Part Eight:
Garnish and Helma
August-September 1976

Given the speed with which Izora’s belly grew, it shouldn’t have come as a surprise when Dr. Marsh informed her and Emm that she was expecting twins. Nonetheless, Izora said she wasn’t prepared to have babies seven and eight arrive at the same time. Even with Mrs. Benbow to help, she couldn’t imagine how she would juggle two babies at once. Or get a moment’s rest.

While his wife was busy wringing her hands, Emm pumped his fists. Despite bragging they were a shoo-in to win the Derby, the newspaper coverage of all the contestants had made him fearful that they were falling behind. Now he had a reason to crow to the reporters. “Twins give us a leg up. Make that four legs!” He splurged on four boxes of cigars, two wrapped in blue cellophane and two in pink, to cover all the possible combinations.

The bigger surprise was that Izora carried the babies to term. On July 13, 1935, as she was wheeled into the delivery room, Dr. Marsh said he was proud of her and that compared to the scare they’d had with Foy, this birth would be twice the work but half the worry. First to come out was a boy with a head full of dark hair, delicate features, and a powerful set of lungs. When the second baby emerged, and Dr. Marsh proclaimed it a girl, they waited to hear another lusty cry. Instead, there was silence, followed by frantic activity, followed by more silence. Izora, catapulted awake from the twilight reverie of the anesthetic, was the one whose cry pierced the hushed room when the doctor said he was sorry, but their daughter was stillborn.

Emm named the boy Garnish. He was ready to bury, or preferably cremate, the girl without calling her anything. He hid his grief behind a mask of anger and regret. “A baby born dead doesn’t count in the Vital Statistics,” he railed. “She didn’t even take one damn breath.” Izora rose from her bed to insist that their daughter be given a name, Helma, and a proper burial as well. Emm acquiesced to the name, but still resisted having a formal funeral.

In a rare show of unity, his mother took Izora’s side. “There’s scarce consolation with such a loss,” Mrs. Benbow said. “At least rituals provide some comfort.” She admitted that she’d lost two children, one before and one after Emm, both under a year old. “I wasn’t myself for weeks afterward. I could hardly get out of bed and I cried at the least little thing.” She helped Izora choose a tiny casket lined in pink velvet and told Mr. Benbow to spare no expense on the service or cemetery plot, which was located on the edge of a ravine overlooking the Don River. She told her son, “I don’t give a hoot whether the government or the Derby judge recognizes this baby, our family does.”

Not Emm. He didn’t attend the funeral or visit the grave, nor did he utter the dead twin’s name. When people asked how many children he had, he didn’t count Helma among them. Izora glared at him, but Emm ignored her. He ignored Garnish too. Seeing the lone boy only brought fresh waves of disappointment. As near as Emm could tell, however, Garnish was unaffected by the loss of his companion from the womb. Out in the world, he seemed a perfectly normal and self-contained child.