Fran worried all the way up the hill, even though worry did no good at all. Better to think about what to do if the baby hadn’t turned and was going to present a breech birth. She should have sent Becca on to the hospital yesterday. She wasn’t due for a couple more weeks, but babies had a way of coming when they were ready. Now with the snowstorm, well, there was plenty to worry about.
The concern heightened when she saw Ben’s truck snowed in. She couldn’t see how anybody could make it down the hill in that without sliding where they didn’t want to go. Thank goodness the horses were surefooted on the trail, but that might not help Becca.
If only Betty were still here riding beside her. She might have handled such situations in her years as nurse. But Betty was in New York. The lives of Becca and her baby were in Fran’s hands.
Don’t go borrowing trouble. Grandma Howard used to tell Fran that when she started worrying about something.
Prayers, that was what was needed. Every time she delivered a baby and especially this time.
At the house, Woody came out to take Jasmine to the barn after Fran dismounted and pulled the saddlebag off.
Fran stopped Ben when he reached for the saddlebag to carry it inside for her. “You better dig out your truck. Becca may need to be in the hospital if the baby is still breech. That would be safer for both her and the baby.”
Ben looked back at the trail they’d made through the snow to the house. He didn’t say it wasn’t possible to get to the hospital, even though she saw the uncertainty on his face. Instead he got back on his horse. “All right. Send Woody if you need me before I get back.” Woody had already gone toward the barn with Jasmine.
“Do you think the truck can make it down the mountain?”
“It will if we need it to.” The uncertainty was gone.
Fran didn’t watch him ride back down the trail. Instead she hurried up the porch steps, where a man she didn’t know opened the door.
“I’m Carl.” He looked a little panicked. “You got to help Becca. She’s punishing bad.”
“So you’re her husband?”
“That I am.” The man glanced toward the bedroom at the sound of Becca crying out. He looked ready to cry himself. “I can’t stand her hurting like that. You gotta help her.”
Fran took off her coat and touched his arm. “I’ll do what I can. You best find a shovel and go help Ben dig out his truck. Just in case we need to take her to the hospital.”
He looked relieved to have something to do as he grabbed a coat off a chair by the fire. Sadie was in the kitchen with a fresh towel for Fran to dry her hands after she scrubbed them with the lye soap.
Sadie stared up at Fran with wide eyes. “Is Becca going to die?”
“Having babies isn’t easy, sweetheart. That’s why they call these pains before birth ‘laboring.’ But with the Lord’s help, Becca will have her baby soon.”
“She says it’s going to be a boy, but Ma says there’s no way to know for sure till the baby comes.” A guilty grin lifted the corners of Sadie’s lips. “I hope Becca’s wrong and it’s a girl.”
Fran hugged the girl. “Whichever it is, you’ll be a fine help taking care of the baby. Now you have a job to do.”
Her grin faded. “What’s that?”
“You need to keep Buttons out of the bedroom and practice telling Priscilla the stories you’ll be telling Becca’s baby soon. Can you do that?”
Sadie’s smile came back. “Yes’m. Ma told me to stay out here by the fire. I’ll make Buttons sit with me. And Sarge too.”
In the bedroom, Mrs. Locke held Becca’s hands. “I think it’s harder watching her than having my own.” She pulled a hand free to stroke Becca’s hair.
“I’ve heard other mothers say the same.” Fran plastered a smile on her face as she leaned over Becca. “How do you feel, Becca?”
“He’s wantin’ out, Nurse Howard. Can’t you do something to make him come faster? Get this punishing pain over and done.” She stiffened as another pain seized her.
“Let me see what’s happening and we’ll do what we can.”
The exam showed just what Fran feared. A breech presentation. A difficult birth, especially with a baby the size Becca was carrying.
She kept the worry out of her voice and off her face as she took Becca’s hand. “You remember how I told you the baby needed to turn. Well, that didn’t happen. You need to go to the hospital where a doctor will be at hand to help you.”
“Can’t we just send for the doctor to come here?” Becca said. “I don’t see how I can go anywhere.”
“That might take too long. Better to go in Ben’s truck.”
“You think that’s what has to be done?” Mrs. Locke spoke up.
“It’s best for Becca. And for the baby.” Fran met Mrs. Locke’s gaze straight on.
“It won’t be no easy trip.”
“No, ma’am. We’ll need blankets to keep Becca warm and some sort of pallet for her in the back of the truck.”
Mrs. Locke stood up.
“Ma, you got to go with me.” Becca reached for her mother’s hand.
“Don’t you worry, child. I’ll be with you ev’ry step of the way.” Mrs. Locke patted her hand. “Now rest best you can whilst I get things ready.”
The Lord surely watched over them as they carried Becca on the pallet down the hill to the truck. Nobody slipped in the icy snow. Ben and Carl took the lead positions, with Woody and Mrs. Locke on the back. Fran hustled along beside Becca, who stoically bore up under the trip. The pains were closer together and Fran prayed they would have time to get to Hyden.
Woody headed back to the house to stay with Sadie and keep Sarge from following them. Carl got in the cab with Ben while Mrs. Locke and Fran climbed in the back to tuck quilts around Becca.
The sky had cleared and the moon on the snow made it nearly light as day. Fran kept her hand on Becca’s abdomen to gauge her contractions as they slid down the hill.
Mrs. Locke held her daughter’s hands and moved her lips in silent prayer. When she noticed Fran looking at her, she said, “I’m praying hard we make it down this mountain.”
The truck fishtailed as she spoke and both Fran and Mrs. Locke held Becca to steady her. Ben got the truck back on what passed for a road. For a few minutes, Fran thought they might make it. But then Becca’s pains were stronger as her body began to push out the baby.
“Tell Ben to stop.” Fran looked at Mrs. Locke. “This baby isn’t going to wait for the hospital.”
After the truck stopped, Fran pulled a baby blanket out of her saddlebag and handed it to Mrs. Locke. “Put this up under your coat to get it as warm as possible.” She turned to Ben and Carl, who climbed out of the truck to stare at her. “Make a tent with these quilts to keep Becca warm.”
Fran warmed her hands under her armpits as she knelt beside Becca. “I’m going to help you, Becca, but you’ll be doing the work. Work you can do.” In her head, Fran added for herself, You can do this.
Moonlight filtered through the quilts as Fran positioned Becca and prayed the girl would be able to push the baby out quickly enough.
“Go ahead and scream if you need to,” she told Becca. “That might help.”
“Me a-screaming ain’t gonna be the first thing this baby of mine hears,” Becca gasped. “Ma, sing my baby here.”
“Surely I can do that.” Mrs. Locke leaned close to Becca under the quilts.
“Toora, loora, loora. Toora, loora, li.
Toora, loora, loora. Hush, now, don’t you cry.
Ah, Toora, loora, loora. Toora, loora, li.
Toora, loora, loora. It’s an Irish lullaby.”
Mrs. Locke’s clear, sure voice somehow calmed Fran as well as Becca. Grandma Howard used to sing that same lullaby. Then Ben’s voice joined in with his mother’s, and after another minute, Carl added his shaky voice. The sound of their voices sent a sweet shiver through Fran that had nothing to do with the cold as she guided Becca’s baby into the world. As if they’d all been listening for it, they fell silent at the first thin wail from Becca’s baby.
“It’s a girl.” Tears of relief rolled down Fran’s cheeks. “A beautiful, healthy, strong girl.”
Becca’s mother pulled the blanket from under her coat to wrap around the baby. “Keep the baby warm, Mrs. Locke, while we finish what must be done here. Are you all right, Becca?”
Becca was crying too. “I knew she would be a girl. I knew it all along. I’m calling her Carlene Ruth.”
“I’ve got a little girl.” Carl jumped up and down and made the quilts flap. “I’m a daddy!”
“Stop that, Carl.” Mrs. Locke’s voice was sharp.
The man stood still at once.
Becca shivered. She needed somewhere warm. A few minutes later, the afterbirth passed, Fran pulled the quilts down tight around Becca and looked at Ben. “How far to the hospital?”
“A good ways, but we’re not far from the center.” Ben pointed toward the creek glistening in the moonlight ahead of them.
“Go there then.”
They slid the rest of the way down the hill and then spun back up the rise to the center. Ben and Carl carried Becca into the clinic area on the pallet. Mrs. Locke followed with the crying baby. A good sound since the cries were strong. But Becca was shaking with the cold, her lips trembling and pale.
Jeralene came from the extra bedroom with a lamp. Ben poked up the fire in the clinic’s stove.
“Make some tea with extra sugar, Jeralene. And fix a hot water bottle.”
Fran shrugged off her coat and let it land in the floor. Carl knelt by Becca.
“Rub her arms, Carl. We need to get her warm.” Fran massaged Becca’s legs and feet until her skin turned pink again and her teeth stopped chattering.
When Jeralene brought the tea, Fran raised Becca’s head to let her have a sip.
Becca swallowed. “Moonshine might work better.” The smile in her eyes was good to see.
“The tea will have to do.”
Becca twisted to look for her baby. “Is she all right?”
Her mother spoke up. “She’s a right pretty child. Takes after her mother.” She peeled back the blanket from the baby and laid her beside Becca. Carl gently traced his new daughter’s cheek with his fingertip.
When Fran looked up at Ben smiling down at Becca and her baby, her heart made a little sideways jump. She mentally shook herself and got back to business. “If you men will step into the other room, we’ll make sure all is as it should be.”
Later, after the baby was weighed and bathed and Becca was warm and comfortable on the clinic cot with Carl and her mother watching over her, Fran went out on the porch to clear her head. She stared up at the stars and thanked the Lord for the baby’s safe delivery.
The door opened and Ben stepped out behind her. “My family has a new reason to be grateful to you.”
“No, no.” Fran glanced back at him, then turned her gaze back to the stars. “I should have had her go to the hospital yesterday. Things could have not turned out well.”
He moved up beside her, his shoulder brushing hers at the porch railing. “But things did turn out well. The baby is fine. Becca is fine.”
“But that could have happened at your house without that icy ride down the mountain.”
“You did what you thought best. That’s all anybody can do.”
Fran looked over at him, but now he was staring up at the sky. “I guess you had plenty of times in the army where you could only do your best.”
“I didn’t save all of them. I wanted to, but I didn’t.”
“Not didn’t. Couldn’t.” Fran put her hand on his arm.
He turned his eyes back to hers. Her breath caught in her throat as he stared down at her.
“Francine.” He seemed ready to say more, but his mother called to him from inside. The moment was lost.
Fran shivered, more from being so near to him than the chill, but she didn’t deny it when he said she must be cold. He slipped off his jacket and draped it around her shoulders. It carried his warmth.
For just an instant his hands rested on her shoulders, but then he pulled his hands away. “Ma’s ready to go back up the hill. Carl’s staying. I’ll come down tomorrow to see if Becca can come to the house.”
“All right.”
A little frown creased Mrs. Locke’s forehead when Ben followed Fran inside. The frown lines went a little deeper when Fran handed Ben his coat. She rubbed her hand across her forehead and replaced the frown with a smile. “We’re beholding to you, Nurse Howard, for gettin’ little Carlene here in trying circumstances.”
“It could be we should have stayed at your house,” Fran said. “Out of the cold.”
“That could be, but some things is hard to see on down the road. It turned out right. That’s what matters.” She shifted her eyes to Ben. “Things turning out right.”
“And they did.” Ben met his mother’s steady gaze.
After they left, Fran checked on Becca. She was dozing, her arm wrapped around the baby swaddled in a blanket with only her little round face showing. She too was sleeping peacefully. Carl sat on a pallet Jeralene must have fixed for him beside the bed, his gaze fastened on Becca.
“I love her, you know.” He looked up at Fran. “That might not appear to be the truth of it, with me being gone so long, but I weren’t never happy up there in Ohio without her. I don’t intend to part from her again. I aim to be somebody she’ll want to call her man.”
“That’s good to hear, Carl.” She lightly touched Becca’s forehead and observed her regular breathing and that of the baby. She peeked under the blanket. All was as it should be. “Call for me if Becca needs anything.”
In her bedroom, she kicked off her boots and stripped off her soiled uniform. She put on a clean shirt and trousers to sleep in, since she’d be checking on the new mother and baby in a couple of hours. After she lay down, the silence of the house settled around her. Fran missed Sarge on the rug beside her bed. No sooner did she think that than she heard scratching on the front door.
She opened the door and Sarge slipped inside, as though he had just done his nightly turn around the yard instead of coming down the hill from the Lockes’ house.
“Good dog.” She dried off his paws with an old towel. “Did Ben let you out and tell you to come home?”
He gave her his doggie grin and danced his paws up and down, his toenails clicking on the wood floor.
Fran almost laughed. “You’re too proud of yourself. Come on before you wake everybody up.”
With Sarge on his rug as he should be, Fran lay back down, but she couldn’t go to sleep. She kept seeing the look on Carl’s face as he watched his wife and child. The same kind of look she’d seen on other men’s faces after a baby was born. Would anyone ever look at her that way, or would she always be only an observer of that special kind of love?
She pushed away the thought and grabbed at sleep. She didn’t have time for that kind of thinking. She was Nurse Howard.