Chapter 7 Nancy
SEVEN
NANCY
Ginny’s hair slid through my fingers like spun silk. There wasn’t a knot left among the long, dirty-blonde strands, yet I didn’t stop.
I didn’t want to stop.
Cross-legged and stroking her stomach, she sat in front of me on her bed.
If I ignored the sobbing from the bed across the room, I could almost imagine she was my daughter.
Not that I was old enough to be her mother.
Not unless I’d fallen pregnant as a preteen.
But with her delicate figure and sweet countenance, I could imagine she younger.
Humming gently, I stroked the brush downward, losing myself in the way her hair delicately skimmed her shoulders.
Shoulders that were too bony. Skin that was a little too sallow.
A dusting of pale brown freckles that almost created a heart at the back of her neck.
I grazed a thumb over the marks, the urge to brush my lips over them swarming me.
A prickle darted along my spine as Ginny inhaled at my soft touch, and for a moment, the world reduced to the two of us.
The three of us.
‘Can you tie my ribbons?’ Ginny asked.
Pink ribbons lay on the bed next to her.
An item that should have been confiscated.
But Ginny wasn’t in a high risk ward, so no one had bothered to take them away.
Let’s face it, one less patient was one less mouth to feed.
Another bed to fill. I doubted Ginny’s family could be paying very much to house her at Wellard, no doubt Dr. Marney would let her hang herself with her ribbons for a sniff at a patient with an affluent family.
‘How do you want me to tie them?’ The ribbons tickled my palm as I picked them up, their ends cut into a perfect double point.
‘Mama always braided my hair. A ribbon at the top and another at the bottom. I’m not so good at that.’ Ginny’s voice grew distant as she mentioned her mother. The sting of her abandonment hadn’t abated.
‘I can braid it for you.’
‘You’re not like the others,’ Ginny said as I looped the soft pink around her hair. ‘You don’t hurt us.’
Swallowing down the lump in my throat, I proceeded to plait her hair in a rope down her back. ‘I try to help.’
‘Can’t you tell someone? Out there?’ Her head turned toward the barred window.
The sobbing from her roommate had softened and I lowered my voice. ‘It’s not that easy. The owner of the asylum knows which palms to grease to keep any whistleblowing to a minimum.’
Ginny sat in silence as I tied the second ribbon. My heart broke for her.
‘I brought you a little something,’ I said, smiling as she turned on the bed to face me, her body slowing with the daily expansion of her stomach. Her eyes lit up as I took out a pink and white striped paper bag.
Tongue darting over her lower lip, she peered into the bag. ‘Candies? All for me?’
‘I hope they are okay. I wasn’t sure what you liked.’ A swell of pleasure lifted my chest at her reaction.
‘Oh, Nurse Nancy,’ she squealed, throwing her arms around my neck and giving me an entirely inappropriate hug.
The moment I extracted myself from her grip, she stuffed one of the red and white swirled candies into her mouth with a groan. Ginny flopped back on the bed giving little moans as she sucked the candy. Little moans that made me flush from chest to cheek.
‘You shouldn’t eat lying down, you could choke.’
Rolling onto her side, she gave a sticky smile. ‘Elijah never minds.’
Sensing an in, I took my chance to pry into her life.
‘Where did you meet Elijah?’
‘Just on the farm, like I said.’
‘Did he work there? Help your family out?’
Ginny’s brow crinkled. ‘No. He just came sometimes.’
I sighed. That line of inquiry proved just as fruitless as before.
‘You mentioned other babies. Can I ask about them?’
Pain flashed across her face, and her body stilled, the brief joy dissipating.
‘I suppose.’
‘There were more?’
Ginny picked at the bed covers, her eyes dropping. ‘Four.’
Four babies. She must have been so very young to have successfully birthed so many. I pressed my tongue to the top of my mouth as my eyes prickled.
‘Oh Ginny, I’m so sorry.’
‘Why? You didn’t take them from me.’ Ginny’s ragged nails scratched against the linen.
‘Who did?’
Ginny swallowed her candy before flopping back onto the bed, her eyes closing and her hands resting on her stomach, encompassing the babe within.
‘Mama. Mama and Pops took them all. They said I couldn’t keep them. I was too young and too stupid. Elijah would have helped me.’
They must have adopted them out, not wanting to have another mouth to feed.
‘What did Elijah say?’
Ginny’s fingers drew tiny circles over her stomach, tracing the contours of her child. ‘He was mad. But he said it would be okay, that I wasn’t in trouble. That we’d make another. That they couldn’t take them all.’
Maybe I could find them. Track down an adoption agency near her farm and see if they had any abandoned babies at the hospitals or fire stations.
‘Did they have anything with them when your mother took them? Anything that could be identified?’
‘A ribbon. They all went with one of my ribbons. And Mama knitted them all the sweetest little cardigans. White with yellow daisies.’ Ginny reached over and took my hand, placing it over a spot high on her stomach. ‘Do you feel her?’
Between her hand and her stomach, she sandwiched my hand with warmth. I felt nothing.
‘Nurse Nancy?’ Ginny asked. ‘You won’t take her from me, will you?’
A bump against my hand stilled me. It felt like the gentle nudge of fate. Like Ginny had been brought to me for a reason. If I couldn’t get her out, maybe I could help raise her baby. Keep her close enough to visit.
Promising her that I wouldn’t take her baby would be a lie. Because no matter how I pitied the young woman, the envy that washed me as that tiny life inside her pressed against my hand was heavy enough to drown any morals I had.
I’d prayed for a child of my own.
What if my prayers were being answered in the form of this skinny, sweet, downtrodden woman?
It would be wrong to discard that miracle.
‘Nurse Nancy?’
‘I’ll protect her,’ I whispered, sliding my hand lower on her stomach to feel another divine nudge from within.
‘And me?’ Ginny opened her eyes to meet mine.
‘Of course, sweet girl.’