Summer of '69(94)
The candy striper in the maternity ward, Tracy, follows Myrtle. She’s carrying two bottles of Asti Spumante in a bedpan full of ice.
“We broke out the champagne because twin births are so rare here,” Myrtle says.
Blair claps her hands. “Let’s all have some when the rocket takes off!”
“We’re on the clock,” Myrtle says. “But a sip or two won’t hurt. After all, this is a monumental event. Twins and the moon launch on the same day.”
Tracy the candy striper goes to fetch paper cups while Myrtle pops the cork.
The engines thrust, a fiery cloud bursts from below the rocket, and the newscaster, excitement barely disguised in his voice, counts down: “Five…four…three…two…one…blast off!” Blair raises her paper cup of Asti Spumante to the others in the room and lets out a whoop.
“Cheers!” she cries. “Here’s to the next frontier!” This toast, she thinks, works on so many levels.
Dr. Van de Berg appears in the doorway and watches as the rocket breaks through the atmosphere. He turns to the room with an expression of genuine wonder. “Your children are entering a remarkable world,” he says.
Telegram to Blair Foley Whalen, Nantucket Cottage Hospital, Maternity Ward Received the happy news of the twins. Sending my best wishes and congratulations. Will return to Boston July 25. Angus.
Ring of Fire
July 17, 1969
Dear Tiger,
Jessie now thinks of Tiger as her own version of Anne Frank’s Kitty because she isn’t at all convinced that Tiger will ever read this letter. This doubt gives her freedom. If it’s a letter that will never be read, then she can write the entire, unfiltered truth.
It has been a busy week.
Jessie nearly starts by telling Tiger that she got her period, but then she hesitates, because what if he does end up reading this? He’ll be so grossed out—and rightly so—that he might crumple up the letter and throw it away without getting to the good stuff.
On Tuesday afternoon, Blair took me to Buttner’s to get some new clothes.
She considers mentioning that they were, in fact, bra shopping, but again, she censors herself, though she’s certain Tiger would laugh at Miss Timsy’s declaration that Jessie would one day have a magnificent bosom.
While I was in the changing room half dressed
Jessie had been standing in a bra and shorts while Miss Timsy stood behind her, fiddling with the length of the straps.
I heard a shriek. I poked my head out to find that Blair’s water had broken all over the floor of Buttner’s. She was in labor.
The salesladies at Buttner’s offered to call an ambulance but Blair insisted we walk home, even though she was in a lot of pain. We had to stop a bunch of times, once right in front of Bosun’s Locker, and I was afraid the babies were going to come then and there and that one of the Bosun’s regulars would have to deliver them, but finally, Blair let me run ahead to get Mom. Blair refused to drive over the cobblestones so Mom drove in reverse the wrong way down Fair Street in order to get to the hospital. Thank goodness Nonny didn’t see!
So now comes the important news: You’re officially an uncle! You have a niece named Genevieve Foley Whalen and a nephew named George Nichols Whalen.
Jessie wonders if Angus will object to both babies being named after Blair’s family, then she wonders if Angus picked the names Genevieve and George, though she kind of doubts it. No one at the hospital asked about Angus, which Jessie found surprising until Jessie reasoned that, historically, there were a lot of fishermen—whalers and the like—on Nantucket, as well as a lot of summer wives like Kate, women whose husbands worked in the city during the week, so maybe a birth with no father present was more common than Jessie imagined.
Angus wasn’t here because yesterday was the day the Apollo 11 mission took off for the moon.
Would Tiger know about the moon launch? Jessie wonders. Do they get newspapers? Tiger and Jessie had watched Apollo 8 in its moon orbit on Christmas Eve and listened to the astronauts read from the book of Genesis, and they’d agreed it was a good way to end a terrible year.
He’s in Houston, working at Mission Control, and when Blair told the nurses this, they brought a television into the room so we could watch. They also brought two bottles of champagne and they even gave me a cup!
Jessie considers how much she wants to share with Tiger. Because the fact is, Jessie had more than one cup of champagne. Everyone had been engrossed by the moon launch, so when Jessie finished her own champagne, she drank Blair’s and Myrtle the nurse’s. Jessie had never tasted alcohol before and after an initial aversion to the taste—it was fizzy like soda but sour and bitter—she felt a sparkly, bubbly rush, and the world suddenly seemed like a wonderful place, able to contain both the intimate miracle of childbirth and the widely anticipated miracle of space travel.
From outer space, the astronauts would be able to see the entire Earth—Nantucket Island and Vietnam both—and something about this comforted Jessie.
If she had stopped after the champagne, things might not have spiraled out of control. But when Kate and Jessie came home from the hospital later that morning, Jessie felt a dull headache threatening and she had learned enough from her mother and grandmother to know that this state was called a hangover and the only way to stave it off effectively was to continue drinking.