by Lesley Crewe
Annie rounded the corner of the house and saw Lila sitting in one of the old Adirondack chairs. Her head was back and her eyes were closed. Annie was tempted to say, “Is that all you ever do? Sleep?” but she didn’t. She knew Lila didn’t have much stamina.
As she passed the screen door, Aunt Eunie called out, “Is that you, Annie?”
Annie poked her head in the door and loudly whispered, “It’s me. I’m going to let Lila sleep.”
“All right, dear.”
Annie sat in the chair next to Lila and settled herself. She watched Lila’s chest go up and down as she breathed in and out. That damned fever. What would Lila have been like without this anchor around her neck? She could still see the little girl who had sat on the steps and looked so forlorn the first time they met. Lila had lovely, delicate features, with flawless skin. How Annie envied that skin. Lila had never even had a pimple. It was completely unfair and Annie had often cursed God for his apparent disregard of her nightly prayers.
As she listened to Lila’s quiet breathing, Annie closed her eyes. She woke up when Lila shook her.
“You scared me half to death! I thought you were a bear.”
“A bear?”
“Well, something dark and hairy in the corner of my eye. Don’t ever do that again.”
Annie yawned. “Sorry. I’ll announce my arrival next time with blowing trumpets.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Getting heck from you.”
Lila smiled. “Are you spending the night?”
“Probably. What’s for dinner?”
“It’s Saturday. Baked beans and corn bread.”
“I’m definitely staying. Besides, I have something I want to discuss with you.” Annie turned her body and tucked her long legs into the chair. Lila turned her head to look at her.
“As I’ve said, I’m going to be a nurse.”
“Are you sure? You don’t seem the nurse-y type.”
“Great Caesar’s ghost! What’s a nurse-y type?” Annie shouted.
“Someone who doesn’t holler at people.”
“I’m going to be one anyway. I’m training at the Glace Bay General and I want you to come too.”
Lila made a face. “Me?”
“We can be nurses together. Won’t that be fun?”
“No.”
Annie threw up her hands. “What are you going to do with the rest of your life?”
“I don’t know. Stay here.”
“As what?”
“Myself.”
Annie jumped out of the chair. “Lila, you’re not thinking. What if, God forbid, something happened to Eunie and Joe? How will you look after yourself? How are you going to make money?”
“I could paint.”
“As much as I love your paintings, I don’t think you’ll be able to put food on the table. If we do this together, I’ll be with you.”
“You really think I should?”
“Yes. As wonderful as this place is, you need to get out in the world and experience life. We can graduate together and maybe get jobs at the Halifax Infirmary and we’ll be two single gals on the loose in a big city.”
“I’m not sure.”
“Lila, will you think about it?”
“Okay, I’ll think about it.”
Uncle Joe stuck his head out the door. “Supper’s ready.”
Annie loved Aunt Eunie’s cooking almost as much as her mother’s. She could’ve eaten the entire basket of corn bread herself.
As Uncle Joe ate his dinner he asked endless questions. “Do you think your parents might move back to the Bay now that the war is over?”
“As a matter of fact, they are. Dad has a new job at a machine shop on South Street, and for him to have to drive from Louisbourg in the winter doesn’t make a lot of sense.”
“But what about the gang?” Lila asked. “Won’t you miss them terribly?”
“None of them are sticking around. Erna Jean wants to be a secretary, Bernice wants to be a primary teacher, and Edie is trying to get into beauty school.”
“Edie would be good at that,” Aunt Eunie said. “She’s the prettiest little thing.”
“Pass me the salt, please.” Uncle Joe pointed at Annie and she gave it to him.
“I wish you wouldn’t eat so much salt, Joe,” Aunt Eunie said. “They say it’s not good for you.”
“Hogwash. Now, Annie, have you decided what you want to do?”
Annie nodded, as her mouth was full of delicious buttery cornbread. When she finally swallowed it down she replied, “I’m going into nurses’ training at the Glace Bay General.”
“That’s a wonderful profession,” Uncle Joe declared.
“Oh, it is,” Aunt Eunie agreed. “I’m so pleased, Annie.”
“Thank you. Lila’s coming with me.”
Aunt Eunie and Uncle Joe held their cutlery in mid-air. Then they looked at Lila at the same time. “Is this true?” Uncle Joe asked.
“I’m only thinking about it.”
Aunt Eunie furrowed her brow, which always made her look ten years older. “But Lila, dear, don’t you think that would be too much for you?”
She shrugged. “I guess I’ll never know unless I try.”
“That’s the spirit,” Annie grinned.
Everyone went back to eating, but they weren’t saying anything. The silence got uncomfortable. Eventually Uncle Joe cleared his throat. “I hear David got a job in Halifax for the summer and will start classes in September.”
Annie was puzzled. “How do you know that?”
“Lila gets letters from him all the time.”
Lila kept her head down. “Hardly all the time, Uncle Joe. He’s only being polite.”
If Annie didn’t know better, she’d say Lila looked guilty about something, but she was soon distracted when Aunt Eunie asked if she’d like a piece of pecan layer cake.
When Lila and Annie were getting ready for bed, Annie went downstairs to get a glass of water. Aunt Eunie cornered her in the kitchen. “Annie, dear, Joe and I have been discussing this plan of yours. We don’t want Lila to go into nursing.”
“Why not?”
“Isn’t it obvious? She tires easily. Being a nurse is a hard job with long hours.”
Annie closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Lila will never do anything with her life if no one expects anything from her. You’re content to have her here forever, but what about her? She needs to stand on her own two feet. Under all this mollycoddling she’ll never push herself, but if she’s with me she’ll feel safe to at least try. And I’m not stupid. I know she might not finish, but at least when she looks back on her life she’ll be able to say that she made the attempt.”
Aunt Eunie’s face crumpled. “You young people today are so smart. I thank God every day that you’re Lila’s friend. You’re a wonderful girl, Annie Lucy Macdonald.”
After giving Annie a hug, Eunie went back to her bedroom. Annie got a drink and went back upstairs. She slipped into the bed opposite Lila’s and turned the light out. Freddy snorted and grunted at the bottom of Lila’s bed.
“Do you really think I could do this?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“You do that.”
Annie stared into the dark. “Can I ask you something?”
“Yeah.”
“How often does my brother write to you? He doesn’t even write to me.”
“Not often. We got in the habit of writing letters during the war.”
“Right. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight.”
* * *
When Lila wrote to David to tell him she was going into nurses’ training, he called her from Halifax.
“You don’t have to do that, Lila. I’ll take car
e of us both when the time comes.”
“You’ll be in school for years. What am I supposed to do in the meantime?”
“Wait for me.”
She hung up the phone. He called back, but she didn’t answer it.
She received a letter from him a few days later apologizing profusely for being such a jerk and saying he was proud of her for going into nursing and that he would be there to cheer her on at her graduation. It did make her feel better, but she didn’t write him back.
It was a relief to have him in Halifax. It would raise suspicion if he were constantly at the house. He said he’d work day and night to put money away before classes started. Lila tried not to think about it.
She and Annie enrolled in the September class of nurses’ training at the Glace Bay General. By that time Annie’s parents had moved back to town, and it was nice to know they were close by. They would share a room in the nurses’ residence. Lila had a hard time saying goodbye to Aunt Eunie, because Eunie wouldn’t leave the room. She insisted Lila take three tins filled with baking in case she and Annie got hungry, and then she said she could make the bed and put Lila’s clothes away. It was Annie who put her hand on Aunt Eunie’s shoulders and said “Go.” Uncle Joe put his arm around her and gave the girls a wink. “She’ll be okay.” He led his sniffling wife out of the building.
Lila couldn’t sleep that night. It felt strange and lonely, even with Annie snoring only feet away. She missed Freddy and his comforting body at the bottom of the bed. Real sleep eluded her for the rest of the week, and she kept waking up in the middle of the night and looking at the light from the hall under the door.
The new students wore a blue uniform with a white apron and cuffs. They were in the classroom for the most part, only spending an hour or so on the floors every day, escorted by a nurse, to get the lay of the land.
The director of nursing services, Miss A. J. MacDonald, scared the life out of students. She was strict, stern, and thorough, a tiny woman who held herself straight as a pin. But as much as everyone was afraid of her, she had a reputation for graduating first-class nurses, and everyone respected her for that. If you could survive A. J., you’d be able to handle anything nursing threw at you.
When Lila first heard about A. J. she was worried sick, thinking she’d be even worse than Miss Coombs, but the minute Lila laid eyes on her she knew this woman wasn’t mean. She was just damn good at her job.
Nursing students were expected to behave like ladies both in school and out in public. It was easy for Lila to be demure, but Annie was always in the middle of some drama, even if she didn’t start it. Once they were eating at the dining-room table and a new student, a big country girl from Inverness, let one go.
“Oops. I made a fart.”
Lila thought Annie was going to choke she laughed so hard. Annie was the one who was told to settle down.
One day Annie came running into their room and asked Lila to come with her. Lila followed her down the hall and Annie had her open the door of the bathroom ever so slightly. There were two students who happened to be sisters in the tub together, washing themselves and, while they were at it, all their wet clothes. Lila closed the door and made a face. “That’s terrible.”
“It’s brilliant! Think of the hot water you’d save.”
The classes were long and the amount of studying was sometimes overwhelming. Both Lila and Annie regretted not listening more in math class. There were nights when all they did was try to memorize everything they had learned that day, and with Lila’s chronic sleepless nights added to the mix she was exhausted, so tired that one day she stayed in bed because she just could not get up. Annie said she’d come and check on her at lunchtime.
As Lila lay there it gave her time to think, something she was good at avoiding. She’d trained her mind long ago to zone out when things became difficult. It’s how she got through life. She knew that Aunt Eunie and Uncle Joe found it funny when she said she didn’t remember something, but there were events she really couldn’t recall. Often things were shadowed and muted, more dream than reality, so to sit still for the first time in weeks without a book in front of her made her realize that she needed to be worried about something.
All the signs were there. Piecing them together didn’t take long. There was the vague nausea in the morning and the few extra pounds she’d put on. Her cycles were always irregular but never this long, so she counted off the months. Her last period had been in early June, then nothing in July, August, September, and now October.
The realization made her body go numb. Only bad girls had babies. And worse, who was the father? Only whores wouldn’t know who the father was. She was a disgrace to Aunt Eunie and Uncle Joe. Annie’s parents would be horrified and maybe not let Annie see her. And what if they found out about David? She’d just ruined everything for their son and his education. And Ewan, poor, broken Ewan who was too young to be a parent.
How was she supposed to tell two boys that they may or may not be a father?
* * *
Annie sat through class and made copious notes so that she’d have something to give Lila to study. When you missed one class you felt like you’d never catch up, there was so much information. But she was sure that if Lila got some sleep today she’d feel much better tomorrow. Annie was proud of Lila for sticking it out. She had half expected Lila to give up the first week.
When class was over she and the other girls went for lunch in the dining room.
One of the girls said, “I’ve started to smoke. It’s heavenly.”
“Is it?” Annie asked. “I must try it sometime. I can put one in a cigarette holder and look like Marlene Dietrich. The boys will fall over themselves.”
“They’ll fall over laughing!”
Annie stood up and dramatically stuck her nose in the air. “I will not be insulted by the likes of you.” She pretended to huff off with the girls hooting with laughter. Quickly she gathered up an egg sandwich, an apple, a piece of pie, and a glass of milk and put them on a tray for Lila. She carried it down to their room and slowly opened the door in case she was sleeping. The lights were off and Lila was in bed, so Annie went to put the tray on the dresser.
That’s when she saw the pool of blood.
Annie screamed. The tray crashed to the floor. She pulled down the blanket that covered Lila and saw her slashed wrists and the blood all over the sheets. She grabbed Lila and held her to her chest, taking her fingers and pressing on her neck to see if she had a pulse. She couldn’t find one.
“Goddamn you! You better not die on me, Lila!”
Annie tried again and thought she felt a pulse, but it was weak.
“Someone help me!! HELP!! For God’s sake! Someone help!!”
All at once everyone was in the room asking what was wrong.
“She’s slit her wrists! Get a doctor now!”
Everyone hollered and cried around them. Annie whispered in Lila’s ear. “I will never forgive you if you leave me like this. I love you, Lila. Please live.”
Two doctors and a matron rushed into the room with a gurney. They ordered everyone out and quickly took Lila from Annie’s arms and placed her on the stretcher. Out they went, with Annie running behind them, covered in blood. They had to get out of the building and run over to the hospital only a few hundred feet away, then down into emergency and the case room. That’s where the matron stopped Annie. “No further. We’ll take care of her.” She shut the door and left Annie standing there. One of the nurses came running and took her to another room to sit down. The shock started to set in. The nurse wiped Annie’s face and arms to get rid of the blood. Classmates crowded in the doorway and other nurses tried to calm everyone down.
“Why?” Annie cried. “She didn’t want to be here and she didn’t tell me because she thought I’d be upset. She tries to please everyone. Why did I bully her? I’ve killed her.”
/> “Calm down,” the nurse said. “It’s not your fault. It’s nobody’s fault.”
“Oh, yes it is. I insisted she come here. Oh, God.”
Annie cried so hard that another nurse came in and gave her a shot, a sedative to calm her down. They put her on a bed and wrapped her up because she was shivering from head to toe.
From somewhere in the distance Annie heard someone say, “Call the parents.”
When Annie came out of her fog, her mother and father were in the room, her mom sitting at the end of the bed and her dad on a visitor’s chair. She wondered what they were doing there. Was she at home? And then she remembered. She tried to get up.
“Where is she? Is she dead?”
Her mother put her arms around her. “She’s not dead; she’s going to be all right. You found her in time.”
“I almost killed her.”
Her father got up from his chair. “No you didn’t, Annie. It’s not your fault.”
Just then footsteps ran down the hall, Aunt Eunie yelling, “Where is she? Where is she?” and Uncle Joe saying, “It’s all right. It’s going to be all right!”
Eunie ran into their room. “Is she here?” She looked around in panic. Dad went over to her just as Uncle Joe appeared in the doorway.
“She’s down the hall, Eunie.”
Aunt Eunie started out the door and then turned around. “I’ll never forgive you for this, Annie! She’d never have come here if it wasn’t for you!” She ran out and Uncle Joe said, “I’m sorry. She’s distraught. She doesn’t mean it.”
Before they could say anything he was gone.
Annie threw herself on the bed and cried into the mattress. Mom rubbed her back and she heard her father say, “It will get better, Annie. Just give it time.”
* * *
Lila dreamt that she was tucked away safely under the ballerina tree. No one could find her. She was warm and safe and wanted to be left alone with the sound of the waves breaking on the beach and the wind whispering through the leaves. But something or someone was dragging her out of her nest. She didn’t want to go.