A White Room

by Stephanie Carroll

  I didn’t say much at dinner that night. I was too nervous to fake conversation. What I was about to do was far worse than what I had been doing. It would ruin John if anyone found out I was providing medical care to the poor, but performing an abortion? I didn’t even know if I could.

  After dinner, James and Carmine retired to the parlor, and John asked me to join him in the library. I hoped he didn’t notice that anything was out of place. I had spent the afternoon researching medical texts and his court records and testimonies, learning everything I could—how people had done it, the risks, what would happen afterward, everything.

  John sat behind his gothic desk, and I sat in one of the chairs on the opposite side.

  “What did you do today?”

  I feigned confusion.

  “Did you see Margaret Bradbridge?”

  My heart jumped and my stomach tightened. “I made a few calls.”

  “Did you apologize?”

  “Of course.”

  “Don’t lie to me.”

  I was afraid to look at him, but I did. “I apologized.”

  “Dr. Bradbridge received an impromptu visit from his wife today.”

  My heart felt like a panicked critter trying to escape.

  “Did you ask her to steal medicine from him?”

  I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.

  “Well, did you?”

  “Um—I—”

  “Why?”

  I fiddled with my wedding ring.

  “Was it for you?”

  “No. No! It was for a man.”

  “What?” He shot out of his chair.

  I stood. “No. I mean,” I stuttered, “the church committee was helping a man. He was in severe pain, so Ella sent the committee to do whatever they could to help.”

  “What?”

  “He’s suffering.”

  “He should be seen by a physician.”

  “Dr. Bradbridge refused!”

  “What?”

  “He saw Dr. Bradbridge and he refused to treat him.”

  “Are you talking about that man? The man you argued about? The very subject you were to apologize for?”

  “Well—I—”

  “You agreed you’d apologize for your behavior, but instead you tried to make Margaret steal from her husband—my client? What possessed you to think—”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “I don’t care!”

  “John?”

  “No.” He pointed at me. “You—”

  I lowered my eyes.

  “You are lucky the Bradbridges are sympathetic to your affliction.”

  “Affliction?”

  “I’m worried about you.”

  My mouth hung open.

  “Dr. Bradbridge wants me to send you away.”

  “Please, John.” I clasped my hands like Lottie had a few hours earlier. “I’m not insane.”

  “I want to believe that.”

  “I thought Mrs. Bradbridge would be sympathetic.”

  “And steal?”

  “No. I asked her to talk to her son and request he donate some, but she wouldn’t.”

  “So you went to stealing?”

  “No—I just.” I couldn’t defend doing what I’d done. “I just wanted to help someone.”

  “And you trust your own opinion more than Dr. Bradbridge’s?” He folded his arms. “If he didn’t offer it, then it wasn’t necessary.”

  “He didn’t offer it because he thinks he has the right to judge and punish. He assumed the man was a drunk.”

  His jaw tightened. “Who is this person?”

  “Mr. Hughmen isn’t a drunk.”

  “Stop.” He put out a hand. “I don’t know what the committee is doing, but what you are doing is not acceptable.” John stood and walked around his desk, and I shifted to face him. He took my left hand in his and ran a finger over my wedding ring. He squeezed my hand and caught my eyes with his. “I don’t like people telling me to send you away.”

  I remembered what James had said. Did John really love me? I had wanted so much for him to love me, for me to love him, but we’d been stilted for so long. For so long, I’d thought that I was willing to love him and that he was the one who didn’t love me. His demeanor toward me had changed over the last several months, but I was so determined to punish him that I refused to see love, and now that I knew it was there, a part of me ached for it.

  “Do you understand why you were wrong?”

  I choked on my whisper. “Yes.” Did I even deserve his love after having betrayed him this way? What would all this do to him if he ever found me out or if I left him?

  “You won’t do anything like this again?”

  I stared at the floor and breathed out my lie. “I won’t.”

  Thirty-Eight

  October 1901

  John went to work in the morning and I feigned my way through conversation with James and Carmine during breakfast, unable to concentrate. I spent the rest of the morning doing chores I couldn’t skip as my belly burned with nervous energy. Around noon, I excused myself to go to town and went to my chamber to change into something suitable for errands.

  I chose a loose-fitting white chiffon dress with half-sleeves and lace details on the bosom. A ribbon wrapped around the waist provided the hourglass figure, but it could be adjusted, which meant I could wear it without a corset. I wanted to go without the corset so that I could have full mobility. The dress was only for appearances, and I was sure I could get away without the corset if I saw anyone for a brief moment. Then I picked through my wardrobe and chose a simple gray shirtwaist without lace or embroidery, a black skirt, and an old apron, which I packed into a large black bag along with various tools I had prepared. I stopped at the sight of my reflection in the mirror adorned with the design of the metallic woman and the wind. I realized I had started wearing all white. I had transitioned into the last phase of mourning. Did that mean I was letting him go? Would it all just disappear like mist? Could I allow that? I couldn’t think of it then. I refocused, left the house, and rushed through the woods toward Lottie’s.

  Lottie had sent all her children out, so when I arrived the little home was quiet and bare, very different from the dwelling I had once stumbled upon, with little ones running and hooting outside. When she let me in, we didn’t speak. I moved past her to her stove, where I put on a pot of water to boil. I quickly changed out of my white dress and gave it to Lottie, who hung it so it wouldn’t wrinkle. I put on the working skirt and shirtwaist and went to the corner where Lottie had prepared as clean an area as possible. She had laid out a washed but old blanket and set up a wooden box with a clean cloth over it, where I lined up the instruments I had brought. They were mostly makeshift versions of the surgical tools I had seen in college and read about in John’s books, but I had some real ones, too. “Where is your husband?” I asked.

  “The fields.” She watched the water.

  “Is it possible he will return?”

  “No, and even so—he knows.”

  “Oh.” I stared at the pot with her, wondering if she knew that a watched pot never boils and if that was her intention. I took the apron out of my bag, and Lottie tied it on me. Little bubbles appeared at the bottom of the pot. The fire in my stomach radiated to my face. I had to remind myself to breathe. Lottie could die, I thought. I could kill her. I was going to end a life. No—I closed my eyes and told myself it wasn’t alive yet, not before quickening, not before quickening, not before quickening. When the bubbles streamed to the surface, I took the pot off and placed it near the bed we’d prepared. I got down on my knees. “You have to lie down.”

  Lottie hesitated, arms crossed, standing near the stove. She stepped forward, stood on the blanket, waited a moment and then lowered herself to the bed. She quivered a little. I analyzed her position. “This will not do.”

  “What?”

  “Do you have something you can put under you—to prop yourself up?”

  She s
tood back up and fetched a rolled-up blanket.

  “Are you certain no one will come?”

  “Yes.” She placed the rolled-up blanket on the mattress.

  “I need light. I need to open the windows. If anyone came by…”

  She shook her head. “Ain’t no reason anyone ganna come here.” She went to the window above where we were working and opened the shade.

  “What about your children? There’s no chance they’ll return early?”

  She sat in front of me. “Made certain of it.”

  “You are positive?”

  She raised her voice. “I said I am.”

  “All right.” I picked up a long tiny tube.

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s a catheter.”

  “What’s it do?”

  “I’m not going to use it for what it’s meant for.”

  I placed it into the boiling water to sterilize it.

  “Now what are you doing?”

  “Remember the germs?”

  She nodded.

  “I’m killing them.”

  “Oh.”

  I pulled the catheter out. “Are you ready?”

  Her eyes met mine.

  “Lie back and don’t look down here.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t want you to move.” I also didn’t want her to see blood.

  I positioned her legs so that they opened the hole in her drawers. I used a pair of forceps I had fashioned from kitchen tongs. Lottie made a noise of discomfort. “Did I hurt you?”

  “No, keep goin’.”

  I took out a curette, a long instrument with a curved tip—another tool I had fashioned, this one from a metal coat hanger. I remembered the way they’d talked about it at the dinner and then pushed it from my mind. I was helping my friend. She needed this. I dipped it into the boiling water. If I inserted it too far, I could puncture the uterine wall and she would die. I slid the catheter into her, using it as a guide. I read how a catheter could be used in this manner from testimony in John’s records. Everything I did was blind. Even with forceps, I didn’t have a visual advantage. I removed the curette from the water and cooled it.

  A professional would use the curette to scrape the inside of the uterus, but I wasn’t a doctor. Even physicians accidentally injured women in the process, so I planned to use it another way described in John’s records. Several women were not injured when the midwives used a curette-like instrument to agitate the womb, which forced a miscarriage and mimicked natural loss.

  I inserted it. Lottie made a noise and jerked a little. I went rigid.

  “I didn’t mean to move.”

  “It’s all right.” I told myself to breathe.

  “Keep goin’.” She swung her arm up and over her eyes.

  Breathe. I removed the curette. My heart began to beat rapidly when I saw a little red on the curette. I wasn’t sure if this meant I had succeeded or failed.

  I took some cotton balls with a smaller pair of tongs and dipped them in the water. I cleaned her as best I could and packed her with cotton, with the catheter still in. The second purpose of the catheter was to act as a further irritant. I was to leave it in to make sure the process completed. She made sounds of discomfort, but I kept going.

  “Wrap this around you.” I handed her a towel.

  “Is it done?”

  “Yes.”

  She tried to sit up.

  I thrust out my hand. “No, stay down.”

  She stopped and lowered herself again.

  I scooted to her side so she could see my face. “The catheter is still in. Tomorrow at this time, take it out. You should rest for the next couple of days. You will feel pain and bleed as…” I stopped.

  She nodded.

  I cleaned my instruments and packed them in a dry cloth in my bag. I removed some pills from my satchel and put them on the box and pushed it closer to Lottie. “Take these quinine pills every three hours and walk around a little, then straight back to bed.”

  She gulped.

  “Send Oliver if anything goes wrong.”

  There was a small smear of blood on my apron. I took it off, balled it up, and put it with the other rags we’d used. “Could you get rid of this for me when you throw out the rest?”

  She nodded.

  I changed out of the work clothes, rolled them into a bundle, and packed them into my bag. I changed back into my dress, fussed with the buttons going up the back and the neck. “I would stay, but I have to go before John returns.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  I formed a comforting smile. “No need.”

  I trudged through the woods at a brisk pace. It was late, nearly evening, and I still had to prepare dinner. Twigs and foliage crunched beneath my feet. Listening to it, I noticed something. There was more crunching than my steps could take credit for. I stopped, and so did all the noise. I tried to quiet my breath and listen, but a humming in my head drowned out sound. I felt my heart flutter. Something snapped nearby. My heart pounded, and I spun around but didn’t see any movement. Was there something out there? My mind raced and I thought of the house, the wolf. Was it back? Or was it real? Was this what it had been waiting for? No matter how much good I’d attempted, I’d known this was coming. I deserved to be punished.

  I quickened my step. I prayed in my head for it to be nothing, a small animal, a squirrel. The crunching behind my footsteps sounded again and quickened. I ran without thinking, and I heard the sounds of running behind me, too. I envisioned the gnarly, matted wolf nearing my ankles.

  It snatched me—by the arm. By the arm? I screamed and tugged, but I was held in one place. He took my other arm and shook me. “Emeline!”

  I stopped, breathing rapidly. I was trapped in his furious eyes. “John?”

  “I saw you.” His sleeves were rolled up to the middle of his upper arms. He wasn’t wearing a jacket. He hadn’t been taking a stroll. “I saw what you were doing.” He squeezed.

  “What?”

  He released me and reached down, snatching the bag with my incriminating tools. “Mr. Buck told me what you’ve been doing—poor excuses, mysterious places, and that you went into the woods. I saw everything!”

  I shook my head. “No—what you saw—”

  “Quiet.” He pointed at me with the hand holding the bag. He regarded it and then launched it into the woods. I heard it land far away. He held his finger close to my lips. “I don’t want to hear you say another word. Don’t.”

  I obeyed.

  He took me by the wrist. “I have put up with this long enough.” He jerked me and I almost fell forward, but he pulled me up and onward. I tripped over my dress and muddied it as he pulled me behind him. “You’ve made a fool of me.”

  I wanted to beg. I wanted to plead.

  “Right under my nose.”

  I couldn’t think, and I couldn’t do or say anything.

  “How could you do this? How?” John pushed away the last tree branches, which scraped at my arms as he dragged me. I saw the house waiting for us—laughing.

  Thirty-Nine

  1900

  St. Louis, Missouri

  A few days after learning that John had agreed to marry me, I saw him on the street in St. Louis. I was so confused at the time, grateful yet terrified because it meant moving to Labellum. Mother had asked me to run to the bakery for tea cakes because of the callers coming to congratulate us on the betrothal. It was still early morning when I strolled out of the bakery with a box of cinnamon-raisin cake, lifted my gaze, and saw him across the way in a brown suit, his waistcoat visible under the unbuttoned jacket. I knew it was him right away because of his body’s angled structure, his pale face, and his dark slicked-back hair.

  I saw him immediately because of the way he’d left the brick building, down and across the street from me. He slammed the door open hard and stalked out with long, powerful strides. His presence stopped me. He took several steps onto the walk, halted, put both hands on his hips
and stood for a moment. Then he dropped his hands, turned and took a step back toward the building, stopped, and turned again.

  It would have been perfectly acceptable for me to approach him, given that we were betrothed, but I hadn’t dared. Although I would never have characterized him as a violent man, he was suddenly intimidating. He paced, stopped, rubbed the back of his neck, and started pacing again. He acted as if he were arguing with someone in his head. A few times he pulled out his handkerchief to wipe his face in one full circle. He ran his hands through his hair, touched his face and let out a long hard gust of air like a halted train. I was far enough away that he didn’t feel me staring at him. Still, I stepped to the side of the walk and pretended to fiddle with my box. I could make out his hardened brow and stern jaw line.

  I wondered what could have made him so upset. On the building he had come from, there was a small sign above the door, and I tried to read the lettering. I could make out only one word, printed larger than the rest: Law. It had to have been his father’s law firm.

  As I watched him pace in front of the building, I tried to imagine loving him. He wasn’t a robust man, but he was beautiful in his strange way, with his dark eyes, high cheekbones, long legs, and full stride. It couldn’t be hard to love a man who looked like that. Finally, he stopped and moved toward the door. I thought he’d stomp back inside, but instead he kicked the building. He stepped back, hopping in pain. I giggled to myself. He took several big breaths, unclenched his fists, and buttoned his jacket. Finally, he lowered his shoulders and calmly walked back inside.

  I wondered if he got angry often. I wondered if he would get angry with me. I told myself I would never do anything to make him angry. I would forget my own fears and wants. I would do it for my family, for my father. I would serve John, care for him, and make our home his sanctuary. I would make him fall absolutely in love with me.

  Forty

  October 1901

  Labellum, Missouri

  John swung open the door and the house heaved. Without lighting a lamp, he pulled me behind him. He yanked me down the dark hall and marched us up the stairs. All the doors were shut again. Where was James? Without a lamp, I couldn’t see anything. I felt John pulling me up each step and heard feet scuffling. I felt my feet hitting the risers and tried to keep my legs from buckling. I felt him drag me around the first right. How was he able to see? My boots clacked and scraped with each step. He pulled me through the isolated portion of the staircase. I wondered if the walls might close in on me, seeing an opportunity to encase me in darkness, but they let us pass.