The Midwife of Hope River

“I’m Pete Dyer, and my brother John says his wife, Hannah, is paining. He sent me to fetch you.”

“Be right there.”

Bitsy is already clomping down the stairs as I hurry upstairs to dress. “I’ll leave food for the cow, the chickens, and the dogs,” she tells me.

In ten minutes we’re settled in the front seat of the Model T Ford truck, a battered affair that sits far off the ground, perfect for the rough dirt back roads that, with the depression, are now full of potholes. The county has no money to fix them.

At the Dyer home, a two-story stone farmhouse on a rise above the Hope River, we are surprised to find Hannah and her husband, John, both in their early twenties, dancing in the living room to a waltz on the gramophone. I recognize the tune, “The Blue Danube.”

Bitsy and I look at each other, drop the birth satchel near the door, and plunk down on the high-backed leather sofa to watch. This doesn’t seem right! Either the woman isn’t in labor, or we were called way too early.

Hannah wears a white nightdress that rises around her ankles when the two of them spin. Her long straight black hair is loose, and her feet are bare and so are her husband’s. It’s clear that the two have taken ballroom dancing lessons, and I recall now that both went to Torrington State, he for agriculture, she for literature. John and his younger brother inherited their grandparents’ expansive bottomland farm when their grandma died of heart failure a year ago.

The couple have eyes only for each other, so, though I’m miffed at being called so early when I could be home asleep on the sofa. I keep my peace and wait for the music to end. I don’t have to wait long. The recording keeps playing, but Hannah stops in midtwirl and says two words: “My back.”

The husband sits down in an easy chair, nods toward us as if he’s just noticed our presence, and begins to massage his wife’s sacrum. He kneads and caresses, not just her lower back but also her buttocks and thighs. Bitsy looks away, but I’m transfixed, watching something that most people think belongs in the bedroom. The music goes on, and when the pain is over the couple embrace and start dancing again.

“There’s cider on the table and fresh-baked muffins,” Hannah calls gaily, looking over her shoulder as she twirls across the room. Bitsy and I wander into the kitchen.

“What do you think? Is she in labor?”

Bitsy shrugs philosophically, biting into a muffin so golden it looks like pure butter. “I guess. Want to take a spin?”

“I don’t think so!”

“I’m serious.” My friend grabs my hand and drags me back to the living room. This is the first time since the day I told Bitsy about Twyla’s baby being given away that I’ve heard her laugh. “One, two, three. One, two, three.” She puts her arm around my waist and leads me across the room. “One, two, three.”

“That’s the beeswax!” Hannah encourages us. Her face is pink and moist and beautiful. After a few minutes, I’m feeling rather fine myself. “One, two, three. One, two, three.”

I can’t remember when I last danced. It might have been at our wedding at the Labor Union Hall, Ruben’s and mine. We’d courted for only six months, but the drums of war were already roaring and people didn’t waste time back then.

France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, Hungary . . . the whole world was involved; it was only a matter of time until the United States jumped in. Ruben was an isolationist, like many in those days. “We’d just be sending our boys over there for cannon fodder,” he objected. It’s not that he was a pacifist, he just didn’t see that the war in Europe was any of our business.

Looking back, my years as Ruben Gordesky’s wife were the happiest of my life, like dancing, that’s how I remember them. Six short years . . .

Hannah

Bitsy and I spin around until I’m dizzy, almost bumping into the other couple, who stop suddenly for another contraction, this one apparently harder.

“Whoops! Something just happened!” Hannah lifts her gown and stares at a wet spot on the worn pine floor. “It must be the baby’s fluid. Let me get a pad,” she tells her husband. “Then I want to try the Charleston. You put on the recording of ‘Syncopatin’ Sal.’ ” The young mother-to-be gathers her nightdress between her legs like a woman stomping grapes and heads awkwardly upstairs.

I follow and motion to Bitsy to bring the satchel. “If you wouldn’t mind, Hannah, I’d like to check the baby’s heartbeat, figure out its position. When did your pains start?”

Hannah doesn’t answer; she’s squatting at the top of the landing, holding on to the wooden post.

“Jiminy!” she exclaims. “That was a hard one. I’m gonna have to dance faster to keep up.” Before she gets clean bloomers out of her dresser, she has another pain and then another. I consult Mrs. Kelly’s gold watch. Three minutes apart. Things seem to be progressing faster than I had thought.

Bitsy pours water from the flowered pitcher into the porcelain basin on the stand, and I wash my hands. Then I have Hannah lie down so I can listen to the baby’s heart sounds and make sure it’s head down. When the next contraction comes on, before I can assess the strength, Hannah rolls away from me and struggles to get up.

“I can’t do this lying down!” she wails, for the first time sounding a little out of control. John, the husband, bounds up the stairs, pulls his wife to her feet, and holds her against his chest. He’s changed the recording to a slower tune, “Black Mountain Blues” by Bessie Smith.

I remember that tune from when Ruben and I won a dance contest at a speakeasy in McKeesport. In the early twenties no music was more threatening than jazz and blues. We were traveling in the fast lane, and jazz and blues were the background music for the revolution. I remember with fondness the clubs in Pittsburgh’s Hill District where blacks and whites danced together. Now people can listen to the same songs on the Victrola in their own homes. What a world we live in!

I shake my head. There’s no point getting nostalgic, and there’s no point arguing with Hannah about staying in bed, either. She’s not going to do it.

Bitsy carefully puts down our sterile newspaper under our cloth pads on top of the bed and clears the dresser for our supplies. She places Mrs. Potts’s hemorrhage tincture and a bottle of olive oil on the side. “Don’t forget a smaller bowl for the afterbirth,” I remind her. My friend rolls her eyes, letting me know she doesn’t need reminding.