CHAPTER 12
C
LARA
Chapin Hall Infirmary
September 1930
Outside the infirmary room window, the leaves on the trees were starting to turn and the sun shimmered like a thousand splintered mirrors on Seneca Lake. If Clara’s estimates were right, she’d spent nearly four months in the room in Chapin Hall, watching gray sheets of May rain give way to summer days of hazy sunshine, and Willard’s vast lawns turn brown due to a long August heat wave. Three times a day her food was brought in, twice a day her chamber pot was emptied, and once a week a nurse accompanied her to the water closet so she could bathe. Other than that, she was being kept prisoner. But it was better than being on the ward.
Now, guessing it was nearing the second week of September and wondering how long she’d be allowed this relatively decent treatment, she sat in a cushioned metal chair in the rectangle of sunlight coming in through the grimy windows. As usual, the radiator sat silent, a cold iron block beneath the brick sills. According to the nurses, it was too early in the season to turn on the heat, even though the high-ceilinged room grew frigid at night and never got warm during the day. Clara had to wear her socks and sweater to bed.
Today, it looked warmer out by the lake than inside the room. She longed to push open the windows and let in some fresh air. She knew what the world outside felt like. The soft autumn breeze was balmy and the day smelled clean, a fertile combination of musty earth and dry leaves. She would have done anything to breathe in the outdoors. The infirmary was filled with the rank aroma of mildewed grout, peeling paint, urine, and disinfectant. Clara was certain she could taste the warm, coppery odor of blood and the bitter tang of death. She imagined her nose and lungs lined with dust and black mold, pink tissue struggling to breathe, airways clogged with infection and disease.
Her eyes flooded and she looked down at her daughter, Beatrice Elizabeth Moretti, sleeping in her arms. An overwhelming feeling of love and the desire to protect her pierced her heart. Would they ever be let out of Willard? To live free, in the sunshine and fresh air? This closed-up, stinking institution was no place to raise an infant. Musty hospital air filled with germs, medicine, and sickness couldn’t be good for Beatrice’s tiny pink lungs. Again, as it did several times a day, the cold hand of fear clutched Clara’s heart and she nearly sobbed out loud.
“I’m so sorry you ended up here,” she whispered. “It’s my fault. I should have just married James. I could have said you were his and you would have had everything. But I didn’t know. I didn’t know my father would do this to me. I didn’t know he would stop loving me.”
Doctor Roach had told Clara he’d informed her parents about the baby, but there had been no reply. Clara imagined that the news she’d given birth to a bastard merely infuriated Henry further. From now on, she had the feeling, she and Beatrice were on their own. If they survived.
On Clara’s weekly trip to the washroom, with Beatrice wrapped in a blanket and clutched to her chest, she overheard the doctors and nurses talking about tuberculosis, typhoid fever, cholera, and diphtheria. From what she could gather, the sickest patients were kept on another floor, isolated from the rest of the infirmary. But people were dying here every day, and there was a great deal of concern about controlling the infectious diseases. What would become of her and her child if they got sick? The nurses wanted to bathe and hold Beatrice, but Clara refused. Ever since the day after she gave birth, she wouldn’t allow anyone to touch her baby, afraid they might be carrying germs. If anything happened to her daughter, there’d be no need for Clara to leave Willard because she would, once and for all, lose her mind.
Now, Clara struggled to push her fears away. Hysteria and panic would be of no help. She had to keep her wits about her if she was going to survive. In place of fear, a hard mass of anger swirled in the pit of her stomach, growing bigger and colder with every breath. How could her parents do this to her? How could they just abandon her to doctors and nurses who knew nothing about what kind of person she really was? Was everyone just going to leave her and her daughter in this room, to lose their minds, to get sick, to rot away? She thought about her mother, wondering if it was possible for the maternal instinct to be missing in some women. What kind of mother doesn’t care if she never sees or talks to her child again?
She thought about the day Beatrice was born, waking up after giving birth, blinking and becoming aware of bright light and two blurry figures standing over her. When her vision cleared, she saw Dr. Roach and a nurse looking down on her.
“Where’s my baby?” she asked, panic plowing through her chest at heart-stopping speed, stealing the breath from her lungs. She tried to sit up and felt a quick pull of sharp pain, deep inside her abdomen. She ignored it, intent on finding out if her daughter was alive.
“Just lie still now,” Dr. Roach said.
“Your baby is right here,” the nurse said, putting her hand on a wooden crib. “It’s a little girl and she’s perfectly healthy.”
The grip of panic left Clara’s body and she exhaled, her thundering heart starting to slow. She pushed herself up on wobbly arms and looked over at her newborn daughter, who was wrapped in a white blanket and sound asleep. When Clara leaned back against the pillows, she winced. It felt like a knife was being plunged into her lower stomach.
“You must stay still,” Dr. Roach said “You suffered quite a blow to the head. We think you’ll be fine, but you need to stay in bed for the next few days.”
“What’s wrong with me?” she said, putting her hands over her abdomen.
“Dr. Slade performed a small procedure on you,” Dr. Roach said, his voice calm. “It’s nothing to worry about. You’ll be good as new before you know it.”
“What kind of procedure?” she said. “What did he do?”
Dr. Roach went to the end of the bed and lifted her chart from the footboard. “As a doctor,” he said, taking a pen out of his lab coat pocket, “it’s my responsibility to think of the public as a whole. If society is to prosper, we need to encourage those with good germ plasma to breed and to discourage those with bad germ plasma from having offspring. Sterilization is a common procedure in state asylums. It’s our responsibility to keep the unfit from passing along the insanity gene.”
A burning lump clogged Clara’s throat. She thought of Bruno, how his eyes had sparkled when they talked about getting married and having children, how he wanted two boys and two girls.
“How dare you!” she cried.
Dr. Roach wrote something in her chart, then hung it on the end of her bed. “We’ll talk later,” he said. “When you’ve recovered.”
“You had no right to make that decision for me!” she said, fighting the urge to get up and strangle him. “There’s nothing wrong with me and you know it!”
He turned and started for the door, his polished shoes clacking on the tiled floor. Clara called after him. “This is Bruno’s baby,” she said, her voice catching. “Bruno exists, no matter what my father told you.”
Dr. Roach turned at the door. “Like I said,” he said. “We’ll talk about this in a few days. At least you won’t be getting into any more trouble. For now, you should rest.”
Just then, the baby started fussing, mewling and whimpering, getting ready to wail. Dr. Roach left the room, closing the door behind him.
“Hush now,” the nurse said to Clara. She went over to the crib and picked up the newborn. The baby girl’s face was bright red, her mouth open and howling. “You need to think about your daughter.” The nurse pulled the blanket down to Clara’s waist, laid the wailing baby in her arms, and pushed aside her nightgown with rough fingers, exposing Clara’s swollen breast. Clara put a hand over her chest, her cheeks flushing with fury and humiliation. For the first time since she woke up, she realized her nipples were sore. While she had been unconscious, someone had been putting her baby to her breast. “She’s a good eater,” the nurse said.
Clara blinked and looked down at the newborn in her arms, her tiny face a blur through her tears, and forgot all about the nurse standing over her. Her daughter’s cheeks were pink and soft, like the underbelly of a lamb, her eyelashes long and dark, sweeping from her lids just like Bruno’s. Clara touched her daughter’s small, gauzy hand, and the baby wrapped her tiny fingers around hers. The infant whimpered and shuddered, her soft, pink mouth searching for Clara’s nipple. Once she found it and latched on, she quieted and closed her puffy eyes. Like the ebb and flow of the tide, Clara’s head and stomach ached in powerful waves, cresting and ebbing in perfect rhythm with the pull and swallow on her breast. She kissed her daughter’s forehead and hung her head, shoulders convulsing as overwhelming love and sorrow threatened to burst her heart.
Now, sitting in the warm shaft of sunlight coming in through the infirmary room window, Clara pressed her fingers into the thin, hard line on her lower abdomen and a hollow wave of grief washed through her. The stitches had been taken out months ago, but the spot was still tender, her fury over what the doctors had done without her consent, raw and bleeding. She ran her fingertips along Beatrice’s soft cheek, trying to ignore the shadows of bars lining her pale skin. Clara thought of her own mother, holding Clara as an infant, and wondered if Ruth had felt the same overwhelming love toward her small, defenseless daughter. She wondered how a woman could give birth to a baby and then, once the baby was grown, not care if they ever spoke again? She wondered how a mother could be indifferent to the fact that her daughter had been locked away, abused and drugged and sterilized. How could a mother not want to find out if her child was cold or hungry or afraid? It was incomprehensible.
Every day, Clara fell in love with Beatrice more and more, her heart bursting with such fierce affection it was almost painful. She couldn’t imagine feeling any different. During the long, lonely months inside the dim hospital room, Beatrice had lain beside Clara on the bed, looking up at her with curious eyes as Clara told her about the sparrows and robins perched on the branches outside. Beatrice listened intently, cooing or quiet in the appropriate places, while Clara made up stories about castles and princes and told her about the lake and the grass and trees. Beatrice’s chocolate eyes widened as if she understood every word when Clara described Bruno, the first time they met, and what a wonderful father he would be if they were ever released.
To Clara’s surprise, and for reasons she didn’t understand, Dr. Roach had grown more attentive than ever. He came to Clara’s room for weekly sessions, taking time at the end of every visit to ask how the baby was doing and if she seemed healthy and strong. At their last session, Clara had stiffened when Dr. Roach reached into the crib and pulled the edge of the blanket back, as if he wanted to get a better look. Clara picked up her daughter and moved toward the window.
“Please stay away from her,” Clara said. “I don’t want anyone touching her.”
“But I’m her doctor,” Dr. Roach said. “There’s no need to worry. I only want what’s best.”
“She doesn’t need a doctor!” Clara said. “And if you really want what’s best, you’ll let us out of this place!”
“I can’t, in good conscience, release either of you,” he said. “You’re not well, Clara. And until I determine otherwise . . .”
“You’ll what?” Clara interrupted. “Keep us locked up in this room forever?”
“No,” he said. “I’m waiting to hear from your father, and then I’ll . . .”
Clara’s breath caught in her throat. “My father?” she said. “I thought you hadn’t heard from him since you told him about the baby? Did you tell him I wouldn’t ask for a penny? That all I want is my freedom?”
Dr. Roach shook his head, his lips pressing together. “No, no,” he said, waving a dismissive hand in the air. “I haven’t heard anything.”
“There’s something you’re not telling me,” she said. “What is it?”
“Your father might need more time to process the fact that he has a grandchild,” he said. “I’m sure it came as quite a shock, especially considering we don’t know who the father is.”
“Bruno is Beatrice’s father,” she said, her eyes burning. “Just ask my father.”
“I did,” Dr. Roach said, heading for the door. “And his answer will determine what happens next. If he answers at all.”
Every night since, Clara prayed her father would tell Dr. Roach the truth. What reason would he have for wanting her to stay at Willard any longer? Marrying James Gallagher was out of the question now. All her father had to do was tell Dr. Roach that Bruno was real and she would be free. Was that asking too much?
Now, she buried her nose in Beatrice’s thick hair—the same chestnut brown and wavy texture as Bruno’s—and breathed in her innocent baby smell, willing them both to be strong. Beatrice had been unusually fussy over the last few days, and Clara wondered if it was because she needed to start on solid foods. Growing up, Clara hadn’t spent any time around babies, and Ruth certainly hadn’t passed down any maternal wisdom. But Clara knew that at some point, breast milk wouldn’t be enough. Clara asked the nurses what they thought, but they just shrugged or said they would look into getting something suitable.
To her surprise, her meals in the infirmary were comparable to the provisions at the Long Island Home; eggs and toast for breakfast, ham and cheese sandwiches with fruit for lunch, and either chicken or pork with a roll and a side of beans, corn, or peas for dinner. When she mentioned it to one of the nurses, she was even more surprised to hear that Dr. Roach had ordered the meals so she would have enough milk to nourish the baby. But despite her balanced diet, her breast milk was getting thin. There wasn’t enough to keep a growing baby satisfied.
Shortly after Clara gave birth, the nurses had managed to come up with cloth diapers and three infant nightgowns. The nightgowns had been mended and were thin at the elbows, but they were better than the hospital gowns Clara had been using to swaddle Beatrice. Because of that early kindness, Clara held out hope that the nurses would find suitable foods for a growing baby; rice cereal or strained fruits, or, at the very least, cows’ milk.