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.