A Woman of Intelligence

by Karin Tanabe

  “Yes, Mrs. Edgeworth?”

  “I appreciate your checking on my health, I really do.”

  She nodded politely and clapped her hat hastily on her dark, pulled-back hair. “I’ll be off then, Mrs. Edgeworth.”

  “Thank you for everything, Jilly.” I looked down and reached into my purse for my wallet.

  “Oh, no, Mrs. Edgeworth,” she said, pushing the button for the elevator. She pressed it twice more for good measure. “Thank you, but Mrs. Edgeworth, the other Mrs. Edgeworth, already took care of it.”

  Of course she did.

  “Jilly?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Edgeworth?” she said as Ronald held the door open.

  “Thank you for watching my boys. When they are with you, I don’t worry. And it takes a lot for me not to worry.”

  I was well aware that when a woman left her children in another woman’s care, it meant that the caretaker had to leave her own children, her own life. A woman was only allowed freedom if a poorer woman was employed to help her.

  “They’re good boys,” said Jilly.

  “Not always, but I hope the good outweighed the bad today.”

  “Of course it did.”

  She was most likely lying, because the bad outweighed the good for me on most days, too, but she was too kind to say so.

  “How are your boys, Jilly? Is Mel still at Queens College?”

  “He is,” she said with a tired smile. “He’s happy there.”

  “Good,” I nodded. “I don’t mean to keep you. But thank you for your help. Goodbye, Jilly,” I said as the elevator doors began to close.

  I dreamed of working again, salivated over the prospect of heading to an office, but I knew I was extremely lucky to have had the kind of work that I did. I wouldn’t still dream of returning to work had I been Amelia Edgeworth’s housekeeper or watching someone else’s disobedient children.

  “Mama, I hungry, Mama,” said Gerrit, reaching for my hand and pulling me to the kitchen.

  “What would you like, darling?” I said, opening the refrigerator. I looked at the clock in the kitchen. It was almost eight p.m.

  “Ice cream,” said Gerrit, reaching up for the freezer.

  “No, darling. We can’t eat ice cream now,” I said, pulling him a few steps back.

  “I want ice cream cone!” he wailed. “I want it!”

  “Mama can make you spaghetti?” I suggested. He shook his head. “Or a sandwich? A delicious ham and cheese sandwich?”

  “Chicken à la king?” said Gerrit.

  “What?” I said. “How do you even know how to say that?”

  He dissolved into laughter. “Ice cream cone. Chicken à la king. Ice cream cone. Chicken à la king!” I stared at him, a possessed toddler with the vocabulary of a chef at Le Cordon Bleu.

  “What did you eat with Jilly, darling? Was it wonderfully fun to spend time with her? Did she teach you to say chicken à la king? Did she take you to the park? It was a very nice day outside. Did you push the boats on the little lake? Were you kind to baby Peter?”

  “Don’t want baby Peter, want Mama!” Gerrit screamed.

  “Mama is here now, darling. Je suis là.”

  He threw himself on the floor and drummed his legs. Then he flapped his arms around, his little hands smacking the floor with impressive force. It always surprised me how much strength a two-year-old had.

  “Mama, Mama, Mama!” he screamed.

  Though still clutching the baby, I felt my pulse quicken, the anger start to rise. Tom was gone for at least twelve hours a day, every single day, and the children were never like this with him when he returned. It was desperately unfair.

  I closed my eyes and willed my temper to hold. After the success of the day, I would not scream back at Gerrit. I might never have another day like today. I would not let it end this way.

  I walked out of the kitchen and put the baby in his wooden playpen, which Jilly had set up in the living room, and picked up Gerrit, holding him to me tightly, rocking him until my biceps hurt.

  “Who is my baby?” I whispered once he’d stopped howling.

  “Gerrit baby,” he whispered back.

  “Who does Mama love?”

  “Gerrit baby.”

  I kissed him, letting my lips linger on his cheek. Then I pressed my cheek to his, his skin soft and bouncy and damp from my kiss. His smell was almost as sweet as when he was a baby. In these moments, he felt exactly that. My baby. My first baby. Terribly unruly, but with bursts of goodness that made me keep going, thinking there was a rainbow instead of a monsoon on the other side.

  “Do you love Mama?” I asked quietly. If his answer was no, I knew I would surrender to the monsoon.

  “Love Mama,” he whispered. “Fire truck. Ambulance. Mama.”

  All the things he loved.

  “I love you too, Gerrit,” I said, my voice cracking.

  After Gerrit was appeased enough to be put down, I picked up Peter, who wasn’t crying but deserved as much love. He clung to me, pawing at my dress, and I reminded him that those awful days were over for good. My breasts were finally starting to understand their reprieve, as was Peter. I just hadn’t told Tom yet. He was sure to be far less amenable than my breasts. Maybe I would add it to the growing list of things I wasn’t going to tell Tom yet. Or ever.

  “Gerrit?” I said when there were no more tears, no more pawing. “Let’s walk and get ice cream. Why not?”

  “Ice cream!” he shouted joyfully. It felt like a good stand-in for champagne to cap off the day.

  When I had put the boys down, their sticky faces made clean and soft, I walked to my bathroom. I heard the elevator ding and Tom call out my name. Instantly unnerved, I hastily applied some lipstick and rouge, brushed out my hair, and swallowed some toothpaste.

  When I entered the living room, I prayed that I looked the very image of a happy, hale, sober wife.

  “There you are!” Tom exclaimed, flashing a smile. “I was hoping I’d make it home before you fell asleep. How was the consultation?” He had taken his suit jacket off and was fixing himself a drink, still in his white shirt and beige trousers but with his silk tie loosened.

  “Frankly, it was terrifying,” I said, deciding some things I said should be truthful. And the start of the day had been terrifying.

  “Terrifying,” Tom repeated, fishing an olive out of the jar and plopping it into his martini.

  “But I got through it,” I said brightly.

  “I’m glad you did. But you don’t have to face this alone, Katharina. We’re going to get through it together,” he said, walking over and kissing me gently on the lips. “We just have to remember that all this, even California and the embarrassment, they’re just small obstacles.”

  “Sometimes they don’t feel small,” I said honestly.

  “Well, they are,” said Tom, stepping back from me and taking a sip of his drink. “Remember, Katharina, perspective. Today, for instance, there was a family whose child has been diagnosed with brain cancer and—”

  “Tom?” I said, interrupting.

  He gave me a tired smile. “Let me guess. You’re sorry to hear it, but let’s talk of something else?”

  “Please.”

  “Okay,” he said agreeably. “I’m glad it all went well. Did the doctor tell you to stop drinking?” He took another swallow of his martini.

  “Reduce,” I replied, watching him.

  “And physically?”

  “She said I was in quite good health. Could stand to lose a few pounds but society tends to rush mothers on that front and at my age, it’s even more difficult.” The latter part of that sentence I had stolen from an article in Redbook that I’d cut out a week before. I had to remember to burn it in the morning.

  Tom nodded thoughtfully.

  “I think you look wonderful,” he said, and I could tell he meant it. Tom’s views on motherhood were extremely rigid, but he was never anything but complimentary about my looks, even though I was heavier than when we me
t. “Perhaps you can just take longer walks with the children.”

  I stared at him, burning to suggest the same to him. I was sure his miracle-working surgeon hands had never touched our ever-so-modern Rolls-Royce of a stroller. Of course, his walks would have to take place between the hours of midnight and five a.m., which could lead to his arrest on grounds of kidnapping or insanity.

  “Perhaps I can,” I replied. “Though I very much enjoyed walking alone today. Even just to the doctor’s office. It was liberating to be alone.”

  Tom eyed me as if I might be going mad, which perhaps I was.

  “Where is she located?” he asked, changing the subject. “Your female doctor.” He looked toward our Persian blue couch and, beyond it, to the living-room windows.

  “Near your parents.”

  He nodded.

  “Did you talk to her about the bruising on your hips?”

  “The bruising?” I asked, my grip on my glass of water precarious.

  “Did she ask if I did it?” he said, his tone suddenly grave. “Did she ask if I hit you? If I hurt you?”

  “No,” I said. The thought had never even occurred to me before. “I told her the truth. I told her I did it.”

  It was the first time Tom had ever acknowledged my bruises. And they had been there, in varying sizes, and stages of blue, green, and yellow, since Peter was born.

  “And she said she can help?” he asked.

  “She did.”

  “I’m glad. Please let me know if I can. Help, that is.” He walked over to the windows and looked down. “I love spring in Manhattan. Life returns to the sidewalk. Even at this hour. I suppose no one knows that better than you.”

  “But I watch it from inside.”

  “You’re outside with the boys all the time, aren’t you?”

  “I am. Of course. But I don’t have time to enjoy the life on the sidewalk then. I’m too busy watching them, constantly worrying.”

  “It will get easier. Peter’s nearly fourteen months now. We’re almost through the weeds.”

  He turned around and walked back to the bar, depositing his empty drink on it. The kitchen was just ten feet farther, but it would never occur to Tom Edgeworth to put his glass in the sink. “It’s time to start a new chapter, Katharina. As I said, let me know if I can help.”

  “I think, in this case, only I can help,” I said truthfully.

  Tom walked back over to me, his leg brushing against the other sofa, and kissed me again, harder this time.

  “I suppose there are things that we must do alone. That’s our nature.” He touched my face gently and kissed me, this time slipping his tongue into my mouth. “But you’re a rock, Katharina Edgeworth. You’ll sort it all out.” He kissed my neck and moved back up to my lips. “Let’s go to bed.”

  “You go,” I said, stepping away from him. “I’ll stay up a bit.”

  “The Katharina hour,” he said, without anger or judgment.

  “Hours, usually.”

  “All right. Good night, then,” he said, then kissed me lightly on the cheek and walked off.

  The bruises. It was idiotic of me, considering Tom was not only my husband but also a doctor, to think he hadn’t noticed them. But he saw me naked so seldom after Peter was born, as he was never home and I was constantly exhausted. I was also embarrassed, and afraid for him to see them, so I’d taken great pains to cover them. Now they were uncovered. It felt strangely liberating to have spoken about it. We hadn’t addressed the why, but at least we’d discussed the what. Though, not surprisingly, Tom had wrapped up the subject quickly.

  I walked to the guest bathroom on the other side of the apartment and took off all my clothes. I turned on the light above the mirror to make the small room even brighter and studied my reflection. My body was padded in places it never had been. My hips. My stomach, which in the unforgiving light, also had visible dimples. I stepped on the scale that Tom had bought me after I’d had Gerrit. A hundred and forty pounds. It didn’t sound so bad, but the mirror told me that it wasn’t just the weight, it was the alterations made by motherhood. The two bundles of joy had wreaked havoc on my frame. Some of the bruises on my hips were fading, others dark and fresh, but the general effect was of the markings of a madwoman. I turned off the overhead light. In the dim light, they looked better. Almost beautiful, like the dots of a Seurat painting. My body was not that of a hurting, unhappy mother. I was a piece of art.

  I went to the guest room and lay down on the bed. Before the kids were born, Tom and I had spent so much of our free time in bed. Making love, humming along to the phonograph, eating croissants that fell apart and then cursing ourselves for the thousands of crumbs that we could never rid from the sheets. After we’d gotten engaged, our bedroom life was even more heated with the promise that it would be just us, forever.

  When we first moved into 820 Fifth, I thought I would never go into the guest room. Now I spent much of the night there. It was where I hid, where I fought insomnia, where I cried, even where I had orgasms. Since I’d gotten pregnant, it had been that way. While I was pregnant, my hormones were on fire, my sexual appetite huge, my body even orgasming as I slept. I had almost no other outlet since Tom seldom wanted sex anymore. Now, on a night when he seemed to desire me, all I wanted was solitude.

  The reality was that we still slept together, a few times a month, but it had changed. It was no longer what drove him. Since he had had children, what pushed him was trying to keep every other child in New York City alive. How could I argue with that? How could he let down all of those mothers?

  When I was eight months pregnant with Gerrit, I finally left my job at the United Nations. But it hadn’t just been because of my boss’s snide comments. I left because for the first time in our marriage, Tom needed me quite desperately.

  No one cared more about Lenox Hill Hospital or the outcome of his patients more than Tom Edgeworth. Maybe he cared too much. Perhaps the best doctors were bulletproof. Tom, I found out, was not.

  In January of 1952, in the span of two weeks, three children died under Tom’s knife, all girls under the age of ten. It had shattered Tom, and had almost ruined his career. Not because doctors were not allowed to lose patients, but because it was different with Tom. Had he, colleagues started to wonder, been given his position because he had also helped increase donations to the hospital by 200 percent?

  We were living in 820 by then, having bought our apartment three months before, and the UN had finally moved all their operations to the gleaming Secretariat Building on the East River. We were out of our Park Avenue apartment, with its tiny balcony, barely big enough for one person and a plant, but we were still surrounded by too much coffee, too many piles of newspapers, and an old guitar hanging from the wall, which we both played badly. No designers had come in yet to make it look “worthy of an Edgeworth.”

  Tom was full of joy then, so happy to see me plodding around with my stomach leading the way. He still cooked, still sang “Take the A Train” as I got ready for work, “Hurry, get on now, it’s coming. Listen to those rails a-thrumming!” a vestige from my LIRR days, since I was taking a taxi to Forty-second Street in my current state. Then came the deaths by three. I was at work when a nurse from the hospital called. Tom had told me about the first one himself, an extracardiac procedure where the child had died in the first hour. Now his nurse told me about two more.

  “I don’t think he’s doing okay, Katharina. And people are starting to talk. The mother of the first girl, she’s extremely unwell herself. She wants Dr. Edgeworth investigated even though it was a very risky, last-chance type of surgery. Will you come to the hospital? I think he needs you.”

  When I arrived, Tom was shocked to see me, and when he immediately left with me, I was the shocked one.

  In a taxi for the five-minute ride home, he started to cry as soon as the doors were closed. I had never seen Tom cry before, and I never imagined that it would be with another person present when I did. I had the driver stop at S
eventy-fourth. Tom took a moment to collect himself as best he could, and we walked to the Conservatory Water, where dozens were skating on the pond.

  “You took me to a place with children, Katharina?” he said, starting to laugh through the tears, which had quickly returned.

  “Shall we head to a bar instead?” I said, my eyes welling with tears, too, my heart aching for my husband.

  “No, let’s stay here.”

  I put my hands on his, my gloves gripping his cold fingers.

  “These heartbroken mothers,” he said after we sat in silence for a while. “They think I’m incompetent and I don’t blame them. I don’t. Of course they think that.”

  “You are the most competent person I’ve ever met. But you are not God,” I said as we watched the children in knit hats skate in endless circles. “These were extremely risky surgeries, right?”

  “They were all more than a stitch or two.”

  “Sometimes, Tom,” I said, putting my head on his shoulder, “God decides, not you.”

  “But three times in two weeks, Katharina? Three girls? And now all the questioning. Part of me wants to never walk through those hospital doors again.”

  “But they need you,” I said, looking out at the children skating on the pond. “The hospital needs you, the children need you, I need you, and our baby is going to need you. And love you. That’s what you have to remember. For every angry mother, there are so many who are thankful. Who love you for saving their child.”

  “I never want to lose another one,” he said, wiping the tears from his face.

  “You will.”

  “Not before the baby is born.”

  “Okay, not before the baby is born,” I said, holding him tight in my arms. We repeated the same line together night after night like a prayer, and I repeated to Tom that whatever happened in our marriage, or in his professional life, he could always depend on me.

  “I know I can,” Tom had whispered. “I know.”

  The hospital had Tom stay home for a week as they investigated the deaths. He was finally cleared of any wrongdoing, but his brain didn’t seem to believe it. He spoke to colleagues, superiors tried to help him, his mentor, Jack Armstrong, took him out for a stiff drink and shared his own hard-earned wisdom. But eventually, it was Amelia Edgeworth who helped Tom find his purpose again.