E
mily was falling in love with a man who didn’t want to love! She couldn’t stop thinking about the passionate sex she’d shared with Jared, his polite-bordering-on-cool attitude at Tessa’s and the icy wall he’d erected between them ever since.
She hurried down the cereal aisle of the grocery store after work on Monday, her thoughts focused on the way they’d ignored each other for over a week. As they’d consulted on patients, they’d kept their meetings professional. Yet she’d caught Jared’s assessing glances when he thought she wasn’t looking, and she’d had a difficult time thinking about him simply as her boss.
Ahead of Emily, farther down the long aisle, a young woman crouched down to her cart. At first Emily thought she might be tucking a large box of cereal underneath. But then Emily realized the woman was pregnant and there was
a wet spot near the woman’s feet. This young mother-to-be didn’t have a box in her hands. She was holding on to the cart for support!
That cart would tip over if she wasn’t careful.
Emily rushed to the mother-to-be and knelt beside her. “Are you all right?”
The pretty blond shook her head, sweat beading on her brow. “I’m having contractions. They started early this morning but were just like twinges. I didn’t even know they were contractions, so I didn’t pay much attention.” She held her tummy and grabbed the cart in a strangling grip.
Emily’s fingers went to the pregnant woman’s wrist as she reflexively took her pulse. “What’s your name?”
“Patti. Patti Holbrook.” She let go of the cart and took a deep breath.
“How far along are you?” Emily asked.
“Thirty-five weeks.”
Emily slipped her cell phone from her purse. “Is there anyone I can call for you?”
Patti shook her head as she grabbed for the cart again to try to pull herself up.
Emily encircled her with her arms. “Come on. Let me help you.”
They had almost made it to a standing position when another contraction caused Patti to double over again. She let out a moan.
Emily suspected she might have to do more than drive Patti to the hospital.
One of the elderly gentlemen stocking shelves spotted them and his eyebrows quirked up.
Emily asked him, “Could you please block off this aisle?”
After an assessing look at both of them, he dragged their carts toward the front of the store.
“The pain feels like it’s tearing me apart,” Patti said tearfully. “I can’t have my baby here.”
Emily kept her arm around the young woman who looked to be in her late teens.
The stock clerk came hurrying back. “The aisle’s blocked. The manager called 911. What else can I do?”
“Can you get me some supplies? The paramedics might not arrive in time, so we need to be ready in case they don’t.”
“What do you need?”
“Towels and something to cover the floor. A bucket or basin of hot water. Antibacterial soap.”
From all the deliveries Emily had attended, she knew what was most important—she had to remain calm.
Patti’s contractions began again and she grabbed Emily’s arm. Another, much younger man ran up to them with an armful of supplies—a package of plastic sheeting, terry cloth and paper towels. A few moments later the older man returned with the bucket and soap.
Both the manager and the clerk helped Emily spread the plastic sheeting. Patti slid on top of it, looking fearfully up at Emily. “I thought I’d be in a hospital.”
Emily shrugged off the jacket to her sundress, folded it and slipped it under Patti’s head. “A baby can be delivered anywhere. You’ll be fine. I’m going to call the doctor I work with. He might only be a few minutes away. Just hold on.”
Taking her phone in hand, Emily speed-dialed Jared’s cell phone number. He answered on the first ring.
“Jared, where are you?”
“I just got to the office. I had two deliveries this afternoon. Why?”
“I need you to come to Fresh Food Grocery on High Rock Road. A woman’s having a baby.”
As Patti clenched her fists and bit her lip, Emily knew
another contraction had begun. She glanced at her watch. “Her contractions are two minutes apart.”
He didn’t hesitate. “I’m on my way.”
Emily moved farther down Patti’s side. Jared was on his way. For some reason, just that thought gave her the confidence she needed.
As soon as the contraction ebbed, Emily covered Patti with a towel and helped her undress from the waist down.
“Is he coming?” Patti asked shakily.
“Yes, he is. But if he doesn’t arrive in time, it will be okay. I’m a midwife.”
“An honest-to-goodness midwife?” The last syllable came out on a squeak and Emily could see Patti was trying not to scream. She said, “I have to push. I really have to push.”
As Emily examined Patti, she could see the top of the baby’s head.
“Easy now,” Emily encouraged her. “You’re going to be okay. Take slow deep breaths.” She pulled the bucket closer and unwrapped the soap, then scrubbed up to her elbows.
With the baby’s head crowning, Emily knew she didn’t have much time. She saw Patti tensing up for another contraction.
“Did you take childbirth classes?” she asked Patti.
Patti nodded.
“Okay. Then you know how to breathe. I want you to focus on that box of cereal over there. The one with the bright-blue letters. Keep your attention on it and blow air out while you push.”
Patti blew and pushed.
As the baby’s head emerged, Emily applied gentle pressure to control the speed of birth, to help prevent damage, both to the baby and the mom. As all of her training rushed back, she made sure the umbilical cord wasn’t wrapped around the baby’s neck.
“Clean towel!” she called, and the manager pushed it into her hand.
“One more push,” she told Patti. “Come on now. A great big push!”
Her heart beating double time, a lump in her throat, Emily carefully supported the baby as its shoulders slid out. Tears burned Emily’s eyes as she finally held a baby girl in her hands.
She was barely aware of someone coming up behind her. All of her focus was on the child who wasn’t yet breathing! Emily flicked the soles of her feet and rubbed her back. The little girl took a breath, letting out a cry.
Emily wanted to just soak in the wonderful joy of holding a miracle in her hands, but there wasn’t time for that. She had to keep the infant warm. She wrapped her in the towel and placed her on Patti’s belly as sirens wailed in the distance.
Emily felt a hand on her shoulder. “You did a wonderful job. Maybe I should take over now.”
Jared. He had watched her as the baby arrived. She should say the words right now…tell him she was a midwife and she knew what she was doing. The placenta had to be handled carefully. Patti’s belly needed to be massaged.
Jared had already rolled up his shirtsleeves and was washing up.
A gaggle of voices at the end of the aisle grew louder. “Make room,” she heard someone shout. The paramedics were coming.
Making a quick decision about what was best for Patti, Emily let Jared take over. She stood to the side as she watched him finish the birthing process.
Not long after, the paramedics transferred Patti to a gurney and wheeled her out of the store.
Jared stood at the door of the grocery store with Emily as the ambulance pulled away. “You did a great job with that delivery.”
As he turned to look at her, she knew the moment was now. “Jared, I’m a midwife.”
His expression went from confusion to astonishment to something she couldn’t read. His voice took on a tense edge. “You’re a midwife? And that’s a qualification you didn’t feel you should put on your résumé?”
She couldn’t get defensive…she couldn’t. She was in the wrong for not confiding in him. “Are you being my boss now or a…friend?”
He weighed the question, then rubbed his hand up and down the back of his neck. “I don’t know if I can separate them. Why would you hide your real profession? You must have had a reason. Is everything else on your résumé true?”
“It’s true. I just didn’t tell you everything.”
A local TV-station van, satellite on top, pulled up in front of the store.
Jared took a long breath and then checked his watch.
A car honked in the parking lot, another slowed and veered close to the curb in front of the store to let out a passenger. The sliding glass doors behind them opened and shut and a middle-aged man pushed his grocery cart to his car.
“You picked a heck of a place to start this discussion,” Jared muttered. “And I imagine that news van is here because of what just happened in the store. We don’t want to get tied up with them.”
Emily had spotted one or two patrons in the store with camera cell phones aimed at the gurney. How much had been recorded?
Jared continued. “I have to get home. Chloie needs to leave by seven. We do need to talk about this, Emily. But not right now.”
Two men spilled out of the van, one with video equipment, and ran into the store.
“At your office tomorrow?” Emily asked, uncertain about what to say and where to say it.
As Jared focused his attention on her, she could almost see him remembering the intimate moments they’d shared. Had they meant anything to him? Anything at all?
His green eyes were piercing, and he studied her as if he didn’t know her. “Come over to the house about nine thirty. The girls will be in bed and we can talk. I’ve got to get going.”
She watched Jared hurry across the parking lot, climb into his car and drive away.
She had kept the truth from him and now…
Now she might lose her job.
Would she lose her bonds with Jared, too?
Emily rang Jared’s doorbell, uncertainty and anxiety dampening her palms.
When Jared opened his door to her, he looked wary. He didn’t say anything but moved aside to let her in. He’d changed from his suit into a T-shirt, jeans and boots. Chest hair swirled at the V-neck of his shirt. She wanted to dive into his arms, tell him she was the same person she was yesterday…that nothing had really changed.
Yet something had. She could see it in his eyes. There was mistrust there.
He led her to the sofa. “The girls have been in bed for an hour. The last time I checked, they’d fallen asleep.”
She wanted to say something but was waiting for a
signal from him. Instead of taking the chair across from the sofa, he sat down next to her. That gave her some hope.
He wasn’t close enough to touch, though, and he sounded very bosslike as he requested, “Tell me what you omitted from your résumé.”
Her chest tightened. She wanted him to understand all of it. “Can I start at the beginning?”
“I’m listening.”
She hoped he was listening with his heart as well as his head. “I was still in training to become an RN when I decided to become an obstetrical nurse practitioner. I loved taking care of babies and pregnant moms and I assisted at births, volunteered at the free clinic and also did home health care for pregnant mothers. I had lots of conversations with the mothers…with women who wanted to deliver their babies at home. Some were too poor to afford hospital bills without insurance. Some were simply afraid of everything medical. Others wanted an organic birth that was as stress free as it could be. So I went for midwifery training and became certified. For two years afterward, I assisted another midwife. Then I went out on my own.”
His gaze was probing as he asked, “Some obstetricians are vehemently opposed to home births. Is that why you didn’t want to admit you were a midwife? You thought our practice wouldn’t hire you?”
If only that was the reason. If only—
“No. Something happened.” She hesitated then began. Now she wanted to have her story out. She just wanted to get it over with.
“I only took on low-risk pregnancies, women who didn’t have histories that could cause a problem during labor and delivery. I had an obstetrician to back me up. In all the deliveries I attended, I only had one labor where I
sent the mother to the hospital, and she had a C-section. The mom and baby were fine. But then a year later, I attended the delivery of a young, healthy, strong mom with nothing in her history to predict a problem. The dad coached and was involved all the way. But when I delivered their baby, he was stillborn.”
Jared didn’t speak, so she went on. “The Wilsons were devastated and wanted someone to blame. They filed a complaint and my license was suspended during the investigation. They weren’t satisfied with that and also filed a civil lawsuit. I didn’t have malpractice insurance. It’s simply unaffordable for nurse midwives who deliver at home.”
His face unreadable, Jared asked, “What was the result of the lawsuit?”
“The jury decided there was no malpractice.”
“An autopsy was performed?”
“It didn’t show the cause of death.”
“What happened with the licensing board?”
“They also decided there was no malpractice and I retained my license. But the Wilsons had hired a shark of a lawyer. He brought up the C-section birth and said I’d missed something there, too. I doubted myself. What if I had missed something in both cases?”
When she finished, he was silent. So she addressed his original question. “I didn’t include my midwifery in my résumé because any time a professional is brought before the board, a cloud hangs over her head. I knew I had that cloud hanging over me and on top of that there was the lawsuit. But even more than that, I can never forget the day the baby was born dead. I lost all my confidence. The look in that young couple’s eyes—” Her throat closed and she felt tears start to run.
The room was quiet again. Finally, Jared asked, “If you
had delivered that baby in a hospital and it had been stillborn, what would you have felt?”
She took a deep breath and really considered his question. “I would still wonder if there had been something I could have done differently.”
“And after you worked for me a few weeks, a few months, you still decided to keep this secret so I wouldn’t fire you?”
She understood what he was getting at. She hadn’t trusted him. That seemed to bother him even more than the fact that she was a midwife! “Secrets are complicated. Aren’t there things about your life you haven’t told me?”