Millicent Glenn's Last Wish: A Novel

by Tori Whitaker

  Janie cried, and I swiftly made for her room. I settled her in the playpen in front of the television: Cartoons and Coco would amuse her for a time. I carried a stuffed wicker clothes basket to the couch. I’d gotten behind on folding Dennis’s whites. Forget about what the doctor did, he’d said at the table. I separated his cotton undershirts from his jockey shorts and then tackled one pile at a time. How could I forget about everything? I couldn’t just say Snap! It’s over.

  In our bedroom I set two neat stacks of folded whites on the bed. Darn. I couldn’t fit all his whites in the drawers anymore. I’d been putting off rearranging his dresser, but it couldn’t wait any longer. I slid open the drawer with his casual shorts and removed two pairs at a time. These could go in a box in the cedar closet until summer came again—when the forget-me-nots would bloom in the color of Dennis’s eyes. The lawn mower buzzed outside.

  What was this? As I reached in for the last pair of shorts, I felt something like paper pushed to the back of the drawer.

  I slipped out an envelope in the shadows of the drawer. It was a large manila envelope addressed to our home, to the attention of Mr. and Mrs. Dennis Glenn. Something containing my name he hadn’t shared? That rattled me. I bit the inside of my jaw. My fingers grazed the back side of the envelope. The wide lip was loose, its dry sticky-gummed seal having been ripped, its metal clip released. In the top right corner of this front side, the envelope’s postal mark noted it had been sent in early April, when I was still hospitalized. Now it was fall. I scanned the return address.

  The parcel was from the funeral home.

  The lawn mower continued its roar, louder as Dennis ambled toward the house, fainter as he walked away. I lifted the flap and peered inside.

  Enclosed were two sheets. I slipped them out, my hands moist. Laughter from the cartoon characters on the television set mocked me. Janie giggled along with them. I read the two documents.

  One was a birth certificate. One was a death certificate.

  The same name was typed into the blanks on each page: Kathleen Sylvia Glenn. Like a gravestone, these pages captured a life’s two most notable events. Birth. Death. But the paper, like the stone, was silent, giving no hint of all that’d happened in between. Seeing the tragedy spelled out so plainly on two official forms made my shoulders hunch forward; it was worse than reading the hospital administration’s letter weeks after our baby died. Kathleen had been born at 7:45 p.m. and died at 10:55 p.m. My daughter’s life had lasted exactly three hours, ten minutes.

  Trembling, I returned the documents to their envelope. I put the envelope carefully back where I’d found it, and I replaced the summer shorts in the drawer, too.

  Seeing the contents of the envelope Dennis had secreted—this symbol of his own torment, of something he’d hidden to try to protect me from pain—humbled me. He hurt, too. And he cared.

  I went to the bathroom, washed, and repaired my face. Neatened my hair. I was sitting with Janie, watching the children’s show, when the back screen door slapped against its frame and Dennis tramped in.

  “Care for some apple cider?” I asked.

  “Sure,” he said, and his dimples almost flashed.

  I had a feeling God was answering my prayer.

  2015

  I’d asked the girls to meet me at the St. Thomas Episcopal Church in the village. It wasn’t a Sunday—and even when it was, I didn’t attend regularly. But I needed to be in this sacred place now. Being closer to the presence of God had helped me years before with Dennis. It might work again in my present church with the girls. Jane and Kelsey would soon arrive, each on the precipice of a significant moment in their lives.

  And so was I, for I had something more of import to tell them—a confession I’d come to since last night by the fire.

  I sat alone for now in the quiet of the church’s nave. No sermon, no choir singing, no parishioners coughing. The reverend had waved as I passed and would not disturb me. The traditional pews had a sheen and smelled faintly of lemon oil. I’d selected the pew nearest the stained-glass window of Mary overlooking her baby in his manger. A golden glow shone from Jesus’s head. The nave’s lanterns—suspended from the tall, beamed ceiling planked with dark wood—were not illuminated. But midmorning sun shone through the window, setting its scene aglow in crimson reds and royal blues, leafy greens and shimmery yellows.

  I bowed my head, closed my eyes, and folded my gnarled hands together. Dear Lord, I prayed silently. Give me strength to bring my story to conclusion. And for the girls to accept me, no matter my weaknesses. I pray, oh Lord, for two other things, greater things beyond any hope I have for myself. I ask that You watch over my Janie—heal her. And I pray for Kelsey and the baby she will have, too: please bring that child into this world safely. In Your holy name, I ask, Amen.

  Kelsey arrived first, her windswept hair smelling of herbal shampoo. She wore maternity jeans and her poncho that looked Southwestern with its hues of turquoise, brown, and orange. She slid into the pew beside me.

  “Hi, Grandma,” she whispered. She hugged me and said, “The baby’s kicking.”

  Hearing that took my breath away. “May I?” I asked, reaching my hand over. Kelsey pulled her poncho aside. Tears welled in my eyes. My great-grandchild was shifting around inside Kelsey, and the baby’s faint movement—movement that I could foresee growing more pronounced, more visible in months to come—tickled the palm of my hand like feathers.

  “Isn’t it wonderful, Grandma?”

  “The best sensation in the world,” I said. I would never forget the feeling of my own babies leaning their rumps to my side on the right, or their elbows rippling back and forth beneath the taut skin of my tummy for Dennis and me to watch.

  Now one of those babies, Jane, appeared in the pew. She was pink in the cheeks. Kelsey moved out to let her mother sit in between us. We all had a cursory embrace. Nothing more and nothing less had happened since the night before at the bonfire. The imaginary thin string connecting Jane and me had not been cut. Not yet. But it remained stretched taut.

  “I’d almost forgotten,” Jane said, letting her gaze take in the stained glass, the ceiling, “how pretty this church is.” Her expression shifted. “But why are we here?”

  Did she mean, why had I chosen this place? Or why were we together at all?

  “Girls, thank you for coming,” I said. “There’s something from my heart I need you to hear.” Kelsey leaned forward in the pew to see me better over her mother, her elbow resting on her thigh, her jaw propped on her bent-back hand.

  “No matter what went on in that hospital on the night Kathleen passed—no matter what the doctors or anyone else did or did not do—losing the baby was really all my fault,” I said.

  They had to know this much, if not how the near-collapse of my marriage was also my fault.

  “I had changed doctors midstream. I put pride before my child.”

  Grief and alarm filled their faces in turns. “Mom,” Jane said, shaking her head left and right, “don’t you ever blame yourself for what that man did.”

  “You didn’t do anything wrong,” Kelsey said, reaching over Jane to pat my leg. “I mean, from everything you could see, you chose a fine physician. Dr. Collins had amazing credentials. Pauline had used him herself. Then he delegated someone else to you on an overcrowded night in the ward. And that guy was drunk.” Kelsey’s eyes pleaded with me. “I agree with Mom. You can’t possibly blame yourself.”

  “I decided on that doctor who Pauline had used because I wanted control. Pure and simple.” I tugged a tissue from my purse and blew my nose.

  “If there’s anything I’ve learned in the last month,” Jane said, “it’s that nobody has control. Not doctors. Not women. Nobody.”

  A silence settled over us. I could almost hear the girls’ heartbeats as shadows from clouds dimmed the glow of the stained glass. Kelsey took out a bottled water, passed it around for us to sip in the way of a communion chalice. Could it be true that they didn’t fi
nd me culpable?

  At last someone spoke. Kelsey.

  “So you made that decision. You’ve gotta know, though, that I’m sitting here this whole time thinking that if women like you hadn’t taken risks and asked for more, women like me wouldn’t have any choices.” She folded her arms to her belly.

  “She’s right,” Jane said, her eyes connecting with mine in a way I’d forever cherish.

  But it was my fault. Pride had gotten in my way just as sure as Mama’s had when she pitched those oranges out the window, one piece of fruit at a time. I too had cut off my nose to spite my own face. “But my pride—”

  “Grandma, did you ever think that maybe pride had gotten in Papaw’s way first?” Kelsey said, thoughtfully.

  That stung. I wouldn’t have expected it to, but it did. By necessity this story revealed not only my flaws, but Kelsey’s grandfather’s as well. It struck me then: I wanted Dennis to remain a hero in her eyes, even if I fell from grace. Perhaps I would tell the girls of how I’d doubted him—and of the forged papers—after all. But then, I thought, where would I stop this story? Would I continue with my candor? I would not lie. But moving forward after that, would I omit other things that happened, to protect his legacy?

  But Dennis had let me choose the doctor. I bore the ultimate responsibility.

  As the sun brightened again, and the abundant stained-glass windows of the nave were awash with colorful arch-shaped light, Jane looked at me, solemn and determined. And in that instant, I thought perhaps that here in this house of God, I was not only to have a promise of prayers being answered, but I was to get my last wish—one I’d wished way back when Jane first came home. Forgiveness. Forgiveness for having kept from her the truth about her family.

  “Ladies,” Jane said soberly, rubbing the scar at her brow. “I’ve been wrestling with when to tell you this, but now is as good a time as any.” The hair on my arms stood on end as I suddenly felt very cold. “Just as I arrived outside a bit ago,” she said, “the breast doctor phoned me personally. The pathologist’s report is already in.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  January 1952

  I had always known bitter, slicing winds in the city every winter. Nothing, though, had prepared me for the harsh winters at the farm—and it seemed worse today, here, on the far other side of the acreage, a quarter mile away, where Nathan and Abbie lived. Thank heavens the snow and gusts that whipped out of the west and charged across the sallow fields had yielded, but Nathan had thigh-high drifts against fence posts and one end of his house.

  “Here you go, Margaret,” Nathan said. He tossed the wood-and-metal Flexible Flyer into the snow at the feet of our eight-year-old niece. Margaret climbed atop the sled—not an easy task with the snow up to her knees. Making matters worse, the surface layer was frozen crisp in spots.

  But off she went down the short slope, while we all cheered her on. “Wheeee!”

  Janie was two now, and I’d bundled her up in boots and a blue snowsuit that Dennis’s sister had passed down from the boys. Our daughter looked like an imp who’d grown up in an igloo. She was getting so big—she’d even taken to climbing out of her crib at home.

  “You want a turn, love bug?” Dennis asked Janie, pointing to the sled. My heart lurched. I let loose of the lapels of my coat with which I’d guarded my face from the cold. Janie was excited, snow spraying off her mittens as she clapped her hands. I would step back and let her enjoy. She was in her father’s care. He wouldn’t let her get hurt.

  In the three months since my apology and our reconciliation, we had focused on our family. With winter snows came fewer house builds. Every morning after I served breakfast, Dennis played with Janie before going into the office. From her rocking horse to puzzles to tea parties for bears, he had his daddy time. I was unable to follow Dennis’s advice and “forget” what the late doctor had done, to put memories in little boxes in compartments of my mind, but I had learned better to count my blessings. I thought that come summer, maybe I’d take on some business duties. But certain things would trigger my guilt or grief—babies in buggies, articles on pregnancy, news of medical calamity of any sort. A daily pill or two helped contain that. Dennis and I had returned to our marital bed, and he still called me the prettiest girl a guy ever got, not to mention the smartest. That man had a way of not holding a grudge.

  Our youngest niece—Nathan and Abbie’s girl who’d been born two months before Kathleen—turned one today. Following the sledding, the Glenns would celebrate. Mother Glenn and Papa Glenn and all four Glenn siblings were here together with their spouses and children. Eighteen people in all.

  I’d taken one pill and would work hard to savor the best parts of today: Dennis, Janie, and me. My small family.

  Dennis didn’t let Janie go down the hill alone. He didn’t let go of the rope at all. He steadied her with one hand on her back and led the sled by the rope with the other. Dennis was no dummy. He’d figured out how to head off my overprotective response before it could strike. “Wheee!” Janie screamed. The other children jumped up and down, rooting for their cousin on her first downhill slide. Mother Glenn had her camera—a newer Canon where she looked through a fancy three-mode optical viewfinder—and snapped all the children’s pictures on their turns. I laughed despite myself.

  The kids—the little kids and the big kids, otherwise known as adults—started a snowball fight. Even Papa Glenn joined in. I bent, picked up two handfuls of snow, packed a ball the size of a grapefruit, and threw it at Nathan, who ducked just in time.

  Unfortunately, it smacked Abbie in the side of the head. She was fine, but I couldn’t help myself—I fell into a giggling spell the likes of which I hadn’t had in ages. I couldn’t make it stop.

  Inside Abbie’s house was a different affair. My spirits sank. It was as if every day she stepped out of Ladies’ Home Journal and swept through her rooms, a feather duster in one hand, and cream and sugar in the other. Abbie had transformed her stylish house into a one-year-old child’s paradise. Yellow crêpe paper and party streamers dangled from the living room ceiling. I had to spread them apart with my hands while walking through, the way a person on safari might do in a jungle. The colors complemented her striking walls—two of which were painted in dark Adirondack green, the other two in calabash yellow. Abbie had borrowed long folding tables from the fellowship hall at their church, and though the kiddies would dine in her kitchen, space was still tight. Nathan had moved all the living room furniture to the perimeter—a modern orange sofa, armless with its backrest button-tufted into squares, dark-green chairs, and accessory pieces in blond wood. White tablecloths covered the makeshift dining tables, and running down their centers, Abbie had twisted and taped more yellow streamers. Balloons in every color of the rainbow were tied on one chair at each table. As centerpieces, Abbie had arranged framed snapshots of the birthday girl over the course of her first year. I couldn’t bear to look at them.

  I hadn’t been in that festive room for three minutes when I had to get out. It was all too much. I would catch my breath, I thought, and return when better prepared.

  I navigated the kitchen, squeezing between Mother Glenn carrying a tray of roast beef sandwiches and Dennis’s sister clutching a stack full of plates. This room was no different. Its jolly air stifled me.

  Would the bathroom be free? I darted down the hall. I closed the door, pulled the pills from the pocket of my slacks, and popped one with two handfuls of water. Then I swallowed another pill. I dried my hands and face with a sage-green towel monogrammed in gold with a scrolling G. I returned to the kitchen to find Abbie flitting about as if she were mother of the bride, not mother of the one-year-old. She’d set her baked masterpiece on a cake stand in the center of her rectangular table. The birthday cake stood tall and proud, three layers high, and had white seven-minute frosting that she’d boiled and whipped until it was as peaked as meringue. There were lollipops on sticks with colorful swirls stuck about the cake’s top, and gumdrops running up a
nd down the sides like the twine on a drum. One pink candle graced the cake’s center. I counted to ten in my head, so I wouldn’t break down.

  I would make a beautiful cake this year, too. For Janie.

  When time came to sing to the birthday girl in her high chair, I stood beside Dennis, one arm entwined in his and holding his hand tightly. Over the years I had held hands with this man through Coney Island and the zoo and the park—but today his hand was as clammy and needy as mine. Our eyes met, and though he let it show so infrequently, his eyes harbored his own grief. It was good that I wasn’t alone in that moment. Abbie lit the candle and everyone’s voices rang out, and the children’s eyes and smiles were wide all around—including Janie’s. No one cast a sympathetic glance at us. No one had spoken that day of what they must know to be true: Dennis and I were heartbroken beneath our gay facades. In fact, no one talked about our loss at all. Ever. Not even Mother Glenn. They didn’t want to bring it up, I supposed, for fear of peeling the scabs off our wounds. They didn’t appreciate how pretending nothing had happened hurt my feelings just as much. More.

  Yet in their defense, the family didn’t know the worst. They didn’t know how Kathleen had died. They didn’t know about my becoming barren. Dennis and I had agreed to keep that to ourselves.

  Baby Linda Jo smeared the devil’s-food cake and fluffy white frosting all over her nose and eyelids and through her hair, which had finally started to grow. She licked her fingers and dropped chunks of cake on the floor. Nathan’s dogs lapped up the crumbs. We ate, and for a few moments the merriment was almost contagious because Janie and the kids were having such fun.

  Janie wiggled her fingers. “Moe cake.”

  Soon the women cleared the mess in the kitchen. I’d survived the birthday party. Papa Glenn and the Glenn sisters’ husbands took the kids back out to sled. Dennis and I would pack Janie up and leave as soon as he checked out his brother’s bomb shelter plans in the basement. Nathan was considering putting a bomb shelter underground, to house his family in case of Soviet attack. It was the latest thing. I’d read that schools had started having drills where children huddled beneath their desks, too. Nathan would be the first one we knew to build such a shelter. But I was ready to leave.