The Second Life of Mirielle West

by Amanda Skenandore

  “I’ll say. I could hear you clear across the house.”

  “I can’t go to the pictures tonight. I can’t.”

  “The pictures? Baby, you missed the picture show. A hoard of buffalo couldn’t have woke you.” She unwound Mirielle’s arms from around her neck. “Missed breakfast too.”

  “It’s morning?”

  Irene nodded.

  Mirielle rubbed her temples. Her head ached. Her fingers were stiff and sore at the knuckles. She’d slept all night but didn’t feel rested. Morning meant it was now Friday. Friday meant . . .

  “Oh, futz! We’re not late for our shift in the pharmacy, are we? Sister Verena will have my hide when she hears about it.” Mirielle swung her legs onto the floor to stand. The rush of blood sent her boils throbbing. They were bigger this morning. Redder. One or two oozed pale thick liquid. She hurried to cover her legs with her nightgown, but Irene had already seen. She bent down and touched one of the boils. Mirielle winced.

  “How long you had these?”

  “It’s just a reaction to the soap.” Even as Mirielle said it, she knew it wasn’t true. She’d seen hundreds of bumps and sores like this at the dressing clinic.

  Irene stood and put a hand on Mirielle’s forehead. “You’re burning up. Let’s get you to the infirmary.”

  “No. I can’t. I’m fine.” Her voice was thin and unsteady. She tried to stand, but the pain in her legs was unbearable, and she sank back onto her mattress.

  “You sit tight. I’ll fetch a wheelchair.”

  The path to the infirmary had never felt so long. Around every twist and bend in the walkway, they passed someone new who stared at Mirielle in the wheelchair the same way passersby in the street stared at Charlie, their eyes saying, Is that him? Impossible. It couldn’t be. The Rocking Chair Brigade were not content to stare but clamored for news as Irene pushed her by.

  “What’s happened, Mrs. Marvin?”

  “Are you ill?”

  Excitement tinged their voices as if they’d gotten the scoop on a story sure to make the front page.

  “Bugger off, you old fops,” Irene said to them over her shoulder.

  Mirielle wished she could stand and stomp on every one of their feet. Or kick them between their legs so they doubled over and saw stars. What if the next time she passed this way she didn’t have feet or legs with which to kick at all? What if these boils got infected and the doctors had to amputate?

  “You can have my shoes when they take my legs,” she said to Irene, as the infirmary came into view. Her eyes were dry, but there were tears in her voice. “The gold ones with the satin bows. And my alligator-skin pumps you like.”

  “Oh, hush. No one’s gonna take your legs, and my feet are too damn big for your shoes anyway.”

  At this, Mirielle did cry. Such beautiful shoes and they’d go to waste. Just like all the lovely things in her former life.

  In the infirmary, Sister Loretta helped settle Mirielle into one of the beds then hurried off to find Doc Jack. It felt strange to lie beside women only two days before she’d been tending to. She hadn’t had the energy to dress but had thrown her kimono on over her nightgown before Irene returned with the wheelchair. Now she yanked its satin lapels tightly closed and pulled the rough bedclothes up to her neck, as if in doing so she could somehow disappear.

  “Unhappy surprise to see you in the infirmary without your work apron, Mrs. Marvin,” Doc Jack said when he arrived. “Let’s see what the trouble is.” He motioned to Sister Loretta, who stood beside him, and she pressed a thermometer into Mirielle’s mouth. “May I?” He motioned to the blankets covering her legs. Mirielle nodded, careful not to dislodge the thermometer from under her tongue.

  She expected Doc Jack’s eyes to widen or mouth drop open when he saw the ugly crop of boils. But his face remained placid. He pressed his fingers against a few, and Mirielle let out a cry through her nose.

  “A dozen or so lesions on both legs in various stages of eruption. Erythemic and hot to the touch,” he said to Sister Loretta, who then scribbled the assessment in Mirielle’s record.

  Mirielle whimpered again.

  “Don’t worry, dear. They’ll disappear soon enough.”

  Sister Loretta plucked the thermometer from her mouth and examined it, holding it only inches from her glasses. “One-oh-two, Doctor.”

  “What’s wrong with me?” Mirielle asked.

  Doc Jack pulled up a stool. “I think you’re experiencing what we call a leprous reaction. Something has exacerbated the disease.”

  “Will I die?”

  “No, that’s very unlikely. Sometimes a reaction can trigger acute nephritis, which can lead to kidney failure and death, but we’ll keep a close eye on you here in the infirmary.” He patted her knee as if what he’d said should be somehow reassuring. “Sometimes patients go blind if iridocyclitis develops, but that’s only if the illness goes untreated.”

  “Why did this happen?”

  “Many things can bring about a reaction. Poor diet, intercurrent disease like typhoid or influenza, pregnancy, overmuch stress. Anything that lowers your body’s resistance to the disease.”

  Mirielle frowned. Ever since leaving the jail, she’d taken care to eat well and get enough sleep. And she certainly wasn’t pregnant. She couldn’t even remember the last time she and Charlie had made love. Thinking of him added a new dimension of pain. When she’d woken from the morphine-induced twilight sleep of childbirth, he’d been beside her. When she’d come to after her accident, he’d been clutching her in his arms. Now she was alone.

  “And my legs? These dreadful boils will really go away?” She hadn’t the strength for tears, but her voice warbled like a frightened child’s.

  “A few days or a week and I’m quite certain they will.” Doc Jack must have read the panic on her face for he leaned closer and patted her knee again. “Don’t worry. Why, there are some leprologists who think reactions like this are a good sign and find their patients better off afterward. Some even prescribe iodide of potassium to induce a reaction.”

  Mirielle’s heart tripped on its own rhythm. “Iodide?”

  Doc Jack nodded.

  “Do you ever prescribe it?”

  “We experimented with the drug a few years back but I was never convinced of its efficacy. The possible side effects of a reaction are too grave, you see. And patients don’t always improve afterward.”

  Despite the pain in her knuckles, Mirielle’s hands curled into fists around the sheets. “Does that mean my next skin test might be positive?”

  Doc Jack stood and looked at her with the same expression of condolence she’d seen him give other patients in the infirmary before delivering bad news. “I’m afraid so.”

  Mirielle’s entire body went cold. She’d only just gotten her first negative. It took conscious effort to nod as Doc Jack continued to speak. Jean knew of the danger of iodide. Mirielle would bet her bottom dollar on it. How foolish she’d been to trust the girl! Mirielle’s mind was still foggy, and tiredness was creeping back upon her. As soon as Doc Jack left, she drifted to sleep, dreaming of monsters anew.

  CHAPTER 23

  For the next week, Mirielle remained in the infirmary, battling aching joints, erupting boils, intermittent fevers, and above all, boredom. It was strange to lie in bed while sisters and orderlies bustled around her. She found herself hesitating before reaching for her call bell, reluctant to ask for more water or fresh sheets. Was it fear of rebuke for yet another call? Embarrassment at not having the strength to perform simple tasks herself? Mirielle couldn’t put her finger on it. But she sat with chapped lips in sweat-drenched sheets until she could no longer stand it. More often than not, the sisters and orderlies were kind and swift in answering, and Mirielle regretted the many times she’d tramped to a patient’s bedside and spoken brusquely.

  She understood now too how slowly the minutes passed when four white walls and an under-stuffed mattress comprised your entire world. The occasional birdsong
through an open window, the bleat of rain upon the roof, the footsteps and chatter from the walkway—these were both welcome distractions and painful reminders of her confinement. Only Irene’s daily visits saved her from going mad. The woman could prattle on about anything—the weeds in her garden, the latest Montgomery Ward catalog, even last night’s supper—and, for once, Mirielle was happy to listen.

  Frank stopped by too, though strictly speaking, men were not allowed in the ladies’ infirmary. He slipped in one afternoon when Sister Verena had been called away and Sister Loretta was dozing in the corner to deliver a letter to another patient. On his way out, he pulled up a stool and tarried at her bedside.

  The Hot Rocks had agreed to play at the July Fourth celebration, he told her, and Dr. Ross would permit dancing. Mirielle had never been one to feign modesty, but she pulled the covers to her chin as he spoke, fearing how red and raised and ugly the lesion on her neck must be. Her hair was likely a fright too. She tried to smooth the wayward strands in a subtle, natural way so he wouldn’t think she was primping for him.

  “Well?” he said.

  “Hmm?”

  “Have ya given it any thought?”

  Mirielle rattled her head. Even though he talked like a bush hound, his voice had a pleasant, almost lulling sway. “Thought to what?”

  “The treasure hunt for the kids.”

  “Oh.” Mirielle crossed her arms and looked away. Jean wasn’t the only child at Carville, but Mirielle was in no mood to plan anything the girl might enjoy.

  “Think on it,” he said, standing to leave. “And be sure to get well. Ya got a frog race to judge too, remember?”

  * * *

  When she didn’t have the distraction of visitors, Mirielle steamed and stewed. Never in her life had she known such a rotten girl as Jean.

  On her eighth day in the infirmary, Mirielle’s fevers at last relented and Doc Jack permitted her to leave under two conditions. One, she was to rest a week before returning to work. Two, she must return to the infirmary each day for a quick checkup and dose of Fowler’s solution. Doc Jack promised the concoction of arsenic and potassium bicarbonate would help the boils on her legs heal—and it had. Only a few pinpoint scars and bumps remained. But the medicine had to be carefully dosed to avoid arsenic poisoning.

  Imagine if Jean had told her to take that instead of iodide, she thought as she walked back to house eighteen. Mirielle would be dead. The morning sunshine stung her eyes. The riot of colors and sounds around her almost too much to take in. Mirielle had been terrifically foolish to have listened to the girl and try to treat herself alone.

  She stopped and leaned against the walkway railing. She’d only done it to get back to her daughters, to Charlie, sooner. Now, if her next skin test came back positive, she’d be here all the longer.

  Mirielle brooded about it the rest of the walk back to her house. She brooded while she showered off a week’s worth of sweat and sickness, and brooded while she dressed. Irene stopped by while Mirielle was fastening the straps of her shoes and asked if she wanted to play a game of rummy. Mirielle shook her head. She was too angry to speak, too bent on finding Jean.

  No more bedtime stories. No more shoulder shrugging at her antics. She’d give the girl an earful and be done with her. Mirielle wasn’t her mother. She had her own daughters to think of, far away as they may be.

  As soon as her shoes were fastened and hat pinned, Mirielle started off. She searched the house and surrounding lawns, the rec hall and canteen. Jean had a fascination with the goat and monkeys they kept by the laboratory for experiments, and Mirielle searched there too. When she came to the reading room and found it empty, she sat down on one of the worn armchairs to rest a moment. Her stamina had waned after a week in bed. Church bells tolled the hour, two long peels from Sacred Heart’s belfry. But earlier she’d heard both chapels ringing—one atop the other—to call the residents to Sunday service.

  Mirielle stood and marched toward the oak-shaded lawn at the southeast corner of the colony. Church wasn’t the only to-do on Sundays. Though visitors were allowed any day of the week, few ever came. Those who did, usually came on Sundays.

  Picnic tables sat beneath the sweeping oak boughs and dangling moss. Those lucky few residents who hadn’t been hauled across the country or forgotten by their families congregated here with their visitors. But Jean was not among them.

  Mirielle hovered a moment, leaning against the splintery lip of one of the picnic tables. Before today, she’d avoided this shady lawn on Sundays. No need to be reminded that no one had come to call on her. Now that she was here, it was impossible not to imagine Charlie in a dapper suit and fedora seated at one of the tables. She pictured herself beside him, so close the scent of his spicy aftershave tangled with her perfume. Evie played in the grass nearby. Helen squirmed on Mirielle’s lap. In between her thumb sucking and cheerful babbling came the word mama.

  Mirielle drew her arms around herself, a tight squeeze to stanch the longing, then let them drop to her side. Such imaginings were impossible. Children under sixteen were forbidden to visit, and the trip across country was unmanageable, even if Charlie were to undertake it alone.

  As she turned to leave, Mirielle spied Jean high up in one of the trees at the edge of the lawn. She sat on one of the thicker limbs, swinging her legs and chewing on a piece of straw. Mirielle’s festering anger boiled up again. She stomped to the base of the tree. “Jean, you climb down this minute.”

  Jean glanced down, her expression morphing from wide-eyed surprise to jaw-clenched obstinacy. She shook her head and returned her gaze to the picnic tables.

  “You’re already in a heap of trouble, missy. Don’t try my resolve.”

  Jean continued swinging her legs. She bit off a piece of straw, chomped it between her teeth, then spat it out. Mirielle watched it fall to the ground, her hands tightening into fists. “Climb down now, or you’ll be sorry.”

  She heard Jean snicker and had to dodge another falling piece of saliva-coated straw. “If you’re not down by the time I count to ten . . . well . . . I’m coming up to get you. One, two, three . . .” Mirielle prayed Jean would come to her senses and clamber down before she reached ten, but Jean didn’t move. Obstinate girl! Mirielle grabbed on to the lowest branch, testing the strain of her weight on her newly healed arm before walking her feet up the furrowed trunk.

  The soles of her patent leather shoes skidded down the bark. She let go of the tree and tore off her shoes. Then, after a glance toward the picnic tables, she unfastened her stockings from her girdle and yanked them off as well. Her bare feet found better purchase, though anyone who looked would catch a glimpse of her underclothes. She scrambled precariously up the tree one branch at a time. “If I fall and break my arm again, I swear you’ll be in a cast too,” she mumbled as swamp moss tangled with her hair and bark scratched her palms.

  When she finally reached the bough where Jean sat, she looked down. With so much anger propelling her upward, Mirielle hadn’t realized how far she’d climbed. The ground lay at least fifteen feet below. She closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around the trunk until a rush of dizziness passed.

  Jean sat at least ten feet out from the trunk.

  “You have one more chance to climb down,” Mirielle said to her. “Otherwise I’ll tell Sister Verena what you’ve done, and you’ll lose your radio privileges for a year.”

  The girl stuck out her tongue at Mirielle and crossed her arms.

  Mirielle stomped her foot, then tried not to flinch as the limb shuddered and swayed. “You’re nearly ten years old. Stop acting like a toddler.”

  To this, Jean only crossed her arms more tightly and looked away.

  Mirielle glanced down again, then quickly up. Her pulse thudded in her ears. Grabbing an overhead branch, she planted her toes outward and stepped away from the trunk. She knew women in the pictures who did their own stunts. If they could do such daring feats, so could she. She took another few steps. A breeze off the riv
er fluttered the hem of her skirt. An ant crawled onto her hand and down her arm, but she dared not let go to swat it away. The farther she walked, the more the limb beneath her wobbled and groaned. Fear of falling ate away at her anger and bravado. She’d made it halfway to Jean when the groaning sound sharped into that of a splintering crack. Mirielle froze. Her heartbeat was deafening now. The breeze a lash upon her nerves. She inched a foot or so back toward the trunk, then let go of the branch above her and slowly sat down, still several feet from Jean.

  Minutes passed, and neither of them said a word. Mirielle listened for another cracking sound but heard only the flutter of leaves and her uneven breathing.

  “Why did you tell me to take potassium iodide when you knew it would make me sick?” she said at last.

  Jean shrugged, continuing to stare at the milling residents and their visitors.

  “I could have gone blind. My kidneys could have failed and I would have died.”

  Jean gave no reply.

  “You want me dead, is that it?”

  Jean’s muddy-blue eyes cut to Mirielle, then down. She balled her hands in her lap and shook her head.

  “Have you gone mute again?”

  Another shake of the head.

  “Then why!” It came out more a scream than a question, and Jean startled, grabbing the branch to steady herself.

  Mirielle sighed. The overload of adrenaline, first from anger, then from fear, had left her jittery.

  “I didn’t want you to go away,” Jean said, so soft it was almost a whisper.

  “What are you talking about? I’m stuck here same as you.”

  “Someday you will. It’s all you talk about.” She lifted her chin and raised her voice, speaking in a nasal pitch. “ ‘Back in California . . . When I get home to California . . .’ ”

  Despite her anger, Mirielle chuckled at Jean’s impersonation. “It’s my home. I have two daughters younger than you and miss them terribly.”

  “See. You will leave. They all do.” Jean stared back at the residents on the lawn, her eyes rimmed with tears. Mirielle followed her gaze, remembering what Frank had told her about Jean’s father. How he’d dropped her at Carville’s gate and never looked back. What must it feel like to watch others with their families after being abandoned? No wonder Jean misbehaved.