The Quintland Sisters(22)

“Emma!” This from my mother. “Please. It’s Christmas.”

The problem, I continued, is that gifts have been arriving for the quintuplets from all over the world, for weeks on end. “So many that the Captain—Nurse de Kiriline—arranged for truckloads to be taken to the relief offices in Corbeil and Callander, where they can be distributed to families in need.”

Mother nodded at this and passed me the stuffing.

“Of course, Dr. Dafoe can’t allow the quintuplets to play with any toys made of cloth that could carry germs, so that meant there were heaps of dolls and soft toys given away. Well. The Dionnes got wind of this and insisted that all the toys belonged to their family and should have only gone to the other Dionne children. Ivy said you could have filled a freight train with these toys! Plus the eldest boy must be eight or nine years old by now, so he knows full well where these gifts are coming from. These are dolls and clothes for girls, or other toys intended for much younger children.”

Father said nothing, just thrusting out his hand for my plate and spearing a piece of breast meat with the serving fork.

“The really funny thing is that everyone already spent a very happy Christmas together last week—the quintuplets, Dr. Dafoe, the nurses, and M. and Mme. Dionne, although not the other children, who have been sick with colds. They had an early Christmas so Mr. Davis could get his photos, and Pathé could get the newsreel, and all the reporters, at least a dozen of them, according to Ivy, could get a Christmas story.” I took my plate from Father. “Apparently it was a real hoot: Dr. Dafoe dressed up as Santa Claus, and the girls were so confused at his big white beard they all started jabbering at once.”

I looked from Mother to Father, both of them chewing and swallowing, their eyes lowered, saying nothing.

“Ivy said she and the other nurses and staff were laughing so hard they could scarcely pull themselves together for the cameras. And the Dionnes, apparently, looked like they couldn’t decide whether to laugh or cry.”

Father’s throat was reddening above the collar—never a good sign. He set down his knife and fork. “Ivy said this, Ivy said that.” He had adopted a high, sugary voice that is nothing like mine. “Emma, can you even begin to imagine what it must be like to have to visit your own children for Christmas? To have two Christmases: one for the cameras and one for yourselves?”

I should have bit my tongue, I suppose. But he’s never even met the Dionnes. In fact, neither Mother nor Father knows anything about the efforts Dr. Dafoe has expended to keep the girls healthy and how cautious he must be, every single day. They never bothered to visit the Dionne farmhouse last summer, and they’ve never been out to the new hospital to see the work we’re doing. If they did, they’d understand right away that we’re doing the right thing by the babies. The parents simply can’t give the girls the care, or the love, they need.

“It’s not like that, Father. The Dionnes are . . .” I was at a loss for the right word. “They’re quite hard people. They’re not gentle folk. You can see it in the faces of the other Dionne children—they startle like rabbits when their father or mother so much as looks at them.”

Now Father’s whole face was a mottled red, quite like my own really, and his beard was bristling. “Emma Trimpany, you have no right to an opinion on parenting until you have children of your own, do you hear me? That nursing school of yours has given you airs of superiority, and I won’t sit here and listen to them.”

Now it was my turn to get my hackles up, because I will surely be the last person on earth to develop “airs.” Father and Mother know as well as I do the chances of me, with my disfigurement, marrying and settling down—having a family—are vanishingly small. I opened my mouth to say just that, but closed it again when I saw Mother dabbing at her eyes with her napkin.

“Both of you: stop it,” she said, her voice strung thin. “You are ruining Christmas. I don’t want to hear another word about the Dafoe Hospital and Nursery, or the Dionnes. Not another word.”





1935


March 20, 1935

Miss Emma Trimpany

Nurses Dormitory

St. Joseph’s Hospital

North Bay, ON

Dear Em,

I don’t know whether to tell you to come and don your battle garb or to stay as far away from the Dafoe Nursery as possible. You are still coming down this Friday, aren’t you? I’m not entirely joking when I say that you should try and lay your hands on some arsenal. Does your father, perhaps, have a rifle?

Let me reassure you, the girls are fine. Annette is so chubby these days you can plunk her down on a blanket and she just sits there gurgling and blinking at you like the presiding cherub. You couldn’t tip her sideways if you tried. Even the little ones, émilie and Marie, are filling out beautifully. Those two are as thick as thieves, always clutching and burbling at one another. Cécile, Yvonne, and Annette all have their upper front teeth coming in and are starting to look like bunny rabbits, and all five of them have hair that is darker and thicker than ever. Their eyelashes are long and lovely, and they will flutter them at you coquettishly if you attempt to deny them a thing.

So why the rifle? It started two days ago. Nurse Garnier and I had managed to get all of the girls bathed, weighed, measured, dressed, and fed their breakfast and cod-liver oil and were waiting for Dr. Dafoe’s daily visit. All at once we heard a door slam followed by loud voices, and an instant later, Mme. Dionne burst into the playroom. As you know, the Captain has extraordinarily strict rules about visitors, and the Dionnes are only permitted to visit between 11:00 A.M. and noon, or 3:00 P.M. and 4:00.