Vincent took the baby from my hands, checking him over quickly. He cut the umbilical cord, examined Amy, delivered the placenta. I supposed it was all done with my help, but my tears were in the way and I moved on autopilot.
“Take this baby out of the ward,” Vincent said to me. “Keep him warm and get him some oxygen and an ambulance to the nursery at the local hospital.”
I nodded, wrapping the baby in a towel, my hands shaking with adrenaline. Then I carried the tiny bundle through the ward, stopping only long enough to let Amy see her little son before heading outside. In the stone building, I sat down next to one of the oxygen tanks and told the switchboard operator to call an ambulance. We had no masks tiny enough for a baby, so I held the cannula close to his nose. He could not have been more than five pounds but he was beautiful, with pale fuzz on his head and perfect features. I held him in my arms still swaddled in the towel. I held him the way I wished I could have held my own son. Held him and whispered to him and wondered how I was going to let go of him when the ambulance finally arrived.
70
The ambulance took Amy’s baby away, and I sat down on the bench in front of the stone building. I was needed in the ward, but I needed time to myself even more. I heard the ward’s screen door slam, and in a moment, I saw Vincent walking toward me. He pulled off his mask as he walked, then sat down next to me. For a few seconds, neither of us said a word. His presence felt like such a gift.
“Do you remember,” he said finally, “when I was about sixteen and you were about twelve, and we were sitting on my stoop eating watermelon and seeing who could spit the seeds the farthest, and that little girl from down the street rode by on her rollerskates?”
I nodded. “Beatrice, her name was,” I said. I knew where he was going with this.
“Beatrice. That’s right. How old was she? Five?”
“I think so.”
“And she fell right in front of us.”
“Probably caught her skate on a watermelon seed.” I smiled.
“Probably,” he said. “I used to think about that day. Whenever you and I would talk about eventually working together in our medical office, I’d think about that little girl and how it felt to help someone side by side with you. I remember looking down at your twelve-year-old hands. You were calmly pressing my handkerchief against that bloody cut on her forehead, while I was trying to hold her broken arm in place.”
“I remember,” I said. He’d been more of a big brother to me then than someone I would eventually fall in love with.
“Those few minutes with Amy and the baby brought that all back to me.” His voice was quiet and calm. His hands rested on his thighs. “That was our dream, wasn’t it?” he asked, though it wasn’t really a question. “Working together someday?”
Among other dreams, I thought. My throat felt too tight to speak.
“You saved that baby’s life, Tess,” he said. “You performed like a nurse with twenty years’ experience.”
My eyes burned. I tried to say “thank you,” but again, the words caught in my throat. They came out in a whisper I wasn’t sure he heard.
“I just wanted to tell you that,” he said, getting to his feet.
I grabbed his hand, not wanting him to leave, then instantly let go, afraid someone might see us. I looked up at him.
“Every day, I come to work terrified you won’t be here,” I confessed.
He sat down again and took my hand, holding it between both of his. I savored the warmth of his palms. His fingers. Their shape. The smooth skin. So familiar to me. I pressed my palm against his.
“I keep thinking I should leave,” he admitted. “There are other doctors who could take my place, and it frankly hurts like hell to be this close to you and know you’re married to someone else.” He squeezed my hand. “I don’t want to leave though. Now that I’ve finally found you … and I can see you’re not happy. You got yourself in a bind. I’m angry you didn’t tell me. Didn’t trust me enough to come to me.”
“How could I?” I said. “How could I admit to you that I’d slept with a stranger? That I was carrying his baby? What would you have done? Would you still have married me?”
“I would have had to do some soul-searching,” he admitted. “But I know you, Tess. Or at least, I knew you then. I knew what a good person you were. I knew that one mistake didn’t define you. Of course I still would have married you.”
A truck drove into the clearing not far from where we sat. I pulled my hand from between his at the same moment he rose to his feet again. He looked down at me.
“Are you ready to come back in?” he asked. “Things are crazy in there today.”
He would have married me, in spite of my infidelity, in spite of the fact that I was carrying another man’s child. I threw it all away. I lost the chance to be his wife. I lost the chance at happiness. I wondered if it was possible to find it again.
“Yes,” I said, standing up. “I’m ready.”
71
When our shifts ended that evening, Grace and I walked outside to see a small crowd of people in the clearing. A car bearing the radio station logo WHKY was parked in the scrubby grass nearby.
“What’s that all about?” Grace asked, pointing.
As we walked closer, we could see that the group stood in a semicircle around a man holding a microphone. Henry was there, and he smiled when he spotted me and waved us over. When we reached the outskirts of the circle of people, I realized that the man with the microphone—a reporter?—was interviewing Vincent. Next to him stood Mayor Finley and his wife, Marjorie.
Marjorie spotted us and let out a squeal. She grabbed me, pulling me into a hug. “Thank you!” she said, then turned to Grace. “Thank you both so much!”
“These must be the nurses,” the reporter said, grinning at us, and only then did I realize WHKY was there because of what had happened that morning with Amy Pryor and her baby.
Vincent smiled. “Yes, these are the nurses,” he said. “Tess DeMello.”
“Kraft,” I corrected him.
“Tess Kraft,” he said. “And Grace Wilding. All the nurses here are excellent,” he added, “but Amy Pryor and her son are alive today because of these two women. Grace operated a handheld inflator to help Amy breathe while outside of the iron lung, and Tess delivered the baby on her own. The baby wasn’t breathing and Tess performed artificial respiration—what we call mouth-to-mouth insufflation—on him, which required a great deal of care and skill.”
“Mrs. Kraft,” the reporter said to me, “can you tell us more about what happened?”
I explained what had taken place the best I could without making the whole event sound too frightening for Amy’s parents to hear. The man next to Henry threw a question my way and I noticed he was jotting my answer down on a notepad. A newspaper reporter, I guessed, and then I realized he was not the only one. A couple of men and one woman were taking notes. Another man was snapping pictures. The story was bigger than I’d imagined.
“Did you have special training to know how to save the baby?” one of the reporters called out.
“Only in theory,” I said. “Frankly, I never thought I’d have to put what I learned into practice.”
“How does it feel to save a life?” the female reporter asked.
I was surprised when I teared up at the question. I’d saved a life. No doubt about it. “I’m just glad Grace and I were there at the right moment,” I said, my voice thick.
I felt Vincent’s hand on my back. “She’s being modest,” he said. “I’ve known Tess all my life, and I always knew she’d be an exceptional nurse. What she did took a clear head, quick action, and a lot of courage. She and Grace really saved the day today.”
* * *
Henry and I were quiet as we walked toward the Cadillac after the meeting with the reporters. He had his hand on my elbow, and I felt affection in the touch. He smiled at me as we got into the car. “I’m really proud of you,” he said.
I tho
ught it might have been the kindest thing he’d ever said to me.
“Thank you.”
He started the car and began driving out of the clearing and we opened our windows to let in the evening air.
Neither of us spoke for a few minutes. Then he glanced at me. “So, what did that doctor mean when he said he’d known you all his life?” he asked. “He called you Tess DeMello before you corrected him.”
I hesitated, unsure how much to say. “It’s a coincidence that he’s here,” I said finally. “His family lived next door to my family in Baltimore.”
“Did he know you were here? In Hickory?”
“He had no idea,” I said. “We were shocked to see each other when he arrived at the hospital last week.”
The air felt heavy between us. I licked my lips, unsure whether to tell him more. Finally, he spoke.
“He looked at you like he cares about you.” He glanced at me.
“He’s the man I was engaged to,” I said, as simply as if I’d said the weather was balmy.
Henry didn’t respond right away and I bit my lip, waiting. After a moment, he pressed on the brake and gradually steered the car to the side of the road. He turned off the engine, then shifted in the seat until he was looking at me.
“Why didn’t you tell me this as soon as he showed up?”
“I saw no reason to,” I said.
“And he didn’t know you were here?”
I shook my head. “He didn’t come looking for me, if that’s what you mean,” I said. “He had no idea where I was. I wanted it that way.”
I felt Henry’s gaze on me. I couldn’t meet his eyes.
“Why didn’t you marry him, Tess?” he asked.
“Why do you think?” I asked. “I got pregnant with your baby. I didn’t think he would still accept me if I told him I cheated on him with you and that I was pregnant, so I never told him. I just left. And then you asked me to marry you, and…”
“He knows you’re married to me?”
“Yes. Of course. I explained everything to him.”
“And…?”
“There is no ‘and.’ I’m married to you, not to him. He and I both understand that, so you have nothing to be concerned about.”
Henry looked through the windshield at the darkening sky, his right hand rubbing his left. “I thought I was doing something good, asking you to marry me.”
“You were,” I said. “And if Andrew had lived, everything would be so different.”
“Are you still in love with him? The doctor?”
There seemed to be no point in lying. “I love him with all my heart,” I admitted, my voice again growing thick.
Henry shut his eyes. Leaned back in the seat. I couldn’t tell if he was angry or sad or indifferent. I waited. Finally, he opened his eyes and looked at me.
“This is a painful story, Tess,” he said. “I’m very sorry. Your tragedy was my salvation.”
“How?” I asked, utterly perplexed. “How is our marriage your salvation? I don’t understand.”
He reached his hand out to run his fingers down my cheek. His smile was sad. “You’re very dear to me,” he said, and then he started the car and I knew that was all the explanation I would get from him tonight.
72
Ruth was already at the dining-room table when Henry and I came down to breakfast the following morning. The front page of the Hickory Daily Record was spread flat on the table in front of her, and next to the articles about the war, I could read the headline: NURSES SAVE THE LIVES OF MAYOR FINLEY’S DAUGHTER AND GRANDSON.
“So,” Henry said to his mother as he placed his napkin in his lap, “what do you think of your daughter-in-law now?”
I wanted to hush him—he was baiting her terribly—but I couldn’t help but smile. All last evening, Henry had treated me kindly. Even tenderly, rubbing my shoulders, stiff from my day’s work. Of course he didn’t make love to me or even kiss me, but he told me repeatedly how proud he was of me. How grateful he was that I’d agreed to marry him. I would never understand my husband.
Ruth looked up from the paper. “You actually put your mouth on that baby’s mouth?” she asked. “Wasn’t it covered in all sorts of…” She shuddered.
“I cleaned him off quickly,” I said. “And I blew into his nose, not his mouth. I held his mouth closed.”
Ruth tapped the article with her fingertip. “How did you know what to do?” she asked. “How did you know how to deliver a baby?”
I shrugged. “I’m a nurse,” I said, a bit of pride creeping into my voice. “That’s what nurses do. Though to be perfectly honest, this baby really delivered himself.”
Ruth let out a worried sigh. “So now you have the polio germs inside you, don’t you?” she asked.
“It doesn’t work that way,” I said. “The baby doesn’t have polio and probably won’t get it. The virus doesn’t cross the placenta.”
“Hush.” Ruth shuddered. “This is not a conversation for the breakfast table.”
Hattie brought us plates of eggs and grits and bowls of blackberries. “You famous now,” she said to me. “Can I touch you?” She poked my shoulder with her finger and I laughed. “How’s my little Jilly doin’?” she asked.
“She’s doing very well, Hattie,” I said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she could go home today or tomorrow.”
“Praise Jesus,” Hattie said as she headed back toward the kitchen. “Adora don’t know what to do with herself without her baby girl in the house.”
“Well,” Ruth said to me as Henry and I began to eat, “I received a phone call this morning from Madge Pilcher. She wants you to join us at our book club meeting tonight.”
“I wish I could,” I said, “but I know I’ll be too tired after working all day. Please thank her for the invitation.” I kept my smile to myself. Was I finally to be accepted by Ruth’s social group? I was not a bad person. I could still hold my head high. How was it that I’d forgotten that about myself?
“I’ll drop you off at the hospital,” Henry said between sips of his coffee, “but then I need to get to the factory. The phone isn’t working for some reason and I have to get that taken care of, but I’ll try to get back to the hospital later today.”
“Oh my,” Ruth said suddenly, her finger marking an article on the front page. She looked up at us. “Life magazine is coming to the polio hospital tomorrow! Did you know?”
Henry and I shook our heads. “They’ll probably want to interview my marvelous wife,” Henry said.
“Oh my gosh, I hope not,” I said, overwhelmed by the thought.
“It says here people are calling Hickory ‘polio city’ now,” Ruth said, looking at the article. “It says people roll up their car windows and cover their noses with handkerchiefs when they drive through town.”
“What nonsense.” Henry got to his feet. “You ready, Tess?”
* * *
There was excitement at the hospital when Henry dropped me off that morning. People were still talking about the mayor’s grandson, who was by all reports doing very well in the hospital. Even more exciting to everyone, though, was the upcoming visit from Life magazine. Sometimes in the throes of our work, we forgot what Hickory had accomplished: the creation of a fully functioning hospital in fifty-four hours. We now had ninety-two patients, an exhausted but determined staff of nurses and doctors, and dozens of cooks, custodians, maintenance men, and community volunteers. And we were saving lives every single day.
Amy Pryor was far more comfortable now that she was no longer pregnant, and although the compressions of the iron lung made it hard for her to talk, she was able to ask me about her baby. As I washed her face and combed her hair, I told her every detail I could recall about him, choking up a little, remembering how I felt as I held him in my arms while waiting for the ambulance.
“He’s perfection,” I said. “I can’t wait until you can hold him yourself.”
“Neither can I,” she whispered.
Jilly was
able to go home that afternoon, and I was relieved by the timing. A damp, dark ward was to be opened in the basement of the stone building the following day, and our colored patients were going to be moved into it. I would have hated to see Jilly leave my ward and my care. I had to pry her doll away from her that morning. Toys could not go home with the children from the hospital, but as I’d promised Honor, I scrubbed the doll clean with disinfectant and dressed it in a new jumper and blouse I’d found at a toy store. I gave it back to Jilly once she left the building. She was still a bit weak, but she walked out of the hospital on her own two healthy legs into Honor’s embrace. Honor lifted her up and covered her face with kisses until Jilly protested, pleading to be let down.
One of the volunteers scrubbed Jilly’s bed and it was quickly filled by another patient. The epidemic showed no signs of abating.
My path crossed with Vincent’s only a few times that day, and each time I felt that pull, that longing that was never going to leave me. Just being able to glimpse him occasionally over the course of the day fed my soul. Of course I wanted the polio epidemic to end. It needed to end and it would end, but then Vincent would be gone. I dreaded the day he would leave and I would have to face the rest of my life without him.
Henry sent a note to me, delivered from the factory by that same young man, Mickey, who had given me a ride to the train station so long ago. The one who’d told me about Violet’s connection to Henry. He hadn’t given me as much of a warning as I’d needed, I thought. Things have gone to the dogs in my absence here, Henry wrote in the note. The phone still isn’t working. I need to stay late tonight. Let Mama know.
I got a ride home from one of the other nurses that evening. The house was dark and I remembered that Ruth was at a book club meeting. Hattie had left some chicken and collards for me in the refrigerator, and I was eating at the kitchen table when the doorbell rang.
The sun was beginning to set when I opened the door, the sky a dewy pink through the trees. A policeman stood on the step, hat in his hand, and it took me a moment to recognize him as Teddy Wright. I didn’t like Teddy. I’d never forget how coolly he’d treated me at the police station after the accident or how he’d seemed to follow me in his police car when I walked into town. Seeing him gave me a sour taste in my mouth.