“I’m still up and at ’em,” she said. “And you? Honey, your eyes are red.” She held my shoulder to get a better look at me. “What’s wrong?”
I looked down at my cart, trying to get my emotions under control. “Oh, just … some things at work are piling up and I—” My voice locked up and nothing else would come out.
“Do you have anything frozen in there?” Lois peered into my cart, and I looked at the produce, confused by her question. “No, you don’t,” she said. “Leave your cart. Let’s go over to the Pharmacy and Grill for a cup of coffee and a chat.”
“Oh, I really should get the shopping done.”
“I think you need to talk to a friend more,” she said.
Oh, how right she was! I didn’t feel as though I had any friends at the moment. And I had to go to the pharmacy anyway. I needed some of that special Breck Banish shampoo. For the first time in my life I had dandruff, but I wasn’t about to tell Lois—or anyone—about that. I wondered if too much stress could cause a case of dandruff.
We moved our carts to the side of an aisle and left the store. “I’ll drive,” she said. I loved her take-charge attitude—even though she was clearly losing her battle with cancer. That horrible word.
“Robert must be at the poker game,” she said as she drove the short distance to the Hayes Barton Pharmacy and Grill. “That’s where Gavin is.”
“Yes,” I said. “I’m glad. It helps him get rid of his stress.”
“Gavin, too. I’m so glad he has friends to do things with. Golf especially. He’s being both mother and father to our little girl these days, in addition to managing his law practice.”
Oh my God. I’d nearly forgotten about their little girl. How painful it had to be to know you were dying, leaving behind a motherless child you would never get to see grow up.
“You need a hobby, too, I think,” she said. “Something fun. You work just as hard as our men do, and then you’re expected to grocery shop and run a household at the same time.”
I cleared my throat. “Well, I don’t know how I’d fit a hobby into my life right now.”
“That’s how I felt when I was teaching. Working all day, then grading papers all night.”
“Did that bother Gavin?”
She shook her head. “I saved the weekends for him. That’s an important thing to do,” she said. “Also, he knew I loved what I was doing.”
“I don’t think Robert would mind so much if I was a teacher,” I said, although actually, I was pretty sure he would. He didn’t want me to work, period. “He doesn’t like the kind of work I’m doing. Social work.”
“Gavin really enjoyed talking to you about it at the ball,” she said. “You impressed him.”
“I did?”
She nodded. “He said, ‘That Jane Forrester’s a sharp cookie.’”
I laughed, hugely flattered. I wished Robert felt that way.
Lois parked in front of the pharmacy and we walked inside and sat at the counter. I ordered coffee, but she ordered a chocolate sundae. She laughed at the look of surprise on my face.
“I eat whatever I want whenever I want it these days,” she said. “What does it matter? I lose weight no matter what I put in my mouth. My doctor’s amazed I still have a good appetite. I guess I’m lucky, at least as far as that goes.”
“Lois … I’m so sorry you’re ill.” I put my hand over hers where it rested on the counter. Although I’d only met her a little over a week before, I felt completely at ease with her and I wasn’t surprised when she seemed pleased by my touch. She took her hand away only because her sundae had arrived, and I liked seeing her eyes light up as she dug in.
“I’ve been sick with this for two years,” she said, between bites. “Ever since my little girl was born. They took everything out.” She rested a hand on her stomach, and I guessed she meant a hysterectomy, though I didn’t want to ask. “They thought they got it all. But I guess there was some little bit of cancer waiting to get another toehold.”
“I’m sorry,” I said again. I wanted to know how she could sit here and tell me what she just did and not be reduced to a puddle of tears.
“I suspected this was how things would go right from the beginning,” she said, “because my mother had the same thing.”
“Oh no.”
“Yes, and I know what it’s like for a child to lose her mother. I don’t remember her, my mother. It makes me sad to think my daughter won’t remember me.”
“She’s two?” My heart broke for her.
“Just.”
“Gavin can keep your memory alive for her,” I said. It was the best I could do.
“I hope so.” She ate another spoonful of ice cream, while my coffee was still untouched and growing cold. “I know he’ll try.”
“I think you’re amazing, Lois,” I said. “And it amazes me that you can talk about this so openly with me.”
“Well, I don’t with everyone,” she said. “But as I said, I’ve come to grips with this. And you’re a very good listener.”
“Anytime you feel like talking, you can call me.” I was sincere. I wanted to help her somehow. “Even in the middle of the night.”
“How sweet you are,” she said. “Robert certainly got lucky when he found you.”
“Thank you,” I said, although I doubted Robert was feeling very lucky about that these days.
She swallowed another bite of her sundae and I took my first sip of the cold coffee. For a moment, neither of us spoke.
“What was troubling you in the grocery store?” she asked. “When I saw your face, I knew something was really wrong.”
I looked at the reflection of the overhead lights shimmering in my coffee. “It’s just a case I’m working on. Two teenaged girls I’ve come to care about, which is a no-no.”
“Oh, that’s bull,” Lois said. “It’s impossible to care too much.”
“Tell that to my supervisor.”
“I will. Give me her phone number.”
I had the feeling she meant it and I smiled. “I took them to the beach,” I said. “They’d never seen the ocean and their lives are … well, they’re not much fun. I honestly didn’t know I was breaking the rules. I read the manual, but I guess that part didn’t sink in.”
“There are too many silly rules in our lives,” she said, “and our lives are far too short to pay attention to them.” She’d finished her sundae and pushed the empty dish a couple of inches toward the back of the counter. “I wish I’d broken more of them,” she said. “So that’s what I’m doing these days. I eat sundaes whenever I want, and I chat with a friend instead of grocery shopping. Maybe I’ll even run naked through Cameron Village.”
I laughed. “You’ve got guts,” I said.
“And so do you.” She patted me on the shoulder. “Those girls will remember that beach trip for as long as they live.”
30
Ivy
Nonnie opened the kitchen door and there was Nurse Ann, standing on the porch ready to knock. My heart dropped smack to my toes. It was too soon for her to come. I didn’t figure out how to tell Nonnie about the baby yet. I stood in the middle of the kitchen like I was stuck to the floor.
“You was just here,” Nonnie said to her. “I told you I’d stop eating so much. I’m just about starved to death already.”
“I’m not here to see you, today,” Nurse Ann said. “I’m here to check on Ivy and the baby.”
Nonnie looked good and confused. “He’s outside somewhere with his mama,” she said. “Mary Ella’s been keeping a better eye on him, so you don’t need to be coming around all the—”
“Not Baby William,” Nurse Ann said. “
Ivy’s
baby.”
“What are you talking about?” Nonnie looked from her to me.
“I didn’t tell her yet,” I said to Nurse Ann.
Nonnie catched on. Her eyes got big and her face went red. “No!” she hollered, and she came at me, her hands flying, ready to swat me good. I covered my face with my arms and Nurse Ann tried to grab Nonnie.
“Winona!” she said, her long braid flying all over the place. “Stop it! Stop!” But Nonnie was too riled up.
“You whore!” she said, smacking my head. “You’re just like your sister. What are we gonna do with another baby in the house?”
I dropped down next to one of the kitchen chairs and ducked under the table like a scared dog. She still tried to get to me, but she was tuckered out and had no wind left.
“Sit down!” Nurse Ann barked at her. “You’re going to have a stroke if you don’t get a handle on yourself.”
Nonnie was breathing hard and I got out from under the other side of the table, glad to have it between me and her. Nurse Ann had her fingers on Nonnie’s wrist and was looking at her watch. Nonnie’s face was redder than I ever seen it.
“You’re a disgrace,” she said to me.
“Hush,” Nurse Ann said. She let go of Nonnie’s wrist and wrote something in that notebook she always carried. “Now you listen to me, Winona. I’m going to take Ivy in the bedroom and examine her and when I come out we can talk. Till then I want you to just sit here at the table and rest.”
“Can you get her one of them abortions?” Nonnie asked.
Did she mean give my baby away? I’d never do that.
“No, ma’am, I certainly cannot,” Nurse Ann said. She waved her hand toward the bedroom. “Let’s go, Ivy,” she said.
I didn’t want to go with her but it was better than staying with Nonnie, so I did. Nurse Ann shut the door behind us as far as it would go.
“Why didn’t you tell her?” she asked.
“Why’d you think?” I asked. “I don’t want to get kilt. She would of done me in if you wasn’t here.”
“Sit down,” she said, pointing to the bed, and I sat. “Mrs. Forrester said you had no idea you were pregnant.”
“He always pulled out.”
“Well, you learned your lesson there, now didn’t you? That doesn’t work. Why do you think I gave you that spermicidal jelly, Ivy?”
I looked out the window, remembering Mary Ella taking one of the boxes of jelly. “Mary Ella took some of it,” I said. “You better give her some more before it’s too late for her, too.”
“Who’s the boy?” she asked, opening up her medicine bag.
“Nobody.”
She made a disgusted face at my answer. “I need you to take off your underwear and lay back on the bed so I can check inside you,” she said.
“What?” I said. “No!”
I remembered how she’d come in the bedroom a time or two with Mary Ella in the months before Baby William was born. Was she checking inside her then? I thought she was just listening to Mary Ella’s heart and looking at her eyes and throat. Nurse Ann was supposed to bring Baby William into the world until Mrs. Werkman told us about Mary Ella’s appendix and sent her to the hospital instead.
“It won’t hurt,” she said. “I’m just going to feel inside you. Make sure the baby’s healthy and—”
“You can feel it?” If she could feel it up there, what was to keep it from falling out of me?
“I can feel your uterus.”
“What’s that?”
“Your womb,” she said. “You’ll see. Just take off your underwear now.”
I stood up and reached under my dress and pulled off my stretched-out old drawers. I laid them on the bed and sat down again.
She put a rubber glove on her hand. “Now move back a little and put your feet on the bed and spread your legs open wide.”
I put my feet up but I wasn’t doing any spreading. “Don’t want to,” I said.
“Well, Ivy, I know this isn’t the first time you’ve spread your legs open or else you wouldn’t be in the state you’re in, isn’t that true? Come on now.”
I done like I was told and closed my eyes while she put her fingers inside me and moved them around and pressed all over my belly. “You are good and pregnant,” she said, pulling out her hand. She took off the glove and told me I could sit up. I pulled my dress down. My knees was shaking.
“Every time I asked you about your period, you told me you were keeping track of it.”
“I thought I was,” I lied. I didn’t know what else to say.
“Do you actually know when your last period was?”
I shook my head.
“Well, I’d say you’re somewhere between five and six months,” she said. “Closer to six, I’d say. That means you’ll have a baby around Thanksgiving time. The baby’s small, so it’s hard to tell. Might be epilepsy or poor nutrition causing that or you might not be as far along as I think you are. Did you have any morning sickness a while back? Any throwing up in the morning?”
I thought of one week in the spring when I felt like throwing up every day while I waited for the bus. I never did, though. “No,” I said. Outside the door, I could hear Mary Ella’s voice. Then Nonnie’s. Then both together. And then one more voice I couldn’t place right away. Mrs. Forrester? Yes, that was it. I was glad she was here.
“Have you been taking any of that medicine you used to take for your seizures? Your fits?”
“No, ma’am.” I hated that medicine. It made me feel dizzy and strange.
“Well, if you’re doing all right without it, that’s probably best for now,” she said. “It could hurt your baby. I’m going to leave you some special vitamins and I want you to take one every single morning. I know you aren’t very religious about taking medication, but this is important.”
“What’s religion got to do with it?”
She sighed. “Absolutely nothing. I’ll leave these on the shelf next to Nonnie’s pills, okay?” She leaned over and took my hands. “Ivy, you’re not a bad girl. You help Nonnie remember to take her medicine and test her urine. She’s told me that. You know how to take care of other people. Now take care of
you,
okay? Take care of yourself because it’s not just you anymore. It’s that little baby, too.”
I nodded. “Should I take two of them pills instead?” I asked. “Would that be better?”
She shook her head. “Just one. Too much of a good thing is no good at all.”
I walked behind her into the living room, afraid Nonnie was going to come at me again, but she was wore out and sitting on the sofa now, the sheets still on it from when she slept there last night. Mrs. Forrester stood inside the front door, real quiet. Mary Ella, though, was squealing and jumping up and down and she hugged me. “We gonna have another Baby William!” she said.
I hoped my baby was a girl, but didn’t say nothing.
“I have something for you,” Nurse Ann said to Mrs. Forrester. She wasn’t friendly to her at all. It was like she was mad. She sat on the edge of the sofa and wrote something real fast on a piece of paper on top of her notebook. Then she stood up and shoved the paper at Mrs. Forrester, who took it from her. “Tear up the petition form you already have from me and type this one up instead,” she said.