I met Florenz Ziegfeld for the first time the previous year when I was nineteen and traveling with the Pollard Opera Company, much to my father’s dismay. We’d been performing The Mikado at the Manila Theater that night in San Jose, California.
I’d had a wild streak in me since I left Minnesota. My father and I had gotten into a rip-roaring fight where he all but forbade me to go on the road, saying this “performing hobby” of mine was turning out to be some sort of crass ploy for attention and that no daughter of his should be parading herself onstage for other people’s Saturday night entertainment. He hadn’t minded so much when I sang in small shows in our hometown of St. Cloud or even over an hour away in Minneapolis, but I was itching for something bigger.
“I’m going to make it big, Pa, just you wait and see, and you’ll feel differently about it then, I know you will.”
“Ha,” my father scoffed. “That’ll be the day. I’ve told you once already I don’t want you showing yourself off like that, it’s vulgar.”
“For goodness’ sakes, Pa, I’m singing light opera, not selling my body on the streets.”
The minute it left my lips I knew I’d gone too far. My outburst sent his large, broad hand searing across my face and me and my travel bag out the front door as fast as I could move.
The whole train ride from Minneapolis to San Jose I’d been furious, still feeling the burn on my cheek, yet I was quietly thrilled at the thought of him worrying about me—wondering where I’d stay and how I’d get by—and I was determined to prove him wrong. I didn’t need his money or his approval, and if my mother couldn’t stick up for me, even though she’d always encouraged my talents, then I didn’t need her either.
The theater was packed door-to-door with patrons, and I’d caught wind that there were some important people occupying the boxes that night, a governor-general of some sort and the famous Florenz Ziegfeld from New York City. It was unusual for our traveling company to draw that kind of crowd, but that only thrilled me more. While some of the girls in the group got wobbly when they heard about a full house or dignitaries in the boxes, I got bolder, more excited. Minutes before the curtain went up I always had a buzzing sensation surging through me, a desperation for it all to start; the sound of the applause only intensified that feeling, until I felt I was lifting off the ground, gliding inches off the stage as I heard my voice fill the space around me.
That night, in Japanese dress, my face painted white, my lips red, I entered stage left and began to sing Yum-Yum’s aria “The sun whose rays are all ablaze” when my voice was overtaken by a tremendous rumble, as if a roar of thunder were right outside the theater doors. Almost instantly there was a great jolt, the whole theater shaking violently from side to side for no more than a few seconds. The red-and-gold Japanese lanterns hanging from the catwalk overhead began to swing left to right, and someone in the orchestra screamed, “Earthquake!”
Members of the audience began to jump from their seats with cries of terror, but I suddenly had the strangest thought. Rather than fear for my life or panic that the ceiling would fall in on us, I was distressed that they would all leave, I wouldn’t be able to perform and then I’d be devastated. What would I do with all this pent-up, buzzing energy, this absolute need to sing?
“Sit down!” roared an official-looking man from one of the boxes. The audience looked up at him, and without a second thought I picked up where I had left off, three lines in, with more intensity than I’d started out with. The thunderous noise was gone, the shaking ground below us was still and people stood for a moment, seeming unsure whether they should stay or go. Then they began to find their seats again. The orchestra had stopped playing, but that didn’t bother me. I gave one hell of a performance, and when I sang my last note everyone stood up and frantically applauded. The show went on, the orchestra resumed and it was as if nothing had happened. That is, until Mr. Florenz Ziegfeld knocked on the dressing room door at the end of the night.
“I’m looking for the director, Mr. Elvie,” he said.
“Oh.” I pulled my robe tighter around me. I had taken off my kimono and was about to remove the white makeup and red lipstick. We’d been expecting Mr. Elvie, too—he usually knocked on the dressing room door soon after the show to give us his notes onstage while they were fresh in his head.
“He hasn’t come backstage yet, I’m afraid. I can pass on a message if you’d like.”
“Please do. Tell him that Florenz Ziegfeld came by to compliment him on his production and on his spectacular cast.”
I nodded, trying not to appear too eager to meet him.
“And you, you were quite spectacular yourself, Miss…?”
“Miss McCormick,” I said. “Olive McCormick.”
“Yum-Yum indeed.” He took my hand and kissed it, holding a beautiful bouquet of flowers in his other hand. “You saved the show this evening.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that.”
“Indeed, your bravery, your calmness and your presence of mind to keep singing in that beautifully sweet voice of yours averted what could have resulted in a stampede.”
I hadn’t thought of it that way; I’d just really wanted to sing. In fact, since the show had ended, and I’d heard the cast members in the dressing room talking about the terrifying earthquake and how we could have all been crushed to death in the rubble of the theater, I briefly thought that my continuing to sing could have actually done a lot more harm than good if there’d been another tremor.
“Truly, Miss McCormick,” he continued, “hundreds of lives could have been at risk if everyone panicked and tried to flee.”
“Well, I suppose you’re right; I did save the day. Thank you for the lovely flowers,” I said, reaching for them.
“Oh…” Mr. Ziegfeld hesitated, laughed, then handed them over. “I like your confidence.”
I realized as I took them that they weren’t intended for me. After all, we’d only just met. He hadn’t come backstage to meet me, he’d come to meet the director. I suddenly felt foolish, but I wasn’t about to let on, so I breathed in the scent and smiled one of my best.
“I have a little show in New York City,” he said. “You might have heard of it.”
Of course I had. This was the Broadway showman and creator of the Ziegfeld Follies, the man who turned young women into overnight sensations if they could sing or dance. But I’d be coy, play it as if I hadn’t a clue.
“I don’t believe I’ve heard of it.”
“Oh yes, the Ziegfeld Follies. I have the most beautiful, most talented girls in the country. I know from one glance if they have the proportions and beauty to be a Ziegfeld girl.”
“Really? One glance? And I suppose she must disrobe for you to have such insight?”
“Not at all. She can be fully robed. One look at her ankle and her neck will tell me exactly how her whole leg will look. I like a straight American girl’s nose and a short upper lip.” He eyed me, moving his head to the side to analyze my facial structure.
“And how do I hold up to your high standards?”
“Quite nicely. You’ve got the face for it.” He looked down, and while I was wearing a robe he allowed his eyes to follow the length of my legs from the ankle up to my thigh as if he could see right through the fabric. “The proportions are perfection, and if you could sing on Broadway the way you sang on that stage tonight, then you’d be just fine as one of my ponies.”
I gave him a cockeyed look—what the heck was a pony? I was an opera singer. I laughed and started to turn away.
“You must come and visit me next time you’re in New York City,” he said. “The New Amsterdam Theatre on Forty-second Street. You can’t miss it, it’s got my name in white lights out front.”
We played in San Jose for one more night and then went to San Francisco, Sacramento, and then Hollywood for the final show. It was a matinee: apparently everyone in Hollywood was more interested in going to the movie show in the evenings than in watching a live opera. But that was all right with me, because that evening the producers took our whole troupe to the Brown Derby for dinner. It was a rounded brown dome of a restaurant made to look like a derby hat right on Wilshire Boulevard. They ordered for the table—chopped chicken livers, spaghetti and a Derby plate of crabs’ legs, celery, avocado and Thousand Island dressing. Afterwards some of the girls ordered ice cream and sherbets and made their way back to the hotel, but I was dying to see a little more of the Hollywood I’d heard so much about. After we said good night and went back to our rooms, I sneaked out and walked across the street to where I’d seen a big sign that read, “Ambassador Hotel—Cocoanut Grove,” and underneath, “Ray West and his Cocoanut Grove Orchestra.”
I approached the heavy glass doors with as much confidence as I could muster and smiled at the doorman.
“I’m meeting my friends inside,” I said, not stopping as he tipped his hat and opened the door for me. Thrilled by my subterfuge, I sailed past him. The minute I stepped inside, the music hit me, swirling around a room full of tables dressed in white linen, a frenzied dance floor and actual full-size palm trees grazing the ceiling. The atmosphere was electrifying, and I tingled with excitement. Looking around, taking it all in, I noticed an empty seat at the bar, where I might be able to linger without my being alone getting too much notice.
“A Coca-Cola, please,” I said to the barkeep. “And a straw.”
“How about I put it in a glass for you, so you can sip it like a lady?” He laughed.
“That would be great.” I took the glass of Coca-Cola and turned around to face the orchestra. It was wildly fun, and I wished more than anything I could get up there on the dance floor.
“You’re not here alone, are you?”
It was the gentleman sitting to my left. I hadn’t even noticed him when I sat down. He was at least twenty-five years older than me, maybe more, but slightly handsome in a slick kind of way, hair greased back, his tie loosened a little at the neck.
“Me? Oh no, I’m not alone, I’m here with a whole group of people.” I looked around as if I’d lost them in the crowd.
“What kind of people?”
“We’re a traveling opera company, and we’ve been performing along the West Coast. Today was our last show, actually—we head home early in the morning.”
“Opera, huh?”
“Singing, dancing, performing, you name it,” I said with a laugh.
“Do you act?” he asked. “I only ask because I’m a studio executive and, well, you certainly look the part.”
I looked down at my Coca-Cola, trying not to beam at him. A studio executive? What exactly did they do? It had to be good, and what were the chances that I’d meet one, in real life, my last night in Hollywood? When I had myself under control, I looked up at him coyly and smiled. “You really think I look the part?”
“Well, I don’t know if you’ve got any talent, but you’ve got a famous face, that’s for sure.”
“Oh, I’ve got talent,” I said, and he laughed.
“Good, I like a girl with some charisma. If you’ve got that you’re halfway there.” He looked at my drink. “How’s that Coca-Cola treating you?”
“It’s delicious,” I said.
“Want me to spruce it up for you?” He raised an eyebrow, then took a silver flask out of his jacket pocket and poured a good amount of something into my drink and then into his. “Fill me up, will you, Joey,” he said to the barkeep, who looked around, then quickly took the flask along with some bills. I watched him go to the other end of the bar, turn his back to the crowd and refill it from an unlabeled brown bottle. A few moments later he came back and returned the flask under a napkin.
The man poured some more into our glasses, then raised his glass and looked at me expectantly. “What do you think?”
“I don’t even know your name,” I said, trying to buy myself some time. I’d had a sip of my father’s whiskey before, which tasted like fire mixed with a mouthful of dirt, and I’d sipped my mother’s gin fizz, which was decidedly more palatable, but I didn’t even know what this was, and I was worried I’d take one sip and spit it back out again.
“Richard,” he said. “But you can call me Ricky.”
It was rum, and as it turned out I liked rum with Coca-Cola more than I would have expected. After I finished the first one, Ricky bought me another soda and topped it up just the same. It was getting warm in that room, but the drink was making me feel energized, as if I couldn’t wait another minute before I got on that dance floor, so when Ricky asked me to dance I just about lunged at him.
He slipped his hands around my waist and danced with me, pulling me too close, but I let him do it anyway. I was in Hollywood for only a few more hours and then it would be back to regular old St. Cloud. I was dancing at the Cocoanut Grove in Hollywood with a studio executive—life didn’t get much more exciting than this.
“Hey, have you seen the view from the top of the hotel?” he said into my ear over the music.
“No,” I called out.
“Oh, you should, you can see the HOLLYWOODLAND sign from the balcony. I’m staying on the top floor, it’s the only way you can get a glimpse—if you’re staying here. Want to take a peek?”
I was reluctant to leave the dance floor behind, but I did want to see as much of Los Angeles as I could before I had to leave, so I let him grab my hand, navigate us off the frenzied dance floor, weave me through the tables and lead us out into the lobby of the hotel. The rum had hit me, and I felt wobbly on my feet. Everything seemed amazing: I couldn’t take my eyes off the long sparkling chandeliers, the artwork on the walls and the fabulously dressed women. I grabbed hold of Ricky’s arm so I could take it all in without falling over, and he whisked me into a shiny golden elevator.
“Have you ever thought about being in the pictures?” he asked.
“I’ve always dreamed of being on the stage,” I said. “I’m going to be a Ziegfeld girl, you know.”
“Really?” He seemed to think it was a coincidence. “I know people who know Florenz Ziegfeld.”
“You know him?” I squealed.
“Sure thing, babe,” he said, cool and calm as he brushed a piece of hair out of my eyes and tucked it behind my ear. “I told you, I’m a Hollywood man. I know a lot of people.”
“I just met him in San Jose; he said he might put me in his show. My father is waiting to get a seat on the New York Produce Exchange, and then we’re going to move to New York, though he’s been saying that for years. I have to get there.”
“Oh, you’d make a real pretty Ziegfeld girl,” he said, placing his hands around my waist, then sliding them down to my rear and pulling me in toward him. Even in my tipsy state, I knew he was getting way too familiar, and I didn’t like it. He could have been my father’s age, and the only other boy who’d got up close with me like that was Henry Dickerson at my final school dance—this was far more presumptuous.
“Hey, wait a minute,” I said, pulling away, flushed and a bit dizzy.
But he went on as if he hadn’t heard me.
“You want me to give Ziegfeld a call, tell him I think you’d be perfect for the show?”
“You’d do that?” When I spoke, my voice didn’t sound like my own.
“Of course—better than that, I’m going to tell him he’s a fool to wait for you to show up, that he needs to get you a train ticket and a place to stay lined up immediately, along with a generous contract, or you’re going to get snapped up by the Shuberts.”
“You’d really tell him that?” I said, gasping, then reaching out to the wall to steady myself. This was the most exciting news I’d heard in my whole life.
“I’d do anything for that pretty little face of yours,” he said, leaning in and kissing me on the lips. I cringed at the feel of his moist mouth on mine; it was uninvited and unwanted. I tried to pull away, but he held my face tight in his hands. I held my breath. He’d said something about being in the pictures. I imagined being in front of the camera. “I’d do anything for you,” he said, pulling back, holding my face a little too firmly in his hands. “Anything at all, if you’d do something for me.”
I never did see the HOLLYWOODLAND sign. I just stared up at the white, swirling ceiling in his hotel room, then squeezed my eyes tightly shut and forced myself to think about my first night onstage at the New Amsterdam Theatre.
When I got back home to St. Cloud, Pa felt guilty as hell for slapping me across the face, I could tell. He didn’t mention it, but he was sugary sweet for a few days. I continued with voice lessons and my part-time job as salesgirl at the local women’s clothing store, but I was repulsed with myself. I couldn’t believe I’d let myself get drunk off that man’s hooch and that I’d let him do what he did. It was a blur, the rest of the night; I didn’t even remember how I got back to my hotel room. I vowed to never let myself think of that night again.
Over the next few weeks, I read up on Mr. Ziegfeld in magazines and looked for auditions for every play and traveling performing group that could end up as an excuse to get me to New York City, where I could pay him a visit on Broadway. But nothing came up to send me east.
And then, a little over a month after returning home, after my father had been traveling for business, my parents sat down with me and my brothers George and Junior and told us we were moving. Erwin, the oldest, was already out of the house by then. They’d bought a Victorian house in Flatbush, Brooklyn, and just as they’d hoped, Pa was going to leave his job in banking to be a grain and stock broker in Manhattan. He’d been waiting for the opportunity, and it had finally presented itself.
I couldn’t believe it. My brothers complained like hell, but I could barely contain myself. I didn’t have to lie, cheat or run away to make it happen. I kept quiet, shocked by my unbelievably good luck, since I didn’t think any of us had ever thought it would happen.
Keeping my excitement at bay, I obediently organized my things and helped my mother pack up the house with such determination that my father held me up as an example to my brothers. If only they could be more like me, he told them for the first time in my life, helpful and cooperative instead of sitting out on the front porch sulking. As far as I was concerned, the faster we packed up our old life into boxes, the faster I could start my new life in New York City.
One morning, while my mother and I carefully wrapped the china in newspaper, our hands blackened with ink, a wave of nausea came over me.
“Ugh,” I said, setting down a stack of teacups and rubbing my stomach.
“What is it, honey?” my mother asked.
“I don’t know, the smell of this ink. Or maybe I’m hungry.”
“Do you want me to fix you something? I just got eggs at the market today, I could fix you fried eggs with the runny yolks the way you like them.”
The very thought of runny yolks made my stomach lurch toward my throat. I stood up and ran to the bathroom, making it just in time.
The same thing happened every day for a week, the same time, right around breakfast, and my mother thought the stress of moving was making me ill. I assured her it couldn’t possibly be that, because I was quite looking forward to the change of scenery—a slight understatement if ever there was one—but she insisted that we see a doctor. And that’s when we got the news.
“Pregnant!” my mother’s voice screeched as she stared at me in disbelief.
I stared right back at her, speechless, then she marched out of the office and slammed the door behind her. The shock of what he’d told me didn’t sink in until the door made me jump.
“I don’t understand,” I said, staring dumbfounded at the doctor, who tidied up his instruments and scribbled something onto his notepad.
“Really?” he said harshly. “I think you do.” And he walked out, too, leaving me there on the cold metal examination table, seeing my hopes and dreams shatter around me.
Outside, my mother was pacing.
“How could you do this to us, Olive? How could you do this to your father? We’ve given you everything, everything you’ve ever asked for, and this is how you repay us? Good God, what have you done?”
“I’m sorry,” I said, starting to sob.
“Oh, save your tears and pull yourself together, there’s no time for this. Who did this to you?”
“I don’t know.”
“For God’s sake, Olive, what does that mean? Tell me the truth.”
I’d never seen my mother so angry.
“I honestly don’t know. His name was Ricky, I met him in California. He said he worked at a cinema studio in Hollywood. I don’t know anything else about him. He gave me a lot of rum and said he’d help me get into show business.”
“You stupid, stupid, selfish girl. You could have had the world. But not anymore. And this poor child, this poor bastard child.”
“I’m sorry, Mama,” I said, trying to hold back the tears. “I didn’t want to, I didn’t mean to.”
She pulled at the roots of her hair so hard, I thought a clump might come out in her hands. “You can’t go to New York in this condition, you’ll ruin your father’s reputation before he’s even gotten a start. He’ll disown you if he finds out.”
“I have to go to New York,” I said.
“You can’t.”
“Well, what am I supposed to do?” I cried, tears now rolling down my cheeks. “Stay here in Minnesota?”
“Yes,” she said. “That’s exactly what you’ll do.”
“No!” I cried.
My mother looked off into the distance and rubbed her temples. “You’ll stay here and have the baby, and I don’t know what will happen next for you, I really don’t.”
“Mama, please,” I cried frantically. I couldn’t have a baby, I couldn’t even fathom it, and I certainly couldn’t do it without my mother. I still needed her, I still felt like a child myself.
This was a curse—that man had cursed me, and I had no one to blame but myself for letting it happen.
But over the next week, my mother made the necessary arrangements. I would stay with her widowed sister, my aunt May, in Rockville, a few hours southwest of St. Cloud. There was a place she’d heard of not too far from where Aunt May lived, Birdhouse Lodge, where unwed women went to give birth and put their babies up for adoption. She told my father that Aunt May had taken ill and that someone needed to stay behind and take care of her until she was better. She told my father that she would have to do it, knowing full well that he needed her to set up the new house in Brooklyn and get the boys settled. So she let it be his idea that the only person who could stay behind and care for her sister was me.
I hadn’t seen much of Aunt May after her husband, Henry, died overseas in the war eight years earlier. She’d become something of a recluse since he’d passed, and at first the thought of staying with someone like that for the next seven months made me incredibly uneasy. As a young child, I’d loved her. A few years younger than my mother, she’d been fun and caring and always made the effort to spend time with me away from my brothers, which I’d thoroughly enjoyed. But after Henry died my mother said she’d changed, and it worried her and frightened me. Her lively, chatty and fun-loving demeanor had been extinguished and what was left was a quiet, dreary and inattentive woman whom no one could recognize.
“Let’s get you settled, then,” she said when I arrived. Her house was simple and a little cluttered with newspapers and magazines. “Yours is the little room at the top of the stairs; we’ll bring your luggage up later. Now I haven’t had many guests over the years so you’ll have to let me know if you need anything.” She looked a little uncomfortable herself, and I longed for my own mother to be there with me, even though in the past few weeks she’d barely been able to stay in the same room as me for more than five minutes.
While I didn’t know anyone in Rockville, I didn’t want to draw attention to myself and couldn’t risk anyone seeing me in my swollen state, in case news got back to my father. So I stayed home mostly, as Aunt May did, with the exception of her early morning walks to the store and her afternoon gardening. We played cards and I read magazines that she picked up at the store for me, and when she was outside gardening I practiced my scales and all the songs I knew from my previous performances.
She was thirty-eight or so, and she had a pretty face, if only she’d tame her wild hair. In a picture she kept on the mantel of Henry and her on their wedding day, she was breathtaking. She told me they’d met at a dance at the church hall and that he’d come calling the next day and every day after for a week. At the end of the week he’d asked her to marry him, and she’d said yes. I smiled at the thought of her, young and giddy with all the possibilities of love waiting for her.
“Thank you,” I said quietly one afternoon as we were having a cup of tea in the living room. “For letting me stay.” I looked down at my slightly protruding belly and sighed. “I got myself into a real mess, Aunt May.”
She pressed her lips together. “Yes, poppet, yes, you did. But it doesn’t look like you had many options.”
She walked over to me and gave my shoulder a squeeze. It was the first act of affection she’d shown toward me in the three weeks I’d been there, after all those hugs and kisses she’d bestowed upon me as a child. I wondered if it was because she’d become so used to being alone that she’d forgotten.
“I’m scared,” I said, finally letting out the words that had been twisting and turning inside my head night after night. “I’m really scared.”
“I know you are,” she said, not offering any empty promises that everything would be all right, and for that I was strangely grateful. “When you were a child you used to get more scrapes and bruises on your legs than your brothers combined. Don’t tell them that I told you this, but they used to cry and cry, and you, well, you just brushed yourself off and got on with whatever it was you were doing. You were the strongest of the four of you, always have been. You’re going to come through this. You’ll be all right, Olive, I know you will.”
When the time finally came, I packed a suitcase as I would if I were going away on a family trip, not to some Catholic boardinghouse where disgraced women gave birth.
“Are you sure I can’t have the baby here at home?” I asked. As the months went by, Aunt May’s house felt like a safe haven and I was terrified of what would happen once I left its confines.
“You’ve got the baby to think of now, Olive,” she said. “They’ll find a home for your child. That is still what you want, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” I said quietly, though all of this just felt so wrong. I couldn’t raise a child, not like this. I was young, I had no husband, and there were so many things I wanted to do with my life, but the thought of giving my baby away to strangers was excruciating.
“That’s what your mother wants for you, too. She gave me strict instructions to follow, so that you can get back to your family where you belong. The sooner you get through this, the sooner you can get back to your old life. Now, come on”—she put her weight on my suitcase and zipped it closed—“we don’t want you missing that train.”
She placed her hand on my belly, now firm and tight, about the size of a watermelon. “It won’t be long now.”
When I arrived, it was nothing like I’d expected. The name Birdhouse Lodge sounded quaint and peaceful, but women were four or even six to a room in bunk beds, nuns enforcing that everyone take shifts scrubbing the floors, cleaning the bathrooms, cooking in the kitchen and earning their keep right up until they gave birth.
At forty weeks I waited for my turn, terrified of the pain that was to come, that we’d all heard in the screams from the delivery room and that we’d seen in the blood that we’d washed from the sheets and towels. Up until this point it had all felt unreal. I hadn’t discussed my body’s transformation with anyone, not even Aunt May; I’d just watched my stomach grow and grow in stunned silence. But now that I was surrounded by other women with the same fate, hearing their screams, seeing their sadness, it all became frighteningly real. I lay awake at night petrified of dying, of never having the chance to live out my dreams. This is just temporary, I kept telling myself when I was down on my hands and knees scrubbing the kitchen floor, this will be over soon.
And then, one afternoon when I carried the bucket of water to the outdoor drain, I had to set it down suddenly. I’d managed with every task asked of me up until that point, trying to just get on and get this done, but at that moment it all felt too much. Everything felt too heavy—the bucket, my legs, my stomach. Extra weight seemed to be pushing down on me, even my shoulders seemed to be pulling downward. I slumped to the ground.
When one of the nuns, Sister Margaret, came to me, I told her I had to go to the bathroom, and when I did, a clump of something jellylike came out of me with my urine, which she told me was a sign that the baby would be here soon. A few hours later, after I was allowed to rest, I tried to get out of bed. I thought I needed the bathroom, but I didn’t make it: warm liquid pooled around me. After that, everything happened so fast. The contractions started, light tightening at first, but they soon progressed to painful clenching that gripped me so hard I could barely breathe. I was taken to the delivery room and positioned in the delivery chair—a school desk–like contraption with footrests to push down on and a hole where the seat would be. Other pregnant girls came in with clean towels and buckets of water, stealing terrified glances my way.
No one had prepared me for any of this, and I didn’t really understand what was happening to my body, but I’d told myself I wasn’t going to cause a fuss or yell or scream for the whole house to hear, that I was going to get through this and move on. But I couldn’t control myself. The pain became so intense it made me vomit. At times I thought I’d pass out from the agony, and I hoped I would, that I would just wake up when all this was over, but the nuns gave me smelling salts to revive me when I felt faint, and when the doctor came, he gave me a combination of morphine and scopolamine, which dulled the pain and made me woozy. I pushed and pushed and pushed, as they told me to, and the girls took away blood-soaked towels, returning with clean ones.
“There’s a lot of blood,” the doctor kept saying. “Bring more water.”
The morphine made me hot and sweaty and then cold and delirious; I was in and out of consciousness.
“Wake her up!” I’d hear someone yell, and I’d be jolted back to consciousness with the smelling salts.
“Push!” the doctor yelled. He sounded desperate, and I knew something was wrong. “Harder, push now!” He placed his hands on my stomach and pressed down. I screamed in pain.
Finally, I felt it happening. It was excruciating, but I knew it was almost over now, so I gave it all I had until I heard the sound of catlike cries.
“It’s a girl,” someone said, and I felt so relieved, but I could feel myself slipping into sleep again. The baby was wrapped and cleaned and brought to me briefly. When I held her she seemed so small and fragile; she looked at me and stopped crying for a moment, her deep blue eyes searching, confused, seeing things for the very first time.
“No time for that,” the doctor said. “Get her to the bed!” And I was picked up under the arms and shuffled to a bed nearby where they frantically stuffed towels between my legs.
When I awoke, I’d been moved to the recovery room, and Sister Margaret sat in a chair by my bed. She was holding the baby in her arms.
“Thank the Lord,” she said, standing. “She’s awake.”
I looked at the tiny bundle in her arms, wrapped in a blanket and fast asleep.
“What happened?” I asked, my throat hoarse. She brought a glass of water to my lips and I gulped it down.
“You’ve been asleep for two full days, we couldn’t wake you,” she said. It felt as if it had been longer. The doctor came over and took my temperature, looked in my eyes, listened to my heart.
“You’ve been very lucky,” he said finally. “You had childbed fever. Many women don’t make it through that, but the fever seems to have broken.” He looked at me seriously.
“Well, that’s good, isn’t it?”
“We’ll have to monitor you for a few more days.” He looked from me to Sister Margaret as if there were something else. “You hemorrhaged a lot of blood. There was a rupture in the uterus. We were able to stop the bleeding, but I’m afraid it’s done a significant amount of damage.”
“What does that mean?”
“Miss McCormick, it means you won’t be able to have any more children. Your uterus is torn.”
I’d thought, from his tone, that he was going to tell me I was dying.
“What about the baby?” I tried to get out of bed to get a look at her again. When I tried, the pain wouldn’t let me. “The baby’s okay, though, isn’t she?”
“Yes, yes,” the nun reassured me. I strained to sit up and see her face and felt a tremendous amount of love for the little creature, not quite like a mother, I supposed, but as if she were my baby sister. Her tiny features, her pink hands, her dark wisp of hair. I wondered if it was only relief that she was out in the world now and safe. I squeezed my eyes shut. Was she safe? She was so tiny, fragile, helpless. What would become of her?
“Is she going to live?”
“Yes,” the doctor said. “She’s perfectly healthy.”
“Good,” I said, trying to remain practical. “And me?” I asked, forcing myself to change the subject. “Will I live, too?”
“Yes,” the doctor said, almost cracking a smile. “Yes, Miss McCormick, you’re going to live. I just had to inform you of the news…” He paused and regained his serious expression. “The news that you won’t be—”
“I understand, thank you, I understand that,” I said. “It’s okay.”
The truth was, at the time I thought that it would be. I’d never even considered becoming a mother before, so the news that I couldn’t go through all this again wasn’t as devastating as they might have expected it to be. I’d been so focused on everything else that life had to offer. As the pregnancy had progressed and my stomach had grown, I’d felt a tremendous amount of responsibility to this baby, to make sure it was healthy and do my best to find her a good home, but I hadn’t considered changing my mind about the adoption. If I did, I’d be alone, I’d be disowned by my family, I’d be poor, and that was no way to raise a child. Anytime my mind wandered into those murky waters, I had reminded myself of this.
It was a full week before I was strong enough to walk around unaccompanied, and once the baby was deemed to be in good health and cleared of any abnormalities or deformities, which would have made it too difficult for them to find adoptive parents, I was told by Sister Frances it was time to leave. Tall and masculine looking in her black-and-white nun’s habit, Sister Frances wore thick glasses and had yellowing teeth.
“What will she drink if I just leave like this?” I asked.
“Evaporated milk, that’s what your money goes to—care and feeding of the girl.”
“And what do I do about these?” I looked down to my engorged breasts.
“The milk will dry up when you’re away from the baby. It’ll take a few days, but it’ll happen. Your body knows what to do.”
“Shouldn’t I take her home for a little while, just until she’s a bit stronger, and bring her back in a couple of weeks?” I said.
“Are you planning on keeping her?” she asked, her eyes squinting at me through her glasses.
“No,” I whispered.
“Then she stays,” she said. “This is a baby we’re talking about, not a piece of furniture.”
“I know, I didn’t mean it that way.” I was already feeling awful for doing this to the poor child, abandoning her, but I told myself it was for the best. I knew she deserved a family who desperately wanted a baby, whose lives and hearts had room for her.
“It just seems wrong to separate a baby from her mother so soon,” I persisted, glancing up at her, then looking away. It was the first time I’d used that word, “mother,” and it felt strange on my lips. “She’s so helpless.”
“Yes, well…” She made the sign of the cross, and I wondered what she must think of me. “The Blessed Mother will take care of her now.” She made the sign of the cross again. She must have thought one cross wouldn’t suffice—this poor child needed as many as she could get. “We will find her a home as soon as possible. The younger they are the more likely they are to be taken in, so the new mother can feel an attachment, as if she’s her own.”
She swaddled her and carried her to the door. “Now strip your bed and take your sheets to the laundry room, then sign your papers on the way out.” I stood frozen, though my mind was darting from one thought to the next. Should I do something, say something?
“Peace be with you,” she said, walking down the hall with the baby in her arms. And I wondered if that would ever be possible again.
It took four weeks of wearing a girdle day and night at Aunt May’s house and dining on nothing but broth and cucumbers before I could fit into my old clothes again—and just as long for the bleeding to stop. Though I looked almost the same from the outside, I was plagued by the notion that my father and brothers would notice a difference in me. I wondered if I’d been changed from the inside out.
When she found me sobbing into my sheets those first few weeks, Aunt May assured me that it was normal for me to feel that way, that sometimes women who gave birth cried a lot for no reason, even if the baby was wanted.
“What if nobody wants her?” I said one night. “What will become of her then?”
“Someone will want her,” she said, smoothing the hair back from my face. “She’s going to grow up and have a good life with someone who loves her very much. I promise you.”