The Midwife

Chapter Two

Gar Lundstrom’s face was pale and twisted with anguish, his eyes sunk deep from lack of sleep. His fists hung at his sides, and he swayed in place. As if he gathered energy from some unknown source, he lifted both hands beseechingly, then twisted them together as he glared at the woman who faced him.

“Why?” The single word seared the air, and Leah felt its lash, bracing herself against the scorn of the man before her.

“I’m not a doctor, Mr. Lundstrom. I’m a woman who knows a little about healing.” Leah drew a deep breath, unable to absolve herself, even in her own mind, let alone free herself from the taint of guilt cast upon her by Gar Lundstrom.

“Have you ever delivered a child before, Mrs. Gunderson? Or was this the first time you’ve butchered a woman?” His voice rasped the accusation, his shoulders hunching as if he bore a great burden.

Leah was reluctant to answer, and yet she knew she must defend herself against the blame he cast on her. “I did not ask to come here, Mr. Lundstrom.” She drew in a deep breath, as if to calm herself in the face of his accusations. “Yes, I have delivered other babies. But none whose mother presented such problems as your wife.”

“She survived three times being brought to childbed before this. What could have caused…” He waved his hand as he groped for words to express the horror so vividly written on his face.

Leah shook her head wearily. “She was a small woman, delivering a breech baby.” She raised her head and glared at him, determined not to let him brand her as careless. “I tried to turn the child, but it was not possible. You were here. You saw the bleeding. The birth was more than she could stand this time, Mr. Lundstrom.”

Between them, Hulda lay beneath a clean sheet, her face serene in death. She was a slender bit of a woman, who, to Leah’s mind, should not have been subjected to such an ordeal. An ordeal that had killed her.

Leah closed her eyes, as if she would erase the vision before her, as if death could be evaded so easily. “You’d better go into town and let the undertaker know, Mr. Lundstrom. See if there is anyone who can nurse the child for you.”

From the depths of a small cradle in the far corner of the bedroom, a thin, fretful wail caught Leah’s attention. “She sounds hungry now,” she said quietly, then turned to answer the infant’s cry.

Gar’s glance followed Leah as she went to the child. “I will take my boy and make arrangements for my wife. There is milk in the washroom from this morning.”

Leah looked from the window onto a freshly fallen snow. Sometime during the long night, several inches had created a pristine landscape. Now, beneath the newly risen sun, it glistened and shimmered, offering a clean slate on which to begin this day.

The fourteenth day of January. The birthdate of Hulda Lundstrom’s daughter.

Leah picked up the child, cuddling the slight form against her breast, rocking back and forth to soothe her cries. “There, there…” she whispered, breathing in the newborn scent that never failed to touch a chord deep within her.

“What will you call her?” she asked, sensing Gar’s lingering presence behind her.

“Hulda could not decide between Linnea or Karen.”

“Karen is a good, strong name,” Leah said. “She can always take another name when she makes her first communion.”

Gar nodded and Leah watched as the tiny babe pursed her lips and made a suckling movement. “So soon they learn,” she murmured.

Gar stood by the door, his head bent, his whole body seeming to have shrunk during the long, stressful hours of the night. “I’ll go to the church and speak to the pastor first. He is more likely to be up than the doctor.”

“Where is your boy?” Leah asked. She’d heard the soft murmuring of their voices, then the muted crying of a child in the kitchen only minutes past. “Is he all right?”

Gar cast her a scornful look. “His mother is dead. He will never be ‘all right’ again.” Turning abruptly, he left the bedroom. Leah followed slowly, unwilling to embarrass the grieving child by coming upon him without warning.

She waited in the doorway as Gar led the boy from the house and firmly closed the door behind them. On weary legs, she made her way to the window, watching as father and son walked through the snow to the barn, where Gar must have already harnessed the team to the sleigh.

Within moments he led the rig through the wide double doors, the young boy ensconced in the front seat with the fur lap robe warm about his small body. Gar joined his son on the carved seat and picked up the reins. With barely a glance back at the house, he set his team into motion and turned his sleigh toward town.

The milk warmed quickly on the stove. She poured a small amount into a saltshaker and tied a double layer of tightly woven flannel over the top. Holding the baby in her left arm, she allowed the milk to drip slowly into the child’s mouth.

“A nipple would work much better,” she whispered aloud, her little finger rubbing the babe’s lips, coaxing her to open them enough for the milk to enter. “Maybe the doctor will think to send one back for you, little girl.”

The baby twisted her head toward Leah’s breast, opening her lips in a timeless gesture. “I cannot help you, sweetheart,” Leah crooned, coaxing the tiny lips with a slow drip, drip, drip of skimmed milk. “This is the best I can offer for now.”

It was a frustrating task, but Leah knew it well and she worked patiently with the baby for almost an hour, until both infant and woman were well nigh exhausted from their efforts. At least an ounce or so of the milk had gone down the baby’s throat, Leah guessed, the rest of it dampening the blanket she was wrapped in.

“I must bathe you, little girl,” she sang in a tuneless fashion. “But not until you’ve had time to sleep a bit and gain some strength from your nourishment.” A pillow provided a sleeping place for the baby, and Leah anchored it on two chairs, near the stove.

A ham bone with large bits of meat still attached sat on the kitchen bureau, covered by a dish towel, as if Hulda had planned for its use today, probably for soup. Making soup was the least she could do for the small family, Leah decided, transferring it to a kettle.

She cut up an onion, which she plucked from a string of them hanging from a ceiling beam, and added it to the kettle of water. A visit to the pantry, just off the kitchen, produced a quart of tomatoes, and she added that too, along with a measure of dry beans.

From the looks of it, Hulda had planned well for the winter. Her pantry shelves were filled with the harvest from her garden. Leah’s fingers rested on the jar she had just emptied, as if she might sense some lingering trace of the woman who had spent hours in this kitchen, providing for her family.

Her heart was heavy with a guilt she knew she didn’t deserve yet must bear. Gar Lundstrom had been more at fault than she, with his need for more sons to work his farm. And for his efforts, he had gained a puny girl child. There seemed a sense of rightness about that, she thought.

The boy…she wrinkled her forehead as she considered him—Kristofer, Hulda had called him, who was now in the midst of plans for his mother’s funeral. How would he survive such a loss? It was almost easier for the babe. She would never have known a mother’s love, and so could not miss it.

As for herself, her own life must be put to rights after the events of the past night. The laundry she’d left in a basket would need to be hung, for there would be at least two gentlemen banging on her door, looking for their clean clothes. And here she was, ten miles out in the country, tending a newborn baby.

For now, she would do what she could to help while she waited for Gar Lundstrom to come home. Sweeping the floors and dusting the furniture took but thirty minutes. And all during her efforts, she stayed far from the bedroom on the second floor, where Hulda Lundstrom lay beneath a white sheet.

Leah warmed a fresh bit of milk and spent another half hour feeding the baby, then washed the infant with tender care before rocking her in the big oak chair in the parlor.

The ham was falling off the bone by the time the sleigh traveled past the kitchen window. Close behind it came the black, covered vehicle that Joseph Landers drove when the occasion called for it. Leah went to the door, shivering from the cold draft of air as the menfolk came in.

“Kristofer, stand near the stove and warm yourself,” Gar said abruptly to his son, and Leah watched as the boy obeyed. His thin hands were red from the cold, and his nose and ears were the same rosy hue. His eyelids barely lifted as he passed Leah, the skin swollen around each eye as if he had spent the whole time aboard the sleigh crying.

And so he probably had, she thought, shaking her head as she watched the boy. He rubbed his hands together, then wiped his nose on his shirtsleeve. Leah pulled the square of cotton from her own pocket and pressed it into his hand.

“Thank you, ma’am.” His child’s voice was rough with the tears he had shed, and Leah felt a pang as her heart ached for his loss. This was a house of sorrow, and it weighed heavily on her.

She watched the men proceed to the second floor, heard their footsteps as they entered the bedroom over her head, and listened to the soft murmur of voices through the vent in the kitchen ceiling.

“Kristofer?” Leah tasted his name upon her tongue, liking the sound of it. Had his mother chosen it? Likely so. Gar would probably have preferred Lars or Igor or some such harsh-sounding name. Kristofer was a name a mother would choose for her tow-haired son.

“Ma’am?” The boy looked up, his vivid blue eyes bloodshot with the hours of weeping he had done.

“Are you hungry, Kristofer?” she asked kindly. “I made you some beans and ham. You should try to eat something.”

His gaze flickered toward the kettle on the stove and he licked his lips. “Yes, ma’am. I didn’t have any breakfast.”

Leah snatched the opportunity to perform a task, bustling about the kitchen, her movements masking the sounds from overhead. “Come to the sink and wash,” she said, her keen hearing aware of the men on the stairway.

She stood behind the boy, her body a shield as the wrapped, frail body of his mother was carried through the kitchen. Then, as the back door closed behind the two men and their burden, she placed her hand on the boy’s slender shoulder.

“Come, eat now. I’ll slice you some bread to go with it,” she offered, steering him to the table and pulling out the chair for him. He obeyed listlessly, only his trembling fingers revealing his hunger as he picked up the spoon she provided.

Leah busied herself on his behalf, slicing bread, searching out the butter and jam. Each trip past the window revealed to her the progress outdoors. She noticed a man opening the boxy black undertaker’s wagon back door, where a rough, wooden coffin was slid from within as Gar held his wife’s body in his arms. Gar closed the black door and the two men stood talking, Gar’s head bent low as he watched the toe of his boot kicking at the wheel of the wagon.

Before long, Leah heard the sound of a harness jingling in the yard, and moments later Gar came in the door. “You need to eat something, Mr. Lundstrom,” Leah said. “I’ve made some soup with beans. I hope you don’t mind.”

His shrug spoke an answer. What does it matter? he seemed to say in silence. Then on a sigh, he admitted his frailty. “Yes, please, if you would. I’m hungry.”

While she dished up a generous helping, he washed at the sink, then paused beside his son as he stepped back to the table. “Kristofer.” As if he had only needed the comfort of the boy’s name on his tongue, he closed his eyes.

“I’m here, Pa.” Mumbled through a mouthful of food, the answer seemed to satisfy the man, and he sat down next to the boy.

“What will you do with the baby? Did you see the doctor in town?” Leah asked quietly, pouring fresh coffee for the man who gazed into the bowl of meat and beans. As if he had no notion of what to do next, he lifted his head and focused on her.

She fished a spoon from the glass container and placed it next to his bowl. “Go on. Eat,” she said briskly, aware that his mind was not on the food before him.

“Yes.” He spooned sugar into his coffee and stirred it, then lifted the cup to his mouth, glaring down at it after a moment. “There is no cream in it,” he said accusingly.

“I’ll get you some,” she offered, snatching the small pitcher from the dresser. The cream was rich, yellow and thick, and she poured the china container full to brimming.

“Thank you,” Gar said, his voice more subdued, watching her intently through narrowed eyes as she added a dollop to the black coffee, where it swirled and changed color.

He picked up the soupspoon she had provided and ate with automatic movements, chewing and swallowing in silence. Leah watched from across the room, nursing her own cup of coffee.

And then the baby stirred, snuffling softly. In seconds the faint sounds became a wail, and Leah put her coffee cup down to hasten to the makeshift bed beside the stove. She bent to pick up the small bundle and held it against her shoulder, murmuring soft words of comfort.

“Give her to me.” Gar’s face was a mask, a forbidding frown furrowing his brow, his mouth taut. His arms outstretched for his daughter, he repeated his demand. “Give her to me.”

Kristofer gaped at his father, his glance sliding to Leah and then back.

“Go to the barn, son, and help Benny feed the stock,” Gar told him. “I did not do it well this morning.”

The boy nodded, donning his coat and leaving the house quickly.

“I will take my child now, Mrs. Gunderson.” Before she could voice any words of agreement, he lifted the baby from Leah’s arms and stepped back. “I watched my wife bleed to death, right before my eyes. I cannot find it in myself to excuse what you did.”

Leah’s legs trembled as she heard his accusation and she sat down in the chair across the table from where he stood.

“I told you when I came here that I was not a doctor. I did the best I could, sir. The doctor had told you and your wife that she should not have any more babies. Her organs were damaged so badly that the child could not have been born had I not drawn her out forcibly.”

The vision of gushing blood and mucus flowing onto Hulda’s bed was still vivid in Leah’s mind, and she closed her eyes against the horror. “Hulda could not have lived through the birth, no matter who attended her.”

She looked up, her mouth trembling, her eyes wet with unshed tears. “You are the one who must take the blame for this, Gar Lundstrom. You got her with child, after the doctor told you she should not bear another baby. Don’t lay your guilt at my feet.”

His skin changed from the ruddy complexion of an outdoorsman to the ashen gray of a man with a grave illness. “I know what guilt I must bear,” he said harshly.

“Be ready to leave in ten minutes,” Gar told her. Then, snatching up a quilt to bundle around the tiny infant, he left the house.

Where he took the child, she did not know. His steps were purposeful as he went toward the barn, then on to a small house at the edge of the meadow. When she could bear to watch no longer, she turned from the window.

He took her home, both riding atop the wagon in silence, as if they could not abide each other’s company. He drove his team to the front of her house, and waited only long enough for her to slide from the seat before heading on his way.

“My bag! You have my bag, Mr. Lundstrom!” she cried, running behind the wagon.