Maude

  I gritted my teeth and frowned. I almost shouted, “You know how I feel about this whole situation. It’s bad enough as it is, and then he comes here drinking.”

  “Keep your voice down. Do you want Evelyn to hear you?”

  “I don’t care if she does hear me. She needs to tell that father of hers if he ever comes here again he better be sober.”

  “He wasn’t drunk. He’s only had one or two. It’s not easy for him, this happening, besides, I have a beer or two myself, from time to time.”

  “I don’t think he was drinking beer, and I know very much that you drink, George, and that you always have, and you know what? I’ve about had enough of that, too, but at least you have the consideration that you don’t drink so much that you show it.”

  George opened his mouth to say something else, then just put his palms up in front of him in surrender, turned, and left the house.

  Chapter 44

  Evelyn ate as much as any of the men. She grew bigger every day. Gene doted on her, bringing little gifts home with him the way he used to do for me, and buying her special candy. If they were in the same room he was always touching her, his hand on her arm, his arm around her waist, or holding her hand. I could clearly see that she didn’t return his affection. For so many years, I’d longed for George to touch me that way. It made me want to smack her to see that she didn’t appreciate it at all.

  Every man in my house loved Evelyn, including Paul. She and George formed a bond almost immediately, laughing together, leaning in to whisper to one another.

  Her mother and father pretty much stayed away from our place. When George asked about them, she told him that her mother had her hands full with so many children. There were six still at home, including a toddler. It was a full time job to see after them, even if Freda, the oldest after Evelyn, did a lot to help.

  Once Evelyn was living with us, her friendship with Betty Sue cooled off. I understood that. Betty Sue was crowded out of her place with her father the same way I was crowded out of Gene’s time. Sometimes, when Gene or George was making a fuss over Evelyn, how pretty she was, or something like that, Betty Sue would stomp up the stairs and slam her door. I could hear her up there, crashing around her room. A few times, she and Evelyn exchanged sharp words and I saw Betty Sue clench up her fist. I knew that if she weren’t afraid of what Gene might do, she would have punched Evelyn right in the nose.

  Paul followed Evelyn around like a puppy. He was fourteen and would do anything to get her attention, making faces like a six-year-old, standing on his head in the corner, telling stupid jokes to make her laugh.

  By the end of August, Evelyn weighed almost two hundred pounds. She turned eighteen on August 28th.

  On the 17th of the September, her water broke, and Gene went next door to Bessie’s to call the doctor. We Foleys were still scrimping to pay the bills and a car of our own and a telephone were still luxuries to us.

  Gene was told to take her to Cottage Hospital in Grosse Pointe Farms, several miles down Jefferson Avenue. There were closer hospitals, but many were flooded with American soldiers and sailors recovering from the battles going on in the Pacific and Africa.

  They took her bag and left. Gene was gone all night. When he came home the next day, he told me all about it. Evelyn was admitted to the hospital. They put her on a gurney and left it at the end of a line of gurneys placed in the hall. There weren’t any rooms available at the time, but they promised her she would get a room as soon as possible. Gene said he stood next to her and held her hand. After several hours, a kind nurse brought him a chair and put it against the wall so he could sit.

  Evelyn went into labor that night and still, no regular beds became available.

  Evelyn labored all day on the 19th and the baby still hadn’t been born. Gene came home for a few minutes to tell us what was happening, take a bath, and change clothes, then went back to the hospital.

  I had five babies born at home with no drugs and not much help. I wondered, how bad could it be to give birth in a hospital?

  Gene said he sat on his chair, still in the hospital corridor, for another long night while Evelyn suffered even more than she had the day and night before. From time to time one doctor or another would come by, lift the sheet and do a quick examination. He would pat her hand and say, “Don’t worry, it won’t be long now,” and go his way.

  They explained to Gene that drugs were in short supply and childbearing was the most natural thing in the world, not something to waste painkillers on when boys were dying all over the world. When Gene told us how she was suffering, even I felt sorry for her.

  It was early on the morning of Sunday, September 20th, that the pains got the worst. Still, Evelyn wasn’t offered any medicine to help her. Her crying and moaning became screams, and the doctor called several nurses who rolled out curtained partitions and placed them around her gurney to give her a little privacy. Gene was sent to the waiting room where he paced and prayed and worried. He called Bessie’s again to tell us that the baby was finally on its way into the world.

  Shortly after that, the nurse came and informed him that Evelyn had a healthy baby girl, nine pounds, fourteen ounces, and that the baby was doing just fine, but the mother had lost a lot of blood, and her hip had been dislocated. They finally put Evelyn in a ward that had eight beds crowded in a room built for four.

  Gene was led to her and stayed there with her for several more hours. When the nurse came in carrying the baby for Evelyn to breast-feed, he was sent out of the room. After a half-hour, the nurse came out carrying the baby, and he followed her down to the nursery. He was told to go stand in front of the window, and he could see his baby. She laid it in a little bed next to the side wall of the nursery. When the nurse saw him craning his neck to look at it, she rolled the bed over to the window so he could get a better view.

  Evelyn stayed in the hospital for three more days in a ward so packed there was barely room for the nurse to walk between the beds. Gene went back to work on Monday, but was at the hospital that night until they chased him out.

  He went on and on about that baby, like there’d never been another baby born in the world. He visited with Evelyn for a while each afternoon and spent the rest of the time staring at the pink bundle in the nursery.

  Gene borrowed an extra bed from Bessie and put it in the dining room so Evelyn wouldn’t have to walk up and down stairs for a while.

  On Wednesday, the doctor decided Evelyn had recovered enough, and she and the baby were sent home in an ambulance. I met them in front of the house. Gene handed the baby to me, and he and George locked hands, lifted Evelyn out of the ambulance, and carried her in the house.

  I pulled the blanket away from the baby’s face, expecting to see a miniature Evelyn. What I saw about knocked me out. I was holding a copy of my Lulu. The baby’s head was perfectly round, her skin pink. She opened deep blue eyes and looked up at me, then closed them and went back to sleep. Her head was covered in soft, blonde fuzz. She looked, for all the world exactly the way Lulu looked when she was first put in my arms so many years before.

  I made no move to go inside. I stood for several minutes on the sidewalk and finally went up the steps. I sat in the rocker on the front porch, rocking and staring at the child I’d expected to resent, but who already filled my heart to overflowing with love. Her plump, pink cheeks and blonde head seemed all too familiar to me, taking me back so many years to another baby girl. I knew this baby wasn’t my blood, but my heart stirred all the same.

  I didn’t know how much time passed when Gene came out to get me. He reached out his hands for the baby. “The doctor told Evelyn she had to nurse her every three hours, even if she had to wake her up, and it’s way past that now.”

  I made no move to hand her over. I just rocked and stared at that baby’s face. Gene said, “Mom, I have to take her inside.”

  I stood and held the baby even closer to my chest. I started toward the door, and Gene held it open for me. I carried h
er to the dining room that had been made into a temporary bedroom for Evelyn, and stopped several feet from the bed. Evelyn held out her arms expectantly, but I couldn’t give her the precious bundle. Evelyn frowned, “Give me the baby, Mrs. Foley. I have to feed her now.”

  Still, I clutched the baby to myself. It woke and started crying. I still made no move to give that little girl to her mother. Gene put his hand on my elbow, “Mom, give Donna to Evelyn.”

  The sound of the name woke me. “Donna? Is that her name? Donna?’

  Evelyn smiled, “Donna Lee, after Donna Reed, the movie star.”

  “What about Lee? Is that one of your friends?”

  “No, I just thought it sounded right, Donna Lee Foley,” Evelyn said, still holding out her arms for the baby, who began crying even louder.

  I looked down at that little face again and finally handed her to Gene, who gave her to Evelyn. I turned and left the room.

  I went back out to the porch and Gene came out and took the chair next to me. We sat without speaking for a while, looking out at the passing cars.

  Gene put his hand on mine and told me what went on at the hospital, “I don’t know what happened to me, Mom. When I saw that baby it was like a whole part of me that I didn’t even know existed woke. My mind hasn’t been off her for a split second ever since. I thought that I could never love anyone the way I love Evelyn, but that baby has changed my mind. I don’t care if she does belong to someone else, she’s mine. Does that make any sense at all?”

  I rocked and nodded. “It’s a funny thing, that feeling. It doesn’t always come when it’s supposed to, and sometimes it happens when you weren’t even looking for it.”

  “Is that the way you felt when we were born?”

  I didn’t answer right away. I looked out at the street and kept my face turned away from my son. I would never lie to him.

  “Mom?”

  “Like I said, it doesn’t always come when it’s supposed to.”

  Now there were two females in the house that got all the men’s attention. Even Betty Sue and Paul took to the baby. We all wanted to hold her when Evelyn wasn’t feeding her. Gene and George would come in from work and go straight to Donna, cooing and talking to her until it was time for her to get her bath and go to sleep.

  In a few weeks, Evelyn was strong enough to move her bed back upstairs to Gene’s room. She lost the extra baby-weight right off, and in only six months was as slim as ever.

  My own body had thickened a little with each birth, and I couldn’t help but resent how fast Evelyn got her figure back. I was happy to tend to the baby when Evelyn wanted Gene to take her to the movies or anywhere else.

  Betty Sue helped when she could, but she was still in school. I shopped for groceries, cooked all the meals, washed, folded and ironed for the seven of us, and did all the cleaning, including Gene and Evelyn’s room. Evelyn slept late, fed the baby, and read movie star magazines.

  I was sorry my eyes had begun to fail and I couldn’t sew and embroider the little dresses for Donna that I made for my other girls. I doted on that baby all the same. Whenever I shopped, I always found enough extra money to buy her something, even if only a pair of knit booties with little balls on the strings.

  The child thrived, surrounded by smiling, adoring adults. By the time she was a few months old, Paul was carrying her around the house perched on one hip so much George teased him that he’d be lop-sided for the rest of his life. It even softened my heart for the boy. If Paul could love this child the same as the rest of us loved her, maybe he wasn’t as hopeless a case as I’d feared.

  Chapter 45

  A little banner with a blue star on it representing a family member in the armed forces hung in the window of our front door. Early one Saturday afternoon in the spring of 1944, it shook when someone knocked.

  There stood my oldest son, Bud. His job was training new recruits. His commanding officer must have really liked him, because he didn’t set a very good example for the men. He spent most of his leave time drunk in the stockade, so we hadn’t seen him for over two years. He gave me and Paul a quick hug, then grabbed his sister Betty Sue and lifted her off the floor, twirling her around. When he set her down, he turned his attention to his father, hugging him first and then shaking his hand as if he would never let it go.

  After Gene came to see what was going on, Bud grabbed his hand, pumping it up and down. “I hear you’re an old married man now, with a baby to boot. Let’s meet the old ball and chain.”

  Gene smiled sheepishly. “Okay. I’ll call her.”

  He went to the bottom of the stairs and called up, “Evelyn, come on down here. I’ve got someone I want you to meet.”

  Evelyn stuck her head out of the bedroom door, “Just a minute, Gene, I’m…” her voice trailed off when she saw the tall, handsome man in uniform standing next to Gene. She came bouncing down the stairs with a flirtatious smile. I saw the look on Bud’s face, and I couldn’t help but snicker. He was already just as hypnotized by her as the rest of the men in the house.

  Gene wrapped his arm around her waist, claiming her as his own. “Evelyn, this is my big brother, Bud. Bud, this is my wife, Evelyn.”

  Bud never took his eyes off Evelyn. After a moment, he was jarred out of his trance, realizing he needed to say something. He slapped Gene on the shoulder. “How did an ugly mug like you ever catch this beauty?”

  There was an awkward silence, and then George said, “We just locked her up in the kitchen and wouldn’t let her leave until she married one of us. Since I’m taken, and Paul was too young, she got stuck with Gene.”

  Bud held Evelyn’s hand. “Well, I’m sorry you didn’t keep her locked up till I got here. I would have kept her for myself.”

  Gene tightened his grip on Evelyn, pulling her against him. “Well, she’s all mine. You missed the boat on that one.”

  Bud shook his head. “Too bad. That’s what I get for not getting shipped out sooner.”

  George’s face turned white. “What do you mean, shipped out? I thought they would keep you here to train the new recruits.”

  “All good things must come to an end. Just about every unit at Ft. Knox is shipping out. The war won’t last much longer. I’ve got two weeks leave, and then I’m getting my unit ready to go overseas.”

  George’s voice thickened. “Where are they sending you?”

  “Who knows? Everything’s a secret nowadays. You know what they say, loose lips sink ships.”

  I patted Bud on the arm. “You’ll be safe. I’ll pray for you every night. Right now, I’ll make you a special dinner, anything you want.”

  “Anything?”

  I smiled. “What would you like?”

  “I’ll take about ten pieces of that fried chicken and some of those float-on-air biscuits and mashed potatoes and the gravy so thick it won’t even pour.”

  “Good as done. I don’t even have to go to the store.”

  George wrapped his arm around Bud’s shoulder. “I’m going to take all three of my boys out for a beer, Maude. We’ll be back in no time.”

  My heart sank. I knew if Bud started drinking, he wouldn’t stop. “Why don’t you just stay home and let Bud tell you about what he’s been doing? I know Paul would like to hear his adventures.”

  “Paul can go with us,” said George. “He can have a Coke-cola. I want to show my boy off a little. He looks so good in that uniform, and he’s going off to serve his country. I’m proud of him. Look at his sleeve. He’s got his sergeant’s stripes back again.”

  George walked next to Bud with his arm still draped over his shoulder. They were the same height and build, and had the same gait. From the back, only the uniform and a little gray in George’s hair told them apart. Gene walked behind, and Paul ran in circles around them

  I called after them, “Dinner will be on the table at six.”

  I had dinner on the table at six sharp. I walked to the front door every ten minutes and peered down the street, but there was stil
l no sign of them. Finally, at seven, Evelyn began to complain. “I’m hungry, let’s eat.”

  Betty Sue joined in, “Let them eat when they get in, Mom.”

  So we three women had our dinner. Usually a healthy eater, I just pushed my food around. After dinner, Evelyn took Donna back upstairs to bathe her and tuck her in for the night. Betty Sue and I took the plates to the kitchen and threw a cloth over the food on the table. The men could eat it cold when they came home, whenever that would be. I heard the radio in Gene’s room come on. I knew I wouldn’t see Evelyn again that night. It was no loss to me. Every minute spent alone with her was tiresome. I had nothing to say to the girl.

  Gene and Paul came in around nine o’clock. I met them at the door, “Where are your father and Bud?” I asked. I leaned close enough to Gene that I could smell his breath. There was no trace of beer.

  “They’re still down at the beer garden,” Gene said. “The two of them are telling jokes and stories, and they’ve got everyone laughing at them. You know how they are.”

  “Yes, I know how they are. I’m glad you had the good sense to come home sober.” Gene was always the one I could depend upon, always my good boy.

  “Paul and I did have one Dr Pepper too many. Didn’t we Paul?” Gene elbowed Paul in the ribs.

  Paul smiled. “Yeah, but we won’t have a hangover in the morning, will we?”

  “That’s right,” Gene answered.

  I prodded Paul toward the stairs. “Get to bed or there’s no way I can get you up for church in the morning.”

  Paul sulked and hung his head. “I don’t want to go to church.”

  “I don’t care what you want. Get upstairs this minute.”