Millicent Glenn's Last Wish: A Novel

by Tori Whitaker

  The woman lying in the bed next to me screamed. She was a girl, really, maybe seventeen. A burly nurse leaned in close to her. The girl quieted long enough for me to hear the nurse say, “Shut up your crying at me. I didn’t make you pregnant. Suffering is what comes of all the fun you had.” The girl went mute. Why would a nurse condemn this girl so? Hadn’t a man shouldered 50 percent of the responsibility for the “fun”?

  When the nurse left, I smiled at the girl, but she turned her head the other way.

  After contractions had ripped through my body for hours, I was finally in a delivery room with my feet in stirrups and knees high. I was groggy and in some moments disoriented between pushes. Dr. Welch, the country doctor who’d delivered all the Glenn grandchildren, came to my ear.

  “Mrs. Glenn, I must perform an emergency surgery. Your baby can’t come without it.”

  My baby? Emergency surgery? No one else in the ward had been told that.

  “The baby can’t fit through your birth canal,” the doctor said anxiously, sweat beading on his forehead. “You need a cesarean section.”

  I’d scarcely even heard of it. Certainly no one I knew had had that done.

  “Does this mean my baby may die?” I imagined all the women’s heads rising across the labor room down the hall, hearing the terror in my voice. “Might I die too?”

  I’d been sliced up the middle, from the line where my pubic hair used to be to just beneath my navel. Like an autumn pig at slaughter. The hospital kept me and baby Janie for almost three weeks—though we were mostly separated as a precaution against her getting an infection. The last words I recalled Dr. Welch saying as he discharged me were: “Once a cesarean, always a cesarean. And no more than two babies, Mrs. Glenn.” But I paid him no mind. Who was he to tell me how many children I could have?

  The first night I was home, when Dennis and I watched our baby sleep with the door cracked to the hall light, he kissed my temple and said, “Janie is an angel.” She was. She had a feathering of dark hair. Smooth skin without blemish. Tiny perfect fingernails. Ears that laid to her head as if she were a doll. I lifted Janie out of her cradle, and she stayed fast asleep. I brought her to my cheek and my lips—what a wondrous miracle she was. Her smell, her lashes as long as mine, her tiny doll-face nose. I kissed it. I knew in that moment that all the pain I had suffered did not matter.

  I would go through it all again for more babies like this. Enough babies to fill a birthday party . . . the kind of party boisterous with romping children that I’d never had myself.

  The surgery wasn’t the worst of my pain.

  Dennis was on a construction site a week after I was home, the day my sister-in-law called me. “Just thought I’d check up on you. How are you doing?”

  Abbie had visited in the hospital with Nathan, of course. She’d even gone so far as to say Janie was a beautiful newborn.

  “Janie and I are doing splendidly,” I said. “Home a week and already I’m cooking dinner every night.” I thought Abbie would be impressed.

  “Very good,” she said. “You don’t miss the business?” Her voice was flat.

  “It’s only been a month since Janie was born. I’ll be ramping up soon.” I’d had all the ads and accounts up to date before I was admitted to the hospital. “I am itching to start back, though.”

  “But what about the support person Dennis put in place?” she said.

  “Support person?”

  “You know,” she said, “the one taking your place. Maybe it’s just temporary.”

  I hadn’t known. Had I assumed Dennis would wait? Of course I had. Or else I’d have asked.

  “This is a wonderful time in a woman’s life,” Abbie went on. “Shouldn’t the children and homemaking be your only priorities anyway?”

  I bristled when Abbie Glenn, Housewife of the Year, needled me. But apparently, as I came to learn, my husband agreed with her.

  It turned out Dennis had shifted some accounts payable work to an assistant when I was confined in the hospital. He hadn’t wanted to disturb me while I recovered. But he’d had someone step in on ads with the creative agency as well. He’d sent one customer to someone else who could help pick out decor colors, too—sent her to a seamstress. I thought my skills exceeded sewing.

  Perhaps I shouldn’t blame him. Money had to come in the door each week. But I did blame him. Didn’t partners tell each other what was going on in the business?

  That night, as Dennis opened the newspaper to the sports section, I said all bright and perky, “Dennis, I’m back up and at ’em, I can handle the accounts from home while Janie naps. I can make calls. I can get out once a week to the newspapers, too, toting her along. You know, do the occasional decorating consultation.”

  “Mil, you don’t need the pressure.”

  “Honey, just because a seamstress knows how to design and sew curtains doesn’t mean she can walk a Gunnison customer—a future referral source, dare I say—through the thought process of laying out a whole room.”

  “Like I said, you don’t need to concern yourself.” He smiled.

  A seamstress wouldn’t contemplate the scale of a space, wouldn’t take resale worth into consideration. She’d sew. Why was Dennis diminishing my value in our business? It wasn’t fair. He was muffling my voice, and I didn’t like it.

  “Dennis, you have to—”

  “You’re such a good mommy,” he said.

  Yes, I was. That wasn’t up for debate. But I could be both.

  He folded the newspaper, tucked it under his arm, and stood. “Just take care of yourself and Janie. I’ve got the work bases covered.”

  I wilted.

  If Mama were still alive, she would urge me not to give in—she would support my wanting it all: raising my children, managing our home, earning some money. Feeling fulfilled.

  But surely Dennis had my best interests at heart. He was my husband. He cherished me above all others. Were he and Abbie right, then? Should I accept my woman’s lot and move on? Was I wrong to want both a family and a job? Would a better mother than I be satisfied and not seek the thrill of a deal or sale?

  What if I couldn’t slow down?

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  August 1950

  I wiped the countertops and ran my cloth-covered thumb along the stainless-steel edging that overlapped the red surface. It was Sunday night, and that meant our neighbors would soon pop over to watch The Gene Autry Show. The Irvings rotated each week with Dennis and me, gathering in front of the singing cowboy on either their television set or ours. Janie was nine months old and amusing herself with an orange Jell-O mold in her high chair. Pauline had telephoned to assure me her husband, Bob, would keep his repeating cap pistols—yes, his toys, not their eleven-month-old Tommy’s—at home next door in their holsters this week. We’d laughed. Our phones didn’t have party lines anymore—no one could overhear our conversations—but I’d given Pauline no hint of my new dilemma. Tonight I would let her in on the news that was at once thrilling me and terrifying me.

  Dennis wandered into our kitchen while I was assembling my glass chip-and-dip set. It had a smaller bowl that perched on the rim of a larger one with the aid of a tiny metal rack. “Have I told you lately you’re the prettiest girl a guy ever got?” Dennis said. “Not to mention the smartest.”

  “Only about a thousand times.” I smiled at him, suggesting he could tell me a thousand times more. I pressed my index finger into one of his dimples. “And you’re the most charming guy a girl ever snagged.”

  He kissed me and patted my behind. This could be the perfect moment to tell him my news. So spontaneous. But no, Pauline would be first to hear I was pregnant again—and help me form a plan to tell Dennis. I couldn’t wait too long, for who knew if Abbie would find out and blab it again?

  My larger concern was that my husband and I still didn’t see eye to eye on my workload.

  Papa Glenn might’ve said I was damned if I did and damned if I didn’t: I was beyond excited to be preg
nant again . . . I could hear the chorus of children’s voices singing happy birthday in my home, the way I’d longed to hear as a girl. Lots of children, my children, running about in play. Yet I yearned to contribute to the business, too. I wanted to earn my jug money, and build my savings account, and I craved the feeling of accomplishment in making our business succeed.

  Back when Janie was a few months old, I’d convinced Dennis to let me resume doing promotional mailings two afternoons a week from home: “Your mother didn’t stop picking cabbages when she had four kids underfoot,” I’d said. Mother Glenn had told me so herself. What I didn’t relay to Dennis was how his mother had said I could cut back on the number crunching for a while, and Dennis would see that he needed me again soon enough. Soon enough for whom? I’d thought. I told Dennis, “Can you imagine the farm without your mother directing the annual cider squeeze? Do you want a stranger handling our finances?” So Dennis had seen how I managed our home and Janie so well, and he’d agreed to a few discrete duties. “Not too much to overwhelm you,” he’d said, fearful that my surgery’s scar might split open or something. But besides the mailings, I was soon reconciling the bank accounts each month from the couch at home, too. My family and my work made me happy.

  I was afraid that with another baby coming, though, Dennis would shift these tasks to his new “guy Friday,” and I’d never work again. As a matter of fact, most of the time I felt I could take on more work.

  As it was, I’d thrown myself into sewing for Janie to help fill my days. Dennis had bought me a Singer sewing machine. Its owner’s manual advised me to prepare mentally for sewing: to never begin a project with a sink full of dishes. Seamstresses should wear a neat dress, freshly clean, and lipstick as well. One’s sewing mustn’t create undue stress if a visitor should stop by. Be ready. For me, though I followed the guidance to the nth degree, the feel of the cloth on my palms, the pull of the thread, and the spinning bobbins somehow, surprisingly, brought me closer to Mama.

  And with everything I did I felt productive. Useful.

  I was frazzled some nights, I confess—the chores, caring for Janie, my business work, getting dinner on the table in time—all while looking magazine-mother pretty. No one ever said that doing some of everything would be easy. Mother Glenn’s wide array of duties had never been easy on her either. Partnerships were hard work. But these were all things I loved doing. In the beginning of our marriage, I was driven more by my need to not depend solely on a man. I still had that need. But as time had evolved, I sought to make a difference with the business, too.

  Now that our family was set to grow, I at least wanted a chance to prove what I could do.

  I went to our daughter after Dennis patted my bottom, and I said, “You didn’t catch that frisky move your father just made, did you?” I nuzzled her silky, scrunched neck. Janie squealed and pulled her bib up to her face, trying to lick off the last of her Jell-O. Raggsie scampered to the door, barking.

  “They’re here, Mil,” Dennis said. The Irvings never used our front door; they crossed through the gate at the yard in the rear and came through the arcade between our house and the garage.

  Our living room was comfortable enough for two couples to mingle, though the playpen cramped our path to the kitchen. Dennis claimed his favorite seat, of course, the womb chair. Buying that had been a splurge. It was a roundish, padded designer piece all covered in red wool. I thought it, like so many modern designs, looked born of a spaceship. Dennis admired its wide molded arms and skinny pole legs. Pauline had called the womb chair “deliciously avant-garde.”

  As parents, we couples had no trouble hearing the television program over the children’s blabbering. We were used to a ruckus. In no time the show’s intermission came. I got a twinge of butterflies in anticipation of Pauline’s reaction to my news.

  Bob, who was an up-and-comer at Procter & Gamble, was spouting off about how the Reds would lose the pennant again. Dennis rose and reached into the playpen to stack blocks with the babies. “How’s it going, kiddos?” Such a good daddy.

  Pauline trailed me into the kitchen for refills, wearing an outfit that might have come out of a photo spread in Life magazine. Tonight, while I wore a belted A-line dress and pumps for casual entertaining, Pauline had said her costume was designed expressly for women to watch the television. Her mother had picked it up during a seasonal spree to New York. It paired a snappy red, short-sleeved top with some sort of gold-striped slacks. The cut of the legs was so full, it was hard to tell if the gear was a spinoff of a sailor suit’s belled bottoms, or a floor-length, billowy wrap-around skirt one might wear someplace like Morocco. The outfit, I had to admit, was ideal for stretching out on the floor in front of the set or lounging on one end of the sofa with a cocktail dangling in one hand—or sitting spread-eagle on our ottoman while lighting a cigarette and laughing gaily as she did.

  “No more gin gimlets for you?” Pauline said as I arranged another round for everyone else with my glassware and pitcher.

  “Water’s fine for me,” I said. Expectant Motherhood, our popular pregnancy manual, advised that a single cocktail was harmless, and ten or fewer cigarettes a day were fine, too. But regardless of how movie stars smoked on the silver screen practically as a means of foreplay, I’d never picked up the habit like Dennis had. Mama had always said that people who smoked had money to burn.

  Pauline checked to make sure the guys had stayed put. Then she looked me square in the eye and said, “All right, Millicent. Spill the beans.”

  Pauline and I’d been neighbors for three years. She knew I roasted chicken on Tuesdays, dusted on Wednesdays, washed laundry on Thursdays, and went to the beauty parlor on Fridays. She knew my preferred brand of lotion was Jergens. She knew that Abbie wasn’t my favorite Glenn relative. She knew I loved the songs by our hometown girl Doris Day, and I was so-so about Dinah Shore. Pauline sensed something was up, and she was right.

  “I’m late. For the second month.” I grinned, but her eyebrows spiked.

  She slipped the ice cube tray out of the freezer compartment and whispered with a sideways stare, “Good Lord, Janie’s not even a year old.” She pulled up on the tray’s metal handle to crack the ice and unstuck her fingers from the frost, and then she plopped four cubes into the metal shaker.

  “True. It’ll be a circus. But I’m happy, you know?”

  “I recall the first time we met,” Pauline said, “you were touring me through the model house and said you’d always wanted enough children to fill a birthday party. I’m happy for you. I take it you haven’t told Dennis?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Why not?”

  I leaned in and whispered. “Will Dennis let me work at all once I have two children to raise? How will I react if he doesn’t?” Pauline appeared to ponder this predicament.

  I scooped more chip dip into the serving bowl. I’d sautéed sweet onions in butter, stirred them into sour cream and Hellmann’s, and added three drops of Worcestershire sauce. I reached for the big red tin of chips and pried off the lid, distracted.

  Dennis called Pauline and me from the living room. “Girlies, Gene Autry’s back, and he’s getting ready to sing.”

  “Coming,” I said. “Wish me luck for when I decide to tell him.”

  “There are two ways to a man’s heart—I mean, two ways to a man’s head,” Pauline said, giggling. “Either through his bed or through his belly. I recommend you first serve his favorite dinner, and then . . .”

  “I’ll take that under advisement.”

  “You’ll have to buy a bigger house, you know,” Pauline said as she spooned Jell-O into cups for the kids.

  “We’re not ready to move up.” I lifted the serving tray of drinks and chips and nodded for Pauline to follow. To her, their place was a first home. To me, after the way I’d been raised, our place was a palace.

  “If having another baby will move us up to a newer model,” Pauline said, “I’ll wear Bob’s favorite peignoir set tonight.” She
winked, and I rolled my eyes.

  The next day, I had to get past the hurdle of telling Dennis I was pregnant—and hope he didn’t cut back on my business duties. When would I get to squeeze the conversation in? He had hurried off to a job site that morning, and we had a neighborhood party to attend that night.

  I sprawled on the sofa and rubbed my hand across my flat tummy, feeling a tad nauseous. It wouldn’t be long until I was big and round again. Maybe our next one would be a boy. The children might almost be like twins, live-in playmates at a mere sixteen months apart. The idea of doing double-duty with diapers didn’t faze me. Well, perhaps it did a tiny bit. But I had every modern convenience, including a Maytag AMP automatic clothes washer and a built-in wall oven. I didn’t have to bend over. I had a Hoover electric vacuum for cleaning our wall-to-wall carpeting and owned one of the first dishwashers among our set. But still, I’d have to manage my time well to do the construction company’s paperwork and call in some ads along with everything else. Getting the children down to nap—both babies at the same time—would be key for tackling the messier chores such as cleaning the bathroom and the tasks requiring more concentration, like handling the checking account. There were nights that Dennis worked late, too, especially during long summer days like this when daylight lasted longer. So I’d have that time as well.

  Was Janie stirring in her room?

  Raggsie scampered in and propped his paws on my legs, wiggling his shaggy tail. That confirmed it. Naptime was over. I rose, my stomach settled for now.

  I cracked open the door to Janie’s room and smelled Johnson’s Baby Powder and a hint of wet diaper. She sprang up and down on her crib mattress to greet me. Her cheeks flushed, and she had a full smile—a smile with four teeth, two on top and two on the bottom, and dribble stringing from her lip to her chin. I kissed the tiny wrinkle marks the sheets had left at her temples, that salty-sweet sugarplum skin where her curls were matted from deep-sleep sweat. Preciousness. I lifted her warm body, and she nestled her head into the well between my shoulder and neck. I caressed her plump, padded bottom, clothed in Minnie Mouse pants that fastened down the inside of each leg. Her cloth diaper hadn’t leaked outside of her rubber panties.