I figure they’ve come to see how my friend is faring after her mother’s death or maybe to bring news of Thomas. He hasn’t been seen for weeks. Bitsy runs for the house to wash up and bring out some cold sweet tea.

“Howdy,” I call out, wiping my forehead with my blue-and-white bandanna. The reverend nods formally.

Mildred Miller calls out, “How you doin’, honey?”

We settle on the wooden benches in the shade on the porch. I offer Mildred the one rocking chair, and she insists that her husband take it. Then Bitsy comes out with a wooden tray and four glasses of tea. The spring water is so cold we don’t need ice. Not that we have any.

“Have you heard from Thomas?” Bitsy starts out. I know she’s been worried, but with Sheriff Hardman looking for him, it’s better that he’s disappeared. We just need to know that he’s safe.

“No,” the pastor answers. “No word yet. We’ve come about something else. This is hard, so I’m going to tell it to you plain . . . Mrs. Potts went to meet her maker last night. She died in her sleep, a good Christian woman. Hemorrhaged from the cancer, that’s what Doc Robinson says.”

“Cancer? I didn’t know. She seemed so vigorous for her age. What kind of cancer was it? Did anyone know?” I’m so shocked, I keep babbling. Bitsy doesn’t say anything, but Mrs. Miller reaches for her and holds her tight.

“What this means,” Mildred goes on, passing her Jesus fan slowly back and forth in front of her face, “is that we now have only one midwife in Union County; that’s you. Dr. Blum’s gone too, you probably heard.”

“What about the other physician, Dr. Robinson?”

“He doesn’t do deliveries, and he doesn’t go to people’s homes anymore. If you’re sick, you have to go to him.”

“There’s Becky Myers, the health nurse,” I suggest.

“Yes, Becky . . . but she won’t go out after dark and she’s no great shakes about birthing. Too nervous.” This, I must say, I agree with after seeing her at Docey’s birth down under the bridge; she’s a real nervous Nellie.

“Anyway,” the pastor continues, “we thought you’d want to know that people will be calling on you.” He takes Bitsy and me in with his eyes. “Not just for births, women’s things. Infant things.”

Great, I think, and what will we tell them if they ask about hot flashes, strange rashes, and monthlies? I’m not a doctor, and I’ve never had female troubles . . . except my periods, which come when they want to, but that never bothered me.

I take a big breath. “Thank you for letting us know.”

“When are they putting Mrs. Potts in the ground?” Bitsy asks. It’s the first thing she’s said.

“Sunday. The whole church service will be dedicated to her. Samantha and Emma, you remember them from Cassie’s birth, will be singing the solos.”

Bitsy escorts the couple to their car, standing for a few minutes at the passenger door while I take the tray of empty glasses into the house. When I come out, the green truck is sputtering back down Wild Rose Road in the dust.

“They say anything more about Thomas?”

“No.” She looks away, and I know she doesn’t want to talk about it.

I collapse on the wooden bench in the shade and flop my head back against the white clapboard wall. What will come next? So many deaths. I count back. Six this year. The Mintz family’s little girl, Angel. Mary Proudfoot. William MacIntosh. Kitty Hart and her baby. And now Grace Potts. The world will be smaller without her.

Across the valley, on the other side of the Hope River, a shard of lightning pierces the clouds. No thunder. No rain.

Circle

The Sunday service devoted to Grace Potts is more spectacle than funeral. I imagined something simple like Mary Proudfoot’s, but this is more of a celebration.

Again Bitsy and I dress in our best dark dresses with knickers under them and mount our horse. This time we leave early and take the long way around Raccoon Lick to Hope Ridge and up the south fork to Horse Shoe Run. It’s cooler in the shade where the hemlocks and maple trees hang over the creek.

As we come out of the woods and trot up Horse Shoe Road, the dust is so thick we almost choke on it. Autos and buggies stream along in the same direction, heading toward the freshly whitewashed chapel where the wooden doors, decorated with wildflowers, open like arms. Again we tie our horse with the other horses in back. Bitsy heads directly across the yellowed grass to talk to Byrd Bowlin, and I, feeling conspicuously alone, wander toward the church. I thought maybe Thomas would be here, but he’s nowhere around.

I’d expected to be the only white person in the crowd, but I am surprised to see others. Mr. Stenger, the pharmacist, and his wife are sitting at a picnic table with Becky Myers, Mr. Bittman the grocer, and Daniel Hester. The vet lifts his hand but doesn’t come over. Mrs. Wade, the fruit fly who was such a pest at Prudy Ott’s birth, is talking to Sheriff Hardman.

What’s Hardman doing here, anyway? Snooping around for the whereabouts of Thomas? That pisses me off, and I decide to confront him. I never particularly liked Mrs. Wade either.

“Nice to see you,” I say to the woman with a smile as sweet as sweet potato pie. She’s dressed in a navy blue suit with white buttons the size of silver dollars and a wide white straw hat. Perspiration shows on her upper lip, which is covered in bright red lipstick. “Sheriff . . .” I nod and bare my teeth in a smile. “I didn’t know you were acquainted with Mrs. Potts.”

“She delivered us. Bill is my brother!” That’s Red Mouth cutting in. The fact that the two are related surprises me, and I look at them in a new light. Not much family resemblance except for the way they hold themselves, their backs straight and their chins tilted high.

The lady goes on, “Our mother died a few years ago, but Mrs. Potts was her midwife and they always stayed friends. Many is the time we would come in the kitchen and find the two of them laughing over sassafras tea.”

Then Sheriff Hardman takes up the story. “Mrs. Potts was only a young woman when she starting delivering babies in the 1800s, and she didn’t call herself a midwife then. She’d been to a few births over in Maryland. Ma and she were just girls, really, eighteen and nineteen. There were no doctors in Union County then. Grace Potts was it.”

The church bell chimes, and the crowd files into the little white chapel, men, women, and children. I follow the sheriff and his sister but squeeze in with Bitsy, who is sitting with Bowlin in the third row. I guess Thomas isn’t going to show. Probably feels it’s too hot for him here after MacIntosh’s death.