“I’m not all right,” I said.
He didn’t seem to know how to respond to that. “I know,” he said after a moment. He rubbed his wounded left hand with his right. “I’m sorry things turned out this way.” He walked toward the door and pulled it open, then looked over at me one last time. “Let’s not name him,” he said. “There really is no point.” He left the room then. Left me lying in that bed by myself, aching and empty. I’d never felt so alone.
42
We were trapped, both of us.
In early May, six weeks after I lost Andrew, Ruth insisted I return to church with the family. I’d spent the past month and a half in a fog. Dr. Poole had prescribed something for my “melancholia,” and it kept me numb. I welcomed that numbness. In the past, the nurse in me would have been curious to know the name of the medication and exactly how it worked in my body. Now I didn’t care. I just wanted it to erase the emotional pain. Nothing else mattered.
For the first few weeks, Hattie’d brought my meals up to the bedroom. When she’d return a while later to pick up the tray, she’d scold me for leaving so much food behind.
“You need your strength, Miss Tess,” she’d say. “I know you grievin’ over that baby, but—”
“Andrew,” I said. I was determined to make everyone see my baby as a person.
She nodded. “You grievin’ over Andrew,” she said, “but you gonna need your strength more than ever.” She leaned close, nearly whispering although there was no one around. “You should visit our friend.”
I knew she meant Reverend Sam, and I gave a slight nod to placate her. The truth was, even the thought of seeing that dear old man did nothing to comfort me. Nothing in the universe could possibly lift my grief.
*
“You two should get divorced,” Lucy said a week or so later at the dinner table. “I know it’s not easy, but it’s not impossible either.” It was the second or third dinner we’d all eaten together. I wasn’t sure. My mind was too foggy to separate one meal from another.
“Completely against our faith,” Ruth said. “‘What God has joined together, let no man put asunder.’” She cut a small piece from the ham steak on her plate. “And besides, there are no divorces in the Kraft family.” She looked from me to Henry. “The two of you made your bed, now you have to lie in it.”
“I have no intention of divorcing Tess.” Henry rested his hand on mine on the table. As always, his displays of affection still occurred only when someone was watching. “She’s my wife,” he said.
“Oh for heaven’s sake,” Lucy said. “Drop the pretense. You got married because she was pregnant. That’s the only reason. Modern people find a way to divorce. It’s not a tragedy.”
“The reason doesn’t matter,” Ruth said. “They’re married. We make the best of things in this family.”
I listened to them talk around me as if I weren’t there. The conversation didn’t bother me, though. It was almost as if they were talking about someone else, I felt so unmoved by their words. My mind was still on Andrew. The emptiness I felt was both physical and emotional. When I woke up each morning it took me a moment to remember what had happened and then the sorrow would wash over me again. I would have given anything for a time machine to take me back to my old life, where I had a mother and a home and where the most difficult thing I had to face was living without Vincent for a few months while he worked in Chicago. How foolish I’d been to make a fuss over that! If I could go back in time, I certainly wouldn’t sleep with Henry. I wouldn’t go to Washington with Gina at all. But that old life was gone and now I was trapped in this one. I couldn’t stop myself from wondering if losing Andrew was my punishment for everything I’d done.
Henry and I never spoke of anything of consequence. He grew frustrated with me when I talked about Andrew, especially if I used his name. Henry was done with that chapter of his life. That chapter in our marriage. His nights out became more frequent and I never questioned him about them. I didn’t care. I only wanted to find a way out of the trap I was in.
43
May 22, 1944
Dear Gina,
I miss you so much. It was kind of you to call me on Saturday. You knew I’d be in terrible straits that day, didn’t you? May twentieth, the day I was to marry Vincent. If I hadn’t derailed my life, we’d be on our Niagara Falls honeymoon right now. I wonder if he thought of me Saturday, or is he so happy with his new girlfriend that the date meant nothing to him? Sorry to go on like this! Really, I only wanted to thank you, not get caught up again in my sadness.
Well, the news here in this part of North Carolina is polio. Infantile paralysis. And it’s not even summer yet, when it usually attacks. This morning I was sitting with Ruth and Lucy on the screened porch and Ruth read an article to us from the paper about there being a couple of cases in Charlotte, which is a bit too close for comfort. It’s such a terrible, frightening, ominous disease! Are you seeing any of it in Baltimore? I can’t imagine the terror of having a child diagnosed with it. Odd that they call it infantile, isn’t it? President Roosevelt is so crippled from it and he was an adult when he contracted it. No one is really safe from polio.
I saw a few cases of it when I was a student nurse, and Vincent told me about some of his patients last summer when he was working in Chicago, but what has always stood out in my mind was his description of his cousin Tony’s battle with the disease when they were children. One day Tony was fine. The next day he couldn’t move a muscle. He recovered, at least partially, but so many children don’t.
Anyhow, I couldn’t help myself as I sat there with Ruth and Lucy. I said, “I have a friend whose cousin had polio.” It just popped out of my mouth. It was as though I couldn’t resist bringing Vincent onto the porch with us. I felt a thrill run up my arms just thinking about him. The two of them stared at me and I realized how little I’d spoken to anyone in the family, Henry included, since Andrew’s death. I’ve become closed off from everyone (except you).
“It only happens to poor children though,” Ruth said. “You know, with poor sanitation.”
That gives you an idea of the sort of woman Ruth is!
“FDR wasn’t poor or a child,” Lucy pointed out. She loves to argue with her mother and I don’t blame her.
“And my friend’s cousin wasn’t poor,” I said. I truly have no idea if Tony was rich or poor. I just wanted to counter Ruth’s silly argument.