I wanted to tell her that I’d auditioned for the school play. It was Shirl’s idea; she talked me into it at recess and said all I had to do was stay after school and sing “Over the Rainbow.” We practiced in the corner of our empty classroom, and I tried to sound just like Judy Garland. I thought if I could show talent, maybe the girls who ignored me day after day might think, We were wrong. Maybe we’d begin to sit together at lunch and trade snacks. But when we gathered in the auditorium after school and I took my turn beside the piano, I couldn’t make any words come out. The tune started again, from the beginning, and after a long delay, I sang in a strained and trembling voice, stopping before I got to the chorus, and simply sitting back down in my seat.
This was a story I could never tell Dad or Phil. As I sat absolutely still on my bedroom floor, I found I could hold my mother there, could see her long orange hair and watery eyes, and feel how she took her time when I needed her.
There you go, Bear. There you go.
I didn’t hear my dad open the door to my room. Only when I saw him standing there, holding a dirty sock, did I realize I’d been talking out loud. I sat up, feeling physically cold and groggy, my arms heavy like sandbags. I thought I was in trouble, but he said in a soft voice, “Why don’t you get yourself ready for bed. I think you could use some extra rest.”
I could not answer him, could not even move. I closed my eyes, not ready to leave my mother.
MAY 29, 1991, 9:31 AM
A BEARDED DOCTOR, WITH G.W. HOSPITAL sewn over the pocket of his lab coat, sticks out his hand. “Matilda Harris?”
“Yes,” I say, trying to sit up, but first I have to arch awkwardly to sweep my hair from under my hips.
The doctor’s shoulders tilt back just a touch, forcing his chest out, and he takes a deep breath and sighs as if I’m holding him up. “How are you feeling now?” he asks with some impatience in his voice.
“A little better.” Finally we shake hands. “Lying down helps. And the water, I guess.”
“Very good. Well”—and his pointer finger taps against his beeper—“I’ve made contact with your regular doctor.”
I catch the slightly parental tone in his voice, the very subtle twist at one corner of his mouth. It’s something I’m sensitive to—being judged, written off. I can only imagine what my doctor shared of our private talks or my too-frequent visits, usually with a sense that something’s wrong that I can’t quite name or locate in the body. I’ll have trouble breathing, but everything sounds fine through the stethoscope. I lose my voice but have no strep. I have pains where there are no bruises or fractures. And I’m sent home, the doctor irritated with me again.
This was actually one of the bonuses of moving—a chance to start fresh with a doctor who will listen and not dismiss my complaints.
“I appreciate that a woman who’s pregnant for the first time can feel a little nervous.”
The hair stands up on my arms like spikes. It makes me touchy when people try to tell me what’s real and what’s not.
Dad speaks up. “Her husband’s out of town, and she just moved. That would cause a person some stress.”
“Dad, stay out of it.” And turning to the doctor I ask, “Why are you talking to my dad when I’m the patient?”
“It’s understandable that you’d feel some anxiety right now,” he says, looking directly at me as he folds his arms across his chest. “Some people even get what we call ‘phantom pains,’ which sometimes can be a person’s fears becoming so big, they feel real. A person like this wants reassurance, something friends and family could probably provide better than doctors. You just have to be careful not to use the emergency room as your first step.”
And Dad is alert. This is language that concerns him, signs of being off-kilter, not coping in situations where others do fine. I can see in his face that he believes the doctor over me and thinks these pains are in my head.
“I am not making this up!”
“Okay, Tillie, settle down,” Dad says.
I hold my belly and wince for another pain, this one so forceful it burns, even along my spine. I bend over, but nothing eases.
The doctor twists the corner of his mouth again, and Dad gives me a look that says, Tillie, stop doing that. Don’t you understand what he’s saying?
“I’ll take her home,” Dad says. “She can lie down there.”
“It’s not that easy,” the doctor says, reaching to scratch his beard. “Since she checked in, we can’t release her without an exam. I just want to be clear that the ER is for emergencies.”
“Do you really think I have time for this, to just come here because I want reassurance? I’m supposed to unpack. I’m supposed to get a new driver’s license and license plates and hook up the telephone….”
I can’t talk without crying, mascara dripping onto my enormous belly. The doctor puts his hand up like a cop stopping traffic. And it’s this sweaty, talking-too-fast state I’ve worked myself into that makes people tune out.
“Let’s just get this exam done,” he says, starting to put his hand on my shoulder, and then wisely deciding against it. “Here. I’ll take you to Room 8.” And from the doorway of Room 8, he says, “The gown ties in back. I’ll send a resident down to give you a full exam.”
“A resident. Great.” Just before he shuts the door, I work up enough courage to say what I think of him. “Asshole.” And the latch clicks.
As I get undressed, I hear the ranting drunk in the next room. I tie the gown in back but leave my shoes and socks on because I can’t reach them.
“Can I come in?” It’s a short, round nurse with a kind face who sees me behind the bed in a gown and high-tops. She smiles. “Can’t bend down to get those shoes off?”
I shake my head.
“Here. Climb up on the bed, if you can.”
She removes my shoes and socks, opens a package of foam slippers, and puts them on my feet. She’s quick: thermometer under my tongue, finger on the pulse at my wrist, blood pressure cuff on my upper arm, cold stethoscope in the crook of it, gently moving my hair out of her way, and writing down numbers.
“How far along?”
“Thirty-four weeks.”
She writes that, too, and then says, “Okay, just lie down on your back,” and pulls out stirrups for my feet. We both recoil at the sound of the drunk retching in the next room, and then the nurse is paying attention again. “Feet here. That’s it. Now, bring your bottom down to edge. A little more. There you go.” And she takes a folded sheet and covers me from my waist to the top of my thighs.
I reach down to feel if my baby is moving, but the rustle of the paper sheet and the gagging next door makes it impossible to concentrate on any of the delicate kicks and flutters.
“Dr. Young will be right in,” she says and practically bumps into him when she opens the door. “Speak of the devil.”
“Ms. Harris?” In blue scrubs with a white doctor’s coat overtop, baby-faced Dr. Young arrives so quickly I assume this is their attempt to hurry and get rid of me. He takes my vitals again as he asks, “What brought you to the ER today?” His voice is stern, as if the other doctor has already poisoned him against me.
“I’ve been having contractions all morning, and I’m only thirty-four weeks.”
“Let’s not be too quick to call them contractions,” he says, wrapping the blood pressure cuff around my arm. “Pregnant women often feel some good kicks and tugs, especially this far along. Here, I’m going to take a look at your abdomen.”
He presses and taps his fingers against my belly. “And I need to see how everything looks from the inside,” which is my cue to study every tile, every water stain on the ceiling. I’m trying my best to ignore his gloved hand, his forceful probing so close to my baby’s head—Be careful, I think—when the pain grabs hold of my back again.
“There’s another,” I moan.
The doctor is quiet, moving the wet plastic glove from one side to the other. “Okay,” he says. His voice has
a hint of surprise in it. “You’re four centimeters dilated, and your cervix is about seventy percent effaced.”
These are terms I know from reading ahead in my What to Expect book. He’s telling me I’m right. That I did feel contractions all morning. This has happened before—people trying to talk me out of my instincts, like they did when my mother disappeared—and then, like now, it would be easier if I were wrong.
When Dr. Young leaves the room, I think of the question I wish I’d asked—What now? The door, partially open, reveals a bathroom at the end of the hall. I can’t believe I have to pee again, and at first, I try to wait it out. Without clocks, the only way to count time is the rambling of the drunk next door, a man expressing what I’m feeling silently, which is we’ve been forgotten back here in our rooms.
With some effort, I roll out of the bed, which slides a little as I try to plant my feet on the floor. Luckily, no one is here to see that I’ve flashed the room. I sweep my hair out of the way and hold the gown closed in back as I make my way down the hallway. The floor is ice cold through the thin foam slippers, which feel like they may disintegrate before I even reach the bathroom.
I’m glad to find it empty, feeling I’ve waited to the last possible second to go. But after a long wait, still feeling my bladder is full … nothing. I’m just about to stand when something falls into the toilet—a small foamy clump, like something a truck driver would spit out of a window. I try to get a better look at it when someone bangs hard on the door.
“Hurry up in there!” He bangs again.
With difficulty, I manage to stand up, steadying myself with my hand on the wall when there’s more pounding on the door and an awful sound of belching. It startles me so much, I flush the toilet out of habit, and helplessly watch as the stringy mass swirls down, down until it disappears.
“Just wait!” I yell, but then put my hand on my belly, afraid my shouting will hurt the baby.
Another belch from the hallway, and I wash but don’t dry my hands. The second I open the door, the drunk, reeking of hard liquor and maybe a hamburger, pushes past me and locks me on the other side. I hear the splash of vomit.
Frozen in place, my mind races through the baby books I’ve read. Could that have been a piece of the baby? The mucus plug? What an idiot I was for flushing.
Scanning the room for someone who can help, I’m grateful when I see the nurse who’s been kind to me moving down the hallway. I’m about to follow her when I’m whipped backward, a strong pull at the base of my neck. I turn around toward the endless sound of vomiting and realize my hair is locked in the door.
“Nurse.” At first I say it timidly, overwhelmed by the embarrassment of being stuck here. “Nurse!” I shout, this time for the baby.
She turns around. “Oh, honey, you should really stay in bed the way everyone rushes around here. It’s so easy to get bumped into. Which room are you supposed to be in—eight?”
I start to cry and she comes closer, puts her arm on my shoulder to lead me back, when I tell her, “I’m stuck.”
“What do you mean you’re stuck?”
And as the vomiting continues behind us, I trace the length of my hair with my finger until it disappears on the other side of the door.
“Please,” I say, “I’m afraid I might be going into labor.”
“I think you’re right,” she says, squeezing my shoulder.
“You believe me?”
“M-hmm. Unless you’re peeing on the floor, I think your water just broke.”
And my belly tightens again as the warm stream moves down my leg. “But it’s too early!”
“One thing at a time,” she says, and pulls a pair of bent scissors from her lab coat pocket. She cuts me free from the door, wraps her arm through my elbow and hollers, “Wheelchair! Let’s get this woman up to maternity!”
15
Fever
I DIDN’T WANT TO GO to school now that the cast list had been posted for The Wizard of Oz. Most who had really bad tryouts were cast as munchkins. My tryout had obviously been much worse. I was so upset about facing my classmates I didn’t even finish my homework.
When I woke up achy and hot, it seemed I’d been given a gift. My brother thought I was faking, and I wasn’t entirely sure that I wasn’t, but Dad took my temperature. “Yep,” he said. “You have a pretty good fever.”
He shook the mercury down on the thermometer and then found a little bell I could ring if I needed him. As he went downstairs to call the school, it occurred to me that I was in the care of the man who may have murdered my mother. I wasn’t even opposed to being in his care. How does that happen? How could someone do something so horrific and I could still look forward to spending the day with him?
Out the window, kids walked down the hill with their lunch boxes and book bags. Snowy tulips stood tall and opened to the sun; winter and spring were in a battle that spring would win, which would mean another season without Momma. I turned my pillow over to cool my face when Phil came in, holding his stomach and moaning, “Oh, I can’t go to school. I’m dying.”
“Be quiet,” I said, ringing the bell to send for Dad.
“What are you calling him for?” he asked.
“I need a glass of water.”
“So go get one yourself.”
“But I’m sick.”
Finding pleasure in others doing favors for you was not only something he didn’t understand, but the whole idea made him angry. “Never mind,” he said, and went downstairs for breakfast.
I rang my bell again. I didn’t need water because I was thirsty, but because I wanted to paint. I decided to illustrate and watercolor a stack of poems I had written. This was the exact thing that Dad had lectured me not to do—to take a school assignment and simply change it into what interested me—which was why I’d hidden the paints and brushes under my covers.
Throughout the day, Dad came to check on me—every hour, like he’d set a timer—and each time he brought something: a couple of Saltine crackers, a small bowl of SpaghettiOs, a few sips of ginger ale, a Ranger Rick magazine. Sometimes he felt my forehead with the back of his hand, and if I was lucky, there was enough evidence of a fever to get another orange-favored aspirin, which was better than candy.
By the afternoon, however, the satisfaction of staying in bed and being waited on had run out. I was tired of the color of my bedspread, the sound of the ticking clock, and having to get attention on Dad’s timetable. I set off, a little lightheaded, down the stairs, but before I reached the bottom, there was Dad with a ballpoint pen between his fingers.
“Back to your room, Tillie.”
“But, Dad.”
I tried again when Phil returned from school. I would have been happy even to hear him turn the pages of his textbooks, but once more, Dad stood at the bottom step, shaking his head.
“Can’t I eat at the table?” I asked when he brought me dinner.
“You’re being a real pest,” he teased.
That night, after he said good night, my legs felt restless in the hot and tangled sheets. I had turned my pillow over, but both sides were sweaty, and I’d been lying down all day and couldn’t stand the idea of not moving until morning.
I walked downstairs, my legs not as sturdy as I thought, and I needed the handrail. The stairway was cooler, and I walked slowly so my nightgown wouldn’t rustle. When I reached the bottom, I felt the relief that my father wasn’t waiting there to send me back to bed.
All the lights were out for the night, and I found my way to the kitchen. I quietly opened cupboards, looking for something to eat, when I heard a creak below the kitchen floor, and then the sound of water running through the pipes. I froze in place, first not wanting to be caught, and then, and more urgently, not wanting to be alone. My father had been so adamant about not going to the basement that to hear him down there, and so late at night, made me curious. I grabbed a butter knife, remembering the rats.
I opened the door that led downstairs, surprised to fin
d no light on. Knife in hand, I stepped onto the cold, wooden stair, and walked into the dark. I continued to the bottom and felt the shock of the cold concrete floor. The noise seemed to be coming from behind that lone door with the knot holes showing through the paint. But in the dark, it was hard to see anything at all so I slid quietly along the drywall, feeling for the handle.
My shoulder was the first to hit the door, and the noise behind it became louder, more certain. I tried the handle, but it was locked. I knew it would be; I’d tried every door in our house. I felt hot, woozy, and didn’t want to turn around and climb those stairs again.
“Dad?” I called, hoping he’d open the door, call me Pest again, and carry me back to bed.
There was no answer. And then I remembered—how stupid of me to only remember now—that in our old house, when Phil and I chased each other, I often locked myself in one of the rooms to catch my breath. I learned quickly that Phil could always get in by turning a knife in the keyhole.
I inserted the knife and heard the button pop out on the other side. When I slowly pushed the door open, there was a flickering blue light. This was not a closet at all, but a room with no windows. And as my eyes adjusted, I noticed shelves stuffed every which way with books. Another step inside, and I discovered a couch, lamps draped in scarves, a side table, and on top: sticky jars of Pond’s cold cream, Oil of Olay and ivory makeup, cups filled with pens and makeup brushes.
The floor was full, too: stacks of books, junk food wrappers. And in the corner, on top of an ottoman, providing the room’s only light: a TV. Though the sound was turned all the way down, I was sure I heard a very faint and high-pitched hum, and the picture on the screen was nothing but bright-colored vertical bars.
Behind a second door was the noise I’d been searching for—definitely water running, then the shriek of a faucet and the water was off. It sounded very much like someone taking a bath.
Up from the Blue Page 12