Midwives (1997)

by Bohjalian, Chris

  Chapter 19.

  I don't toss and turn, it's not like that. Sometimes I don't even remember listening to Rand's breathing for hours, feeling the heat from his body under the blanket. But in the morning, it's often like I haven't slept. I'm cranky and tired and I go to rooms that are empty and cry.

  Stephen says Charlotte's sister doesn't hate me. But he's not a woman, he's never been through labor. He's never seen life surge into a room at birth.

  On this one he's wrong.

  --from the notebooks of Sibyl Danforth, midwife

  I WANTED STEPHEN TO TEAR Tierney apart. I knew the medical examiner had been a devastating witness; I understood how powerful his testimony had been: He sounded intelligent and authoritative; he seemed unassailably reasonable. He looked good on the witness stand.

  But I also understood that if Tierney's damage could be undone, most of the repair work would have to wait until the following week, when Stephen would put our own "experts" on the stand. Then, I hoped, everyone in the courtroom would see that Dr. Tierney was merely the Vermont coroner. He wasn't from Boston or New York City or Washington, D.C. Tierney's opinion was only one among many, and his was most certainly mistaken: Eventually the jury would be convinced that Charlotte Bedford had been dead beyond question when my mother decided to rescue little Veil.

  Stephen, of course, would curry no favor with an Orleans County jury by undermining Tierney simply because he was from Vermont. And so most of his strategy during his cross-examination of the medical examiner late Friday afternoon was simply to lay the groundwork for his own forensic pathologists, and to suggest that there was going to be wide room for disagreement.

  "You testified that Mrs. Bedford had about seven hundred and fifty milliliters of blood in her abdomen. Am I correct?" he asked at one point.

  "About that, yes."

  "If someone approached you and said a woman had died as a result of a cesarean section done under ... under these circumstances, wouldn't you have expected more blood?"

  Tanner stood to object, arguing that it was ridiculous to ask the coroner to conjecture about a hypothetical situation when there was an actual cesarean to discuss, but the judge allowed Stephen to proceed.

  "Seven hundred and fifty milliliters is a good amount of blood," Tierney answered.

  "But ... but ... if someone told you a woman had died from a C-section ... wouldn't you have expected to find more than that?"

  Tierney thought for a long moment. Finally: "I might have."

  "Thank you. If you wanted categorical ... indisputable ... irrefutable proof that a cesarean section had been the cause of death, how many milliliters of blood would you want to discover in the abdominal cavity?"

  Tierney nodded his head slightly as he pondered his response. "Perhaps one thousand," he said.

  "Was there that much blood in Charlotte Bedford's abdominal cavity?"

  "No."

  "Thank you," Stephen said, and he started back to his table. "No further questions." For a brief second I thought this would mark the end of the day--and, therefore, the week--and I grew excited. This seemed to be a wonderful note on which to send the jurors home for the weekend.

  But before Stephen had even retaken his chair, Tanner was on his feet for the prosecution's redirection.

  "Two quick questions, Dr. Tierney, if I may," he began. "Given everything else you learned from the autopsy, and given the huge amounts of blood that were found outside of the abdominal cavity--such as all that blood Mrs. Danforth soaked up with the pillow--was seven hundred and fifty milliliters enough to convince you that the cesarean had been the cause of death?"

  "Yes, most certainly."

  "Given all of your experience, and all of the time you have spent on this particular case, do you believe the cause of death was the cesarean section performed by the defendant?"

  "Yes, I do."

  "Thank you," Tanner said, and Judge Dorset looked up at the clock on the far wall. It was well after five, and the first week of my mother's trial was about to be gaveled to a close.

  Before we all left the courthouse and went our separate ways Friday evening, Stephen tried to reassure my parents that this would be the low point of the trial for us--literally, in terms of what my mother's prospects for acquittal appeared to be, as well as emotionally. After all, the State had presented virtually its entire case--the only remaining witness was the widower himself--while we hadn't even begun our defense.

  Stephen warned us that during the weekend we could find ourselves preoccupied with what the jury was thinking, and we could become alarmed.

  "Remember, there's still a long way to go," he said, and although I wanted to believe him, his reassurance was in conflict with another point I'd heard him make at least a half-dozen times: Our defense would take considerably less time than the prosecution's version. All we needed to do was plant reasonable doubt, and while--to use his metaphor--he wanted to be sure the roots were healthy and secure, he said doubt in this instance was one tough and sturdy little shrub.

  The last thing he said before he climbed into his car was that he'd see us on Sunday, when he and Peter were going to come by and help my mother rehearse her testimony and prepare for the cross-examination.

  As we drove back to Reddington, my mother asked me how I was doing, and I lied and said fine. Actually, I was fighting back tears. But my parents accepted my response at face value, and that was the extent of our conversation the whole ride home. A combination of fear and exhaustion prevented them from dissecting the testimony we'd heard that day or exploring the quiver that had crept into my voice.

  As we approached our house, we saw in our headlights a conga line of parked cars just to the side of our driveway. The bumper sticker on the back of the last vehicle, a rusting pickup truck, signaled to all of us who had descended upon our home: MIDWIVES DO IT ANYWHERE!

  The Vermont midwives, some of whom must have left the courthouse before Dr. Tierney finished his particularly lethal interpretation of events, had brought us dinner. Cheryl and Molly and Donelle and Megan and Tracy--names that will always conjure for me effusive women who hugged on sight, and could love without question or reservation or inhibition--had come to rally around my mother. Our stereo was blasting an eclectic dance tape that had Abba following the Shirelles, and Joni Mitchell beside Janis Joplin. The dining-room table was draped in a sky-blue tablecloth, and covered with candles, casseroles, and baskets of freshly baked bread.

  Even Cheryl Visco, whose frequent presence at our house throughout the summer had come to annoy my father and me, was a welcome sight. She was as beautiful and powerful as ever, despite a week slouched in a bench in a courtroom: Her massive gray hair managed at once to sparkle like new metal, yet look as soft to the touch as cashmere, and her eyes went wide with joy when she saw us.

  She wrapped her arms around me first, before even greeting my mother, as if performing an emotional triage by instinct.

  "You are just too thin, even for a track star," she whispered into my ear.

  "You're one to talk," I said.

  When the other midwives saw we'd arrived, along with their partners and husbands and--in some cases--children, they started to clap for my mother. Cheryl put an arm around her shoulder and led her into the dining room as my father and I trailed a step behind them. Suddenly someone had stopped applauding long enough to give my mother a glass of wine and my father a scotch, and someone else was handing me a cold soda. I looked up to thank whoever had offered me the glass, and I saw it was Tom Corts.

  "Want a beer instead? No one would care, you know," he said, and patted my shoulder in a way that was as sweet as it was awkward.

  "How did you know about this?" I asked.

  "Your mom's friend Cheryl called and got a hold of my mom," he answered, and motioned toward the older midwife.

  I looked at the way she had begun cradling my mother in both of her arms, and at the smile she had somehow elicited from her--the sort of broad grin we rarely saw from my mother th
ose days--and the tears I'd been fighting since we left the courthouse began streaming down my cheeks. My sobs were absolutely silent then, and in the chaos and joy that were filling our house no one but Tom was even aware that I was crying.

  "Hey, you're home," he said nervously, unsure why I was crying and what he should do. "Everything's going to be okay now."

  I shook my head, sure that nothing would ever be okay again. And then I took him by the hand and led him upstairs to my room, where I cried in his arms until all of my mother's friends finally left our house for the night, and the floor below us grew still.

  I hadn't seen Asa Bedford since before his son was born and his wife died. There were always rumors floating through the northern part of the county in the summer and early fall that he was visiting Lawson for one reason or another, and whenever someone saw a balding, redheaded father with a baby and a boy, they were likely to suspect for a moment that the poor fellow was back in the state. But aside from when he gave his deposition that summer, I doubt he had ever actually returned: His family and Charlotte's family were all in Alabama, and a single parent with two children to raise can use all the help he can get.

  When I saw him Monday morning, he looked like hell. Although he had never been a handsome man in my mind, he had always been so kind with Foogie and Charlotte--and so thoughtful of Rollie and me--that there was something attractive about him. It wasn't so much the pastoral serenity I've come across in other ministers in my life, as it was a profound sensitivity: I've no idea whether it was because of his apocalyptic leanings or in spite of them, but most of the time he was a very sweet man.

  The Asa Bedford who was about to testify, however, looked tired and beaten and unendurably sad. There were deep black bags beneath his eyes, and his face had grown lines. There were streaks of white amidst the frizzy red halo that rolled partway around his head like a horseshoe, and his pale skin was tinged by gray. He'd aged, and he'd aged badly.

  At the time I didn't know that the name Asa was the Hebrew word for physician, and I'm glad. Given the litany of doctors lined up against my mother, I probably would have taken the idea that Asa was one, too, as an extremely bad omen.

  Early into his testimony, Tanner elicited select details about the pastor's life since his wife had died: The daily logistics--the difficulties--of being a widower with children. His inability to sleep. The fact that he was still not emotionally ready to return to the pulpit. He spoke in a soft, halting voice that betrayed no animosity toward my mother, but Asa was as human as the rest of us, and there had to have been a sizable reservoir of rancor inside him.

  Then, as he had with Anne Austin, Tanner had the father recall step-by-step what he had witnessed the night and morning his son was born, building to key points he wanted to drive home for the jury.

  "And so you asked Mrs. Danforth to try again?" Tanner asked.

  "I just couldn't believe Charlotte had really ... passed away. I just couldn't believe it. So yes, I asked her to try and revive Charlotte again. I think I said something like 'Can't you do more CPR?'"

  Tanner nodded gently. As the morning had grown late and they had finally reached the moment in the story when Charlotte had died, Tanner had begun to speak very quietly, as if he wanted to make sure the jury understood that in addition to being a thorough and uncompromising protector of the People, he was also a gentle man who understood this was painful testimony for Asa Bedford. "What did Mrs. Danforth tell you?" he asked.

  "She said she--Charlotte--was gone. She said she wasn't coming back." Bedford's voice never broke, but some moments he sounded as if he was still in shock.

  "Did you believe her then?"

  "Yes, sir, I did. But it was still like I'd been hit hard in the stomach and had had all the wind knocked out of me. Right out of me. I could barely breathe, and I ... I remember I sort of sagged onto the floor and landed on my knees. I laid my head on Charlotte's chest, and I just stared up into her face. I just stared. I told her how much I loved her. Very much. Very, very much. And I told her how much I wanted her back."

  "Did you stay that way with your wife a long while?"

  "Oh, no. Not long enough. Not long at all. Mrs. Danforth said something like 'Let's move!' or 'Let's go!' At first I had no idea what she meant by that. I had no idea what she wanted to do. She sounded hysterical, and--"

  "Objection."

  "Sustained."

  "Reverend Bedford," Tanner said, "what did Mrs. Danforth do next? What did she say?"

  "Well, she was wiping her eyes and ... and flailing her arms. She kept saying, 'We don't have any time, we don't have any time!'"

  "What did you say?"

  "I asked her what she meant."

  "And she said?"

  "She said ... she said the baby only had a few minutes, and we had ... used them ... used most of them ... on Charlotte."

  "Did you understand then what Mrs. Danforth was planning?"

  "No. It just hadn't hit me. I think I even asked her, 'What are you going to do?'"

  "Did she tell you?"

  "Sort of. She said she was going to save the baby. I think her exact words were 'Save your baby.' But my Charlotte had just died, and the idea of saving my baby and ... cutting open Charlotte's stomach still weren't ... linked in my mind. When I finally made that link a couple seconds later--when it dawned on me why she wanted that knife--I asked her again if Charlotte was definitely ... dead."

  With his southern accent he drew two syllables out of the word dead, and I found myself wondering how many of the jurors were hearing a southern accent in person for the first time. After all, the first time I'd heard a southern accent was in the Bedfords' house.

  "And what did Mrs. Danforth tell you?"

  "She said 'Of course.'"

  "Meaning 'Of course she was dead.'"

  "That's right."

  "Did she ask you if you wanted her to try and save the baby?"

  "No, sir."

  "Did she ask you for your permission to perform a cesarean section on your wife?"

  "No, sir, she did not."

  "Before she began the cesarean, did you see Mrs. Danforth check to see if Charlotte had a pulse?"

  "No."

  "Did you see her check to see if there was a ... a heartbeat?"

  "No."

  "Did you see her do anything to confirm that Charlotte had indeed ... passed away?"

  "No."

  Tanner glanced briefly at my mother, shaking his head in disbelief. She turned away from him and gazed at the lake, while her mother--my grandmother--glared back at the state's attorney. My grandmother had grown angry that week, furious with anyone who would malign her daughter.

  "What about the baby?" Tanner then asked the pastor. "Did she check to see if there was a fetal heartbeat?"

  "You mean with the ..."

  "The Fetalscope."

  "No, sir, I did not see her do that."

  "So: You never saw her bother to confirm--"

  "Objection."

  "Sustained."

  "You never saw her confirm that Charlotte was dead or that the baby was alive before she began the C-section."

  "No."

  "She just plowed ahead."

  "Yes."

  "What did you do during the operation?"

  "I still thought Charlotte was ... had ... I still thought Charlotte had passed away, and I went to the window." He motioned toward the easel between his seat and the end of the jury box, which held an overhead drawing of the Bedfords' bedroom.

  "Did you watch?"

  "I watched some."

  "Did you see the first incision?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "What do you remember about it--that first incision?"

  "I remember the blood spurting," Bedford said, his voice rising for the first time during his testimony. "I remember seeing my Charlotte bleed."

  I had gotten used to seeing Charlotte's family in the courtroom by the second Monday of the trial. I wasn't ready to wave and say with a sympathetic sou
thern accent, "Hey, how ya doing?" but I no longer shied away from all eye contact. And as I glanced over there as their brother-in-law told his version of what had occurred, I could see in their eyes the fact that we--Sibyl Danforth and her family--were going to lose.

  Certainly there were times during Stephen's cross-examination when my spirits would lift: when, for example, with painstaking detail Stephen enumerated all of the reasons why Asa Bedford could not have seen blood spurt or his Charlotte "bleed." But when Stephen was done, I still knew we were finished. Asa, after all, was a minister. As powerful as I thought the medical examiner's testimony had been on Friday, even a coroner's credibility pales before a pastor's.