by Joani Ascher
As soon as she could walk, she went to the front door and down to Mrs. McGill’s. She knocked as hard as she could, hoping her landlady hadn’t gone out for the afternoon.
Mrs. McGill opened the door and found Jane bent over and sweating. “The baby’s coming?”
Through gritted teeth, Jane said, “Yes. Too fast, I think.”
Mrs. McGill helped Jane into the apartment and over to the couch. “Where is Olivia?”
“I sent her out for the afternoon. I don’t know where she is.”
“We have to get you to the hospital. Did you call Dr. Mann?”
Jane had never told Mrs. McGill that Dr. Mann was not her doctor during the pregnancy. This did not seem like a good time to explain. All she said was, “I have to get to St. Vincent’s.”
“What? Don’t be silly. You’ll never get all the way there. This baby would be born in the taxi. You’ll have to go to Kings County.” She took her coat from the closet. “I’ll get Mr. Johnson to drive us. You call Dr. Mann and tell him we’re coming.” She went out, leaving Jane wondering how she would explain to Dr. James and apologize to Dr. Mann for not seeing him all along.
She was still talking to Dr. Mann, after having to pause several times when she was made breathless by contractions, when Mrs. McGill returned with Mr. Johnson, who was wearing his air-raid uniform, white helmet, and carrying a first-aid kit. The landlady took the phone and told the doctor they were on the way. She listened for a minute and hung up. “He said not to stop for red lights,” she told Mr. Johnson. Taking the first-aid kit from him, she added, “And you won’t be needing this.”
The trip to the hospital seemed to take an hour even though they never stopped and barely slowed down at corners. Dr. Mann was waiting, out of breath, when they arrived. The nurse beside him wrote down the admitting information but seemed to eye Jane as if she didn’t believe a word of it. When she asked where her husband was, though, Mrs. McGill came to Jane’s defense, chastising the woman for being so insensitive to a young widow. Without another word, the nurse rushed Jane, who had added another dose of guilt about her lies to Mrs. McGill, into the delivery room, barely stopping to remove her clothes. Jane had only a brief glimpse of the anesthesia mask descending on her face before she was blessed with unconsciousness.
When she awoke from the anesthesia, groggy and with the first feelings of pain, Dr. Mann, standing above her, did not greet her in the way she expected. She had gone over the moment in her mind, during the weeks before, imagining what the doctor would say when she awoke. “It’s a boy!” Or, “It’s a girl!” But he said neither.
The sense that something was radically wrong intensified when she looked over at her sister’s tear-stained face. “Is the baby dead?” Jane asked.
Olivia groaned and burst into fresh tears. The doctor motioned the nearby nurse to take her away. As Olivia moved past the bed, she cried out, “Jane, I’m so sorry.”
Dr. Mann shook his head. Looking back toward his patient, he pulled out a stool from under the bed and sat down next to her. “The baby is alive. But he is not healthy.”
Jane was so happy her baby was alive that she barely listened as he explained. But as the words came through, she began to understand—worse, to realize.
“The baby is mongoloid,” said Dr. Mann, his face frozen with grief. “He will never be normal.” He coughed. “Indeed, he will be severely retarded.” He coughed again. “You’ll have to put him into an asylum. In all likelihood, he’ll die shortly.”
Jane gripped the sheet on which she lay. “No!”
The nurse brought a large needle and gave it to the doctor. “I know this is hard for you to accept,” he said, pushing the plunger enough that a small amount of liquid shot out, “but it will be for the best. Children like that,” he stabbed Jane’s arm with the needle, “are not capable of anything. I’m sorry.”
As she drifted off, Jane thought of Lloyd and of his sister who had this terrible affliction. Their parents had felt it best to keep her home, and she had done well, according to Lloyd. As sleep took over, Jane realized something else. This affliction could have come from Lloyd. A last gift of his “love.”
****
Jane awoke Sunday afternoon, just in time to see three infants brought into the room she shared with three other women. Each woman was given a tightly wrapped bundle, two of which were crying, small plaintive baby cries that made the mother in Jane nearly wild with anticipation for her own child. She was nervous, afraid of how he’d look, but ready to see him.
Several minutes passed and he still did not appear. A nurse stopped in to see how the other mothers were doing, and Jane asked her where her baby was.
“In the nursery,” said the nurse, scowling. “There are orders that he be kept there.”
“I want to see him. It must be time for his feeding.”
“I’m sorry. You’ll have to discuss that with your doctor.”
Jane was left languishing, waiting for Dr. Mann. Everywhere she looked she saw the other mothers with their babies, and her heart ached. When Dr. Mann came to examine her, she told him how unhappy she was that her baby did not come to her room.
“I wanted to spare you,” he said. “If you don’t see him, it will be easier to place him in an institution. It’s for the best.”
“I want to see him,” Jane insisted.
“We’ll talk about it tomorrow. Don’t worry about him. He is being well taken care of, and he is eating.” He picked up his medical bag. “I’m sure when you’ve thought it over you will see that I’m right.”
But after another morning of seeing her roommates with their babies, Jane was more determined than ever. When Dr. Mann came to see her, she gave him an ultimatum. “If you do not have my son brought to me, I will get off this bed and go find him myself.”
“You can’t do that. You must stay in bed. You just gave birth.”
“I feel fine. I could have gotten out of bed yesterday, and I will now if he doesn’t come here.” She pushed off the blanket and moved her leg to the side of the bed.
“Jane, no.” Dr. Mann covered her up again. “He’s in the isolation section. I’ll have him brought in.” He hurried away.
It hurt Jane terribly that her baby had been kept isolated from the other children, as if they could catch his dreadful problem from him if they were close by. But she wiped away her tears and held her breath while the child was wheeled into her room. All the other babies had been carried in—it seemed no one was willing to touch her son. The privacy curtains were drawn around her, leaving her alone. The last glimpse she had of the other women in the room was of their pitying faces.
Jane peered over the top of the bassinette. Inside lay a pink little baby, sleeping peacefully. Jane watched, forgetting for a while all the horrible things the doctor had said, all the sympathetic looks the nurses had given her, even her sister’s grieving face. He seemed so sweet, smelling like a baby smelled, at least the ones she had babysat for. The doctor had said he ate well enough. Jane wondered if anyone held him while he drank from his bottle.
After a little while, the baby opened his eyes. They were slate blue in color, but the most noticeable thing about them was their shape. They slanted upward, surrounding his flat nose. His head seemed so small, so much smaller than the head of the baby of the woman in the next bed. His ears were small too, and his hands were stubby. But to Jane, he was the most beautiful baby in the world.
She moved to the edge and reached into the bassinette. The baby was so light, so fragile, when she picked him up, but he looked at her, making a connection she knew instantly could never be broken. She would not put him into an asylum. Never.
Chapter Ten
Olivia came to visit her that evening, after sitting in Jane’s office all day. Although they had worried that people would wonder where Jane was, Olivia reported that no one who called questioned her. “When they ask for Miss Baldwin, I say, yes, because I am, and they tell me what they want. I guess I sound enough like you t
hat they can’t tell us apart on the phone.”
Jane giggled. “Maybe no one will have to know I’m out.”
Olivia shrugged. “If someone does, I’ll tell him you’re sick with the flu.”
“Good,” Jane said. She leaned back against her pillows and sighed, while the other women’s babies were carried in for their feedings.
Biting her lip, Olivia looked nervously at the door. When it did not open again, she looked at Jane, a question in her eyes.
“They didn’t want me to see him,” Jane said, controlling the distress in her voice. “But I insisted, so I know they’ll bring him eventually. It’s as if I have to fight the whole world to be allowed to mother him.”
Olivia’s eyes held tears for her sister. “Maybe you shouldn’t. Dr. Mann said—”
“Olivia!” Jane’s voice was sharp. “When you declined to go see Lloyd’s sister, I let you. But I can’t let you give in to your squeamishness when it comes to Zachary.” She had named him Zachary Zebulon Baldwin, after their father.
“How can you call him that? Wouldn’t Father have been unhappy to have that poor baby named after him?”
“If you insist, I will change his name. But I will not send him away. When you look at him, you’ll realize it’s okay that I named him after Father. He is not a defective piece of merchandise to be returned to the manufacturer. I made him. He is my son.”
“It’s all Lloyd’s fault,” Olivia exclaimed.
“We don’t know that for sure. But we do know he belongs with us. I love him, and you will too.”
“I can’t. Dr. Mann said babies like that can die.”
“You haven’t even seen him.” She broke off as the door opened and a nurse pushed the baby’s bassinette into the room. She had no smiles for Jane as she had for the other mothers, and she took pains to completely enclose them with the curtains as she left, keeping the other women and their visitors from having to see the mongoloid baby. Jane watched as her own sister turned away, but she held her temper. “Come over here,” she said softly. “Look at my baby.”
Paling even more, Olivia did as she was told. She edged closer toward the bassinette, all the while looking as if she would like nothing more than to run out the door.
“Go on,” Jane said.
With her eyes wide, Olivia peered over the top. But Jane could tell she was not looking at Zachary’s face. “Look at him. Please.”
Olivia’s eyes moved up toward the top of the crib. She stood motionless for a moment, then a look of surprise crept over her face. “He’s so darling!” she cried. “Oh, Jane. I didn’t know.”
Jane’s heart leaped, and a great weight fell away. “Will you help me?”
With tears running down her face, Olivia looked at Jane, then back at the baby. “Yes.”
****
Olivia had a million questions when she visited Jane after work, such as what the term “at the market” meant.
“It means you will take the stock at the lowest price your broker can buy it for you, or sell it for the highest,” Jane explained.
“Why can’t they just say that? And what in the world is Bessie?”
Jane laughed. “It’s shorthand for Bethlehem Steel. Don’t worry about it. Just do as I told you, call in the orders, and they will get handled. Then you settle up with the buyers and sellers. Mr. Weaver’s clients don’t expect you, or actually me, since you’re sitting in for me, to advise them.”
“But you do sometimes, Jane. You’re really smart about the stocks. Didn’t Mr. Weaver tell you that?”
“He did. He thinks of me as a kind of protégé. And one of his clients said that if I were a man, I would probably have a future in the field.”
Olivia smiled. “I thought you intended to anyway.”
“Well, I don’t know about having my own seat, as Mr. Weaver will. There has never been a woman member. Although now would be a good time to try to buy one. I hear they’re going for under twenty thousand.”
“That’s out of your price range,” said Olivia. “Unless there’s something you haven’t told me. But I thought you were planning to be a broker.”
“Yes, like Mr. Weaver is now. I will, you’ll see. Now you had better get home and get some rest. You’ll have to fill in for me again tomorrow.”
“Have you decided who to put as the baby’s father on the birth certificate?” Olivia asked.
“It can’t matter now,” Jane said sadly. “His father will be unknown. I don’t care anymore.”
The day she brought the baby home, Mrs. McGill and several of the neighbors crowded in to see him. Mr. Dobbin, who had sent a huge bouquet to the hospital, took a few hours off from work to come greet the new addition.
Olivia had not been able to find the words to tell them all about the baby, it appeared. Mrs. McGill was the first to take a look and she cried out, “Oh, how horrible!” The others strained to see, and Jane turned away, running to her bedroom. Even though the door was closed, she could hear cries of dismay when Mrs. McGill told them what she had seen. Those soon turned into expressions of sympathy with a few suggestions that Jane send the child away.
In her bedroom she looked at her baby, sleeping contentedly in her arms, and wept.
****
Jane saw no one for the rest of the week. But on Saturday she asked Olivia to get Sonia while on her way to the grocery store. Since Sonia’s husband was home and could watch the children, Jane wanted to have her meet the baby. She would be returning to work soon, and it was time to arrange for his care.
Sonia came right away. “I can’t wait to see the little one,” she said. “I just love babies so much.”
Her own baby was due in two more months. She went over to the crib and looked inside, her face glowing with anticipation. Jane had just put the baby down and knew he was still awake, and peering over Sonia’s shoulder she saw him looking myopically back at her.
Sofia stepped back quickly from the crib. “What’s wrong with him?”
“Nothing,” said Jane. “He’s very healthy.”
“No, he isn’t. His head is so—he’s a monster!” She turned to leave, calling over her shoulder, “I’m not taking care of him. Find someone else.”
In shock, Jane watched her go. With no one to watch her little boy, she could not go back to work, and they would have no income. Olivia could not continue to do her job; she was already weary from pretending to be her sister. Jane found herself in tears again, as she had so many times in the past weeks. She hated what she was becoming, an emotional woman incapable of taking care of her family, and she vowed to put an end to it.
“When I go back to work,” Jane declared when Olivia returned, her determination never stronger, “I will need your help.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“I need you to take care of Zachary. I know it will mean continuing the rest of your semester at night school and giving up working for Mr. Dobbin in the evening, but it can’t be helped. We can’t wait any longer for me to go back to work.”
Olivia nodded. “I understand. I’ll do it.”
****
Leaving Zachary was much harder than Jane expected. He had a particularly wakeful night, and Jane was more exhausted that morning than she’d ever been in her life. The baby was finally asleep, though, and she did not dare wake him to say goodbye. She tore herself away when she walked out the door, and her heart felt bruised. It was as if a part of her was missing, the whole way to her office.
When she arrived, she tried to be so busy that the hours she was away from her baby would go faster. But they dragged. Even though she had so much to catch up on, she found her mind wandering and her eyes drifting to the clock, trying to imagine what Olivia and the baby were doing. Was he having a bottle? Taking a nap? Did he need a diaper change? Jane trusted Olivia completely, but it was not the same as being there herself.
At the end of that week, Jane wrote a letter to Mr. Weaver, never letting on she had been away:
Dear Mr. Wea
ver,
I want to assure you that things are well in the office. Mr. Dobbin’s business is getting more orders each day and filling them on time. I don’t know what news gets to you, so I will fill you in on the happenings here on the home front and the efforts everyone is making to help out. Just to give you an example, the auto industry stopped making passenger cars, changing over entirely to war production.
For a month or more, there was a parade of uniforms going through our parlor. Olivia’s friends each came to say goodbye. There were several naval uniforms, some army, a few marines, and one army air corps—Horace.
I know that his is the uniform Olivia will miss the most. It was so painful, watching her eyes as they followed him sadly down the steps and out the door. I knew when he was out of sight, because Olivia’s head fell forward and her dark brown hair covered her face. Then she looked up, beseeching God to protect him, and her face was wet with tears.
Jane did not mention that after Horace left, Olivia went over to Z.Z., as they had nicknamed the baby, and knelt down beside him, holding him close while she cried.
Her devotion to the little boy was strong. She cooed to him, sang to him, and was often the first to reach him when he cried during the night. Olivia was fiercely protective of him, and when Mrs. McGill’s revulsion was apparent, Jane had to hold her sister back in her defense of the baby.
The landlady had been very hard to handle. “You should have listened to your doctor,” she said, waving around the polishing rag she used for her beloved brass banister. “He should be sent away. No one will want to see him, and you’ll be trapped in this apartment alone with that child.”
“That’s none of your business,” Olivia said. “He is our flesh and blood.”
Mrs. McGill’s raised eyebrow did not stop Olivia’s diatribe. “If you can’t bear to look at my nephew, then don’t.” With that, she picked the baby up and stomped out of the room.
“Your poor departed husband,” said Mrs. McGill to Jane, as if assuming she would be more reasonable. “He must be turning in his grave about this.”