Home for Erring and Outcast Girls

by Julie Kibler

  Docie nodded, her eyes huge. She whispered back, “I can, Mama! I’ll make you so proud, you’ll see. But Mama, you be careful, and tell Aunty Mat I love her!”

  Lizzie kissed Docie’s cheek and hurried to pull Dilly downstairs with her.

  * * *

  —

  In the kitchen, Dilly gasped to see the blood pooling between Mattie’s legs. She turned to Lizzie in horror. “What…Oh, Lizzie, what’s happened?”

  “Nothing we ain’t seen here before.” She had to keep Dilly calm. “Baby coming.”

  Dilly gasped again, and Mattie moaned. Lizzie was relieved to see she still breathed, even if she hardly seemed alert to Dilly’s presence. “I’m worried, though,” she said. “That blood all came at once, and she’s faint. She nearly passed out on me before I come for you.”

  Dilly was already down on the floorboards, tugging up Mattie’s skirts until she could see clearly. She felt Mattie’s abdomen, and as she pressed, more blood poured onto the drying pool.

  “We must get Dr. McNeil here without delay. I’ve only seen this once before, and it was just a matter of time…” She shook her head. Now Lizzie remembered the talk of a young woman who’d not survived her labor, not long after the Home opened. They’d lost her and the baby too. “I think the placenta—the afterbirth—is too low or unattached. She’s hemorrhaging. Go quickly and tell Brother JT or Sister Maggie Mae to call Dr. McNeil.” Dilly’s face said there was no time to humor any emotion.

  Lizzie ran from the house and across the road, the swirling dust striking her like thousands of tiny needles, and she prayed a simple prayer, again and again. “Save them…save them…save them…”

  She pounded on the Upchurches’ front door, and Brother JT answered after nearly a minute. He saw her covered in dirt from head to toe and pulled her inside.

  “Miss Elizabeth, what on earth—”

  “Ain’t no time,” she said. “Call the doc. We got an emergency across the street. Woman in labor and bleeding bad.”

  Brother JT tilted his head. She recognized his confusion. The only girls close to birth had just passed that milestone—Olive and Bertha were safe in the upper hall with their infants. The next girl wasn’t due for three months.

  “Please, just call the doc, and bring him to the kitchen.” She rattled back through the door and took off, terrified Mattie would be dead by the time she returned. She had to give her Docie’s message. She’d forgotten in the midst of Dilly’s quick instructions. She shouted a last statement over her shoulder. “Tell him to hurry—I’m afraid she might not make it!”

  Brother JT nodded, his face white. He closed the door when she reached the other side of the road after struggling this time directly against the wind and dirt, which had yet to let up at all.

  Dilly had rolled Mattie onto her side on a nest of white towels and bed sheets. She paused frequently to check her pulse and give her momentary comfort between putting water on to boil—covered to keep the dirt at bay, as if it were possible. She’d laid out a pair of kitchen shears and a knife, and fetched a small case Sister Susie kept near her desk filled with basic medical supplies—gauze and smelling salts, needle and thread for stitching up cuts, and a bottle of vodka, still sealed. She held it, as if trying to decide whether it would do Mattie any good.

  Mattie was screaming practically every minute now, and Lizzie was thankful the howling wind might disguise it upstairs. The children would be terrified to hear screaming, and the younger women too—especially those in their early months of pregnancy if they knew what was happening. It was better if the noise continued. Lizzie intended to tell anyone who came to the door that Mattie had taken a bad fall and they were cleaning her and stitching her up. There was no need for anyone to know she was with child yet.

  Brother JT entered the kitchen ahead of the doctor’s arrival, averting his eyes from the corner where Mattie lay. Dilly quickly informed him of her situation, and though his eyes went wide, he nodded. “Dr. McNeil said he’d be here as soon as he could get his horse saddled. He wasn’t even going to try to bring the carriage once I told him what Lizzie said. It would take too long. The man needs one of those motorcars…though I wonder if it would even run with all the dirt flying. We must pray the storm ends soon.”

  Soon, the doctor clattered through the kitchen door. Brother JT beckoned Lizzie to join him in the opposite corner, where he knelt with his arms on a chair near the table the women used for peeling vegetables or shelling peas. Lizzie only left Mattie’s side briefly. “I’m staying with her. I promised. And I’m praying every minute.”

  Brother JT nodded and put his head down. Lizzie wondered if it was more than asking the Lord for a miracle. His face was pale, and he looked as if he himself might faint any minute.

  Lizzie couldn’t worry about a touch of squeamishness.

  “Honey,” she said, once she’d scurried back to Mattie’s side, “Docie said she loves you.”

  Mattie’s screams had decreased to low moans again, as if she’d run out of energy for anything more, and she gazed at Lizzie. “I love her…I do love her…”

  Lizzie tore her gaze away for a moment and looked hard at the ceiling. Mattie needed strength, not tears. If she blubbered, Dr. McNeil would likely shoo her away.

  The doctor confirmed Dilly’s suspicions. “The placenta has detached and it’s down in her cervix—a very dangerous concern.” Dilly nodded, her face blanching.

  “What will we do?” Lizzie said.

  He sighed. “We’ll have to take it by caesarean.”

  Dilly was surely not surprised at the news, but still she sat down hard in the chair she’d pulled nearby. “Can she survive it?”

  He shrugged. “We’ll do our best.” He took a few steps toward Brother JT. “Reverend, you understand I must put the mother’s survival above the infant’s?”

  Lizzie’s heart sank at the question. Though he’d directly addressed Brother JT, it seemed this should be Mattie’s choice. Mattie was hardly present, mentally, but she was still alive.

  Brother JT nodded. “You’ll do your best for the baby too?”

  The doctor shrugged again. “It’s hard to say what condition it’s in, with the blood loss—maybe for weeks. The baby is likely very small. How far along is the pregnancy?”

  Brother JT looked at Lizzie accusingly.

  She shook her head. “I didn’t know. She didn’t know. She thought she was sick.”

  Brother JT’s jaw slackened. He turned to the doctor, his eyebrows raised.

  “Happens more often than you’d think,” Dr. McNeil said. “A classic denial of pregnancy. More reasons for it than not, sometimes.” He turned to Dilly. “I’ll need your help—have you the stomach for it?”

  She nodded.

  “Let’s get that baby out.”

  * * *

  —

  With liberal doses of the vodka poured on Mattie’s abdomen to cleanse it and possibly numb the pain from the cutting—though likely less pain than she’d already suffered—and more down her throat to calm her anxiety, Doctor McNeil performed surgery right there on the kitchen floor. He lifted a tiny, limp creature into the air. He cut the cord, which was skinny and flaccid, and placed the infant in a towel Dilly had warmed in the oven.

  “Give her to…” He pointed at Lizzie, who cowered at first. He hadn’t made any pronouncement on the condition of the child. “We have more work to do here,” he said. “We’ll have to take the uterus if she’s to live. Please see to the baby.”

  Lizzie closed her eyes and took a breath. Could she hold this baby, too, if it was dying?

  She wasn’t sure.

  “Elizabeth!” Brother JT shouted from the corner. “Take it!” And Lizzie scrambled to her feet, and to her senses. Of course someone needed to hold the baby, dead or alive, until they knew what to do with it.

  “Rub her li
mbs, her buttocks,” Dr. McNeil said. “Clear the mucus and blood from her mouth. Then put her inside your dress if needed. She must stay warm if there’s to be any hope.”

  The storm had abated some, and with it, the temperature had dropped, even with the stove burning to warm the towels.

  Her. It was a girl. Mattie had a baby girl.

  Lizzie pictured Docie in her mind, as a pink, squalling infant, eager for life and for her mother’s milk. She accepted this tiny bundle, though it lay listless in her arms, eyes half open and vacant, skin blue beneath the white coating that still clung like wool fat.

  She’d seen that blue too many times. There wasn’t time to waste.

  She hurried with her to the rocker they’d brought in for Olive when the young woman could hardly bear the weight of her own baby—the same one Lizzie had used to hold Cap; the same one Mattie had used after—and she took another towel from Brother JT to drape over her head, until all she could see was the baby girl, and all the baby girl could see, if she was able, was Lizzie.

  Mattie would never know the difference, as sedated as she was now by drink and her endless pain. For now, Lizzie was the best mother the little girl had.

  Lizzie began to rub her arms and legs and belly and back. She wiped inside the slack mouth with her smallest finger and thumb, sweeping stringy mucus from it until it seemed clear, and she kept massaging the tiny, still body, and she talked to her.

  In the background, Dr. McNeil instructed Dilly on what to hold or what to hand him, or where to push or pull. She waited for Mattie’s voice but heard little over theirs and her own, pleading with this child to live.

  Eventually the rockers of her chair stilled. She gazed down at the tiny, wrinkled face. The little girl screwed up her chin, her eyes squeezed down toward her nose, and she let out the smallest mewl, no more than a kitten, and then she opened her eyes wide and gazed at Lizzie.

  “You hungry, darlin’?” Lizzie said through her tears, as she brought the baby’s cheek to her nose and inhaled. And, “That’s it…that’s it…” as the baby’s faint cry turned into a clamoring shriek.

  To Lizzie, it sounded like pure joy. It sounded like life.

  MATTIE

  Arlington, Texas

  1905

  Mattie woke slowly, to the sound of metal clattering against metal, to voices, most she recognized, one she didn’t, and to the warmth of something wriggling in the crook of her arm.

  Lizzie knelt at her side, and her eyes pleaded for Mattie to accept what she’d placed on soft towels next to her, between Mattie’s ribs and her elbow.

  Mattie looked down. She saw it.

  The face, the grasping lips and hands and pedaling feet.

  The shining cap of hair on its head.

  She froze. And then she screamed. “Get it away!” She pushed at the infant, and Lizzie caught it before she’d rolled it clear off the towels.

  “Mattie, honey, this sweet little girl wants her mama. She needs to eat.” Lizzie clasped the infant tightly now, then leaned to return her to Mattie—now to her exposed breast.

  “No!” Mattie shouted, slapping at Lizzie’s arm as Lizzie’s eyes widened and she moved the baby to safety. “Take it! I told you! Take it away!” She screamed and twisted, tearing at the places where the doctor had sewn her back together after cutting her open to remove so much from her belly. “I’m not its mother. Take it!” She paused and looked straight at Lizzie and said with a questioning sob, “Lizzie? Please?”

  She twisted away again when she knew Lizzie heard her.

  The doctor had rushed back to Mattie’s side and now he tried to hold her still, to keep her from ripping her wounds open again. “Dilly, my bag!” He didn’t bother to ask Brother JT’s permission. He sprinkled clear liquid from a bottle onto a cloth and placed it over Mattie’s nose.

  She remembered watching Lizzie, huddled protectively over the small bundle, Brother JT’s arm draping her shoulder.

  And Lizzie sobbing as they left through the back door, going into the now-hushed world, where sunlight glimmered through the haze of a million dust particles still hovering in the aftermath of the spent storm.

  MEMORANDUM

  DATE: November 18, 1905

  TO: Mr. Albert Ferry, Printer for the Berachah Rescue Society

  CC: Miss Hallie V. Taylor, Secretary and Treasurer of the Berachah Industrial Home

  FROM: Reverend J. T. Upchurch, Founder and Director of the Berachah Industrial Home

  RE: Items for next issue of The Purity Journal

  Boxed halftone photograph for front page, with this explanation:

  This is a photograph of a woman Wife and I encountered while in Louisiana. Diseased and drug-addicted individuals like her sleep under old bridges and wharves and eat rotten produce and spoiled food from trash barrels at night, as the police keep them away from the streets by day. A woman from similar circumstances recovered and was brightly converted in our Home. She lives now in Dallas with her new husband. For this type, we’ve created the Refuge from an old barn on the property, with four nice rooms and two baths. We still need linens, tableware, etc. Any surplus will be used in the Home, for it is always in short supply.

  For Home Notes section:

  One of our girls, Alma, has returned from Brother and Sister Jernigan’s home in Greenville, where she was helping out with Sister Jonny’s sick mother. Mattie Corder has gone in her place.

  Several months ago, a foundling was left on the back porch of our property caretakers, Mr. and Mrs. Hyde. After waiting a good amount of time, and following our many prayers that the mother might step forward, they’ve decided to keep her, for they are unable to bear children of their own. She is a robust child with green eyes and a shock of fair hair. They feel blessed by the Lord and have named her Ruth, honoring history’s most famous adoption. We are sorrowful that the child’s birth mother was unable to care for her, given our Home’s mission, but trust that God remains gracious.

  The Home itself continues to overflow, and Sister Susie Singletary reminds us that new girls “knock for admittance” continually. We’re praying for a bigger building, the Holy Ghost funds, and the Holy Ghost right-of-way no matter what we undertake to do.

  You scorn the poor outcast as she passes by,

  Forgetting that there is an “All-seeing Eye”;

  But when the truth search-light shall find you at last,

  Beware, lest it find you below the outcast.

  —FROM “That’s Why She’s Sinking Today,” AUTHOR UNKNOWN

  CATE

  Arlington, Texas

  2017

  A box of microfilm from the Berachah collection has been missing—copies of the Journals from 1915 to 1930. It’s bothered me since the first time I looked at the finder and couldn’t find the corresponding box of film. Late in the day, the Monday before Thanksgiving, I finally locate it, filed under the wrong name in the microfilm drawers. Instead of B for Berachah, like the rest of the collection, it’s under P for Purity Journal. Now it seems obvious.

  It’s like I’ve discovered a whole new world—fifteen more years with my girls. By the time Laurel comes into work Tuesday, I’ve been in front of the reader for hours, eyes glued to the screen as I scroll, thankful I’m caught up on paperwork and have no other pressing duties.

  I’ve watched for signs that Laurel is dreading the upcoming holiday, but to broach the topic again, I show her a piece in the microfilm about the Home’s 1915 Thanksgiving celebration. The secretary has abruptly changed the spelling of her name from Hallie. Now she’s Hallye V. Taylor. Laurel and I puzzle over that, but not for long. There’s so much more.

  Friends of the Home had donated boxes of “goodies,” and the girls prepared a huge meal for guests. The article mentions fifteen-year-old Docie carrying the American flag into their morning worship service.

  Laure
l smiles as she finishes reading, but I sense tension behind the smile.

  “That would have been a fun day,” I say. “It makes me think of big family holidays. My family was small, so we never really had those Hollywood-style celebrations. What about yours?”

  I regret it as soon as I say it, but Laurel only shrugs. She has circles under her eyes and I notice she’s wearing the same shirt she wore Friday. Also the day I found her in the cemetery. It occurs to me suddenly that she rotates the same few, over and over. I wonder if she’s purchased a single article of clothing since she left home.

  Wednesday’s a campus holiday, so I stop beating around the bush. “Did you decide about Thanksgiving? I hate to think of you sitting alone in the dorm all weekend.”

  Dorms used to close for holidays. I had to scramble for places to stay. But our student body is incredibly diverse and the dorms remain open these days. Some students don’t celebrate, and many don’t go home the whole time they’re in school because of international visa requirements—especially with constant uncertainty over immigration policy. I’m sure many receive invitations from friends, but kicking students out of their homes, sometimes for weeks on end, is an unnecessary hardship. Laurel has a place to sleep, but I’m sad she won’t enjoy a traditional meal. She’s become important to me. I care.

  All I get from her is another shrug. I grab one of the little pencils and scraps of recycled paper we leave on the tables for notes and write my address and cell number. “Come around two on Thursday, and we’ll have turkey and dressing. Or whatever you like. Do you even like turkey?”

  She sighs deeply. “Fiiiiiiine,” she says, with a growling tone, drawing the word out as long as the sigh. “You are so bossy. And I freaking like turkey.”