The Midwife of Hope River
Page 62Sitting in the coach, leaning into each other, staring out the window as we chugged through Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania, we struggled to hold on to some dream we had of America.
A week later, we read in the Washington Times that a white mob had grabbed another black man near Howard University, hung him up like a cow for slaughter, and shot him. After that, all hell broke loose. Mrs. Gompers was right. There was rioting in D.C., black man against white. In the end four men died on the streets of the capital of the land of the free, the home of the brave . . . but that was over ten years ago.
As Daniel Hester and I hurry away down Main Street, away from the crowd and around the corner to his office, the three brothers watch us, hate in their eyes.
30
July 10, 1930. Full moon rising. Like the one blind eye of heaven.
Birth of Chipper Mayo, 8 pounds, 4 ounces, fourth son of Phoebe and Delmar Mayo of Panther Branch. When we got to their farm, I thought for sure that we’d come too early. Phoebe was running around trying to tidy their small house. Bitsy and I pitched in. Bitsy even had the little boys out beating rugs on the clothesline. I finally had to tell the mother to go upstairs and lie down. She was exhausting herself, but she wasn’t in bed more than twenty minutes when we heard a yell. By the time we got there, a baby was lying on the bed between her legs in a mess of blood and water, crying up a storm.
The placenta, with a short thick cord, was sitting on his little wet head like a cap. I could have died laughing. No rips or tears. Some extra bleeding, but penny-royal and massage quieted it down. The father, Mr. Mayo, came home a bit later and exclaimed, “Well, isn’t he a chipper chap!” That’s how the baby got his name, “Chipper.” Present, only Bitsy and I, and we didn’t do much. Paid one fat chicken and made it home by supper!
Storm
In the evening, since it stays light so long, Bitsy and I sit on the porch and laugh at the 1920s articles in the old Ladies’ Home Journals I found in the attic. Those were the boom times that everyone thought would last forever. Easy money. Easy women in their short flapper skirts. I wore those short skirts myself with silk stockings and garter belts when Ruben and I went to the jazz clubs in Pittsburgh. We danced all night in the loud smoky halls. I noticed in town that the hems have come down, along with the stock market and everything else.
Moonlight has not yet delivered, but when Mr. Hester came over to check on her, he calculated that she would soon. Standing at the sink, washing his hands, he gave us instructions on how to tell when she goes into labor.
“The first thing to watch for,” he lectured, “is restlessness. Keep her in the barn. If you let her out, she may wander into the woods. What she’s looking for is a safe place to calve.” I was jotting this all down on a piece of wrapping paper.
“Next, her vulva will spring. This may happen a few days before the birth.”
“Spring?”
“Yeah, become loose, kind of open. Then her water bag will break. From now on, you probably should check on her a few times a day. Come for me if you think it’s time.”
“You gonna be Moonlight’s midwife?” I joke. He doesn’t laugh.
All day, every day, the sun beats down. It’s so hot that Emma and Sasha hide under the porch and the chickens cover themselves with dust. A hundred and three degrees! That’s what the tin man-in-the-moon thermometer on the side of the barn says. Usually in the mountains, even in July, it only gets up to eighty. Poor pregnant Moonlight! Her vulva hasn’t sprung yet, but she’s definitely restless.
We get up at six and weed the garden for a few hours before dawn, but by nine we just want to hide in the springhouse. By ten we’re finished, and then, as a reward, we walk Star down to the stream, play in the dwindling cool clear water, and pick raspberries.
Today, around five, just as we’re drying off, a hot wind comes up and black clouds boil over the mountaintops.
We both look up. Sniff the air like wild animals. “Bitsy, your hair! It’s standing on end!” (This is not a good sign; the atmosphere must be supercharged with electricity.)
“Yours too!” she yells. I raise my hand and feel the loose strands springing out around my face. Then all hell breaks loose.
First comes the thunder, rattling across the sky from the west, deep rumbling so close it makes the earth shake. We make it to the barn just as the sky cracks open and push Star through the doors. By the time we get to the house our clothes are soaked and our hair hangs in strings.
From the front windows I watch the crooked bolts of lightning pierce the black clouds. One jagged bolt strikes a tree across the valley, and the crack echoes for miles. I glance over at my companion, who has pulled the flying goose–pattern quilt over her head.
Escape
A few hours later, when the storm slows to a steady drumbeat and Bitsy and I are making supper, the blue door bangs open against the wall.
“Help!” someone cries. Because of the rain, we’d missed the sound of the vehicle sliding up Wild Rose Road and the frantic knocks. Katherine steps in onto the braided rug, her short bob plastered down, her eyes red from tears, a crying child in one arm and a suitcase in the other. Outside, a dark sedan sits just beyond the picket fence.
“Oh, Patience, Bitsy, hide me!” She paces the room like a fox in a cage. “He’ll come for me this time!” Bitsy takes the wailing baby and tries to soothe him. I pull Katherine’s wet silk middy off and wrap her in my kimono. We make tea, while our meal of fried potatoes and collards turns cold, and try to get the frightened woman calmed down.
It isn’t until I sit next to her on the sofa that I notice the fresh bruises on her throat, four finger marks on each side. Katherine sees me staring and touches her delicate neck. “He grabbed me from behind when I was packing. Mary ran upstairs and was screaming at him to get off. She finally had to snatch my silver mirror off the dresser and hit him three times. The glass broke in shards all over the floor.” She starts to cry again.