The Quintland Sisters(14)
When I’m not out at the farmhouse, I go into the post office to help Father, who is busier than ever because of all the mail arriving related to the Dionne babies. Many for M. Dionne simply say “To the Father of the Baby Girls,” but even more are addressed to Dr. Dafoe or “The Doctor of the Quintuplets.” I’ve seen postmarks from all over the continent. Father will punish me if he catches me peeping at any of the postcards, but truly, some of them are written in such large block letters, it’s impossible not to read them.
“One read: ‘Dear Mr. Dionne: Time to get yourself sterilized. Enough is enough!’” I whispered to Ivy while we were hanging the endless sets of minuscule nighties and bonnets on the clotheslines, whole rows of diapers the size of handkerchiefs. “Another to Dr. Dafoe said: ‘Don’t you think it would be a good idea to castrate the father and sew up the mother so she cannot have more children?’” Ivy’s eyes bugged out of her head.
“Gruesome!” She grinned. “But effective.”
Others sent to Dr. Dafoe are urging him to seek the aid of authorities to help keep Mme. Dionne and her children “away from that brute of a man” and to protect the children—all of them. Because of course there are ten children in total—our five babies clinging to life in the makeshift nursery, plus the five other Dionne children crammed into the top floor of the farmhouse or sprinkled around the parish.
As far as the Captain is concerned, the other Dionne children are a heavy cross to bear, screeching at top volume outside the windows, tearing through the charting quarters, or clattering around in the room above. It’s impossible for everyone. This evening there were seventeen people, including the children and babies, crowded into that creaky, sweltering farmhouse in the middle of a scorching Ontario summer, plus a crowd of strangers craning their necks outside. It would have been a laughable situation if the lives of those little girls weren’t on the line.
Meanwhile, every hour of every day someone is trying to deliver something we haven’t ordered and rarely need: forty-eight rolls of Scotch cello tape, twenty tins of corn syrup, cases of soap and toilet tissue, Jake’s potato chips and Royal Crown soda—all donations or gifts from people who’ve seen the newsreels or read about the babies in the paper. Yesterday a man on a bicycle pedaled up to the front gate with, of all things, ten copies of the new Nancy Drew—as if any of us have time to read!
No one can access the property without first getting past Grandpapa Dionne, and no one can enter the farmhouse kitchen—our nursery—without first being granted permission from Dr. Dafoe himself. He or she must then proceed directly to the washing station and don a special smock that we’ve bleached, boiled, and ironed before taking a single step in the nursery.
M. and Mme. Dionne are the exceptions, of course: they are still required to wear the smocks, but they don’t need explicit permission to enter so long as they do so during the strict “visiting hours” set by the Captain. And the clincher: Dr. Dafoe has now informed the parents they are not allowed to actually touch the babies. Fearing fireworks, Ivy and I slipped out onto the porch when the doctor summoned the Dionnes to explain this new rule. The flimsy screen door filtered out none of Oliva Dionne’s outrage.
“Non,” he bellowed. “Non! This, this, I will not allow.”
Mme. Dionne murmured something in French that I couldn’t catch, likely a plea for translation from her husband—I could hear the arc of confusion in her tone. Sure enough, he launched into a blistering rendition, in French, of the doctor’s latest decree, padded with complaints about “les anglophones” who put more stock in expensive medicines and machines than they do in God’s will and a mother’s love. His words were loud enough that the reporters and photographers slouched against the fence line all straightened themselves up and craned their heads closer, like antennae. Inside the kitchen, I heard the floorboards creak and imagined the broad, round shape of Madame, inching away from her husband’s spluttering.
But perhaps it was Mme. Dionne herself stepping forward to Dr. Dafoe, because she raised her trembling voice and spoke in a tone I hadn’t heard from her before, pleading, but resolute. “Docteur, docteur, je vous prie. Mes bébés. Mes trésors . . .”
I was watching Ivy and saw a look cross her face: a flash of feeling for Mme. Dionne. Elzire Dionne is a simple woman, finally on her feet again and baffled by the swirl of her own life these past few weeks, by the commotion in her home, by the efforts being expended to save these five girls. The papers say she had had only a few years of schooling and married M. Dionne when she was just sixteen—younger than I am now. Also, that she had already lost a baby boy, Léo, to pneumonia, four years ago. I can’t imagine changing places with her, but nor, I’m sure, can she understand why all of the young women bustling about her farmhouse aren’t back in their own kitchens, fussing over their own babies.
The doctor cleared his throat. “Mrs. Dionne, Mr. Dionne. Please understand. This is temporary, but compulsory.” He paused, and, after a moment, M. Dionne spat out the words in French for his wife one at a time, his voice calmer now, but seething. The doctor continued. “As soon as it is safe, as soon as the babies show any sign of thriving, I assure you, they will be yours to have and hold.”
The screen door flew open then and M. Dionne burst out, slicing across the porch and down the steps in three long strides, his scrawny arms swinging through the air like cleavers.