Small-Town Midwife. Jean Gordon C.

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ search of a plastic trash bag—ditching the brief thought she’d had of ducking into the ladies’ room to touch up her makeup and check her hair.

      * * *

      Jon pushed the back door to the birthing center open to see Autumn standing by her car stuffing things into a canvas bag with a mountain logo on it. The morning sun brought out silvery highlights in her pale blond hair. She set the bag on the pavement next to a white plastic bag and leaned into the open door. When she stood, she had two swim noodles in one arm and an inner tube in the other. She tossed the noodles over the seat into the back of the car and pressed her key tag to open the trunk.

      “Need a hand?”

      Autumn dropped the tube and it rolled toward Jon. He caught it and walked it back to her.

      “You want it in the trunk?”

      “Yeah, but I’ll have to rearrange a few things first.” She brushed by him and lifted the back hatch door, standing to one side as if she wanted to block his view of the storage area.

      His curiosity got the best of him and he stepped behind her and peered over her shoulder. “Interesting collection of equipment,” he said, taking in the jumble of toys, a beach bag, her oxygen tank, an orange EMT bag with a stethoscope looped over the top of one pocket and an inflatable birthing pool mostly folded into its “Birth-in-a-Bag” canvas container.

      Pink tinged her cheeks as she made room for the inner tube, reminding him of the wholesome touch of innocence that had first attracted him to her when they’d met at Samaritan Hospital. It was that quality that had prompted him to ask her roommate, Kate, out, rather than Autumn. Kate was more of a party girl. He knew she wouldn’t expect anything long-term, and that observation proved true. Contrary to the scuttlebutt that had spread through the Labor and Delivery wing, his breakup with Kate bruised her ego far more than her heart.

      Autumn had struck him as a longtime kind of woman, and he’d known they both were at Samaritan temporarily. That thought had made it easier on him when she’d turned him down when he asked her out. He’d known that his timing wasn’t right, but there was something about Autumn that had compelled him to ask anyway.

      “There.” She stepped back, causing him to jump out of the way.

      He hadn’t realized how close together they were standing.

      She waved over the cleared-out spot next to the beach bag. “I have to pick the twins up from day care on my way home and take them to their swim lesson at the lake. Anne has a web conference after her class this morning.”

      Jon bit back a smile, getting a bittersweet kick out of the easy way Autumn went on about her family without knowing she was doing it. He lifted the tube into the car, and she closed the hatch.

      Autumn got in and started the vehicle. “The visit is up in Schroon Falls. If you’ve driven Route 9 from the medical center in Saranac Lake, you’ve gone through it.”

      “No, I’ve always taken the interstate.”

      “Yeah, the Northway is a lot faster.”

      His mind went back to Friday, when the drive to Crown Point had seemed interminable on the interstate Autumn called the Northway. “I take it your visit this morning isn’t off the interstate.”

      “Right, but unless time is a real factor, I tend to avoid the Northway. I get that from my dad. He never takes a highway if he can take a byway. It drives Anne crazy sometimes.”

      He could see that. In the case of these home visits, unnecessary time on the road would mean less time with that patient or another patient or in the office. “But you take the interstate when you’re called for a delivery.” He figured that was a given.

      She shrugged. “It depends. We usually have time.”

      Jon shifted in his seat. She seemed so nonchalant about it. As he was all too aware, a birth could be a life-and-death situation. Of course, rural Upstate New York wasn’t rural Haiti. He looked out the window at the mountain rising to his right. But it wouldn’t be unusual for a home-delivery patient’s house to be an hour from lifesaving equipment at the birthing center or the medical center in Saranac Lake.

      The natural break in their conversation drew out into a lull that made the drive time drag. Might as well check in with the office. He pulled out his smartphone and touched the mail app, tapping the side of the phone while he waited for it to open. It took a moment for him to notice the no-signal icon in the right-hand corner.

      “Do you often have trouble getting reception around here?”

      “All the time,” Autumn said. “It doesn’t matter which service you use.”

      “That could be a problem.”

      “If you need to make a call, I’m sure Megan would let you use her house phone. We’ll be there in five minutes.”

      “It’s not important. I was trying to check my office email. What I meant was for being on call.”

      “It can be challenging. No one around here depends solely on a cell phone. Kelly and I give our expectant parents our home landline numbers and our cell numbers, in addition to the office number. If I’m at Dad’s or Aunt Jinx’s or an activity at church, I’ll often set my cell phone to forward my calls there to make sure I get them. Of course, the birthing center’s off-hours answering service has all of our numbers.”

      Jon couldn’t imagine giving his former practice’s service his church’s phone number or any of his family members’ numbers, even if he were close to them. It seemed unprofessional. “I guess that’s the best you can do. A pager service wouldn’t work any better.”

      Autumn’s expression hardened. “It isn’t that big of a deal. People get a hold of us. Neither Kelly nor I have missed a birth yet.”

      He couldn’t shake the thought that they could, or he could, and the possible consequences. His cousin had died because she didn’t have a doctor at her birth to manage the complications. “I’d better call the phone company and have the landline connected.”

      “Good idea. The house we’re going to is right up here.” Autumn turned left on Peaks Hill Road and followed it to the end, stopping in front of a small, boxy house.

      He looked at the solar collectors on the roof. “Your dad’s work?”

      She wrinkled her forehead in puzzlement. “Oh, the collectors. No. Dave, the new father, said he’d bought the system online and installed it himself. He’s interested in talking with Dad.”

      Jon’s gaze went from the gleaming collectors to the blistered, peeling paint on the cottage and the dip in the wooden step to the front door.

      “Ready?” she asked, swinging her door open.

      He followed suit and stepped out of the car, walking around to meet her at the trunk.

      She clicked the hatch open and grabbed her stethoscope from the EMT bag and a black-and-white pull-behind suitcase with pink hearts and a cartoon cat on it.

      He tried to keep a straight face.

      “Hello Kitty.” Autumn nodded at the bag. “My sister, Sophie, picked СКАЧАТЬ