“I’m sure it’s not,” Marty said, squeezing my hand. “Your mother would have contacted Miss Oldenburg if something was wrong.”
“One thing I know for a fact. Mama would have called me back, if Carmen had told her.”
“Maybe she hasn’t had a chance yet,” Marty said.
“With the baby so close to arriving, she’d make a chance. I just know she would have called if she’d gotten the message. I can’t explain it, but I have one of those nauseating premonitions I always get when something is wrong.”
At the little newsstand, I headed straight for the El Dorado Daily News.
The skinny man behind the counter began his litany, “You read, you—”
“I know, I know,” I shouted. “You read, you pay. We’ve got it down pat now. You can save your breath.”
He glowered at me from beneath lowered lids. He still needed a shave, only worse than usual, and his hair had grown below his earlobes.
I tried biting my lip to keep from letting loose with my rude remark, but it didn’t work.
“What have you heard about the barbers’ strike?” I said, giving him a snide smile as I slapped a dime down on the counter.
His jaw went slack before fury ignited his eyes.
“Get outta here, both of you! Those dime store rings don’t fool me, you pregnant whores.”
Marty and I waddled as fast as we could back out onto the sidewalk, howling with laughter.
“Good for you,” she cried, clapping her hands.
“I’m surprised he got it,” I said.
At the diner, we found a booth and squeezed in. I pushed the table toward her to make room for my belly.
“Don’t do that. You’ll squash my baby. I’m as big as you are.”
“Sorry. I’m so squeezed in here I can barely breathe.”
“Take small breaths,” she said with a grin.
We each ordered a coke, all we could afford, and I unfolded the paper to read while we waited. Marty reached across the table.
“Reading your hometown newspaper all summer has gotten me hooked. I can hardly wait to see what’s in the Society Section today. I bet I know everything there is to know about the Junior League ladies, the DAR members, the PTA, which lady gave the most elaborate tea this summer, and who took the kids to Europe on the grand tour.”
“You forgot the United Daughters of the Confederacy,” I said, “and don’t forget who attended what piano recitals, which church is having a supper this Sunday, and what’s being served at the county fair food booths.”
The thought of the Union County Fair made my throat ache with homesickness.
“Every year, each elementary school has a food booth,” I told Marty. “There’s a big competition between them to see who can make the most money at their booth. Hugh Goodwin always wins. They make fabulous chili.”
The front page of the news section announced that the Rialto Theatre would be getting Elvis’s movie Jailhouse Rock as soon as it was released. The story went on about how the Southern boy had made good after playing concerts right there in town before he hit the top.
I turned to page two, but as my eyes flicked over the paper searching for the continuation of the story about Elvis, they came to rest on the Obituary column. At first I thought I must be seeing things. The top of the column in bold type read “Elizabeth Lawrence Morgan.”
The letters danced before my eyes. It couldn’t be true! Not Mama! There must be some mistake.
“Marty!” I said. “My mama’s dead!”
Marty looked up, her eyes wide with shock. “What?”
“She’s dead! The paper has my mother’s obituary in it! My mama’s dead!”
“She can’t be!”
“You girls need to keep it down,” the waitress said, setting icy cokes in front of us.
“My mama,” I said, barely able to sound out the words. “She’s dead.”
“Give me that!” Marty said, snatching the paper. “Which one is it?’
Marty did not know my last name.
“The first one.”
“Elizabeth Lawrence Morgan?”
I nodded, numb with shock and still not able to believe it.
“Oh my God.” Marty read, “‘Departed this earthly life on Sunday, September first, after a brief illness.’ That was yesterday.”
I clawed my thighs through my cotton skirt.
“No one even called me to tell me she was sick! And on the phone today, Carmen didn’t say a word. Not that Mama’d been sick or that she had died. Oh God, it can’t be true!”
“Who else knew you were here?”
“Only Carmen and her mother, and she’s in London. Why in God’s name didn’t Carmen tell me?”
“Calm down, Julie. Let me read the rest. I still can’t believe it’s really your mom.” Drawing a quick breath, she continued, “Born December 11, 1914.”
“That’s Mama’s birthday! It is her! She’s dead, Marty. My mother is dead.”
A rigor ran through me.
“You’re shaking. Take it easy,” Marty said, reaching across the table and grabbing my hand. “You’ll traumatize the baby.”
“It can’t be true,” I cried. “What did she die of? Does it say?”
Marty scanned the column. “No, just that business about a brief illness.”
“She’s dead, Marty. My mama’s dead.” I broke down, unable to control the tears.
Marty picked up the glass and held it out to me. “Here, take a sip of your coke.”
As I raised it to my lips, it slipped through my fingers and spilled all over the table. Coke and ice cubes splashed on my maternity top and my skirt. I pushed myself out of the booth.
“I’ve got to get out of here!”
The waitress came running with rags and a mop, but we shoved past her and headed for the door. The man at the cash register yelled at us. Marty threw a dollar bill on the counter.
“Wait! Don’t you want your change?” he called.
Neither of us broke our stampede out the door to answer.
Once outside and walking as fast as I could back toward Happiness House, I said, “I’ve got to get home, but I can’t! Everyone in town would find out about the baby. When is the service? Did the paper say?”
“I didn’t get that far.”
Stopping right there in the middle of the sidewalk, she flipped back to the Obituary Section and read aloud.
“‘Services will be held at ten A.M. on Thursday, September fifth, at the First Methodist Church, 201 South Hill Avenue. Interment will follow in Arlington Memorial Cemetery.’”
Tears streamed down my face. Over and over my brain repeated, “My mama’s dead! She’s dead!” But my mind refused to accept it.
My body did not refuse, however. We barely made it inside the door of the home when I felt liquid running down my legs. The next instant, I doubled over in pain.
Chapter 30
THE DARKEST HOUR
When the pain subsided, I looked down at the puddle on the floor.
“I’ve wet myself,” I said to Marty and hid my face in embarrassment.
In the doorway of her office, Miss Oldenburg stood, frowning at the mess I’d made in the foyer.
“Your water broke.”
I turned a clueless face toward her.
“You’re in labor,” she said in an exasperated tone. “Go up and pack your bag. I have to get you to the hospital.”
“Miss Oldenburg, Julie’s mother has died,” Marty said, her face pale as she put an arm around my waist.
Oldenburg blinked. “Her mother . . . Julie, your mother is dead? I can’t believe it! No one has contacted me. When were you notified?”
Seeing that I was unable to answer her, Marty held out the newspaper.
“She had to read it in the obituaries. Her mom died Sunday.”
Oldenburg’s face reflected disbelief. “But she was a young woman.” She clucked her tongue and studied me. “The shock of it has thrown you into labor. When is you
r due date?”
“Not till the thirteenth,” I managed to say.
“Just get her packed,” Oldenburg said to Marty.
That was it. Not a word that she was sorry to hear about Mama. I struggled to get adequate breath as Marty and I made our cumbersome way up the stairs. I clung to the railing and pulled myself from step to step.
“I could pack for you,” Marty offered.
“No. I want to do it, if I can get up there.”
The one thing I knew about having a baby was that I’d have to take off all my clothes and put on a hospital gown. My money bag containing the hundred-dollar bill had to be kept safe while not in my bra.
I searched inside the suitcase for a place to hide it. What I needed—a secret compartment—didn’t exist in my hand-me-down bag. Then I thought of the pocket in the blue and white suit-dress I’d worn when I first came to the home.
The other girls, having heard the news, were gathering around my bed in the dorm room. Without privacy, there was no alternative but to unpin the bag from my bra in front of them. With a knowing smile, Marty moved to block their view.
She carried the suitcase as we made our way back downstairs where she begged to ride with us to the hospital. Miss Oldenburg flatly refused.
As we backed out of the driveway and into the street, another pain struck me.
“Don’t carry on so,” Oldenburg said through her teeth. “You’ll make me wreck the car.”
“Sorry.” I wiped my sweaty forehead with the back of my hand. “I didn’t know it would hurt so.”
She chuckled. “You don’t know the half of it.”
“So reassuring,” I said under my breath.
Oldenburg slammed on the brakes, pitching me forward. I threw my hands out to keep my chest from hitting the dashboard.
“One more sarcastic word and you can get out and walk the rest of the way.”
I knew she wouldn’t put me out, and I knew why. Kay had confirmed for us that adoptive parents paid a high price to get a baby. Some of that money must be part of Oldenburg’s salary. She might even own an interest in the business. Pregnant girls, like me, were valuable to Oldenburg. She wouldn’t dare put me out on the street.
When we pulled up to the emergency entrance of the hospital, she tapped her fingers on the steering wheel.
“Well? What are you waiting for?”
I turned shocked eyes on her. “Aren’t you going in with me?”
“I never go in with a girl. My jurisdiction ends right here. You’re on your own.”
My throat swelled. “Miss Oldenburg, my mother just died and my half-sister didn’t bother to let me know. I had to read it in the newspaper.”
“I sympathize with you. I lost my mother at a young age too. It’s tough to take. I know you want someone to hold your hand through this ordeal, but there isn’t anybody. You should have thought of that when you decided to have premarital sex.”
“Oh, please. Haven’t you lectured me enough about that?”
A pain hit me. I doubled over, moaning.
“You’d better go on in. Give them your name and tell them someone called ahead to let them know you were in labor. I need to get going.”
I shook with anger. “If you can spare one more minute, I’ll get my suitcase out of the backseat.”
I slammed the car door and hauled the bag up the walkway. When I reached the emergency room, I looked back toward the car. She was still sitting there, watching me. At least she had the decency to wait until I got inside.
A nurse wasted no time getting me into a wheelchair and up to the maternity floor. She wheeled me into a labor room and, handing me a hospital gown, told me to undress.
“It ties in the back,” she said, picking up my suitcase.
“Where are you going with that?” I asked, my voice too shrill.
“It’ll be here in this closet until you deliver and we put you in a room. No one will bother it.”
I was under such duress about Mama’s death and the labor pains that I didn’t fully grasp what was happening. No one at the home had told us what to expect during the birth process. I was shocked when the nurse proceeded to shave me “down there” and give me an enema. The humiliating procedures completed, she flicked the light switch and started out of the labor room.
“Wait!”
“Yes?” She stuck her head back inside the room.
“Please, don’t leave me here in the dark. I’m scared.”
She looked surprised. “You want the lights on? I thought you’d try to sleep.”
“Who could sleep? Leave them on and the door open. Somebody needs to tell me what is going on.”
“You’re having a baby.”
“No kidding!”
I wanted to be stoic in front of her, but hard as I fought, the tears kept coming. When she saw them, her expression softened.
“You’re in the first stages of labor. It’ll be a while.”
“How . . . how long, do you think?” I asked through a hiccupping sob.
“Hard to tell.” She glanced at the chart. “It’s your first, I see. It could take anywhere from eight to twelve hours. I’ll be back to check on you in a bit. You’re not the only gal in labor here, you know.”
And she was gone.
I had mistakenly supposed that someone would be in the room with me, constantly monitoring my progress. Frightened, I lay there, tense and waiting for the next pain to strike. When it didn’t come right away, I relaxed enough to check out my surroundings.
Two sinks were directly behind me. The bed I was on was equipped with leather straps and wheels to raise it up and down. A round mirror hung above me. I supposed it was there to allow me to see what the doctor did, if he ever came to do anything.
The next pain caught me unprepared. I managed to moan instead of crying out, even though it was sharper than the first ones. For the next hour, the pains came every fifteen minutes or so, according to my wrist watch, which I’d kept on.
The door was barely open, but I could hear footsteps and voices as they passed by in the corridor, and occasionally a scream.
At one point, I eased myself off the bed and crept to the door to look out. A doctor came striding along the hall, followed by a man wearing khaki slacks and a navy shirt and wringing his hands. As they strode into the room across the hall from mine, I caught a glimpse of a nurse standing beside the bed and holding the hand of another woman in labor.
“Your husband is here, Mrs. Robins,” the doctor said. “How are we doing?”
A moment later, another nurse came toward me from down the hall, her white, rubber-soled shoes squeaking on the tiled floor.
“Get back inside and shut the door,” she ordered.
“Are women with husbands the only ones who get the attention around here?” I asked, holding my stomach with both hands.
She gave me a condescending smile. “You’re one of the girls from the home for unwed mothers, aren’t you?”
Shame flushed through me. My face grew hot.
“I thought so,” she continued, apparently judging from my scarlet cheeks that she was correct. “We’ll get to you soon enough.”
Clutching her clipboard to her chest, she steered me none too gently back inside my room to the bed.
“Now stay there. If they catch you out of your room, they’ll strap your legs down, and you won’t be able to get up. They’ll do that anyway for delivery.”
“Who are they?” I asked.
“The interns and doctors.”
“I need some medicine for the pain. Can’t you give me something?”
“We give twilight sleep, but I don’t know if you qualify for it.” She lifted the top sheet of paper on her clipboard and studied it. “Julie Morgan, aren’t you? I see you haven’t signed off on the adoption papers yet. May I ask why not?”
“I’m not sure about giving my baby up,” I said, skimming my fingers over my bulging tummy.
“Then what, pray tell, are you doing in a home? Did
n’t you go there to hide the fact that you are pregnant out of wedlock?”
“Yes, but I—” Another pain struck me, this one much harder than previous ones. “Oh God,” I cried out. “Please make it stop. I can’t bear it!”
“Don’t yell like that. You’ll scare the other mothers to death. You’ll get twilight sleep, if and when you sign the papers.”
“I don’t have them with me. I left them back at the home,” I said.
“The social worker from the adoption agency should be here any minute. She’ll have a set of documents with her. Sign them, and you’ll get something for pain.”
Two hours later, the social worker peeked into my room, catching me in the clutches of a terrible pain.
“Help me, please,” I cried out. “Please make them give me something for this pain.”
“You haven’t signed the papers turning the baby over for adoption,” she said with a toss of her head.
I dug my fingernails into my thighs.
“You surely can’t expect me to do that now.”
“You won’t get out of this hospital until you do,” she said, “and certainly you won’t get anything for the pain. Now, don’t you think signing would be the reasonable course of action? I can hold the papers so you can do it without even sitting up.”
“If I do, I surrender my baby permanently, don’t I?”
“That’s correct.”
“What if I change my mind?”
She shook her head and sighed. “Miss Morgan, there is no changing of your mind in a situation like this. Think what it would do to the adoptive parents, who’ve spent their hard-earned money to get a baby. Think how devastated they must be that they can’t have a child of their own. If you took your baby away from them, it would . . . I don’t know, but I imagine it could very well break their hearts. I realize that for some of you girls it is difficult to give up your babies, however, if you sign now, we will allow you to hold it before we take it away.”
“The baby is not an ‘it,’” I said. “My son has a name. It’s Nicholas, and I’ll thank you to call him that.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake! It could very well be a girl.”
“It’s a boy and . . . I . . .” Pain seared through me. “I want my mama!” I cried out. “Oh God, help me.”
In Those Dazzling Days of Elvis Page 19