Ambulances pass in and out, their sirens wailing, and people on foot in various forms of distress walk or are assisted inside. Standing curbside, I watch them through the clouds of my own breath.
As much a listener as a talker, Sadie was the first person I remember encouraging me to write, treating my girlish verses with seriousness. I like to imagine her among the nurses who helped save the life of Edna St. Vincent Millay’s uncle, thereby earning that poet her middle name. By 1953, when Dylan Thomas was brought here to die after his alcoholic self-poisoning, Sadie was long gone: lost in the flu epidemic of 1918, only fifty years old.
She was even longer gone in early 1955, when I was admitted briefly to St. Vincent’s, before they handed me off to specialists. I hope her ghost was nowhere on the premises, since the sorry shape I was in was bound to have upset her. I’m glad I was too far out of my wits at the time to consider what her shade might have made of me.
“What do you think you’re staring at?”
The voice—female, with a Spanish accent—comes from a small, wide figure leaning against a pillar just outside the sliding glass doors of the emergency room entrance.
“Oh dear,” I say. “Was I staring?”
“You were looking right at me,” she says. “What, you never saw a pregnant lady before?”
She is pregnant, it’s true: Her coat is open at the front despite the cold, presumably because she is too rotund to zip it. She hasn’t got a hat, and her thick black hair is curly and disheveled.
“Seen one?” I say. “I’ve been one. But I apologize. I was off somewhere else in my mind. Are you all right?”
“Not really,” she says, clutching her abdomen. “I’m in a lot of pain. I’m about to have this baby.”
“Oh my,” I say, and step slowly closer. “Is anyone coming to help you?”
“The father,” she says. “He dropped me off. He’s trying to park. He wanted to drive, this being such a big occasion. Back when we were thinking this over months ago, I said we should just take the train. But with that vigilante guy on the loose, no way. Now Luis is trying to park, and I don’t even know where he’s at.”
“Why didn’t you just take a cab?”
“Lady,” she says, “we got a lot on our minds right now.”
“I suppose you do.”
“I was crazy to have a baby,” she says. “I hate this.”
“It is awful,” I say. “I only had one, and I still remember. But it’ll be over soon. And do you know the best part? With a baby, you’ll go crazy twice as fast.”
I’m surprised to hear myself say this—I know it’s the wrong thing; I’m not sure why I said it except that I think it’s true—but her face, half-lit by the hospital windows, doesn’t show bafflement or anger, only fear and pain. “What’s your name, dear?” I ask.
“Maritza,” she says.
“My name is Lillian. Does tonight’s guest of honor have a name yet?”
“Yes,” she says. “But it’s a secret. They’re a secret—one for if it’s a girl, one for if it’s a boy. Luis would kill me if I told you.”
“That’s okay,” I say. “I understand. My husband and I, we were the same way. Didn’t tell anybody until it was a done deal. We called him Snooks while he was inside.”
“We call ours Coco,” she says. “Like coconut. Though he, or she, is a lot bigger than that now.”
“I recall the feeling,” I say. “I thought I’d get too big to fit in revolving doors.”
“I know,” says Maritza. “Thank god these ones slide open.”
“Why don’t you let me take you inside?”
“No!” she says, stepping away. “Then they’ll check me in and Luis won’t find me. His English is not so good as mine.”
She doubles over and groans with the pain of a contraction. I hold her hand and rub her back through the puffy coat. “It’s okay, Maritza,” I say. “I won’t let them take you back without him. But you’ll be more comfortable inside. We can just walk up and down the hallway until he gets here. It’s better to walk before they strap you down anyway.”
“Are you sure?” she says. “I can’t go back without him. Luis and I aren’t married. We will be, but we aren’t now. I think they won’t send him to me because he’s not my husband.”
“We won’t let them do that,” I say. “I promise. We’ll make sure he finds you, and you’ll go together.”
“You think I’m a slut for having this baby when I’m not his wife?” she says, looking up at me.
I try not to show the shock I feel at hearing that word, try not to act old. “No!” I say, “That’s ridiculous. Now come on, let’s walk.”
“Okay, Lillian,” she says, face sweating, and she lets me help her inside.
The doors part for us, and we pass among the afflicted and their attendants, under the fluorescent lights. Maritza does a slight double take the next time she looks up at me in the unflattering antiseptic glow—a reaction to which I’ve become accustomed each time my wrinkles and my mottled skin betray what my strong voice and perfect posture conceal. “How old are you?” she asks.