The Pull of the Stars(64)

You have a healthy boy, Mrs. White, I told her, it’s only that his lip is cleft.

I held out the wrapped pupa.

Her reddened eyes struggled to focus on his triangular mouth. Hand fumbling, she crossed herself.

Will I sit you up so you can hold him?

But her face closed like the lid of a desk.

Dr. Lynn murmured, She’d better stay flat to boost her circulation.

Right; sorry. (I should have remembered that.)

I’d have offered to lay him on his mother’s chest, but maybe even his small weight would impede her wet breathing. So I held him right beside her instead, almost as near as if she were cradling him, his downy head not far from hers; I was ready to pull him away if she coughed.

She didn’t move to kiss him. A tear ran out the side of her eye and down the gap between them.

Bearna ghiorria, murmured Dr. Lynn.

I knew a little Gaelic but not that phrase. What’s that, Doctor?

She explained, It means a hare’s gap. Bring him back in a month and I’ll fix it for him, Mrs. White.

Which was kind but suggested she hadn’t grasped Honor White’s situation from the chart; both woman and child would be in the care and custody of the nuns.

Unless the doctor saw it as a matter of courtesy to speak to her as she would to any other new mother?

I hadn’t had a chance to ask Honor White if she was meaning to nurse her baby, but anyway, he wouldn’t be able to latch on with that split mouth. He’ll need spoon-feeding, won’t he, Doctor?

She weighed the question. Well, the palate’s closed, at least, that’s a mercy…he might manage a bottle if you put on a wide teat with a cross cut into it, Nurse, so long as you hold him well upright and keep the flow slow. I’ll have Maternity send down their mixture.

Thanks.

Cleft lip could cause glue ear and speech defects, I remembered. But that was nothing to the way people would stare or avert their eyes or sneer at him as damaged goods. I thought of this scrap of humanity being sent back to the home with his mother in a week. It struck me that all the babies with unmarked faces would be chosen for adoption before him. Would he end up being nursed out for shillings with a stranger, as Bridie had been? Would that foster nurse know or bother to bring him in for surgery, or would he grow up an easy target for any bully?

Bridie announced, He has the same birthday as Nurse Power. Oh, and me! (Her eyes merrily meeting mine.) The first of November, a great date altogether.

Honor White said, very low: The Feast of All Saints.

I wondered whether it gratified her pious heart that he shared a feast day with the church triumphant in heaven.

Dr. Lynn straightened up and said, Well, everything seems to be in order. Good night, all.

She turned back at the door. I forgot to ask—how are you feeling yourself now, Nurse Power?

Fine. I hardly gave a cupful.

Still, you look done in. Sleep here to save the journey home and back.

Oh, but—

Did you know, Nurse, bacteriologists have determined that exhaustion lowers one’s resistance to infection?

I smiled, giving in. Very well, Doctor.

We didn’t have a telephone at home, but Tim wouldn’t worry; he knew I sometimes needed to stay the night.

Honor White’s eyelids were fluttering.

Before she dropped off, I cleaned her up and got her into the two binders, the abdominal one over her belly and the chest bandage because she wouldn’t be nursing—but that one I wound much more loosely than Delia Garrett’s so as not to restrict her breathing.

I spoke softly: I wonder would there be anyone you’d like us to send the good news?

A parent, a sister, a friend, even; I was hoping she could give me one name.

Honor White shook her head. Her lashes fell; she was sinking into sleep.

I was dizzy all of a sudden; I sat down by the desk. My arm hurt as if it had been caught on barbed wire, and a bruise was spreading.

If only the donation had done her some good, or no harm, even; primum non nocere. Instead, I’d watched my blood turn to poison and nearly kill her.

Bridie was holding out a cup of tea. You saved them both, you know.

Thanks, Bridie.

I gulped it down; it was sweet, at least. Really, it was Dr. Lynn who saved them with her forceps.

Not a bit. I was right there, and I say it was the pair of you.

I would have liked to hug her then.

Between the three of us, yes, I supposed we’d kept the Whites alive, but I couldn’t seem to take much comfort from that fact.

I said, The other day—yesterday, I corrected myself (was it only yesterday I’d met this young woman?)—you mentioned babies going into the pipe. What exactly did you mean?

Bridie shrugged. Mother-and-baby homes, Magdalene laundries, orphanages, she listed under her breath. Industrial schools, reformatories, prisons…aren’t they all sections of the same pipe?

Rats in a flooded tunnel; the image turned my stomach.

I’m from the pipe, see, Julia, she said softly, and I don’t suppose I’ll ever get out.

Masked and draped, Sister Luke was standing in the door watching us drink our tea.

I jumped up, and my voice came out rusty: Evening, Sister.

And with that, another shift was over.

I brought her up to date on the day’s two births, Mary O’Rahilly’s and Honor White’s. I advised her on how to feed the White baby: Sit him upright, and trickle it in or you’ll choke him.