It wasn’t possible to face nine months cooped up in a three-room
apartment with a person so depressingly silent as Eddie. She knew what
his silence meant. He was sore clean through. He didn’t want a baby.
She would often look up at him and find his eyes fixed upon her, and
the expression in them was one of terror. He dreaded the thought of
a baby who would cry in the night, who would take nine-tenths of her
time, who would consume the money they had used in dance halls and chop
suey restaurants. That’s what his terrified expression meant. What else
could it mean?
She couldn’t face months of this. She had to talk to him, try and
straighten things out. They had to face the future together.
She was lying on the bed. Fifteen minutes before, she had been
violently ill. Her stomach had become a petulant, complaining beast
that had not retained more than a slice of toast in three weeks. The
odor of coffee would bring on a sudden weakness. Lamb chops acted the
same way. Dot tried to laugh at herself, but it was not easy with
Eddie pacing the floor, cursing under his breath. Of course it wasn’t
pleasant for him, but still, Dot reflected, it was her stomach that
reeled with nausea. She could tell him that, but her desire was to
bring them closer together again, not to begin arguments that could end
only in further distance between them. That had become her aim--to see
Eddie in a good humor again.
“Eddie,” she said, “I don’t want a baby, you know.”
She saw him look up from his paper. He was stretched crosswise on the
bed with his chin resting on his hand. The paper lay spread before
him. Once Dot had kept newspapers off the bed because of the print
rubbing against her immaculate spread. It didn’t seem to matter so much
any more.
“Don’t you?” he asked. “I’ll be glad when you get to a decision.”
“Oh, I’m going to have it,” she said, hastily, “but I just wanted you
to know that I feel just as you feel. I don’t want it either.”
Eddie scowled but said nothing.
“You see,” Dot plunged on, “it’s like this, you have to use common
sense. Edna talks too much, but she knows more than we do.”
Eddie looked back at the newspaper. Dot could not see his face. She
wished she could; maybe he was glad to know that she didn’t want the
kid either. Surely this ought to be a bond between them to renew their
old companionship.
It seemed to be working. Eddie’s hand reached out and found hers. He
squeezed it tightly.
“Of course, I’ll be kind to the kid,” Dot added. “But, Eddie, I’ll
never care as much about it as I care for you.”
Eddie turned a page noisily. “You’ll be a damn funny mother if you
don’t care a hell of a sight more for it,” he remarked.
“But I won’t. I doubt that I’ll care for it much at all.”
“Aw, shut up,” said Eddie, pulling his hand away. “What do you have to
talk about the kid for anyway? It’ll get here soon enough.”
“Well, I gotta talk about it,” said Dot, “because I need a doctor.”
“Yeah, next July,” said Eddie.
“No, now.”
Eddie sat up on the bed. “What’s the matter?” he asked.
“Nothing, only it’s done nowadays. Edna said so, and Maude said so.
If you get what they call prenatal care, you fix it so that you run
hardly any chance at all of an accident. See, the doctor looks at you
often all through the months, and he can see how you’re getting along.
He tells you just what to do and all. He puts you on a good diet and
everything, see. And he can hear the baby’s heart beat, and he can tell
how the baby’s getting along, too. If we spend a lot of money on this
thing we don’t want a dead baby, do we?” Dot giggled a little. Those
were awful words. Dead baby. You had to laugh a little to help say them.
“What the hell are you always laughing at?” asked Eddie.
Funny he hadn’t thought of that before. Some babies didn’t live. They
came here without the necessary spark that would make them into little
fellows that would get into fights in the back lot. How did a person
stand it if, after months of hoping and imagining things about him, the
little thing just arrived and disappeared without ever having let you
hear him say “Daddy.”
“I ain’t always laughing,” said Dot. “I ain’t got so much to laugh
about. What do you think about getting a doctor?”
“Sure, get one. If everybody else has them, I suppose you ought to.”
“It’s awful expensive,” said Dot.
“How much?”
“Two hundred dollars.”
“Are you kidding?”
“No.”
Eddie got up and went over to the chiffonier for a cigarette. “Jeeze,
that’s a lot of money,” he said.
“Yes,” Dot agreed, “it is. Some doctors do it a lot cheaper, but I am
thinking of a certain doctor.”
“Who?”
“His name is Dr. Stewart. He delivered Floyd. Two hundred dollars is
the cheapest he’ll do it. He usually gets five hundred, but Edna says
she thinks he’d do it for two hundred for people like us.”
“Kind-hearted, ain’t he?” Eddie remarked sourly. “Two hundred dollars.
What makes him such an expensive guy?”
“Oh, Edna says he’s wonderful. He’s so smart and so nice. He tells you
what to eat and keeps the baby’s weight down so the pain won’t be so
awful.”
“That sounds good,” said Eddie.
“And he gives you such good care and all that there’s very little
chance of anything going wrong.”
Dot’s cheeks had become very pink with her eagerness. She leaned toward
Eddie, and her voice took on a coaxing note. “Look, Eddie, you make
forty dollars a week, and we’ve got a lot of time for saving up. You
don’t have to pay the doctor a cent until after the baby is here. I’ve
figured it all out, how we can manage. It’s worth it to have me and the
kid safe, ain’t it?”
“You don’t have to nag me to let you have decent care,” Eddie said.
“Get this highway robber if you want him, but I’m glad you got it
figured out how we can manage, because I don’t see it at all.”
Dot said no more about it. She could have talked all night, only she
thought it best to leave well enough alone; for Eddie, despite a sudden
restlessness that had seized him, looked more contented and friendly
than he had in weeks. Dot congratulated herself on good generalship.
She had convinced him that the kid was just as much of a nuisance to
her as to him, and that had made him feel more kindly toward her.
Dr. Stewart made his first call on Dot three days later. He was a
medium-sized, brown-haired man with an inclination toward obesity.
He was still under forty, but he was not the type of man who makes a
woman yearn for a more elderly doctor. He was pleasant, not formidably
professional, and very conscientious. He had a little boy of his own.
Dot found that out at once.
Dr. Stewart did not seem willing to base his diagnosis on Dot’s
symptoms alone. He asked for a sheet. Wonderingly Dot brought him one
that was fresh from the laundry. Dr. Stewart told her the position
he wished her to take, lying crosswise on the bed. An examination
followed, in which the sheet was used solely for the psychological
effect it would have on Dot. One couldn’t feel exposed with yards
of sheet billowing about one. She thought of Dr. Griegman’s crude
professional manner.
At length Dr. Stewart stood up straight and said: “Well, you’re going
to have a baby.”
It didn’t seem the same as when Griegman had verified her suspicions.
In Dr. Stewart’s words lay congratulations, respect, and a hint
of forthcoming glory. A sudden mist of terrifying, heart-bursting
happiness descended on Dot. A baby. It suddenly seemed new and very,
very wonderful. She wished she could run to Eddie and say: “What do you
think, darling, we’re going to have a baby!”
Dr. Stewart had returned to the living-room and was awaiting her there.
He was sitting in Eddie’s chair, smoking comfortably.
Dot came and sat on the couch. She wanted to ask him a great many
questions, but she didn’t know where to start. Presently he began to
speak. He told her about conception, of which she had only the vaguest
idea. He described what the child was like now, how it would be a month
later. He traced the little life through the months till it would
lie, lobster-red and squinty-eyed--but beautiful to its mother--in an
ivory-white bassinet.
“I hope you’re not thinking of an abortion,” he said. “A nasty, corrupt
practice which has a bad effect on the woman who uses it.”
“Oh, no,” said Dot. “I want my baby.”
“That’s fine.” Dr. Stewart smiled pleasantly. “You’ll have it probably
around the middle of July.”
“Yes, it takes nine months, doesn’t it?” said Dot, wishing to show that
she was not an idiot about obstetrics.
Dr. Stewart nodded, but with reserve. “We figure it ten lunar months,”
he said.
“Oh, ten months?”
“Ten _lunar_ months.”
“Then it isn’t nine months after all?”
“Well, it’s ten lunar months.”
“Oh, I see,” said Dot, brightly, but she didn’t. She was quiet for a
few seconds; then: “I’d like to have you for the confinement,” she said
shyly.
Dr. Stewart seemed absorbed in his cigarette. “Yes, Mrs. Driggs spoke
of that when she phoned me,” he said. “I understood that she had spoken
about the price and so forth to you.”
“Yes--she said that you could--that you would--two hundred dollars.”
Dr. Stewart nodded. “That means,” he said, “that I will be here once
every two weeks, deliver the baby, and see you every day for two weeks
after.”
Dot thought that would be very nice.
“I will be here again two weeks from today,” Dr. Stewart said. He got
up and put on his coat. He reached for his hat and bag.
“Sorry you’re so sick at your stomach,” he said. “But that condition
will clear up soon. Try gelatine. You might be able to hold on to that
for a while.”
He smiled again and began the descent of the stairs. Dot held her door
open until she heard the big downstairs door close with a rushing
thud. Then she went back to the bedroom and lay down to think it all
out.
She was going to have her baby despite Eddie’s grouches and everything
else. She was going to have her baby. She felt that the whole
undertaking had been moved to another plane. There was somebody looking
after her child’s well-being now. A good doctor was going to listen
to her baby’s heartbeats. Again and again her mind went over what Dr.
Stewart had told her. “Your baby,” he had said. Her baby. Oh, dear
God, if there was only some one who could share her delight, some one
who cared enough for that feeble little glow of life to picture it a
year, two years from now, when it would be a little boy who could say
“Mommie.” Too bad Eddie didn’t want it.
She had to cool her enthusiasm against his return. He had just begun to
accept her again, and excitement over the kid that was coming to break
up his night’s rest would surely alienate him. She dressed and went
around the corner to Dyckman Street. Eddie’s supper had to be ready for
him. Not that he had ever said anything about it, but Dot thought that
a man’s supper ought to really be ready for him.
She bought a pound of round steak and a can of corn. She had potatoes
and butter and coffee and sugar and milk. Oh, bread. A small loaf of
bread. How about breakfast? Were there eggs?
She forgot about the eggs, for suddenly a dreadful wave of dizziness
swept over her. She dropped into a chair and watched the world go black
before her eyes. The voice of the grocery clerk sounded very far away.
“Let me get you a drink.”
She got home somehow or other. She remembered climbing the four flights
of stairs. It seemed that never would she have her bundles safe on the
kitchen table and her body limp on the sofa. Somehow she managed. And
Eddie’s supper was ready when he got home. Dot ate two Uneeda biscuits
and talked about Dr. Stewart.
Eddie listened without comment. Twice she almost gave herself away.
It’s hard to be depressed and gloomy sometimes, even to please one’s
husband.
Eddie ate his dinner with scarcely a word to Dot. He was thinking of an
utterly stupid error he had made that day in repairing a radio set. He
wondered how he had come to do that. Oh, well, a fellow’s mind was apt
to wander sometimes. Mr. Williams had ridden him hard about it. He’d
have to see that it didn’t happen again. Not that it wasn’t excusable
once in a blue moon, and not that Williams wasn’t fully aware that
Eddie did know radio; but still Eddie couldn’t help but think that this
would be a hell of a time to lose his job.
The incident made Eddie marvel a little at the trustfulness of a
woman. Gosh, Dot didn’t know that he was a crackajack radio repair
man who could always get a job. She was figuring on him to see her
through her confinement with the best of care. She depended on forty
dollars a week. Suppose he wasn’t so good at the job, suppose he
was a guy Williams could can without missing, suppose he couldn’t
connect with another job fast. She’d have to have the kid brought by
charity doctors. She wasn’t even imagining that. She was trusting him,
depending on him. Women were funny.
Since Dot’s stomach had become so sensitive, Eddie had taken her
place as official dishwasher. It had been his own suggestion, and he
was so proud of having summoned the words that had brought about the
arrangement that he sulked each night when Dot picked up a towel to do
the drying. He wanted to do it all, and if she couldn’t see for herself
that he was willing, then she was too dumb to worry about; so Eddie
sprinkled soap flakes in the dishpan and scowled.
After dinner they went back to the living-room. Eddie sat down in his
chair, and Dot took the sofa. He was smoking again.
“When did the doctor think the baby would be here?” he asked.
“Around the middle of July.”
“Hm,” said Eddie, and added: “Well, it’s almost Christmas.”
“Yeh, in ten or twelve days Christmas will be here. Say, you know,
Eddie, it takes ten months for a baby.”
“Go on. It’s nine months.”
“No, the doctor said ten months.”
“He must be a horse-doctor.”
“He said it took ten lunar months.”
“Well, that’s something different again. It means something about the
moon.”
“What’s the moon got to do with me having a baby?”
Eddie smiled thinly. “They don’t say nine months,” he said, “because if
they did you could understand it. They say ten lunar months to make it
harder and to give you something to dope out. It’s just like charging
two hundred dollars. That’s something to dope out, too. The whole damn
thing is a puzzle. Why is having a baby so expensive? Why does it hurt
so? Why is the only other way out so rotten? Ten lunar months explains
it great. If they said nine months the poor saps who were going to have
the kid would understand it.”
“Well, look, Eddie, at all the calls the doctor’s got to make on
you, and he’s got to deliver the baby and all. If you think it’s too
expensive I’ll get another doctor.”
Eddie leaped from his chair with an oath. “There you go,” he said.
“Always trying to start a fight.”
“Didn’t you say--”
“Yes, I said, but I’m not blaming your wonderful doctor. He’s got to
charge that much for what he’s got to do, I suppose. But why the hell
isn’t the whole thing different? You don’t ask for a kid; it just gets
wished on you, and then you have a whole hell of a lot of trouble. What
I’m kicking about is that it is necessary for so much to be done about
it. Why can’t babies come like--like flowers?”
Dot giggled. Eddie gave her a look of disgust mingled with contempt.
“I mean it,” he said. “God’s supposed to be at the head of the whole
system. Why the hell doesn’t he think up a way for babies to come
without driving people damn near crazy?”
“I don’t know, Eddie,” said Dot, gravely. “Perhaps if there was no
trouble there’d be too many babies.”
“That can’t be the reason,” said Eddie. “God doesn’t seem to think that
there can be too many kids.”
“That’s true, too,” said Dot as though she had just recalled her last
conversation with God and was remembering what he had said on the
subject.
Eddie turned on the radio set. The voice of a soprano filled the room.
Neither of the Collinses thought it extraordinary for the set to be put
in use during a discussion. Half the dramatic scenes enacted uptown are
done to the accompaniment of Victrolas or radio sets.
“Gee,” said Dot, “I wonder what my father would say if he knew I was
going to have a baby.”
“What could he say?” asked Eddie with far more seriousness than Dot’s
idle remark deserved.
“Oh, I don’t know. I bet he’d be surprised.”
“Why should he be surprised? You’re married, and there’s nothing wrong
with either of us.”
“I think I’ll write him a letter and tell him.”
“What for?”
“Don’t you want me to?”
“I don’t care what you do about it. He’s your father.”
“Well, it’s not because he’s my father that I want to write. It’s
because I haven’t anybody else to write to and I’d like to write to
somebody.”
“I didn’t know you were so crazy about writing letters.”
“I just feel like it.”
Eddie shrugged his shoulders. He didn’t want to say that he’d probably
have to bust her brother in the nose some day if she went and stirred
up sleeping dogs. No use in telling her that.
Dot got out her stationery. It was pink stationery, and so far only two
envelopes had been used and none of the sheets. The envelopes had gone
with money orders to the gas and electric companies. The ink was in the
kitchen cupboard. There was a little difficulty in connecting with a
pen, but finally Dot sat down to write.
Eddie found a man who was singing the much-derided, much-sung “Yes, We
Have No Bananas.”
“Crazy thing,” he muttered.
“What?” asked Dot.
“That song. Say, haven’t you started to write yet?”
“No.”
“How come?”
“Well, I decided not to write to my father. I’m trying to think of
somebody to write to.”
“Must you write?”
“I feel like it.”
“What have you got to say?”
Dot looked at Eddie uncertainly. What had she to say? Was he kidding?
There was no confirmation of her suspicion on his face. He meant it.
“Well, I just thought I’d try to think up some girl I used to know and
tell her I was married and about my apartment and all.”
“Oh,” said Eddie, “I see. You feel like smearing a little bunk about
the gorgeous home you got.”
Dot didn’t think of any one who might be glad to hear from her. After
an hour of deep thought, she replaced the pen and ink and slid her
stationery back in its hallowed place between her lavender combination
and her pink one. She returned to the living-room to listen to Don
Roberts singing “Marcheta” for the four-thousandth time from Station
WHN.
“I gotta get my hair cut,” she remarked, “as soon as I think I can sit
long enough in a barber’s chair without getting sick.”
“Why don’t you wait till the day before Christmas Eve?” said Eddie.
“Then you’ll look good for Sue’s party.”
“I don’t think I can go to Sue’s party,” said Dot. “Suppose I got sick?”
“Well, suppose you did?” asked Eddie. “I’d take you home. Say, you
can’t close yourself up in the house for nine months.”
“Listen, Eddie, you go. I’ll be all right here with a movie magazine--”
“Trying to make me out selfish, ain’t you? I said that _you_ couldn’t
close yourself up. You’re always misunderstanding things.”
“Well, it’s no wonder--”
“You said it. No wonder you don’t understand when you don’t try to. I
meant you ought to go for the kick you’d get out of it. I don’t give a
damn for Sue or for her party.”
“Don’t go then.”
“I’ll be damned if I will.”
“All right. We’ll both stay home unless you have some other place in
mind you’d like to go.”
“Yes, I’ll go to the Ritz-Carlton for the evening.”
“Well, don’t be nasty.”
“Who the hell is nasty?”
“You are.”
“_I_ am! I haven’t said a word.”
“Oh, no. You never say anything.”
“I’ll be afraid to hereafter. One word and you’re down my throat.”
“Oh, Eddie, don’t let’s fight.”
“Who’s fighting? I only said--”
“Let’s drop it.”
Eddie walked into the bedroom without answering her. Dot turned off the
radio set and the light and followed him. They undressed in silence.
Eddie’s trousers were laid with no especial care on the smirking
yellow chair. His shirt was carefully hung over the back of it. His
underclothes were thrown from across the room, and he painstakingly
avoided the sight of them missing their mark, which had been a somewhat
difficult one; namely, the knob of the closet door. His shoes and socks
were placed beneath the bed so they would be handy in the morning. He
reached down and picked up his tie, which had been neglected in the
excitement of placing the shirt correctly. He tossed it in the general
direction of the chiffonier. Then Eddie was ready for bed. One wonders
who buys the pajamas that are sold uptown.
Dot’s disrobing was done in a more leisurely fashion, and it bore a
slight tint of elegance. She cold-creamed her face before retiring. She
wore a nightgown. There were bedroom slippers at her side of the bed.
She turned out the light and climbed in beside him.
He moved close to her and put his arm around her. She kissed him.
They both knew that this in no way meant that hostilities had ceased,
nor did it signify that they would be on speaking terms in the morning.
PART TWO