The House of Eve (57)
“We are so sorry,” he replied. “It’s rare but it happens.”
“You’re wrong. Please, check again,” Eleanor said, grabbing her belly.
William tried to gather her in his arms, but she pulled away. “This isn’t happening.”
“We know this is difficult, Mrs. Pride, and we are so sorry for your loss.” He spoke softly to the nurse. “Please prepare the paperwork to have her admitted to L&D.”
“Labor and delivery?” Eleanor shot.
“With late miscarriages, we have to deliver the fetus, expel it from your womb. We will induce your labor and need to move quickly.”
Eleanor couldn’t believe it was happening all over again.
“We’ll get through this,” William whispered. But Eleanor didn’t want to get through it, she wanted her baby. Alive, in her arms, in her life, filling their home.
“I’m so sorry, love.” His voice faltered, and Eleanor felt the volume of his disappointment. She had married well. He had married a malfunction.
The elevator doors opened on the sixth floor, and as Eleanor’s nurse wheeled her through the hall, she was flooded with the groans of women in various stages of labor. Then as she was pushed into her room, she heard the faint call of a newborn hungry for its mother’s milk. Tears sprang to her eyes and she hunched over.
It wasn’t fair.
William had stopped to sign the paperwork. Somehow, the nurse managed to get her in the bed. Then Dr. Avery was there, explaining what would happen next.
“I’m going to start with administering Pitocin. Thirty drops every minute to get labor started. We should be able to remove the fetus in a few hours. I’ll be back to check on you.”
A new nurse hooked her up with the IV and then she was left alone. The blinds were open, and she could see the tree outside her window scattering pink petals in the wind. Tears stumbled down the sides of her cheeks. The door to her room slid open and William staggered in. The sight of him made her cry harder.
“There, there. It’s okay.” She allowed him to hold her.
“It’s not.” She pushed her face toward his. “It’s all my fault.”
“Don’t say that.”
Eleanor wiped her cheeks with the back of her hands. “I had a ritual, a routine. Every morning after you left for work. I went into my prayer closet and blessed the baby. This morning was the first time I skipped it. I woke up late and Nadine—”
“Elly, this is not on you.”
“It is.”
“It’s an unexplainable act of nature. Don’t blame yourself. You couldn’t stop this from happening. Not even with prayer.” He let her sob into his chest until she had nothing left.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE ULTIMATUM
Ruby
By the start of August, we still had not found a solution to my growing problem. Aunt Marie and I had taken a break from speaking on it, as if our silence could will it away. A few more times she brought home liquid tinctures that were supposed to cause the egg to dispel itself, but all they did was make me sick. If my calculations were right, I was coming up on fifteen weeks. My time for fixing this was running out.
We were in the middle of a three-day heat wave, and it didn’t matter what I did to cool off, my skin was always damp. It felt like I was cooking from the inside. To escape the humid stickiness, the men on the block used a wrench to remove the stubborn cap on the hydrant. Running through the water plug was the closest that half the neighborhood got to swimming. Most of Philadelphia’s city pools were “whites only,” and even on the rare occasion that the lifeguard let us in, we had to be careful that they hadn’t thrown nails at the bottom of the pool or acid or bleach in the water to dissuade us from coming back. We’d heard terrible stories.
I stood at the window trying to catch any piece of a breeze. Down below, children squealed in cut-off denims, their bare feet slapping the black tarred street. Sweat gathered between my heavy breasts and pooled at the base of my spine.
“Let me whip you in a game of gin rummy before I go off to work,” Aunt Marie called from the sofa, shuffling a deck of cards. She wore a stretched-out bra with a pair of faded overalls thrown on top.
“You mean let me beat you.”
“Girl, I taught you the game.”
“And the student has surpassed the teacher.”
“You a lie.” She grinned, dishing the cards.
I had eased onto a pitifully flat pillow on the floor and was organizing my five cards by suit when we heard a knock at the door. The knocking had an urgency to it, like it was the law. Aunt Marie felt under the sofa to confirm that her .22 was where she left it, and then heaved up out of her seat. She squinted her eye against the peephole.
When I turned my head, I was surprised to see Shimmy’s mother waltz through the door. Every hair on her head was smooth, and not a wrinkle could be found on her pencil skirt and knit blouse. Even though we were melting under the oppressive heat, she kept her lace gloves on and folded her hands in front of her.
“Mrs. Shapiro. Rent ain’t due until the end of the week.” Aunt Marie jutted her hip forward.
“My apologies for the intrusion,” responded Mrs. Shapiro, and I watched her eyes sweep over the room. The faded sheets thumbtacked to the window as curtains, chipped paint pulling up from the walls, the cracks in the hardwood floor that trapped dirt seconds after we cleaned, our handwashed underpants and bras that looked more like dust rags hanging to dry on the backs of the mismatched kitchen chairs. I hadn’t noticed the odor of last night’s fried croaker and okra still lingering in the air, and the constant drip of the leaky faucet that Mr. Shapiro had yet to fix. I couldn’t imagine how pitiful our living conditions looked through Mrs. Shapiro’s sharp eyes.