Bad Girl (Delmar)/Chapter 21
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 hia 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?"