Chapter 18
Eighteen
Waldeen shoved the bowl of bright-red berries closer to me.
Wrinkling my nose, I pushed it aside and clutched the letter from Honey I’d been reading.
The lawyer sent news of the judge’s order declaring Honey had won her emancipation, and I was thrilled for her. My daughter had asked permission to see a boy. It warmed my heart that she would even bother to ask, since the state now considered her an adult and free of her parents’ control.
“A picnic with a boy,” I repeated to the old madam.
“Read it to me again, kid,” the older woman urged, hungry for any news outside the cheerless walls.
I tapped the envelope to my chest, savoring the rare letter from home. Pressing my thumb across the three-cent stamp, I peered closer at the details of the 4H postage. Studied the drawing of the smart-dressed smiling girl and boy and the rolling hills in the distance, imagining the same for Honey.
I chewed over the words, rereading.
June ’53
Dear Mama,
I received your letter. I’m sleeping and eating well enough. I’ve been working a lot but I still love delivering books with Junia. There’s 19 families on my route with more signing up each week. Oh, how they hanker for their new books!
It makes me happy to know your you’re working with the books and growing patrons again. Is Papa well?? I never heard back from him after we talked on the telephone. But I’m seeing Francis now since he gave his permission when we talked.
I’m taking good care of the cabin and critters.
Devil John came over two weeks ago and helped me shore up Junia’s stall after the rains took out the left side.
The creek spilled out of its banks, almost to the corn!
The weather finally cleared last Sunday and Francis asked me out on a picnic near the forks of Troublesome Creek.
But it was a disater Disaster!
Junia! She ruined everything! She is the most onery Ornery creature in all of Kentucky!
! She kicked Francis’s bowl of his Mama’s prized banana pudding clean into the creek.
Then when I tried to give Francis a sandwich, she took her big ugly teeth and tugged hard on his hair.
If that wasn’t embarrassing enough, Junia plopped her stinky butt smack down between us on his clean picnic blanket and wouldn’t budge.
When poor Francis tried to shine up to her, the wicked beast stood and peed on his polished boots!
I scolded her but she sassed me right back and went running off.
By the time we caught up with her, the ants had invaded our picnic!
Junia is so ill-tempered around Francis he’s decided to take me to a resturaut restaurant for our next date. I fear she will never warm to him, Mama. Please let me know how Papa won her over.
I have a long route tomorrow and must close for now. I love you and can’t wait to see you again. Write back soon!
Your loving daughter,
Honey Mary-Angeline Lovett
P.S. Junia still misses you terrible and searches for you everywhere.
Sometimes the ol’ girl stops at the clearing of the boarded-up chapel.
She whimpers and just makes an awful racket bawling for you.
I offer her oat cookies—but no help there.
Then I started toting Pennie to the outpost with us on Tuesdays. The sweet cat seems to calm her now.
“Smart kid, and that’s a sure-footed beast she has there for her route,” Waldeen said.
“Thank you for watching over our Honey, sweet Junia,” I whispered, aching to return my daughter to the days of childhood filled with daisy chains, water-worn skipping stones, and the fairy paths of our breathing forest.
Cherishing the news, I pressed a kiss onto her signature.
My first letter from Honey, and holding the actual paper was like holding a hug from her—a homecoming that lit joy in my heart. I folded the treasure carefully and placed it inside my pocket to store in my footlocker later.
“Sweet William’s daughter all grown up,” Waldeen reminisced, then sniffled, smoothed back her hair, and swiped a dishrag across the clean counter.
I reached for the kitchen ledger, flipping the pages, scanning the budget. “Let me check this one more time for you.”
“Eat up, kid,” Waldeen said. “We’re celebrating your good news.
Not everyone can become prison librarian.
” She rested her elbows on the long metal counter in front of me, propping her chin up on both hands, folds of skin plumbed into pleated stenches of spent lard, five-day-old cooked meats, soured milk, and stale cigarette smoke hovering between us.
“Your favorite. I froze some back in the spring and found ’em while I was cleaning out the freezer.” Waldeen smacked at her apron and then shoved the dish of strawberries and cream closer as I pushed the new kitchen budget toward her. “Eat,” she ordered. “You’ve been looking a bit peaked.”
Suddenly, shadows circled my brain. My belly gurgled a warning, and a slight dizziness swept over me.
I blinked and looked away and then stared down at the bowl, trying to murmur my gratitude.
The words fizzled down, then rose, ballooning in my throat.
Gagging, I jumped up and ran to the washroom to relieve myself.
When I’d finished, I opened the door. Waldeen stood there, blocking me with a hand on her hip. She took a deep drag off her cigarette, then blew it out, sending me reeling back to the toilet.
Heaving again, I grabbed the bowl as the old woman swept up my hair and held it and soothed words above me. “Get it out. That’s it, kid. You’re fine. Fine.”
Swiping a fist across my mouth, I raised my head and stood.
Waldeen was quiet for a moment. Then: “How long ya been knocked up, kid?”
At the sink, I splashed cool water on my cheeks and forehead and met her worried eyes. My embarrassment spread and set me afire, coloring every inch, and I grabbed a tea towel to blot dry my damp face.
“A few months, by the way I tell it,” Waldeen said quietly.
“No, it’s impossible,” I bit. “I was sterilized here in early March.” But still I turned over the thought. Wondered what it would be like having Jackson’s baby.
“No. No, Cussy. You were drugged clean out of your head. They couldn’t sterilize ya until they stabilized ya,” Waldeen corrected.
“And Dr. Kennedy’s the only one who performs abortions and sterilizes.
He’s assigned in western and southern Kentucky until late summer and then makes his way here.
I know because I’ve logged his visits for years.
He requests special dishes when he comes. ”
The nausea rose with Waldeen’s uncertainty. Sterilize. Stabilize. The words tangled across my mind, bumping into the fear.
I had little recollection of my time in the infirmary.
But I’d told my doc they had done it. That was when he arranged for me to be transported to the city hospital.
But Doc didn’t perform a personal exam. He’d only checked my vitals and ordered rest while he fought with prison medical to stop testing me.
Growing more confused, I could only wag my head. Then: “I recall a while back Warden saying, There’s still the matter of your appointment with Dr. Kennedy this summer. We’ll have to take care of that.” I thought harder. “I didn’t understand then. But she was talking about the sterilization?”
Waldeen scowled. “Lying, sorry bastards.”
“I came in early March, right after—” I pressed a hand to my belly and slid down the wall, dumbfounded.
“When was your last monthly, kid?” She hovered over me.
“I—I’m not sure if I had one in the infirmary, but…
” I ticked off the numbers, visiting the months and days since I’d arrived.
“I haven’t had one. Not one, Waldeen. I must be childing.
Sure enough, and what Mama and the elders back home had called it,” I said, dumbfounded.
“Finally, the baby we’ve been waiting for. ”
Still, Waldeen looked at me carefully, as if worried about something more.
“Do ya know when you might have conceived?”
I felt my face warm.
“The first day a woman comes in, they do a pregnancy test, Cussy. Do ya remember this?”
“I don’t recall. They did a lot of things. Took samples of my urine, skin, and blood, but—”
“When did ya last play hide the wienie, kid?”
Mortified by the probing, I cupped a hand over my face and thought back to that night. We’d laid in each other’s arms, both afraid it would be our last time, and made love. He’d talked about wanting a baby and then awakened me at dawn only to take me one final time.
“The morning before they imprisoned us,” I whispered.
“As a madam who had herself a passel of girls and an even bigger passel of female troubles, I can assure you it would’ve been too early for that rabbit to die.
It takes weeks after a female conceives to show up in a bunny.
Dumb rabbit would’ve been more likely to hightail it off the table and die of a broken neck than keel over from your pee.
But still, four months is too long to not have your monthly. ”
“The morning sickness has been churning inside a lot, but I just thought my nerves were skint. It’d be closer to fourteen weeks.”
“Well, kid, you’ve been stung by a serpent, as my grandma would say. Seen it too many times, and with more than a few of my working girls.”
My mind pored over it all.
Waldeen smiled, but it never jumped up into her troubling gaze. “Kid, if you’re pregnant, they won’t let ya keep—”
“Childing,” I whispered, a wonderment and more joy surging. “They can’t sterilize me now. I need to write Jackson right away. Please lend me a stamp. I’ll be getting mine soon and will pay you back.”
Waldeen shook her head. “It’s too dangerous. You don’t want anyone finding this out right now. They’ll abort it, sure enough.”
“Jackson will get word to the attorneys and Doc. They can help.”
Waldeen tsked.
“They’re going to do an abortion and sterilize me if I wait,” I said, a truth stitched into my moan. “One stamp, Waldeen.”
She grabbed my shoulders. “Kid, it’s risky.”
“It’s risky if I don’t. I can’t take a chance of losing the babe. I have to find a way to protect the baby now. They’ll not care how far I’m along. I need to plan for the baby’s safety this very minute.”
“It’d be suicide for ya.” She poked my belly, then studied me closely. “This sickness could mean other things, Cussy. Lots of women won’t bleed when they’ve got the nerves scratching at them. You’ve been through a lot.”
“Please, Waldeen. You can mail the letter out with your weekly invoices. No one will know.” I rubbed my cold, damp hands down my prison dress. “Have you heard any word on the polio outbreak at the men’s prison?”
“It’s bad over there. The guards were jawing about it this morning in the canteen, but I didn’t hear of any more deaths mentioned.”
It was a small comfort. If anyone could help, it would be Jackson. “Lend me the stamp before it’s too late. No one will know.” I held out a hand, a shake taking hold.
Scowling, she dropped her arms and went over to a drawer and dug out a sheet of paper and stamped envelope. “Kid, if ya ain’t careful, you’re gonna write yourself right into the bowels of hell.”
***
On Sunday, I sat in the library, savoring the words I’d written to Jackson, then finally drew and colored a bluet damselfly for my signature.
Something only he and Doc would connect to me.
And the one the ol’ mountain doc had proclaimed upon my arrival into the world. “A fit girl who could turn as blue as the familiar bluet damselfly skimming the Kentucky creek beds,” he’d said, then promptly bastardized me Bluet.
Giddy, drunk on the thought of passing Jackson the news, I placed the letter in the envelope with the return address of the ol’ Carter homestead. I’d mail it Monday morning with Waldeen’s invoices.
I grabbed some books and headed toward the wards. Hummed one of Mama’s old French lullabies she used to sing to me. “One day, I will sing them to you, little one.” I walked lightly down the corridor and twirled around the darkened corner.
When I nearly ran into Officer Holt, he surprised me with a slight smile, not bothering to scold my silliness.