Take My Hand(69)

“Eleven what?”

“Eleven girls in the past three years.”

“What do you mean? Eleven girls sterilized? In Alabama?”

“No,” Alicia’s voice rose. “Eleven at this clinic!”

A few women started to cry. I heard one of them gasp for breath, but I could not tell who it was. “What are you saying? Why didn’t y’all tell me this before?”

“I’m sorry. I was only there for the Williams girls. I promise to God,” Val said.

“I ain’t never been present at nothing like that,” said another.

“That number can’t be right.” Tears stung my eyes.

“I was there.” Gina stepped forward. “I was there for two of them.”

“Oh dear God.” I could barely stand.

Alicia moved toward me. “Come, sit down,” she said. I sank onto the steps.

I could hear the sobs of the nurses and tried to block it out of my ears. I needed to stay strong. I couldn’t collapse under the weight of this news. “This is just clear proof that we need more information. If this happened at our little clinic, imagine the rest of the state. Are there girls being sterilized in other parts of Alabama? If so, how many? Where exactly is it happening? Who is authorizing all this?”

Alicia pulled my head to her chest and I relented, but I was still talking. “Do y’all hear me? We got work to do. We don’t have time for no grief. We’ve got to save them. We’ve got to save them all.”





THIRTY-SIX




Montgomery

2016


At the end of our lunch, Lou tells me he once saw an obituary in the Montgomery Advertiser some years earlier for Linda Seager. He can’t remember the year. I stop at the public library and easily find her name while searching the digital archives.


Mrs. Linda Seager, 85, died peacefully at home surrounded by family. She leaves four daughters, two sons-in-law, eleven grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren.



Surrounded by family. I wonder if her children and grandchildren know anything about her past, if they know about her role in the Williams scandal. I do another online search and find her daughters. One works as a physical therapist at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. The other lives in town. She’s a nurse. Eugenia Wooten. When I get back to my car, I call the hospital and they put me through to the nurse’s station on the oncology floor. I’m sorry, Mrs. Wooten is on her lunch break. I hang up and sit there for a few minutes, shaking. I know the hospital is only a few minutes’ drive from the library, but I don’t immediately turn on the ignition. I try to think of what I will say to her. It was never in my plan to visit Mrs. Seager or any of her relatives. But when Lou brought her up, I knew I had to see one of them.

When I arrive at the hospital, I still don’t know what I plan to say. An old resentment rises in me, and I realize I’m still incensed by the idea that the woman just walked away from it all after Lou dropped the charges against the clinic. Yes, she lost her job, but I’m certain she got another one. I imagine her going home each night, fixing dinner for her family, watching television, putting rollers in her hair before going to bed.

Eugenia Wooten is at the desk when I approach. I immediately know it’s her even before I read the name tag. She looks just like her mother, the same bright red hair. But the face is softer, rounder. The woman smiles brightly at me.

“May I help you?”

I place my hands on the counter. There’s no one at the station with her. The hospital smells as they all do—slightly bitter, antiseptic. I have been on the oncology floor many times. It’s different from the other floors: the voices more hushed, the families more tense. The work is dismal, and the mood reflects it. Mrs. Wooten’s disposition seems at odds with that seriousness. I’m put off by her. She isn’t what I expected.

“My name is Civil Townsend.”

“Do you have a loved one on this floor, Mrs. Townsend?”

She looks at me quizzically. I gather my nerve, galvanized by the familiar hospital environment. “I worked at the Montgomery Family Planning Clinic,” I say. “In 1973. With your mother. I was the nurse for the Williams sisters.”

Her face drops. The smile disappears, and my first question is answered. She knows everything. Her hand moves slowly to her mouth, and I see the fingernails are polish-free. Blunt and short and clean, just the way her mother had required of us. She squeezes her eyes shut so tightly the lids wrinkle. Then she opens them and slowly comes out from behind the desk, unhooking the half door.

I face her and cross my arms over my chest. She steps closer to me and places a hand on my forearm. “I get off at seven. It’s a twelve-hour shift today. Will you meet me after work? I really want to talk to you.”

I relax and drop my arms. “You’ll be ready to go home. I don’t want to—”

“I have wanted to find you so many times over the years, Mrs. Townsend. Please. Meet me in the cafeteria downstairs?”

“Alright,” I say. “Around seven?”

“Yes, perfect. I’ll see you there.”

We eye each other warily, but for the moment, I’m relieved.



* * *



? ? ?

BY THE TIME she arrives in the cafeteria, I have already drunk three cups of weak coffee. I claimed a table near the window, close enough to the entrance so she can see me. There’s a garden outside with two stone benches, and ashtrays throughout. The cafeteria is too warm and smells sweet like ketchup. Dinner is still in full swing, but I’m not hungry and couldn’t eat even if I were.