A Mother's Promise

by K. D. Alden

  “Yeah, go chase yourself,” she called after him. Then she folded her arms across her chest and kicked a perfectly innocent tree that just happened to have the misfortune to be nearby. It didn’t yelp, lash her with a branch or even so much as drop an acorn on her noggin in return. “I’m sorry,” she told it belligerently. Then she kicked it again, just for being there and for being silent.

  “Why am I always ’pologizin’ to people? To doctors? To baby thieves? To God? To trees? Whyever am I such a sorry girl? Whatever have I done to be so blasted sorry?!”

  But the tree didn’t seem to be speaking to her, not that she could blame it. She wondered if Clarence would, after he got over his tantrum.

  After Ruth Ann had got back to the kitchens and ironed several more dang-blasted sheets while enduring nosy questions and digs from the other girls, she crept down to the infirmary, stopping to pluck some yellow roses on the way. She stuck them in a jelly jar that she filled at an outside water pump and managed not to slop too much water on herself as she walked over.

  The infirmary was a two-story, redbrick building with shrubs planted in a neat row on either side of its black front door, just as the patients were arranged in neat rows of beds inside the twenty-six-person wards.

  Ruth Ann was waved in apathetically by the nurse on duty behind the reception desk. She was smoking a cigarette and painting her nails at the same time, something that struck Ruth Ann as dangerous. She was pretty sure nail polish was flammable, but she didn’t say anything. The nurse wouldn’t be interested in her opinion, anyways.

  She slipped into the ward, which was less than half full. There was an old lady in the farthest bed, her white hair askew and her eyes wide and wild. “Help me, help me, help me…” she moaned, over and over again. Ruth Ann’s heart clenched with pity as she saw that the poor woman was tied to the bed.

  A middle-aged man with yellowish skin and huge hollows under his eyes lay in another bed, snoring and drooling steadily onto his pillow. She resisted the urge to stop and wipe his mouth.

  A young girl of ten, maybe, huddled under her blankets, shivering so much that her teeth chattered. “I want my mommy,” she said plaintively as Ruth Ann approached. “I want my ma.”

  Poor little mite. “Is she here in the building? Do you want me to get her for you? Do you want another blanket?”

  “No. She’s in Heaven, miss,” the little girl said, her dark eyes as big and bruised as plums. “I want her back.”

  “Oh, sweetheart. I’m so sorry. She’s…she’s in a better place now.”

  “But why’d she leave me in this one?”

  “She didn’t mean to, honey. God just called her to His side.”

  “Well, I think He’s mean, then!”

  Ruth Ann stared helplessly at her. “Sometimes, I guess He seems that way. But He loves you…”

  “Why? And how do you know?”

  Oh, dear. “Because you’re beautiful, and smart, and sweet—”

  “I’m not sweet. Nurse Schuyler says I’m willful and I got a wicked tongue.”

  “Well,” Ruth Ann said, trying to hide a smile. “Do you want to be sweet?”

  “No.”

  “All right, then. Don’t be. God gave you your wicked tongue, so you just make sure you use it for something good—like makin’ folks laugh. Not making ’em cry. Okay?”

  The girl pondered that. “I s’pose.”

  Ruth Ann finally spotted Glory in the opposite row of beds, lying pale and listless. Staring at nothing. Ruth Ann waved, but got no reaction.

  “Can I hit someone, if I want to make ’em cry?” asked the little girl.

  “What?” Ruth Ann had been midstride to go see Glory, but she stopped and turned back. “No! No, you may not. On account of they’ll just hit you right back, and then you’ll get sore and hit ’em again, and they’ll hit you back again, and on and on it goes. That’s why you don’t even get it started—’cause it never, ever ends.”

  “Oh.”

  “Why would you want to make somebody cry, anyways?” Ruth Ann asked her.

  “Because I wanna cry, but I can’t anymore—I’m all dried up. So I’m just mad. I’m mad enough to hit somebody so they cry instead.”

  “Listen,” said Ruth Ann, moved by the little girl’s honesty and odd logic. “That makes sense. You’re sad and mad that your ma isn’t here. But other people got enough to cry about without you piling on. So you got to work it out a different way.”

  “What’s your name?” the little girl asked. “I’m Izzie.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Izzie. I’m Ruth Ann.”

  “Why are you here?”

  “To see my friend Glory, over there.” Ruth Ann hesitated, finding herself unable to just walk away and leave the small girl alone. “D’you want to come meet her? She’s sad, too.”

  “How come?”

  “She…had to have an operation. Now she can’t never have no more babies. So that makes her feel like cryin’. But I’m pretty sure, lookin’ at her, that she’s all cried out, too. Come on. Let’s get you an extra blanket to stop those shivers, and you come over to meet her.”

  Bundled in two white wool blankets, Izzie resembled a small ghost. Ruth Ann took her by the hand and they walked across the middle aisle of the ward and down to Glory’s bed.

  “Hi, there,” Ruth Ann said. “How are you feelin’, Glory-girl?”

  No answer. Just a blank stare.

  Ruth Ann held up the jelly jar of yellow roses. “I brought you these. Aren’t they pretty? Like sunshine, bloomed into velvet.”

  Glory at least did her the courtesy of rolling her eyes in their direction.

  Emboldened, Ruth Ann took her hand and brushed one of her friend’s fingers across a petal. “See?”

  “I’m Izzie,” said Izzie. “Are you going to die?”

  A furrow settled between Glory’s eyes. She rolled them in question toward Ruth Ann.

  “Izzie! You can’t say—”

  “Because if you are, will you find my ma in Heaven and tell her that I miss her real bad, and that she should come back, because God does not need her more than I do?”

  “—things like that,” Ruth Ann trailed off, horrified.

  Glory regarded Izzie with something like dark amusement. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, cutie, but I am not going to die. But I surely would find your ma for you if I was. I want you to know that.”

  “Oh. Thank you.” Izzie looked crestfallen, and Ruth Ann struggled not to laugh at the sheer innocent awfulness of it all.

  Then Izzie brightened. “Is anyone else here going to die soon?” she asked, craning her neck and scanning the beds.

  Ruth Ann met Glory’s gaze; their lips twitched simultaneously, and before they could stop themselves, they were hooting.

  “What’s funny?” Izzie demanded. “I just need one person to die! How else can I get a message to my ma?”

  Once Ruth Ann had caught her breath, she tried to explain. “You got to pray, Izzie. It’s like that. You can talk to your ma through God, and you can listen to see if she answers you in your head. But it’s not at all nice to wish that somebody else will die just so’s you can get a message to her.”

  “Oh.” Izzie pulled the blanket more closely around her narrow shoulders. “Well, all right, then.”

  Glory struggled upright, wincing. “How old are you, Izzie?”

  “Nine.”

  “Why are you here in the infirmary?”

  Izzie put a hand to her abdomen. “Dr. Price took out my appendix.”

  A wave of nausea hit Ruth Ann. She blinked rapidly and avoided Glory’s eyes.

  “It hurts.”

  “I’m sorry, cutie,” said Glory. “My tummy hurts, too.”

  “An appendix must be awful big,” Izzie mused. “It left a big scar.”

  Acid shot up Ruth Ann’s esophagus. “Where…where’s your scar, honey?”

  Izzie unwrapped the blankets and pointed at her lower abdomen, moving her finger from left to righ
t. “Want to see?” She grasped the hem of her hospital gown and flipped it up, baring her midriff.

  Ruth Ann gasped at the sight of the angry, puckered red scar with black stitching; it marred the child’s smooth, pale flesh almost from hipbone to hipbone.

  Glory shut her eyes tightly, her lips moving in prayer.

  Oh, dear Lord. Doc Price has sterilized—no, mutilated—a child.

  Seventeen

  As she unpinned several lines of clean, dry laundry, Ruth Ann wondered how Glory was feeling, when she’d get out of the infirmary and if she and Izzie were keeping each other company.

  Ruth Ann felt a little guilty that everything was going her way—aside from Clarence’s odd behavior. She buried her face in a crisp white sheet before removing it and folding it. What luck!

  Her knuckles were healing, thanks to the salve, bandages and gloves. Mrs. Dade had got her a lawyer, and Mr. Block was even meeting her at Doc Price’s office later today to explain to him that he was not allowed to do the operation, on account of they were goin’ to court. Imagine anyone tellin’ Doc, the superintendent of the whole Colony, that he couldn’t do something!

  It made her feel downright giddy, so much so that when she moved on down the line to unpin a pair of bloomers, she made them dance the Charleston on the way to her laundry basket. She’d seen a picture of them flappers in Life magazine, all short hair and short skirts with painted lips and yards of pearls…dancing as if they hadn’t a care in the world.

  Come to think of it, all the bloomers on the line were much too long to go under a flapper dress. What on earth did they wear under those tiny skirts? Couldn’t be hardly anything at all. Ruth Ann blushed just thinking about it.

  As she moved down what had to be miles of shimmying, fluttering fabric, her thoughts also turned to Sheila. She unpinned entire chorus lines of bloomers and chemises and petticoats; shirtwaists and skirts and dresses; undershorts, trousers, shirts and handkerchiefs; sheets, curtains, tablecloths, napkins, aprons. Basket after basket.

  The laundry smelled so much better at this end of the process: like mountain breeze and pine and sunshine—unsoiled, bright and forgiven. It smelled of a new morning, a fresh start.

  Did Sheila ever feel this way after one of her forced baths? Ruth Ann knew it was a good possibility that Ruby was cleaning up her momma right this very moment, since Mr. Block wanted to meet her for some reason. She hoped Sheila would be civil. She also hoped the lump on her momma’s forehead had receded and that she wouldn’t be chompin’ and spittin’ any soap at poor Ruby.

  There were many times when Ruth Ann had felt sorry for herself, what with the way her life had gone and the chores she had to do. But what she dealt with was nothing compared to what Ruby had to do. Ruby wrestled with the crazies, fed the infirm who couldn’t feed themselves, changed adult diapers and wiped bums, bathed the elderly and incapacitated. She scrubbed bedpans and cleaned up vomit. Ruby deserved a medal of honor, a tiara and most likely a halo. Not that she was likely to get any of those in this lifetime.

  Ruby’s dogs must be barkin’ something fierce by day’s end, especially after walking the three miles back to her house in the colored section of town. The very last thing Ruby must want to do when she arrived home was cook for her family. So Ruth Ann decided that when she got her own cottage with the window boxes and rocking chair on the porch, she’d invite Ruby for supper, too.

  She passed the time with more visions like this, barely registering what her hands did with the laundry. She’d been washing, rinsing, starching, pinning, unpinning and ironing laundry since she was eleven years old. If Mother Jenkins ever cuts my hands clean off, then they’ll just keep on workin’ by their ownselves. Kind of like a chicken keeps runnin’ circles even without a head.

  Ruth Ann finished her lines with only a few minutes left to spare. She stacked the baskets neatly in the mudroom. Then, feeling more than foolish, she checked her reflection in the window outside, smoothing her hair back, pinching her cheeks and biting her lips.

  You ain’t the ugliest female alive, Ruth Ann, she said to it. But you ain’t no flapper with a perfect marcelled bob and a truckload of pearls, neither. Someday, though, she was getting out of here, and long afore she got herself a cottage or a rockin’ chair, she was gonna buy herself a pot of lip rouge, a tiny brush for it and even a mirrored compact with pressed powder and a puff. What treasure! She’d seen them in the magazines, and in the window of the five and dime. Truth to tell, it was the first time—even afore baby Annabel and the milk—that she’d ever in her life been tempted to steal something.

  It was a big fat ugly sin to covet these beauty accessories: true. But they were such dainty, mysterious items. The magical keys to some kind of divine feminine power.

  What if she had a pocketbook to put them in? Along with a pack of cigs, an ebony cigarette holder, a silver lighter…even some cash.

  She must’ve lost track of the time and got quite a moony look on her face, for next thing she was aware of, Clarence was snappin’ his fingers in her face.

  “You on this planet, or some other, Ruthie?” he asked. No wink.

  “Oh” was all she could come up with. “Hi, Clarence.”

  “Heya. Your high hat, Esquire, is coolin’ his heels outside o’ Doc’s office. You aware o’ that?”

  “Oh! I’m late!” She shook off her silly daydreams, gathered her skirts and commenced to gallop toward Price’s office. “Thanks—meanin’ you no disrespect,” she called back to him, over her shoulder.

  He made no response, just watched her go.

  She arrived, out of breath, to find Mr. Block already seated in Doc Price’s visitor’s chair, and the two of them seeming quite civil, as if there was no disagreement at all about her surgery. In fact, there were two crystal tumblers on either side of Doc’s massive desk, with some brown liquid the color of strong iced tea in them.

  When they saw her through the window, they both stood, and Doc even opened the door for her, instead of calling, “Come in,” as he usually did, without moving.

  “Good afternoon, Ruth Ann,” Doc said with a smile.

  “Afternoon, sir.” She nodded. Then she felt herself flush as she glanced in Mr. Block’s direction. Lord, the man’s eyes were green—almost the same green as the spring peas that she shelled by the hundreds. “Afternoon, Mr. Block.” Would he kiss her hand again?

  “How nice to see you again, Miss Riley.” He made no move to take her hand at all. He produced a smile that seemed just a little greasy at the edges and gazed pointedly at the one visitor’s chair.

  “Oh, ah, right. Yes,” said Doc. He dragged the library ladder near his bookshelves forward and placed it next to the chair. “Please, have a seat. Both of you.”

  Ruth Ann moved toward the ladder—there was no question who would sit on it. The de-botched and ab-whorrent one among ’em, for sure.

  But Esquire—a pox on Clarence, she shouldn’t think of him by that name—stepped toward it first. “No, no,” he said gallantly. “I’ll take the bookish perch. You shall have the chair, Miss Riley.”

  Doc Price raised an eyebrow.

  Her blush deepened. “It don’t seem right—”

  “I insist.” Block gestured toward it.

  Such a kind soul, such a gentleman. And that cologne…Ruth Ann sank into the chair and smoothed her skirt. “Thank you.”

  “Ah, would you care for some refreshment, Miss Riley?” Doc asked. There was something in his voice she couldn’t quite read. And he’d certainly never called her Miss Riley or offered her anything to drink. Had her hirin’ a lawyer won his respect? Or was it for Mr. Block’s benefit?

  She eyed the two tumblers. She might be feebleminded, but she was 90 percent certain that she’d caught the scent of whiskey punctuating Esquire’s cologne.

  Dad burn it! Mr. Block’s cologne, that is. Well, not my beeswax. I sure ain’t gonna tell the Temperance League.

  The two men stared at her expectantly until she remembered that Doc had
asked her a question. “Oh. No, thank you, sir.”

  They exchanged a glance pregnant with meaning—she couldn’t say as to what.

  “Miss Riley,” Doc began. “It has been brought to my attention by your attorney, here, Mr. Block, that you are fearful of the surgery that I discussed with you. Before your…adventure.” He eyed her from behind his cold, silver-rimmed spectacles.

  Ruth Ann squirmed in the chair. “It weren’t meant to be an adv—”

  “Yes, yes. I’ve been told that you merely wanted to check on your baby. That indicates a commendable instinct toward responsibility.”

  Having little idea what that meant, she simply looked at him.

  “That’s a compliment, Ruth Ann,” Mr. Block said.

  “Oh.” Ruth Ann picked at her cuticles. “Thank you?”

  “Yes, yes.” Doc pulled off his spectacles and polished the lenses with his handkerchief. “I wish to inform you, my dear girl, of several things.”

  Since when am I Doc’s “dear girl”?

  “First of all, the operation in question is very simple and quite safe. There is absolutely no reason to be alarmed.”

  Right, Doc. You just gonna cut a big cheery smile into my belly, so’s I can look down and wave to it on grummy days. Just how dad-gum feebleminded do you think I am?

  “So I want to reassure you upon that score. Now, second, I realize in hindsight that I didn’t present to you all of the pertinent facts about your case.”

  As ’posed to the impertinent ones?

  “As an unwed female with no stable home, it is the Colony’s—and therefore my—responsibility to society to ensure that you do not find yourself, ah, shall we say…at…loose ends.”

  Mr. Block fell into a coughing fit.

  Doc replaced his spectacles and eyed him severely. “Are you quite all right, Wilfred?”

  “Yes. Pardon me, Doctor.”

  “So we find ourselves in something of a dilemma. You are the probable producer of degenerate offspring, Ruth Ann.”

  Dill Emma? Offspring? Is that like a handspring? She hadn’t the faintest idea what he was talking about.