Miscarriage of Justice

by Kip Gayden

  Walter was standing in the dark, wearing his nightshirt. His clothing was tossed on a chair in the corner. When Anna came to him, he folded her in his arms and kissed her, then kissed her some more. Their breath mingled, coming quicker and quicker as hands explored above clothing, then beneath, moving more urgently by the moment. Walter cupped her breasts and smoothed his palms across the small of her back, the globes of her buttocks; Anna gripped his shoulders and pulled him into her, feeling the hardness of his body and longing for him, hungering in an immediate way in which she had never before suspected she was capable.

  They fell back onto the bed and made love intensely, their bodies knowing what to do better than they would have ever guessed. They didn’t bother turning down the coverlet, so great was their need. Walter reached his peak a bit sooner than Anna expected, but it was all right; yes, it was all right, all right. She held him as his breathing slowed, said “yes” with a fond smile when he timidly asked if “it” was agreeable to her. He was her husband, and they were joined as one flesh, just like the Bible said, and nothing would ever be wrong again.

  IN JULY, Walter and Anna moved to Chicago so he could take up his postgraduate internship at the Cook County Hospital. Chicago was the farthest either Walter or Anna had ever been from home, but Anna was excited by the prospect of finally traveling beyond the borders of north-central Tennessee and southern Kentucky. They rented a two-room flat in an apartment building on the borders of Hyde Park, near the University of Chicago. Anna began volunteering at the Rush Medical School hospital, which was also near their apartment.

  It was here, among the hardworking nurses, that Anna first began hearing about the growing women’s suffrage movement. Though entirely new to her, the ideas behind the movement intrigued her. Anna had always been independent of mind, and the notion that women ought to be allowed a greater say in the conduct of their own affairs—and the nation’s—made intuitive sense to her. She became more and more interested in current events, and often read the day’s Tribune from end to end before Walter came home from his rounds. She tried to discuss with Walter what she was reading, but he was often either too tired or seemed impatient at some of the notions she expressed. In the interest of greater harmony, Anna soon began keeping her political opinions mostly to herself.

  Walter’s yearlong internship in Chicago was succeeded by the offer of a residency at a prestigious hospital in New York. From there, the young couple traveled to Vienna, Austria, where Walter had been invited to pursue specialized studies in ear, nose, and throat medicine. During those busy days, Mabel was born, and the young family began to coalesce around the nucleus of caring for the needs of a baby. As much as Anna loved being Walter’s wife, she adored being a mother even more. Every time she looked into her daughter’s face, she felt her heart swelling with a fearful pride for the new life that had been entrusted to her care.

  At the end of the Vienna residency, Walter and Anna faced an important choice: Would Walter accept one of the several lucrative offers he had received to practice his specialty with a doctor’s group in a large city like New York or Chicago, or would they move back to Tennessee to be nearer the extended families they both missed so much? After much thought and discussion, they reached the joint decision to return to Tennessee. Walter found an opening in a small town not far from either his hometown of Westmoreland or Anna’s family in Lafayette. And so, in the late summer of 1906, Walter and Anna Dotson moved to Smithville, Tennessee, where Walter began what would become a very successful family practice.

  Smithville welcomed the little family of three with open arms. A young doctor moving to town was always a positive thing, and Walter soon had a thriving general practice. Six-year-old Mabel was the darling of her Sunday school class; Walter was soon teaching Bible classes at church and had even been invited to join the Masonic Lodge. Whenever Anna went anywhere in Smithville, folks greeted her by name. Looking back from years later, Anna would realize that these had been the best days of their marriage.

  Unfortunately, worse days would follow soon enough.

  After two years, Walter began wishing for opportunities to practice his specialty. He told Anna that he wanted to look for a place closer to Nashville, the nearest city of any size, where he would at least have the chance to attract some patients who required his expertise. Eventually, he settled on Gallatin, about twenty-five miles north of Nashville, and only seventeen or so miles south of his hometown of Westmoreland. And it was an easy half-day’s train ride from her parents in Lafayette, he told her.

  Anna felt thoroughly at home in Smithville, but Walter seemed so certain things would be better for them in Gallatin. And she really did want him to have every chance to make a success for their family. So, in 1908, the Dotsons—who now numbered four with the recent birth of Walter Scott Dotson Jr.—loaded their belongings onto a drayman’s rig, boarded the train amid a crowd of regretful well-wishers, and headed northwest toward their new home in Gallatin.

  IN NO TIME AT ALL, the Dotsons were strongly integrated into the civic and social fabric of Gallatin. Walter’s reputation as an ear, nose, and throat specialist was spreading. He was deeply committed to those under his care, and he was also a skilled physician. Soon people were coming from all over central Tennessee to consult with him. Many were the nights Anna tucked Scott, as Walter Jr. was called, and Mabel in their beds, then retired alone, waiting for Walter to return from a late consultation with one of the wealthy patients who could afford to have him come to their homes.

  Walter maintained his interest in music and literature, joining the Gallatin Commercial Club Band and the Greater Gallatin Reading Circle. He also remained active with the Masons, often serving as a lecturer for the evening meetings of lodges in outlying areas.

  Anna was also far from idle. Her outgoing personality and sense of style soon endeared her to the ladies of the town, and she found herself plied with invitations to all sorts of gatherings. When they moved into their handsome new two-story home on North Water Avenue, Anna soon made it a popular gathering place for all sorts of women’s groups.

  Anna was still interested in the suffrage movement, though she could tell Walter didn’t entirely approve. He wouldn’t discuss the cause with her, but he never strictly forbade her from keeping herself informed.

  Anna wasn’t quite sure when she began to notice that she and Walter had lost the joy of their early days as man and wife. But in the winter of 1909, she suffered a miscarriage, requiring some months for her to recover. Somehow, after that, things were different. Walter was solicitous of her during her convalescence, certainly, and no one could say that she didn’t have everything she needed to encourage a full recovery. But after losing the baby, Walter’s attitude toward her underwent a subtle shift. His physical attentions, which had tapered off to some degree after Scott’s birth, now became virtually nonexistent. Anna wondered if he was afraid she might become pregnant again, and so avoided intimacy with her out of concern for her health. She tried to talk with him about it, but he simply denied any cause for concern existed, maintained he loved her as always, and advised her not to fret herself. “I am a doctor, after all,” he would say. “I think I might know something of what I’m talking about, don’t you?” Meanwhile, he busied himself more than ever with church, Masonic, and civic activities, as well as the ever-present demands of his growing medical practice.

  4

  Gallatin, Tennessee

  December 1910

  Gallatin station, folks. Arriving in Gallatin Station.”

  Hearing the conductor’s singsong announcement, Walter turned to Anna. “Home again, home again,” he said with a tired smile.

  Anna nodded without looking at him. If he noticed the distance in her manner, he said nothing. He pulled himself up out of the seat and began gathering their things.

  The medical convention in Chicago had been a success, she supposed. Walter had attended a number of sessions and had made, by all accounts, a fine presentation on a topic conce
rned with his specialty. A professional success, maybe, but Anna’s personal hopes for the trip to Chicago had been woefully disappointed.

  Anna followed her husband out of the railroad car onto the platform of the Gallatin station. Her back was stiff; the five-hour ride from Louisville had seemed longer to her than the whole rest of their journey from Chicago.

  Walter was waving at someone. Anna peered through the crowd and, seeing her brother Bobby, hoped he had brought the Winton Six. It was only two blocks from the station to their house, but at that moment the thought of walking was positively hateful to her. As she waited, Anna couldn’t keep her thoughts from turning to the French nightgown nestled in her suitcase, carefully folded among her underthings. Anna had held such high hopes for the nightgown.

  She had felt daring and independent when she bought it. She had tried it on, right there in the store, thrilled by the chance to shop in all the places she hadn’t been able to frequent when her husband was a poverty-stricken medical student. It was one of the reasons Anna had been so eager to accompany Walter to his medical convention. Now, after a few years and Walter’s success as an ear, nose, and throat specialist in the Nashville area, the boutiques of downtown Chicago beckoned her with an irresistible call. Walter spent his days attending seminars and lectures, and Anna spent hers on the sidewalks of Michigan Avenue and State Street, going from shop to shop.

  It felt like fate when she saw the display in Madeleine’s on the very last day. She had immediately recognized the styles from the advertisements in her latest issues of Vogue. Anna had so admired the nightgowns pictured there—especially the one with the revealing neckline and back—and had torn the page from her magazine and brought it with her on the trip.

  “Good afternoon, Madame,” the female sales clerk greeted her immediately in a French accent. “How may we help you?”

  Anna dug the folded magazine page out of her handbag. “Do you have this style?” She held out the illustration for the clerk’s inspection.

  “Ah, oui, Madame, we certainly do. Right over here.” The clerk helped her select her size and showed her to one of the mirrored dressing rooms.

  The effervescent silk slid across Anna’s skin like a caress from an invisible lover. She admired her figure in the dressing room mirror, pleasing herself with the realization that two babies and a miscarriage hadn’t stolen her attractive shape. The material was sheer enough to allow translucent glimpses of her legs and body. The back of the gown dipped daringly near the cleavage of her buttocks, and Anna felt a flush of excitement merely from seeing herself in such a revealing garment.

  Anna had been longing for the physical intimacy she had enjoyed with Walter during the early days of their marriage, an intimacy that had been sorely lacking for much too long. She knew she was still attractive; she could tell from the way men’s eyes roved her upon greeting, or when they thought she wasn’t looking. She didn’t understand why her husband couldn’t see her that way, or enjoy her feminine charms, as was his right. But every night, when he’d finished his “chores” in the bathroom that joined their two bedrooms, he retired to his own chamber. Seldom did Anna hear the knock on her door that she was wishing for.

  Maybe the French nightgown would change all that. After his last lecture, Walter had promised her a romantic, candlelight dinner at the café of the Hotel Chicago. When they went up to their room, Anna decided, she would put on the nightgown. She would display herself for her husband and surely he would respond to her. He would take her in his arms and crush her mouth with kisses, like the men in the Argosy serial romances. He would carry her to the nearest bed—or couch!—and ravish her. They would fall asleep in a tangle of limbs and cast-off clothing, sighing with the tired satisfaction of lovers who have drunk their fill of each other’s charms.

  Dinner was wonderful, and as they went back up to their room, Anna leaned near her husband. “I have a surprise for you, dear.”

  “Really? What is it?”

  “Oh, I can’t tell you. I have to show you,” she said in the silky voice of a seductress.

  He smiled at her in that amused, offhand way he had, but said nothing else. Anna had to stop herself from becoming infuriated. Did the man have no imagination whatsoever? Was he completely immune to the desire she was trying to kindle in him, to the fleshly anticipation of pleasure? He just plodded along down the hall, fishing in his pocket for the room key. But Anna schooled herself to patience. She would go into the toilet and change, and when she came out in the French nightgown, nature would have no choice but to take its course.

  They went in, and Walter, yawning, began shrugging out of his tuxedo jacket. Anna went into the lavatory and retrieved the package from Madeleine’s out of the drawer above the vanity where she had secreted it. She removed her dress, petticoats, and stockings, then slid the nightgown over her head and let it settle like mist around her lower calves. Anna unpinned her long blonde hair, running her tortoiseshell brush through it until it hung like a veil over her bare arms. Giving herself a final, critical glance in the mirror, she quietly opened the door.

  “And now for your surprise,” she said, smiling as she stepped into the room for Walter’s inspection.

  He was asleep on the bed. He lay on his back with his mouth open, and he was snoring softly.

  Anna considered trying to wake him, then realized she didn’t want to. She didn’t want to try to create something that obviously wasn’t there. If he woke up and saw her, she guessed, he’d probably either want to know how much the nightgown cost or give her a disapproving look for wearing something so risqué. Walter had very strict opinions on what was proper for women.

  Anna lay down on the bed, right beside Walter. Her pulse was pounding with frustration, with the excitement of the French nightgown, with knowing what she was about to do. She reached between her thighs and used her fingers, trying to tease out and rub away the thought of Walter’s wooden insensitivity toward her. In her mind’s eye she saw the men in the Argosy stories, with their dark, smoldering eyes and fierce smiles. She watched Walter, half-hoping he would wake and see what she was doing and perhaps feel an instant of remorse—but his breathing never changed, his eyelids never so much as flickered.

  And when the moment came, when she reached the crest and then lay quiet in the pooling, dim light of the electric bulb on the wall sconce above the bed, she realized that the emptiness in her heart was even greater than before.

  WALTER HELD THE DOOR FOR HER. She stepped up into the backseat of the Winton Six and waited for Bobby to crank the automobile. Anna could see the twin turrets of their home, rising above the roofline of the single-story train station. The car coughed, then caught, belching a puff of black smoke from its exhaust. Bobby hurried around to the driver’s seat, fiddled with some knobs and levers, then put the car in gear and pulled away from Gallatin Station.

  They drove up to the front gate, on North Water Avenue, two blocks north of the Gallatin town square. Walter helped Bobby gather the valises and other luggage, while Anna went up the walk to the front steps and onto the wide porch that wrapped all the way around the first floor of the large, clapboard-sided house. She opened the front door and called out, “Mabel! Scott! Mama and Daddy are home!”

  Mabel, their eleven-year-old, came bounding from her room and down the stairs, grinning with delight. She ran into Anna’s outstretched arms and buried her face in her mother’s skirts.

  “Hello, my darling! I’ve missed you so much. Have you been a good girl for Uncle Bobby and Aunt Flora?”

  Mabel nodded vigorously.

  “Where is your brother?”

  “He’s asleep. He has a cold and hasn’t been feeling so good.”

  Anna immediately began climbing the stairs. Part of her mind told her to calm herself, but another part could scarcely bide the time it took to reach her son’s door and go inside to check on him. Ever since her miscarriage, Anna had been more solicitous than ever of her children’s health—to the point of obsession, Walter wo
uld sometimes say. “I’m a physician, Anna. Do you think I’d let something happen to one of our children?” But Walter didn’t know everything. He hadn’t been able to save their unborn child, had he?

  Anna went quietly to Scott’s bedside and laid a hand on his forehead. No fever. She let out her breath and said a quick prayer of thanks. His breathing was slow and regular and his skin felt normal. Anna motioned to Mabel, who had followed her up the stairs, to be quiet. She tiptoed out of the room and softly closed the door.

  “Let your brother sleep, all right? And later I’ll show you some of the things I got while Daddy and I were away.”

  “In Chicago?”

  Anna nodded. The rapturous look on Mabel’s face made her laugh. “You’re going to be fashion-crazy someday soon, aren’t you, sweetie? Just like your mama.”

  Mabel trailed Anna to her room at the other end of the upstairs hallway. Bobby was just setting down her luggage. He smiled at his sister, then his niece.

  “How was the weather in Chicago?” he asked.

  “Cold as anything. When the north wind comes off Lake Michigan, they say it cuts like a knife, and I believe it.”

  “We had a pretty cold night or two here,” Bobby said, “but no snow.”

  “Oh, I do hope it snows for Christmas,” Mabel said.

  “Well, I better get downstairs and help Walter with the rest of the bags,” Bobby said. “Welcome home, Sister.”

  She squeezed his arm as he passed.

  Anna tugged one of her suitcases onto her bed and opened the latches. “Now, let’s see here . . . what can I find?”

  Mabel plopped herself in the middle of Anna’s bed and gazed at the brightly colored fabrics her mother was pulling from the suitcase.