Dot lay on her bed waiting for Eddie to return from the drug store.
Why was it taking him so long? Surely the telephone booths all being
in use would not have detained him. He would have no compunctions
about jumping on somebody and hustling him out of the booth. Perhaps
Dr. Stewart’s line had been busy. Perhaps Eddie had forgotten the
number he had so painfully memorized and had had to stop to search
for it. Perhaps by some devilish chance Dr. Stewart’s line had been
out of order, and Eddie was trying to find a person close enough to
the doctor’s house to carry a message. Perhaps ... Dot looked at the
Big Ben on the chair beside her. Eddie had been gone less than three
minutes.
Well, now it had started. Soon it would be over. She would have her
baby. She did not think of death now. She was too excited. She did not
even think of the pain ahead of her. She thought of Edna’s amazement
when the bell should receive no answer in the morning. She thought of
Eddie’s frightened face. She would try to reassure him, try to make him
understand that she felt fine and very gay. It was a little like having
taken too much to drink. Only that way could this wild, careless sense
of excitement be equaled, and then just artificially.
There was no pain yet. No pain yet. But the baby was coming. The
membrane had ruptured.
Eddie came back from the drug store. He was very pale, and his sandy
hair stood up straight on his head.
“He says he’ll be right up,” Eddie gasped. “But, God, all the way from
Long Island! How do you feel, Kid?”
Dot laughed into his terrified face. She felt lightheaded, giddy. “I
feel fine,” she said.
Eddie moved aimlessly about the room. All the way from Long Island, and
nothing to do but wait. If only he had caught Edna--but, hell, what did
he want Edna for? He needed Dr. Stewart, that’s who he needed.
Presently Dot began to sing. Eddie looked at her in astonishment.
Delirious? The expression on her face comforted him. She was smiling at
him bravely.
“Hurrah, hurrah, we’ll sing the jubilee,
Hurrah, hurrah, the flag that sets you free,
So we’ll sing the chorus--
“I expect you think I’m crazy, Eddie.”
He shook his head, but he looked at her perplexedly. She couldn’t
explain why she sang. Not wholly. Partly a desire to hearten him.
Partly the excitement that demanded an outlet. Partly sheer bravado.
His gaze did not leave her face. She looked so incongruously pretty
as she lay there with her ordeal almost upon her. Her cheeks were so
glowingly pink, her mouth so red and young. There was a healthy sparkle
in her eyes as though it were none of their affair what went on in the
rest of Dot’s body. Singing in the face of danger, laughing because he
looked afraid.
“Bring the good old bugle, boys--”
Dot marching to battle with her eyes a-sparkle and a song on her lips.
“Oh, Eddie, do you remember this?
“It ain’t gonna rain no more, no more,
It ain’t gonna rain no more--”
Yes, Eddie remembered it. He remembered the girl who had worn a
flame-colored sweater and who had sung in a young and husky voice. He
hated her to sing that song right now. It was a ghost come to haunt
him, to torture him with questions. Does she still wear gay sweaters?
Does she still worry over nothing but the pitch of her ukulele? Is she
still happy? Does she--
Eddie went into the bathroom. He had to be alone for a minute. He
walked over to the narrow frosted window and threw it open. He looked
up at the warm, star-splashed sky. There were a lot of things he wanted
to say, but there was nothing that could be worded. How could you say
something without putting it into words? Eddie slammed the window shut.
He looked up at the ceiling and said, “God, don’t let her die.” It was
the best he could do. And it wasn’t a real prayer, he told himself, not
a real prayer.
Dot was lying just as he had left her.
“Want anything?” he asked.
She shook her head and smiled. No, there was nothing she wanted now.
Soon the baby would be here. She did not notice whether he was lively
or still. She wondered about the sanitarium. How would she get there
and when?
Eddie wandered around looking for a match. He passed three packages of
matches without noticing them and finally went to light his cigarette
on the gas-stove pilot.
Dot felt a little pain. It was so slight that she would not have
noticed it under ordinary circumstances. But now--well, there it was. A
little pain. It would gather force and frequency. It would grow harder
to bear, still harder, and finally when it could be borne no longer,
the baby would rush forth and it would be all over. But now the pain
had gone.
The time passed slowly. Dot had another pain. It, too, was slight. She
worried for the slightness of it. Was it possible that after all she
was not going to have her baby right away?
The bell rang. Dr. Stewart! He had hurried from Long Island to Inwood,
breaking traffic rules without thought or care. To Eddie, it seemed
the doctor had walked the distance, so endless had the wait been to
him. Dot smiled at Dr. Stewart. Her mind was clearer than Eddie’s, less
worried. She knew how quickly the trip had been made.
Dr. Stewart took off his hat and coat and set his bag on a chair. He
examined Dot briefly.
“Pain?”
“A little, very little.”
“Got one now?”
“No. Just got rid of one.”
Dr. Stewart pulled out his watch and seated himself in the yellow chair
beside the bed.
“Tell me when you get another,” he said.
Dot smiled and nodded. Eddie looked at Dr. Stewart, trying to learn
something from his expression. He had met the doctor once before and
had been impressed by his quiet, unexcited manner of going about things.
There was silence in the room for many minutes. Then Dot said, “I have
a pain.”
“Good,” said Dr. Stewart, heartily. “Tell me when it goes away.”
He kept his eyes fixed on his watch.
“It’s gone,” said Dot.
“Tell me when you get another.”
An hour passed. Eddie calmed down. The doctor seemed to know his
business. Dot had four pains, all of which Dr. Stewart timed.
“I have to get a new radio set,” said Dr. Stewart. “Who’s making the
good ones now, Mr. Collins?”
Eddie looked at him uncertainly. Was he in earnest? Was this a time for
shop talk?
“Well,” he said at length, “there’s the five-tube--”
“I have another pain,” said Dot.
The doctor held a respectful silence until the pain had winged its
inconsequential way out of the scene.
“Yes, I want five tubes,” he said. “Which is the best buy?”
At eleven-thirty, Dr. Stewart put his watch away and got to his feet.
“Well,” he said, “I guess we’ll all take a little ride down to the
sanitarium.”
Dot scrambled off the bed and ran to her closet. Her cape, her hat.
There was her bag in the little alley between the vanity table and the
wall. Eddie must take that. It was all packed. She was ready now. Dr.
Stewart went downstairs ahead of Eddie and Dot. Eddie got his hat and
took Dot’s hand.
“Ready?” he asked.
Then all of a sudden she wasn’t ready any more. A moment ago she had
been, but now she was not ready to leave the little apartment where she
had dreamed and suffered and worked. It was not easy now to walk, but
she went to the little kitchen and looked at it as it lay in the dark
with its little gas stove shining blackly, its canisters glimmering in
the moonlight and the precious oilcloth which had been shellacked. She
shut the swinging door that had so delighted her. It was hard to look
at the little kitchen now. It was wholesome and sweet and innocent. It
was not fair to burden it with the knowledge that there was pain and
suffering in the world.
She stood for one sad, despairing minute in the living-room. There
were the curtains she had made, the radio set that had brought her the
Democratic Convention. These things knew her, and she had to leave
them. She had to go away.
“Ready, Kid?”
Eddie came into the living-room and put his arm around her.
“Yes, I’m ready.”
They walked down the stairs very slowly. Eddie’s arm remained about
her shoulders. He helped her into Dr. Stewart’s car and took the seat
beside her.
The ride began. It was not a silent ride. The mad impulse that had
prompted Dot to sing now made her talkative, and Dr. Stewart was ready
to keep conversation alive.
“Mrs. Driggs told me about the time you took her to the hospital,
Doctor. She said she thought she was going to have a broken skull by
the time she got there.”
Dr. Stewart laughed. “There was certainly cause for rush that time,” he
remarked.
Dot had many comments to make on the car, the weather, the sanitarium,
her pains, though the pains were still slight.
“How soon do you think the baby will be born?” she asked.
“Tonight when I went home for dinner,” replied Dr. Stewart, “I met
a friend of mine--a doctor who lives next door to me--who had been
sitting with a woman nine hours waiting for the baby. That’s the best
answer I can give you.”
“Oh,” said Dot.
As the car passed into the Black Belt she remarked about the colored
women who stood outside a store where a bargain sale was in progress.
Eddie looked at her curiously. Was this wonderful courage, or was she
so uninterested in the baby that even his arrival didn’t excite her? He
failed to notice the sly glances she gave him, searching his face for a
sign that her detachment was making him brave.
At the sanitarium, Dr. Stewart led the way. An aged gray-haired
individual with a sad, drooping mustache sat at the switchboard.
“This is Mrs. Collins,” said Dr. Stewart. “She has a reservation.”
“Oh, yes, we expected her sooner,” said the old man. “Her name has been
coming up every night for weeks.”
Dr. Stewart walked over to Dot. “Go right on upstairs,” he said. “The
nurse is there.”
Dot turned to the stairs and then stopped. This would be different from
her bedroom at home. She and Eddie and Dr. Stewart were not going to
loll about and exchange pleasantries. She fled back to Eddie and threw
her arms around him.
“I guess I won’t see you again,” she said.
She had meant not till after the ordeal was over, but her words struck
a chilling note. Eddie held her tightly and kissed her. Dr. Stewart
thoughtfully examined the band on his hat.
Eddie watched Dot climb the stairs, holding tightly to the rail. A
nurse had come down to meet her. He saw her disappear with the nurse
around the bend on the landing. She was gone now. When he saw her
again she would have been delivered of the baby, she would be past her
crisis, or she would be--
“There’s a little room back there,” said the old man, “where you can
sit down if you’re going to wait.”
“Thanks,” said Eddie. For the first time he noticed that Dr. Stewart
was not with him any more, and he remembered that the doctor had
followed Dot. He walked to the little room designated and began his
wait downstairs.
Dr. Stewart followed Dot and the nurse into the large room with its
four beds. Only two of them were occupied, and the women were soundly
sleeping.
“Which bed do you want?” whispered the nurse. “The one near the window
or the one near the door?”
“The one near the window,” answered Dot.
The nurse took her cape and her hat. Dot recognized her now as the
pretty, brown-eyed nurse who had smiled at her the day she had made her
reservation. She began to help Dot out of her dress, and Dr. Stewart
withdrew. Another nurse appeared with a basin of water and a glass
jar holding a green liquid. The two nurses made the bed with rapid
quietness. Dot’s bag was unpacked. She was helped into a nightgown and
kimono.
Dr. Stewart returned. In his hand he held a string of tiny blue beads
that would have made a bracelet for Dot.
“This goes around the baby’s neck,” he explained. “It is clamped on,
you see, and not unfastened until you reach home. It is so that the
babies have no possible way of getting mixed.”
For the first time Dot noticed that seven of the beads were white and
that each bore in black print a letter of the name “Collins.”
“That’s very nice,” she said, absently. The pains were beginning to
make her thoughtful.
Dr. Stewart disappeared. The nurses loomed whitely out of the darkness.
It reminded Dot rather of a moving-picture where a certain character
fades out and another appears. Noiselessly they erected a little white
screen around her bed. A little brass lamp was switched on. The light
fell on the bed and did not spread beyond the screen.
“Will you lie down?” The brown-eyed nurse was Miss Harris. She had a
soft, soothing voice.
There were apparently a great many things they had to do to her. They
moved about busily, preparing her for the operating table. There was
enmity between the two nurses, obvious even to Dot, who was not in a
particularly observant mood. Miss Brown was a coarse, heavy-handed girl
with a rough voice, whose manner, acquired in a charity ward, grated
on Miss Harris. She could not even prepare an enema to satisfy Miss
Harris, and Dot lay quietly waiting for them to reach a decision on how
much water was necessary.
At last they had finished with her. She lay on the bed waiting for
something else to happen. Nothing did.
Miss Harris removed the screen, and Dot asked, “Where’s my doctor?”
“He’s gone to bed,” replied Miss Harris.
“To bed!”
“Yes. He’s asleep in a room down the hall. We’ll call him when you need
him. Shall I turn out your light?”
“Oh, no,” said Dot, fearfully.
“Have you any pain?”
“Yes--I have.”
“Is it very severe?”
“No, not terribly. It hurts though.”
Miss Harris unstrapped her watch and handed it to Dot. “Here,” she
said, “you can time your pains. I’ll put the bell close to you, and you
must ring for me when the pains get five minutes apart.”
Dot took the watch and thanked her. Miss Harris disappeared, and Dot
sighed. It occurred to her that now again there was nothing to do but
wait. She lifted herself on one elbow and looked out the window. The
house directly behind the sanitarium was occupied by negroes. Festive
negroes. There was a party in progress. A piano, a cornet, and drums
were making the “St. Louis Blues” very blue indeed. The shades of their
windows were drawn. Dot could only see the silhouette of two figures
melted into one as a couple, in beautiful rhythm to the music, wiggled
by.
A pain caught Dot unawares. The worst pain she had had so far. She fell
back on the pillow and waited for it to pass. The “St. Louis Blues”
beat and throbbed upon her brain. The music stopped. The pain stopped.
A sudden burst of applause made Dot laugh. It was as though an audience
were approving her successful effort not to let an eager groan pass her
lips.
She looked at the watch. There was probably lots of time before the
next seizure. She raised herself again and looked across the yard to
the house where the negroes laughed and danced and “took the cash and
let the credit go.”
The orchestra had been plentifully encouraged. They took up their
instruments again. They played “That Red-Haired Gal.” It hadn’t
mattered so much with the blues that the cornet was out of tune. But it
sounded terrible now. The flat, tinny notes jangled against the hot,
breathless night and irritated Dot.
And there was another pain. Fifteen minutes apart. No excuse to call
for Miss Harris, but she would have liked company.
Time passed with a strange, incredible swiftness. The pains grew
stronger. It became impossible to lie still. Impossible to sit up. The
figures on Miss Harris’ watch were white, and the face was black. The
figures misbehaved. They congregated in the center of the watch and
danced around in wild abandon. She couldn’t time her pains nor tell how
late it was. She thought she was crying, she wasn’t quite certain. A
cramp, Mrs. Cudahy had said. A cramp! Had Mrs. Cudahy ever really borne
a child? Perhaps Sue was adopted. Pain that made you writhe, made you
run your fingers through your hair, made you drip with perspiration,
and finally made you ring the bell for Miss Harris.
She came, cool and faithful. “What is it, dear?”
“Oh, I’m in such awful pain,” Dot gasped.
Miss Harris pulled Dot’s nightgown up and made a brief examination. She
captured one of Dot’s wildly waving hands and held it till Dot drew it
away with a sudden frenzied tug.
“You’ve been a dear little girl,” she said. “You haven’t uttered a
sound. Now, go on being brave, for it’s going to be a long while yet.”
Her eyes were soft and sympathetic, but Dot hated her that minute.
Couldn’t she do anything? Did she have to stand there being so
professionally kind?
Miss Harris took herself back into the shadows. Dot heard her talking
in a low voice outside the door.
“Oh, hello, Bill. Did they get you up?”
A young man’s voice answered her. It was less considerate of
the sleeping patients than Miss Harris’. “Yes,” it boomed. “The
operating-room needed a polishing, so I got woke. What’s it gonna be,
Miss Harris, boy or girl?”
Miss Harris’ whispered laughter came through the darkness to Dot. “I
don’t think I’ll bet with you this time, Bill. You’re too lucky.”
“Aw, go ahead.”
“All right. Three dollars it’s a girl.”
“Fine. I’ll say a boy. And what time will it be born?”
“Another two dollars that it doesn’t come before dawn,” said Miss
Harris.
Dot looked at the sky. The stars and the moon seemed to be permanently
fixed. There was not the slightest sign of their rushing away from the
rosy streaks of morning. It was two o’clock, perhaps. Maybe only one.
Dawn. Dawn. Oh, she couldn’t wait. She rolled on her side and sank her
teeth into her forearm. This was childbirth.
She rang the bell for Miss Harris. “I can’t stand it,” she cried. “I
can’t stand it.”
Miss Harris smiled slowly. “You must, Mrs. Collins. You can’t stand it,
but you must.”
“I can’t.” Dot rolled on her bed. There was not the slightest degree
of comfort any way she might turn. The pain had slowly spread to her
back. Indeed it was most intense there.
“I’ll look at you again,” said Miss Harris.
Dot could barely lie still long enough for the glance Miss Harris took.
Miss Harris departed and returned with Miss Brown. Together they
examined Dot.
“I think you ought to wake her doctor,” said Miss Brown.
“Well,” said Miss Harris, “you know she’s an awful lot more comfortable
here than she’ll be if she has to lie an hour on the delivery table.”
“She won’t lie an hour,” said Miss Brown.
“I don’t know,” said Miss Harris. “The doctors get mad if you wake them
too soon.”
“They get mad if they haven’t time to prepare properly, too,” the other
nurse reminded her.
In the end Miss Harris went to call Dr. Stewart, and Dot was glad. It
seemed important to her that she get to the operating-table. Surely it
would be over soon if they would take her to the delivery room.
Miss Brown got her out of bed. She put the bedroom slippers on Dot’s
feet and fastened a strong arm under her. The descent to the delivery
room had to be made between pains. It was impossible to move in the
middle of one. On the sixth step, Dot stuck the back of her hand in her
mouth and bit till Miss Brown ordered her sharply to stop. She wanted
to sit down, but the nurse wouldn’t let her.
“You aren’t noisy,” said Miss Brown, “but you think of lots of other
ways to be a nuisance.” She was smiling when she said it and meant no
harm, but it would have made no difference to Dot had she scowled and
sworn.
In the operating-room, Dot’s kimono, slippers, and nightgown were
taken from her. She was bundled into a shroudlike garment of linen or
canvas. Stockings of the same material were drawn over her legs, and
she was hoisted to the table.
There was another nurse in the operating-room, a new one presumably,
for the Misses Harris and Brown hustled her about ruthlessly.
A small brown-haired girl without a cap on her head abruptly rushed
into the room. She was buttoning her uniform. “What is it?” she said to
Miss Brown.
“Nothing. What are you doing here? Just a straight delivery. We don’t
need you.”
“Heavens! The old man rang my phone and got me out of bed. I thought
you were having two Caesarians and quadruplets up here.”
“Might as well stay as long as you’re here,” remarked Miss Harris.
The girl with the brown hair walked over to Dot and smiled. “How are
you?”
“In pain,” Dot responded and managed to smile.
“A brave little girl, Miss Lambert,” said Miss Harris. “There hasn’t
been a whimper out of her.”
“Now you have something to live up to,” Miss Lambert said.
Dr. Stewart came into the operating-room. His sleeves were rolled up
past his elbows, and he wore a rubber apron. His face was white and
pasty-looking. Perhaps he wasn’t well, Dot thought, or maybe it was
because he had been awakened in the middle of the night.
With his entrance, the nurses were galvanized into action. Miss Brown
ran to the sterilizer with a handful of glittering instruments. Miss
Harris fussed with a huge, hot light that threw a burning white glare
on the table. The new nurse hurried in feverish dismay about the room,
looking for something important to do. Miss Lambert talked to Dr.
Stewart in low, swift tones. Dot caught the word “anesthetic.” She
hadn’t wanted anesthetic, had vowed she wouldn’t take it. Now she
longed for it, prayed for it.
“How are your pains now?” asked Dr. Stewart, gazing gravely down at
her. “Are you hardly getting rid of one when another comes?”
Dot nodded miserably. Miss Brown raised Dot’s feet and placed them in
little stirrups that hung above the table. The position was a torture.
She could no longer roll about in her pains, she could only wriggle and
squirm and slip off the padded place in the center of the table where
she was supposed to lie.
Miss Lambert and Miss Harris took places on either side of her. Miss
Lambert gave her hand to Dot. It was a small hand. A hand that had gone
again and again into the bottomless pit of agony to offer comfort. Dot
clutched it with insane strength. She dug her nails into it, scratched
it, squeezed it, and tugged at it until it seemed that the little hand
must leave its wrist. It was a fighting hand. It, too, tugged, and Dot
drew solace from its strength. It was warm and sympathetic.
She looked at Miss Lambert’s face. It was a young face, a face
surrounded with a gay little flare of silky hair.
“Oh, you don’t know--You don’t know what I’m going through,” Dot
breathed.
Miss Lambert made no answer. Her eyes were soft and looked as though
they could weep for Dot’s pain.
“Yes, you know, I guess,” said Dot. “But it’s terrible--oh, it’s
terrible.”
The great light beat down on her ceaselessly. A white laugh.
“Oh, the heat, the heat,” Dot cried. She was weltering in perspiration.
She tossed her head in her torture, clutched Miss Harris’ white
collar, and sought to tear it from its moorings.
“You must lie quiet,” Miss Harris whispered.
“Oh, I can’t--I can’t.” A pain sharp as a blade caught her in the back.
It was like a sudden burst of flame that illuminates what it destroys.
The room did not blur before Dot’s vision. Instead there was a sharp
clarity in her gaze. She noticed a stain on Miss Lambert’s sleeve, the
sunburn on Dr. Stewart’s forehead. A cabinet with glass shelves upon
which lay a chilling glitter of instruments was for the first time
noticed. The cabinet seemed to cover the whole wall. A monster with
sharp, silver teeth. The pain bore down upon her, pressed the breath
out of her. Her body trembled with agony.
“Oh, Jesus Christ!”
She gazed timidly at Dr. Stewart and Miss Lambert. It had not been a
prayer. It had been profanity.
“Pardon me,” she said.
But still they did not notice.
“When you get another pain,” said Dr. Stewart, “you must bear down upon
it. Push.”
Dot nodded. She had to do it, had to obey, but it doubled the pain,
trebled it.
“I can’t--I can’t.”
“You must, dear,” Miss Lambert said. “You will have it over sooner if
you do.”
Dot bore down upon the pains. With tears and perspiration running
down her cheeks, she pressed against the enemy. Knives which she must
again and again hurl herself upon. The nurses were not with her any
more. They had scattered to other parts of the room. They seemed now
to be devils heightening her torture. They ran about fussing over
instruments, nickel cauldrons, basins, and lights. Boiling, scraping,
sharpening, burning, whispering between themselves.
Only Dr. Stewart was near, bending over her. Strong, silent, and
patient. Once he smiled at her. A pain had closed in blackly upon her.
She had to smile back at him. It would be failing him if she did not
smile.
He knew she was in pain. He knew. He understood.
The nurses returned. The pains increased. Dot closed her eyes and
prayed for ether or for a merciful, obliterating fainting spell. Dr.
Stewart turned and rapped out an order for anesthetic. Miss Lambert
leaped forward.
Dr. Stewart’s eyes returned to Dot, and a loud cry escaped her lips. At
the same moment Dr. Stewart said, “Here’s your baby!”
She saw it arrive. Imagination perhaps. Fantastic certainly. The baby
jumped into Dr. Stewart’s hands, its little arms and legs crooked, its
head erect and certain of direction. An easy jump. The jump of a frog.
Light, fast, and accurate. A frog. The baby had jumped like a frog.
“What is it, Dr. Stewart?” This from Miss Harris, who had three dollars
at stake.
“It’s a little boy,” said Dr. Stewart and he held it upside down as he
handed it to the aimless young nurse who had at last something to do.
“Is it whole?” asked Dot. “Is my baby whole, Doctor?”
“He’s a fine young man, Mrs. Collins. Now, get ready for another pain.”
It came. The pain of afterbirth.
“She’ll need two stitches, I guess.”
“Here, drink this.”
“He weighs six pounds.”
“You were a brave one all right.”
“You helped fine.”
“Get Bill.”
“I lost three dollars.”
“A fine boy, Mrs. Collins.”
Dot turned her face to Miss Lambert and whimpered weakly, “Do I have to
_walk_ upstairs?”
Miss Lambert smiled. “No, honey, the boy is getting the stretcher
ready.”
Eddie walked into the room. The nurses stared at him.
“The man at the switchboard sent me up,” he explained, rapidly. “He
asked me to carry his half of the stretcher. He says his rheumatism is
too bad tonight.”
He rushed to Dot, but the nurses surrounded him, and he and Dot simply
exchanged a smile.
It was cold now. Freezing cold. They bundled her in blankets. Her teeth
chattered. Her head ached. It was cold, cold.
The darkness. Her bed. Eddie’s kiss.
“What time is it?” she said, weakly.
“A little after four. Good night, Dot.”
“Good night, sweetheart.”
Sleep.