Page 97 of The Frozen River

John Cowan swallows once. “Where am I taking him?”

“To Burnt Hill. I need you to bring Doctor back with you.”

“I did not think she made house calls.” John looks at the baby. Back at me. “I was told you have to go to her, and I do not think that Mary…”

He doesn’t want to say it aloud, and I do not blame him.

“Then let us see if she will make an exception. Tell her that Martha Ballard begs that she come with you.”

It takes almost two hours before we hear pounding horse hooves. John escorts Doctor through the door with the kind of dazed expression I’d expect of a man who’s just been strapped to the top of a carriage and driven off a cliff. I felt much the same way the first time I rode Brutus at full tilt.

“Please, come in,” Charles says, motioning Doctor forward. “I’ll help John with the horses.”

It’s been too much for Charles. He paced while his wife nursed the baby. He paced while I changed her hippen. He paced the entire time we waited. At one point, he tried to give me the fee for the child’s birth—now overdue—but I’d refused, curling his fingers back over the coins and telling him to pay Doctor instead. He’d paced then, too, afraid of what that meant. So this task, the managing of beasts, is a relief to him. It is a thing he can do, and, like all men, that is where his instinct goes.

Just do something! And fix it if you damn well can, the mind of a man screams. By and large they are useless at a time like this. And it is a relief to all of us when both Charles and John are gone. Betsy relaxes, as does Doctor. Her riding cloak goes on the hook beside mine, and she takes a seat with us.

“Her name is Mary,” I say, handing over the tiny bundle. “The fits started yesterday.”

Doctor lays the baby on her lap, exactly as I had, but is far more cautious. She turns to Betsy and asks, “May I look at her?”

I am aware that this is a permission I never thought to ask.

“Of course,” Betsy says.

Only once she’s been granted approval does Doctor strip the child naked and begin her examination. It is a fascinating thing to watch. She looks for injuries, as I had, pokes and prods in all the same places. But then she turns the baby onto her forearm and runs the pad of her index finger all the way up her spine and back down again, checking for deformities in every vertebra. And all the while Doctor whispers to herself.

Several minutes into this, Betsy leans toward me. “What is she saying?”

I shrug. “I don’t speak French.”

Doctor’s voice is deep and calming, and soon the whispers turn into song. A lullaby of some sort, hummed as she bends her ear to the baby’s chest. Listens to her breath. I can see Doctor count each heartbeat with a tap of her finger.

The next seizure is not so violent as the last, but still, Betsy jerks in her chair as though she has been stung by a wasp. It may be a thing that she never grows comfortable with. Doctor, however, remains calm as Mary twitches in her lap. She holds the baby’s arms down and I hear her counting in French, though I don’t know the numbers past three.

“Trois. Quatre. Cinq. Six. Sept. Huit. Neuf. Dix…” She keeps going, until the seizure stops. “Vingt-trois.”

When the fit is over, Doctor dresses and swaddles Mary, then hands her back to Betsy. “Give her the breast if she will take it. It is the best thing for her right now. But pull away if she has another episode.”

As directed, Betsy unbuttons her blouse and puts the baby to her nipple. Mary latches on, though not as forcefully as I would like.

Doctor looks at me, motions with her head. “Let us talk outside.”

The snow has turned to rain, and we stand outside the cabin, unprotected from the downpour. Doctor slides back into her cloak. She pulls on her gloves. After a moment she nods to my riding skirt. “That is very practical.”

“It was easy,” I tell her. “I can show you how to make one.”

“Next time, perhaps.”

Charles stomps his way back from the barn. He glances at me, then hands Doctor a small leather pouch filled with coins. “Your fee,” he says, then slips inside to tend his wife and child.

Doctor looks to the door where he has just disappeared. “He is a gentle man.”

“He is learning,” I say, but do not bother her with our history. “I’ve heard of children, adults as well, with that condition. But I don’t know what it’s called. I only know it as ‘the fits.’ ”

“I believe she has the falling sickness,” Doctor tells me, then adds, “Epilepsia. Sometimes they grow out of it. Sometimes they do not. Time will tell.”

“You’ve seen it before?”