I woke in an empty bed. It was early—not yet seven—but Robert’s briefcase, which had been reclining at the foot of the bed when I got in last night, was gone. The blinds were cracked open and red-pink light filtered in, pretty but ominous. Red sky in the morning, shepherds take warning. Robert had been snoring when I got in, so I didn’t have the chance to tell him about Mom. Then again, even if he had been awake, I might not have told him. After his outburst the other day, I felt inclined to play my cards a little closer to my chest.
At 8:53, I was still in bed. The light had faded to peach, but otherwise, not much had changed. I still had seven phone calls to make. Seven clients to disappoint. I hadn’t found the right words yet. You know how you entrusted the most important experience of your life to me? Well, I’m going to let you down at the last minute without giving you a valid alternative, because I’m being investigated for negligence. Truthful, but I didn’t like the sound of it. As the minutes ticked closer to nine, the time I’d deemed acceptable to call, my anxiety grew. So, at 8:57, when my cell phone rang, I lunged at it—a prospect of distraction—without so much as checking the screen. “Grace Bradley.”
“Grace. It’s Molly.”
I cursed silently. Out of the seven, Molly was the one I least wanted to speak to. When I’d spoken to her last week, she told me her husband had been laid off and she was worried the stress might somehow affect the baby. We’d become close over the past months. To leave her now was unthinkable. I had a flash of pure hatred for Dr. White and his complaint.
“Molly, hello. How are—?”
“I’vebeenhavingcontractionsforaboutfourhours.” Molly’s words tumbled out without so much as a pause.
I shot upright. “Where are you, honey?”
“At my apartment. Is it too early for you to come over?”
It was. About a month too early.
“How far apart are contractions?”
“The last two were around three minutes apart.”
My hand, which was holding the phone, began to shake. “And before that?”
“Well … at first they came every eight minutes. Then every five. Now they’ve gone down to three.”
“Are they painful?”
“Oh, God. Hang on a sec, Grace. Ohhhhh.” A familiar low whimper came through the phone.
“Molly, is that a contraction? Can you answer me? Can you talk through it?”
The whimper turned into a wail and then died down to nothing. “Sorry. They’re getting bad. Can you come?”
Silently, I slapped a palm against my head.
“Grace? Are you there?”
“I’m here. It’s just that there’s something I need to tell you.” I continued to slap my head. “I’m so sorry, but … I’m not going to be able to deliver your baby.”
There was a pause. “Is this a joke?”
“I wish it was. There’s been a complaint made against me. My license has been suspended until a full investigation has been done and the Board of Nursing has made a ruling. Which won’t be for about a month.”
“A month?” Molly’s voice squeaked. “But my baby is coming. What am I supposed to do?”
“Given the fact that you’re already in labor, you’ll have to go to the hospital. That, as far as I can tell, is your only option.” I waited, but only silence rang through the phone. “Molly? Are you there?”
I could hear her breathing, so I knew she was.
“Molly,” I tried again. “I cannot tell you how sorry I am. It’s just the investigation. But if you go to the hosp—”
“I watched my mother die in hospital a year ago.” Her voice was calm—almost robotic. “I don’t want my baby to come into the world in a place of sickness and death. That’s why I came to you.”
My heart sped up. Her mother. Of course.
“Molly. I want to deliver your baby. But if I do, I risk losing my license permanently.”
“Well, I’m not going to the hos—” Molly paused to moan through another contraction. When it finished, she said, “You do what you have to do, Grace. And I’ll do the same.”
* * *
Fifteen minutes later, I was in Molly’s bedroom. I tried to keep my mind on the task, but it kept wandering. What was I supposed to have done? Left Molly at home to deliver alone? Forced her into an ambulance to be taken to a hospital that terrified her? The way I saw it, I didn’t have a lot of options. But my heart felt heavy. And weighing on my mind most wasn’t the idea of the Board of Nursing finding out. It was Robert finding out.
Molly spent an hour in a squatting position, while her husband supported her weight. She was using every last bit of her energy to give the final push that would bring her baby into the world. She’d impressed me with her focus and control. Sometimes that was how things went. The calmest, most composed women came apart during labor and the timid, cautious ones rose to the challenge.
“Okay, Molly,” I said, kneeling at her feet, “Let’s find out if it’s a boy or a girl.”
When the time came, she let out a purposeful wail. I eased the baby’s head out slowly. The cord was around the baby’s neck, but loose, and I removed it. With the next contraction, Molly’s face contorted again and she pushed her baby boy into my hands. I glanced at the clock. “Ten thirty-two A.M. A perfectly sociable time to be born.”
I handed Molly her baby, and silence descended. Jimmy cried quietly. Molly stared at her baby and he stared back—an invisible cord of love connecting them. We all felt it. Magic was in the room. Magic that, perhaps, wouldn’t have been there at the hospital.
“Would you like to try feeding now, Molly?” I asked. “It might help encourage the uterus to contract and expel the placenta.”
Molly did want to try feeding. I had some medication that would cause the placenta to expel, but my clients generally preferred not to use it. I was inclined to agree with them. The female body was remarkable at managing this process on its own.
I covered the bed in towels, and Jimmy helped Molly lie down. The baby latched on without too much effort, and I sat back and waited for the placenta to come.
Jimmy and Molly looked spent but happy. No matter how I tried, I couldn’t envisage this scene in a hospital. Molly, I knew, would have been hysterical, in an environment that terrified her, surrounded by strangers. How wrong it seemed now that I’d even considered doing that to her. Here, on her own bed, she seemed calm, tranquil, and strong. Like every new mother should.
“Okay,” I said after fifteen minutes had passed. “Come on, placenta! Let’s see what the holdup is.”
I felt for the fundus, which was contracting, but gently, and kneaded it with my hands.
“Is everything okay?” Molly asked, looking up from her baby for the first time.
“Fine,” I said. “Just giving your uterus a helping hand. Generally, I like the placenta to come out within half an hour. We still have time. Keep feeding. You’re doing a great job.”
The baby continued to suckle happily at the breast. Jimmy fell asleep on Molly’s shoulder. But ten minutes later, the placenta still hadn’t come.
“Still nothing?” Molly asked. I could feel her assessing my face for worry, so I concentrated on keeping it straight.
“Nope. Not yet.”
“Are you worried?”
“No,” I said carefully. “But I would like it to come sooner rather than later. If you’re comfortable with it, I’d like to give you a shot, to help it expel.”
She frowned, and I could see the wheels spinning in her head. I doubted she’d be opposed to the shot, but like most of my clients, she wanted to know there was a good reason for its use. “And if we don’t use the shot?”
“Well, your placenta might come out on its own. Or there’s a possibility that we may have to take you to the hospital. Even if I give you the shot, it won’t guarantee that you don’t have to go to the hospital,” I added. “But I’d say the medication is your best chance. Up to you.”
“Give me the shot,” Molly said without hesitation.
Three minutes later, Molly had a sharp contraction, and a few minutes after that, the placenta was delivered intact.
I stayed with Molly until the early hours of the morning, then wrote up the birth—for my own records—and began to pack up my things. It was Jimmy’s idea for me not to write out the birth certificate. “If we don’t tell anyone you were here,” he’d said, you can’t get into trouble. We can just say we had the baby on our own. People do that, right? What are they called … free-birthers?” I told him I thought it was a wonderful idea. Too good to be true.
I left Molly a script for Tylenol 3 (the contractions caused by the shot could get quite painful) and promised to be back in a few hours. Then came the awkward part. I’d always liked the anonymity of the follow-up invoice for a few reasons. One, it felt wrong to put your hand out so soon after being part of something so intimate and special with a family. Two, it was usually the last thing on people’s minds after welcoming a child into their family. But now that I was off the record, I didn’t have the luxury of sending an invoice.
“Uh, Jimmy?” I hovered in the doorway. “Do you have a sec?”
Reluctantly, Jimmy left his wife and son and joined me in the hallway.
“Just about payment. Did you…” I couldn’t seem to find the words. “Um, how did you want to … organize this?”
Jimmy’s face pinkened. It reminded me that he’d recently been let go from his job. “Oh, yeah, um, sure. Hang on a sec.”
He sloped, teenlike, into the sitting room and unzipped the computer bag that was on the round dining table. He pulled out a wallet sealed with Velcro. “How much was it again?”
I bit my lip. “Um … well, three thousand.”
Jimmy nodded and looked back at his wallet. Already I could see that it contained nowhere near that amount. Desperately, he began to count out the notes.
“How much have you got, Jimmy?” I asked softly.
He looked up, shamefaced. I thought he was going to make something up, say it had been stolen or something, but he just sighed.
“About nine hundred. Could you take it as an installment? When I get another job, I can pay you the rest. I’m sure it won’t take me long to find something.”
His face was such a departure from what I’d seen a few minutes earlier. The weight of responsibility was already falling on his shoulders, and I knew too well how hard that could be for a man.
“No, Jimmy. Forget it. You need this money more than I do.”
Jimmy was bewildered. “You mean … you don’t want any money?”
The irony of what I was doing wasn’t lost on me. Robert was down on me for taking unnecessary risks that could threaten my ability to support my family financially, yet here I was, taking risks for no money at all. Where would Robert’s moral compass have stood on this? Was it further evidence of me putting my head in the sand, putting others ahead of our family? Perhaps. But I knew where my moral compass stood. And it was telling me this was the right thing to do.
I smiled. “You keep it. Use it to look after your wife and son.”