When she woke early this morning, she converted that blanket to a scarf. We had our breakfast, brought in by Delphinia. Then, sighing with anxiousness, Nancy dressed in the maid’s uniform she’d brought here, a black cotton gown with a white apron and cap rimmed in eyelet lace. She added cloths inside her corset and chemise to absorb the milk that would drip from her, since she’d no longer have a nursling to relieve her of it. Delphinia brought her a pretty hat and coat from the donations closet, which cheered Nancy.
In the foyer, we gathered to say goodbye—Delphinia, Gina, Charlotte, and me. Nancy flitted among us like an anxious bird, distributing her parting affections. We roommates shared no information that would allow us to find one another. As Anne has advised, we must pretend never to have been in this place. So the finality of our parting added to its sadness. With one last sigh, her green eyes flashing with wetness, Nancy moved her tall self out the door and down the marble steps and out of sight.
Her flannel scarf has set me thinking. I’d planned to feed my notebooks to the kitchen stove before departing. But perhaps I won’t. In the privacy of night, in my narrow room in Germantown, I’ll want to recall my months here and the baby I left behind. These pages can serve as my scarf of words.
*
Without Nancy and Mabel with me, I have more chance to think. I want to draft another letter to my baby.
1883. 4th mo. 3
Dearest Charlotte,
I find myself concerned as to thy proper upbringing.
Most of all, I want thee to be loved. After this, I want thee to honor the Light of God within thy mind and heart.
And then—dear one, before marrying, do guard against excessive passion—with the fierceness of a sheepdog protecting its flock from wolves. Thee may inherit a weakness. Please! Be intent on resisting.
Where does thee live, Charlotte? Has thee grown up within a caring fold? If only one day I could see thee.
I won’t even know thy name.
Never mind. I can’t possibly copy this and leave it for her.
Fourth Month 6
What a morning! My milk was blocked. Delphinia dipped cloths in hot water and applied them to my chest. The heat relaxed me, but no liquid came when Charlotte sucked. It seemed my milk had turned to paste. My baby cried and kicked, which caused me grief, which used up my last remaining strength—whatever stores I had squirreled away in my bones.
I lay Charlotte in a bassinet, a place she hadn’t tolerated before. At first she cried quietly, as though to assure herself that she wasn’t being weak by consenting to rest outside my arms. Finally the two of us slept, and my milk came loose, and I woke soaked to the waist. She drank from me in ecstasy.
There is something fierce and wild in her. Her legs and arms appear spindly and frail, yet she kicks and fixes her grip on my clothing and sucks with the power of an animal.
Without Nancy, I have no one to talk with and no one to hold Charlotte a little. An animal panic begins to overtake me at being in this room around the clock. A woman after labor must stay as still as possible, said Dr. Stevens. But soon, she said, she’ll let me take Charlotte outside.
Fourth Month 9
Charlotte is twelve days old. Delphinia wheeled us from the recovery room to the courtyard this morning, and I rose from the chair and walked a few circles around the stone path to invigorate my legs. Oh, how the outside air brightened and cleared my mind! As if I were a window wiped free of dirt. The tree branches were beginning to push out their dainty slips of green, and overhead, the early birds flitted about, carrying bits of dried plant matter for their nests. Then a breeze came on, and Charlotte smiled to feel the cool air move against her skin. This was her first time outside, her first smile! I told Delphinia, who claimed the smile was a sign of indigestion.
For warmth I’d wrapped Charlotte in a blanket, but she wriggled free and waved her limbs. Delphinia laughed. “I’ve never seen the like! An infant who doesn’t like to be swaddled!”
But I understand. I, too, can’t bear to be confined. Not long ago, I thought nothing of the actions I could do on my own—prepare a meal, hold a conversation, buy goods at a market, explore shelves of books in the library, plan a lesson. Now it’s hard even to reach for my slippers or to raise a bite of food steadily to my mouth. For I must do every single thing with Charlotte in my arms.
How can one baby demand so much? To keep her resting and not wailing, I must lie fixed in place while she nurses or dozes, her mouth tight on me like a manacle—no matter if I’m hot or cold, at ease or pressed into an uncomfortable position, whether I have an urgent need to relieve myself or change clothes or function in some small way as I used to. Her weight makes my arms throb from the near-constant holding, day upon night upon day. My legs grow numb and begin to jerk, till at last I must move, let the numbness turn back to sensation, and all the while endure her cries.
And how those cries affect me! Until now, no matter how much I’ve cared for a person, with the exception of Mother in her dying hours, and despite how dreadful this sounds, I’ve found it easier to bear their suffering than my own. Not so with Charlotte. My shoulders, back, arms, and neck ache from holding her; my nipples are scabbed and sometimes bleeding; yet the most worn-out, painful part of me is my heart. It stretches so wide when she’s contented that I believe its fibers are tearing. When she suffers, it shrinks and throbs and hardens into a knot.
Never before have I even thought of my heart as the muscle it is. Never has mine seemed to expand and contract in concert with my feelings. It hurts continually now from responding to the inconstant creature that is Charlotte.
Anne sees that I can’t be asked to nurse a second infant.
*
I’ve written nothing yet of what happened after I was moved to the delivery room. I was shaved—which the doctor said prevents disease. She placed me on towels and bathed me with a cloth. Then she left to examine Sally, who was feeling faint, and all the others in the house.
After some time of worsening contractions, Delphinia brought a dinner tray. I ate one bite of chicken and vomited. She sat with me till the paroxysms ceased and watched me endure several onslaughts of pain, then told me I was doing very well, because I tried not to brace against them, which only makes them fiercer.
I passed a long night in this way, awake. In the morning, the doctor returned and washed her hands in chlorinated lime, then began to execute a process she said is used in the best maternity hospital in Philadelphia: a quick-acting cathartic, then a bath, then the rupture of the waters.
Next I spent some long time pushing in agony. I hardly knew where I was, or with whom. Periodically Dr. Stevens pushed her hand inside me to discern how open I’d become. A problem emerged: though my os was fully dilated, the baby couldn’t pass beyond. Would I have to be brought to the hospital for surgery?