The Midwife (9 page)

Dr. Hancock looked between the parents and then over at me. “You all right?” she asked.

I nodded, but I could feel the sweat beading my top lip
as the vertigo returned
 
—making me the axis from which the rest of the room spun. I wanted to have a say in the decision, but I knew that
 
—without a biological connection to the child
 
—I had no right. I was just a conduit for life that had, with the casual flick of Meredith’s wrist, been transformed into a conduit for death. With every puncture to the uterine cavity, both my life and the baby’s were put at risk through the potential for preterm labor and infection.

My rattled mind echoed with the words I had thought in the beginning:
This is a business transaction; that is all.
But it no longer
was
just a business transaction, and if I was honest with myself, it never had been. I had been coerced into this business transaction not by the promise of money, but by the phantom promise of Dr. Thomas Fitzpatrick’s love. I realized
 
—sitting there, cradling my womb beneath protective hands
 
—that love not for the father, but for the child herself, was the reason I wanted to weep over the loss that was sure to come.

“I’m not prepared to raise a child who isn’t normal,” Meredith said. “I’m just not. I was never really prepared to . . . to raise a child at all.”’

Thom stripped off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. “So what do we do if the amniocentesis shows the same results?”

“We only have one choice,” Meredith said. “Don’t we?” She looked between the doctors and then her husband as if the woman whose body actually sustained her child’s life were not in the room. “It will have to be aborted.”

As tears dripped upon my clenched hands, I wondered if I was the only one who noted the shift from a daughter, a baby, a life, to
it
.

Thom turned at the sound of my bike tires rolling over the uneven boards of the dock. He wasn’t wearing his glasses. His hair hadn’t been combed. If it weren’t for the faint gray fanning out from his temples, I would almost think him the same age as me
 
—and that there really was hope for us. But there wasn’t hope. There never had been.

He smiled as I drew closer. “You came.”

“Did I have a choice?” I leaned my bike against the side of the dock and walked toward him. “You told me to.” My tone was clipped. But I wasn’t angry, just broken.

“We all have a choice.”

“Meredith doesn’t think we do,” I said.

Thom winced. He looked out across the lake, where swans stirred the water with their brilliant white wings and then settled down again as if they had never moved. “No,” he finally sighed. “Meredith doesn’t.”

“And what do you think?” I stepped closer.

Thom cupped his hands over his mouth and exhaled hard. “We both signed the contract, Beth. We both have a say.”

“But don’t
I
have a say?” I cried. “Doesn’t it matter that
I
want to keep this child? That I don’t care if she’s handicapped or not?”

Thom placed his hands on the railing of the dock. For
the first time since I met him, the boyish traces faded away, and he just looked . . . old. “I know Meredith wouldn’t allow you to adopt the child. She wouldn’t. Not after
 
—” He cast a hand over the still water with its floating net of feathers, but I knew he was recalling the afternoon Meredith saw the two of us embracing in his office. I then understood that though Thom had surely caught up with his wife that day, he had never been allowed to explain our relationship. Perhaps he didn’t understand it himself.

I said, “But to sacrifice a child to preserve her pride? To . . . to punish us? What kind of mother would do that? Already . . .” I placed a hand on my stomach, and as if in response, she stirred inside my womb, leaving behind an undercurrent of life long after her movements had ceased. “Already I would give everything up for this child, and she’s not even mine.”

Shaking my head, I took a step away from Thom, back up the dock. “No. It’s not natural what Meredith’s feeling and what she’s not. That is not the kind of mother I want my daughter
 
—” My mouth convulsed. My vision swam as, for the first time, I uttered the possessiveness for this child that I innately felt. It did not matter that I would never be able to study her features for traces of my own. It did not matter that she would instead look like Meredith, the woman who had allowed her body to go through such physical duress without ever opening her heart. What mattered was that, for this moment, this child was mine to protect
 
—to cherish
 
—and I would not let anything harm her. Or anyone. Even the man I had thought I loved.

Thom picked up the scarred leather satchel beside his feet and moved down the dock toward me. “I always knew what was at risk,” he said.

“Then why risk it?” My voice cracked. “If you knew your wife didn’t want this child, why’d you place me between you? Why’d you place
us
between you?”

“Everything just seemed to make sense.” He looked down. “Surrogacy was the only way to be a father, and I knew that you needed money for school and that you’d had a child before.”

The implication that money was the reason I’d agreed to bear his child made acid creep up my throat. “It was never about the money.”

Thom glanced up to meet my eyes. “I know.” He held out his satchel and then, at my curious expression, pulled it open. Inside, I saw green bills bound with blue and pink bands. He reached out, as if to skim his fingers across my stomach’s surface. Dropping his hand, he swallowed deeply and said, “If we agree to terminate the pregnancy, I know . . . I know money can’t offset your pain, but I want you to know that we . . . appreciate your sacrifice.”

“Sacrifice?”
I gasped, and the reality burned. “Are you paying me to abort your child?”

Thom turned and stared at the lake. His unfocused eyes gleamed with tears. I knew then that this choice was breaking his heart too.

I took a deep breath and reached out to touch his arm
 
—beseeching him to reason, to care. “But isn’t there a chance the baby’s normal?” I asked. “Why don’t
you just cancel the second amniocentesis and hope for the best?”

Thom dragged a sleeve hard across his face. His voice was so carefully devoid of emotion, he might have been quoting from a textbook as he said, “An amniocentesis is 99.4 percent accurate, Beth. You know that.”

Taking his hand from where it rested on the dock rail, I forced it against my womb. “You felt her move, Thom. You cried when you heard her heartbeat. Do
not
throw your percentages at me; you know very well that, normal or not, your daughter is as much a person as you or I!”

Thom withdrew his hand and folded his arms. I glimpsed his steel will girding his passive facade and knew he would not change his mind. To hide my fear, I stared out at the swans that were as exquisite as decoys. I saw a single Canada goose gliding through the water. She was beside them, but not among. Her tan-and-black wings were strengthened from numerous flights, while the swans’ immense beauty had been clipped to stay. Had I always felt so isolated from my peers because I had never been meant to live a normal life? Had my trials toughened me, so I would now have the strength to take flight and save this child?

My mind reeled. If I fled, I would not only be leaving behind my unfinished degree
 
—my future prospects
 
—but I would also be leaving Thom, my only friend. This was the second time in my life I had been given a gift that came with an enormous price.

Tears filled my eyes. I looked over at Thom. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m just . . . tired.”

He bridged the distance between us and patted my shoulder. In that touch, I felt what I had never allowed myself to see: Thom had never seen me as a potential lover, but as the daughter that, before me, he’d never been able to have.

“I will take your money,” I whispered, not meeting his eyes, “and if the amniocentesis results are the same, we will terminate the pregnancy.”

Thom nodded and again swallowed deeply. The silence between us was broken only by the fowl’s pulsating wings as she prepared for flight. As Thom embraced me for the final time, I could tell he thought that I had accepted his viewpoint. The truth was, however, I was just beginning to understand my own.

“Deborah?” I said after the Mennonite midwife mumbled a greeting into the phone. “I’m sorry to wake you. I found your number through the operator. My name’s Beth
 
—Bethany Winslow. You . . . you delivered my son five years ago at La Crosse Regional on February 3, 1991. . . . I’d just turned eighteen.” Cradling the phone against my shoulder, I turned to the side and waited until I could continue speaking. “It was on the second anniversary of the court ruling of the
In re Baby M
case. I was watching it on TV . . . after I gave my son up.”

I could hear Deborah Brubaker sitting up, the soft rustle of sheets peeling back. I could imagine her husband mouthing questions and Deborah using the same hand that had soothed my mourning to bat him away.

“I remember you,” she said. “What do you need?” Her lilting Pennsylvania Dutch accent seemed diminished, but then I wondered if her tongue was still heavy with sleep.

“I’m pregnant. Again.” My jaw tightened around the words. My ears burned with the implication. For some reason, I did not want this Mennonite midwife who had taken care of me five years ago to think I was an immoral girl who slept with every guy around. And for once, I wanted to tell someone
 
—
anyone
 
—the truth.

“I’m a gestational surrogate for a wealthy couple,” I explained. “But they don’t want the child anymore
 
—because of a defect. I need somewhere to stay until she’s born. I don’t have much money. And I need to leave right away. Do you know of any place?”

I would not know Deborah was still on the line except for the uneven pitch of her breathing. I sensed that she was deliberating whether this girl she’d helped so long ago was worth the risk of losing her job. The air conditioner kicked on in my apartment. The toilet flushed in the bathroom between my bedroom and my roommate’s. I rubbed my forehead. Despite the coolness of the room, my fingers came back dampened with sweat. I looked at my watch. If I was going to leave unnoticed, I did not have much time.

Finally, Deborah said, “I know someone. We were trained by the same midwife back home, in Lancaster.”

I sat on the corner of my unmade bed and closed my eyes. “Thank you.” My voice quavered. “What’s her number?”

“Oh, my,” Deborah said, “Fannie doesn’t have a phone.
Not even in the barn. She’s still Old Order Mennonite. The only way you can reach her is by mail.”

“By mail?” I repeated. “I can’t write a letter. I have no time.”

“You could drive there,” Deborah said. “Fannie can’t turn anybody away. It makes it difficult for her since the community doesn’t always agree, but it’d work in your favor now.”

“Where’s she located?” I asked.

“Tennessee,” Deborah replied. “Dry Hollow, Tennessee.”

“Is it remote?”

“Remote? You can’t get more remote than Dry Hollow. Henry and I traveled down there after Fannie opened Hopen Haus in ’89, and we were driving dirt roads for miles. That’s one of the reasons the community bought the place. It’s so far from everything.”

We were both silent. Then I cleared my throat. “I called too,” I said, “because I never got the chance to . . . thank you. I don’t think you’ll ever know what you did for me that day.”

“You’re welcome,” Deborah said. “But I didn’t remember you because of the
Baby M
case.”

“You didn’t?”

“No,” said Deborah. “Though it did help me put you in a timeline, of sorts. I remembered you because I’d never seen a girl your age go through what you did alone. You were really brave that day. I hope you know that.”

Tears trickled from my eyes. At twenty-three, I was as alone as I’d been at eighteen. Would my entire life be spent
in solitude? Would my entire life be a reminder of the familial intimacy I’d lost? Saying good-bye, I dabbed my face and padded into the hall. Resting my hip against the doorframe separating the bedrooms from the living room, I touched my stomach rising beneath my cotton shirt.

“I’ll be brave,” I whispered.

As if celebrating her resurrection, the child leaped within me.

I finished packing my car at dawn, not that I had much to pack. I had winnowed both my family’s and my possessions when I left Wisconsin at seventeen. Since then, I had purposefully not met anyone or gotten anything that could not be left behind. I slammed the hatch and climbed behind the wheel.

I heard the sound of Jillian, my roommate, practicing her flute in the tiny apartment. Her daily routine usually set my teeth on edge, but knowing this would be the last time I would hear it made me wistful for the relationship I’d never allowed myself to cultivate. The high, sweet notes drifted out of my roommate’s open bedroom window and caught in the crape myrtle dancing in the morning June breeze. I kept my own car window down so the music could serenade me as I drove out of Simms University’s brick-and-mortar entrance, with its massive wrought-iron gates under an enormous golden letter
S
.

I cruised past the awakening estates called White Swan, where the Fitzpatricks lived and which hemmed in my
storybook campus. My mind conjured forth images of Thom throughout the two years I’d known him: his cups of milk tea that he never finished, his messy notes that I could never decipher, his jewel-toned stacks of out-of-print books, his lazy British accent, his ruddy hair and smudged spectacles. . . . I had memorized everything about him as one does with a celebrity or role model. But I realized in that moment that I did not truly know him, nor did he know me. In fact, if I had not become his surrogate, I was certain that in time, Thom would have forgotten me. Instead, he had asked me to carry their child, and in leaving a mark on my life, I had been forced to leave a mark on his. Slowing my car, I looked out at the lake where I had met Thom the previous morning. The black water was still. Cherry blossoms clung to the limber willow branches trailing along the pebbled bank. The swans were clustered there, long necks tucked under magnificent white wings.

“Good-bye, Thom,” I whispered, my tone heavy with all I had not said. But I had to leave him because of the child I’d been given that, this time, I refused to lose.

One day had passed since I left Massachusetts, three hours since I’d exited the interstate that branched off onto a narrow two-lane and then a series of potholed country roads. I was prepared for the rugged terrain, but I was still surprised at how the geography shifted as I drew closer to the destination I’d circled on a gas station map. On one side of the road and across the fields, fencerows lined acres of lush
grass where a colorful menagerie of cattle grazed. On the other side, grasshoppers sprang up from knee-high wheat with the whir of tiny machines. A dilapidated cabin with a tin roof eaten with rust perched on a hillside overlooking the valley.

I wondered if this was part of the Dry Hollow Community, but I doubted it was. There was nothing to let me know that the Old Order Mennonite community even existed, except for the address that Deborah Brubaker had given me. I felt vulnerable, surrounded by such open terrain. If my car broke down, it appeared I would have to walk for miles before coming upon any form of life
 
—discounting the cattle and a few soaring hawks that cast shadows upon the green.

Sipping lukewarm Coke, I screwed on the lid and continued driving. In the distance, I saw what could only be members of the Dry Hollow Community toiling in the far end of the field, and suddenly it was as if I had driven back through time. A Clydesdale stallion towed some sort of antiquated farming implement down the center of the tilled strip of earth. A bearded rider sat aloft, holding tightly to the reins while a funnel of dust rose behind him. Along the road, several women
 
—all with young children in tow
 
—passed me, carrying baskets draped with cloths and what looked like large glass jars of sun tea.

A few of the women turned to stare at my vehicle with an inquisitive expression made further uniform by their long dresses and netted white
kapps
. I touched the gas pedal and made my way to the top of the hill. I parked in
front of an old-fashioned hitching post, where two horses encumbered with buggies were tied. As I stepped out, I locked the vehicle out of habit before closing the door. A sorrel gelding turned his head at the noise and twitched his silken tail to ward off the flies alighting on his back, but he could not see me for his blinders.

Taking a deep breath, I walked toward the front door on trembling legs. The house was tall and rectangular except for a lath-and-plaster addition, which jutted off the log-and-chink structure like the bottom half of the letter
L
. The roof was patchworked with shiny and dull tin, marking the different repairs. From this, two brick chimneys jutted, their old gray mortar crumbling from age. Below the ten oblong windows, flower boxes spilled blue and pink morning glory blooms. A volley of hummingbirds darted and chirped. They were fighting over the glass feeders that hung from the three porch fascias skirting the house.

I mounted the steps and knocked on the door. Twisting my hands, I wondered if I had made a mistake. I did not have a plan for being here. I certainly did not want to join the church or take up the Mennonites’ Plain lifestyle. I just knew that I needed a place to remain in safety and seclusion until my child could be born. Hopen Haus was the only option on such short notice. I was just about to knock again when the door opened. A thin, small-boned woman with a strapless white apron tacked to a dark dress stood in a square of light beaming in from a window beside the door. Her eyes infused with the same inner kindness as
Deborah’s, she looked me over
 
—pausing on my stomach that no baggy T-shirt could hide. She smiled.

I asked, “Are you Fannie?”

“
Jah
, child,” she said.

If she had greeted me in any other way, I would not have responded with the heaving sobs that startled the midwife and stole my breath. Fannie stepped out onto the porch and pulled the door behind her. Without a word, she held me
 
—her starched apron crackling like parchment against my chest
 
—and patted my back. I leaned my lanky body on Fannie’s short frame. I am sure our embrace looked awkward to anyone watching. But I did not care. Six years had passed since I’d been anyone’s child, and it had been even longer since I had actually felt taken care of; after my mother left when I was twelve, I had tried to fill her grown-up shoes.

“
Ach
, now,” Fannie said. She reached out that small hand with its clipped nails and calloused creases and rested it on my womb. “You need somewhere to stay?”

I nodded and sank back into her arms. She patted my back again and didn’t say another word, just let me cry.