Clara hadn’t been returned to the Gingerbread House after she was taken to the hospital. Rumors swirled around, but the consensus was that she had tried to kill herself in the shaming room. Loretta said she had it on good authority that she had tied her shirt around her neck and tried to hang herself but only succeeded in passing out. Mother Margaret never said a word about Clara, but she did yell and lecture on Bubbles and Gertrude, who had somehow successfully escaped through the basement window. And Mother Margaret was madder than a pissed-on chicken.
The walls around our little prison were erected even higher. We were counted like preschoolers, our movements restricted. A guard was hired to walk the outside premises, and we were no longer allowed to return to our rooms throughout the day. We even needed permission to go to the toilet. All of the Gingerbread House girls were questioned several times, but Loretta and I stuck to our story.
“She must have slipped out in the middle of the night while we were sleeping. No, I don’t think she had the baby.”
No one expected anything from Georgia Mae, who got rid of the bloody sheets and afterbirth on garbage day. She had restored our attic room with no evidence that anything had happened.
Under our new confined system, the days drifted even more slowly than they had before. Things were even more miserable without Bubbles to make us laugh. I thought of her often. She was so brave to keep her baby and deal with the consequences; I’d never be that brave. Was I doing the right thing by giving my baby up? Should I have leaped from Mrs. Shapiro’s car with Shimmy and run away with him? I’d been so focused on going to college and making something of myself that I never entertained that I could be like Bubbles and fight to have it all. But as quickly as these thoughts came, I shoved them to the back of my mind and locked them away. It was the only way I could get through this.
On the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, two girls went into labor within hours of each other, and Georgia Mae was one of them. The white girl was ushered out the back door into a van. When Georgia Mae made to follow, Mother Margaret stopped her.
“The clinic is for whites only. You come with me.” Then Mother Margaret caught my eyes. “Ruby, why don’t you come and help her get settled.”
We followed Mother Margaret down three short steps and into her office. It was a cozy room with two large bookshelves, an oak desk and matching swivel chair. A framed painting of Jesus hung crookedly from the wall and the room smelled faintly of gin. Mother Margaret’s habit swished around her feet as she opened the narrow door between the two bookshelves. The room inside was dark and windowless. It was barely a room at all—more like an oversized storage closet, containing only a twin bed pressed against the wall and a folding chair.
Mother Margaret thrust a Bible into my hand. “Read from 1 Corinthians, Ephesians and the book of Mark. The nurse will be called when it’s time.” She spun on her heels, closing the door behind her. I squeezed Georgia Mae’s hand and placed the Bible under my chair.
Since Georgia Mae didn’t talk, I rambled on, reciting stories from the books that I read. I rubbed her back the way she had done for Bubbles and mopped the sweat from her brow. Two hours later, Georgia Mae’s pains had escalated to the point that she was hollering like something was ripping her apart from the inside. I hadn’t known she could make such sounds. Eventually, a nurse came and sent me away. I was relieved; I wasn’t eager to witness another birth so soon.
Georgia Mae’s baby boy was born so fair-skinned that it was almost hard to believe that a girl with such rich, inky skin had birthed him. I was glad when Mother Margaret made it my job to check on her and help with the baby. While Georgia Mae recovered in that little back room, I brought her warm rags and clean pads, hot black tea and vegetable stew, then held the baby so that she could check her bleeding and relieve herself in the bathroom. She was given no medication, and I could see her pain in the depths of her eyes.
On the fifth day after Georgia Mae gave birth, I was on my way to Mother Margaret’s office when I overheard her and our social worker, Ms. Jeanne, conversing.
“Georgia Mae Rowe has no parents. Her employer brought her in. A white lady from Roanoke. According to her paperwork, a distant aunt who lives in Richmond would like to adopt the baby,” Ms. Jeanne said.
“Hmph, that child is too fair-skinned to live among poor Negroes. We have clients much better suited to raise that boy—clients who I’m sure would give a substantial donation.”
I heard some papers shuffle.
“It’s a few weeks too early for my D.C. doctor couple, and their baby will be Loretta’s. There is a couple in New York that has been waiting patiently. The husband is a lawyer and I’m sure a prized boy would bring in extra—”
Just then, I dropped a spoon from the edge of the tray I’d been carrying.
“Who’s there?” Mother Margaret barked.
I stepped into the room.
“Child. Do make yourself known as you walk about. Drop off the food and then get to class.” Mother Margaret frowned.
I hustled through the door with the tray of tomato soup. Ms. Jeanne pushed back from her seat, watching me. With her keeping such close company, there was no way I could relay what I had heard without being caught. I wanted to warn Georgia Mae that her son wouldn’t be placed with her aunt where she could see him from time to time, but instead would be sent to a family elsewhere, but there was no way. Besides, when I entered the room, Georgia Mae and the baby boy were fast asleep. I left the food for her on the folding chair, and Ms. Jeanne closed the door softly behind me. As I crossed back through Mother Margaret’s office, she called my name.
“Yes, Your Excellency?”
“Mrs. Shapiro called this morning. She asked me to remind you not to forget why you were here and what’s at stake. I know that Bubbles was your friend.”
“I am aware, Your Excellency.”
She looked me up and down with a scowl on her pinched face. “We will take care of Georgia Mae from here. You are dismissed from this post. Hurry along to charm class.”
That night, when Loretta and I were alone in our room, I disclosed what I had overheard.
“We all know why we are here,” she mustered lethargically. Loretta’s nose had spread and it sounded like it was hard for her to breathe. “I just want to get this over with and go home. I can’t take it anymore.”
Between worrying over Georgia Mae and listening to Loretta’s snores, I barely slept, but I cried for all of us in my pillow until it was soaked. How much more of this house of crazy could I take? My legs were restless, and I kept tossing them in and out of my covers all night. When it was time for breakfast, I told Loretta to say that I was in bed sick. Little Sister Bethany came up a few minutes later and took my temperature.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m just so tired,” I said.
She looked deep in my eyes. “Rest, child. Please make sure that’s all you do. We can’t afford anymore incidents around here.”
I nodded, turned toward the wall and fell into a deep sleep. I was dreaming about swimming in the ocean at Chicken Bone Beach in Atlantic City with Aunt Marie and her gang from Kiki’s when the door to our room burst open.
It was Georgia Mae. Her shoulders drooped forward, and her thin top was damp with milk rings.
“What’s wrong?” My voice was husky with sleep.
She collapsed into a heap on her cot. The cry that emerged from her mouth sounded like a wound that would never heal.
“Nooo” came from her lips, and I was startled that Georgia Mae had a voice. This whole time I thought she had been born special.
“Georgia Mae? What happened?”
“They. Took. Him. Away. They took my baby. My David.”
I moved next to her on her cot and rocked her in my arms. Soon, the top of my gown was soaked in her tears. Finally her moans died to a muffle, and we sat in silence for a bit. After a few minutes, Georgia Mae turned her face up to the ceiling. Her eyes were dead, but her lips started moving.
“This my second child by that man.” She dragged out the word “man” with venom. “I work in their nice house, filled with their fancy things. Cleanin’ and chasin’ behind their nasty kids.” Her voice was hoarse but deep. She fell quiet for a while. So quiet that I thought she had retreated into herself again. Georgia Mae touched her hands to her stomach. It had caved in like a baked cake that had fallen just before it rose.
“First child I had by him at thirteen. Only had my monthly visitor two times before he catch me in the shed. That wife, she pretend not to know. Even when my belly grow. After the baby came, someone from the state show up at the house and took my girl away.” Her voice quivered. “I named that one Charlotte.”
Georgia Mae stared at the wall, never looking my way. Her pain weaved itself around me, choking me like it was my own.
“When he caught me again and my belly poked, that wife always pickin’ on me. Say I’m a whore, called me prostitute. Always shoutin’ mean things. Then she told me to get in the car and brought me here.”
“You had an aunt that you hoped would take David?” I asked, recalling the conversation I had overheard.
She shook her head yes. “I scratched out a letter to my aunt when I got here, and she agreed. They all said yes, but they lie. All of them.” She started crying again.
“What happened downstairs?” I asked.
She wiped her face with the edge of her shirt. “David was feedin’. It was late, middle of the night when I heard footsteps. Then three of them burst through the door. Two of those lifer girls held me down while the nurse snatched David right from my tit. He wailed as his milk leaked down my waist. When I tried to get up to follow him, they closed the door and locked me in. I banged and banged but they left with my baby.” Fresh tears flowed down her cheeks and I pulled her tight.
“Ain’t right to birth two babies and not have none.”
After she told me everything, Georgia Mae lost her voice again. The next morning, she was moved from our room, down to the laundry with the rest of the lifers. Loretta and I didn’t see her much, but when we did, she barely made eye contact. And I never heard her voice again.