“You see, I wanted this baby so bad. I needed it to prove something; to prove that this could be a good world. I was going to get all the things I never had for this baby to prove that there are more than dreams in a person’s life. First, I was going to give it love.

  “Ever since I was a child no one ever held me and said, ‘I love you, Margy.’ Oh, I know you loved me, Mama and Papa. You, too, Frankie—in your way. But no one of you would come right out and say it. I can excuse Mama and Papa—they never had the way. They had the way of the older generation. But you, Frankie . . .”

  “Margy, Margy,” he said. She waited. Maybe he’d say it and maybe everything could be saved. He thought of saying he loved her, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t alone with her and he could even less with his parents there.

  Her father and mother said nothing. She hadn’t expected them to say anything.

  She said, “I always wanted a doll—a sentimental thing to want, I guess. But I never had one. I almost believed that there were no dolls left in the stores. I would have gotten a doll for my baby. Yes, I would! Even if we had to eat bread and salt washed down with water for a month to pay for it. A child forgets a time of hunger but never forgets the aching want of other things.

  “And if she ever got lost, I wouldn’t’ve hit her when I found her. I would’ve been so happy to get her back again. I’d . . .” She stopped talking. Her throat was tightening up and she didn’t want to cry in front of them.

  Flo’s thoughts ran under her daughter’s words. She never understood me. She doesn’t remember how hard I tried. All she remembers is the quick slap; the times I didn’t get her a doll or a new winter coat. She couldn’t know that I loved her because I never could say it in so many words and I had no way of proving it. She never knew that the slap, the scolding was a way of taking it out on her because she made me feel bad because I couldn’t do for her all that should have been done. Oh, I wish her child had lived! She would have gone through what I went through, then. She would have learned then why I couldn’t do better. She would have come to understand that I was a good mother in my way.

  Mr. Malone remembered the time Frankie had wanted a pair of skates and how he couldn’t afford to buy them for the child. The boy had bought one rusty skate from the junk dealer for a nickel. The memory came sharply into focus: the child hopping up and down on one foot propelling the skate which was on the other foot. It had bothered Malone. He had instructed the boy to alternate the one skate so he wouldn’t grow up lopsided.

  Frankie was always a one, thought Mrs. Malone, to want to go to a boys’ camp in the summer. But there were the other children and not enough of money or anything else to go around. Maybe she should have tried harder to get the money to send him. But no, she decided, she had done the right thing. If she had indulged Frankie, the other children would have begged and teased for things. I couldn’t give to him and deprive the others. But if I had a chance to do it over again . . . she sighed.

  Henny Shannon had his thoughts: A doll for a girl, tin soldiers for a boy. A girl practices being a mother, and a boy a general. They should have things like that—things all children want. If they don’t get nothing along that line they grow up figuring they’re not entitled to much. They grow up learning to be glad just to have a roof over their head and something to eat. They figure they get a break when they get a job—any old job just so it pays a few dollars. Because they didn’t have a doll or tin soldiers or skates when they were kids they grow up figuring they got no right to expect anything at all but the chance to work so that they might live and to live so that they might work. And people ought to be allowed to expect a little more out of life than that.

  I told her I didn’t want children, thought Frankie. She’ll never forget that. But if this child had lived I would have tried to see to it that it got better breaks than we got. But what’s the use of telling her that now? No use telling anybody anything if you can’t prove it.

  As if she could know all their thoughts and was now taking it upon herself to correlate them into a whole, Mrs. Malone spoke for the group.

  “Marge,” she said, “there’s things you’ll never understand until you bring up a houseful of children. Parents don’t mean to deprive their children. But the way things is, they got to deprive them sometimes. A good child understands how that is. A bad child grows up brooding on it. Now I don’t blame you for feeling mean. You lost your baby. That’s a terrible thing. But you’ll get over it, believe it or not. We all feel bad. What happened to you happened to us in a kind of way. After all, it was my first grandchild. And that has a meaning to me. I get all choked up when I think of the other day when we rode out to the cemetery. A person wouldn’t be human if things like that didn’t make them feel just terrible. But like your mother said, it’s all over. Like she said, we got to think of the living. I guess you understand now, Marge.”

  But Margy was tired of understanding; of trying to know how it was with others. She leaned forward on her elbow and looked straight into Mrs. Malone’s eyes. “Mother Malone,” she began.

  In an instant, the way a dream covers years in a split second, Mrs. Malone had a vision as soon as Margy spoke her name. The vision was that Margy knew her, Mrs. Malone’s, worth at last. Margy would now be to her what her own daughters had never been—friend and confidante. From now on Margy would say to Frankie: “Go see your mother, Frankie. I’ll stay home.” “Frankie, your mother’s a wonderful woman. You owe everything in the world to her.” “Spend more time with her. Go see her every night. I’ll step aside because I know she has more right to you than I have.” “Don’t buy me any presents for my birthday or Christmas. Put the money toward a present for your mother.” “Ah, you can’t do enough for your mother, Frankie. She’s a wonderful woman.”

  All this passed through Mrs. Malone’s mind before Margy repeated more insistently. “Mother Malone, I want to tell you something.”

  “What, Marge?”

  “Mother Malone,” said Margy, “I hate you!”

  “What did you say?” croaked Mother Malone, her face flooding slowly with a turgid red color.

  “I said . . .” Margy spoke quietly, not opening her teeth to let the words out. “I said, I hate you!”

  The last thing Margy saw, before she turned away from them all and closed her eyes, was the red color receding from her mother-in-law’s face, leaving in its wake sloppy red splotches.

  THEY SAY, THOUGHT Margy, that when a person suffers grief or pain, it makes them nobler in character. That’s not true. Not in my case, anyhow. When things were right with me it was easy to pretend people always meant well and easy to overlook mean things said and done. But after you go through something bad you realize that all the rosy ideas you had about things and people were childish make-believe. Or it could be that after suffering something you don’t have enough feeling left to pretend to yourself that it’s a right world. Or could it be that suffering wipes all foolishness out of you and brings you up to the truth and the truth is that a lot of people are small and cruel?

  Take Frankie’s mother. Did the suffering of giving birth make a big person out of her? No! She went through what I went through but it didn’t make her ache for me when she knew what might be ahead of me. And take me: I went through once what she went through four times. But it doesn’t make me feel sorry for her in any way. It makes me hate her.

  I don’t feel holy and broadminded just because I had pain and have grief. I feel cheated all the way along the line. I feel hate, too. I hate Frankie’s folks. I mustn’t hate Frankie because I’m married to him and I have to live with him. It wouldn’t be right to hate Mama and Papa, because my flesh and blood and bones come from them and it would be hating myself.

  I hope I get over this feeling of hating everybody and thinking that nothing at all in the world is any good. I must get over it. Because how can I—how can anyone live in this world unless they have regard for other people and a lot of hope for a decent future?

  If I ever got to really believing that things would never be any better than they are right now, I guess I’d just as soon lie down and die.

  35

  BUT MARGY WAS young and resilient.

  Against her will, almost, she found herself interested in the concentrated life of the home-hospital. She found herself speculating on the family life of the Paolskis. She wondered how it would affect the two daughters—growing up with babies being born daily or nightly in the converted kitchen beneath their bedroom. Did they think that the whole of life was the routine of birth? Did the screams of the women wake them at night or were they so used to them that they slept through them? Would they feel lost if they went to live somewhere else and, passing through a hall on entering or leaving a house, not see a row of beds and patients out of the corner of their eye?

  She enjoyed chatting with Aunt Tessie when Aunt Tessie brought up her tray. She became friends with her fellow-patients. She began to enjoy the evening visiting hours which were for husbands only. Toward the end of her stay there, an evening seemed like a bit of a party.

  THE FIVE MOTHERS and Margy had enjoyed the supper Aunt Tessie had prepared for them. They commented on the luxury of having a tray in bed; admitted, as they did every night, that the dainty salads were a treat because they had no time at home to fix a salad and even if they did, he wouldn’t touch it. All he wanted was meat and potatoes and a piece of coffee cake from the bakery.

  The husbands seem to arrive at the hospital all at the same time as if they had waited on the corner for each other. Each night it was a different husband’s turn to treat the girls to ice cream. Each night one of the men walked in carrying a carton of a quart and a half of strawberry ice cream. No one knew why it had to be strawberry but Brooklyn men seem to prefer that flavor above all others—even though they don’t eat it, they like to buy strawberry ice cream.

  Each night Nurse made the same remark before she turned the carton over to Aunt Tessie for serving. “You really shouldn’t’ve brought cream. They’ll all get too fat.” But after the mothers had been served and each mother had contributed a generous spoonful of her cream to make up a dishful for Aunt Tessie, Nurse sat on the radiator shelf swinging her heavy legs, taking part in the good-natured banter while she spooned out the ice cream that clung to the sides and bottom of the carton, and ate it.

  The mothers, freshly made up, with hair neatly brushed, lay back on their plumped-up pillows. Those who were mothers for the first time usually wore beribboned rayon bedjackets over flimsy nightgowns—the last item of sexy finery most of them were ever to own. Repeaters—mothers for the second, third or more times—usually wore long-sleeved, buttoned-to-the-neck flannel gowns. They preferred warmth to beauty.

  Each husband leaned over a bed shelf and conversed privately with his wife until after the ice cream had been eaten. With the clearing away of the plates and spoons, the talk became general. Men exchanged remarks with each other and with wives other than their own. The women traded understanding smiles and looks with each other as they recounted trifling incidents and funny happenings of the hospital day. All, save Margy, were glowingly serene as they sat back against their pillows with their proudly swelling breasts straining at jacket and gown.

  “Nurse tells me that my son, Mike . . .”

  “Michael,” corrected his wife.

  “. . . Is making passes at the girls out in the nursery,” said Mr. Jones.

  “He takes after his old man,” said Mr. Brown.

  Laughter.

  “Nurse is a riot,” confided Mrs. Williams with an arch smile at Nurse who swung her legs more energetically. “Know what she did today?”

  Several husbands assured her that they didn’t but they sure could guess. Then they leered good-naturedly at Nurse.

  “Well,” continued Mrs. Williams, “she brought my Shirley in for her . . .” Mrs. Williams paused coyly.

  “For her two-o’clock nursing,” prompted Mrs. Brown shamelessly.

  “Well, anyhow, you know how my Shirley only has three hairs on the top of her head?” She waited. The other women assured her that they knew how Shirley only had three hairs. “Well, what does Nurse go and do but tie a big pink bow around those three hairs. I thought I’d die!”

  “She’s a little vamp, that one,” was Nurse’s evaluation of the three-haired Shirley. Mr. and Mrs. Williams tried not to look too proud.

  A thought occurred to an older, more thoughtful woman. She felt that maybe the talk was hurting Margy because Margy had no baby to brag about. She changed the conversation suddenly.

  “Do you think the snow will stick?” she asked.

  All of them got it. The smiles died from their faces and they carefully avoided looking at Margy as their eyes went to the windows and they gave opinions concerning the lasting qualities of the newly falling snow.

  Margy wished they wouldn’t. It made her feel ill at ease; isolated from normal life. She spoke for the first time that evening, wishing to bring things back to normal.

  “Mrs. Brown, you tell them what happened when Nurse brought in Carol . . .” Margy timed the pause, timed her smile, “. . . for her two-o’clock nursing.” They laughed. Margy’s weak gag had gone over or so they pretended.

  “Oh, it was nothing,” deprecated Mrs. Brown.

  “It was so!” insisted Mrs. Williams indignantly. “Tell it.”

  “Let Margy tell it. She can do it better than me,” conceded Mrs. Brown.

  “Tell it, Margy. Tell it,” chorused the women. So Margy told it.

  “Well, it seems that when Nurse brought Carol in . . .”

  “For her two o’clock . . .” prompted Mr. Jones.

  “Aren’t men terrible?” squealed Mrs. Jones.

  “Like I was saying,” continued Margy, “Nurse brought Carol in. She lifted her little head . . .”

  “And she’s only five days old, too,” interpolated Mrs. Brown proudly.

  “Who’s telling this?” demanded Margy, pretending anger.

  “You are,” conceded Mrs. Brown meekly.

  “Let me, then. Anyhow,” continued Margy, “she lifted her little head and looked straight at each one of us in turn. Then she yawned—like she was bored, closed her eyes and let her head fall down on Nurse’s shoulder.”

  Everyone laughed. They laughed too loud; too thoroughly. It’s not that good a story, thought Margy bitterly. It’s just that they’re sorry for me.

  Eventually the nurse brought the evening to a close by consulting her wristwatch, bouncing off the radiator shelf and announcing:

  “Nine o’clock. Beddy-bye time. We must have our beauty sleep.”

  Obediently and with some relief, six husbands craned over six beds and kissed six wives good-night. The husbands left in a body after Mr. Williams cautioned Nurse not to take any wooden nickels and Mr. Brown admonished her not to do anything he wouldn’t do.

  Five fathers and Frankie walked around the house and stood in the driveway under the falling snow. Nurse came to the sun parlor and snapped on the light. They stared through the glass at the fruit of their loins lying pink and crumpled in containers resembling packing boxes.

  “Look at that loafer over there,” said Mr. Jones, pointing proudly at an unpressed infant. “Yes, sir, if my old lady didn’t go and get me a son.”

  “Who do you suspect?” asked Mr. Brown, jealous because his wife had got him only a girl.

  “Nobody. I’m wise, see? I got me a Frigidaire, home.”

  Like a disapproving gesture, the light in the nursery snapped out. The men walked away as one of them told the hoary old iceman joke. They laughed heartily. As they reached the street someone said:

  “How about a beer before . . .” he let his voice go falsetto, “. . . before beddy-bye time?”

  The men laughed again. Louder this time.

  Frankie was the first one to say, “Sure.”

  THE WOMEN, BEDDING down for the night, heard the man laughter through the closed windows. They smiled at each other.

  “The men! They sure have the life,” philosophized Mrs. Brown contentedly.

  “You said it!” agreed Mrs. Williams.

  “They have all the fun and we have all the trouble,” said Mrs. Jones.

  “Ain’t that the truth, Margy?” asked Mrs. Williams. No answer came from Margy’s bed.

  “What do you know! She’s asleep already,” said the woman in the bed next to Margy’s.

  “If I could sleep like that . . .” said Mrs. Brown who had a passion for unfinished sentences.

  “If you could sleep like that, what?” asked Mrs. Thompson, a woman who abhorred the vacuum made by unfinished sentences.

  “Why I wouldn’t be in the situation I’m in tonight,” said Mrs. Brown with coy lewdness.

  Nurse’s voice cut into the laughter. “That’s about all, girls. Sleep tight, now, and don’t ask for the bedpan during the night unless you really have to go.”

  The lights clicked off. Margy turned her face to the window. She was wide awake. From within the dark room, she watched the rhythm of the falling snow outside the window.

  36

  MARGY WAS SUPPOSED to stay in bed ten days. But on the seventh day she was up and around helping the day nurse carry in the babies for feeding and giving bottles to the two babies who were on formulae. On the eighth day she told Dr. Paolski that she wanted to go home. He demurred saying she had had a harder time than most women and there was the shock of losing her baby. He agreed, however, that she would be happier at home when she pointed out that her bed was needed. A woman had come in the day before and was occupying the couch, with a screen around it, in the doctor’s office. (And it was damned cold sleeping in that attic, too.) When she paid him, she was pleasantly surprised when he refunded six dollars, charging her only for the eight days instead of the full time the way he had a right to do. She considered the six dollars a windfall until she remembered that it would just make up the pay for the two days Frankie had lost from work.