Arms Wide Open

by Patricia Harman

  Forced March

  “Stay right behind me,” I order as I pull the baby carrier over my shoulders and open the door. “Call if I’m going too fast or you fall.” I hand Stacy the walking stick that Leila left last solstice, a stout oak pole, and then I strap on his snowshoes. He’s still so feeble I had to dress him. Mica’s as hot as a firecracker.

  In the night, three inches of new snow has drifted in swirls over the trail and the going is rough, so I break out in song to cheer us. We are marching to Pretoria, Pretoria . . . Pretoria . . . My voice rings through the frigid air. March with me. I’ll March with you. Who do I think I’m kidding? My grandmother might have lived like this as a pioneer in Ontario, but I’m not cut out for it.

  I stomp along on our secondhand snowshoes, my chest tearing with each raspy breath, and turn to let Stacy catch up. He plods with his head down, gazing numbly at my tracks. In the swamp where the trail dips into the gulley, we startle four quail out of the snow. They fly up in our faces and make Mica cry. Twice I fall and pick myself up. The ice gets into my mittens.

  While I’m down, I notice what a beautiful morning it is. The air is so still and the half moon tilts, silver, in the pale blue sky. Two pink clouds hover on the edge of the sunrise.

  The last time I tumble, I twist my snowshoes and drop off the packed path into powder. I’m floundering around, trying to get my footing, one snowshoe twisted behind the other, when Stacy leans over and reaches out for me. “We’ve got to keep moving,” he states, more like his old stalwart self. “If we miss Rob out on Dahl Road, I’m not sure how we’ll make it to town. It’s too cold to hitchhike.”

  Yellow light creeps up the birch trees as we hit the end of the plowed road. There’s no light in Barney and Ila’s house, no smoke from the chimney, and I remember they said they were going to her sister’s in St. Paul. A mile farther and we’re standing in front of Rob’s faded blue trailer, just in time. He’s already warming up the truck, and white smoke billows out of the tailpipe.

  Forty minutes later, we’re tottering unsteadily up the shoveled cement walk toward Chester Creek House. Patrick spies us out the front bowed window and he and Aaron rush to the door. The smell of coffee and whole-wheat toast washes over us and we collapse into the loving arms of our friends.

  Leila and Courtney pull off our stiff coats, put palms on our foreheads as mothers do, rub our cold hands between theirs. Jimmy takes Mica out of his carrier. “Shit! This baby is burning up,” he observes. “This kid is sick!”

  Holy Water

  Home again, Stacy and I, dressed in our long johns, are doing yoga before breakfast, stretching up to the high-peaked ceiling, then down to our toes, then way back again, like a bow, saluting the sun. We delight in feeling our bodies strong after a week of rest at Chester Creek House. Eventually I, too, succumbed to the fever and then recovered. I never before understood how people could die of influenza. Now I know. The three of us alone out here in the woods, it could happen.

  “Hellooo!” comes a male voice from the clearing. “Helloooooo!” with an edge of desperation. “Anyone there?”

  We quickly pull on our jeans and sweatshirts and bounce down the stairs to find Frog, Jody’s partner, at the door. As soon as he comes into the cabin, his wire-rim glasses steam from the warmth and he lays them on the wooden kitchen counter before he speaks. “Jody told me I should come for you. It’s started.”

  I begin to gather my things, my rainbow scarf and boots and a tattered paperback copy of Childbirth without Fear. I wasn’t expecting Jody to go into labor so soon. A quick mental calculation and I realize that she’s thirty-eight weeks. At the door, I kiss Stacy. Then Mica. Our one-year-old is still nursing, but he gets most of his nutrition from table food.

  “See you tomorrow,” I say optimistically. “Mama’s got to go help Frog and Jody get a baby.” I give Stacy another distracted kiss on the side of his cheek. He grabs my hand and squeezes.

  I’m looking forward to participating in a birth. The only one I’ve seen so far was my own, in a mirror.

  With this break in winter’s grip, water is everywhere. It wets the dark trunks of the maples and oaks. It drips from the tips of the fir needles and the blackberry bushes. It bubbles through the swamp where we cross the creek. Frog and I slog back along the thawing trail without talking.

  Thirty minutes later we’re in his old truck. The sky’s dotted with horsetail clouds from horizon to horizon, and the half-frozen road is slick with mud. I try to make small talk.

  “How’s Jody doing?” I shout over the roar of the motor.

  “Don’t know. Been gone almost two hours wandering around in the woods looking for you.” He says this like I was purposely hiding.

  For three miles there’s more silence, and I take the opportunity to observe my driver. Frog’s high cheekbones and thin nose speak of aristocratic ancestors. I think of rich landlords in Spain or Italy. His gentle mouth curves over his straight white teeth, but he doesn’t smile. No beard, but a five o’clock shadow.

  We bounce down Zimmerman, another gravel road, to his two-room wooden shack. Smoke drifts out of the tin stovepipe, but the front windows are still covered with frost. Frog pulls into the side drive and leaves the truck running.

  “You go on in, I’ve got to make a run to Aesop’s farm out on Lavis for some milk and eggs.”

  “Now? You won’t be gone long will you? What if it’s time to go to the hospital?”

  “I’ll just be away a few minutes.” You’d think he’d want to check on Jody’s progress before he left.

  When I enter, the enclosed wooden front porch is chilly and smells of cedar. Jackets, snowshoes, and hats of all kinds hang on the inner wall, and split wood is stacked up everywhere. A black lab leaps up to greet me.

  “Jody?”

  On the other side of the wall, Bob Dylan sings on the stereo in his reedy voice. Something about a girl from the North Country. Fitting, I think. The inner door flies back, almost hitting me.

  “Sorry,” Jody laughs. “Were you standing there long? I was just building up the fire . . . Where’s Frog?” She stuffs the piece of cedar into the heater stove, then pushes down on her knees to hoist her heavy body erect. From her good cheer I deduce she’s not in hard labor.

  “He said he had to make a run for milk and eggs to some farm out on Lavis Road. You doin’ OK?” The tall, pregnant woman is dressed in a blue calico skirt that comes down to her ankles, and a green turtleneck sweater. Her straight blond hair is twisted up on her head.

  I can’t help comparing us. I wear jeans, heavy work boots, and a red flannel shirt with my hair in two braids, a good-looking, healthy peasant farmwoman, but Jody is regal, a match for Lord Frog. I could be her maidservant, she the lady of the manor; only, this wooden bungalow is hardly a castle.

  I take in the room. A chaotic collection of impressionist oil paintings depicting bleak northern landscapes covers the whitewashed wooden walls. Worn oriental carpets are spread on the floor. An easel sits in the corner. “Did Frog paint these? He’s very talented.”

  Jody raises one eyebrow. “Talented yes, when he works, but it’s not milk he’s going after. It’s pot. He’s almost out. And yeah, I’m fine. A little tired.” So much for husband-coached childbirth.

  The mother-to-be stops, tilts her head, and stares into space. “Here comes one now.” I pick up an old wristwatch with one leather band that rests on top of The Emergency Childbirth Manual and place my hand on Jody’s belly. The mild pain lasts thirty seconds, and a long day stretches before us. “You slept last night, didn’t you?”

  “Not much. After my water broke, I was too excited, but I finally drifted off for a few hours this morning.”

  “Your water broke? Frog didn’t tell me. Did you ever get to the Health Department?” Jody shakes her head no and, smoothing her skirt, avoids my eyes. “I couldn’t get in.
They only do prenatal visits on Friday, and Frog had the truck.”

  “Did you at least call the doctor . . . ?” I’m interrupted by the sound of a motor in the drive and the slam of the truck door. Frog comes in whistling.

  “How’s it going, ladies?” He gives Jody a kiss, all jolly now. It must be good dope. Jody twists away. Then she gets that faraway look in her eye again and starts rubbing her abdomen.

  “Six minutes apart that time,” I announce. I wait, and watch, as the square of sunlight from the six-paned window creeps across the floor. Frog makes us raspberry tea. He offers me a joint, but I decline.

  “You got around to calling Dr. Leppink, didn’t you, Jody?” No answer. “Jody?”

  Frog picks up his guitar and croons in a reedy tenor. Take this road to the dawn’s early light . . .

  “I tried, but they were already closed and then I forgot. I don’t want to go to the hospital.” Another contraction and I realize the pains are coming four minutes apart now. This is crazy . . . The woman has had no prenatal care and no doctor or midwife lined up for the delivery. How did I get involved in this mess?

  Another contraction and Jody’s eyes get big. “Mmmmph. That one was hard.”

  “Jody?” I touch her face. “What do you mean you don’t want to go to the hospital? This is nuts. Your water’s been broken for almost twenty hours and we don’t even know if the baby’s head-down. If it’s breech we’re in trouble.” Jody moans again. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “I don’t want to go. We can do it here. You’ll help me.”

  I stare around the room as if the walls and the paintings could give me some help.

  “Maybe we can stay here for a little while longer, but I’m telling you, I’m not delivering this baby, and neither is Frog.”

  Jody bends low and groans. “Here comes more fluid.” She holds her skirt up between her legs like a woman stomping grapes.

  “Towels!” I order Frog, who gets to his feet and saunters into a back room.

  For the next two hours, Jody paces, Frog strums his guitar, and I worry. Time halts during contractions and then starts up again. Around five, I notice perspiration on Jody’s top lip and she won’t talk to me anymore. She sways back and forth, her eyes closed.

  “Jody, I really think your labor is progressing. Do you have gloves, like exam gloves? Maybe I should try to check you.”

  “I was gonna get some at the drugstore next week. I have alcohol though. You could wash your hands in that.”

  “Yeah, I got some booze,” adds Frog with a grin, and I give him a look. Seventh-grader.

  “OK, where’s the rubbing alcohol? I’ll wash my hands in it and make sure the head’s coming, but I’m telling you again we have to get out of here in the next hour or so.” Jody bends low and groans. I’m remembering my friends Joshua and Sunny, who tried to deliver their own infant at home on Tolstoy Farm in Washington. This was after we left the West Coast for the Committee for Non-Violent Action farm in Connecticut, where we lived with Colin. The baby was breech and he died.

  I have imagined so many times the parents’ horror, seeing little blue feet coming out when they expected a head, hearing silence instead of the newborn’s first cry, holding a cold, gray baby without a heartbeat instead of a warm, pink one.

  “Here comes more water.” Jody holds her skirt up again.

  “More towels!” I order Frog, who gets to his feet and again shuffles into the back room.

  “Jody, come over here and lie down. I’m going to check you.” I pat the bed. “If the baby is headfirst and you aren’t much dilated, we can stay here another few hours. Where’s the alcohol?”

  “Dresser!” Jody barks.

  I wait until she’s done with her next contraction, then stand over the sink and pour the clear, cold liquid on my two longest fingers. Jody spreads her legs.

  I have no clue what I’m feeling for. What makes me think I can find her cervix? Then I feel resistance, something round and hard like a gritty potato. “It’s a head,” I announce with relief, sure of myself now. “And I swear it has hair!”

  “Boy or girl?” Frog asks, deadpan. He’s got to be kidding.

  I probe around some more, trying to estimate the width of the cervix, the elastic opening of the uterus. Jody is patient with me but when I feel the head push down during a contraction she moans. The cervix thins and I feel it now. My fingers can open about the width of a small tangerine, about six centimeters, more than halfway. I pull out and wash at the sink. “Frog, sit on the bed and hold Jody’s hand or do something useful.”

  “I’ll get some wood.”

  “No, you hold her hand. I’ll get the wood!”

  HAWK

  I throw on my coat, needing fresh air to think. If we don’t get moving, this baby’s going to come. Outside, there’s a clear lavender sky and a quarter moon rising. It will be dark soon and will take us almost two hours, across slush-covered country roads, to get to Two Harbors.

  There are closer hospitals in Duluth, but I know for certain that if we go to St. Luke’s or St. Mary’s, the birth will turn into a medieval torture scene. Frog and I will be pushed aside and Jody whisked away into the white bowels of the hospital. She will be splayed out, flat on her back, on a delivery table in a sterile operating room, her legs up in stirrups, her arms and hands tied down, surrounded by strangers.

  I told the couples in my childbirth class to stay home as long as they could, but we may be cutting it too close. To get my friends out of this shack will take momentous effort. It would be easier to let Jody stay here. As she says, this is the way women have been having babies for millions of years. She’s young and healthy . . . but if something bad happens . . .

  I lean my forehead against a tree for strength and take in a big breath, then I load my arms with split cedar, stomp into the shack, and dump the firewood on the floor with a crash. I have no idea if this will work, but I must try.

  “Frog,” I say with authority, “go warm up the truck.” The man stares at me like I’m the bad witch from Oz. “I mean now! Take any money you’ve got stashed. We’re going to Two Harbors Hospital.”

  In an hour and a half, the lights of the small lakeside town come into view. “I have to push!” Jody growls and grips my hand.

  “It’s the first stoplight, Frog. Turn left and pull into the hospital entrance. Don’t push yet, Jody! It’s not time. It can’t be time. You’ll tear your cervix. Blow, like this.”

  Frog runs a red light, turns wide with a screech, and we’re under the emergency room canopy.

  “Blow, Jody. Blow.” I get in Jody’s face while the delivery-room nurses pull off her skirt. “The doctor will be here any minute.” Frog is mute, transfixed by the row of gleaming silver instruments arranged on the sterile table. “Blow, Jody.”

  The delivery room doors swing open and Dr. Leppink, in scrubs, with a pale green surgical hat and a cloth mask over his lower face, steps in with confidence. He pulls on his latex gloves and sits down on a rolling stool. “It’s OK now,” he says softly. “Urge to push?”

  With Jody’s next effort, the top of a small hairy head peeks out. Three contractions later, a red wrinkled infant lies in the OB’s arms.

  A nurse wraps the baby in a white flannel blanket and hands it to Jody. I stand in the back of the delivery room with my arm around Frog as he wipes his tears. The light is now golden and a string quartet plays in my mind, music of holiness.

  “You’ve got a nice healthy boy.” Leppink grins at Jody. He strips off his gloves and shakes hands with Frog, then jerks his head to one side and indicates I should follow him. He’s not smiling now.

  We stand in the green-tiled corridor. “Patsy, you convinced the nurse she’s my patient, but I’ve never seen her before.”

  I flinch, my mouth dry. “I know. I tried to get J
ody to make an appointment, but your secretary said she’d need money up front and she didn’t have it. I told her you’d make some arrangement, but when she called back, the woman said you were booked. Jody got discouraged and never tried again.”

  I’m talking fast now, trying to make my excuses. “When I ended up at her house today and found she was in active labor, with no one to care for her, I took a chance you’d come if they called you, otherwise she was going to have it at home and I’d be in deep shit. I’m no midwife.” I cringe at my language and wait for his reaction, staring up at him. He’s a tall, graying Scandinavian with a long face, a ringer for the actor who played Death in the Swedish movie The Seventh Seal.

  Leppink shakes his head. “Well, she made it. Any later and you would have been a midwife. I’ll talk to her tomorrow about the charges.” He moves away, his shoulders stooped, but turns back, raising his eyebrows. “When you think about it, the delivery didn’t take more than ten minutes. I’ll give them a break on my fee.”

  The way things turned out, I thought afterwards, we could have had the baby at home, but you never know . . . There might have been a cord around the neck or some other complication. You never know . . . do you?

  They named the baby Hawk.

  CHAPTER 8

  Sap Rising

  Daylight and dark now reign equally after six months of Minnesota winter. Stacy and I both suffer the shits again and are having a hard time getting along. I blame myself for not boiling the water, but we’ve never had trouble before.

  At night in bed, we curl away from each other, read our separate books, Walden by Henry David Thoreau for me, Living the Good Life by Helen and Scott Nearing for him. Then we blow out the kerosene light. Everything irritates. The scrape of a spoon on a plate, the thud of firewood dropped on the floor. We’re polite but distant, play with Mica but don’t play together.

  The problem is we’re together all the time, cramped in this little log cabin. We’ve forgotten what we love about each other and we’re restless. This must be what the old-timers call cabin fever.