May 8, 1936
Wilmington, North Carolina
“Luck-eeee!” Cecily screamed, feeling like she was being torn in half. Her labor had been going on for hours, each pain worse than the last. She didn’t know how much more she could take, and Dr. Addington had said the birth was still hours away, that she was still too small, the baby could not get out. “Lucky!”
His head down between her drawn-up knees, Dr. Addington laughed. “That’s the most unusual choice of word at this moment, Miss DuMonde,” he said, and his wife, at Cecily’s side, patted her shoulder. “But, yes, you are lucky, because I’m going to give you something to help with the pain, and then, in just a few hours, you’ll wake up, and your baby will be here.”
Cecily was sobbing. The pain was so bad. “Oh, please, yes.”
Mrs. Addington stroked her hair. “You’re doing just beautifully, little girl,” the doctor said, and he fit a mask over Cecily’s nose and mouth. As she breathed in the gas, the pain began to lessen. Her spread-open legs seemed to detach from her body. Her head began to float away. “Let’s just keep up the good work now,” she heard the doctor say, as if through a cotton cloud, and then she was gone.
When she woke up, all was quiet, and she felt as if she’d been run through by the cowcatcher of a locomotive. The inside of her mouth was coated in fuzz.
As her eyes began to focus on the ceiling of the pantry, everything came back to her. The lights, which had been bright, now were dim. There’d been equipment lined up nearby her on the countertop—the doctor’s metal tools, frightening at the time—and now there was nothing, which was even more frightening.
Where was Tommy?
It struck Cecily, then: Harriet had screamed for twenty-four hours straight. Had never been given anything for the pain. Her baby had been positioned entirely wrong, and yet the doctor had just had her push on through.
She realized: there was a thick cotton bandage taped over her entire belly. That wasn’t normal.
That wasn’t normal.
She began to cry. She had to know. Where was Tommy?
“Help, please,” she said, but her voice was weak.
She balled her fists. She felt like a shipwreck. “Help!” she managed to yell. “Help me!”
She kept on yelling until Mrs. Oglethorpe came in, followed by the doctor. “Hush now, dear,” said Mrs. Oglethorpe, patting Cecily’s shoulder the same way Mrs. Addington had done.
“My dear, you gave us quite a time,” said Dr. Addington.
Cecily could not stop crying. Somehow, she knew. She just knew. Nothing was all right. Nothing was ever going to be all right again.
“Your baby did not want to come, Jacqueline. We had to perform what is called a cesarean section.”
They’d cut her open! Cecily had read about this!
“Where is he? Where is he?”
“I’m so sorry, Jacqueline.” The doctor folded his hands, bowed his head. “Your baby, unfortunately, did not survive.”
Cecily screamed. Screamed. Screamed.
She could not stop. She writhed, hurting herself where they’d cut her open. She tore at her hair. Mrs. Oglethorpe tried to grab her by the shoulders, but could not hold her down.
“Now, my dear,” said the doctor, fitting the mask over Cecily’s nose and mouth again, “you promised you wouldn’t give us any trouble.”
When Cecily came to this time, she could tell by the light coming in the window behind her that it was morning. The doctor was sitting beside her on a stool, making notes in her file. He was wearing fresh clothes, was newly shaved, and smelled of strong soap and coffee. “Ah, good,” he said. “You’re back.”
She narrowed her eyes.
He sighed. “Don’t blame me, little girl. It’s a cruel world. And, when some time passes by, you’re going to see that this is for the best. You’re going to have a chance at life now.”
“Where is he? Where is my baby? I want to see him.” Back of mind, she wondered: Had they taken him? Harmed him? Because he looked like Lucky?
But Dr. Addington showed no sign of this. “We’ve removed your baby, to spare you the sight,” he said calmly. “We’ve taken care of everything. You’re not to worry about any of that, all right, little girl? Just focus on getting yourself better.”
“I need to see him,” she insisted, but a rap came at the door, and Mrs. Oglethorpe poked her head in. “Dr. Addington? One of the other girls has had her water break.”
His face brightened. “A busy day!” He stood, setting Cecily’s file on the counter, and was gone.
She lay catching her breath. A tear squeezed out of each eye. Tommy. She had not known anything except that he was hers, and that they were going to be together. A family. With or without Lucky, they would’ve been a family, no matter what.
Now she knew nothing at all.
It occurred to her to want to see what the doctor had written in her file. To make sure the doctor was telling the truth about Tommy dying.
If so, in the file would be the story of Tommy’s whole life.
She struggled to half sit up—the pain was excruciating—and managed to stretch her arm far enough to reach the file. She couldn’t hope to lift the whole thing, so she just snagged the first page off the top of the stack inside.
She lay back down and had to catch her breath again, but, when her eyes focused, there it was: the story, in the doctor’s jagged handwriting. The story of “Jacqueline’s” slow and difficult labor, of the doctor’s decision to put her under and perform a C-section. He had listed many reasons why.
But, he wrote, the outcome had been a foregone conclusion. Tragically, in its attempts to be born, the baby had already been deprived of oxygen, and, by the time it was removed from the womb, could not be resuscitated. The mother, petite and only age 15, simply was not equipped to give birth properly.
Cecily wiped her eyes, trying to clear her vision. So, it was she who had failed Tommy; she whose body could not do the simple task of delivering him into life. It was she who had deprived him of oxygen, the first and most vital of his needs.
She, who had wanted, wanted, wanted him, as she’d never wanted anything in her life.
She felt the knowledge of her failure sinking into her every cell like lead.
And then she read, in the doctor’s handwriting: Due to the pt’s status as a feebleminded inmate of the N.C. Wayward Girls Reformatory, tubal ligation was performed to prevent any future pregnancies, as ordered by the State Eugenics Board of North Carolina.