“It is a testament to your youth and fortitude, and to your family’s devoted care, that you are still alive,” Dr. Winchell said. “I’ve seen few women recover from such a severe puerperal sepsis. But make no mistake, you are not yet fully recovered. The slightest strain or draft of cold can still kill you.”
Maud was only now beginning to understand what had happened to her. On the third day after childbirth, she had developed the dreaded fever. That she was still alive was nothing short of a miracle. But she could not see for what purpose she had been spared. Five times a day, her nurse placed a folded length of cotton between her legs, and each time, the pad was soaked with the devil’s brew—green and yellow, foul-odored. Her cheeks were sunken and gray, her hip bones stuck out, her arms were useless twigs, and below her umbilicus, where she had once been strong, her belly remained swollen and sore to the touch. Nevertheless, Maud had begun to refuse the morphine injections, determined to uncloud her mind.
She could see what had happened from the faces of them all—from her frightened little Bunting, who hovered at the sickroom door but refused to come in, from the weary faces of her caretakers, from the softly repeated rosary of the Irish nurse, from the grave way the doctor addressed her—and she understood that she was no longer Maud. She had become that most dreaded household figure: the female invalid.
“We’ve done everything we can do for you here,” the doctor said. “The only hope is to put you in a sanitarium.”
Maud lay in the bed, almost too tired to speak. Perhaps Frank expected her to protest, but…but instead, she felt nothing, except for a dark, gray, blank relief that she would no longer be a burden.
* * *
—
DR. VANDER WENK’S SANITARIUM was clean, bright, and quiet. Maud was relieved that her family was spared the sight of the hideous tube that stuck into her belly, draining foul-smelling pus, the same pus that still dripped from between her legs. But here, there was nothing for her to do—no words to say, no loved ones to worry about, no children to cry, no weary face of her husband, no kindness and pity of her mother, no dutiful face of the private nurse.
When, at last, the tube came out and the wound slowly healed over, leaving nothing but a shiny pink divot, Maud spent her days sitting in a rocking chair near the big windows, sun streaming onto her face. The staff brought her nourishing broth and then fresh food. At first, she was allowed to walk down the halls, and then a nurse wheeled her out into the gardens. She sat in the dappling sunshine pining for home—for Frank and Bunting, and the baby, Robert, whom they were calling Robin. How she missed them! But she was determined to set aside her impatience and focus on regaining her strength. When at last she was able to circle the garden once on her own two feet, she was ready to go home.
The first time Frank carried her new baby to her and placed him in her arms, Maud looked down at him in confusion. This pink, healthy, strapping six-month-old was completely unfamiliar to her, and as soon as she held him, he set to fussing. Maud looked up at Frank, tears filling her eyes. Frank, for his part, handled the infant expertly, jiggling him on a hip to send him to sleep, pulling silly faces to make him laugh. Maud scarcely recognized the child. She could hardly believe that he was her own—he had never suckled. Never fallen asleep in her arms. He might as well have been a beautiful changeling dropped off on her doorstep.
And Bunting! When had he gotten so tall and full of words? When Maud reached out her arms to her beloved firstborn, he was too shy to run to her. He hung back, peering between his father’s long legs. Her heart cracked. Her eldest son had become a stranger.
* * *
—
IT TOOK MAUD MORE than a year to fully recover, but finally she was able to care for the household and the boys again, and she started to feel like herself. The memory of the first day home, when the boys had seemed like strangers, had long since faded, and they no longer remembered that she had ever been absent. But one thing between herself and Frank had permanently changed. Each night Maud lay alone, curled up on the far side of the mattress when Frank crawled into bed. She wanted more than anything to roll toward him, to bury her face in his chest and allow him to wrap her in his embrace, but her doctor had given her firm instructions: she must not conceive another child. The sponge in the lacquer box was not enough protection. Another parturition would put her life in immediate peril.
Frank had agreed to the restriction. He treated her with the utmost kindness and concern, but Maud no longer felt like herself. She was a dainty piece of china, a teapot with a mended spout. She had no doubt of his love for her, but she longed constantly for his embrace, and treated him coldly for fear that she would have a moment of weakness.
One night, Frank rolled toward her in the dark and placed his chin on her shoulder. She could feel the scratch of his moustache through her gown.
“Maudie, darling?”
“Yes, dear?”
“I feel like I’m suffocating here in New York. So much competition. So many people fighting for the same dime. It sounds like out in Dakota, a man can really be somebody. What if we head out there? Take our chances? Try to make our fortune?”
Maud felt a slight stirring somewhere deep inside her, like the wings of a baby bird cupped in her hands.
“I know you miss Julia and T.C.,” Frank continued. “Tell me, darling, what do you think?”
Maud could have ticked off a million reasons why it was a bad idea, such an uncertain venture, with the children so young. But they had left the theater company to keep Maud well, and look what had happened: she had gotten sick. Safety, certainty—whose choices in life gave them that kind of guarantee?
“Well, all right then,” Frank said, mistaking her silence for unwillingness.
Maud lay her head against his chest and felt his heart thumping in her ear—Frank, so good, so kind, so generous, so bighearted. He had been such a hollow man of late. Maud was stronger now. Why shouldn’t they adventure once again?
CHAPTER
15
HOLLYWOOD
1939
Maud sat in her perch at the studio watching Judy play a scene with Bert Lahr, the Cowardly Lion. Maud had heard that Lahr arrived at the studio at six-thirty in the morning to allow for the two hours it took to apply his rubberized mask. The poor man must have been stifling under the hot studio lights in such a thick costume. None of this, however, seemed to affect him in the least. He was carrying on with a high dose of histrionics that never seemed to flag, no matter how many times they repeated a scene. He was funny to the core. Filming required strict silence on the set, but when Bert Lahr was giving his lines, sometimes Maud had to cover her mouth with her hand or pinch the inside of her arm to keep from laughing out loud.
Evidently, Judy was having the same problem. In this scene, holding Toto, she had to tell the lion that he was nothing but a coward, only each time she tried, she burst out laughing. The poor girl was seized by the giggles, and there was nothing she could do to stop them. Watching Judy trying to suppress her laughter, Maud remembered how Bunting used to torture his little brother Robin, making faces at him during Sunday dinner. He would squirm in his seat and bite his knuckles trying not to laugh, but Bunting got him every time. This was what was happening to poor Judy now. They shot the scene four or five times, and each time, the girl’s mouth would start to twitch, and before the segment was finished, she’d be doubled over with laughter.
At first, it was amusing, but soon the director’s tone grew sharp.
“We don’t have all day to do this,” Fleming said. “You need to get ahold of yourself.”
Ethel Gumm, who had been sitting quietly near Maud, listening, now jumped up and bustled down to the stage, her heels rat-a-tat-tatting on the wooden floor. She leaned in and whispered something in Judy’s ear. The actress’s expression grew momentarily stormy, but she quickly turned her attention back to the director, a serious look on her face. Nevertheless, halfway through the next take, Judy dissolved into giggles so intense that tears were running down her cheeks. Lahr appeared to be enjoying his power to make the girl laugh, but Fleming looked agitated.
Ethel Gumm now approached the director and whispered something to him.
“Take it from the top,” the director said. “Take thirteen. Judy, get ahold of yourself.”
This time, Judy almost made it through her lines. Her lips quivered, her eyes creased up, her nostrils flared. Maud crossed her fingers in her lap. The girl was trying. But it was no use.
As soon as she began to say the line “Why, you’re nothing but a great big coward,” she burst out laughing.
Fleming, his jaw taut, streaked across the stage toward her. With a loud smack, he slapped her in the face. Judy staggered backward and then, startled, started crying and rushed off the set.