“You’re so quiet lately,” Henry said as he drove me to the hospital the third morning after Vincent’s arrival. “Are you all right?”
“Tired,” I said. “The work is exhausting. But I love it,” I added quickly, not wanting him to suggest I stop. “It’s a good kind of tired.”
To be honest, if I wasn’t completely absorbed by a task I was doing, my mind was on Vincent. Whether by coincidence or design, he and I never seemed to be in the same place at the same time since our conversation in his car. Oh, we were often in the same ward—that was unavoidable. But I would be at one end, usually caring for Jilly or Carol Ann or behind the curtain with Amy Pryor, still in the iron lung, and he would be at the other. I had to fight with myself not to look at him. My greatest fear was that I would arrive at the hospital and he would have left. Gone home to Baltimore. I wouldn’t be able to bear it, even though I couldn’t have him or touch him or talk to him or even look into his eyes. I needed his presence. I needed him close by. I would be bereft if he left.
I thought we were both doing our best to avoid contact at the hospital. On his part, there was anger. I felt certain of that and I didn’t blame him. On my part, there was shame and regret. My regret was strong enough to consume me, and outside of the hospital, I grew quiet and introspective, so much so that Henry was beginning to notice. I passed it off as fatigue every time he mentioned my strange mood.
The one good thing in my life was that my patients were doing well. Carol Ann’s polio seemed to have stabilized and now it was just a matter of keeping her limbs from atrophying. And Jilly Johnson’s fever was gone and, with it, most of her aches and pains. She was still very tired, though, sleeping for hours each day, but she waved to Honor through the window with more energy, and one morning I was able to help her walk over to the window, where I lifted her up to say hello to her overjoyed mother.
I was getting more comfortable working with the iron lung. Amy couldn’t breathe for more than a few minutes on her own when I slid her out of the steel tube to bathe her and give her an enema, so it was often a three-person task. Grace would operate the handheld inflator to keep Amy breathing, while one of the other nurses rolled her onto her side and I washed her and got her bowels moving the only way possible. When I’d slip her back inside the lung, I’d rub moisturizer over her face and drop oil in her eyes because the tiny air leaks from the lung made them dry and scratchy. Amy could say a few whispered words and they were often “thank you.” She was so sweet. Sometimes, caring for her, I wanted to cry. That would do no one any good. Instead, when I moved away from her to care for someone else, I’d say a prayer for her recovery. A prayer for her and her unborn baby.
On the fifth day after Vincent’s arrival, I knew that something was different the moment I walked into the ward. The shift was changing and things were always a little chaotic during that time, but the charged atmosphere seemed like more than that. I glanced quickly at Carol Ann and Jilly and they looked fine. Jilly sat up in bed, coloring, and one of the Hickory volunteers was reading to Carol Ann. But I could see at a glance that we didn’t have enough nurses.
“Sophie and Lillian are sick and we’re swamped!” Grace said as she passed me with a bedpan. “Sophie just has a cold, but they think Lillian has polio.”
“Oh no,” I said, my hand to my chest. It was a risk we all took. I knew the odds. One out of every ten nurses in a polio ward was likely to contract the disease. We’d been lucky so far.
I tucked the news about Lillian into the back of my mind and joined in the fray, planning to help with Sophie’s and Lillian’s patients as well as my own. First, though, I needed to check on Amy Pryor. I approached her curtained cubicle just as Amy’s night nurse, a very young woman I’d met only briefly the day before and whose name I couldn’t remember, was coming out.
“She’s been crying and complaining all night long,” she griped loudly enough for Amy to hear. I honestly felt like hitting her, I was so angry at her attitude. All our nurses were dedicated and kind. She was the only sour apple in the bunch.
I spoke quietly. “You’d cry and complain too if you were stuck in an iron lung, away from your family and your soldier husband and your little boy, not knowing if you’re going to survive,” I said.
She was wise enough to look guilty. “It’s just been a hard night.” She brushed a strand of auburn hair under her cap. “I need to get back to the hotel and sleep.”
“Did you give her her morning enema yet?” I asked, because I was beginning to doubt that Amy had been well cared for by this woman.
“No, she wouldn’t eat so I figured nothing would be moving—”
“She wouldn’t eat?” That was worrisome. Although swallowing could be challenging for her, Amy had so far been able to get down small amounts of soft food.
“She just shook her head when I tried. Very obstinate today.”
I was going to hit her if I didn’t get away from her, so I walked past her, slipping behind the curtain that surrounded Amy and the iron lung.
“Good morning, Amy,” I said. I knew right away something was wrong. She was pale and perspiring. Her eyes were closed, her face in a frown, and she didn’t react to my voice the way she usually did. I opened the side port and reached into the iron lung to take her pulse. It was rapid. Too rapid. I closed the port and moved to her head, bending over so that she’d be able to see me in the small mirror that was tilted at an angle above her face.
“Amy?” I said. “Can you hear me?”
She opened her eyes and moved her lips, trying to speak. I leaned my ear close.
“Stomachache,” she whispered.
“You need that enema, don’t you,” I said. “I’ll get it ready for you and then you’ll feel a whole lot better.”
I saw Grace applying lengths of wool to a little boy in the bed next to Jilly. I’d get everything ready and then have her come help me. Somehow the two of us would have to do what was usually a three-woman job.
I prepared the warm soapy water, filled the enema bag, and had the treatment tray ready to go before I opened the iron lung. I rolled out the bed, then poked my head through the opening in the curtain, trying to hurry Grace along. Grace held up a finger to let me know she’d be with me in a moment. I wasn’t sure how long Amy would be able to breathe on her own today, since she seemed so agitated. I was beginning to roll her onto her side when I saw the bloody liquid on the sheet beneath her body. I caught my breath. Was she losing the baby? I quickly pushed away the blanket covering her legs and to my shock and horror, I saw that the baby was crowning. Amy wasn’t losing her baby. Her baby was being born.
“Grace!” I shouted, not daring to move away from Amy long enough to open the curtain. “Get a doctor! Hurry!”
I had no sooner gotten the words out of my mouth than the little head slipped from Amy’s body. My hands barely had time to move into place before the tiny infant turned to the side and slid into my palms, where it lay gray and lifeless. I could barely breathe myself.
Grace burst into the curtained enclosure. “Dr. Russo’s coming,” she said. “What’s … Oh my God!”
“Get the inflator for Amy!” I said, knowing Amy wouldn’t be able to breathe on her own much longer.
Grace grabbed the inflator from the bottom of the cart and raced to the head of the bed.
“He’s not breathing.” I tried to keep my voice calm for Amy’s sake. I didn’t know how much she understood of what was happening. Her body was completely still now that the baby had been born. I cleaned him with a towel, trying to rub life into him. I couldn’t bear the limpness of him. I put him on his back next to Amy’s legs, pulled off my mask, and bent over him, lifting his chin and covering his tiny nose and mouth with my mouth. I remembered from my training that I should only use the air from my cheeks, and I blew gently. I saw his pale chest rise and fall.
I was only vaguely aware of Vincent stepping into the cubicle as I continued trying to resuscitate the infant.
“He’s not breathing,” Grace said to him.
I felt both of them watch me for several seconds as I continued breathing for the baby, then Vincent spoke. “Stop for a moment, Tess,” he said. “I think he’s breathing on his own now.”
I lifted my head and saw the baby’s chest rise and fall without my help. Already, his skin was turning pink. I looked up at Vincent and let out my breath. I hadn’t realized I’d been holding it. I felt overwhelmed by the miracle taking place in front of me.
Vincent took the baby from my hands, checking him over quickly. He cut the umbilical cord, examined Amy, delivered the placenta. I supposed it was all done with my help, but my tears were in the way and I moved on autopilot.
“Take this baby out of the ward,” Vincent said to me. “Keep him warm and get him some oxygen and an ambulance to the nursery at the local hospital.”
I nodded, wrapping the baby in a towel, my hands shaking with adrenaline. Then I carried the tiny bundle through the ward, stopping only long enough to let Amy see her little son before heading outside. In the stone building, I sat down next to one of the oxygen tanks and told the switchboard operator to call an ambulance. We had no masks tiny enough for a baby, so I held the cannula close to his nose. He could not have been more than five pounds but he was beautiful, with pale fuzz on his head and perfect features. I held him in my arms still swaddled in the towel. I held him the way I wished I could have held my own son. Held him and whispered to him and wondered how I was going to let go of him when the ambulance finally arrived.