The Mountain Midwife (10 page)

He had a mother who needed him—a mother who asked for his help to save a sister he hadn’t known existed twenty-four hours ago. A mother and sister who needed him were new concepts in his life. Virginia McDermott didn’t need anyone. His sister by his adoption, Sarah, was cut from the same cloth as his mother—as Virginia.

Sheila Brooks claimed they needed him. At least that’s what it sounded like she said. The accent was thick, the speech of an uneducated woman, the sort of woman who would give birth at home with the primitive services of a midwife.

Ashley Tolliver’s accent was nearly as thick, but she didn’t look primitive. Her jacket, jeans, and shoes had looked fashionable, as far as he noticed such things, and certainly of good quality. A lifetime with the McDermott women had taught him about how to recognize quality. So maybe the accent was deceptive. The Tolliver drive had been well-maintained, the house large and painted a bright white.

The Tolliver property didn’t speak of the mountain poverty he had read about in articles he found online while eating breakfast at a fast-food restaurant off the interstate. He had been expecting an endless parade of shacks and trailers on blocks.

Relief washed through him as he slowed for a bridge over a broad creek and the entrance to the interstate on the other side. The largest town, Brooksburg, lay another five miles down the road. The library would be open now. He could begin hunting through telephone books and local newspapers.

He moved into the right-turn lane as his phone rang again. He glanced down to see who was being so insistent. The numbers blurred before his eyes. He was kidding himself if he thought he could research without at least a few hours of sleep. With his motel
closer than the library, he would do himself more good if he slept before he tried to research.

The only motel Hunter had found in the general vicinity of Brooksburg, the town named for Brooks Ridge, on which it was nestled, boasted no more than two floors with ten rooms on each. It overlooked the highway and a handful of fast-food chains, but was clean and convenient. At that midmorning hour, it was also quiet.

Hunter turned off his phone before he reached his room and wasted no time in getting ready for bed. Once stretched out on the cold sheets smelling of industrial bleach, he found his mind racing around his conversation with his parents, the voice mail from the woman he now had reason to believe was his mother, and the midwife—the current midwife, not the one who had likely delivered him.

Ashley Tolliver. Despite looking as fatigued as he felt, she was stunningly pretty and far too young for her profession. Or for what he thought someone in her profession should be. “Midwife” conjured visions of old ladies with white hair and piercing blue eyes, not rippling golden-brown tresses that must hang below her waist when not caught up in a braid and velvety brown eyes warm enough to banish the chill from the day.

And he was delirious with lack of sleep to be thinking that kind of nonsense.

Hunter laughed at himself and rolled over. To banish the pretty midwife from his head, he began to make calculations for his next tunnel project, one Stateside for once, though more than halfway across the country.

The trick worked, and he slept for nearly eight hours, far longer than he intended. Although he felt refreshed, the library was closed,
but a call to his home voice mail, besides giving him more offers to appear on one silly talk show or another, held another message from Sheila Brooks at the number that rang to a doctor’s office.

“You shoulda come. I’m ’fraid ’t’s too late for your sister.”

C
HAPTER
8

A
SHLEY WOKE REFRESHED
and glad of it. She faced a full day of patient visits both at her home office and on the road. She also hoped for an hour or two to start going through Gramma’s records from thirty-two years ago. She should have the night before, but she had Skyped with Momma and Daddy, who had noticed her fatigue over the video feed, which led to explanations and a final breakdown of tears.

“I am so inadequate in what I can do,” she had finally admitted.

Their faces registered concern, love, and understanding. They didn’t give her a lot of platitudes about how everyone felt that way at times, that God gave her the skills she needed when she needed them, or how she knew she was good at her job. They simply prayed with her to have wisdom in the work ahead of her, and they prayed for the young woman and the baby.

“And we’ll be home by Christmas,” Daddy assured her. “We can talk about this medical school notion then.”

Ashley cringed at his use of “notion.” It wasn’t a whim; it was a plan.

“Like who will take care of the practice,” Momma pointed out.

Ashley had bitten her tongue on the response, “Maybe you all can stay home and take over for me for once.” That wasn’t nice. Third-world countries needed midwives as badly as Appalachia needed doctors. For the midwifery work, Ashley had plans.

Sofie would pass her certification exam and be happy to take on the practice. She would make more than enough money to live on and be able to send more home to Brownsville to her family.

But what if Sofie didn’t pass her exam because she wasn’t in Virginia? What if she didn’t return?

Ashley’s sense of refreshment and well-being vanished like the morning mountain mist melted under the sunshine. Momma was right. She couldn’t leave her patients and potential patients high and dry without a midwife to serve them while she danced off to medical school. The only other midwives in the area were two who worked with the local ob-gyn, Tim White, and who practiced in the hospital only. They wanted regular hours; good for their personal lives, but not so good for the patients. A woman could choose to use a midwife, but she wasn’t guaranteed to have the same one with her at her baby’s birth as she had been seeing in the office visits.

Would one of them perhaps consider changing, though, taking over Ashley’s practice? Her closest friend, Heather Penvenan, might. She often seemed restless working under the restrictions of a medical doctor and within the strictures of the hospital.

Ashley decided she would set up a lunch date with Heather and discuss the matter. Somehow God would provide. He was opening the door to go to med school; he would take care of a little thing like a midwife to serve Brooks Ridge.

Or maybe not so little, but still . . .

Buoyed by this idea, Ashley made herself breakfast while watching a morning news program in the kitchen.

“Mr. McDermott has gone to ground, but we have spoken with his mother, a prominent DC lobbyist . . .”

Ashley’s head snapped up from contemplating her plate of eggs—not burned this time. A well-preserved woman in late middle age stood on the steps of a stunning house. “We are quite proud of our son.” She spoke in the same well-modulated tones the man in the Mercedes had used.

But he wasn’t her son.

Ashley missed what else the woman, Mrs. McDermott, said. She did catch the panoramic view of grounds, stable, and all the trappings of country wealth the broadcast wanted the viewers to catch about this influential family. The disconnect was obvious. A man like Hunter McDermott couldn’t have come from Brooks Ridge stock. Something was too peculiar here for words.

Setting her dishes in the sink, her breakfast half eaten, she retrieved his business card from her coat pocket and tucked it into the drawer of her desk for safekeeping. By the time she finished cleaning up after her breakfast preparations, fed the cats, and inspected her exam room, her first patient’s Lexus was pulling up the driveway.

Stephanie bounced in with an energy belying her thirty-four weeks of pregnancy and threw her arms around Ashley’s neck. “I am so excited. We finished decorating the nursery last night, and it is gorgeous.” She sang the last word and danced toward the examination room. “My husband has been such a trouper working every weekend, and Mom has outdone herself making curtains and pillows and—let me show you pictures.” She pulled out her cell phone.

“I guess I don’t need to ask how you’re feeling.” Ashley smiled and took the proffered iPhone.

Stephanie was a model patient—other than continuing to work too many hours and rest too few. Tall and not just slender but fit, she seemed impossibly more beautiful in pregnancy than she had before, with a sheen of joy shining from her green eyes and glowing on her skin. She ate exactly what she was told to, took her vitamins, and exercised an appropriate amount.

“This is beautiful.” A little ache tugged at Ashley’s heart as she flipped through photographs depicting a nursery bright with greens and yellows like springtime itself. It was cheerful and warm and possessed everything a wealthy baby could need and then some. “You’re so talented with this sort of thing. I wouldn’t have a clue what colors went together.”

“I don’t either if they’re not Manolos.” Stephanie’s trilling laugh rang out. “And speaking of shoes. Will my feet ever fit into my shoes again?”

“Probably. You’re going on thirty-five weeks pregnant. Swollen feet are normal.”

Just to be safe, and with Mary Kate still on her mind, Ashley scanned Stephanie for signs of swelling elsewhere. But her fine-boned face remained delicate and smooth, and her wrists extending from the sleeves of a designer maternity suit displayed the ends of the ulna and radius bones with appropriate detail beneath smooth skin.

“Shall we go into the exam room so I can take a look at things?”

“Yes, let’s. I have to get to work.”

While Stephanie removed her jacket and tugged down her skirt, Ashley gathered up her stethoscope and Pinard’s, one for the mother’s heart, the other for the baby’s. Both sounded good, strong
and regular; the baby’s fast, the mother’s only a little higher than that of a healthy nonpregnant woman. Likewise, Stephanie’s lungs were clear and her blood pressure perfect. Would that all Ashley’s patients could be so physically fit.

Once Stephanie had restored her immaculate appearance, Ashley perched on the bed beside her, hands on the knees of jeans that looked more worn and scruffy than usual next to Stephanie’s suit that managed to appear fashionable even over a baby bump. “Everything looks good, but how are you doing, really?”

Stephanie shrugged. “You said it yourself—all is well.”

“Your vitals are good, but tell me if anything is going on beneath the numbers. You’re still working this late into your pregnancy. Is that all right?”

“I’m tired,” Stephanie admitted with reluctance, “but mostly only after I put in a twelve-hour day.”

Ashley sighed and gave her a severe look. “You have got to stop that. You need rest now because you’re not likely to get a great deal after the baby is born.”

“But that’s why I’m putting in long days, so I can stay home after the baby is born, at least for a while.” The kitchen door creaked open. Stephanie rose, hugged Ashley, and gathered up her designer handbag and matching briefcase. “See you in a week.”

“Unless you have a problem or your fatigue grows worse.” Ashley tried to sound stern.

Stephanie laughed, waved, and exited the exam room via the direct outside door rather than through the kitchen.

Ashley popped her head into the kitchen. A young woman with straight dark hair and big brown eyes stood in the center of the room holding the lapels of her coat together with fisted hands. “Rachel?”

The girl nodded.

“Hey, I’m Ashley. Have a seat. I’ll be with you in a minute.”

The girl nodded again but didn’t move.

Figuring the faster she cleaned up the exam room, the faster she would be able to make her patient comfortable, Ashley proceeded to sterilize her instruments, change the sheet on the bed, and pull out a new patient chart to go with the sketchy information she had gathered when making the appointment. Rachel Neff was nineteen, was not married, and had had another baby a year and a half ago. She had no known diseases or allergies and didn’t take medication or illegal drugs. Occasionally she had a drink, despite the legal age for her being two years off. Making a mental note to remind Rachel not to drink alcohol now, Ashley opened the door wide to invite Rachel into the room.

She still stood in the middle of the floor clutching her coat.

“Are you cold?” Ashley asked.

Rachel shook her head.

“Are you scared of me?”

Though Ashley was a little above average in height, Rachel stood at least a head taller and outweighed her by twenty pounds or more, none of it looking like fat.

The question brought out a hint of a smile on the girl’s full lips. “I’m never scared of nobody.”

“You don’t look like you need to be.” Ashley stepped back. “Come on in and sit down so we can talk.”

Slowly, the low heels of her boots clomping on the tile floor, Rachel crossed the kitchen to enter the exam room. “Where do I sit?”

“Here.” Ashley perched on the edge of the daybed and patted it in invitation.

Rachel sat. “My sister told me I should come to you, but my boyfriend says as how his baby shouldn’t be borne by no wise woman.”

If he was so quick at directives about his baby, he should consider marrying the mother.