The Midwife

“She gets bigger every day, don’t she, Miss Leah?” the boy asked, bending low to place a kiss on the infant’s downy head. He hastened to the sink, with backward glances as he went. “I’ll wash up quick, so I can hold her, all right?”

Leah nodded. “She’s been waiting for you, Kris. It’s almost time for her to have a bottle. Would you like to feed her?”

Kristofer smiled, showing a gap where two front teeth were missing. “Yes, ma’am, I surely would.”

That his hands were still damp was a small matter, Leah decided as he held out eager arms, and she nodded at the rocking chair, gathering up the four-month-old infant from the clothes basket where she spent most of her daytime hours.

With a pillow beneath his elbow, Kristofer held the baby tightly, offering the bottle to her eager mouth. Tiny hands groped for a hold on the glass, and the boy chuckled as he shared his grip with his sister’s slender fingers.

“Look, Miss Leah! She’s holding it, too. Before long, she won’t need me to help her. She’ll be eating all by herself.”

Leah shook her head. “We’ll still hold her, Kris. It’s important that we cuddle her while she eats. It’s what happens when a mama nurses her baby and holds her tight. Just because Karen has to drink from a bottle doesn’t mean she has to do without the cuddling.”

His small face was stricken. “I didn’t think about that. She’s sure lucky she has you, isn’t she?” He bent his head to look with longing eyes at the babe he held. “I wish we could have her at home where I could see her all the time. I’ll bet my pa wishes he could see her, too.”

“He comes on Sunday afternoons,” Leah reminded him. And those visits were the highlight of Leah’s week, she admitted to herself. The sight of Garlan Lundstrom on her porch after church on Sunday was welcome—and not only for the eggs he brought to her, emptying his small blue-speckled enamel bucket into her egg bowl on the dresser with care.

His next task was to transfer two dollars into her keeping, placing it on her kitchen table. Then he inquired about the health of his daughter, watching as Leah brought the baby from her basket to the rocking chair where he settled himself. He managed to look at home there, his big body filling it, his feet flat on the floor, his arms surrounding the bundle that was his daughter.

Leah had found it easier to leave him there alone with the child rather than watch as he spoke in halting words and sentences, his voice soft and almost too tender to bear. Gar Lundstrom was a good father, a kind man. And yet, he wore a harshness about him that spoke of long, lonely days and nights.

Only when he held the baby or spoke to his son did that veil of austerity part. His eyes, when he looked into Leah’s, were icy. His hands, when he took the babe from her arms, were hard and callused. His mouth, when he said his greetings and farewells, was firm and thin lipped.

He did not allow her to share the warmth of the spirit he spent so generously upon his children, and that was a pain Leah bore in silence. Gar Lundstrom looked at her with eyes that still held chill accusation. Even as he spoke words of thanks for her care of the babe, he was reticent. His only generosity was in the money he provided for that care.

She picked up the dainty fabric Kris had brought, her fingers smoothing it as she folded it neatly. “I’ll make up Karen’s dress tomorrow,” she told the boy.

He nodded absently, caught in the wonder of the baby’s blue eyes and the plump body that filled his arms. “I’ll be glad when summer comes and we take her home with us, Miss Leah.”

“Did your father find someone to keep house, Kris?” she asked quietly, holding her breath lest his answer shatter her heart. The presence of a baby had filled this small house to overflowing with warmth, and she had played the game for four months already, with herself as not only nursemaid but mother to the child.

Kris shook his head. “Naw. Mrs. Andersen said she has to keep house for Lester. My pa said Lester was old enough to be on his own, but his ma doesn’t think so.”

Leah smothered a laugh. Lester Andersen was a big strapping man of twenty-two, working at the lumber mill at the north end of town. If his mother didn’t spoil him so thoroughly, he might make a good husband for some woman, or so the ladies at the store said beneath their breaths.

Where Gar Lundstrom would find his housekeeper and child minder was a problem he would have to solve on his own, Leah decided with a sigh. And if he didn’t come up with an answer when the six months’ time was up, she would continue to accept his two dollars every week and bank half of it gladly. Her dresser drawer held a tidy sum besides, hidden in a wooden box beneath her extra nightgown. Her laundry service was prospering, with seven clients every week.

“Miss Leah?” Kristofer’s small face held a frown. “I have to go home now. Pa will be waiting for me at the store. I told him I’d ride home on the wagon with him.”

Leah nodded, rising from her chair to take the baby from the boy’s embrace. “I’ll see you again,” she said lightly.

“Tomorrow. I’ll be here tomorrow. My pa says I mustn’t get in your way or be a bother, Miss Leah. You must let me know if it’s not conven…” He hesitated, as if he sought the word his father had used.

“Convenient? It’s always convenient for you to stop by, Kris,” she said easily, following him to the front door. Her hand rested on his shoulder for just a second as she stood beside him. He hesitated there, his face soft with yearning as he stood on tiptoe to press his lips against the brow of the baby Leah held.

And then he was gone, the door slamming behind him as he jumped from the porch, ignoring the steps, and ran to the gate. He half turned, lifting a hand in farewell as he opened the gate and crossed the street to make his way toward the grocery store.

Leah watched as he picked up a stone, examined it and stuck it in his pocket. She smiled, then walked back across the parlor and into her kitchen, bouncing the baby as she walked.

“He’ll be back tomorrow, Karen. And on Sunday, your papa will be here to see you.” It would be three days until Sunday. Three long days.

The spring was unusually warm for Minnesota. All the farmers predicted an early cutting of hay. By the end of May the crops were coming up in the fields, and the cows and horses in the pastures were accompanied by their own yield of calves and colts. The farmers’ wives tended clutches of newly hatched chicks, gathering them into the henhouses at night lest the cool air should creep beneath their mothers’ hovering wings and kill the youngsters.

Leah stepped into the hubbub of activity in the general store on a Monday morning in early June, Karen Lundstrom on her shoulder. Around her, the local ladies were catching up on gossip, most of them repeating stories heard at Sunday church.

“Ah, Mrs. Gunderson, here with the little one this morning,” Hazel Nielsen called out. “Bonnie, come see your friend,” she said, moving aside the curtain that led to the storeroom.

Eyes swung in Leah’s direction, and she found a smile for the eager ladies who hovered around her like bees surrounding a hive.

“How is the baby doing?” Lula Dunbar asked, her forefinger nudging at a dimpled elbow. “Look how blue her eyes are, just like her mama’s were.” She dropped her voice in deference to the dead mother. “Not pure ice like her pa’s, thank the good Lord. He’s a cold man, that one.”

Leah swallowed a retort and turned to listen to Eva Landers, the town’s postmistress, who had left her desk in the corner of the store, where she had been sorting the day’s mail.

“Let me see that little girl. What a darling she is!” Eva’s long, slender fingers threaded through Karen’s hair with a gentle touch, and Leah halted her progress through the store. “Don’t pay any mind to Lula Dunbar,” Eva whispered next to Leah’s ear. “She hasn’t said anything nice about a man since the day she married Hobart.”

Leah smothered a laugh. Eva was a kindly woman, married to the undertaker, who doubled as the town’s cabinetmaker. It was handy, being accomplished at woodworking, when you were the one in charge of providing caskets for the occasional burial in town. Joseph was a sturdy man, solemn, as befitted his occupation, and Leah had often wondered how he managed to catch a joyous woman like Eva.

“I’ll stop by for tea, if I may, later this afternoon,” Eva suggested brightly.

Leah nodded eagerly. Visitors were frequent but usually bearing some cut needing stitching or seeking a poultice or remedy for the ills of another. Her practice had expanded since the winter months, ever since the Lundstrom baby had been hers to care for. As if every woman in town wanted a peek at the child, Leah had been inundated with requests for cough syrup or chest rub.

“Leah! It’s good to see you.” Bonnie Nielsen came from the stockroom, brushing at dust on her sleeve as she passed her mother behind the counter. “What can I get for you today?”

Leah groped in her dress pocket for the list she’d made up at breakfast this morning. “Not too much, Bonnie. Are there any early peas, yet?”

Bonnie nodded. “Old Mrs. Havelock planted some next to the house where they get the morning sun, and she covered them at night so they wouldn’t freeze last month. She brought me a peck of them this morning.”

“I’ll take a pound, if you can spare them,” Leah said quickly, aware of the treat she’d been offered. “How are the potatoes?”

“Pretty much shriveled up, I’m afraid,” Bonnie answered. “I’ll see what I can find for you.”

“If you need potatoes, you need only ask, Mrs. Gunderson,” a male voice said from behind her. A hush fell over the store as Gar Lundstrom stated his offer, and Leah pasted a smile on her face before she turned to face him.

“I didn’t see you in the store, Mr. Lundstrom,” she said brightly.

“I just came in. Just in time to hear you ask about potatoes. I have plenty left in the dugout. I’ll bring you some tomorrow.”

She shook her head quickly. “Oh, you mustn’t bother. Just bring them to me on Sunday when you come to see the baby.” Leah felt a flush climb her cheeks as she became aware of the hush within the store as the women moved closer, the better to hear the words she spoke.

Garlan Lundstrom shifted uncomfortably, as if he had only now become aware of the several women who surrounded him. “Well, maybe I can hang a bag over my boy’s horse when he rides to school tomorrow. He can bring them to you.”

Leah nodded. “That would be wonderful. I’ll pay you for them when I see you next.”

His brow furrowed and his eyes narrowed at her words. “You will feed my child with them, no?”

Leah swallowed, unwilling to get into a confrontation in the middle of the store. “Yes, certainly,” she agreed.

“Then you don’t need to pay me.” His gaze scanned her, softening only when he smiled at his daughter. “Give the child to me,” he ordered gruffly, holding out his arms. “I’ll carry her to your house and wait for you there.”