Dr. Stewart came every day. It was a wearisome, tiring wait. Dr. Simons
had indeed anticipated trouble, for there was not the slightest sign of
climax.
The hot spell held out with admirable strength. The little apartment,
so close to the roof, discharged tiny points of heat. Eddie spoke of an
electric fan, but Dot discouraged him. Though he could get a fan very
cheap there was still the electric bill to consider.
These last days were raw torture--the heat, the tedium of waiting
passively for something to happen, her body huge, uncomfortable, heavy.
She spent most of her time now on the bed. The sheet would grow burning
hot beneath her. She would leave it and go to lie for a while in cool
water. She would powder herself from head to foot with Mavis talcum and
try the bed again.
Eddie brought in the dinner things, salads, usually, or sandwiches. Dr.
Stewart had permitted Dot to forsake her diet. It was too late now for
the baby to be influenced to any extent. She ate ravenously. Everything
carried an aura of rarity about it. The tomatoes were lusciously
scarlet; the crinkling, green leaves of lettuce seemed strange fairy
fruit, perfect, desirable.
The evenings brought ice cream and Nabiscos. Dot allowed the ice cream
to dissolve on her tongue. She counted the Nabiscos. A shortage made
her glad that Eddie didn’t like them. They went no more to the movies,
nor did they walk in the evenings. There was nothing to do but wait.
The ice cream made an exciting interlude, something to look forward to.
It was the end of July now. The baby was to have come in the middle of
the month. A miscount. Well, how could a woman tell? What unfairness,
not even to know positively when your baby was due. Mother Nature,
indeed! A woman surely wouldn’t have arranged things so. Nature was
a man, a rather unpleasant old man who spat tobacco juice out of the
corner of his mouth and said in a wheezy voice, “A little pain and
worriment never hurt no woman.”
No, there was nothing to do but wait. The money was all ready for
distribution between the doctor and the sanitarium. It was lying in the
Post Office waiting to be moved to the banks of Dr. Stewart and the
sanitarium proprietor. It had been difficult to save so much, but it
was well worth it. Dr. Stewart who came all the way from Long Island,
who trudged up all those stairs, who gave his best efforts to her, was
surely entitled to be paid in cash and not in small portions.
Eddie had his suit. It was blue serge and looked very nice on him.
He hadn’t worn it yet. He had tried it on for her, and it fitted so
beautifully that she agreed with him that it was well worth walking
up one flight to get a suit like that for twenty-four dollars and
fifty cents. Surely none of the men who came to see their wives at the
hospital would look any nicer than Eddie.
“Eddie”--Dot was lying on the bed holding Eddie’s hand as he sat in
a chair beside her--“there’s a ’bus that runs about a quarter of a
block from the sanitarium. It takes you to a Hundred and Eighty-first
Street. Right to the subway entrance. You can get the subway there, and
of course that takes you to Dyckman Street, and you know what a short
walk it is to here from there. I want you to bring me home from the
sanitarium like that. I’ll be strong enough to stand it. Don’t get a
taxi. It’ll cost too much. I’m telling you now because I don’t know how
soon I’ll go.”
Eddie squeezed her hand. “Got the saving habit, haven’t you, Dot?” he
asked.
“No kidding. I mean it.”
“I’ll walk you all the way home. How will that be?”
“I mean it, Eddie. I want to come home that way.”
“How about the kid? Gonna stick him in a subway on a hot day?”
“Oh, he won’t mind. He’ll be asleep.”
“Tell the truth, Dot, you forgot about the kid.”
She hadn’t. She had imagined him sleeping gamely through the
uncomfortable ride which was the best his parents could afford. She had
pictured him soft and pink in her arms, drawing astonished glances from
the other passengers.
“You didn’t forget about him,” she challenged.
Eddie looked at her in amazement. Was she jealous that he had thought
of the baby’s discomfort and had treated hers lightly? Jealous of the
baby? Good God! Well, this was no time to vex her.
“I can never forget about him,” he said. “Never for a minute. How in
hell can I?”
She sighed. If only Eddie wouldn’t treat the baby like a dread
something coming at them with slow certainty.
A dazzling bright shaft of moonlight fell across the shirtwaist box.
Dot stared at it silently, admiring it. How pretty it was. Things
like this could make her forget for the moment how great a trial this
waiting was.
Edna came back from Asbury Park. Floyd had not been getting the proper
food at their hotel. Soon afterward Sue and Pat returned from the
beach. Pat had wearied of commuting from Far Rockaway to Washington
Heights. Sue thought it very unkind of him and said so at every
opportunity.
The Macys were amazed to find Dot still carrying her child. Their
pleasant jeers at her delay angered her. She longed to throw them out
of the apartment. They could joke about it. What did they know of the
suspense, the worry, the discomfort, all borne through blinding hot
days and nights of close, stifling darkness?
Eddie was no ally. He did not seem particularly anxious to have it over
with. Probably because he didn’t want the baby. Edna, who had been
delivered of Floyd in the dead of winter, couldn’t be expected to know
what the summer meant to a woman whose body was hot and heavy. Only Dr.
Stewart seemed to understand the torment of waiting.
“The baby is all ready to be born,” he said. “It’s just a stubborn
little donkey sitting there waiting.”
“Can you see him, Doctor?”
“No, but I can feel him.”
“Is it a him, positively?”
Dr. Stewart laughed. He had nice teeth and a pleasant laugh. “The
heartbeats suggest as much. But frankly, Mrs. Collins, they can’t
always be depended upon.”
Well, maybe it was a silly question, but who wouldn’t ask silly
questions after days of waiting and the heat, the heat, the heat!
“I guess we’ll have to do something about his stubbornness,” said Dr.
Stewart, thoughtfully.
“Do something?” echoed Dot.
“Yes, we’re tired of waiting for him. We’ll hurry him up a bit.”
Dot grew alarmed. Something had gone wrong. The baby wasn’t going to
come in the natural way. She had heard of the dread Caesarean operation
from Sue, but she had not the vaguest idea of its use. Was it going to
happen to her?
She got a grip on herself and tried to speak as unconcernedly as Miss
Henderson might speak if she were standing near the vanity table
re-packing Dr. Stewart’s bag.
“Something wrong, Doctor?”
“Oh, no. Everything is quite right, but you’re tired of waiting, and so
am I. We’ll give you a thumping big dose of castor oil and see if that
doesn’t hasten action.”
Dot smiled. Not a Caesarean operation, but castor oil. Maude McLaughlin
would have said, “Exactly. Five million petty, sordid trials make up
this period known as ten lunar months.” But Maude was not there, and
Dot saw the castor oil as a homely old friend who had arrived just in
time to prevent disaster.
Dr. Stewart prescribed two ounces of castor oil to be taken at a single
dose. Elixir of lacto pepsin mixed with it would make it more pleasant,
he said. Dot meekly agreed to follow directions. The possible result
would indeed be worth the effort.
She waited until Sunday to take it. Eddie would be home then, and in
case success was in store for her she wanted him near.
At nine in the morning she took the cupful of thick, bloodlike fluid.
Lacto pepsin was a familiar shade of red, and it created a horrible
illusion. At twelve Dot was a trifle sick at her stomach. At two the
baby twitched and rolled, fluttered and shivered. At three she got
a bad pain. At four the baby was reasonably quiet and the pain had
subsided. At five Dot was ravenously hungry, and the castor oil had
been a failure.
The nerves of both Eddie and Dot were worn to a frazzle. They bickered
and quarreled over nothing.
“I’m hungry,” she said.
“Well, I’ll go to the delicatessen store and get something. What do you
want?”
“Anything.”
“That’s no answer. What do you feel like eating?”
“Oh, for Heaven’s sake, Eddie, can’t you pick something out? I don’t
feel like thinking about it.”
“Yes, and I’ll bring back something you don’t like.”
“You know I like everything.”
“The hell you do.”
“Must you swear at me?”
“That’s not swearing at you. Come on, what do you want?”
“Well, can’t you wait a minute? What’s the hurry?”
“I thought you were hungry.”
“It’s enough to take the appetite away from anybody to have you get
sore over nothing.”
“Who’s sore?”
“You are.”
“I am not. You’re the one that’s sore.”
“I am not.”
But they both looked very peevish, and they walked about the apartment
with sulky expressions on their faces and avoided each other’s eyes.
Eddie got his hat, and Dot prepared the percolator for coffee. She was
wearing a very short red-and-white checkered dress. There was nothing
underneath it, and her stockings were rolled down to her ankles. She
looked very tired and worn. Eddie’s heart gave a throb of pity for
the little, solemn face with its babyish pink mouth and its weary,
bewildered eyes. He wanted to take her in his arms and ask forgiveness
for not being more pleasant, but he was clumsy at things like that. She
might be going away to give herself up to the inevitable at any moment
now, and here he was fighting with her. He stuck his hat on his head
with a sudden, abrupt gesture and ran down the stairs.
Dot looked in the ice box. The butter was very low. Did he know it?
Would he think to get butter? She walked quickly to the door and opened
it. She would call down the stairs and tell him not to forget the
butter.
She opened her mouth to call, but his name would not come. She could
not call. Too vividly upon her consciousness was blazed the memory of a
woman who had called down the stairs and of a girl who had worn a white
pleated skirt and had carried a ukulele. What the girl had said of the
woman, Dot remembered well. She closed the door. She could spare Eddie
that.
He came back from the store. He had remembered the butter. He had
brought ham and cheese and pickles and coleslaw and a Ward’s cake. They
ate in silence. Still silent, they cleared up the few dishes. Eddie
tuned in on WEAF, and the silence finally broke up in comments on the
program.
Dot bathed and went to bed. Eddie lingered in the living-room tinkering
with his set. He was not conscious of his reluctance to undress. The
night so fraught with possibilities had made him restless, but he was
not aware of it. Twice, after she had gone to sleep, he went quietly in
to look at her. She was breathing deeply, and there was an expression
on her face that asked a question. The blessed bulge beneath the sheet
drew his attention. The baby. Surely three weeks from now he would
be lying in his bassinet, crying perhaps, but still the baby he had
dreamed of, despaired of, and longed for. Why didn’t she want it? His
own face wore a question as he looked at Dot’s closed eyes. Why didn’t
she want it? Why did she speak so lightly of that little life that
breathed and fed inside her? How could it live there and not win her
love? She had sewed for the baby, had sewed tirelessly; but as she said
herself, the baby couldn’t go naked. She didn’t want the baby. That
much was evident in every word that she spoke on the subject. Well,
he could love it secretly. No use in making her unhappy by going into
ecstasies of delight over something that she didn’t feel that way about.
He went back to the living-room and picked up a book he had borrowed
from the boss. A book on radio. He lit a cigarette and began to
read. Dot stirred in her sleep, and he ran to her side; but she had
not awakened, and her questioning expression had given way to one of
peace--as though the question had been answered.
It was after one o’clock when Eddie’s subconscious mind remarked that
there was no use waiting around, as nothing was going to happen.
Eddie took himself off to bed. He tried not to disturb Dot, but as
he settled himself under the sheet, she moved and said, “Four dozen
diapers.” He held his breath, and she went back to sleep.
Dr. Stewart came the next day. It was the thirtieth of July.
“Well,” said he, “no luck yesterday, eh?”
“I had a pain,” said Dot, “but it went away and didn’t come back again.”
Dr. Stewart examined her. “Hm,” he remarked, “that pain was part baby.
Suppose you repeat that dose tomorrow morning.”
Dot shuddered, but it never occurred to her that one might overlook Dr.
Stewart’s “suggestions.”
She repeated the dose at breakfast time next morning. It proved
impossible to retain. By noon she was feeling as she had grown
accustomed to feeling--hot, heavy, and uncomfortable, but without sign
of climax.
Eddie came home two hours earlier than usual. He expected to find
almost anything, the home deserted, Dot writhing in agony with no
one near, or perhaps Edna waiting to tell him that Dot was at the
sanitarium.
Instead he found Dot sitting by the window drinking a glass of iced
coffee.
“Hello, dear,” she said. “Anything wrong?”
“No. Can’t a fellow come home early without there being something
wrong?”
She told him about her latest adventure with castor oil. He shook his
head and tightened his lips disgustedly.
“Guess that kid’s gonna be a Christmas present,” he said.
“Anyhow he’s lost his chance to be a July baby,” Dot remarked.
“Hold your horses,” Eddie said. “The day ain’t over yet.”
But Dot was right. The baby didn’t take advantage of his last
opportunity to be born in July.
August first, Dr. Stewart came into the little top-floor apartment
looking like a man who has an ace in the hole and a bad poker face.
“We’ll fool Mr. Baby this time,” he said.
Dot watched interestedly as he unpacked his bag with unusual velocity.
He drew out adhesive tape, a length of tubular rubber, a lubricant. He
went swiftly to work.
“We’ll fool Mr. Baby this time,” he said again.
After he had gone, Dot sat for a long time in the yellow chair and
waited for the baby to be born. Absurd, of course. If Dr. Stewart had
expected immediate results he would have remained. Still, Dot sat very
quiet and waited. Besides, it was nicer to stay quiet. What Dr. Stewart
had done was probably the correct thing to do under the circumstances,
but it certainly didn’t add anything to her comfort.
The bell rang. Dot stood up and walked toward the door. Even that short
walk was labor. Maude McLaughlin stood outside, Maude cool-looking,
smiling, Maude dressed in pale orchid chiffon with a sheaf of roses
in her arms, Maude with the perennial dewy eyelids and vermilion
lips under a large, drooping hat. But primarily, Maude coming out of
curiosity to see how things were going with Dot.
“Oh, come in,” said Dot.
Maude came in. She took in the little apartment at a glance. “Oh, what
a charming place you have.”
“Yes, we like it,” said Dot, sweetly.
She took the roses which Maude extended to her, and thanked her. She
emptied the artificial cherry blossoms without ceremony into one of the
chest’s drawers and got water for the roses.
“Well, how are you feeling, Dot?”
“Fine.”
“The baby is late in coming, isn’t it? And it’s so very warm this year.”
“Oh, is it unusually warm? I haven’t felt the heat at all this summer.”
“But it does grow tiresome waiting, I’ll bet.”
Dot smiled. “No, I’ve been so busy, I haven’t noticed the time at
all.” She sat down and continued to smile. “When did you get back from
Atlantic City?”
“Yesterday. I saw Sue last night. Before I saw her I thought I’d be
going to the sanitarium today to see you. What does your doctor think?
Are you coming on all right?”
“Oh, fine. I have a very good doctor, you know. I wanted some one who
was very good. My friend, Mrs. Driggs, lost her husband just before her
baby was born, and she was so weak and ill from shock that she had to
have a good doctor to see her through; so she got this Dr. Stewart, and
I have him, too.”
“That’s nice,” said Maude.
The muscles of Dot’s face were beginning to ache from overwork, but she
was afraid to let her face drop into repose. She knew that she looked
tired, pained, and a good six years older than her right.
They talked for an hour. Dot prepared some lemonade for Maude. She
showed her the other rooms of the apartment. She displayed the baby’s
wardrobe. She smiled.
Maude went, feeling that Dot was even dumber than she and Ted had ever
dreamed. “A typical peasant,” thought Maude. “Too damn simple to feel
uncomfortable.”
When Maude slammed the big door downstairs, Dot went to her room and
with a tiny groan collapsed on the bed. If her baby hurt her, nobody
should know about it. Not now when he was still unborn, or not later
when he was a man who laughed at her advice. Nobody should ever know
when her baby hurt her--least of all Maude. But it wasn’t really the
baby, it was the scheme to hasten his arrival which hurt. It hurt, and
she had had to entertain Maude.
Isn’t there anybody up there who looks after the comfort of pregnant
women, God? Couldn’t somebody give, say, an hour a day to mapping
out a few hours of calm for them? They are so at the mercy of chance
visitors, of climate, of financial conditions. Couldn’t it be arranged,
God, please?
Eddie came in carrying dinner. Ham, eggs, potato chips, baked beans,
bread, and two cherry tarts. Dot felt too wretched to stand at the
stove frying the ham and eggs. The sight of her warm, unhappy face and
the dejection with which her eyes were filled, caused Eddie himself to
doubt that he wanted dinner. But maybe she would eat something.
He prepared the dinner. He had never heard of parboiling; so the ham
proved too salty to be enjoyed by the most ravenous of mortals. The
yolk of each and every egg had scattered into a wide, jagged splotch
of hot gold. The potato chips were soggy. The beans had scorched. Dot
nibbled obligingly at everything. She consumed half a cherry tart and
drank a glass of iced coffee.
A sudden flush of heat, not traceable to the temperature of the room,
sent her to the sofa away from the meal that had been prepared with so
much love and so little skill. She felt that she must die of the heat
that had not been content to fire at her from the roof and the windows
but had crept inside of her. The blood pounded at her temples, sang in
her ears. She laid her hands on her forehead, but they were hot. Hot
and damp.
“What’s the matter, Dot?”
“Oh, I’m sick. I’m sick. This heat! Oh, it’s terrible!”
Eddie leaped from his chair. “Ought I get the doctor?”
“No, I’m all right. I’m just warm. Just awful warm.”
Eddie stood looking down at her. He felt stupid, useless. Would she
know if it were time to get the doctor? Ought he just send for him and
not bother whether it was time or not?
“Eddie, will you crack some ice for my head?”
He rushed to the kitchen and rummaged in the drawer for the ice pick.
Too damn dumb to have thought of that himself. She had had to think of
it. Poor kid, lying there sick, and she had to tell him when something
was needed.
He returned with the ice wrapped in a towel and laid it on her head.
She closed her eyes and lay very quiet and white for more than ten
minutes. He thought she was asleep, but when he began to tiptoe away
from her she opened her eyes and looked at him.
“Eddie, I’m afraid I’m an awful nuisance,” she said.
Holy smoke, a nuisance! A strange sensation swept over Eddie. His eyes
stung, and it suddenly became very hard to swallow. She had said it in
such a small, wistful voice, had said it so honestly, so simply. She
had not been fishing for extravagant reassurance. She had meant it. She
was afraid she was an awful nuisance. And he, big clumsy fool, couldn’t
say a God-damned word of comfort. He could only walk quickly to the ice
box, slam the butter in, and reply, “Yeh? That’s too bad.”
Dot didn’t bathe at bedtime. She was afraid of disturbing Dr. Stewart’s
elaborate plan. She leaned weakly against the basin and sponged
herself and got into bed.
Eddie read a story to her out of a magazine. But Dot preferred to read
to herself. When Eddie read you couldn’t tell whether the people in the
story were saying things pleasantly or angrily. You could kind of judge
for yourself if you were reading it.
Dr. Stewart’s visit was made before noon next day. He passed no comment
on any discovery he might have made, and Dot was afraid to question. He
removed his work of the previous day and smiled at Dot pleasantly.
“Pretty warm today,” he remarked.
“Don’t speak of it,” Dot said. “I’m nearly dead with it.”
“Oh, Mrs. Collins, by the way,” said Dr. Stewart as he was leaving,
“how far does Mr. Collins have to go to get to a phone?”
“There’s a drug store on the corner across the street,” said Dot.
Dr. Stewart looked worried. “Suppose the store is closed?” he said.
“Suppose it’s three A.M.?”
Dot smiled comfortingly. “Eddie will wake every family in this house
till he finds one that has a phone,” she answered.
Dr. Stewart laughed and picked up his bag. “Well, good-by, Mrs.
Collins. Don’t worry. You’ll get there.”
Edna missed the doctor by five minutes. She ran up the stairs and rang
the bell like a person who is sure she has come too late.
She looked at Dot unbelievingly. “Oh,” she laughed a little in her
relief, “I had the funniest dream last night.”
“What did you dream?” asked Dot.
“Why--I dreamed that--that you weren’t pregnant at all; so I had to get
here early to reassure myself.”
Dot said nothing. She knew that this was not what Edna had dreamed.
Edna stayed all day and signified her intention of remaining for
dinner. She seemed loath to leave Dot alone, and Dot said nothing to
discourage her staying. For Edna was not Maude, and it was nice to have
company.
“I left Floyd with Mrs. Turner,” said Edna. “She’ll feed him and let
him play with her kids.”
Dot looked thoughtfully out the window. “You know,” she said, “I’d like
to go for a little walk.”
Edna was dismayed. “Oh, Dot, in this heat?”
“But, Edna, I haven’t looked in any store windows or nothing for ages,
and I feel so good in comparison to what I felt yesterday.”
They locked the little apartment, and Dot began the arduous descent of
the stairs. She still wore her cape, and beneath it a black crêpe dress
which Edna had given her. She felt happy at being out in the street
again, although the pavements steamed and the sun shone with cruel
persistence.
They walked the half block to Dyckman Street. “Let’s walk straight up
to Broadway, then around Two Hundred and Seventh, and then back home,”
Dot suggested.
“You don’t want to overdo it,” said Edna.
Dot had her walk. She shopped for dinner things and telephoned Eddie
not to make his usual purchases at the grocer’s.
“What are you doing out?” he asked.
“Edna’s with me. I feel fine.”
Edna elected to prepare dinner. There were lamb chops, mashed potatoes,
corn on the cob, lettuce and tomato salad, jelly roll, and iced tea.
Dot ate a meal that would have satisfied two men. Edna had taken pains
to have everything look dainty and appetizing. Eddie ate a meal that
satisfied one man very thoroughly, and he thanked Edna for her trouble
by not saying anything unpleasant to her.
Edna and Eddie cleared up the dishes. Dot sat on the sofa reading the
newspaper and looking happier than she had in days.
It was a little before seven that Sue and Pat ran in for their
well-known few minutes’ stay.
“We just dropped in,” said Sue, laughing heartily at her own humor, “to
see if you and Eddie wanted to go to Poppyland with us tonight.”
“No, we can’t go,” said Dot. “But you folks run along before the crowd
gets in.”
Pat and Sue sat down. It seemed that that was only one of the jokes
they had in mind to spring on Dot apropos of her condition.
It was after nine o’clock when Edna arose purposefully from her chair.
“Dot’s got to go to bed,” she said. “Come on, Macys, let the child get
her sleep.”
Edna got her hat and stood near Sue, waiting for her. Sue had no choice
in the matter. She grabbed Pat’s arm and said, “Come on.”
The three visitors went to the door. “I’ll be up in the morning,” said
Edna. “Good night, dear.”
She kissed Dot and circumvented Sue’s usual lengthy leave-taking by
pulling at her sash. It was one of those sashes that couldn’t bear
pulling, and Edna knew that Sue would take this into consideration.
They all went down the stairs. Eddie and Dot watched them from the
window as they left the building. They rounded the left corner of the
house and disappeared from sight.
Dot took herself away from the window, and as she did so, she uttered a
little scream, not of pain but of excitement.
“Eddie, Eddie, it’s starting!”
He picked her up and carried her to the bed.
“I’ll phone,” he said. But she didn’t hear him, he was already down one
flight of stairs.