The Secrets of Midwives Read Online Free

birth?”
    â€œWho knows? Whatever it is, she’s not talking. And the more I pressed her—”
    â€œThe more she clammed up, yes.” He sighed and thought. “Well, there’s no point in speculating. I’ll call her in the morning to get to the bottom of it.” He took off his glasses and returned them to the table. “Why don’t you go to sleep, love?”
    He shut off the light, leaving me in darkness. I resented his insinuation that one phone call from him would get all the answers we needed, even though a small part of me believed it was true. Neva often confided in her father, possibly just to irritate me. But whatever the reason, I hoped she did tell Robert. I needed to know who the father of that baby was. And the sooner, the better.
    With nothing left to do, I stood, slipping out of my clothes and underwear. I was too pumped up to sleep. And experience told me that only one thing helped with pent-up energy at this time of night. I peeled back the covers and slipped into my husband’s side of the bed. His skin was rough and warm and I shimmied against it.
    â€œGrace,” he protested, but I silenced him with a kiss and rolled him onto his back.
    â€œJust lie back.”
    I followed the trail of salt-and-pepper hair south. He’d had a shower before bed, I could smell—and taste—the soap on his skin. It made me want him more. I needed intimacy. Needed someone to want me. It would be a tall order from my sleepy husband, but I had my ways of convincing him. I’d gotten as far as his navel when his hands curled over my shoulders.
    â€œI have to work in the morning, Grace. And honestly, after the news you’ve given me, I’m a little distracted.” He tugged me upward and pressed my cheek to his chest. “Why don’t you try to get some sleep? It’s a full moon tonight—someone is bound to go into labor. You’ll want to have had some rest before you get the call.”
    His voice was controlled, completely uninfluenced by desire. The tone of a master to its dog. No more catch tonight, Fido . These dismissals had been happening more often lately. A sudden headache, an immediate steadying of his breathing when I came to bed. But this rejection was the most overt. How many times had I sat around at book club, listening to my friends complain that all their husbands thought about was sex, sex, sex? And, if they did submit, it was for three minutes of missionary, no foreplay, no fellatio. I was ready to give my husband the whole shebang and … was I that repulsive? Once, Robert had found me irresistible. We’d prided ourselves on being part of a couple who maintained their “spark.” What had happened to us?
    I lay in his arms for as long as I could, probably no more than a minute, and then whispered, “I think I’ll get some water.”
    Robert didn’t protest, nor did I expect him to. By the time I had slipped into my dressing gown he was snoring. In the kitchen, the reeds lashed against the house so loudly it sounded like the wind might lift our cottage right off the ground and toss it into Mackerel Cove. I sat in the blue chair with my sketchbook on my lap and face-planted into it.
    What was going on with Neva? When it was all boiled down, there were only two possibilities: Neva didn’t know who the father was, or she didn’t want me to know. Whichever it was, there wasn’t going to be a father in the picture for this baby. It was something my grandchild and I would have in common.
    A tractor rolled onto my father while my mother was pregnant. I’d always thought that was a tragic, freak thing to happen, but Mom was pretty matter-of-fact about it. “It was the country,” she’d say. “Stuff like that happened.” Mom had done a good job of picking up the slack my father left behind—an exemplary job—but I always knew something was missing. I saw other