The Quintland Sisters(16)
Used with permission.
July 28, 1934
The babies are two months old today—it’s impossible to imagine them reaching the age of two, which according to the newspapers is the age they must reach before the Ontario government transfers their care back to their parents. Any pretense of civility between M. Dionne and Dr. Dafoe has now evaporated. To the nursing staff, M. Dionne’s manner has been more unpredictable than ever, at times wheedling and, at others, menacing. It’s a hopeless situation. The babies can’t be moved—their health is so precarious—but the Dionnes are making it abundantly clear: we are not welcome in their home.
July 31, 1934
DR. DAFOE TOLD us yesterday that the government has at last approved the construction of a special hospital and nursery for the quintuplets right across the street. Not a day later, an army of young men descended on this quiet street, taking measurements and breaking ground on a stretch of land on the other side of the road. Ivy has been watching them from time to time, teasing me, saying I might find myself a beau if I took a moment to stand on the porch and watch them toiling in the sun. I won’t be drawn. All I care about is that the new hospital be clean and fresh, so that the nurses won’t have to feel like they are squatters on the Dionne homestead. The biggest problems here are the noise and the dirt, the horseflies and deerflies, the prying crowds, and the wind, hot and wicked, whistling through every crack and seam of this rickety house as if it, too, was trying to run off with a good story. The girls are so frail, they take a turn for the worse with the slightest disturbance.
“But if they are building a special hospital, this must mean that Dr. Dafoe believes the babies will survive,” I said to Ivy. She merely chewed her lower lip and looked worried. “It’s too soon to know,” she said quietly. “No one can know if they’ll make it or not.”
August 4, 1934
OUT OF NOWHERE, a gift for Ivy.
The girls’ guardians have decided they need to secure a steady income for the babies while limiting some of the hoo-ha caused by the dogged press photographers who surround the farmhouse from dawn to dusk. They’ve hired an official photographer for the quintuplets. Under the deal, the Star newspaper will have exclusive Canadian rights to photograph the quintuplets and to sell the photos in the United States via the Newspaper Enterprise of America.
The Captain gathered the nurses, the two hired girls, the orderly, and me on the porch to deliver the news and explain the implications. It was clear from her tone that she disapproved.
“A more unusual situation you are unlikely to encounter again,” she began, blinking at us reproachfully. “Effective immediately, the only person permitted to photograph the quintuplets is Mr. Fred Davis.”
I heard Ivy exhale softly, as if she’d been holding her breath. Out of the corner of my eye I could see her ducking her head, smiling.
The Captain was straining to purse her lips together, looking at each of us in turn. The shrill chirring of the cicadas seemed to swell in the silence until she spoke again. “This rule extends to any other photographer rapping at the door and telling us he is from the Star newspaper, and it extends equally to the parents and other family members. No one is permitted to take photographs of the babies, with the exception of Mr. Davis.
“To be clear,” she continued, her voice rising. “The health of the babies at all times supersedes any requests of the photographer. He cannot ask for one of the girls to be taken from her bed in order to be photographed. But during feedings and the routine course of care, Mr. Davis may take his pictures.” She sniffed. “Mr. Davis, I’m told, will be moving from Toronto to North Bay, later this month.”
I raised an eyebrow in Ivy’s direction, but she either ignored me or didn’t see it. When we all realized, three seconds too late, that the Captain had finished her speech, we trooped back indoors and there was no chance for me to talk to Ivy. Later, when we had a moment to ourselves, she couldn’t be drawn. We have joked about the film-star looks of the big-city photographer for most of the summer, and I’d teased her (harmlessly I thought) about the photographs he’d taken of her on the porch. But now, it seemed, he was stepping out of the pages of a magazine and into our day-to-day lives.
August 10, 1934
DR. DAFOE, AT Ivy’s urging, has arranged for me to be accepted into the nursing program at North Bay, all of my tuition paid by a new scholarship in Dr. Dafoe’s name. I can’t quite believe it. Me, a nurse! I am wishing I’d paid more attention in my science classes. It is a one-year program, not the three years of training that the Red Cross nurses were required to obtain, but there is more and more demand these days for practical nurses, Ivy says. Plus, Dr. Dafoe has arranged for me to continue to help out with the quintuplets as part of my training requirements. I’m pinching myself.
All the same, it was a little upsetting to see the relief and pride on the faces of Mother and Father. They’ve spent more years than I care to imagine wondering what would become of their disfigured daughter.
Ivy would be angry with me for writing that. She keeps saying that my birthmark is a distinction, not a blemish, but it is easy for her to say. She is so naturally beautiful, even more so now that Fred Davis is stopping by most days. I think he is quite as struck by her as she is by him.
“It’s not just my birthmark,” I told Ivy today, holding up a clump of my thin hair hanging lank and limp, the color of wet straw. “And what of this?” I asked her when I knew the Captain wasn’t watching. I put one hand on my hip, striking a pose and running my other hand the length of my torso. “I have the physique of a twelve-year-old boy. It’s not even a question of being unattractive. I’m simply invisible.” Ivy shook her head and laughed.