Chris Bohjalian - Midwives

"That preacher's probably upset, but it's the doctors who'll come after her. Doctors think they know everything."

And then after a long pause, he added, "They scare me, doctors do. They're like pack animals. Wolves. They surround their prey and go right for the throat."

Tom had called me late Friday night, close to eleven, from the pay phone in the convenience store's parking lot. He said our line had been busy most of the night, and I explained to him that my father had been talking to lawyers. I could tell he'd been drinking, but he was still far from drunk. He said he couldn't come by my house Saturday morning because he'd agreed to help an older cousin move into a new apartment in St. Johnsbury, but he said he'd be by in the afternoon. I told him that would be fine.

When my mother and father left for Montpelier Saturday morning, they told me they wouldn't be back until late in the day, and that I should screen incoming calls: As a midwife, my mother had probably been one of the first people in the county to purchase an answering machine, and so our family had used one for years. I was an old hand at screening phone calls.

They were concerned that newspaper reporters would phone us, and their fears were well founded. The Burlington Free Press, the state's largest daily paper, was the first, but the reporter who called only beat the Montpelier Sentinel and the Caledonian-Record by minutes. A fellow from the Associated Press in Montpelier left three messages, and I will always believe he was the person who then called every ten minutes until lunch, hanging up each time when the answering machine's recorded message clicked on.

I spent most of the day in a fog, listening to the messages reporters and family friends and other midwives would leave on the answering machine, and waiting for Tom to come by. Usually if I was expecting Tom when my parents weren't home, I'd anticipate that we would wind up quickly on the couch in the den, where we would neck until Tom would start trying to pull up my sweater and I'd have to slow the proceedings. We both knew it was only a matter of time before I'd finally take off my sweater and let him do battle with my bra, but we hadn't reached that point yet.

The Saturday that my parents went searching for a lawyer, however, the idea that Tom and I might make a beeline toward the couch never even crossed my mind. I knew I was happy Tom was coming by, and I knew I was scared-scared as if one of my parents were desperately ill. But I had no concept of how the two emotions might overlap when Tom finally appeared at our front door: Was he supposed to hug me or bring me a beer? Was he supposed to grill me for the details of what I knew or mindfully talk about everything but home birth? And if he happened to be at our house when my parents returned, would either of us have the slightest idea what to say to them-especially to my mother?

Just before lunch Rollie came over, and for about an hour the two of us listened to the calls coming in to the answering machine. Had my parents even imagined the dozens and dozens of people who would use the phone to besiege me, they might have taken me with them and then sent me shopping in Montpelier and Burlington while they met with their lawyers. But none of us expected the deluge that began just after nine o'clock:

"Good morning, my name is Maggie Bressor, I'm a writer with the Burlington Free Press. I would like to speak with Mrs. Sibyl Danforth as soon as she returns, please. I'm sorry to bother you, but I'm writing a story about the… the birth up in Lawson, and I only need a few moments of your time, Mrs. Danforth. I am on a deadline, so I may try you again this afternoon. My number here in Burlington is 865-0940. Thanks a lot."

"Hi, Sibyl, hi, Rand. Molly here. I heard about the, um, tragedy, and I'm thinking of you. Travis and I both are. Call us when you feel up to it. And let us know if there's anything we can do. Bye for now."

"Hello, I'm looking for Sibyl Danforth. This is Joe Meehan with the Sentinel. Just thought I'd see if you were home. I'll call back."

By the time Rollie arrived, I'd had to put in a second cassette tape to preserve the messages. And still people called.

"Sibyl? Are you there? If you're there but not picking up, please pick up! It's me, Cheryl. I have a whole file of legal stuff from MANA I want you to see. It's huge! Okay, you're not there, I believe you. But call me when you are. Or maybe I'll just drop the stuff by. There are even the names of some lawyers in it-all, of course, in places like Maryland and New Mexico-but they might be able to give you the name of one in Vermont. A good one. If you need one. Talk to you soon."

Rollie sipped her soda and asked me what MANA was.

"It's one of Mom's midwife groups. They're in the Midwest somewhere," I answered. I learned soon that the acronym stood for the Midwives' Alliance of North America, the closest thing lay mid-wives had then to a national trade association.

"Hi, guys, Christine here. Call me. I'm worried about you."

"Sibyl. Hello. This is Donelle. I know another midwife I want you to talk to. She witnessed a mother die in a home birth, so she understands the pain you're probably feeling. She lives in Texas, and I know she'd be happy to talk and listen all you wanted. Bye-bye."

"Timothy Slayton with the Associated Press. Thought I'd try again."

It really was endless. Eventually even Rollie grew tired of listening to the calls, and went home about one-thirty. Tom didn't get to our house until close to three, and in the hour and a half in between I continued to stare at the answering machine and watch its red eye blink when the tapes for incoming and outgoing messages weren't turning. Only once did I pick up the receiver and talk to someone, and that was when I heard my father's voice speaking from a phone in the attorney's office in Burlington.

"How are you doing?" he asked me.

"Oh, fine."

"What have you been up to?"

"Reading," I lied. I was afraid he and my mother would worry if they knew the truth and envisioned me sitting with my arms wrapped around my knees, transfixed by the telephone answering machine.

"Schoolwork?"

"Yup. Schoolwork."

"Well, it's Saturday, so don't work too hard. Life goes on. Have you been on the phone?"

"A little, I guess."

"Any calls for your mom?"

"A few."

"Friends or reporters?"

"Both."

"Okay. When your mom and I are done with Mr. Hastings, we have one more stop. Since we're in Burlington anyway, we're going to go by the hospital to get your mom's ankle X-rayed." He had tried to downplay the importance of the hospital visit, implying that they probably wouldn't have bothered with an X ray if they hadn't been in Burlington anyway, but it's hard to make light of a visit to the emergency room.

"It still hurts her?" I asked.

"A bit," he said.

I think the only time I moved between the moment Rollie left and the moment Tom arrived was when I stood up to see what the small thuds were in the kitchen. It turned out to be one of those normally wondrous harbingers of spring: A male robin had returned to the bird feeder outside one of the kitchen windows after a winter away, and the fellow was doing battle with his reflection in the glass. That Saturday, however, the robin's homecoming was merely an irritation, just another mesmerizing example in my mind of the idiocy of the natural world: Birds banged into glass, mothers died giving birth.

I probably looked like eighth-grade hell to Tom when I opened the door for him. I was as vain as any girl just shy of fourteen, but I hadn't combed my hair once that Saturday, and I don't believe I had remembered to brush my teeth. I had gotten dressed shortly before Rollie came over, but I certainly hadn't dressed for Tom Corts. I was wearing jeans that were much too baggy and loose, and one of my mother's old hippie sweaters that she had knit herself. She had used perhaps eleven shades of yarn, and while the effect was supposed to be psychedelic, even she used to say it was merely chaotic, as if the colors had been chosen by a preschooler.