Take My Hand(3)

“Sit down.”

“Yes, Mrs. Seager.” I took a seat. The window was open and a sparrow was chirping insistently.

“I understand your father is a doctor in town.”

I could now see that she was holding my employment file. When I tried to speak, I coughed instead.

“Are you sick?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Because in our profession we have to maintain our own health in order to help other people. You must rest and eat properly at all times.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Very well. So your father is a doctor.” She said this as a matter of fact.

I knew what she was about to say. The same thing my professors at Tuskegee had lectured when they discovered my father and grandfather were doctors. Your marks are impressive. Of course, as a woman, you have other issues to consider. Starting a family, for instance. You have wisely chosen the nursing profession, Miss Townsend. I never knew what to say when they sounded off like that. The beginnings of a compliment always ended up stinging like an insult. Usually, I mumbled something incoherent and wondered if I was just being too sensitive.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“We have been sanctioned by the federal government to execute our duties. We must take our mission very seriously. A wheel cannot work without its spokes. We are the spokes of that wheel.”

Alicia was right. The woman’s hair didn’t budge.

“What I’m saying to you, Civil, is that you are a smart girl. It’s why I hired you. I have high expectations of you because I think you’ll make a fine nurse someday. I don’t want you to go getting ideas.”

She had just paid me a compliment, but it sounded strange in my ears. “Ideas about what, ma’am?”

She frowned and, for a moment, I worried that my tone had slipped into insolence. “About your place in all this. You have to work together with your fellow nurses. Our mission is to help poor people who cannot help themselves.”

“Yes, ma’am.” I sat quietly, digesting her words. My daddy had made sure that I was educated not only in my books but also, as he had once described it, in the code that dictated our lives in Alabama. Knowing when to keep your mouth shut. Picking your battles. Letting them think what they wanted because you weren’t going to change their minds about certain things. It was a tough lesson, but I’d heeded it well enough to get some of the things I wanted out of life. Like this job, for instance. The woman is just trying to pay you a compliment, Civil. Show her you can gracefully accept it.

“Yes, ma’am. I won’t disappoint you, Mrs. Seager.”

She nodded. “And Civil? Don’t forget to clip those fingernails.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I’d been called into the fold of the health profession as early as junior high school. Although my daddy wanted me to go to medical school, I’d always known nurses occupied an important space when it came to patients. Medicine was a land of hierarchy, and nurses were closer to the ground. I was going to help uplift the race, and this clinic job would be the perfect platform for it. Mrs. Seager could have been doing something else, but she had chosen to help young colored women. Her approval meant something to me. Our work would make a difference.

This was the way I figured it. There were all different kinds of ministers. Ministers of congregations. Ministers of music. To minister was to serve. This work was a ministry serving young Black women.

The wind tugged at my nurse’s cap. I walked quickly, and as soon as I was in the car, I unpinned the cap and took it off. I’m telling you, in those early days I was pretty sure I’d work at that clinic for as long as they’d have me. I had a new friend. A new job. A Tuskegee degree. I was sure enough ready.

As soon as I got home I asked my mama if we could trade cars. I didn’t want to call any more attention to myself than I already had, and her Pinto was much older than my Colt. I was determined that Mrs. Seager would not be disappointed in me. I was going to have that dragon eating candy out of my hand before it was over and done with.





THREE





I got to admit something to you before I go any further. Something I ain’t shared before, and I pray you’ll understand.

I had an abortion in the spring of 1972.

I was twenty-three years old, a nursing student two months before graduation, ready to start my life. At the time, I planned to work in a hospital, perhaps on the surgical floor. The moment I noticed the telltale signs, I told myself it couldn’t be true. I was supposed to be more than a wife and mother. Even though the baby’s father was Tyrell Ralsey, my best friend since childhood, I was not ready and neither was he. After the procedure, he drove to Tuskegee to see about me. We said little over bowls of cabbage soup. Then he drove home and we did not speak about it for months.

I wanted things to be different for my patients. Through the miracles of birth control, they would plan their pregnancies. I intended to decrease the uncertainty, the unwelcome surprises. If Ty and I had taken the necessary precautions, we wouldn’t have found ourselves in that situation. Most of our patients at the clinic had already learned that lesson the hard way. They’d already had babies or miscarriages. And yes, in some cases, abortions. They usually showed up at the door without an appointment, looking resigned to the fact that they were going to have to share their private business in order to get the help they needed.