Chapter
1
Chicago, Illinois
March 1871
“It’s a boy.” Catherine Remington held the squalling infant upside down by his ankles, making sure he didn’t inhale mucus.
The new mother managed a nod, her face pale, her eyes closed, her pretty features etched with pain.
Catherine clamped the baby’s cord in two places and then cut between. Everything about him was absolutely perfect. With each lusty intake of oxygen, his skin was turning pink. His pulse thudded steadily, and he flailed his limbs energetically.
If only the mother were faring as well, but blood continued to saturate the newsprint Catherine had spread over the dirty mattress.
“You did wonderfully, Kit.” Catherine forced cheer into her voice. She started wrapping the baby in a soft cotton blanket, wiping the remaining blood and mucus from his nose and mouth. “He’s a handsome fellow.”
If only she could transfer even just a smidgen of cheer to the mother . . .
Kit rolled to her side and faced the wall. The outline of her body was visible under the threadbare blanket, and she was thin, almost emaciated, as though she’d been wasting away long before today. She’d spoken little during the long night of labor, and Catherine knew almost nothing about her—only her name, mentioned by one of the other prostitutes.
She shot a glance at the closed door. Where was the other woman? Attired in a fancy gown with rouge on her cheeks and lips, the woman had been in and out all night, checking on the progress but obviously working—if selling one’s body could be called that. Why did she have to disappear now, when Catherine needed assistance to deliver the afterbirth and staunch the hemorrhaging?
The music and bawdy laughter emanating from the saloon next door had been jarring and ongoing for hours. Now, by the light of dawn, a stale silence had fallen over the place, which meant the cavorting had finally come to an end. That also meant everyone was sleeping, and Catherine would have no one to aid her.
“I’d like you to begin nursing.” She finished swaddling the infant, his wails turning to whimpers now that he was snug and warm. She shifted Kit to her back and extended the baby, praying the nursing would contract the uterus and help stop the flow of blood.
But Kit didn’t move, not even to open her eyes.
The lethargy wasn’t a good sign.
Fresh urgency prodded Catherine, and she glanced around for a place to lay the infant so she could tend to Kit. Other than the bed and a wobbly bedside table, the room had no furniture. A battered carpetbag was shoved underneath the bed, likely containing Kit’s belongings.
Catherine slid it out to find a tangle of clothing and an extra pair of shoes inside. Quickly she arranged the garments to make a nest of sorts, then laid the baby there. He gave a few grunts of protest but settled to sleep.
Without wasting another moment, Catherine finished delivering the afterbirth. From what she could see, the membranes were intact without pieces left behind to cause additional problems. Even so, Kit was still hemorrhaging. Badly.
Catherine dug through her leather birth satchel and located a brown bottle with a tincture containing blue cohosh, shepherd’s purse, and other herbs that might help.
As she attempted to get Kit to sit up, the new mother resisted with surprising strength.
“Please, Kit. You need to drink this bleeding medicine.”
Kit pressed her lips together, then rolled to face the wall again.
Catherine set the bottle aside. If Kit wouldn’t cooperate with taking the tincture, then Catherine was left with no choice but to manually compress the uterus.
She ripped a few clean rags and doused them with vinegar to use with the interior pressure. If the vinegar didn’t help with clotting, then maybe she could find ice to get the blood vessels to contract. She’d watched her mother attempt the technique once, but it was risky, and ice wasn’t readily available.
She shifted the blanket over Kit’s legs. “You’ll need to hold still while I insert the linen and put pressure on your uterus.”
“Leave me be.”
Catherine tugged at the woman’s leg. “If I don’t do this, you’ll bleed to death.”
“I’ll die no matter what you do.” Bitterness filled the new mothers’s voice.
For several heartbeats, Catherine didn’t know how to respond. She didn’t want to admit Kit was right, but with the amount of blood she’d already lost and was continuing to lose, her blood pressure was dropping, and her body would soon go into shock.
At twenty-two years of age, Catherine was young for a midwife, but after assisting her grandmother and mother for so many years, she was more experienced than some midwives twice her age. She’d seen her fair share of childbed deaths, especially with hemorrhaging. In fact, very few survived the problem, although she’d heard of some doctors who had transfused blood and gotten good results. But she didn’t have the equipment—or the extra blood—to attempt such a feat. She had to utilize the methods she’d already learned.
She hefted the woman onto her back again. Kit was light and easy to move, too weak to resist. “Your baby needs you, so we’ll do everything we possibly can to make sure you’re alive for the little fellow.”
Kit shook her head frantically. “I can’t give him the life he needs. Not here.”
Catherine paused. She’d helped enough prostitutes deliver babies over the past few years, and she agreed that a brothel was no place for a child. “Do you have family who can help?”
“No, my papa disowned me when he discovered I was with child. He told me he never wanted to see me again.”
“What about siblings?”
“My older sister helps me when she can, but she’s afraid of Papa firing her from his store if he catches her doing anything for me.”
Catherine heard what the woman left unsaid—that she didn’t want her sister to end up at the brothel like her. “What about the baby’s father? Maybe he can help.” Most of the prostitutes took precautions not to get pregnant. But no method was foolproof. And Catherine had witnessed the births of far too many unwanted babies with no way to prove who the father was.
Kit stared up at the ceiling, her expression turning despondent. “He abandoned me.”
“Then you know who he is?”
“Yes.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m positive.” Her voice dropped to a near whisper. “He proposed to me. I thought I’d be safe. That even if I did get pregnant, we were getting married, so it wouldn’t matter.”
Irritation quickly pricked at Catherine, as it did whenever she thought of the immense suffering she’d witnessed from unmarried women having to shoulder the responsibility of an unexpected pregnancy. It wasn’t fair. Where were the men? Why weren’t they being held accountable for their immorality? Especially when the vice from such men only seemed to be getting worse every day.
She agreed with her father’s position as alderman of the Thirty-Third Precinct, that Chicago’s red-light districts needed to be shut down permanently. But instead of politicians making changes for the better, more and more corrupt aldermen were gaining office. The good men, like her father, were finding themselves in the minority.
“If you’re certain of the baby’s paternity”—Catherine tried again to move the young mother’s legs so that she could begin the manual compression, but Kit clamped them tightly together—“I suggest you contact the father, ask for his assistance, and hold him accountable for his actions.”