The Runaway Midwife

by Patricia Harman

  “So you want to play that way, do you?” I whisper. “You know you were tempted . . . I’m a patient person. If I can stay with a woman for twenty-four hours while she labors, I can outwait you!”

  Mountaineers

  In the morning, I decide to take a walk up to the ferry dock. Rainbow had mentioned that people can get cell reception there and I remember seeing cars parked in the lot a couple of times when Molly took me up to the country store.

  Halfway there, I begin to doubt my plan. Whitecaps top the waves, the surf is roaring and the wind is so fierce the big gray-and-black gulls are blown backward as they fly. Who will I call, anyway? Maybe the Nelsons to let them know that the cottage is fine and I’d like to rent it a few more months?

  I’m surprised when I see in the distance an auto approaching along Sunset Road. As the vehicle gets closer, I realize it’s the island police car and for a minute I contemplate slipping into the bushes, but that would look suspicious, so I hold up my hand in a half wave and put on a smile that seems pleasant but not very sociable.

  “Hi,” the cop says, stopping and rolling down his window. “I was just heading your way. Need a lift?” (I really don’t want to have anything to do with the law, but to refuse a ride would seem peculiar in this weather, so I have to accept.)

  “Sure, I guess. Thanks.” He reaches over, throws open the passenger door and I get in but position myself as far away from him as I can.

  “Where you headed?” he asks, looking toward me, and again I get a glimpse of myself in his mirrored sunglasses, short wild hair whipped by the wind, no makeup, a strange-looking character.

  “I’m headed for the ferry dock. I don’t get cell reception or Internet at the cottage and I was going to try to see if I have any emails . . .”

  The officer expertly turns the auto around in the road. I’ve never been in a cop car before and surreptitiously I inspect the interior. There’s a laptop computer mounted on the console, a CB radio, an instrument for tracking the speed of vehicles and a set of handcuffs, which I hope I never have to try on.

  Officer Dolman doesn’t seem to wear a gun, so if he has one, it must be locked in the glove compartment.

  “Where you from, Sara?” Dolman breaks the silence.

  “The States.”

  “I figured that much. What part?” I glance at the man out of the corner of my eye. Is he just making conversation or does he suspect my presence in Canada is illegal?

  “I’ve lived all around but grew up in Oklahoma,” I improvise.

  “Oh yeah? What part? My grandmother lived in Oklahoma for a while.”

  Here I almost poop in my pants, but instead of compounding my error, I try a diversion.

  “Is this what they call the Village of Gull?”

  “This is it. Not much to see.” He points to a few of the buildings. “That’s my office, the Customs office, the health clinic, the Nature Conservancy, the Black Sheep Pub. Good food at the pub and it serves as a community center when we have meetings.” He pulls the vehicle smoothly into the parking lot, decorated with big wooden containers of red geraniums, beautiful against the blue water and white waves. One sailboat skims the water, its sail tight with wind.

  “Oh, I almost forgot. Helen at the country store sent me with a couple of letters from the credit union. I hope you don’t mind. I signed for you. My cell phone number is on the back, if you need anything.”

  “Thanks. I’m doing fine. It’s very quiet and private down there on the point . . . very isolated.”

  “That’s what I worry about,” the cop says. “Too isolated.”

  As soon as I get out of the cruiser and the cop takes off, I tear open the envelopes. I’m pretty sure that with special delivery I was supposed to sign for them myself, but apparently on the island things are informal. As expected, the thick envelope has my new bank card and checks, the smaller one my password. I’m as thrilled as a lottery winner. Sara Livingston of Seagull Island is becoming more legitimate every day! I just have to avoid Girard and the passport issue.

  About a hundred feet ahead, I note that the white two-story ferry is now free of the ice. A few men are loading a cart, so apparently even in this wind the ferry is now running back and forth to the mainland. I’m surprised by the size of the boat because I thought it would be much bigger. It must hold only six autos and maybe three dozen people. With each wave it bounces nearly five feet in the air and then crashes down, and the huge yellow ropes that hold it are strained.

  THERE ARE ONLY two vehicles parked in the lot, both facing the churning water. One is a white Toyota with a familiar yellow, blue and white license plate, and the hair on the back of my neck goes up. WEST VIRGINIA, it says. WILD, WONDERFUL. If I was beginning to feel safe in Canada, I was mistaken. It hadn’t occurred to me that tourists from the Mountain State might someday visit Seagull Island.

  I slink by, keeping my head down, but when I glance over, a redhead gets out of the car. “Clara!” she yells. “Clara Perry!”

  I whip my head around. “Are you calling me?”

  “It’s Sally Heldreth from Snowshoe, West Virginia. You and your husband used to rent our cabin.”

  I pull back my parka hood, letting my blond spiked hair shine in the sunlight, then I shove on my false glasses as if I need them to see. “Sorry,” I say, staring right at her. “Wrong person. I’ve never been to West Virginia.”

  The woman shakes her head, embarrassed. “Oh,” she says. “You looked so much like someone I once knew, but it’s been a long time.”

  “It’s fine. Enjoy the island.” I add this last touch, hoping I sound like a local, then scurry away, my heart still pounding.

  Jed

  The other vehicle in the small lot, a beat-up yellow Jeep, has Ontario plates. “Hey!” A man with a brown ponytail and a black knit cap rolls down his window and waves me over. He’s long and lean with a nice smile. “You the woman staying at the point?”

  “Yeah, how’d you know?” I lick my dry lips, wondering if he heard the interchange with the passenger in the white Toyota.

  “Molly Lou described you. Said you had punk hair and walked everywhere because you didn’t have a car. You checking your texts and emails? Want to get in? It’s windy out there.”

  “Thanks, I’d appreciate it. I’ve seen people parked here and never knew why. You from the commune?”

  “Nah. My name’s Jed Williams. I live on the west side.” He opens the door and sticks his hand out. “I’m the nurse practitioner at the clinic. Where you from?”

  I stall for a moment as I crawl into the Jeep for the warmth (and to get away from the woman from Snowshoe). “I’ve lived all over, but I grew up in . . . Oklahoma. What about you, Jed?” He has very blue eyes, Lake Erie blue, and his face is tanned like you’d expect of a man who spends a lot of time outdoors.

  “I grew up here, went to the University of Windsor and majored in writing, but then I realized I couldn’t make a living at it and changed to nursing. Moved to Toronto, worked at Mount Sinai and then was lucky enough to get a job back home. What brought you here?”

  I try to remember my story. “I was just looking for somewhere peaceful to finish my novel.”

  “You’re another writer then. Cool. No family? No husband?”

  “I have a daughter. She’s studying abroad.” (The truth forces its way out of my lying mouth, but I divert it with a more potent fabrication.) My husband died in Afghanistan.”

  “That’s rough.”

  “What about you, Jed?” I try to turn the conversation. “Married?”

  “Nah. I never found the right man.” He gives me a sly grin, waiting to see if I’m shocked, which I am, but I try not to show it.

  “You’re scandalized!”

  “No, not at all. Just a little surprised.” (Jed looks and acts as straight as Richard, maybe more so.)

  “Anyway, go on . . . Check your emails,” the man says as he looks back at his own phone, a fancier one than mine and almost twice as big.

>   I take a big breath, still shaking inside after seeing the woman from West Virginia. I recall her ski slope condo well and the three or four spring vacations we took there when Jessie was in grade school. Those were the good days and if I weren’t in this stranger’s Jeep, I would break down and cry.

  I take another big breath, get out my cell phone and blow away my sorrow. This won’t take long, I think. Who knows my new email address? Nobody!

  Connected

  When I touch the search icon, the little circle goes around and around, then finally AT&T appears with four bars. Wow! I’m connected.

  First I look for email and am surprised when I find two messages since no one knows my new email address, Runaway Bunny@outlook.com, conceived with bitter humor while sitting in the motel room in Sandusky. One email is from a senator in Ohio asking for a donation and another is from Target with a photo of their spring women’s collection.

  “Would you mind if I made a phone call?” I ask my silent companion.

  “It’s fine. I’m just playing Words with Friends on my phone.”

  I have only two contacts—Wanda Nelson and Lenny—so I tap Wanda’s name and after four rings someone picks up the receiver.

  “The Nelsons!” a man answers, his voice like sandpaper scraping over a carrot grater.

  “This is Sara Livingston. Could I speak to Mrs. Nelson?”

  “No. Sorry.” He hangs up.

  What the hell? I try again and this time the phone is answered in one ring.

  “Nelsons! What is it?”

  “Hi. This is Sara again. I’m on Seagull Island and I’m renting the Nelsons’ cottage.” I try a new approach. “It’s really quite important. I don’t usually have a phone connection. Can I speak to Wanda, please?”

  “Well you could, but she’s not here. She’s at the hospital. What’s so urgent?”

  “I’m sorry to hear Lloyd had to be hospitalized. I think about him so often here at Seagull Haven. I just wanted to tell Wanda that the pipes didn’t burst and the cottage has withstood the winter. I also wanted to see if I could rent the house for another six months. See if she had any plans for it.”

  “I’m sure she doesn’t.” The voice is still brusque. “Just send her a check for how long you want to stay. What does she charge you? Five hundred a month? Well, you’d better send seven hundred a month for the summer and into the fall. Also are you paying the electric?”

  “You want me to? I will. How do I transfer the electricity bill into my name?”

  “Listen, lady, just contact the company. I have another call coming in. Is that all?”

  “Yes. Tell Wanda I love it here and I’ll take care of all the bills.”

  “Look, I gotta go.” And he hangs up again before I get a chance to ask his name.

  “Problem?” asks Jed.

  “No, not really. It was good. I got the cottage for another few months, but Lloyd Nelson must be getting worse. He has cancer and is back in the hospital. The man I talked to was understandably stressed and kind of rude. You probably heard I said I’d take over the electric. I wonder what other bills there would be.”

  “Well there’s the hydroelectric, yard work and water . . . No, you probably have a well on the property. I cut lawns and trim trees in the summer if you ever need someone, but hey, I’m due at the clinic in thirty minutes. You want a ride home?”

  “Sure,” I say, surprised and grateful.

  Outside it’s still blowing and the bushes and tall grass along the shore bend in the wind.

  “You know where I’m staying?”

  “Everyone does.”

  BONAPARTE’S GULL

  Gray with black head in spring

  Pointy tail when in water

  White in the summer with black on edge of wing

  Common on lakes, rivers and the ocean in large flocks

  Diet: small fish and crustaceans

  Voice: a rasping grrrrr

  Range: Alaska to Mexico

  Smallest of all common gulls

  Size: 13 inches

  Wingspan: 3 feet

  CHAPTER 16

  Ambassador

  Now that the beach is no longer covered in snow and ice, I take a regular afternoon hike to Gull Point, always looking for a Timberland boot (and the body connected to it), but there’s only sand, driftwood and the occasional plastic water bottle, which I carry home, planning to recycle them if I ever figure out how. This morning it’s almost hot and the waves are as big as the Atlantic.

  THE LAST TIME I was at the ocean was with Richard. We left Jessie with one of our friends and went away together, trying to save our marriage. (This was after his first affair.)

  The romance with a biology department secretary only lasted a semester. It was Karen who told me. She’d seen them kissing at Jackson’s, a local bar. Richard begged for my forgiveness and, because of our daughter, I gave him a chance.

  His second affair was with a graduate student in geology and it lasted longer, but we went to counseling and I decided that at least some of our marital problems were my fault. I was working sixty hours a week as a nurse-midwife, teaching new midwifery students, taking doctoral courses and trying to be a mom. I was riding the fast train and the track was beginning to wobble. What time did I have left to nurture our marriage?

  Hoping to heal our relationship, I gave up my aspirations of getting a PhD. (What did I need one for anyway? Delivering babies and caring for women was what I loved.) I stopped teaching midwifery students and lost fifteen pounds. It didn’t work. Three months after Karen died, Richard was at it again, and this time my nurse-midwife partner, Linda, had to break the bad news.

  While attending a medical conference, she’d seen him at a hotel in Charleston with a thirtysomething blond. Just to be sure it wasn’t an innocent flirtation, she followed them to his room. No doubt about it. They went in together, arms around each other, and shut the door.

  This last dalliance was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I moved into a bedroom upstairs, took off my wedding ring and gained the weight back. I didn’t bother to confront Richard or ask that we go back to counseling. My husband was a cheat. It didn’t matter if the woman was a secretary, grad student or his dentist. It didn’t matter if he said it was all a misunderstanding. He was guilty, I was sure, and I was through with him.

  AS I STROLL along the beach today, I scan the horizon from east to west, looking for people on the beach, boats in the bay or storm clouds threatening. During the night a log has floated in and, using it for a bench, I sit down and take off my shoes. I’m just going to do it, I decide. I’ll go wading!

  I’m not one who boldly dives into the water. I take it step by step, letting each inch of my body get used to the cold. Richard used to tell me I was torturing myself, that it was better to just jump in.

  That’s what is so unbelievable about my running away. You’d think, if Clara was going to do something so extreme, she’d have come up with a detailed plan. Now, here I am, up to my knees in the freezing waters of Lake Erie, an illegal alien, living day to day, always checking the horizon for danger.

  A SMALL FLOCK of ducks lands in the water in front of me. At first I think they’re mallards, but I’m wrong. The males have smooth brown heads with black and white wing feathers. Both sexes have long necks and pointy tails.

  There must be some courtship activity going on because the drakes keep stretching their necks in an erotic way and puffing their chests up and then shaking their tails. Over and over they do their water dance, while the speckled brown females innocently swim around watching the dancers out of the corners of their eyes. When I wade closer, the flock rises from the lake with a clattering of wings all around me and this brings me unexpected joy.

  “Hello, ducks!” I cry like the official ambassador of Seagull Island. “You are beautiful!” I raise my hand in salute. “Welcome. Welcome! Welcome to Canada.”

  NORTHERN PINTAIL

  Common on fresh water

  Swims in pairs
or small groups

  Breeding male, long neck, white breast and long tail

  Female looks like female mallard

  Diet: eats seeds on shore and in water (that’s interesting)

  Range: Alaska to Mexico

  Voice: Quacks like a mallard

  Size: 21 inches

  Wingspan: 3 feet

  Trapped

  On my way home from the beach, I hear a strange wail. Eeeeeeeeee! Eeeeeeeeeeow! It seems to come from the porch. Running, I circle the house, seeking the source, and for the first time get a good look at the feral cat. It’s a pitiful sight—boney and covered with burrs, eyes caked with mucus and an infected torn ear.

  The bike on the porch has fallen on top of the poor thing and the cat’s tail is caught in the spokes. It probably wanted to play with the tassels on the handlebars and it occurs to me that maybe that’s how the bike fell down that dark night.

  As I approach, the cat begins to hiss. He bares his sharp teeth. I can see now that the animal is a he and I’d like to capture him and tend to his wounds, but there’s no way I want to get scratched. (Cat scratch fever is a bad one. Some patients even have to be hospitalized for IV antibiotics.)

  Running inside for my heavy mittens, I grab the cardboard carton that’s used to hold kindling and dump what’s left of the twigs on the hearth. Then I hurry back outside. Pussy is still there, cowering and hissing. This is going to be tricky!

  First I lay a gloved hand on the cat’s back. “Nice kitty. Nice kitty.”

  Hissssssssss. Meeeeeeoooooow!

  “Okay, forget the Nice kitty. Listen up, feline, this is what’s going to happen. First, I’m going to try to get your tail out of the spokes while holding you down with my other hand. If I can get your tail free, I’ll flip the bike off, grab you by the back of the neck and stuff you in this box. You’re going to be terrified, but trust me, I know what I’m doing.” This makes me smile, but Pussy doesn’t get the joke.

  “Okay, here goes.” Within seconds the tail is untangled and the hissing cat’s in the bag (well, box).