“You do. I see all the letters and parcels that arrive from your family. I see you with them under the oaks every month when they come to visit.”
“I can’t just think about me.”
“That’s not fair. I’ve got two small girls. It’s them I’m thinking about.”
They walked together to the ramp leading up to the covered walkway. It wasn’t raining, but mist had condensed on the roof and dripped from the eaves. He stepped aside, letting her ascend the ramp first, even though there was room enough to walk up side by side. She waited at the top for him.
“Besides,” she said, “a cure will benefit us all.”
“And how about the disgust people feel at the word ‘leper’? Ya gonna find a cure for that too?”
No one need know, she almost said. But a cure wouldn’t fix Frank’s hands. Or give the blind back their sight. The amputees back their legs. She rubbed the lesion on her neck. If it didn’t clear up, she could explain it away as a rash or a burn. Her other lesions too. Many patients weren’t so lucky.
“You’ve got your war story,” she said.
Frank looked down at his hands. He clenched and unclenched his contracted fingers. “Yeah, I guess I do.”
She stood on her tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek. Not a romantic kiss. Her lips barely lingered on his skin. But she wanted him to know that not everyone in the world looked on him with disgust.
A line formed between Frank’s eyebrows as if he were perplexed. Maybe even a bit perturbed, the way a young boy gets when some dowdy old relative smooches him on the cheek. Mirielle laughed and walked away, saying over her shoulder, “You better watch out. I’m gonna help them find that cure, and then you’ll have a flock of gals lining up to kiss you.”
* * *
The next day, Mirielle went to see Sister Verena in the small office she kept between the men’s infirmaries. If Mirielle was going to make good on that promise of finding a cure, she needed to be part of the next fever therapy trial. News of Lula’s convulsions—exaggerated in the Rocking Chair Brigade’s retelling—had made some residents wary. But plenty of patients like her were still desperate enough to volunteer.
When she arrived at the office, she hesitated, wiping her palms on her skirt before knocking. Since that harrowing night in the operating room, she’d tried to avoid Sister Verena—a largely impossible task considering Sister Verena still oversaw her work in the infirmary and clinics. When she couldn’t avoid her, Mirielle was all but silent, nodding to her commands, and forgoing her usual interjections like how they really ought to get a radio for the infirmary or try lavender-scented water in the dressing clinic. Every time Mirielle looked at her, she thought of the baby. It was easier to keep her eyes to herself than be drying tears on her sleeve while she worked.
“Come in,” Sister Verena said when Mirielle finally steeled herself and knocked. Sister Verena was seated at her tidy desk, jotting something in a ledger. Her large hat made the room feel even smaller than it was, and Mirielle wondered how she managed to move her head without knocking books off the shelf behind her or the crucifix off the wall. “Ah, Mrs. Marvin, I suspected you would come. Have a seat.”
Mirielle closed the door and sat. “I’m not here to talk about what you did to Elena and her baby.”
“No?” Sister Verena leaned back and steepled her hands. Her nails were short and blunt, filed to match the slender shape of her fingers.
“No.”
“Very well. What can I help you with?”
Mirielle had considered what she wanted to say about the fever cabinet and the new trial on the walk over to the office. But before she could get it out, her eye snagged on the ceramic statue of Mary, arms outstretched, perched on top of the bookshelf behind Sister Verena. She’d never understood the papists’ obsession with Mary, but this Christmas cast her in a new light. She too was a mother who’d lost her son. Still gazing at the statue, she asked, “Where did you take the baby?”
“Elena’s baby?”
“No, Grace Coolidge’s.”
Sister Verena frowned. “We took the baby to Sacred Heart Orphanage in New Orleans.”
“Is that where all the babies go?”
“If there isn’t a family member nearby willing to take the child, yes.”
Mirielle looked away from the statue of Mary to her interlocked hands. “How can you talk so coolly about something so awful?”
“What would you have us do? Keep the baby? Risk him being infected?”
“You could have let Elena hold him. Say goodbye.”
“That would have only made things more difficult for her.”
Mirielle glared at Sister Verena. “You don’t know that. You don’t know the first thing about being a mother. A part of you dies when . . .” She looked away, determined not to cry.
When they’d pulled Felix from the pool, she’d scrambled out after him and snatched him away, holding his wet, limp body to her breast. Only the doctor had been able to peel her arms away. So many times since she’d regretted letting go, regretted that inevitable passage from before to after where she would never hold him again.
“I know—” Sister Verena stopped. From the corner of her eye, Mirielle saw Sister Verena’s steepled hands fold into a tight ball one atop the other, her knuckles streaked white. She drew in a long breath and continued. “I know this is hard for you. God has a plan for the baby, and it’s not here. Nor, I think, would you want it to be. Elena, too, will see that in time.”
“I wish I’d never stepped foot in that operating room.”
“You proved yourself very able that night. The baby might have died were it not for your assistance.”
Mirielle hadn’t considered that. She’d felt sick about the role she’d played, as if in helping deliver the baby she was complicit in taking him away too. After a moment, she said, “That doesn’t make me feel any less awful.”
“No,” Sister Verena said, reaching out and straightening the ink blotter on her desk. “I imagine not. Life’s not that tidy, I’m afraid.”
Mirielle glanced again at the statue of Mary, unable to decide if she felt any better in their kinship. She stood and turned to go.
“Your other question, Mrs. Marvin?”
“Oh, yes.” She jogged her head and turned around. “The fever cabinet. When will a new trial be starting?”
Sister Verena’s brow furrowed.
“I’d like to volunteer again.”
“I’m afraid—”
“At least let me help. Doc Jack said I wasn’t to blame for Lula’s convulsions and I promise not to leave anyone unattended. Not even for a moment.”
“We shan’t be doing another fever therapy trial. Not anytime soon.”
Mirielle sat down again, scooting so close to Sister Verena’s desk her knees knocked against it. “But you have to. The results were so promising. Lula was the only one to have a complication. And maybe that was my fault. If I’d been watching better and noticed the first sign—”
“It wasn’t your fault, Mrs. Marvin, and hers wasn’t the only complication.”
“There were others?”
Sister Verena hesitated. “Weak pulse, hypotension, extreme exhaustion, shock, nephritis.”
“I’d still volunteer.”
“It isn’t just the complications. It’s been six weeks since the trial ended, and we’re not seeing any positive results.”
“That’s not true!”
“There’s no need to get hysterical about this, Mrs. Marvin.”
Mirielle forced herself to sit back and lowered her voice. “You had me recording the women’s physical findings, remember? Their disease was getting better. No more infections.”
“No more secondary infections. But eight of the twelve patients’ primary infection, that is to say, the leprosy, has gotten worse.”
“Worse?”
“Yes.”
“But—”
“It would be unwise, not to mention unethical, to subject more patien
ts to the therapy.”
Mirielle gulped down several quick breaths. It felt like all the oxygen had bled from the room. She grasped the edge of Sister Verena’s desk as if it were a life raft.
“Maybe we just need to try different settings. Less heat and more humidity. Or vice versa.”
“I’m afraid not.”
Mirielle looked down at the floor, still trying to catch her breath.
“If that’s all, Mrs. Marvin, I really must get back to work.”
Mirielle stood, using the desk to brace herself until she was sure her legs were steady.
“What about another trial? Isn’t there something else the doctors are looking into?”
“They’re always investigating options. But nothing else at the moment looks promising.”
“What now then?”
She gave Mirielle a doleful expression. “We keep doing what we’re doing and trust in God’s mercy that someday he’ll deliver a cure.”
Someday couldn’t come soon enough.
CHAPTER 47
Irene squeezed Mirielle’s hand for the fifth time in as many minutes. If she kept this up, Mirielle would have a bruise by the time Doc Jack returned with Irene’s results.
“You don’t have to wait with me, baby.”
“Would you knock that off? I told you I would, and that’s that.”
Another squeeze. “Thanks.”
Mirielle looked down at the infirmary floor. Near the wall, dried mud in the shape of a footprint clung to the pine boards. Whoever was in charge of washing the floors had missed a spot. With all the recent rain, Mirielle was glad that task no longer fell to her. She no longer had to copy lines from that boring old textbook either. But even on her day off, Mirielle couldn’t help but see the smudge on the floor, the water glasses in need of refilling, and the bandages to be rolled.
“What’s the first thing you’re going to do when you get out?” Mirielle asked.
“Shh! Don’t jinx it.”
“Sorry.” Mirielle shifted. It was the second time this week she’d sat on one of these uncomfortable beds waiting. Her stomach had twisted inside out by the time her own results came back, and she was only up to nine negative skin tests. Irene must feel it ten times worse. She wished she’d brought Madge’s playing cards or a magazine for distraction. “Okay, what was the last thing you did, then. Before your diagnosis.”
Irene took off her glasses and wiped them on her blue-and-green-checkered shawl. “Milked the cows, I reckon. Fed the chickens.”
“You don’t remember your last day of freedom?”
“That was over five years ago, baby. But I do remember the doctor. He couldn’t get me out of his office fast enough. Like I was a grenade about to pop and spread my disease all over him. What about you?”
“I was fixing my hair for a party and burned myself on the iron. I didn’t want to go. Not to the party or the hospital.” She fingered her bracelet. “My husband thought I burned myself on purpose or that I’d been too soused to notice the iron’s heat. I guess he had cause to think those things.”
The earlier part of the day, before the burn and Dr. Carroll’s arrival, was a blur. She wished she remembered playing with Evie or holding Helen or even the sound of their laughter from the nursery, but she didn’t.
“Tell you what I ain’t gonna do when I get home, wear any more of these goddamn cotton stockings from the materials office. Or eat just because I hear a bell. Or turn my music off ’cause Watchman Doyle’s comin’ round hollering that it’s curfew.”
Mirielle laughed. “Or wait in line for soap.”
“Or read magazines from a year ago.”
“Or watch old pictures.”
“Or hurry up in the tub ’cause someone else is waiting.”
“Or carry around a pillow because your rear’s too sore to sit down without it.”
“Or hurl up my lunch thanks to those awful pills.”
“Or lose to Madge at poker.”
Their laughter petered out.
“Or dance in the observation tower.”
“Or drink sweet tea on Frank’s porch.”
Irene took her hand again and squeezed. “You know I ain’t gonna forget y’all, baby.”
Mirielle nodded. Her friends in California would have said the same thing, though. She didn’t miss them or their petty concerns and banal conversation. But she would miss Irene. Terribly. Like part of herself was leaving along with her. “Maybe someday I could bring my daughters to Texas for a visit. They’ve never seen a real farm.”
“That’d be swell.” Irene picked at a loose thread on the bedspread. “Don’t suppose you’d want someone like me hobnobbing with you and your fancy friends in California.”
“Don’t be crazy, I’d love for you to come visit.”
“They’d think I was nothing but an old bumpkin.”
Mirielle took her other hand. “I don’t care what they think.”
The infirmary door opened, and Doc Jack came in. Irene clutched Mirielle’s hands like a bottle of gin on the eve of Prohibition. She drew in a deep breath and didn’t let it out.
Doc Jack looked around and grabbed a stool before heading over to them.
“Oh God, he’s gonna sit down,” Irene said. “That can’t be good.”
“Sister Katherine and I had a good look at your slides in the laboratory just now, Mrs. Hardee,” he said once he was seated. He flipped her chart open across his lap.
“And?” Irene said.
He patted his pockets until he found his glasses and put them on. “And . . .” He thumbed through several pages in the chart, before closing it and looking Irene square in the eye. “And your slides were negative. Not a bacillus in sight! Congratulations, you’re being discharged.”
Irene didn’t move. Only her eyes blinked. Then she let out a loud sob and pulled Mirielle into a hug. “I’m goin’ home, baby! Back to my son and my grandbabies. I’m going home.”
Mirielle hugged her back so tightly her arms tingled.
“It will take a few days to process your paperwork and . . .” Doc Jack said, but Mirielle was only half listening.
Irene didn’t seem to be listening at all. She let go of Mirielle and wiped her eyes on the hem of her shawl, talking over him. “I got so much to do. I gotta write my son and pack up my things and find someone to look after my garden and—”
“That all can wait,” Mirielle said. “Let’s go tell the girls.”
“You think they’ll be happy for me?”
Mirielle smiled. “I know they will.”
As Irene dallied in the infirmary, hugging Doc Jack and the sisters, Mirielle slipped out and pulled a yellow square of cloth from her handbag. If she stood just beyond the bend in the walkway and looked north, Mirielle could see the back porch of house eighteen. As planned, Jean was sitting on the top step. Not as planned, she was playing her harmonica instead of keeping a lookout in Mirielle’s direction. Mirielle waved the yellow cloth high above her head, hoping it would catch Jean’s attention.
“What are you doing?” Irene asked.
Mirielle gave the cloth one last flourish before cramming it back into her handbag. “Just swatting a fly.” She looped her arm around Irene’s. “Let’s go spread the good news.”
Irene, always a fast walker, practically sprinted back to their house, dragging Mirielle along. When they got there, Irene stopped just inside the door and called, “Ladies, it’s payday!” She winked at Mirielle. “That’ll get them out of their rooms.”
They waited there in the hall, but none of their housemates appeared. It was unusually quiet for this time of the afternoon. Irene strode down the hall, knocking on every door. No one answered. Irene turned around, the excitement gone from her face. “Where is everyone? They know today was the big day.”
“Maybe they ran to the canteen. It’s nearly mail call.”
“All of them?”
A muffled giggle sounded from nearby, but Irene didn’t appear to have heard. Her should
ers slumped. Mirielle hurried over and ushered her toward the living room. “Why don’t we wait for them in here?”
Irene frowned, but let herself be led. They opened the door to a dark room. When Mirielle pressed the light switch, a chorus of cheers greeted them.
Irene jumped back. She blinked, her mouth agape, swiveling her head to look at Mirielle then back to the crowd of people squeezed into the living room.
“Congratulations!” someone yelled.
“Finally did it,” Madge said.
Jean leaped up from where she’d been crouching and hugged Irene, nearly knocking her off balance.
Streamers fluttered from the ceiling. A banner hung on the wall with CONGRATULATIONS IRENE! painted across it. Frank started singing “For She’s a Jolly Good Fellow,” and everyone, including Mirielle, joined in.
Irene beamed, swiping the tears from her cheeks. When the song ended, she turned to Mirielle. “You did this?”
“I had some help.”
“I was the lookout,” Jean said.
“Lookout?” Irene asked.
“In case your test didn’t go well.”
Mirielle pulled the yellow cloth from her handbag along with a green one. “Yellow meant the party was a go. Green meant everyone had to take down the decorations and skedaddle.”
Irene smiled and shook her head. “Swattin’ a fly, my ass.”
Frank handed round glasses of hooch. “Polly, she asked if I could rustle up some champagne, her. I said sure, if she don’t mind champagne with no bubbles and a lot of formaldehyde.”
Everyone laughed.
“Even a gal with this gazeek can hope,” Mirielle said to more laughter.
“So we settled for good old corn juice.” He held his cup aloft between his hands. Everyone else raised theirs too, or in Jean’s case, her bottle of Coke. “Only the best for our friend Irene. To happy endings.”
“To happy endings,” they echoed.
Mirielle took a sip of the liquor, wincing as she swallowed. Someone put a record on the phonograph, and a jazzy tune played behind their chatter. Irene sat down on the couch. Everyone crowded around.
“What ya gonna do first once you’re out of this shithole?” Madge asked. This time Irene didn’t hesitate to answer.
The Second Life of Mirielle West Page 27