Millicent Glenn's Last Wish: A Novel
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No heels for me today. I wore slacks, flats, and a jacket. I put on my yellow hard hat and met the men by the trailer.
“Hello, Mrs. Glenn,” the driver said, hopping out of the truck’s high cab.
“You fellas made good time,” I said. I’d only been waiting an hour, and I was glad of it. I felt a bit queasy.
Within another forty-five minutes, almost everything was unloaded. I methodically examined every item, checking it off on my chart: skids containing neatly stacked and secured doors, windows, walls, and gables.
But my head started swimming. I got dizzy. Nausea overwhelmed me.
“Excuse me,” I said as the men lifted out the last crate.
On the walk back to the car, a great wind blew up, refreshing my face—exactly what I needed to let the morning sickness pass. I returned to the crates filled with packages wrapped in brown paper, their contents detailed with large, square labels—everything from standard thermostats to optional window screens.
“The shipment checks out, gentlemen,” I said. “Be safe on the roads.” I waved as the driver honked the horn and the men left.
Now I had the surprise to plan. I climbed back into the car. I was going to manage this all: job, home, husband, and family. A little morning sickness wouldn’t stop me.
Sitting on my bed now, I counted out enough bills and coins from my blue clay jug for what I had in mind. Dennis had indeed signed for me to open a savings account, but I still kept some money hidden away at home. What if I needed cash fast, and banks were closed? One never knew. And with a baby in the house I would have to be particularly diligent. A baby had needs. Soap to wash his diapers. Vaseline to protect his bottom. Spoons and food and hairbrushes as he grew.
Mother Glenn had given me the jug for the purpose of saving, but I’d learned the importance of that from Mama. The hard way. I wouldn’t go back to a day like when Opa tried restraining her flailing arms while neighbors watched—the day a landlord had thrown us out when I was six. Rent had been late. The landlord used his key when we were gone. Mama, Opa, and I had returned to the tenement to find everything we owned piled up in the street—right down to Mama’s and my tattered undergarments strung on the legs of our upturned table and chairs like US flags on poles. Old Mr. Fletcher, a friend of my opa’s, stood on the corner, gaping with his granddaughter, who was a girl in my class at school. My cheeks burned, and I stared down at my feet. My family had slept that night on the floor of another tenement family’s flat, beside three people we didn’t know, someone’s second cousins twice removed.
I shook off the memory. My priority at present was to create a simple but special celebration for this most important day of my life: the announcement of my pregnancy. I was wrestling between staying in to cook chicken fricassee or planning an outing for Dennis’s surprise. Perhaps we could return to the zoo.
When we were dating, we’d gone to see Susie, a four-hundred-pound gorilla who’d come as a baby from the Congo aboard a zeppelin. Susie had amazed visitors by eating real food with a fork and kissing her trainer on the lips. That day was the first time Dennis said he loved me. Or we could enjoy Eden Park—where Dennis had proposed on a snowy afternoon. It was warming up outside now, and we could spread a blanket across the lawn on the hill. That was it, yes, we’d have a picnic in the park.
The next day I made deviled ham salad sandwiches and wrapped them in cellophane. I filled a thermos with hot potato soup. I prepared a relish tray and a platter of cheeses and German sausage, and I cut slices of chocolate cake. I packed a basket with utensils and a blanket and plates—even a damp washcloth so we could clean up.
Scattered across our kitchen table were mementos of our life together. I’d bought a picture frame at Woolworth’s with my jug money and covered the cardboard backing with a piece of white muslin. I arranged a collage with a Gunnison postcard, zoo ticket stubs, the Orbit gum wrapper from the prize Dennis had won me at Coney Island, and more. To drive home my surprise, I inserted a photo of a silver baby rattle that I’d cut from McCall’s magazine. Before reassembling the frame, I wrote on the back in blue ink: “Made with love, in memory of our happiest day yet, a day that will only be surpassed by the glorious moment that our first baby is born.”
With all my preparations complete, I went to the bedroom but felt sick all of a sudden. I leaned to the wall, dizzy. Had I overdone it? Earlier in the week I’d finished preparing the yearly taxes. I’d collected swatches of carpet for a customer. I’d had no intention of slowing down. But perhaps I’d been a mite too ambitious.
In my bathroom I found it was only morning sickness after all—or, as Pauline called it, all-day sickness. Nothing to worry about. I rinsed with mouthwash and changed into a slim tweed skirt. It had a matching sport coat that flared and oversize patch pockets that I thought would come in handy. I had only to do touch-ups to my makeup when the telephone rang.
I trotted into the kitchen to answer. It was Dennis. He was back in town, calling from his office, where he’d dropped off some boxes. How I hoped he wouldn’t be late.
“Mil,” he said. “I can’t believe it. I’m so happy!”
Happy? About what?
“We’re going to be parents!” he said.
My spirit deflated like a bubble pricked with a fork. I sagged against the wall, wearing my smart little slouch felt hat.
“Babe? You there?” he said, and I could tell from his breathing that he was puffing on a cigarette. “You all right?”
“How did you hear?” I fought not to faint.
“Why, my brother just phoned. Nathan’s so happy for us. Abbie knows the nurse at Dr. Welch’s and—oh, honey, I can’t wait to get home. You haven’t told Mother yet, have you?”
“I can’t wait for you to get home either,” I said, trying to sound chipper.
Abbie Glenn had beaten me to surprising my own husband? I slammed the receiver back in its cradle after Dennis hung up. I slumped onto a kitchen chair, my eyes welling with tears. My surprise was ruined. I was tempted to stuff all the picnic wares away—the food, the basket, the checkered napkins and plates. But I wouldn’t. And I would not destroy the collage that I’d crafted by hand. I resolved myself not to show my disappointment to Dennis and to continue on with our celebration.
That night I wasn’t nauseous anymore, yet I was utterly exhausted.
But I made love to my husband, freed from the tension of whether I could conceive. I fell easily to sleep, after ticking off in my head all the things to be done tomorrow: picking up another order of postcards, launching a new series of ads, and writing out checks for the bills so that Dennis could sign with his trademark large capital D. I dreamed of the infant I soon would be holding.
CHAPTER FIVE
August 1949
Four months later, on a hot August day, I was in the fabric shop, a popular chain that had begun upstate. Mrs. Reilly was a Gunnison customer whose house would soon be ready. She needed fabrics for her boys’ bedroom, and I had homed in on the bolts I thought she’d like.
“Let’s try this one,” she said, fingering a blue-and-brown cotton blend plaid, her voice as light as her weight. Dennis might’ve said a strong wind would blow her away. “No, no, no. You’re in no condition to carry this,” she said. She made her way with the bolt to the huge cutting table. I was six months along and as active as most women who weren’t expecting. But I was tired, so I relented.
Over the next ten minutes we considered several bolts, but I could see she needed guidance on how the room would come together. I pulled a notepad and pen from my purse.
“Here’s the bedroom,” I said, drawing a square. “I recommend corner beds.” I sketched the narrow twins set with their lengths flush against each of two walls and a higher table in the corner connecting them. “This leaves the maximum floor space for playing. Games, Tinkertoys, fire trucks.” She smiled and nodded. Next I added the two windows. “So you’ll select two fabrics. One for the fitted top spreads—a solid, I would think—and a coordinati
ng pattern for draperies, valances, and dust ruffles.”
She laid the plaid bolt alongside a solid blue and unspooled a stretch of each fabric. “What do you think?”
“That combination looks very nice,” I said. I handed her the diagram and rubbed my chest and throat.
“Are you feeling unwell, Mrs. Glenn?” she said.
“A touch of heartburn is all.”
“I remember those days,” she said. “Just wait until the baby wakes you up three times a night, hungry.”
This kind of talk made me miss my mama more than ever. Had she had heartburn, as I did now? Mother Glenn had not. Had Mama felt a strain on her back? Her hips? What did Mama remember of the first time she felt me kick? If only I could’ve called her when my baby had quickened.
“I’m afraid I have to scoot,” I said. “Another meeting.”
“I’m all set,” she said, and thanked me profusely.
I loved helping her. This customer would be a good referral source for us. Mrs. Reilly’s boys were in first grade—she surely knew lots of young families.
I had to get downtown in a jiffy for a meeting with the ad agency.
I sat across from Mr. Drake in a chair much too hard for women in my condition. But I had sat on stacked cinder blocks and plywood crates. I traveled well.
Mr. Drake was new. I could barely hear him in the noisy open room with other men at other plain desks with typewriter carriages swinging. He kept ogling my belly. The only other woman I could see wore a slender black dress and breezed through the aisles delivering reams of papers and answering phones with a sharp yellow pencil tucked behind her ear.
“Mrs. Glenn,” Mr. Drake said, handing me a file. “I’ve prepared the advertising agreement. I assume your husband will look it over and return it tomorrow?”
I smiled. It was a contract to run a month’s worth of newspaper display ads—not simply classified notices as we’d done in the beginning. These ads would be three columns wide instead of one, have bolder headlines and pictures of the houses, too. And we now had two model homes to advertise, not one.
“That won’t be necessary, Mr. Drake. I’ll take a look right here.”
His bushy eyebrows lifted. He set about typing something and picked up his phone when it rang. He paused with his hand over the receiver long enough to ask, “Can I help you with anything, Mrs. Glenn? Any of the language?” I had already read every line of the two-page agreement. Twice.
“No, Mr. Drake, I can assure you I understand the terms.”
Some time ago I’d caught on readily to advertising jargon, such as the costs driven by column inches and the frequency of insertions—a fancy way of saying how many times the ad would run over a specified period—just as I had quickly grasped how to manage the government’s rationing coupons when helping Kroger customers before I met Dennis.
“Everything appears to be in order,” I said, feeling fatigued. It must have been because I’d worn pumps. My feet began to swell by late afternoon. “I’ll watch for the first installment in Friday’s edition.”
Friday was just in time for families planning their weekends. They loved touring new homes on Saturdays. I loved showing them. I loved making decisions about interiors. Guiding customers. Crunching numbers. Saving the business money. Showing businessmen that I had a brain. And saving my own jug money for incidentals or emergency needs of my family. I didn’t want to lose all this when I became a mother. Why should I have to?
I suddenly had an urgent need to empty my bladder. I recalled passing a men’s room in the hall moments before. I walked briskly to the information desk in the building’s main lobby.
“Can you direct me to the closest ladies’ lounge, please?” I asked the man wearing an official coat and hat.
“There’s a men’s room on every floor, but only one in the building for women. Take the elevator to the basement. Then down the hall to your left.”
That annoyed me. By the time I made it to the elevator, I had to go so badly I couldn’t look at the man on it with me. Ding, ding, ding. The doors opened, and I ran out and to the left.
My six-month pregnant belly got in my way as I tried to close the stall door fast. I lowered my pants, which had an elastic panel in front, as quickly as I could. Then I sat there, gathering up the parachute of a top I wore so it wouldn’t dip into the bowl. I tried to go. Nothing. The urge to go was fierce, but only the slightest dribble came.
Come to think of it, this wasn’t the first time this had happened.
My medical visits had increased leading into my third trimester. The next day I headed to an appointment at Dr. Welch’s office, not far from the farm. Dennis had ridden to work with Bob Irving so I could take our Buick.
Here I was, stuck on Ohio State Route 126 in a line of a dozen or more cars. Had someone run out of gas? Been rear-ended? I drummed my nails, which were painted the Cutex color Cute Tomata, on the steering wheel. I switched on the radio and twisted the knob around until I listened to Nat King Cole. Cars and trucks passed me going south. If only their lane had been the one stopped. I’d seen nothing in sight for a while. No gasoline station with its huge gold shell. No greasy-spoon diners. Nothing but the occasional house and lots of country land. I was past the stage of vomiting, and though I thought I could hold my bladder, I didn’t want to be late for my appointment.
Two little boys with cowlicks and horizontally striped shirts waved to me from the rear window of the car ahead, a new two-tone Chevrolet. I waved back and watched them laugh. I couldn’t wait to have rambunctious children in my own back seat.
Thank goodness the cars ahead started to creep forward.
By the time I turned off the state road I was fifteen minutes from the doctor’s and had ten minutes until my appointment. Few cars were on this stretch of county road. I sped around a tractor going two miles an hour.
At last I arrived. I went to the door of the small redbrick building, which was in a row with a general store, the post office, and Roberta’s Breakfast Grill. Feed stores and tractor sales were down the road.
Just as I placed my hand on the knob, the door opened and there stood Abbie Glenn on her way out.
“Millie,” she said, as stunned as I was. A week after she’d told Nathan I was expecting, she’d called me as if nothing had happened. Abbie had already learned that she’d spoiled my surprise. When I brought up my disappointment, however, she’d said she’d assumed Dennis already knew. Two days later my postman delivered Abbie’s trio of jars of homemade grape jelly, blackberry preserves, and apple butter with cloves.
“Are you all right?” she said now. “You look peaked.”
“I’m fine,” I said as we stood there with the door ajar, her blocking my way. “Just running late for a checkup appointment. A stall on the highway.”
Abbie patted my belly, and I cringed. “That’s going to be a big baby.” It’d been a few weeks since she’d seen me. “Nothing is more important than your health,” she said. “I’ve got to run. Cooking a crown roast of pork for dinner.”
“Bye-bye.” I was thankful she hadn’t listed her whole menu.
In Dr. Welch’s office for his general family practice after my exam, I stared at a chart hung on one wall with its huge letters of the alphabet: A’s and E’s at top, and progressively smaller rows of K’s, B’s, and Q’s. Clear glass canisters with silver metal lids lined an old counter, each filled with tablets, cotton balls, or long cotton swabs. Dr. Welch perched on his swivel stool, looking at me from over the rim of his black-framed glasses.
“You’ve developed a complication,” he said without preamble.
A complication? I pressed my hands to my bulging abdomen.
“What is it?” I said.
“You have pyelitis,” he said matter-of-factly. “It’s not that uncommon, but you’ll need to avoid infection.”
“Say it again?” Had I ever read the term before? Pyelitis? I couldn’t think. “Is it serious?”
The doctor had a kindly face, but I de
tected superiority there, too. In an earlier visit when Dennis had come, the old coot had spoken directly to my husband about my health as if I weren’t the one carrying this child—as if I weren’t in the room. But I had dared not show my annoyance. He had delivered all the Glenn grandchildren. And besides, a doctor was the expert. He was in charge.
“By the time an expectant mother reaches six or seven months,” he said now, “her enlarged uterus can put pressure on her bladder, and if inflammation occurs this can make urination more difficult, a symptom you’ve experienced.” That was true. He patted my knee and took on the tone of a kindergarten teacher. “You’ve registered a slight fever, and given the discomfort you’ve reported on your right side in the back, and your hip area as well, the diagnosis is clear.”
“But is it serious?” I asked again. “Will this complication hurt my baby?”
“It’s rarely serious, providing you follow my instructions to a T.”
I fumbled for a pen in my purse. On the back of a Gunnison postcard I wrote the doctor’s advice.
“Consume forced fluids, that is, drink fifteen full ten-ounce glasses of water a day—to keep your kidneys flushed out. Lie down periodically, too, flat on your back with a low pillow and your legs elevated.”
That didn’t sound as if the baby and I were in danger. Did it? But what about work? Running out to the newspaper and fabric shop?
“And another thing,” the doctor said. “Slow down. Take it easy. Don’t try to do as much as usual.”
I could barely hold back tears as I drove home, worrying about my baby the whole long way. I wished for Dennis, Mother Glenn, Pauline—or Mama—to be with me. I felt as alone and afraid as a child lost in a department store when the lights went out for the night.