Chapter 34
CHAPTER 34
February 1970
Bernie
“She’s lucky to be alive,” Dr. Davenport tells Dan.
Both men stand at the end of my hospital bed. Dan’s arms are folded, as if he’s protecting his heart, and he’s nodding furiously, hanging on to the doctor’s every word.
“Preeclampsia is not to be sniffed at. Bernie is lucky we caught her when we did,” Dr. Davenport says.
“Lucky,” I snort, thinking of the tiny little boy they whipped from my body.
My son. My baby. Gone.
“My advice?” Dr. Davenport says.
Dan nods more, lapping it up.
“No more babies. It’s dangerous. This can and will happen again. Frankly, it’s nothing short of a miracle that Bernie made it to a fourth pregnancy without this raising its head before. Bernie may not be so lucky next time.”
“Lucky.” That damn word.
“No more babies,” Dan says obediently. He looks at me, waiting for me to agree. I don’t move or speak.
All I can think about is my baby’s face. His button nose. His powder blue eyes. His tiny, wrinkled hands. Philip. His name is Philip McCarthy, I decide.
“I’ll leave you two alone now. Sister Lillian will be around soon to check on you,” Dr. Davenport says.
Dan unfolds his arm and stretches out his hand. Dr. Davenport shakes it and they exchange a nod.
“Thank you, Doctor. Thank you so much. My Bernie. You saved my Bernie. There’s free meat for you. Free meat for life. It’s the least we can do.”
“Thank you, but that really isn’t necessary. I’m just doing my job.” Dr. Davenport pulls his hand back and shoves it into his pocket. “Good luck,” he says. “And do take my advice. No. More. Babies.”
We are not alone. There are six beds in the ward that smells of bleach and linen: three across from me and one on each side of me. The one on my left is empty, but women and newborns lie in the rest of the beds. The babies cry every so often and their mothers soothe them. I look away but their tiny, helpless cries ring in my ears.
When I can no longer hold my tears back, Dan sits on the edge of the bed next to me and wraps his arms around me.
“Hush, my love. Hush. It will be all right. I promise everything will be all right.”
Rubber shoes squeak across the tiled floor and a nurse requests our attention with a cough. She stands at the end of my bed and I can’t help but wonder how she keeps her uniform so white in an environment so at odds with that color.
“Excuse me, sir,” she says, in a clipped tone, “there is no sitting on the patient’s bed.”
She doesn’t introduce herself, only points toward a sign hanging by the door. BEDS ARE FOR PATIENT USE ONLY.
“Oh.” Dan stands up. His cheeks are pink. “I’m sorry, Sister Lillian,” he says, assuming. “My wife is upset. We’ve just lost our son, you see.”
“I know,” she says. “I’m sorry for your troubles.”
I dry my eyes and hold my head as high as I can manage. “I want to go home.”
“Oh goodness,” she says. “You won’t be going anywhere for a while. You’ve had major surgery, Mrs. McCarthy. You need time to recover.”
“I have three girls at home. I need to be with them.”
A baby starts to whimper. I want to stick my fingers in my ears and scream.
“I’m afraid not,” the nurse says, her clipped tone returning. “You need rest.”
“I need my own bed and peace and quiet. I can’t be around these babies. Please.”
My heart is throbbing. It’s not dramatic to say it feels as if it might snap clean in half. The nurse places her hand on Dan’s shoulders and turns him toward the door.
“Now, Mr. McCarthy. If you’ll be so kind as to be on your way. It’s patient quiet time. Visiting hours resume at seven p.m., but Mrs. McCarthy has been through a lot. It might be best if you come back tomorrow.”
“Patient quiet time?” I say. “Don’t you hear that?”
“Babies cry, Mrs. McCarthy. With three at home already, you should know that.”
“My baby doesn’t cry. My baby can’t. He’s dead.”
Dan turns back. His eyes are glossy with tears and I want to shovel the words back into my mouth. I reach for his hand and squeeze gently. “Our baby,” I correct myself.
“Our baby,” Dan whispers.
“Really, Mr. McCarthy,” the nurse says, jamming her hands on her hips. “If you could get a wriggle on now, please. As I said, the patients need their rest.”
I glare at the nurse. She’s an older lady. Close to retirement, perhaps. She’s not wearing a wedding ring and I doubt she has any experience giving birth to a baby, let alone losing one.
“Please,” I say, holding Dan’s hand a little tighter. “Can’t he stay? I don’t want to be alone. Please.”
Her eyebrows pinch. “I’m afraid rules are rules. No husbands on the ward past three p.m. and”—she checks the watch that clips to her pocket—“it’s three oh five now.”
“To hell with the rules. Who made them anyway?”
“They’re hospital rules, Mrs. McCarthy. They’re the same for everyone.”
All the other mothers sit or lie in bed. They feed or cuddle their babies, or flick through the pages of magazines. Their husbands are all gone. I didn’t notice them leave.
“But it’s not the same for everyone,” I say. “Their babies are all alive and my Philip is gone.”
“Mrs. McCarthy, I really am sorry. Perhaps a cup of tea might—”
“I just want my husband.”
She shakes her head.
“Damn your rules,” I snap.
“I’m just doing my job.”
I sob. My whole body shakes. It hurts where they cut me but I can’t stop.
“I want my husband. I want my baby. I want to go home.”
I think I might be shouting; I can’t tell. My voice is coming from a strange place, as if I am submerged underwater and I’m trying to push sound out to reach the surface.
“Mrs. McCarthy, please. You’re making a scene.”
I feel Dan’s hand on my shoulder. I steady myself and look at him. There’s so much pain in his eyes. He’s looking at the woman in the bed opposite us. I now recognize her as one of Dan’s regular customers.
“Congratulations, Mrs. Sweeny,” Dan says, his voice crackling like radio static. “A little boy, is it?”
“Yes. Yes. A boy. To take home to his five big brothers.”
“He’s a fine fella.”
“Ten pounds, six ounces.”
“A fine fella,” Dan repeats.
“I’m sorry,” she says, looking away from Dan and toward me. “I’m very sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you,” Dan says.
“Mr. McCarthy,” the nurse calls out, as if she’s a school principal and Dan is a naughty pupil. “It is time to leave. Please!”
Dan leans over my bed and kisses me. “Rest, my love. I’ll be back this evening.”
“Tomorrow would be better,” the nurse says.
“This evening,” Dan repeats. “I’ll bring your scrapbook, love. It might help to look over baby photographs of our girls.”
Baby photos are the last thing that will help, but I know my husband means well so I don’t say a word. Besides, maybe I can write. Maybe I can write all my thoughts and feelings about beautiful Philip and someday, when I’m ready, it will all be there to share with Dan and my girls, too.
Dan kisses me again before Sister Lillian places her hand on his back and practically pushes him out the door.
Later, the nurse checks my blood pressure and whatnot, and the doctor comes by with a list of questions as long as my arm. The drill is the same for every woman on the ward. Then the nurses gather up the babies and take them to the nursery. A young mother in the bed closest to me, and most likely on her first, requests to keep her baby by her side.
“I’m afraid not,” the nurse says. “No babies on the ward after eight p.m. It’s the rules.”
Those damn rules.
When the nurse leaves and the lights dim, five women sit in bed alone with nothing better to do than stare at the four walls that surround us. Mrs. Sweeny is the first to get out of bed. She’s a tiny woman and it takes her some time to shuffle her way toward me. Without a word she hoists herself onto my bed. She points toward the sign hanging by the door and winks.
“They can’t give out to me for sitting here. I’m a patient.” Then she takes my hand and squeezes. “You’ll be all right. Someday.”
The woman in the end bed is next to come forward. “I think they should have let him stay. Your husband. None of us would have minded.”
The girl in the bed beside me doesn’t get up, but she rolls onto her side to face me. She bends her elbow and props her head in her hand. “It’s not as if we’re getting much rest, with my little lady anyway. You’ll hear her any moment kicking up a fuss down in that nursery. They’ll come call me and ask me to hush her up. But I’ve not had a baby before. I don’t know the first thing about hushing them.”
“You’ll learn,” Mrs. Sweeny says. “We all do.”
“Can’t learn if I don’t have her here with me. I just want to hold her all the time. I wish they wouldn’t take the babies away at night.”
“When you’ve had a few like me, you won’t mind so much. You’ll appreciate the rest,” Mrs. Sweeny says. “It’s the shooing the husbands away as if they don’t know how the babies got in there in the first place that bothers me. Take my George. He’s down the pub wetting the baby’s head and he’s not had a chance to hold the wee fella yet.”
“Will he get drunk?” the young mother asks.
“You can bet on it. He’ll have four or five pints at least while I’m here sitting on this bed, stitched from front to back like the hem of a skirt. My sister is looking after my older boys. On top of seven children of her own. It’ll be a madhouse.”
“I have three daughters,” I say.
Mrs. Sweeny squeezes my hand once more; then she slowly lowers herself off my bed and walks back to her own. There’s nothing more to say. She has six sons and I have one in heaven.