“I thought so,” crows Bitsy. “She’s so cranky! I knew she must be close.”

Mrs. Potts smiles and wearily begins to get out her birth gear. She turns to my assistant. “Would you like to deliver the baby, honey?”

I raise my eyebrows, surprised and a little miffed. I don’t want to contradict Mrs. Potts, but I don’t think Bitsy’s ready . . . On the other hand, Bitsy doesn’t seem nervous.

“Ugggh!” Twyla moans. “I got to go pooh!” I reach for the flowered ceramic chamber pot and have the patient squat over it. I know the girl feels the head moving down, not a lump of stool, but what harm can it do if she thinks it’s a bowel movement? Everyone turns away while Twyla squats, her long white nightgown covering the receptacle.

“Do you want me to call your mother and Mrs. Hudson? It won’t be long now,” I say over my shoulder as we lay out the sterilized scissors, string, and towels. Other than my olive oil, that’s all we need. The old lady plunks back down in her rocker.

“No,” the girl says firmly and then grunts again. Her eyes are big now, and I think she knows she is pushing out more than a large stool. “I just want there to be us.”

Ten more contractions and “Eeeeeeeee. It burns bad.” Twyla stands and puts her hand on her vagina. “It’s the head!” she exclaims and for the first time smiles.

When Bitsy and I lean down to look, the infant is almost crowning and a shock of thick black hair hangs out an inch.

“You’re right, Twyla.” This is Bitsy taking charge, saying exactly what I would say as we lay the patient down. “The baby is coming, and I’m going to need your cooperation while I ease the head out.

“Push and blow. That’s how to do it. Push a little . . . blow a little.” She sits on a stool at the edge of the bed, between the girl’s legs. “Push a little. Blow a little.” Twyla does what Bitsy tells her, and slowly the head crowns—so slowly I don’t know how the girl stands it. Then I see an ear and then the whole head. I wipe its face with a clean cloth, wipe its mouth out too. Then my able apprentice, without any instruction from me or Mrs. Potts, presses the head down to deliver the top shoulder, lifts up to deliver the bottom, and a wet infant tumbles into her lap, already screaming.

My friend holds the very brown baby boy out to the young mother, but Twyla lifts her hands in protest. “No! It’s so slimy!” Some mothers, I’ve observed, like to have their wet newborn against their chest, and others are afraid of the mucus. Mrs. Potts whips one of the towels open, wraps the baby in it, and places it back on the girl’s chest. With one finger Twyla tentatively touches the squirming thing, transfixed, amazed that something alive came out of her body.

“Everything okay up here?” Nancy Savage calls from the hall.

The door cracks open, and Mrs. Hudson peeks in with Nancy behind her. “It’s so quiet, but . . . we thought we heard a baby cry.”

Twyla smiles. “See, Ma? I did it. I really did it!”

April 21, 1930. Sliver moon in a purple sky at dusk, the trees silhouetted in black.

Mathew Hudson Savage, healthy male infant, was born at 6:15 yesterday evening to Twyla Savage. Twyla is 14 years old and was out of control when we got there, yelling like a wild woman! Spontaneous vaginal delivery performed by Bitsy, with no difficulty. Seven pounds, 4 ounces. Mrs. Potts also present. Father unknown. No tears. Minimal bleeding. Bitsy’s first delivery. Twyla refused to breastfeed, and there was no convincing her.

23

Warning

Since Thomas has already gone back to his job at the Wildcat, I leave Bitsy at the bedside and walk to the vet’s office to see if we can catch a ride home. Before leaving, I check the mother and baby one last time. Mrs. Hudson is ready with a warm nippled bottle, the kind you can get in the Sears, Roebuck catalogue. I hate to see it, but one thing I’ve learned is that if a mother really doesn’t want to breastfeed, it won’t help to pressure her. She won’t be successful, and everyone will be miserable, including the baby.

Crossing Main, I spy my friend Becky Myers coming out of Gold’s Dry Goods with Priscilla Blum, the doctor’s wife. Becky’s short black hair, in a new bob, blows in the April wind, and her wide-spaced brown eyes sparkle. Mrs. Blum wears a long lavender scarf that trails in the breeze. They both look so fresh that for a moment I’m jealous. Becky’s my friend, but I’ve never lived in their world of store-bought clothes and styled hair.

“Hey, Becky!” I call out, swallowing my resentment and waiting until the doctor’s wife turns off on Second Street. “I was just thinking of visiting. You have time for company?” Her house is a block away, around the corner on Sycamore. “I’ll just stay a few minutes and tell you about Twyla Savage’s birth. Then I have to find a ride home.”

I put my arm through hers, companionably, the same way I do with Bitsy, but without any self-consciousness or feeling I’m defying an unwritten law. “It’s a beautiful infant. His hair must be two inches long. Can you make a home visit later this week?” I babble on, still elated about the good birth.

“I hope Twyla will be okay,” Becky thinks out loud. “At one point she declared she didn’t want the baby. What she really wants is to go back to school.”

I frown. “Can’t her mother take care of the baby while she goes to class?”

“Her mother has to work for the Hudsons, and word is, Judge Hudson is looking for a family to adopt it. A black family.”

We take the steps up to her neat porch with two high-back rattan chairs and enter her white-tiled kitchen. As Becky makes tea I stare out the window and wonder who that black family might be. Twyla was so proud of herself in the end. I’d hate to see the baby taken away.

Becky changes the subject. “You know, Patience, there’s something I’ve wanted to talk with you about since Bitsy Proudfoot moved in with you.”

This puts me on alert, and I pause with the teacup halfway to my mouth.

“What?”

“You know the Klan is reorganizing in Union County, don’t you?”

I draw back as if slapped. “The Ku Klux Klan?” Why do I ask? Everyone knows there’s only one Klan, the hooded white supremacist Klan that asserts its power by intimidation and violence. The anti-Catholic, anti-Jewish, anti-Communist, anti-Negro-who-doesn’t-stay-in-his-place Klan.