The Last Midwife Read online

  Before she reached the opening in the trees that led to the cabin, Gracy made out the sounds of men felling a tree, a rhythm of two axes biting into the wood, the first axe making a dull thud, the second repeating it like an echo. As she rode into the clearing, Gracy heard the sounds of two voices as rhythmic as the axes, singing together the words of some old hymn she did not recognize, singing in harmony. Coming closer, she saw Ben and Davy working together, shirtsleeves rolled up, sweat running down their faces, as their axes bit into a pine that stood beyond the cabin. The tree was nearly sliced through, and Gracy waited until the men finished the cutting and set aside their axes to push over the tree. It crashed into an aspen grove, taking some of the slender white-bark trees with it. The two men grinned at each other and raised their fists in the air in a sign of triumph. If there had been a breach between them, it had been mended. Perhaps there was an understanding, had been one when Ben returned to the cabin with a wife.

  Gracy knew of such things. She thought about two men back in Arkansas, brothers they were, who shared a wife. It was not remarked on. Perhaps Gracy was the only one who knew about them. She had discovered the truth of it when she birthed a baby at the cabin and heard the two men speculating which of them was the father. The wife heard it, too, and she begged Gracy to keep their secret, explaining she considered each one as husband. The Bible allowed a man more than one wife, the woman said. Was it so wrong that she had two husbands? Gracy had kept still about it, because it was not her place to judge. Only God could do that. But Davy Eastlow and Ben Boyce were not brothers. So Gracy could not help but wonder what went on in that cabin in the darkness of night, how it had happened, and whether it was agreeable to Esther.

  Gracy edged Buckshot into the clearing then, and the two men saw her and grinned. “I guess we should have yelled ‘Timber,’” Davy called. “We didn’t know there was nobody around.”

  Gracy thought that was a strange thing to say, because Esther and the babies must be around.

  “Get you down off that horse, Sagehen. Did you see the size of that tree we felled? We were fixing to have a drop for our hard work. We got an extra cup,” Ben added.

  “Water’ll do if you have it. I got to get home by nightfall,” she told them. “I came to see the babies. I hope they’re well.”

  The two men looked at each other, and as if realizing Gracy had come to see Esther, not them, they let the smiles fade. “Oh, the babies,” Ben said. “They’re fine. Make a lot of noise.”

  “Babies do. And Esther, is she fine, too?”

  “As good as could be expected,” Davy said, his voice dropping, as if his partner’s wife were no concern of his.

  It seemed strange to Gracy that Esther did not come out to greet her. The new mothers were always anxious to see her, to show off their babies, to brag about how well they thrived. But perhaps the woman was sleeping. Or tending to the infants. Gracy went to the bucket beside the door and scooped up a dipperful and drank, then filled the dipper again. The water was cold and clear, and she thought it must have been hauled from the spring not more than an hour earlier. “Tastes so good it makes me want to swallow my tongue,” she said, then asked, “Is Esther about?”

  “She’s within,” Ben said, gesturing with his head at the cabin, then turning away.

  Gracy raised the latch and went inside. After the bright sun, her eyes needed a moment to adjust to the dark, and at first, she did not make out Esther, who sat against the far wall, on the bed, a baby in each arm. “I came to see the little ones—and you—to see if you are all right,” Gracy said, wishing now that she had not given the second jar of jelly to Sarah and Abraham. The Boyce cabin was dreary, dark with not a single bright thing, not even a flowered dish, to add a bit of color. As Gracy moved toward the bed, she saw that Esther was looking unwell. She was listless, her hair scraggly, her skin the dirty white of old snow. “I brought you some flowers,” Gracy said, holding out her handful of blooms.

  Esther’s mouth made an O, but she didn’t say “Thanks to you,” didn’t say anything, in fact. “I’ll just be about finding a jar for them,” Gracy added, looking around until she spotted a whiskey bottle with its neck broken off, then filled it with water from the bucket outside. She set the bouquet on the table and said, “Flowers always make me happy.” Esther didn’t seem happy, so Gracy cleared her throat and asked, “How are the little ones?”

  Esther shrugged and handed the larger of the two boys to the midwife, who unwrapped him and removed the bellyband. She checked for inflammation at the place where the cord had been attached, then looked into the infant’s eyes, which were bright and clear as the water in the bucket. The boy was well cared for, clean and alert, and he made soft noises as Gracy ran her hands over him, noises that her Emma and Jeff had made when they were tiny. When she was satisfied the baby was all right, she wrapped him up and returned him to Esther. Then she examined the second boy, the red-haired one, who was smaller but just as healthy. “They do well,” she proclaimed.

  Esther still didn’t say anything. She only clutched the babies in her slim arms, and when one whimpered, she held him to her breast, where he began to nurse.

  “Your milk holds up?’ Gracy asked.

  Esther nodded.

  “I’ve brought herbs to help if you think you’re drying up.”

  “I have aplenty of milk,” Esther said, speaking for the first time.

  “That’s good. I brought herbs for tea, too, to keep up your strength,” Gracy said, getting up and going to the cookstove and removing a lid. The fire had dried almost to ashes, and Gracy fed kindling into it until it flared a little. Then she put in larger pieces of wood and watched until the fire burned bright before she replaced the lid. She carried the teakettle outside and filled it, noticing the men had disappeared. Nothing seemed quite right. In all her years as midwife, she could recall few fathers who didn’t strut around the newborn, waiting to accept praise for the infant’s size or looks, claiming the baby was smart as a nettle and sure to make a mark in the world. But Ben—or Davy, for that matter—didn’t seem interested.

  Back inside, Gracy placed the kettle on the stove and set about finding cups and measuring the tea into an ironstone pot whose handle was broken off. “It’s the Lord’s own day out there. Have you been about?” she asked.

  Esther shrugged, and Gracy wondered if the woman had been outside at all since the babies were born. She sat down on the bed beside Esther and took the infant who had finished nursing, rocking him in her arms, smelling his sweetness. “This one is Ben … Benny, you must call him.”

  “I suppose.” She was still a moment. “I mean yes, he’s Ben, and I suppose we’ll call him Benny.”

  They sat quietly until the water boiled, and Gracy busied herself making tea. She brought a cup to Esther, who did not move. So Gracy held the cup to the woman’s mouth and said, “Drink.” When Esther ignored her, Gracy said in a firmer voice, “Drink it everything up. The babies need your strength.”

  Esther reached for the cup with her free hand and sipped, spilling a little on her nightdress, which was already stained.

  Gracy removed the cup from Esther’s hand and set it on the table. “I’ll leave the sack of tea behind. Drink you a cup every day.” Then she took the woman’s hand and rubbed it before saying softly, “There is a condition I’ve observed among some women after childbirth. I don’t know what it’s called. You feel you ought to be happy, but you aren’t. You can’t eat, and you don’t want to move, only stay in bed. It’s childbirth sulks, and women get it with good reason. You feel poorly from the labor and the birthing, you have the care of new babies, and you’ve got all your other work as well. And sometimes you’ve a husband who feels neglected and demands attention. The feeling goes away after a time, but until it does, you almost don’t care to live. I believe you have it.”

  Esther turned and stared at Gracy.

  “I’ve seen women in your situation who don’t want their babies, who wish they’d never had t
hem.”

  “I love my babies.”

  “Of course you do. But you’re overwhelmed by them. Is there a woman nearby, someone you can talk to? Women understand these things. Men aren’t much good at it.”

  “You’re the only woman I seen since the babies was born.”

  “What about Ben and Davy? Do they take over your chores?”

  “They keep me to a hardship.” She thought that over. “Davy cooked before I came. Then I took over. They don’t like it now when I don’t cook their dinner, but sometimes I’m just too tired.”

  Gracy had a sudden thought. “Do they cook for you then?”

  Esther shrugged.

  “They take care of each other but not you?”

  “They’re partners.”

  “So are you and Ben,” Gracy said. “I believe I should set him straight.”

  Esther flared at that. “Don’t do it. Ben wouldn’t like it.” When Gracy didn’t reply, Esther said, “Promise me.”

  Gracy finished her tea and took the cup to the dry sink and set it aside. “I fear for your health if you live on in this state.”

  “It’s my own fault. They’re partners. I shouldn’t have come here. I didn’t know how things stood.”

  Gracy scoffed. “You are man and wife—and parents. I believe that matters more than any partnership.”

  “I had my plans. Oh, yes…” Esther sighed. “It’s the way things are.”

  “And how are they?” Gracy asked, sitting down on the bed again. She heard the sound of thunder outside, and suddenly the rain came, came down hard and fast and cold the way mountain rain did, bringing a chill to the cabin. Gracy thought to close the door, but the freshness of the rain overpowered the sour smell of the room. For a moment, she wondered if the men would come rushing inside, but after a time, she believed they had found shelter elsewhere.

  Gracy’s question hung in the air, and in a moment, Esther said, “Things are just what they are.”

  “You worked at Bessie Williams’s house over in Kokomo,” Gracy said. She had heard that Esther had been a prostitute, although she didn’t know it for a fact, and if she was wrong, she thought the woman might tell her to leave, would put her out in the rain for the insult.

  Instead, Esther said. “I guess it’s known. I never hid it. Ben knowed, of course. It’s where he found me.”

  “Things go on there…” Gracy did not know how to say it, to say that acts that would shock a Presbyterian could be commonplace in a parlor house.

  But Esther took her meaning. “Is it so bad, two men? After all, at Miss Bessie’s, I had more than two in one night. I don’t guess it’s much different, things here…”

  “But you hadn’t counted on it.”

  “No,” Esther said. “Like I say, I should have knowed. Ben told me he had a partner. But I thought it would be just me and him, that we’d have a proper marriage. We had a real wedding and a license. The girls cried, and Miss Bessie baked a cake shaped like a horseshoe with ‘Good Luck’ on it. Oh, it was real pretty. And Ben had his boots blacked and wore a tie, and he gave me this ring. He said it was his mother’s.” Esther held out her hand so that Gracy could see the band with the red stone on her finger. “Only truth is, it was Davy’s mother’s.”

  “So you became a wife to both of them.”

  “Not at first.” The second baby gave a sharp cry, and Esther opened her nightdress to nurse him. When the infant settled down, she continued. “I thought we was just a married couple, but one day when Ben was out, Davy come on me. I told him no, but he said I was as much his as Ben’s. He said that was why Ben had married a whore, so’s they could both have me. They were partners and expected to share me, just like the wagon they bought and the traps. I said it wasn’t so. I told Ben what Davy’d done, but he just laughed and said they didn’t want two women around and figured one would do for both of them. It didn’t matter if I was willing, because he was my legal husband and owned me. Besides, what could a whore complain about? I had it better here than at Miss Bessie’s.”

  Esther rubbed the top of the baby’s head, taking a strand of thin hair between her rough fingers. “I guess it wasn’t so bad, the three of us. After a time I got used to it. We even had us some good times, and I got to thinking I was lucky there wasn’t another woman here. They treated me all right. Maybe they even loved me a little. But after the babies came and I seen one was Davy’s, I told Ben that was the end of it. I wouldn’t shame my boys. I got standards. I might be a whore, but I got standards.”

  Gracy didn’t know what to say. Instead of talking, she moved so that Esther’s back was to her, and she began to knead the woman’s muscles. Esther relaxed into Gracy’s hands, moaning with pleasure. “It wasn’t so bad before the boys was born. We had us a good time. But now everything’s different. It don’t sit right with them that I won’t be a wife to both. So far, they’ve left me alone, but it won’t be long.”

  “You could leave,” Gracy said.

  “And go where? Miss Bessie wouldn’t take me back with two babies, and who’d want me in Swandyke? I guess I could go to Denver, but there’s only one kind of work I can do, and I can’t do it with my boys.” As if anticipating Gracy’s next question, she added, “I couldn’t leave them here. Ben and Davy don’t care much for babies. Oh, they was excited before they come, thinking, I guess, that babies took care of theirselves. Now, they complain of the crying and the smell, and say the boys are too full of ginger. They ain’t never even picked them up. My babies would die without me. So you see, I got no choice.” She looked at Gracy with empty eyes.

  Gracy sighed. She remembered Esther saying she liked to hunt but didn’t care for trapping, had said a trapped animal knew it was dying and lay there watching its blood flow out. Now Esther seemed trapped that way. Gracy’d rarely seen despair as bad as this, and like Esther, she had no answer for it. “Maybe you’d feel better if you got out of this cabin, went for a walk,” she said, knowing that was no solution. Still, exercise might help Esther’s mood, and she continued, “Davy said once you liked to hunt. Maybe you and Ben could go hunting. Deer meat would do you good. You could make a broth to build yourself up. You want to be healthy for the boys.”

  “I’d like to hunt, but who’d look after the babies? I can’t leave them.”

  “No,” Gracy said. She rose and went to the door and looked out. The rain had tapered off to a drizzle, and the sun was low down. She needed to be on her way if she was to get home before dark. “There’s a woman, Sophie Kruger, lives on the way to Potato Mountain not far from here. I’ll stop on my way and ask her to visit.”

  “Don’t bother. I called on her once. She slammed the door in my face, said no fancy woman would set foot in her cabin.”

  Gracy smiled a little. She knew about the woman. Sophie Kruger had worked in a house herself, up in Middle Swan. But now she pretended she was quality. There were none so self-righteous as those who rewrote their past.

  As Gracy stood looking out, she saw Ben and Davy come down the mountain toward the cabin. “Here’s your husband,” she said.

  “Which one?”

  Gracy smiled at the jest, then realized Esther was serious. “Both of them.”

  “I expect they’ll want their supper.” Esther didn’t move.

  “Let them fix it,” Gracy said, turning to Esther, who smiled at her for the first time.

  Gracy gathered her things then. “I’ll come back to see how you are.” She went over to the bed and put a hand on each baby, marveling as she always did at the downiness of their hair, the softness of the skin, the purity of their innocence. And in an impulsive gesture, for Gracy was not given to touches of affection, she put the back of her hand to Esther’s cheek and stroked it. She wanted to say that God would find a way, but who was she to speak for the Lord? Besides, often enough, He hadn’t found it convenient to listen to her. Instead, she said, “I’ll pray for you.” And then because that sounded self-righteous, she added, “Not that it will do any good, but it
won’t harm you, either.”

  The men came into the cabin as Gracy was packing her medicine bag. They didn’t speak to the women, but only to each other. “Women sure got a way of dawdling,” Ben told Davy.

  “Lazy as winter,” Davy replied. “Ain’t no sign of supper.”

  Gracy was riled. “Did you forget how to cook? Fifteen years of batching, and you forgot, did you?”

  Neither man looked at her, and Gracy wondered if she had only made things worse. “Your wife’s ailing from childbirth,” she told Ben. “Best to help her with her chores so she can save her strength for the babies.” Then she turned to Esther. “I’ll be back, make sure things are all right with you.” She picked up her bag and went to the horse. Neither man offered to help her mount Buckshot.

  * * *

  Gracy had ridden half a mile before she realized she had forgotten to leave Esther’s laundered nightdress and the baby quilts. The sun was close to setting, and if she turned back, she would not reach home before dark. But when had darkness kept her from going to the aid of a woman? She sighed and turned Buckshot around. The horse, as if knowing he was going in the wrong direction, slowed, then stopped, and Gracy had to kick him to move. She made her way back through the trees and into the clearing, where there was no sign of the men. Perhaps she had shamed them into making supper. She smiled at the idea. Her visit might not have been in vain.

  She tied Buckshot to the hitching post and removed the bag containing the quilts. Then without knocking, she went inside. The men sat at the table, venison and potatoes on their plates. As Gracy entered, Ben forked a piece of meat into his mouth and wolfed it down. There was no plate set out for Esther, no food left in the skillet.

  She took in the room—Esther sitting on the bed with the babies, just as when Gracy had left her, the two men hunched over their plates. “Where’s Esther’s dinner?” she asked.