Midwives by Chris Bohjalian

Author:Chris Bohjalian [Bohjalian, Chris]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, Unknown, 26NEWBIE
ISBN: 0609606301
Publisher: Harmony Books
Published: 2000-10-09T21:00:00+00:00

Years later when my mother was diagnosed with lung cancer—an adenocarcinoma, the sort a nonsmoker’s most likely to get—I saw my father become an exquisite caregiver. I saw a tender person inside him emerge and purchase a Vita-Mix blender, and prepare her broccoli shakes and carrot juice in the middle of each afternoon. My mother told me he did all the laundry and the grocery shopping when she became unable, and I saw how he filled the house with fruit. I know he drove often to the department store in Burlington to buy my mother turbans and hats and scarves. And, toward the end, on occasion I saw him sitting patiently beside her as she did crossword puzzles in bed, keeping her company as a listener at once active and serene. Sometimes that bed was in their bedroom, sometimes it was in the hospital.

He was, I can write without reservation or qualification, an exceptional cancer coach: part nurse, part dietitian, part partner and soul mate. Part Knute Rockne.

But, of course, my mother was not diagnosed with cancer in 1981, she was charged with a felony. She was accused of taking one life when she was supposed to be facilitating another’s arrival.

Consequently, my mother didn’t need a nurse or a dietitian or a cancer coach, she needed a lawyer. And so I think it was natural that to a large extent that role of caregiver fell more upon Stephen Hastings’s shoulders than upon my father’s, and that my father was jealous: He wanted to help. He wanted responsibilities. He wanted more things to do.

I watched my parents carefully the night Stephen stopped by with his news, and it was clear that my mother had lost sight of the good tidings he’d brought her behind the bad. Undoubtedly she was relieved that in all likelihood the State would charge her with involuntary manslaughter instead of second-degree murder, but this information had been overshadowed by the idea that she would have to stop birthing babies for some period of time. Perhaps forever.

Looking back, I realize my mother’s reaction probably shouldn’t have surprised me: A criminal charge was an abstract thing to her, something she couldn’t fully comprehend. But midwifery was her calling, it was what she had chosen to do with her life. The very notion that she’d have to close her practice—even temporarily—caused her more anxiety than her lawyer’s news about the charge brought relief.

“What am I supposed to do, tell someone like May O’Brien that I can’t help her have her baby?” she asked my father that night as she picked at the food on her plate.

“I guess you’ll have to refer her to someone else,” my father said. “Maybe Tracy Fitzpatrick.”

“Tracy lives in Burlington, for God’s sake. She’s too far away for most of my mothers.”

“What about Cheryl?”

“Cheryl Visco doesn’t have a moment to breathe; she couldn’t possibly handle anybody else. Besides, she lives too far away, too.”

“What about—”

“And I have relationships with these women—that’s what counts! They trust me, not Cheryl or Tracy.

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