Chapter Forty-Three Dottie
Chapter Forty-Three
Dottie
San Diego
We go home tomorrow. We’ve been here for two weeks. The nurses keep telling me what a lucky girl I am, to have such a wonderful husband. He smiles and gives me tender kisses and brings me magazines and candy.
“How’s my beautiful girl today?” he asks when he arrives for a visit. The nurses smile and titter and he brings them little gifts. A bouquet of flowers for the nurses’ station to thank them for taking such good care of me, or a box of chocolates for the break room.
In some ways, this helps. It proves I’m not crazy, that Dickie really was a different person when we got married. He was this person, the person the nurses see every afternoon during visiting hours. Handsome and charming and thoughtful.
But it also makes things worse. Because even if I admitted the truth, even if I told someone, they wouldn’t believe me.
Everyone loves him. The nurses here at the hospital.
The girls in the office at the dealership.
Our neighbors. Even Daddy. Especially Daddy.
No one will believe me. And I’m as stupid as Dickie says I am to think otherwise.
June 26, 1965
Beaverbrook Lane
We flew back from San Diego today. The neighbors walked by as we pulled up to the house. Dickie smiled and waved and told them what a wonderful time we had, and how exhausted I am from the trip. Traveling for two, he said with a wink.
And then we went inside, and he started yelling again about how this is all my fault, how working on his car and changing the oil caused the miscarriage. He says that’s why women aren’t mechanics. He said I’m abnormal. Unnatural. Then he told me not to tell anyone about losing the babies.
June 28, 1965
Is he right? Did I cause the miscarriage? Cried so hard today I can hardly see. God, this is awful. He said I can’t leave the house until I’m “feeling better.” He said he doesn’t want me bursting into tears at the meat market or the drug store. I don’t care anyway. All I want to do is sleep.
July 9, 1965
I just can’t seem to pull myself out of this.
Today I slept until two o’clock, ate some toast, and went back to bed.
Every time I look out the window I see mothers and children.
In the cul-de-sac, on the sidewalk, mothers pushing strollers, children riding their bicycles, playing baseball in the street, little gangs of children roaming through the front and back yards.
I can’t bear this. I just can’t. Because if I’m not going to be a mother, then what am I going to be? Am I just supposed to roll around inside this big empty house, making three course dinners for Dickie and ironing sheets every day, for the rest of my life. Is this all there is, forever?
July 25, 1965
I know I should try to pull myself out of this, but I don’t have the energy. I’m exhausted. My stomach hurts. My skin is gray. I don’t have a purpose anymore. I can’t be a mechanic or an engineer. And now I can’t be a mother either.
Men can be fathers, plus anything else under the sun. But married women aren’t supposed to have jobs. Married women can’t be anything but mothers.
And maybe . . . maybe that’s the answer. Maybe I shouldn’t be married. Then I’d have the freedom to be a secretary again, or a teacher or a nurse. Something else. Anything else. Anything but Dickie’s wife.