A White Room (23 page)

Eighteen

June 1901

A
fter that day, my life continued on as it had before the bed rest. It was as if I had never helped Lottie or the Whitmay children. I cooked. I cleaned. I sat at the table to eat. I didn’t speak with John. I dealt with the house. I tried to sleep. I woke up. I cleaned. I didn’t do it because I cared or wanted to please. I did it to keep away any lingering suspicions regarding my “condition.” No one knew it, but I didn’t care about any of it anymore. I had broken down the walls. It was my secret. It felt liberating. It felt like power. But if it was power, I didn’t know what to do with it.

It was less than two weeks later when Lottie returned to work. I had to persuade John to reinstate her, but it wasn’t too difficult. On her second Monday back, I became fully aware of how much I valued her company, even more so than her work. Still, I welcomed her helping hands, especially with laundry, even though I could do the task now without aching for days afterward. My arms had grown tight and shapely over the past few months. First we scrubbed with a washboard and soap, and then we rinsed and rinsed again. Between steps, we put each piece of clothing through a hand-cranked wringer. Scrub. Wring. Dunk. Wring. Dunk. Wring. We did that over and over for hours, but real conversation eased the task and the occasional pangs.

“Do you enjoy being married?” I asked.

Lottie shrugged. “Sure.”

I took a shirt to the washboard and used my palms to push it down with force against the rippled aluminum. I was positioned on a stool in front of it. “Your husband is never…”

“Never what?” She cranked the wringer.

“Um, well, bothersome?”

“Well, sure, he’s bothersome.”

“But you still like being married?”

“Sure.”

“Why? What do you like about it?”

She crinkled her nose. “Well…he’s bothersome, but he’s also wonderful.”

“Did you marry for love?” I stopped scrubbing.

“Sure did.”

I started scrubbing again. “I didn’t.”

“You don’t love Mr. Dorr?”

“I don’t think so.”

“How can you not know?”

I shrugged and plopped the sodden shirt into her pile.

“Well, how do you feel about him?” She fed the shirt into the wringer.

I shrugged and removed the last article of clothing from the boiling water with the tongs.

“Don’t you find him pleasin’ to look at?”

I dunked the fabric into the sudsy bucket. I tried to ignore the burning where the soap crystals had rubbed my skin raw.

“He ain’t ugly.”

“No, he’s certainly not. I find him attractive, but…”

Lottie stopped and leaned against the center table.

“He’s so—he’s so indifferent toward me.”

“Indiffent?”

“Indifferent.”

“That’s what I said.”

“I don’t think he finds
me
pleasing to look at. He doesn’t care about me. He doesn’t care about anything.” I paused and wiped my forehead with my forearm. “Except for Mr. Coddington and his firm.”

“Well, he married ya. Gotta mean sometin’.”

“I don’t think he married me because he had affection for me, not anymore.”

“You got money?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Hmm.” Lottie huffed.

“What?”

“But he still married ya.”

“I think his parents had more to do with it than he did.” I had more to do with it.

“Why you think that?”

I handed her the shirt. “It’s complicated.” I never would have asked if I’d thought they’d force him. I still felt foolish when I remembered begging. How did I ever think he had affection for me? It was the funeral—the things he said, how he helped me. He had come to see
me
the day my father died. I thought he wanted me.

“Hmm.” She pushed herself off the table and took the shirt to the wringer.

I sat for a moment while she cranked, rolling my hands around to loosen my wrists. “Your parents didn’t mind you marrying for love?”

“Only had one parent. Never knew my pa.”

“What happened to him?”

She continued wringing. “Don’t know.”

“You never asked?”

“Never got a answer.”

“What about your mother?”

She paused and then continued wringing. “She don’t like Mr. Schwab.”

“Why?”

“He wadn’t high-class enough for her.” She cranked harder. “She said I knew how to read and how to write and I should marry a man who’d take care of me. She didn’t gather. No man can take care of me the way Mr. Schwab does.”

That explained why Lottie sometimes used proper English. She was literate. Her mother had wanted her to speak properly—to marry up. She’d probably fallen back into slang after she decided not to.

She pitched a shirt onto the heap next to the rinsing bucket and took the next pile of clothing to the boiling water.

I stood and groaned a little as my back loosened. I went to the crank. “Switch?”

“Course, ma’am.” Whenever she used a pointed “ma’am,” I realized I had forgotten my place as well as her own.

Lottie took the stool and moved it to the rinsing pale, where she plopped herself down and began swishing. “Why is your Mr. Dorr so in—diff—er—ent?”

“Indifferent.”

“What I said.”

“He hardly speaks to me. I don’t think he has any affection for me at all.”

“I don’t know, I seen him lookin’ at you pretty pleased on occasion.”

“No you have not.”

“Have too. Besides, how could he show no affection when you married?” She handed me a shirt.

I put it in the wringer and pushed my weight into the crank. The water dribbled out into a bucket. “He just doesn’t. It’s as though I live with a stranger.” I paused. “And, I found a letter.”

“From a girl?”

“No. From his father. It referred to complaints about me.”

“That don’t sound too different from a marriage.” She sniggered under her breath. “Anyway, I mean he’s gotta show you some affection when you lay at night?”

I opened my mouth but didn’t speak. I blushed.

“That there’s natural rouge.” She chuckled. “C’mon now. After what you did for me out there in the woods, ain’t no shy left in a one of us.”

I pressed my cool, wet hands to my hot cheeks. “Well, it didn’t feel affectionate.”

“Every time?”

“It was only the one time.”

Lottie looked at me with a question all over her face.

“What?” I removed the shirt from the wringer.

“Nothing.” She looked away, clearly lying.

“Mr. Coddington works him all day every day. He seems too tired. Is that not normal?”

“I dunno.”

“Is it normal to not feel loved?”

“I suppose everyone’s got a different normal. He married ya. He know what that means. He’s gotta have some affection for you.”

“I don’t know. What does affection look like exactly?”

She shrugged.

“What does your husband do that makes you feel loved?”

“He kisses me.”

“See—that.” I pointed at her. “Kissing. We don’t really do that.”

“Y’all got married quick, right?”

“Very quick.”

“Well, maybe he just busy, not used to it all. There is signs other than kissing, too.”

“Like what?”

“Like paying extra attention to you. Staring, smiling a lot at ya, making excuses to be near you That’s how I first knew Mr. Schwab had sometin’ for me. He’d do nice things for you, too, try to go out of his way to make you like him back. Or at least that’s how it was before we were married—those things ain’t as obvious once you married. So maybe you skipped that part so it ain’t so clear.”

We paused, and I wondered why I cared. Why did I still have this desire for him to want me? I’d broken down the walls. I didn’t have to care about him or care about why he didn’t want me. It wasn’t my obligation anymore. I had done everything right and he’d done nothing. If he wanted me, he needed to do something about it.

“I’m sorry, miss. I haven’t the foggiest idea what else to tell ya.”

I picked up a basket of wet clothes and grinned, roguish. “You know, it doesn’t matter. I don’t care anymore.”

Nineteen

June 1901

W
ednesday. I scrubbed the floors: back and forth, back and forth, dunk, slosh, back and forth. I had let Lottie hurry home for her baby’s midday feeding before a visit from Ella and Francis. The house didn’t bother me as much on days when Lottie was there, even when she left for a short while. It still moaned and the furnishings still shifted when I wasn’t looking, but I had begun to successfully ignore them. After I’d finished in the parlor and put everything back in its place, I walked to the bucket positioned left of the bay window. I bent over it and heard something, so I stopped and listened. After a moment, I heard more, Lottie’s voice from outside. She wasn’t alone. Perhaps groceries were being delivered? But she sounded distressed.

“No.” Her voice was shrill. “We can’t.”

I stood straight and faced the open parlor door closest to the front doors. I listened as the voices grew closer.

I heard a man’s voice. “Please. What else can we do?” Then I heard him groan. No, it was a third voice. “Please, Lottie,” the first voice begged. I heard the door open and the voices barged into the house.

“Mrs. Dorr?” Lottie called.

I hadn’t moved. I watched Lottie plod in, but she didn’t see me right away. Two men shuffled in behind her. One was tall with freckled skin and peppered hair. A colored man leaned on him, covered in sweat. He held a wrapped hand close to his chest, the cloth deep crimson and moist. They spotted me standing stiff, eyes wide, brush dripping in hand, bucket next to my feet. No one said anything at first. We all just stood and stared.

“Mrs. Dorr, I am so sorry,” Lottie said.

I didn’t move or speak. I opened my mouth to ask a question, but nothing came out.

The peppered-haired man’s eyes darted to Lottie and then back at me. “Forgive us, Mrs. Dorr,” he said. “We didn’t know what else to do.”

“This is my husband,” Lottie said. “Oliver Schwab.”

Oliver motioned to the dripping man. “And this is Mr. Roy Turner.”

Mr. Turner bobbed his head to greet me, but his grimace remained.

“He’s slit his hand in the fields, and it keeps bleeding,” Oliver said.

“I’m so sorry.” Lottie shook her head. “My husband knows you helped me and the Whitmays. Mr. Turner can’t go to a doctor.”

I watched a drop of salty sweat fall from Mr. Turner’s forehead and land on the freshly scrubbed floors.

“Forgive me, ma’am.” He groaned. “I ain’t got nowheres else to go. I needs my hand. I needs it to work.”

I was still frozen there, shocked.

“Mrs. Dorr?” Lottie asked.

If anyone saw this—two men, two lower-class men, one colored, here while John was out—I’d have been institutionalized. “Quickly. Take them to the basement.”

“Follow me,” Lottie ordered.

We scrambled downstairs, and I instructed Lottie to fetch the supplies I had taken with me to the Whitmays. She moved swiftly, leaving me unaccompanied with the two men. A lump sat heavy in my stomach, like a ball of dough, and I couldn’t think for a moment. Then I regained my composure. “Mr. Turner, I need to remove the cloth.” I pointed as I quickly moved toward him, and he pulled back slightly and bumped up against the big cutting table in the center of the room. I didn’t hesitate. I unraveled the damp garment. The scarlet color spread from the cloth and appeared brighter against my fair skin. Mr. Turner clenched his teeth as I removed the last pieces from the gnarled gash across the center of his left hand. I grabbed a bowl, handed it to Mr. Schwab, and pointed toward a bucket of fresh water I had fetched earlier for the floors. “Fill this with water.”

I heard Lottie coming down the stairs. She delivered my satchel, and I removed several items. I gave Mr. Turner some laudanum for the pain. “Lottie, I need more light. Will you get a lamp?” She rushed up the stairs.

“Place the bowl here Mr. Schwab.” I pointed, and he set it on the table. I dipped Mr. Turner’s hand into the water. He tensed and cringed. The blood seeped out and expanded like a cloud as his wound gushed with greater intensity. I lifted his hand out and pressed hard on it with a towel. He slammed his other hand on the wood table and groaned through clenched teeth.

Alarmed, Oliver stepped closer. “Mrs. Dorr?”

“Forgive me, Mr. Turner.” I bore down, and he struggled not to pull away. “It’s to stop the bleeding.” After a few minutes I released the pressure and lifted the cloth to see. The blood was no longer surging, so I cleaned off the dry blood bordering the wound. As I finished, Lottie returned with a lamp that had two women spouting from the staff and reaching up as if trying pry themselves from the porcelain.

“Hold it up to his hand.” With the wound clean, I could see that it was worse than I’d thought. The gash was too deep. It wouldn’t heal on its own. I grew warm and felt Lottie and her husband lingering over my shoulders. “I’m going to have to close it.”

Mr. Turner clenched his teeth and nodded.

“It’s going to hurt.”