A Changing Light by Edith Maxwell (pdf ebook reader .txt) 📗

be a midwife, not a detective. And every time I felt grief for Orpha rise up, I pushed it back down, as well. She would be the first to tell me that, during a labor, the mother-to-be was more important than our personal lives.

As we paused in the kitchen for a pain, Esther’s gaze fell on the calligraphy cards and supplies on the table. After the contraction passed, she spoke.

“Rose, if I don’t survive, will you make sure the Board of Trade pays Akwasi for my work?”

“Nonsense. Thee will survive.” It was true, some women did not make it through a birth alive, but Esther would not be one of them. She was healthy and young enough, and I had a good feeling about this labor.

“I thought I had time to finish up the week,” she went on. “Mr. Parry asked for a special set of cards last week, which I completed. He hasn’t paid me, either. Please promise me.”

“Very well.” Anything to set her mind at ease.

“I think Parry is kind of a . . . oh.” She groaned low as another contraction began. She bent over and leaned her forearms on the table. When the pain was finished, she straightened and picked up where she’d left off. “He’s a weasel. Possibly a scoundrel. Don’t tell anyone I said so, though.”

I laughed. “I promise that, too.” I didn’t have time to think about Parry right now, but I filed away her opinion for later. We resumed our walking until the pains were coming fast and furious. “Let’s get thee back to the bedroom. I think this baby is coming.” Her bag of waters had not yet broken, but that wasn’t a problem. In fact, the cushion of the water would provide for a more gentle birthing.

Annie and I helped her through a blessedly short period of pushing, during which Esther insisted on squatting. I knelt next to her and watched as the translucent silver sac preceded the head.

“The caul,” Annie whispered. “I’ve never seen it.”

“Yes.”

I gently tore the membrane away from the face and caught the wriggling dusky-skinned body as it—he—slid out. The newborn gave a healthy cry. I glanced at the clock, which read four eighteen. “Thee has a baby boy, Esther.”

A wide smile spread across her face. “My husband will be wildly happy.”

I tied and cut the cord, wiped down the little fellow, and swaddled him. Annie helped Esther up onto the bed. Within five minutes she’d delivered the afterbirth and was holding her son, a look of wonder on her face. Annie headed out to summon Akwasi, while I tidied up the room and put away our supplies.

“Rose, I feel in love.” When she stroked the baby’s cheek with her finger, he turned his head toward her touch in the rooting reaction of all newborns. “I didn’t expect this.”

“It’s as it should be, Esther.”

By five o’clock Annie and I stood on the front walk, having left a delighted father with a healthy baby and mother all nestled in the bed together. The little boy had had his first nursing and already seemed expert at it.

“Wouldn’t it be nice if all births were that easy?” Annie asked.

“Indeed.”

“And to see a baby born in the sac of waters was remarkable.”

“Isn’t it? Traditional cultures regarded being born in an intact bag as an omen that the baby would grow into a seer—or a healer.” Orpha believed the same. She’d told me I had been born in the caul, and that I had the gift of seeing. I covered an unavoidable yawn. “I’m sorry.”

She peered into my face. “Rose, you look exhausted. You weren’t at a birth last night, too, were you?”

I hadn’t had a chance to tell her about Orpha, so I did. “She went peacefully, Annie. And now we carry on her work.”

“I’m sorry, Rose.” She stroked my arm. “I know how close you were to her.”

“Thank thee. I was.”

“To change the subject for a moment, if I may, my brother is all agitated about being questioned by the police. He knows it’s the right thing to do, but he’s not happy about it.”

“They probably don’t have a single French Canadian on the force, am I right?” I asked.

“They don’t. We encounter a big dose of prejudice against us simply because of where we were born.”

“I hope things will change with time. We’re all immigrants, after all. None of us is originally from this continent, except the Indians.” I’d gotten to know a Wampanoag midwife last fall on Cape Cod and quite enjoyed her company. I’d even accompanied her to a birth and picked up a few tips. “One doesn’t encounter them here in Amesbury despite the name of the highest hill in town.”

“I’ve wondered about Powow Hill and the Powow River. Maybe it’s history someone will uncover one day. But back to Pierrot. Apparently, they kept pressing him about what he saw. The thing is, Rose, he doesn’t see well.”

“Oh?”

“He’s terribly myopic but refuses to wear spectacles.”

I touched my own glasses. “That must hamper him in his life.”

“It does. He didn’t finish school. Being a night watchman is one of the only jobs he can handle.”

“Why does he refuse help with his vision?”

“He says men will take him for a sissy if he wears glasses.” Annie shook her head. “Isn’t that the silliest thing?”

It was. But Pete’s bad vision might also mean he couldn’t positively identify Zeb as the person he saw running. This was a good thing. A very good thing.

A snowflake fell on my nose. I glanced up to see more floating down, lazy and soft. “We’d better get ourselves home before this turns into a storm.”

“Go get some rest, Rose.” She gave me a quick hug and bustled off down toward Main Street.

I trudged up the hill in the opposite direction. The Ayensu family had skirted death, as did any birthing woman. They had come out of it more than intact. If only the same could happen for our town, with a killer behind bars and