The days passed languidly in the clean, cool house of many births.
Dot’s trays came to her bedside generously laden and returned empty.
Her visitors brought flowers and fruit. Maude came with Ted. Edna spent
an hour a day with her. Sue and Pat came twice, and Eddie spent every
possible minute with her.
The girl with the red-gold hair now sat in a chair and was permitted to
walk about the room. She had had no visitors, and Dot wondered about
her. Her name was Vernon. That much Dot had learned, and no more.
Mrs. Lensky had departed in a whirl of good wishes, Quelques Fleurs,
and Jews. Another woman now had her bed, a woman who had trod the
corridors wringing her hands in agony for seven hours. Dot’s heart had
bled for her. She had even prayed for the strange woman and had sighed
with relief when the fearful cries from the delivery room were silenced
and the baby had been born. She made Eddie speak very low so that the
woman might sleep all evening.
Miss Harris tiptoed about. “She had a bad time,” she remarked, nodding
toward the sleeping woman.
“I know,” Dot replied. “Did she have a boy or a girl?”
“She had a boy,” said Miss Harris, “but he’s dead.”
The eyes of Eddie and Dot came together for one swift second and parted
abruptly.
Pain and grief after months of hoping and dreaming! What was it for?
Why did women suffer pain? Yes, to continue the race. All very well.
But why this? God, why? For education? Did the poor soul, sleeping so
gently after her battle with torture, have to know what it felt like
to lose the life she had carried, had suffered for?
Dot looked at the woman in the other bed. She was perhaps twenty and
had a sweet, patient face. There were gray shadows under her eyes, and
her mouth drooped wistfully at the corners. Dot turned her face away,
and burning tears gathered in her eyes. That this woman had to awaken
to hear that dreadful news! Dot wished that she might never awaken but
might dream forever that she held her wee one close to her breast and
fondled his little hands.
Dot’s heart was heavy with her own troubles. Her baby was not thriving.
He took scarcely enough sustenance to keep him alive. The nurses were
very patient and gentle with him. They left him an hour with Dot, and
every known method of forcing a baby to nurse was used. Dot’s breasts
ached with the milk that continued to gather within them. Her breasts
were pumped, and the milk was offered to the baby from a bottle. He
would not take it. He slept and lost weight and clung to Eddie’s
finger, and more than that he would not do.
Dr. Stewart was not perturbed at the baby’s actions. “He’ll take his
food,” he assured Dot.
But days passed, and the baby took no more than half an ounce of milk
in twelve hours’ time.
Dot would hand him back to the nurse and turn her face into the pillow
and weep. Poor little baby! He didn’t know that he would die if he went
on being so stubborn. Poor, innocent little mite in a big, strange
world with huge people towering above him begging him to nurse. He
didn’t know how to do it. He was frightened, perhaps. And he would die.
Those tiny fingers with the tiny pink nails wouldn’t clutch Eddie’s
finger any more. That little, well-shaped head with its cap of sunny
hair wouldn’t lie against her breast. She’d never again see the tiny
pink mouth open in the tiniest, most absurd of yawns. In a frenzy of
horror she would ring the nurse’s bell wildly and demand her baby
again. She must make him nurse. She would make him understand that he
must nurse. But when once again the little warm bundle, that smelled so
fragrantly of milk and talcum powder, lay against her breast, she knew
that he would not nurse and that she could not make him understand his
danger.
Sometimes a baby cried in the nursery. Dot’s heart would constrict and
the pulse in her throat would flutter fearfully. “Is that my baby?” she
would call to the nurse.
“That’s my baby,” Mrs. Vernon would say, and the nurse would laugh at
them both and tell them they had never seen the child who was crying.
The woman on the third bed would dream blankly up at the ceiling during
these moments. She had no part in them. Sometimes at night her sobs
were heard by the other women, and then Dot would cry too.
The day that Dr. Stewart took the data for the birth certificate, the
baby had accepted no food for hours. Dot was in a morbid state. She
thought of this formality as an unnecessary pain. Her baby was going to
die. What difference did it make where his grandfather had been born?
She gave the required information without looking at the doctor.
When Eddie came that night, she asked him if she had been right in
assuming that his father had been born in New York.
“Yeh,” he answered. “He was born on Ninth Avenue. What do you want to
know for?”
“I gave Dr. Stewart the dope for the baby’s birth certificate.”
“Oh. What else did you have to tell him?”
“A lot of junk. Where our parents were born, our names and ages and
what we named the kid and the address of our house and--”
“Say, Dot, what did you name the kid?”
“What did I name him? Eddie, of course. What did you think?”
“Eddie!”
“Well, Edward.”
“Aw, Dot, you shouldn’t have done that. That’s an awful name. Say,
Dot, I think I’ll run down and get a smoke. Why didn’t you name him
something fancy like Theodore or Calvin?”
He rushed out of the room then. Mrs. Vernon, standing near the window,
laughed a little.
“Heavens,” she said. “Your husband certainly hates that baby. He drops
a tear at even having it for a namesake.” She laughed again.
“Huh?” said Dot.
Eddie did not return at once. Dot suspected that he had gone to get her
a magazine. While he was away, some one came to see Mrs. Vernon--the
first visitor she had had, so far as Dot knew.
He was a tall slim man with gray eyes that fixed themselves
reproachfully on the red-haired girl. In the same baseless way that she
reminded Dot of the girl in the bright blue slicker, so did her visitor
call to Dot’s mind the man who had gleaned so much satisfaction from
mentioning bootleggers’ mistresses. Much as all Martians would look
alike to us till we grew accustomed to any strange physical features
they might have, so did all members of the tribe who never appear
self-conscious and who are careless about the impression they leave
seemed to Dot to be cut from two standard models. One for males and one
for females.
“I had a hard time finding you,” said Mrs. Vernon’s visitor.
She yawned. “Not so hard as I should have liked,” she returned.
“How do you feel?”
“Bored at the moment.”
“When was the baby born?”
“I didn’t have a baby. I’m here for something else.”
“Oh, stop being silly, Ora. How is the baby?”
Mrs. Vernon went and sat down on the edge of her bed. “The baby is
fine,” she said, seriously. “He weighed seven pounds at birth and is as
healthy as could be desired. I’m well, too, but you shouldn’t be here.
I’m not supposed to have visitors today. My day isn’t until Wednesday.
Will you come Wednesday?”
“Oh, see here, Ora, couldn’t I speak to the nurse and perhaps give her
some money?”
“No, they’re very strict. She might report you down at the desk, and
you might be barred out entirely for having tried to bribe her into
disobeying orders.”
“I’ve never been in a maternity hospital before. I don’t know about
rules--”
“No, I know you don’t. Be a good egg and go now. Come back Wednesday.”
“You see, they let me by at the desk--”
“Yes, the account of visitors is kept up here. Do go.”
“Very well, dear, but I’ll be back Wednesday. So glad that you’re
feeling well and that the baby is healthy. Shall I see him Wednesday?”
“Yes, indeed. Good-by.”
“Good-by.”
The girl with the red-gold hair looked speculatively at Dot. Had she
heard everything?
Dot did not keep her guessing long. “Why, he could have stayed,”
she said. “There’s no rules about visitors on any certain days. But
you want to dodge him, don’t you? You told me you were leaving here
Tuesday.”
“Yes, I am. On Tuesday.”
“Gee, he gets a tough break,” said Dot.
Mrs. Vernon lit a cigarette and stood close to the window so that she
could drop it if Miss Parsons’ step should be heard in the hall. Dot
was not the sort of girl whom one imagines cigarette smoke might annoy,
and the other woman was asleep.
Mrs. Vernon took swift, nervous puffs of the cigarette. “Remember what
I told you about raising your son without interference?” she asked.
“That’s what I’m dodging; interference.”
“Oh,” said Dot, “that was your husband? Holy heavens, you can’t keep
dodging a husband.”
Mrs. Vernon said nothing.
“You can’t keep dodging a husband,” Dot repeated.
“No,” said Mrs. Vernon, “you can’t keep dodging a husband.”
Eddie returned. Dot’s suspicions had been well based. He had a _Motion
Picture Magazine_, a copy of _Love Stories_, and a _Daily News_.
“Almost time for the kid to be brought?” he asked.
“I guess so,” said Dot.
“Did he eat today?”
Dot shook her head. It was safer that way. She couldn’t trust herself
to speak of the baby. She couldn’t tell Eddie, anyhow, of the hour she
had spent whispering pleas and promises into those tiny pink ears that
might well have been the rose petals they resembled for all the good it
did to implore.
“Gee,” said Eddie, “what happens to them if they don’t eat?”
“What do you think?” asked Dot, harshly.
Eddie laughed. Dot thought his laugh sounded funny. Maybe it was
because it was out of place in a sanitarium.
“They don’t die,” he said. “Surely they can’t die. Gee, the doctors
know too much nowadays to let a baby die just because it won’t eat,
don’t they, Dot? Can’t they think up a way to feed him?”
“Nobody has yet,” she answered.
She reached for her lipstick. If he didn’t get off the subject of the
baby’s not nursing, she was going to bawl. Why did he keep harping
on it, anyhow? He didn’t care about the baby. He just wanted to have
something to talk about, that was all.
“He doesn’t like the bottle either, huh?” said Eddie.
“No, he doesn’t like the bottle, and he won’t nurse, and can’t you talk
about anything else?”
There! That would hold him for a while. What right had he to use for a
handy conversational topic the baby’s indifference toward life?
Eddie looked at her for a moment and then looked away. He was
speechless. Again she had resented his interest in the little fellow.
He’d have to be mighty careful how he spoke. Well, he’d try not to
irritate her, but he’d be damned if he was going to slight the baby to
please her. Once that kid got to be a regular person that wore socks
and overalls, he was going to know that his daddy loved him--Dot or no
Dot! And then Eddie remembered that perhaps the little fellow would
never know anything. Perhaps--He looked at Dot. She was rouging her
lips. God, rouging her lips.
She was making a splotchy job of it, too, but that Eddie didn’t
notice. Her hand trembled with nervousness and rage. That he dared to
ask casual questions about the baby as though they were discussing
the contents of the movie magazine or the merits of the band at the
Poppyland Dance Hall. Hadn’t he any feelings at all? Didn’t he know
that if anything happened to the baby she’d kill herself? What would be
left in life without little Edward? Nothing but a man she loved but who
had failed her child. A man who had remained cold to the touch of his
own kid’s fingers upon his hand. But that kid was dependent upon Eddie
for the necessities of life. If it gained young Edward anything to have
Eddie think that he was the only love in Dot’s heart, then she could be
as cold as Eddie toward the baby. After all, she would have thousands
of blessed hours with him while Eddie was at work.
Miss Parsons brought the baby. “Now eat, youngster,” she said as she
laid him beside Dot.
The eyes of both Eddie and Dot fixed themselves upon the child as he
fastened his mouth to Dot’s breast and made a feeble attempt to nurse.
“He’s going to take his milk,” said Miss Parsons.
But she had spoken too soon. The baby evidently had no desire but to
assure his audience that he knew how to get his food should he ever
wish for it.
An hour passed, forty minutes of which Miss Parsons spent trying to
lure the baby to nurse. It was useless. At last she bundled him off to
the nursery, leaving his parents on the verge of hysteria.
Eddie had to go then. He had promised to relieve the counter man at
nine o’clock. It wasn’t his job to sell radio parts to the public nor
to answer their questions, but you had to do a fellow a favor once in a
while.
He kissed Dot and left her. He felt that it was just as well that he
had to leave early tonight. Perhaps they’d have quarreled, had he
stayed.
Miss Parsons came in and leaned over Dot’s bed. She whispered to her,
“I’m going off duty now. This is Miss Harris’ night off, and you’ll
have Miss Brown up here. She’s kind of careless, and I want to tell you
something. Your baby is running a little fever, and you want to see
that she watches him and calls your doctor if he gets much worse. She
sits in one of the empty rooms and reads all the time and forgets. Ring
the bell and ask her once or twice if he’s all right.”
The baby was running a fever! Then she would never even bring him
home. He would never lie in the ivory-white crib nor wear the cunning
little nighties that could draw together with a string under his tiny
pink feet. He’d never squeak the little duck that was made of Turkish
toweling. His tiny heart would flutter more slowly every hour, and
finally it would flutter no more. Here he would die, here in the cold,
hard hospital whiteness, and his little soul would fly through the
terrible chemical odors and out into the starry summer night. Not even
in her arms would he die, but alone, with no one near who loved him.
Her baby. Her little lamb. And Miss Brown would calmly read while this
was going on? Dot’s lips shut in a firm, white line. She’d kill her if
the baby died before Dr. Stewart had been summoned. She’d brain her.
Miss Brown came on duty. She looked in the ward and shouted a cheery
“Hello.”
Dot called her over. “My baby’s pretty sick, isn’t he?” she said.
“I was just looking on the chart,” returned Miss Brown. “He’s got a
little fever, but that’s natural from not eating. It’s nothing to worry
about.”
“No?” asked Dot. “Well, we’ll worry about it anyhow. That’s being on
the safe side.”
“You’ll spoil your milk, worrying.”
“You haven’t got any milk; so you worry,” said Dot.
Miss Brown raised her eyebrows and walked away. She could see Parsons’
hand in this.
Dot planned to get some sleep before ten o’clock so that she could lie
awake through the night and question Miss Brown about the baby. She
knew that at ten o’clock he would be brought to her. She wished that
Dr. Stewart hadn’t caused the one o’clock feeding to be stopped. He
had meant well. He had meant to accustom the baby to sleeping through
the night, but now she wished for the assurance that she might see him
through the small, wee, dangerous hours.
Dot’s plan to get in a nap was frustrated by guests arriving at the bed
of the woman beside her. They were quiet people, but their oft-repeated
condolences on their friend’s misfortune annoyed Dot and kept her
awake. Over and over they reminded the woman that she had dreamed for
nine months of her baby, had suffered for him, and now she did not have
him. And one of them was a man!
When they had gone Dot lay with clenched fists listening to the dry
sobs that came from the other bed. She wanted to scream. She wanted to
say words that God would hear.
Ten o’clock came and went. Dot’s baby took no food. He fretted
piteously. His little forehead was hot, and his lips were dust-dry.
Once he opened his eyes, and she fancied he looked at her pleadingly.
After he had gone back to the nursery, Miss Brown made the women ready
for sleep. The friendly dark closed in on Dot, and she sailed away on a
ship of dreams to a beautiful land where the baby romped with healthy
eagerness and Eddie rode him on his back and dumped him laughingly
into a sand dune. She knew that any more such pleasant fancies would
lull her to sleep. She brought her mind back to reality. She must stay
awake. She must stay awake. She must....
Dot awakened with a start. The moonlight filled the room, making
radiant the ugly enamel beds and the stiff white chairs. The two other
women lay asleep like chill, marble statues. Dot shuddered. There
was an eerie haze over everything. She wished that Mrs. Vernon might
awaken. She listened for a sound in the nursery, but there was none to
be heard. Miss Brown was probably reading or dozing.
Dot rang the bell. The silence continued for a few seconds more; then
the shuffle of Miss Brown’s sneakers could be heard in the corridor.
She came into the room and looked hastily at Mrs. Vernon and then at
the other woman. Dot sat up in bed, and Miss Brown came to her.
“What do you want?” she whispered.
“How’s my baby?”
Miss Brown’s face presented an expression of utter bewilderment. In the
moonlight Dot could see her mouth drop open with amazement.
“Your baby is asleep. He’s all right. I never heard of such a thing!”
“Did you take his temperature?”
“He’s all right, I told you.”
“Did you take his temperature?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t believe you.”
Miss Brown smiled. “You’re a very foolish girl, Mrs. Collins, exciting
yourself over nothing.”
“What was his temperature when you took it?”
“If I told you, it wouldn’t mean anything to you.”
“How do you know?”
Mrs. Vernon moved in her sleep, and Miss Brown exclaimed, “See! You’re
waking everybody up. Go to sleep.”
“I want to see my baby.”
“Well, I’ll certainly not bring him in to you at three o’clock in the
morning.”
“Why not?”
“He’ll cry and wake everybody up. Besides, it’s against the rules to
bring them out for anything but feedings.”
“I want to see my baby.”
“Well, you’ll see him in a few hours. Not before.”
Miss Brown started away and Dot grabbed her skirt.
“You don’t know that my baby ain’t dead, do you?”
“What?”
“I’ll bet you haven’t been near him in hours. Maybe he’s dead.”
“Nonsense, Mrs. Collins. He’s all right. I’m glad every woman doesn’t
take on like you do. You ought to be made to have a special nurse.”
“I don’t act like this always. My baby’s sick tonight.”
“A little fever.”
“Yes, a little fever.” Dot’s voice suddenly shot up to its normal
pitch, and she sat bolt upright in bed. “A little fever, and you’re too
damn lazy to go take a look at him.”
“Hush!”
“I’ll not hush. I want to see my baby.”
Miss Brown walked away.
“What’s the matter?” asked Mrs. Vernon. She, too, sat up in bed, and
pushed the hair back from her eyes.
“My baby’s sick and that big overgrown horse is too damn lazy to look
at him.”
Miss Brown materialized out of the darkness and came into the room.
“I looked at him,” she said. “He feels much cooler and he’s sleeping
nicely.”
“Bring him in here.”
“I will not.”
“Just carry him in and let me look at him. You don’t have to leave him
a second,” Dot begged.
“Why don’t you do that, Miss Brown?” asked Mrs. Vernon.
“Because it’s against the rules,” said Miss Brown. “Now both of you go
to sleep.”
“He’s dead,” Dot cried. “I know it. I felt it the minute I woke up.”
“Oh, honey, no,” Mrs. Vernon soothed.
“You’re a foolish woman, working yourself up over nothing. Your baby’s
well.” Miss Brown was very angry.
“Listen, Miss Brown.” Mrs. Vernon’s voice was sharply authoritative.
“You’re the foolish woman. You only have to carry the baby in here for
one second to make everything right for everybody concerned. Now, why
don’t you do it?”
“Because for tonight I’m bossing this ward,” said Miss Brown. “I’ll not
give in to a silly woman who can’t sleep and thinks it is a good time
for some excitement.”
“You’ve lost your professional poise,” commented Mrs. Vernon.
“He’s dead,” Dot said again. “If he was alive she’d bring him in if
only so that she could go back to her book in peace. My baby’s dead.”
“Your baby isn’t dead, honey,” Mrs. Vernon said. “He isn’t dead.”
“Oh, he is, he is.”
“He is not,” said Miss Brown.
“Then let me see him.”
“No.”
The sheet and blanket which covered Dot were suddenly flung aside as
she leaped from the bed. She stood before Miss Brown, her breath coming
in rapid gasps.
“I’m going to see my baby.”
“You’re going to get back in bed.”
“After I’ve seen my baby.”
Mrs. Vernon’s voice came dimly to Dot’s ears. “Honey, you’ll kill
yourself.”
Miss Brown laid hold of Dot with two strong hands and sought to throw
her back in bed.
“I’ll scream,” said Dot. “I’ll wake everybody in the house.” Dot’s eyes
were weird black and silver pools in the mystic light of the moon.
She was stark insane in that moment. Miss Brown knew that Dot would
murder her if she could. There was a maniacal strength in Dot’s hands,
an obsession in her brain. Miss Brown had had plenty. She was ready
to resign from the sanitarium. She was ready to see Dot contract any
internal disorder that might result from such folly. Quietly she got
Dot’s slippers and kimono and threw them to her. She stalked out of the
room.
“Listen,” said Mrs. Vernon, “let me go see your baby. I swear to tell
you the truth about him. You mustn’t go walking around.”
Dot laughed. “I’m a little shaky, but I’m all right. They’re going to
let me sit up today anyhow.”
She staggered weakly down the hall. She knew where the nursery was. She
remembered from that long-ago day when she had come to reserve a room.
There was no sign of Miss Brown. Dot felt that she had been walking for
eternities down a narrow, dimly-lit corridor with the angel of death
beckoning her on. She remembered the day that the world had reeled and
everything had gone black before her eyes. She must reach the nursery.
She must see the baby.
The nursery at last! The chain that lit the lone bulb dangled against
her forehead as she entered the darkness. She pulled it. Suppose the
light did awaken the other babies? She was past caring for other
people. Her baby was all that mattered in the world.
Quickly she looked around the room. It was a small room aired by a
skylight. Two shelves were crowded with baskets wherein slept the
babies. There were also two bassinets in the room. The baskets had
little cards pasted on the front of them. Dot read the cards swiftly,
“Baby Lefkowitz,” “Baby O’Hara,” “Baby Thompson,” “Baby Cohn.” She
read on, down the shelf. She read all the cards. She knew that he
was not there. She was consciously saving the bassinets for the last
to keep alive a faint glow of hope. If he were not in one of the
bassinets, then she had to find Miss Brown. Yes, then she’d have to
find Miss Brown.
She turned away from the shelves. Her heart beat fiercely. Her cheeks
burned, and her eyes stung. He had to be here. Oh, Lord, how could she
stand it if he weren’t?
The card on the first bassinet announced that Baby Vernon was asleep
therein. Quickly Dot’s eyes turned to the second card. It read, “Baby
Collins.” She plucked the baby from its bed and looked at him. Yes,
it was her baby, but was he alive? Roughly, she ran her hand over his
face. He was certainly cooler than he had been at ten o’clock. What did
that mean? Was he going to be cold soon? Cold!
She pressed him to her breast in an agony of terror. She wanted to
awaken him. She must see him move. She whispered to him, “Honey lamb,
Mommie’s baby.” But the little pink eyelids remained closed. To pinch,
ever so slightly, his little arm, might awaken him; but Dot grew sick
at the thought of hurting him.
She sat down on the nurse’s chair and rocked him back and forth,
talking to him. “Baby, wake up. Mommie’s alone and scared. Baby, baby,
darling, wake up. They say you can’t see or hear much at first, but you
must hear me now. Baby, wake up.”
The baby did not move. Silence surrounded and closed in on Dot. There
was no one to help her, no one to care that she couldn’t awaken her
baby. Scalding tears ran down her cheeks and dropped on the baby’s tiny
hands. His little fingers moved resentfully.
Dot laughed. His fingers had moved. He was alive. His fingers couldn’t
move if he were dead. She laughed, and the tears poured down her face.
“Baby, baby!”
She squeezed him to her body and laughed hysterically, with her face
buried in his blanket.
The baby’s eyes opened. His mouth made itself ready for a series of
strong arguments against getting crushed.
“No, no cry, sweetheart.” Dot loosened her grip upon the infant. “What
can Mommie give you to make you happy?”
It seemed important to give him something to reward him for keeping
alive the little body that was so dear to her. Still laughing and
crying, she offered him in turn the pink tassels on her kimono, her
wedding ring, the rhinestone barrette from her hair. None of these
things interested him.
Dot offered her breast. His little mouth groped for it and fastened
itself. She felt the blessed suction of his little mouth. For more than
fifteen minutes he suckled gleefully, making happy little crooning
noises.
Dot uttered a glad cry when at length, satisfied and exhausted, the
infant fell back upon her arm and slept.
She kissed him and giggled. She knew she was laughing. It seemed
foolish, but she couldn’t stop. She was crying, too. He was alive, and
he had taken food. The warm bundle nestled in her arms, and she cried
and laughed and talked aloud.
It was Mrs. Vernon who, after thirty minutes had passed, came to the
nursery. She found Dot brilliant-eyed and feverish, telling her baby
about the dresses she had made for him.
It was Mrs. Vernon who put the baby in his bassinet and who led Dot
back to the ward and tucked her into bed.
It was Mrs. Vernon who late that afternoon wrote to a friend in Paris
and said, “This morning I saw Mother Eve with her first-born. A Mother
Eve in an embroidered kimono and with a gorgeous N’York accent. Still,
nevertheless Mother Eve, thick-skulled, childish, and more than a
little wild. Watch the poetry magazines for proof that I saw her....”
When Eddie came, he kissed Dot and asked, “How’s the kid today?”
Dot shrugged. “All right, I guess. Haven’t noticed anything unusual.
Why?”