Night Comfort
by Mary Ellen Snodgrass
The glow of Indian summer warmed Dr. Michaela Quinn's cheeks as she jostled home by wagon over a rutted road. Her two sons argued about who should control the reins.
"It's my turn for the last half mile," Brian complained, reaching for the reins. "Hand 'em over."
Matthew, already a man, gritted his teeth and ignored his pushy sibling.
"Brian," Michaela intervened, "it's too nice a day for arguments. We have a lot to celebrate."
Matthew grinned and chirrupped to the horse, "Get on, Demon."
Holding Katie on her shoulder, Michaela tried to imagine life with three older children, a toddler, and an infant. After Dr. Andrew Cook diagnosed her wooziness as the early stages of pregnancy, she predicted a mix of reactions from Sully. He would delight in another baby, perhaps a boy this time. He would despair that hiding out in a cave kept him apart from his wife, children, and homestead. Nonetheless, she smiled to herself at the thought of delivering the good news.
The boys were thrilled at the prospect of another baby. Brian was already quizzing Matthew on possible names, all male this time.
"What do you think of Josef?" Brian leaned toward his brother awaiting confirmation. "After Dr. Mike's pa."
Michaela said nothing, but smiled at the thought of honoring her departed father, Dr. Josef Quinn, a prosperous Boston physician and influential abolitionist.
"Josef," Matthew grunted. "Too old-fashioned." He peered sheepishly at Michaela. "I was thinking of a real boy name, like Steve or Dale or Lance. Something tough-sounding."
Brian nodded sagely and considered all three. "Not Lance. That's a weapon. Maybe Dale—Dale Sully. Sounds better than Steve Sully," he concluded, as though the choice were up to him alone.
"I'm keeping a list," Michaela chimed in. "We will have to get the father's opinion when we see him."
"Ma," Brian perked up, "what do you think of Byron Sully, Jr.?"
"Your father would rule that one out immediately," she laughed. "No juniors."
Michaela leaned against the wagon seat. Her waning strength warned her to take it easy during the first trimester. Nearing age 40, she had to follow her own directive to older parturient women—don't overdo. More fearful were the grimmer cautions—don't count on a late-in-life pregnancy being as easy as previous ones or as certain to carry to term.
"You need help, Ma?" Brian asked as they pulled up to the front steps. "Hand me your shoppin basket."
"I'll manage, but I appreciate your good manners," she smiled.
"Learned them from Pa," he smirked, knowing full well that courtesy lessons came from his mother.
She climbed down over the wheel hub and took Katie to the kitchen for a cup of milk and an oatmeal and raisin cookie. Already edging about the downstairs, the sturdy child fed herself with a minimum of crumbs on her face and on the floor as she reached out for handholds.
"Pa," she demanded, as though summoning her father from his long period of hiding. "PA-pa." Turning to the family pet on the floor, she pointed and crowed, "Wolf!"
"Ma," Matthew queried with furrowed brow, "you okay? You look pale. Did Andrew say you're all right?"
Michaela righted Katie for another go at Wolf, who stretched across the toddler's rambling path. "I'm a bit tired, Matthew, that's all," Michaela assured both her sons. "I'm going to bed early. Would you boys feed Katie and get her ready for bed?" She looked back over her shoulder. "Don't forget to wipe her face and hands. I see sticky places."
"Sure, Ma," Brian replied with his usual grace. "You get some rest. I love you, Ma." He bent over to plop a kiss on her cheek, "You and Dale sleep well," he grinned.
"Yeah," Matthew added, "take it easy, Ma. We'll straighten up the downstairs." He reached out to pat lightly along her shoulder. "We want another brother real soon—little Lance Sully!"
"Thank you both for your help," Michaela murmured as she grasped the stair railing on her way up.
Each step to the second floor tired her more, worsening pressure on her bladder and lower back. At the top, she reached for the bedroom door and made her way toward the front window for a breath of fresh air. Silently, she looked at Sully's unlined pillow and regretted the nights he hunched alone under a poncho in a dank cave. Following a brisk brush to wind-blown hair, she splashed her neck and face with water and bent to loosen her shoestrings.
An invisible fist to the middle doubled her over, squeezing out her breath and sending shock waves down both calves. Michaela knew from experience that severe cramping low in the abdomen was a sure sign of problems, perhaps a miscarriage. In her ninth week, she feared that the cervix was dilating and the fertilized egg doomed.
"No," she whimpered. "Oh, Sully! No!." Her voice trailed off into a plaintive moan. "Not my baby."
Yielding to cresting agony, she stretched across the foot of the bed. "Sully," she whispered. "I need you. Oh, I need you."
At the height of spasm, she curled into a fetal position to ease the taut muscles and the jolt to her uterus. Clamping a trembling bottom lip with her teeth, she stifled groans and mourned that this little one—Josef or Dale or Lance—would not survive in the womb.
As Michaela gripped the quilted coverlet, she swallowed back nausea and felt the leak of urine that accompanied another cramp. Like vengeful claws encircling her groin, the contraction wrenched at her vitals, relaying alarms into her brain. Too spent to light a fire, she closed her eyes and tried to relax between spasms and to smother cries that would alarm the boys. Against alternating sweats and shivers, she pulled up the sheet and blanket and huddled against her pillow for warmth. Obstetrical training taught her to pant lightly against the undertow that yanked her down and back as steadily as the pangs that thrust Katie into the world the previous year.
As Brian carried Katie to her crib, he passed his parents' door and heard groans from Michaela. "Ma, you sick? Ma, it's me, Brian. You need me?" He rapped lightly, waiting for a summons.
"I'm just weary, Brian," she forced out. "I'll be okay." Cold sweat beaded her brow from yet another knotting deep in her pelvis.
"Ma? Can I help?" Brian persisted out of fear for his mother. "Do you need some tea? I could heat the kettle."
"I'll call you if I feel any worse, Brian. See you in the morning." She stretched out on her stomach and reached back to massage her wracked lower spine. Nothing helped. Nothing stilled the rhythmic torment that she knew well from personal and clinical experience.
"Love you, Ma," Brian tried to sound confident. After he bedded Katie down for the night with her bunny, he skipped every other step on his way to report to Matthew.
By the hearth, Brian grabbed his brother's arm and squinched his eyes with alarm. "You gotta help her, Matthew. She's hurtin real bad." Tears gathered without spilling over. "What could it be? She never complains."
Matthew, the man in residence of the Sully household, squared his shoulders. He slipped upstairs and lurked at the bedroom door to confirm Brian's snooping, then returned to confer with his younger brother. "You're right. She's hurtin."
"Told you," Brian insisted. "It's somethin awful bad."
After some thought, Matthew concluded, "I don't know nothin about pregnant ladies and neither do you."
"So what do we do?" Brian trembled at the thought of losing his second ma.
With some hesitance, Matthew declared, "I gotta go for Sully."
Brian shook his head. "Don't do it, Matthew. What if soldiers get him? We can't risk it."
"Have to, Brian. Ma could be real sick. Without Colleen here, Ma's got nobody to help her." Matthew was already out the door and pulling on his buff-colored jacket against the chill.
"Don't be long," Brian yelled, fearing to be alone with his sick mother.
On Scout, Matthew lifted his chin and cantered in a confident pose past the guard station.
"Evenin," he saluted the two guards.
The late departure intrigued a tall soldier in charge and his cohort, a scruffy cavalryman squatting against the large oak. "Where you off to?" the tall man asked with a suspicious glance beyond Scout toward the house and barn.
"Ma's startin a batch of cough syrup on the stove and needs some more wild cherry root. I'm headed to the clinic." As an afterthought, he inquired, "You fellows need anythin?"
His affability put the men off the alert. "Reckon not. We're here till dawn when the relief comes. Might need a dose of croup syrup by then my own self," groused the crouching soldier.
"So long," Matthew gestured amiably and slapped Scout's reins.
The gelding continued at a reasonable pace up the lane. Around the bend, the rider turned left into low pines and spruce and spurred up the incline. "Git up there, Scout," he urged with toes and knees.
The rocky scree led at a sharp angle to a granite ridge and a straight shot into the highlands. Among tangled boughs, he grabbed at his hat and kicked Scout to a near-gallop in the gloom that preceded dark. "Go, boy," he growled.
Outside the cave entrance at nightfall, Matthew halted and listened for hoofbeats or human steps. Without pause, he sped on foot toward the opening and whistled a warning of his approach. Sully emerged from the right side, knife at the ready. He tensed at the sight of his grown son out of breath from the rapid ascent.
"What is it? Somethin wrong with Michaela?" Sully reached for Matthew's forearm, but got no response. With a sharp jerk, Sully demanded answers. "Are Katie and Brian all right?"
Matthew looked down at the path with a gulp and replied, "You better come."
"What is it, Matthew? What?" Sully blanched at the possibilities of harm that could befall the household in his absence.
Matthew tightened his mouth into a straight line and slapped his dusty hat on his knee. "We oughta hurry." He pondered mentioning Andrew's diagnosis of pregnancy, then shut his mouth on news that should come from Michaela.
Without further comment, Matthew climbed back on Scout and pulled up the reins while Sully slid up behind him. In dappled moonlight, the wearied gelding picked his way back down the ridge and halted for Sully to dismount.
Matthew hung a draw-string bag on the pommel and walked at a measured pace up the lane, leading Scout behind.
"What happened?" the tall soldier snickered. "Horse throw you?" He reached out to steady Scout.
"I'm not sure," Matthew answered, pretending to be mystified. He pointed to the buckskin bag. "I got the wild cherry root okay, but I think Scout picked up a stone in the left rear hoof on my way outta town." He pulled his mount to a halt and turned him sideways to give the curious guards a clearer view.
The tall soldier stooped out of range of getting kicked and turned up Scout's left rear pastern for a quick poke into the hoof.
"Can't see a thing."
The shorter man struck a match to give him a brief view. "Does that help?"
"Don't see nothin. Might be a stone bruise." The tall man gazed up into Matthew's face for a response.
"Maybe I was wrong. Maybe it was the right hoof." Matthew smiled a convincing look of perplexity.
The tall soldier muttered "Doofus!" and sneered at a stripling who doesn't know which leg his own horse is favoring.
By the flare of a second match, the two sentries repeated their operation on the right rear hoof. Sliding the blade of a barlow knife under the shoe, the tall man extracted a flat sliver of shale.
"Ha! Here's your culprit, raw-edged and just the right thickness to stay put." Tossing it to the roadside, he added, "Better stall him just in case. Ya don't want him goin lame on ya."
Matthew nodded congenially and examined the hoof. "You're right. Scout gets a two-day rest in the barn and extra rubbins with liniment. Thanks for your help." He trudged on up the lane, leaving the troopers sharing a knowing smirk at the expense of a green-horn.
In the distance, Sully waited until the little drama absorbed the guards, then slid through the back entrance. Up the stairs in silent bounds, he paused at the bedroom door and opened it with care. "Michaela! I'm here," he stage-whispered. "I'm home."
In the past hour, Michaela had slipped out of her dress and petticoats and had managed to light a feeble flame at the bedroom hearth. In the flickers, Sully caught his breath at the sight of her drawers and two crumpled sheets stained with blackish blood. She lay naked and miserable at the side of the mattress. Her fingers clutched at the edge, both eyelids squeezed tight, and lashes clumped with tears.
"I'm here," he whispered in a reassuring tone that concealed panic. "What is it? You sick?"
Michaela looked up with relief at the sound of his voice, then flinched at seeing her husband, a wanted man, out of hiding so near sentries.
"You shouldn't. . . . You shouldn't be. . . ." She sank back under a renewed wrench to her lower belly and squeezed her middle with both forearms.
Sully knelt at the bedside and embraced her, trying not to cause more pain. "Where do you hurt? Show me."
"Sully," she sobbed into his sleeve. "I was so hoping . . . ." Her voice gave way to a flood of weeping.
Unused to seeing his stalwart wife losing control, Sully waited for the sobs to pass. "Tell me," he insisted. "Where's your medical bag? I'll go get Andrew if you need him."
"No," she steadied herself in his arms and pulled up to a half-seated position. "No, it's too late." She wiped loose strands of hair out of her eyes with the backs of shaky hands.
"Too late for what?" he half cried out, his frame tensed.
"Oh, Sully, I lost him," Michaela wept on his shoulder, both arms around his neck.
"Lost who?" Sully felt the heat of her cheeks and neck and feared she was babbling from fever.
"The baby. Our baby. He's gone." Michaela gestured toward the mass of linens on the floor. "Gone gone," she echoed with a fresh flood of tears.
Another child. Sully realized why Matthew refused to identify her ailment. Sorrow settled on Sully's heart.
Michaela slumped into a half moon pose and grabbed at her pubic bone as another cramp swept from gut to groin. Her eyes looked dark and unhealthy as she gasped for air. Her head throbbed, her fingers grasped at nothing, and her lower limbs tingled and jerked with each new grip of her uterus.
"Lie back," he ordered. "Let me tend to you."
Sully slipped off his belt and moved into action. He poured water from the pitcher into a tin cup and anchored it in embers at the hearth. With a generous pinch of willow bark from his pocket stash, he stirred the warming fluid with the tip of his knife. He tested the temperature with his lips, then held the cup to her mouth.
"Easy," he whispered. "A little at a time.
Still weeping between pangs, she managed sips that warmed her insides and began easing the pangs.
Sully crept into his side of the bed to snuggle her close and to catch the words squeezed out between throes.
"Our baby, Sully." Another pang sent torment to her spine.
"Relax, Michaela." His voice slid into deep, solacing tones as he caressed and massaged her middle. "Breathe easy. It'll pass."
Calloused palms slid over her belly, back, and thighs as he followed the contours of knotty muscles. The warmth and motion soothed the cramping, allowing her the first easy breaths since sundown.
"Ah," she sighed. "That helps. Rub lower on my back."
His hands moved to the right spot. "It's gonna be all right." His words expressed an assurance far removed from his saddened spirit. "We'll make another baby."
Concealing his own disappointment, the thwarted father assuaged with murmurs and sweeps of the hand around her left hip and across the aching sacrum. "Don't fret. Lean back and rest."
Michaela's weeping stilled to sighs and snuffles. "I'm so tired," she admitted.
He laid his cheek along hers. "When did it start?"
She thought back over the past two hours. "On the wagon ride home from town."
Gradually, her shoulders sagged as her muscles loosened. She sank back onto her husband's chest and entrusted him with her misery.
She murmured a doctor's diagnosis: "I did my best to ease the contractions, but, once they start, no drug will help."
Sully understood. The miscarriage was nature's end to an unpromising conception. "Shh," he coaxed. "You did your best."
At first light, Michaela rolled back against an empty spot and relived some of the past night.
"Sully?" The mattress was cool on his side. "Don't go."
Like a phantom lover, he had been there and left. His tenderness never wavered. At the height of her suffering, he had held her. He wasn't anguished or judgmental, just worried. Before departing, he had stoked the fire, fed her another dose of willow bark tea, and tucked a deer hide over the bottom of her coverlet for extra warmth against the pre-dawn chill.
With some effort, Michaela made her way to the mirror. She plaited her hair, dressed for the day, and eased into her shoes. Regret dragged at her as she stooped to gather the tell-tale laundry.
Downstairs, she presented as cheerful a face as possible to her children.
"Good morning. Are you already eating?" She paused to smooth Katie's hair.
Brian filled a cup for Michaela and guided her into a chair. "Here, Ma. Drink your coffee."
Katie banged the highchair with her oatmeal spoon and called out her morning demand for "Papa. PA-pa."
"I appreciate all you did last night," Michaela began with a futile gesture.
"Ma, I hope you don't mind that I went for Sully," Matthew confessed. Avoiding his doubts about the pregnancy, he added, "We were afraid you were . . . sick."
"I'm fine now, Matthew. It was a miscarriage," she managed without alarming her boys. "I'm sorry. There won't be another child." To reassure them, she added, "The pains and bleeding have passed."
Her sons exchanged troubled looks, but found nothing suitable to say to such a loss.
Michaela summoned the strength to return to work. "I think I will go to the clinic a little late. You go on without me." She put down her cup and added a pinch of willow bark before busying herself at the sink. "I need to soak some wash before I leave."
In wan sunlight, she moved confidently about the kitchen, pouring more coffee to reheat Matthew's cup. "Brian, do you and Katie want some more milk?"
Brian hesitated at his mother's brave front, then replied, "Yes, ma'am. Katie, too." Michaela filled both mugs part way, then looked out at a new pair of guards.
"I don't know how you managed fooling the soldiers, Matthew," she began, "but I'm sure it's a story I will love hearing." She smiled thanks at her older son and hugged him to her.
"I just pretended that I didn't know how to get a rock out of Scout's shoe," Matthew tittered. "Those two soldiers think I'm a doofus. At least Scout knows the truth."
Michaela tidied the sink and put the linens and her bloodied drawers in cold water to soak, concealing the stains by standing between the laundry tub and her worried sons.
At the clinic, work progressed easily from removing stitches in the thumb of a careless cowboy to weighing Meg, the month-old baby of the Grahams.
"Up on the scale, Meg. I know," she commiserated with the fretful baby. "It's cold."
Handling the small body freighted Michaela's heart with grief for a lost child she would never see, never hold. When tears threatened to spill over, she passed Meg to Leah Graham and wrote new numbers on Meg's chart. "She's gained two more pounds and one-point-five ounces. Your milk is just right for her."
"That's good news," Leah smiled as she nestled Meg into her blanket. "I was worried that it might not be enough."
In her Dr. Quinn voice, Michaela noted, "If it weren't nutritious, she wouldn't be so round and firm."
Michaela began outlining the care that the baby would need at four weeks to help her sleep through the night. "Make sure to burp her before putting her down for the night. Place her high on your shoulder or over your knees to release the pressure in her tummy. Gas bubbles can cause discomfort and crying."
"Thanks, Dr. Mike," Leah said. "You're so good with babies."
"See you in four weeks," Michaela waved from the door. "Come sooner if you have questions. Bye, Meg."
By late afternoon, Michaela had had enough of doctoring other people. Gingerly, she climbed onto Flash and rode out of town toward home. At the bend, she angled up the loose shale and pushed on over the ridge, ducking evergreen boughs as she climbed. Near the cave, she listened for followers, then walked her mare the rest of the way.
Before Michaela reached the entrance, Flash nickered. At once, Sully was out the door and wrapping his beloved in his arms.
His eyes said it all. "I been waitin for you."
Michaela grasped the rough back yoke of his work shirt. "Hold me," she begged.
His hands rubbed over the spots that hurt the most during the past night.
"Michaela, I had to leave before sunup. I wanted to stay," he apologized.
"I know," she murmured. She clasped his wrist with both hands. "You were a lifesaver last night."
He turned her chin up to the late afternoon light to examine the weary eyes and sallow cheeks. "Did you eat somethin today? You need some more rest." Lip nibbles covered her lids, ears, and neck. His fingers caressed the back muscles that had tortured her.
"I'm so sorry. I feel so guilty." Michaela's face crumpled into sadness as she thought of the small life forced too soon from her body.
"Hush, now," he ordered. "You did what you could to save our baby."
Michaela drew a shaky breath. "I'm the one at fault," she began. "I wasn't. . . . I mean, I should have. . . ."
"Shh. There's no blame. That baby wasn't meant to be. We'll make another one," he lulled her achy body with sure rubs and pulled her into his hideaway.
Needing no words from the woman he adored, Sully slid down the far wall with her locked in his arms. He rocked her tenderly to his chest and felt her frame sag into untroubled repose. The improvement since the previous night eased his panic. She would survive the loss. She would heal. So would he.
At moonrise, Michaela lurched unevenly into a sitting position and pulled Sully close for a kiss. "What would I do without you? If you hadn't come, I couldn't have hidden the pain from Brian and Matthew."
"I'm sorry to be leavin you alone. I hate hidin out in the hills from the army when I should be home tendin my wife, my family." His eyes spoke an ongoing torment of solitude and frustration. "What would I have done if the bleedin hadn't stopped? I would've lost you." He cast sorrowing eyes on her face and outlined her cheek bone with his thumb.
Michaela armored her spirit with optimism. "I'm all right now." With a second thought to their situation, she added, "We'll get through this. You'll be home soon."
He tugged her back against his shoulder. "Don't go just yet. I need to be sure you're all right."
With a confident smile, she buttoned her wool jacket and pulled on riding gloves. "I'm fine. I have to get back to Katie and the boys. They'll be worried." She stood to leave. "I'll try to come back tomorrow."
"Send Matthew if you need me." He paused. "You mean everything to me," he began, then ceased his words to embrace her with a lover's passion. Yearning toward her, he layered his body against hers and absorbed the feel of her shape against him. "I miss you."
"I miss you, too," she whispered in his ear, then straightened with authority.
"We have to say goodbye," she insisted in a businesslike tone. As though in apology, she summarized, "We've had a loss, but I don't want it to grieve you. You have enough to worry over." To lessen his concern, she added, "The bleeding and cramping have almost stopped. I'll be okay." She kissed him once more and mounted Flash for the downhill ride home.
At the bend in the lane, Michaela trotted her pony past the guard station. The tall soldier was again in charge while his inattentive companion loafed under the oak while slicing off a plug of Brown Mule. Both stared up as she pulled herself into strict rider's posture.
"You out mighty late, Dr. Quinn," the tall soldier greeted her. "Anythin wrong?"
"A sick woman needed my help," Michaela began, looking up at smoke curling from the homestead chimney.
"She okay?" the short soldier asked.
Michael nodded briskly. "She's doing fine."