The Midwife of Hope River

“Miss Patience! Don’t be afraid. It’s Bitsy and Miss Katherine.”

“Oh, Bitsy! You did scare me!”

I open the door, to find Bitsy assisting Mrs. MacIntosh up the steps. When I help her out of her long cream coat with a fur collar, Katherine turns away.

“Where’s Mr. MacIntosh?” I ask. “Where’s the baby?”

“He wouldn’t let me have him.” The mother looks up. Her eyes are both black, there’s a bruise on her cheek, and her face is red from crying.

“Did William do this?”

“He didn’t mean to. He was drinking and got angry because I wouldn’t come to his room and play cards with him.”

“Cards?” This seems an exaggerated response, though I know men have put women under the ground for less.

“Not just cards. He meant something else.” She flops herself into the rocker, and as I put more wood into the heater stove, I notice her arm. Big bruises, with finger marks, circle both wrists.

“Oh, Katherine! Can you move your hand?” The woman waves a little. You can see that it hurts; her wrists are probably sprained but not broken. I place the green patchwork pillow on her lap and rest her forearm over it, then busy myself making hot water for valerian tea, a nerve relaxant that seems warranted for all of us. I also make up some warm comfrey compresses. There must be more bruises hidden under her clothes. She looks like the loser in a prizefight with Jack Dempsey.

Bitsy is stomping the snow off her boots. On the floor by the door sits one of Katherine’s monogrammed linen pillowcases, stuffed, I assume with a few clothes and toiletries. I bring in the tea and help Katherine lie down on the sofa. Bitsy covers her with the flying goose quilt and props her head up on the pillow.

Questions buzz through my head like yellow jackets when you kick up a nest, but it seems wrong to ask for the blow-by-blow details. Katherine will tell me tomorrow—if she can talk about it.

“We stole the car,” Bitsy announces. “Mama stood in the bedroom door and blocked Mr. MacIntosh’s way, but we had to leave the baby. He wouldn’t let go of him.” I can picture Mary Proudfoot facing the mister down. She’s as tall as he is and thirty pounds heavier. I don’t worry about little Willie; as soon as his father passes out, Mary will get her hands on him and feed him cow’s milk or cereal.

“He’ll be awful pissed,” Bitsy continues, “when he finds his precious Oldsmobile is gone. Probably call the sheriff.”

“We’ll worry about that in the morning.” I glance out the window to see if anyone’s coming. “Who drove?”

“I did.” That’s Bitsy. “Miss Katherine showed me what to do. We took it real slow. That’s why we got here so late.” I look at Bitsy with new respect; her fearlessness amazes me. It took me a year to learn how to drive; Ruben taught me. That was back when he had an auto, on loan from the union.

Katherine MacIntosh hasn’t uttered a word since she told me about refusing to “play cards.” “Is there anything you need, Katherine? Do you want to wash up? We can help you.”

“My chest,” she says. “I’m so uncomfortable. The baby still nurses every few hours.”

Cripes! I’ve been so concerned about the woman’s bruises, I hadn’t even thought about her breast milk. I reach over and touch Katherine’s cheek, wipe the tears off her face. “Can I check? If you’re engorged, we have to get the milk out or you’ll get an infection. Here, sit up.”

I pull her yellow cashmere sweater up to her chin, undo her brassiere, and find that her breasts are as hard as baseballs.

“Bitsy, get a shallow bowl and more warm compresses. Do you think you can express the milk, Katherine? Or do you need our help? We have to get it out somehow, and we don’t have a baby to help us.”

The beaten woman shakes her head and lifts her sprained wrists, opening and closing her fingers with difficulty to show that she can barely move them.

“Well, Bitsy and I will have to do it, then. Is it okay?” Katherine shrugs and I help her lean forward so her breasts hang down. We surround them with warm compresses; then I teach Bitsy how to grasp the nipple between thumb and fingertip and squeeze down. Milk drips into the bowl and mixes with Katherine’s tears.

Some people would say that this is too strange, to be milking another woman like a cow, but I am a midwife, a former wet nurse. I’m used to touching women’s bodies and have taught many mothers to breastfeed. For Bitsy, granted, it must be odd, but she’s always interested in learning new things and midwifery may be her calling.

When we’re done, we put the bowl of breast milk in the kitchen and cover it with a pie pan; then I carry it out to the springhouse. I’m not sure what we’re saving it for, but human milk, since my days as a milkmaid, has always seems like liquid gold to me.

“You can sleep in my bed, if you want, Miss Katherine,” Bitsy tells our exhausted guest. “I’ll change the sheets real quick.” She puts the dogs out to pee and banks the fire.

Katherine declines, maybe because she wouldn’t want to sleep in a colored person’s bed but more likely because it would hurt too much to get up the stairs. Regardless, we tuck her back under the quilt.

It’s a bad night. Twice I get up to put wood on the fire and look out the window, apprehensive about what the next day will bring. I open my diary and write by candlelight. Will Mr. MacIntosh really send the sheriff after Katherine and arrest her and Bitsy for stealing his car? Or will he be too ashamed about assaulting his wife to get the law involved? Next door in her bedroom, Bitsy grinds her teeth in her sleep, something she does when she’s upset. My friend is probably worried too. She’s the driver of a stolen car—a Negro driver of a stolen car.

I toss and turn, wake, and fall asleep again, studying the problem of what I should do. We need to get the mother and baby back together, but is it safe? I have no doubt that William’s as thick as thieves with the constable and all the lawyers in town. And what will the repercussions for Mary and Bitsy be?

William could claim that Katherine went hysterical on him and he had to fight her off, was only defending himself and the baby. The only witnesses would be the two black females, who are not likely to be listened to. I don’t know what the wife-beating statutes in West Virginia are, but in some states it’s considered a husband’s right to keep his woman in line with a whack or beating.