The Midwife
He bent to lift it from the floor near his feet and tossed it in her direction, his eyes filled with an anger and a depth of despair she knew only too well. It had been her companion for many a long night.
The wet clothing was hung, draped over lines that crisscrossed the kitchen. Her task finally completed, Leah ducked beneath Orville Hunsicker’s second-best white shirt as she escaped from the sea of laundry. The house closed up for the night, she left the kitchen for her bedroom.
She was bone weary and though she had thought sleep would not come, the pillow was barely beneath her head when she sank deeply into oblivion.
The woman suffered without sound, her dark eyes holding only hatred for the child she bore. Then, in a twinkling, that sweet, healthy infant, suddenly unmoving, lay beside his mother, his neck at an awkward, unnatural angle.
Shrieking, the mother pointed at Leah, her accusation resounding in the eerie light. “Murderer! Murderer!” Waving angry fists, the vengeful father roared his fury and Leah backed from the room, then turned to run; fleeing, always fleeing.
She breathed harshly, running blindly through a maze, only to enter another room, where Hulda Lundstrom rose up in the midst of a bloody bed to point her finger accusingly, her voice hoarse. “Murderer! Murderer!”
Leah awoke to a dark room, gasping for breath, as if she had been running for a very long time and her accusers were fast on her heels. The window held a full moon within its grasp, and it was there she focused her sight.
Beyond the white curtains she caught a glimpse of the hotel on the town’s main street. Next to it the grocery store and the bank lined up neatly, their rooftops visible from her viewpoint. No longer was she running through the streets of Chicago, escaping the vengeance of a distraught father.
Leah bowed her head into her hands. How long? For how many years would she be haunted by the memory of that tiny baby boy, by the cold eyes of the mother who wanted nothing of the man she had married, least of all his child?
And now, as if that were not enough, she was to be tormented by the death of Hulda, who had sought only to please the man she had married.
The week passed more slowly than any she could remember, each day longer than the last. She walked to the store once, but the gossip was rife, with word of Hulda Lundstrom’s death on every tongue. Leah was relieved to receive sympathetic glances and words of encouragement from the ladies who knew her best.
Yet even that was not salve enough for the wounds she bore within her soul. The thought that she must do something for the tragic little family struggling alone without a wife and mother in their midst filled her mind.
And yet at the end of that long, dreary week, when Gar Lundstrom appeared on her doorstep with a tiny bundle in his arms, her kind thoughts disappeared as he glared at her through her screen door.
“I have brought you my child,” he said bluntly, his fingers gripping the door handle, forcing her to step aside as he entered her small parlor.
“Whatever for, Mr. Lundstrom?” she said, her gaze intent on the wiggling form of the child he carried.
“I have found that it is not possible for me to care for the baby at the farm. I left her with Ruth Warshem, my Benny’s wife, but she had to bring her back to me at night. I cannot do my work when I am up with a crying baby for all hours.”
“And you want me to take care of her?” Leah was flabbergasted. The very nerve of the man, to intrude in such a way, with his demands.
“I can do it no more. I have stock to tend to and chores to keep me from the house all day, and I am weary at night. It is all I can do to keep Kristofer with me and care for him.”
“What makes you think I’m the one to take on the job?” Leah asked, anger vying with astonishment at his edict.
His head tilted at an imperious angle. “There is no one else.”
Leah laughed, the sound harsh and grating. “Well, you can forget it, Mr. Lundstrom. I am not available.”
His mouth tightened and his eyes snapped with an icy flame, the pale blue depths piercing her. “I will pay you well,” he growled, a penitent without a scrap of humility in his bones.
Leah’s mouth opened and words of denial begged to be spoken, yet in her mind fluttered a small flag of caution. She could salvage her pride while lending a helping hand to this family if she accepted a token amount and gave the man a respite from his overwhelming responsibility.
“Perhaps, for a short while, I could do it,” she said slowly, her eyes drawn again to the bundle he carried, which was emitting small cries of distress.
“Here, let me take her,” she said, her hands itching to touch the infant form.
He handed over his burden, his hands reluctantly releasing the baby, as if it were not his choice but a dire necessity that had brought him to this.
Leah opened the blanket, where round blue eyes blinked at her and a small mouth opened in an O of surprise. Then those rosy lips yawned widely, squeezing the blue eyes into tiny slits. Leah touched the soft cheek with her fingertips.
“What have you been feeding her?” she asked, turning away as she felt unwelcome tears mist her vision.
“Milk from the cows, but it must be heated to almost boiling first. Then Ruth said to cool it. I got nipples at the store and bottles to use.”
“Ruth cannot do this twenty-four hours a day?” Leah asked, wondering privately how the woman could have given up this precious package so easily.
“No.” Gar shook his head. “She has a sister who needs her, and she never knows when she must go there. There has been sickness in the family, and now the sister is going to have a child.”
“It would mean being available night and day. Babies require a lot of care, Mr. Lundstrom. I would need fresh milk daily for her.”
“I will bring you a cow.” His words fell like stones against her wall of objections.
“I don’t know how to milk a cow,” Leah snapped, moving the baby to her shoulder and bouncing her lightly.
His look of exasperation touched her face and moved to the child she held. “Then I will teach you.”
“For how long?” she asked, unwilling to look away although uneasy beneath the burning scrutiny of his gaze, fearing the return of the tears she had fought to subdue.
“For as long as it takes you to learn,” he said impatiently.
Her teeth clenched and she sighed with an equal amount of aggravation. “You know what I mean. How long do you expect me to keep her?”
“As long as need be.”
And wasn’t that a dandy way to leave open her term of responsibility for a newborn child? Leah inhaled sharply and lifted her chin. “I’ve never had a child. How do you know I will provide for her well?”
His eyes traveled her length as if he gauged her ability, and his words were firm and final. “I know.”
“But why me?”
“You owe me.” He leaned forward, his nostrils flaring, his teeth bared, and for a moment Leah caught the broadside of a fury she could not fathom. “I know what guilt I must bear,” he said. “As for you, perhaps you can ease your conscience and earn a respite from whatever blame you feel.”
Had she not wondered earlier what she could do? And now, for all his male arrogance and stubborn Swedish pride, he had given her a chance to help. Her arms were full with the soft movements of a newborn, and her heart was touched by anticipation of the joy inherent in tending the child.
“All right, I will keep her. For six months. Perhaps by then you can find a woman to live in your home and care for both children. In six months you will be past the sowing of crops and the first cutting of hay.”
Gar stood beside her and she focused on his boots, heavy and work worn, laced up the front, with his trousers tucked in them. They shuffled on the floor, as if he sought words to speak.
“Well?” The warmth of the child Leah held was welcome against her cool flesh, as were the infant’s small, awkward movements. The pattern of its breathing soaked into her almost as if it were her own.
“Yes, for six months,” he agreed. “I will pay you two dollars a week, and I will bring the cow and some more clothes for the baby tomorrow.”
She came near to refusing his offer, her mouth opening as she watched him take two coins from his small leather purse, placing them on the table before the window. It was too much. Two dollars was more than she had expected. And yet, the thought of buying what foodstuffs she pleased and perhaps putting a small sum away every week was tantalizing.
“I have a basket with some of her things in it, out in the wagon. Enough to get by with for a day or so. Ruth is washing up her diapers today and I will bring them back with me.”
He stepped through the door, across the porch and down the path to his wagon. His arms hugged a basket when he returned and he placed it on the floor near the door.
“I think we are agreed, then?” he asked.
She nodded and he focused on the baby she held, one hand reaching to touch the downy head. With his long index finger he brushed the fine, pale hair.
And then he was gone.
* * *
Leah had slept fitfully, aware of the living presence next to her, then wakened at some small noise. Beside her, warm in her cocoon of pillows, the child she had taken into her home made her presence known. She fussed, whimpering for only a few seconds as she turned her head from side to side. As if she sought the warmth of a mother’s breast, she nuzzled against her own hand, then, with a howl of displeasure, she announced her hunger.
Leah watched the baby in the moonlight streaming through her window, smiling as she recognized the healthy cry of need, a need she could supply in minutes.
She rose from the bed, donning her robe and slippers, then gathered the baby girl into her arms. For a few seconds the cries abated, and the child gazed up at her with wide eyes.
In the kitchen, she heated the bottle she had prepared, placing it in a warm pan of water and moving the pan to the hottest part of the stove. It was snowing again, flakes spitting past the window. But in the kitchen it was warm, and Leah dragged her rocking chair closer to the stove.
The baby fussed as her blankets were opened in order to change the wet diaper, and Leah clucked her tongue and whispered soft endearments as she worked. “There, there, wee one. We’ll soon have you warm and dry. There, there, little bird.”
The cries rapidly grew in intensity and only the fitting of the rubber nipple in the baby’s mouth brought about peace and quiet. Leah rocked back and forth in the chair, her arms and hands busy with the feeding and the burping and the comforting. The presence of the child warmed her, erased the horrid dream from her mind, bringing her peace.
This child, whose destiny was forever changed from what it might have been. Leah felt a sadness for the woman who had been buried just days ago, who now lay beneath the snow-covered ground while her babe was cared for by another.
She felt a moment’s guilt that she should reap the reward of pleasure in the tending of this infant, that, from another’s pain, she should find such comfort in the middle of the night. Yet, she knew a sense of satisfaction that her arms held this precious being and provided it nourishment.
And almost, she felt like a mother.
Chapter Three
Kirby Falls, MinnesotaMay 1892
“Miss Leah!” Against her screen door, a nose pushed the wire as eager eyes gazed into the parlor. On the porch, Kristofer Lundstrom waited impatiently for Leah’s response, his hand on the spool handle, only good manners keeping him from stepping inside.
“Come in, Kristofer,” she called, her feet moving quickly across the kitchen floor. He was late today. School had been dismissed for almost a half hour already and Leah had been listening for his voice for nearly twenty minutes.
She could set her clock by the boy. His feet clattered up her steps and across the small porch every afternoon, his intentions clear. Always there was the traditional greeting, a nod of his head as he spoke Leah’s name. And then his eyes searched for the small form of his sister, seeking her out as if she drew him like a lodestone.
Even at six years of age, he was the picture of his father, his hair golden in the sunlight, his eyes a pale blue beneath dark brows. He was tall for six, straight and sturdy, somehow seeming stronger now that he must stand alone, without the hovering presence of his mother.
Leah touched his head with her fingertips, ruffling the hair just a bit. “Did you stay after school, Kris?”
He shook his head. “No, ma’am. I saw Pa at the store and he had me to wait for a few minutes while he bought something for Karen.”
Leah looked down at the package the boy carried. “For the baby? What is it?” She reached for the paper-wrapped parcel and Kris placed it in her hands.
“He thought you might need to make her something for summer. You know, not such heavy stuff like she wears now.”
Leah’s fingers were quick as she untied the string and sought the contents of the package. A piece of lightweight cotton, batiste, she suspected, met her gaze. It was covered in a delicate print of pink flowers, with pale green leaves forming a vine upon which the blooms and buds trailed.
“Oh, so pretty,” she whispered, already envisioning the dress she would create from it. Tiny puffed sleeves and a high bodice, with a long skirt that would cover bare baby toes in the warm summer days.
“Tell your father I’ll make it up before Sunday, so he can see it,” she said with a smile.
From the kitchen, the baby squealed her opinion of being neglected even for so short a time, and Kristofer headed toward her door, intent on seeing his sister. Leah heard his murmurs of welcome, her smile widening as the baby greeted her visitor with cooing sounds signifying her pleasure.
“She gets bigger every day, don’t she, Miss Leah?” the boy asked, bending low to place a kiss on the infant’s downy head. He hastened to the sink, with backward glances as he went. “I’ll wash up quick, so I can hold her, all right?”
Leah nodded. “She’s been waiting for you, Kris. It’s almost time for her to have a bottle. Would you like to feed her?”
Kristofer smiled, showing a gap where two front teeth were missing. “Yes, ma’am, I surely would.”
That his hands were still damp was a small matter, Leah decided as he held out eager arms, and she nodded at the rocking chair, gathering up the four-month-old infant from the clothes basket where she spent most of her daytime hours.
With a pillow beneath his elbow, Kristofer held the baby tightly, offering the bottle to her eager mouth. Tiny hands groped for a hold on the glass, and the boy chuckled as he shared his grip with his sister’s slender fingers.
“Look, Miss Leah! She’s holding it, too. Before long, she won’t need me to help her. She’ll be eating all by herself.”
Leah shook her head. “We’ll still hold her, Kris. It’s important that we cuddle her while she eats. It’s what happens when a mama nurses her baby and holds her tight. Just because Karen has to drink from a bottle doesn’t mean she has to do without the cuddling.”
His small face was stricken. “I didn’t think about that. She’s sure lucky she has you, isn’t she?” He bent his head to look with longing eyes at the babe he held. “I wish we could have her at home where I could see her all the time. I’ll bet my pa wishes he could see her, too.”
“He comes on Sunday afternoons,” Leah reminded him. And those visits were the highlight of Leah’s week, she admitted to herself. The sight of Garlan Lundstrom on her porch after church on Sunday was welcome—and not only for the eggs he brought to her, emptying his small blue-speckled enamel bucket into her egg bowl on the dresser with care.
His next task was to transfer two dollars into her keeping, placing it on her kitchen table. Then he inquired about the health of his daughter, watching as Leah brought the baby from her basket to the rocking chair where he settled himself. He managed to look at home there, his big body filling it, his feet flat on the floor, his arms surrounding the bundle that was his daughter.
Leah had found it easier to leave him there alone with the child rather than watch as he spoke in halting words and sentences, his voice soft and almost too tender to bear. Gar Lundstrom was a good father, a kind man. And yet, he wore a harshness about him that spoke of long, lonely days and nights.
Only when he held the baby or spoke to his son did that veil of austerity part. His eyes, when he looked into Leah’s, were icy. His hands, when he took the babe from her arms, were hard and callused. His mouth, when he said his greetings and farewells, was firm and thin lipped.
He did not allow her to share the warmth of the spirit he spent so generously upon his children, and that was a pain Leah bore in silence. Gar Lundstrom looked at her with eyes that still held chill accusation. Even as he spoke words of thanks for her care of the babe, he was reticent. His only generosity was in the money he provided for that care.
She picked up the dainty fabric Kris had brought, her fingers smoothing it as she folded it neatly. “I’ll make up Karen’s dress tomorrow,” she told the boy.
He nodded absently, caught in the wonder of the baby’s blue eyes and the plump body that filled his arms. “I’ll be glad when summer comes and we take her home with us, Miss Leah.”
“Did your father find someone to keep house, Kris?” she asked quietly, holding her breath lest his answer shatter her heart. The presence of a baby had filled this small house to overflowing with warmth, and she had played the game for four months already, with herself as not only nursemaid but mother to the child.
Kris shook his head. “Naw. Mrs. Andersen said she has to keep house for Lester. My pa said Lester was old enough to be on his own, but his ma doesn’t think so.”
Leah smothered a laugh. Lester Andersen was a big strapping man of twenty-two, working at the lumber mill at the north end of town. If his mother didn’t spoil him so thoroughly, he might make a good husband for some woman, or so the ladies at the store said beneath their breaths.
Where Gar Lundstrom would find his housekeeper and child minder was a problem he would have to solve on his own, Leah decided with a sigh. And if he didn’t come up with an answer when the six months’ time was up, she would continue to accept his two dollars every week and bank half of it gladly. Her dresser drawer held a tidy sum besides, hidden in a wooden box beneath her extra nightgown. Her laundry service was prospering, with seven clients every week.
“Miss Leah?” Kristofer’s small face held a frown. “I have to go home now. Pa will be waiting for me at the store. I told him I’d ride home on the wagon with him.”
Leah nodded, rising from her chair to take the baby from the boy’s embrace. “I’ll see you again,” she said lightly.
“Tomorrow. I’ll be here tomorrow. My pa says I mustn’t get in your way or be a bother, Miss Leah. You must let me know if it’s not conven…” He hesitated, as if he sought the word his father had used.
“Convenient? It’s always convenient for you to stop by, Kris,” she said easily, following him to the front door. Her hand rested on his shoulder for just a second as she stood beside him. He hesitated there, his face soft with yearning as he stood on tiptoe to press his lips against the brow of the baby Leah held.
And then he was gone, the door slamming behind him as he jumped from the porch, ignoring the steps, and ran to the gate. He half turned, lifting a hand in farewell as he opened the gate and crossed the street to make his way toward the grocery store.
Leah watched as he picked up a stone, examined it and stuck it in his pocket. She smiled, then walked back across the parlor and into her kitchen, bouncing the baby as she walked.
“He’ll be back tomorrow, Karen. And on Sunday, your papa will be here to see you.” It would be three days until Sunday. Three long days.
The spring was unusually warm for Minnesota. All the farmers predicted an early cutting of hay. By the end of May the crops were coming up in the fields, and the cows and horses in the pastures were accompanied by their own yield of calves and colts. The farmers’ wives tended clutches of newly hatched chicks, gathering them into the henhouses at night lest the cool air should creep beneath their mothers’ hovering wings and kill the youngsters.
Leah stepped into the hubbub of activity in the general store on a Monday morning in early June, Karen Lundstrom on her shoulder. Around her, the local ladies were catching up on gossip, most of them repeating stories heard at Sunday church.
“Ah, Mrs. Gunderson, here with the little one this morning,” Hazel Nielsen called out. “Bonnie, come see your friend,” she said, moving aside the curtain that led to the storeroom.
Eyes swung in Leah’s direction, and she found a smile for the eager ladies who hovered around her like bees surrounding a hive.
“How is the baby doing?” Lula Dunbar asked, her forefinger nudging at a dimpled elbow. “Look how blue her eyes are, just like her mama’s were.” She dropped her voice in deference to the dead mother. “Not pure ice like her pa’s, thank the good Lord. He’s a cold man, that one.”
Leah swallowed a retort and turned to listen to Eva Landers, the town’s postmistress, who had left her desk in the corner of the store, where she had been sorting the day’s mail.
“Let me see that little girl. What a darling she is!” Eva’s long, slender fingers threaded through Karen’s hair with a gentle touch, and Leah halted her progress through the store. “Don’t pay any mind to Lula Dunbar,” Eva whispered next to Leah’s ear. “She hasn’t said anything nice about a man since the day she married Hobart.”
Leah smothered a laugh. Eva was a kindly woman, married to the undertaker, who doubled as the town’s cabinetmaker. It was handy, being accomplished at woodworking, when you were the one in charge of providing caskets for the occasional burial in town. Joseph was a sturdy man, solemn, as befitted his occupation, and Leah had often wondered how he managed to catch a joyous woman like Eva.
“I’ll stop by for tea, if I may, later this afternoon,” Eva suggested brightly.
Leah nodded eagerly. Visitors were frequent but usually bearing some cut needing stitching or seeking a poultice or remedy for the ills of another. Her practice had expanded since the winter months, ever since the Lundstrom baby had been hers to care for. As if every woman in town wanted a peek at the child, Leah had been inundated with requests for cough syrup or chest rub.
“Leah! It’s good to see you.” Bonnie Nielsen came from the stockroom, brushing at dust on her sleeve as she passed her mother behind the counter. “What can I get for you today?”
Leah groped in her dress pocket for the list she’d made up at breakfast this morning. “Not too much, Bonnie. Are there any early peas, yet?”
Bonnie nodded. “Old Mrs. Havelock planted some next to the house where they get the morning sun, and she covered them at night so they wouldn’t freeze last month. She brought me a peck of them this morning.”
“I’ll take a pound, if you can spare them,” Leah said quickly, aware of the treat she’d been offered. “How are the potatoes?”
“Pretty much shriveled up, I’m afraid,” Bonnie answered. “I’ll see what I can find for you.”
“If you need potatoes, you need only ask, Mrs. Gunderson,” a male voice said from behind her. A hush fell over the store as Gar Lundstrom stated his offer, and Leah pasted a smile on her face before she turned to face him.
“I didn’t see you in the store, Mr. Lundstrom,” she said brightly.
“I just came in. Just in time to hear you ask about potatoes. I have plenty left in the dugout. I’ll bring you some tomorrow.”