. “She should have given us more time. I didn’t get to try to pump air into the baby because she killed him before I had the chance.”

  “Hope, she explained what happened. She did what is always done when the mother can’t deliver and the baby doesn’t have a good chance of making it.”

  “But none of this should have happened! If we had the right medicine, we could have saved him. The people in Idaho are more advanced than we are here. I don’t know if they can deliver a baby like inside the dome, but there they could have cut Ruth open to take the baby out giving me a chance to make it breathe. We will never have those options here—especially not with Miriam in charge. I don’t want her to examine me again, let alone deliver our baby.” She turned to face him, squeezing his hand. “We can make it. We just pack up enough food, ask Clint for directions of how to get there and we go.”

  Joshua wrapped around her and pulled her head into his chest, stroking her hair again to calm her. “Hope, you should rest. We can’t go anywhere right now with winter just around the corner. I’m sure you will feel different once you get some rest. If you still aren’t happy here next spring, we’ll have a chat with Clint and see what we can work out.”

  A numbness washed over her. Winter was quickly approaching, something she hadn’t considered. He was right, they couldn’t leave now. She had no choice but to let the woman who hated her deliver her baby. There was no way out.

  Chapter 21

  Joshua kissed her goodbye as he left in the morning. Hope was granted permission to take a few days, as though that was enough to recover from such a trauma. Will Miriam send me to take care of every obstructed baby?

  She stayed in bed after Joshua left for a few minutes to make sure he was really gone. She jumped out of bed and frantically packed their picnic basket. There were only a few items in the basket containing sparse amounts of food and water. The main contents of her basket were items which she had hidden when first arriving at Joshua’s house: her hazmat suit and clothing she wore underneath.

  A small voice was nagging in the back of her mind, telling her not to do it, that she couldn’t leave Joshua, but she kept arguing with that voice. She couldn’t go to Idaho, and she couldn’t stay here. She had but one other choice.

  The thought of leaving Joshua made her chest ache, but he wouldn’t take a chance in leaving this community. He wasn’t prepared to be the man she needed him to be—he would never run away with her. She knew that even if she could survive staying in this community for the winter, he would create excuse after excuse of why they should stay. The reality was, why should he go? The only thing ever missing from his life was a wife. He had his family and was a respected member of the community. He loved their religious rituals and wouldn’t want to go somewhere which didn’t follow the same practices.

  She loved him. She loved him as much if not more than she had loved Weston, but it wasn’t enough. There was no life here for her, especially not as a midwife. Hope knew she was taking her life into her own hands by leaving, yet she felt as though the odds were equally stacked against her. If she went back, they may execute her for treason. If she stayed here, she may lose her baby and possibly her life delivering. When she had first learned the environment was safe to inhabit, she was angry at the State and wanted to destroy them. Now, choosing between living a lie or living here with Miriam as her tormentor, the lie seemed the lesser of the two evils.

  Her life had been decent in the mountain. She had been fed and clothed, and she did work which was important to her and she enjoyed. Everything was a fabrication, one which she would have to conceal her knowledge to survive. It would be tricky, it would be difficult, but if her baby wasn’t born, she could never live with herself, knowing it would have had a chance if she had run.

  As she double-checked her basket to ensure she had everything she needed, she noticed her chalkboard sitting idly by. Her fingers rapidly flew across the board as she scratched a brief message in the limited space.

  My Dearest Joshua,

  I love you, and I will for as long as I’m alive but I can not stay here.

  Please, move on with your life as though I am dead.

  I have gone where you can not follow, back to my people.

  Hope

  She took one look around her home and said goodbye. A few tears ran down her cheeks as she thought of Joshua and the love she was leaving behind. She silently wished he would find someone new, that he would have the life he deserved with the kind o
f woman who would make a better wife than she ever could. Someone who would fit in and enjoy their life and their role in this community. Someone who could cook and be happy to simply raise his children, who enjoyed going to church and reading the Bible. Someone who wouldn’t try to get him involved with a war he didn’t truly believe in.

  The information they had already passed along would help Clint and his people, and she hoped Reuben would continue to stay in communication with him and work to change the mindset of the community when the time came. She was not the one to make those changes as they already saw her as being problematic. There was nothing more she could do to support the war but to hope she and her baby would survive it.

  A plan had already formed in her mind and she knew what she had to do to get back in. All she needed was the courage to leave and to focus and repress her emotions in order to deceive the State. She had one tool, one asset to work with when it came to the authority figures in the mountain: she was smarter than they were, and she would use every lie, every rouse and half-truth they had ever fabricated against them.