When Sister Verena examined her again, the baby still had not turned. She instructed Mirielle to walk with Elena around the operating room in the hopes that gravity would help the baby right itself. They shuffled in circles for what seemed like hours, stopping whenever a contraction came on. Mirielle remembered this part, the flare of pain so sharp and sudden it took your breath away, and let Elena squeeze her hand through it, even though it felt like her fingers might break. She asked questions as they walked to distract Elena and keep her calm. When had she come to America? Where had she lived before Carville? Did she have sisters? Brothers? What name had she chosen for the baby? Elena replied in broken English, her thin voice betraying her growing fatigue.
At midnight, the bells of Sacred Heart chimed the start of mass. Sister Verena checked Elena again. Six centimeters dilated. No change in the baby’s position. Doc Jack arrived sometime later in a three-piece wool suit that Mirielle guessed he’d worn for church. He took off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves before scrubbing his hands and examining Elena. Then he and Sister Verena consulted in the corner. Mirielle could only hear snatches of what was said—still presenting breech . . . more time . . . cesarean section—but the unease in their voices was unmistakable.
“Is everything all right with the baby?” Elena asked her.
Mirielle’s chest tightened. She nodded—it seemed like less of a lie—and said, “Just rest now.”
As the night dragged on, Mirielle slept in short snatches, awakening with Elena every time a contraction came on. She wiped away the sweat that dribbled down her face and coaxed her afterward to sip juice and water.
At the far side of the room, Sister Loretta prepared a makeshift bassinet for the baby out of what looked to be a metal drawer. She wiped it down first with strong-smelling disinfectant, then wiped it again before lining it with fresh blankets. After that, she dozed.
Only Sister Verena didn’t sleep. When Mirielle closed her eyes, she heard her fiddling with the instruments on the tray table or pacing the walkway just outside the door.
At some point, Elena’s labor seemed to slow. Or maybe she’d just grown too tired to do more than wince and moan. Then, suddenly, she sat up and screamed.
Mirielle, sitting on a hard stool and resting her head on a wobbly table at Elena’s bedside, jolted to her feet. Sister Loretta startled out of sleep mid-snore. Sister Verena, whom Mirielle had heard muttering the rosary, dropped her beads and hurried over.
“ou!” Elena cried.
Sister Verena lifted the hem of Elena’s hospital gown and gasped. Her face went gray. She froze for the span of several heartbeats. Mirielle counted the thudding, loud in her ears while everything else was silent. One, two, three, four.
Sister Verena straightened. When she spoke, her voice came calm and strong. “Sister Loretta, go get Dr. Jachimowski. Tell him Miss Remis’s labor has progressed rapidly and that we have a footling presentation.”
Sister Loretta nodded and scurried away.
“Mrs. Marvin, lower the head of the bed until Miss Remis is lying flat, then help her flex and spread her legs.”
Mirielle did as instructed, cranking the bed into position while Sister Verena told Elena not to push until Doc Jack arrived. Elena groaned and writhed through another contraction. When it was over, Mirielle helped her scoot to the bottom of the table and bend her legs. She eased Elena’s knees apart and made the mistake of glancing down. A slimy foot stuck out from where the baby’s head should be crowning. Stool, blood, and birthing fluid smeared the sheet beneath her. Mirielle felt cold and flushed at the same time. She shuffled back, knocking into her stool.
“Are you all right, Mrs. Marvin?” Sister Verena said, but her voice sounded far away. The tables and lights grew fuzzy.
A stinging slap across her cheek brought the room back into focus. “Mrs. Marvin, if you cannot do this, you must leave. I cannot attend to two people at once.”
Mirielle jogged her head. Her skin still felt clammy, but her legs were steady. “No, I can help.”
She wheeled over the table of instruments and fetched a stack of clean towels, keeping her gaze to the floor. Sister Verena listened again with her stethoscope.
“The baby’s heart rate is slowing. We cannot wait for the doctor. Elena, you must push with your next contraction. Do you understand me? Push.”
Elena nodded, fear bright in her eyes.
“Mrs. Marvin, press down on her stomach.” She took Mirielle’s hands and placed them on Elena’s belly. “Firm and steady through the entire contraction.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Pull the baby out.”
Sister Verena grabbed a scalpel from the tray table. Mirielle looked away just as she started to cut, widening the birth canal. A few moments later, Elena’s belly went rigid beneath her hands.
“Push!” Sister Verena commanded.
Elena exhaled and tensed her muscles. Mirielle pressed down, tentatively at first, then, seeing Sister Verena struggle with the baby’s slippery limb, pushed on Elena’s belly with all her force. The baby’s butt and shoulders slipped out just as Elena’s contraction waned. One arm dangled free. The other remained lodged in the birth canal with the baby’s head. Elena’s upper body slumped back onto the table. Her skin was pale and drenched in sweat. Her legs trembled.
“You’ve got to push harder with the next one,” Sister Verena said, wiping her bloody hands on her smock. “We’ve got to get the head out.”
Mirielle wasn’t sure if she was talking to her or Elena. Her arms felt like they were made of pudding instead of bone and muscle. But when Elena’s belly tightened again, Mirielle bore down with all her strength. Elena grunted and pushed. Sister Verena pulled.
One of Elena’s legs slipped off the table. Her body slackened. “No more,” she said, in a wild, pleading voice.
Sister Verena looked at her. “If you do not keep pushing, your baby will die. Is that what you want?”
Elena shook her head frantically.
“Then push.”
Mirielle hoisted Elena’s leg back into position on the table, then pressed again on her stomach. Elena hollered an inhuman sound but pushed as Sister Verena had commanded.
At last, the head and arm slid out, and the baby’s lusty cry filled the room. Elena’s grimace broke into a smile as her limbs slackened. Tears leaked from her eyes.
“It’s a boy,” Mirielle said, smoothing the sweat-drenched hair back from Elena’s forehead. “He’s perfect. Pink and chubby and . . . perfect.”
Sister Verena dried the baby with a towel and wiped his nose and mouth. She cut the umbilical cord and put a knit cap on the baby’s head. He stopped crying, though his eyes remained scrunched shut. His hands were closed in tiny fists beside his face. Aside from his dark crop of hair, he looked so much like Mirielle’s own babies had. Especially Felix.
Doc Jack arrived just as Sister Verena was wrapping the baby in a clean towel. He listened to the baby’s heart and lungs, then pronounced him whole and healthy.
“Can I hold him?” Elena asked, but Sister Verena was already whisking him back to the far table where Sister Loretta had readied his bassinet.
Doc Jack donned a smock over his clothes—a flannel nightshirt tucked into a wrinkled pair of trousers. He pulled a stool up to the end of the bed.
“Bend your legs again, my dear, so I can deliver the afterbirth and stitch you up.”
But Elena didn’t move. She was crying more fiercely now. “I just want to hold him, just for a minute, please.”
“I’m sorry. You know that’s not possible,” Doc Jack said. “It’s for his own good.”
“Why can’t she hold—” Mirielle stopped. She’d forgotten all about their disease. She walked toward the far end of the room where Sister Verena was with the baby. Surely, a moment or two in his mother’s arms wouldn’t hurt.
Sister Verena turned and held out her arm. “Stay back.”
“But he’s her son. Her son, for God’s sake!�
��
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Marvin. It cannot be helped.” Sister Verena’s voice was thick and husky. “Please, go help the doctor.”
Mirielle didn’t move from where she stood. The operating room was a mess of sodden towels and scattered supplies. The spotlight above Elena’s bed rained yellow light down upon her. The overhead mirrors reflected the pool of blood-tinged birthing fluid at the foot of the table where she lay. The baby fussed. Elena cried.
Mirielle was too exhausted to sustain her anger. It seeped out of her, leaving in its place a blistering emptiness. She walked back to the surgery table and followed Doc Jack’s instructions. She couldn’t look Elena in the eye—not as she massaged her deflated belly or washed the slickness from her skin or changed her soiled hospital gown.
When Sister Loretta came for the baby, Mirielle couldn’t bring herself to look in that direction either. She didn’t want to feel any more complicit in this horror than she already did.
CHAPTER 45
It was morning when Mirielle left the operating room, the sky a deep mocking blue. She heard voices in the dining hall but couldn’t imagine eating anything. Not until she’d showered and slept, and maybe not even then. Somewhere amid the houses, one of the residents’ phonograph was playing. “Adeste Fideles.” Mirielle’s feet shuffled to a stop.
It was Christmas. Had Jean already woken to find that Santa Claus had forgotten her yet again? Mirielle couldn’t bear to see the disappointment in her eyes. She’d already witnessed enough sorrow today to last a lifetime.
Mirielle changed course, following the music. This time, she really would smash the record, no matter whom it belonged to. It was a lie, every song and stitch of ribbon and strand of popcorn meant to convince them their lives weren’t pitiful and hopeless.
Her shoes clapped loudly on the walkway. Her family wasn’t thinking of her today. Missing her. They were making snow castles and eating raclette. Charlie had probably forgotten the letter she’d written for the girls, left it on the side table along with the spare cuff links he’d meant to pack.
She was lying to herself if she believed otherwise, and Mirielle was done with lies. Life at Carville was meaningless. She realized that “Adeste Fideles” was no longer playing. But another Christmas song, just as false and deceiving, sounded now from the opposite direction.
Her entire body ached, and her eyelids begged to close, but Mirielle was determined to silence this noise. She turned the corner and listened. The song seemed farther away now, off in a different direction. She spun around but made it only a few steps before she heard another song. And another. It was as if every phonograph and radio in the colony had suddenly been turned on.
She covered her ears and sank to the ground, weeping. Her body rocked. The cool winter air swept her skin. When she uncovered an ear to wipe the snot dripping from her nose she heard her name over the music. She blotted her eyes on her sleeve and looked down the walkway.
“Mrs. Marvin!” Jean cried, racing toward her. “Come see, come see.”
Mirielle stood, alarmed by the urgency in Jean’s voice. Had something happened to Irene? To Frank? To one of their housemates?
But as Jean drew closer, Mirielle could see the delight in her eyes. She grabbed Mirielle’s hand and tugged her toward the dining hall. “Santa found us, just like you said he would. And he brung me and Toby and all us kids presents. Come see!”
In the dining hall, residents crowded around the Christmas tree watching the children open their gifts. Cast-off ribbons and crumpled wrapping paper littered the floor. Jean showed Mirielle the silver harmonica she’d gotten and the pink and blue swirled lollipop that looked suspiciously similar to those sold at Ocean Park Pier. The twins had each received a doll with moving eyes, a lollipop, and a child’s-size tea set to share. Others got stick ponies and toy trains and domino sets. Candy sticks and marshmallow peanuts. Dominoes and bird whistles and lollipops all around. Toby showed off his new teddy bear and Shoot the Crows in the Corn game.
Mirielle stepped back from the happy mayhem and scanned the crowd for Frank. He smiled at her from the opposite side of the tree. Mirielle smiled back. She was pretty sure Charlie had sent the candy and a few of the gifts. They’d gotten that same silly crow game for Felix one year. At least one of the organizations she’d written to must have sent toys too, but there’d be time enough later to find out who. Now all she wanted was to wash and sleep.
When she got to house eighteen, music was playing from Irene’s phonograph. Had that been the sound she’d initially heard? It didn’t matter, Mirielle decided. She no longer wanted to smash and silence it.
Irene was seated on the sofa in the living room. The vase of flowers was gone. Mirielle hovered at the doorway. Had it been only yesterday they were laughing together in the pharmacy? It felt like years.
“What happened to your flowers?”
Irene looked up. “They was gettin’ old.”
“They were beautiful while they lasted.”
Irene shrugged. Mirielle inched inside the room. “I’m sorry I . . . I’m sorry I said those things. I’m sorry for everything. I was just . . .” She reached for her neck, but she hadn’t a string of beads or strand of bobbles to fiddle with. “Jealous.”
Irene shook her head and patted the balding sofa cushion beside her. Mirielle sat down.
“You ain’t got nothing to be jealous of, baby. I bought them flowers myself.”
“I thought your son—”
“He means well, but you know how men are. Blockheads, the lot of them. He gets busy and forgets about his old mama. Got his own kids to think about now too.” She twisted the garish ruby ring on her finger. “So I buy ’em myself and pretend they’re from him.”
Mirielle squeezed her hand. “I’m sure he loves you and would be awfully glad to know you’re getting flowers, even if he is too blockheaded to buy them himself.”
Irene chuckled. “So what did Sister Verena have you up to all this time?”
Mirielle looked down at her hands. A small smear of blood stained her shirtsleeve. She opened her mouth, but a sob came instead of words. Irene pulled her close. She cried onto Irene’s shoulder as the Christmas music played.
January 5, 1927
Dear Mirielle,
I trust the package arrived in time for Christmas. Evie had great fun helping me pick out the gifts. We’ve been having a swell time in Switzerland. Just the break we needed from Los Angeles and all its blather. The girls love the snow. I bought Evie a pair of skates, and she spends all afternoon on the lake beside the chalet. Don’t worry, the ice is quite solid. Sometimes she pulls Helen behind in a sled. You’d die hearing their laughter. Gloria’s been a sport hosting us like this in such fine style. Too bad we’re needed back at the studio so soon after the holidays.
Your husband,
Charlie
P.S. I read the girls your letter on Christmas. The day wasn’t the same without you.
CHAPTER 46
After New Year’s, the tree in the dining hall was taken out to the incinerator. Decorations were unstrung and boxed away for next year. Christmas records slipped under beds or tucked into the back of cabinets. All that hullabaloo Mirielle had hated was gone. And the colony felt naked without it.
She again noticed the ubiquitous white. Government-issue white paint on the buildings and walkways and water tower and benches. White gravestones. White smocks and uniforms, bleached after each wear to remove the sweat stains and blood. Even the sky took part in the conspiracy, shrouding itself in low-lying clouds for days on end.
When Frank mentioned Mardi Gras and some scheme the What Cheer Club had cooked up for floats and a masquerade, she teased him that they lived from holiday to holiday at Carville.
“Whatever will you do if they canceled Easter or Thanksgiving?” she said. It was a misty Sunday morning, and they’d run into each other on the lawn between the chapels.
“Mais, we still got Arbor Day and Confederate Memorial Day and Flag Day and Armi
stice Day,” he said, winking at her.
With the stark, dreary whiteness all around them, she understood why he did it. It was an escape from the tedium of their daily lives and the horrors of their disease. It gave the residents something to talk about in the dressing clinic when she unbandaged and cleaned their feet. Something besides their weeping ulcers and nodulated skin. It gave the women in the infirmary something to look forward to when nothing but pain and medicine filled their days.
But Mirielle didn’t want distraction. “I’m holding out for the day they hand me my diploma and tell me I’m cured.”
He took off his hat and ran his contracted fingers through his hair. The misty air brought out its waves and luster. “Sure, we’re all living for that day. Ya just have higher hopes for it coming along soon.”
“Fever therapy’s the ticket. I saw firsthand how it helped.” Never mind Lula’s convulsive fit. “When they do the next trial, I’m going to be first in line to sign up again. You’ll see.”
He nodded, clearly reticent to bring up their old argument. But Mirielle couldn’t help but continue, “I refuse to live like you, surviving on distraction because you’re too cowardly to hope.”
She regretted the words once she said them and waited for a cheeky retort. But all he said was, “I see.”
“I didn’t mean . . .” She stopped. Why was I’m sorry so damned hard to say? They were alone now on the lawn, the other residents who’d milled about after church having been chased away by the nippy air and oppressive clouds. Or had the lunch bell rung, and she’d been too caught up in her thoughts to hear it? She hadn’t told him about Elena and her baby. Not even Irene knew. How then could he understand her newfound desperation? “I just don’t see the point of trying to make a life here when I’ve got one waiting on the outside.”
“You’re lucky then. Not everyone does.”
The Second Life of Mirielle West Page 26