The Copper Series

by Suzanne Woods Fisher

  “We’ve got to get you to Bisbee to a real doctor,” said Robert, looking at me with a frantic look.

  I saw the hurt flicker past Alice’s eyes. “Alice is a real doctor, Robert.”

  “She’s a dermatologist!” He had that look again, as if I had lost my mind.

  “I don’t know what might have happened to me if she hadn’t come by when she did. She’s been a godsend. And I’m sure she’s delivered plenty of babies.” At least I hoped so. “Isn’t that right, Alice?”

  She nodded with reassurance, but darted her eyes to the left.

  Oh, no.

  Robert still looked worried. “I just meant…we should get you to a hospital.”

  “I know exactly what you meant,” Alice said, the coldness back in her eyes. “She can’t travel now, Robert. It’s way past that. Maybe if you had a phone in the house, she would’ve been able to call someone for help,” she snapped, shooting him a look of daggers.

  The contractions started piggybacking on top of each other; I could hardly get some relief. I was squeezing Robert’s hands so tightly they became mottled, white and purple.

  Suddenly, Alice’s face lit up. “Louisa, the Japanese women in the camp sat up when they were in labor, so gravity could help the process. Would you be willing to try?”

  I was desperately uncomfortable, with contractions rolling over me like waves. “I would be willing to try anything to get this baby out,” I said, through clenched teeth.

  “Robert, I need your help. Get behind her and support her back.”

  Robert looked tentative. “Maybe I should go get Aunt Martha. I really don’t think a man should be—”

  The hesitant look on his face made my temper flare. I grabbed his narrow tie and pulled him toward me, snarling, “You got me into this. You are going to stay and see it through.”

  “That a girl,” Alice whispered.

  “And why can’t you put a telephone in this house?” I growled.

  Robert looked stricken, as if I had just slapped him, but then he rallied into action. Finally, finally! Movement seemed to unspool the chains on my body and it was willing to release this baby into the world.

  “My goodness,” Alice said breathlessly, “it’s working!” She sounded surprised.

  I was feeling a new kind of pain now, a good pain. By dawn, a cry went through the house, but this time it wasn’t from me. Our daughter arrived in howling perfection. Alice quickly wiped her down and handed her to me. She had a thatch of black hair, just like Robert’s, dark blue eyes that stared at me, as if she was just as curious about me as I was about her. She had a tiny nose and a rosebud mouth, and she was perfect.

  Alice couldn’t stop smiling at the sight of her niece. “I think that old doctor had your dates wrong. She looks full term to me. In fact, she’s a big gal.”

  Tenderly, I passed the baby to her father’s waiting arms. “Can you believe it, Robert? We have a daughter.” He sat down on the bed next to me, his baby in his arms. I leaned against him, my head pillowed on his shoulder. For now, I had everything I wanted.

  Alice quietly slipped out the door to tell Aunt Martha the news. When the door shut, I said to Robert, “I don’t know what I would have done without Alice. She arrived mid-afternoon; I was already in great pain. And to think you didn’t get home until midnight.”

  He groaned. “I know. The car broke down just outside of Bisbee. It took me hours to fix it. I’m so sorry, sweetheart. What rotten timing.” He pointed to a fat envelope on the top of the bureau. “But I did remember to pick up William’s pictures at the film store.”

  I passed the baby to him. He held her as if he was afraid she might break. “Alice is an excellent doctor, Robert.”

  “It’s a wonder she stopped by when she did.”

  “She said she was leaving.” I looked directly at him. “She said that it just wasn’t going to work between the two of you. That you could never forgive her.”

  Robert continued to gaze at his daughter.

  I stifled a yawn. “Are you going to let her go like that?”

  He looked back at me. “No, I’m not.” He stood up. “Try to sleep. When you wake up, if you’re up to it, I’ll let William and Elisabeth come in.” He tucked the baby in the bassinet we had borrowed from Rosita. “Call if you need me.”

  I smiled sleepily at him as he bent over to kiss me. The first hit of exhaustion swelled over me; I didn’t even remember him leaving the room.

  A few hours later, Robert knocked quietly on the door, waking me up, to bring me some hot tea and toast. He peeked at the baby. “She’s still sleeping. Alice said you should eat before she wakes up for a feeding.”

  I yawned. “Oh, good. I’m starving.”

  “I figured as much. Aunt Martha is making you a real breakfast. This is just to get your strength up.” He set the tea and toast on my nightstand. “You know, you’re a little crabby when you’re in labor.”

  I raised an eyebrow at him. “Don’t…even…start. Is Alice still here?”

  “Yes. She’s downstairs.”

  I took his hand in mine.

  “Robert, I’ve been thinking. I’d like to name this baby Marta Elisabeth. After Aunt Martha and after Elisabeth.”

  He looked at me for a long moment. “No.”

  I looked up at him in surprise. “What? Why not? I thought you would be pleased to name her after your aunt.”

  “I want her to be her own person. That’s why I didn’t want William to be named after me, the way I was named after my father.”

  I tilted my head, suddenly understanding more about him. His father had been determined to have Robert carry on after him. Robert never really felt he had the chance to live his own life. So that was why Robert hadn’t named his son ‘Robert Joseph Gordon the IV.’ “Do you still wish you had become an engineer instead of a minister?”

  He was gazing at his daughter’s tiny starfish hand. “No. I’m happy to be doing what I do. You helped me with that.” He leaned over and kissed me.

  “What kind of name were you thinking of?” I asked him, suspiciously.

  “I don’t really have one in mind. I just don’t want her named after anyone.”

  “Then I always liked the name Isabel.”

  He gave me that well-practiced you-can’t-be-serious look.

  I scrunched up my face. “What about Katherine? In German it’s Katrina. We could call her Katie or Kat.”

  “No. No nicknames. I abhor nicknames. Besides, Dog would object to that name.” Then he thought for a moment. “I want to pick a name that is easy for William to pronounce.”

  On that point we agreed, but that was the only point we agreed on.

  “Well no doubt about whom the father is,” Aunt Martha remarked when she came upstairs with scrambled eggs and bacon, eager to inspect her grandniece. “What’s her name?”

  Robert and I exchanged an exasperated look. He explained that we were having a little difficulty making a decision.

  Aunt Martha rolled her eyes. “Are the two of you waiting for the creek to rise?”

  I looked at her, confused. There seemed to be an endless supply of bromides tucked into her mind.

  “Are you just going to call her ‘Baby’ for the next few years until you finally stumble on something you both like? It’s going to be just like calling a dog ‘Dog’.”

  That very thought had already crossed my mind. “When are Elisabeth and William coming in to meet her?”

  “As soon as they wake up,” Robert said. “I let them sleep in.”

  After Robert and Aunt Martha left, Alice came upstairs to check on us both before she went back to the hotel. “I can’t thank you enough for being here, right when I needed you,” I told her, meaning every word.

  “My pleasure. It really was.” She pulled up a chair next to my bed. “Louisa, when I was out at Robert’s study to call the doctor, I found newspaper clippings and photographs on his desk.”

  “Yes, he’s writing a book.”

 
; “Where would he have gotten this picture?” She handed me a picture of a young naval private standing next to a jeep.

  “I took that. Last summer, I returned to Germany to get Elisabeth.” I pointed to the picture in her hand. “That private was assigned to drive me down to Munich and back.”

  “Do you remember his name?”

  “Oh yes. He was wonderful to me. Private Ryan Wheeler.” Suddenly, a small light flickered in my mind. I leaned back in my bed, recalling his conversation about his parents coming from a backwater Arizona town. Both of his parents were doctors in the military. “Alice Wheeler. Could…Ryan…belong to you?”

  Slowly, she nodded, her face registering that strange happenstance. “I’m…speechless. I can’t believe…the chance of that kind of…coincidence…the fact that you met—”

  “Providential,” I interrupted. “There’s no such thing as a coincidence in God’s world.”

  She smiled. “I would have disagreed with you yesterday, but not today, Louisa. Not after this,” she said, lifting up Ryan’s picture.

  Alice told me about Ryan’s growing up years, that his father had deserted them soon after his birth. She explained that she ended up getting nurses’ training in the military, to support Ryan and her, and how she met her second husband, Charles Wheeler, when she was assigned as his nurse on surgical rotation. “He was the one who encouraged me to finish my degree, then to go to medical school. And he has been a devoted father to Ryan. Ryan even chose to take his name.”

  Her face lit up when she talked about her husband.

  “I hope we’ll all be together again soon. Charles is in the Pacific, managing a military hospital. Ryan is still in Germany.”

  I wondered how it would feel to have those you love scattered around the world in active military duty. How lonely Alice must be. She needed us.

  Then I told her about my day with Ryan, about how kind he was to me, so patient with Elisabeth, that he helped me get through Dachau. “He said he wants to be a minister.”

  She laughed. “Can you believe it? The last thing I ever wanted for him. I didn’t even raise him with any religion. I wanted him to be able to choose for himself. And here he is following in his grandfather’s footsteps!”

  “And his uncle’s.”

  She gave a short laugh. “So he is.”

  “Robert needs to meet him.”

  “Maybe someday.” She got up to leave.

  “Alice, would you mind telling Robert and Aunt Martha about this? Show them this picture? I doubt they would believe me.”

  “Oh Louisa, I hope Robert knows how lucky he is to have you.”

  Appearing suddenly at the open door, William peeking in around his waist, Robert said, “Trust me, he knows.”

  “I’m the lucky one, Alice. I got the package.” I waved to William to come in and meet his new sister. He held his arms out in the air like a surgeon, still wet to the elbow from Aunt Martha’s scrubbing. “There’s your new sister, William.” I pointed to the waddled bundle in the bassinet.

  He peered at her as if he’d never seen anything so small in his life. “She’s like a pink doll,” he said. The baby let out a cry and fell back asleep. “Mom? Do you think she can hear?”

  Touched by the worried look on his face, I tried to reassure him. “I think so. I know she can yell.” In her few short hours of life, this baby had already surprised me with a few bone splintering howls.

  He looked relieved.

  I patted the bed to have him hop up. “William? It doesn’t matter, does it? We’ll love her just the same.” He smiled and nodded his head, scrambling up on the bed. “Is Aunt Martha making Elisabeth scrub her hands before she comes in?”

  William shook his head and quickly turned his head away.

  Something seemed odd. “Robert, is Elisabeth coming in to meet the baby?”

  He looked uncomfortable as he answered. “Not yet, sweetheart. She says she’s not interested. She says babies are da vorst.”

  That sounded like Elisabeth.

  Then Alice surprised me. “Louisa, what has Dr. Singleton said about Elisabeth?”

  I glanced at her. “What do you mean?”

  “Those stomach cramps she had at dinner. Has he given you any diagnosis?”

  I was surprised she had noticed Elisabeth rubbing her stomach, especially with everything else going on at dinner. “A diagnosis?”

  She rubbed her chin. “Hasn’t he talked about her condition?”

  “What condition, Alice?” Robert asked, just as puzzled as I was.

  Alice sat back down on the chair. “Well, her size, for one. She seems quite short for her age.”

  “Her growth has been stunted from being in the camp. She nearly starved.”

  “Yes, of course. I understand that. But…” she hesitated.

  “Alice, what exactly are you trying to say?” asked Robert.

  “Well, do you have any idea what she ate while she was in the camp?”

  “I think some stale bread, twice a day. I think she was lucky to get a bowl of watery soup now and then. Or something that resembled it.”

  “So she has eaten mostly grains? No vegetables?”

  “There was a boy who gave her his potato.”

  “No protein?”

  “There were worms in the broth; she said they ate them for the protein.”

  Alice shuddered. “What has Dr. Singleton recommended?”

  “That she eat as much as she can.”

  “Breads?”

  “A lot of bread. He said she needed carbohydrates.”

  Alice nodded, a detective gathering information.

  “Alice, what are you thinking?” Robert asked, growing impatient.

  “I can’t be sure…but it’s possible that Elisabeth’s body has a reaction to grains. And that could be why she hasn’t gained much weight in the last few months, and why her hair isn’t growing in very quickly. Even why she’s so irritable and cranky.”

  Robert looked at her, stunned. “A reaction to grains…like an allergy?”

  “It’s more than an allergy. Her body might have an inability to digest gluten, which is a protein found in grain. The lining of the intestine becomes irritated from undigested gluten, and that leads to malabsorption of other nutrients.”

  “Is there a way to find out if she has this…this…?” Robert asked.

  “It doesn’t really even have a name, other than celiac disease. It’s genetic. Can you remember if anyone in your family might have had this, Louisa?”

  I shook my head. “I do remember that my father had a sensitive stomach.” I tilted my head. “But I always thought it was my cooking. Could that be why Elisabeth complains about stomach aches so often?”

  Alice nodded again, biting her lip in deep thought.

  I leaned back on the pillow. A puzzle started to fit together. I looked at Robert. “How did she ever survive that camp? The only nourishment might have made her sick.”

  Quietly, Alice said, “That boy who gave her potatoes might have kept her alive.”

  “Can anything be done about it?” Robert asked her.

  “Well, that could be the good news. The cure for this is to stop eating any grains—oats, rye, wheat, barley—permanently.”

  I looked at Robert hopefully. “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if she wasn’t so irritable?”

  He gave a short laugh. “It’s certainly worth a try.”

  Alice stood up to leave. “I’ll go downstairs and write down a list of foods to avoid for a while, to see if there is a difference. Glutens are in all kinds of food—cereal, for example. If we’re on the right track, you should see an immediate improvement. She should start gaining weight soon.”

  William climbed up on the bed to keep me company after Alice and Robert went downstairs. “Aunt Alice told me funny stories about Dad.”

  “Really?” Gingerly, I sat up, placing a pillow behind me.

  “Once Dad took apart Grandfather Gordon’s car engine and put it back together, but
he had extra pieces leftover. He hid the pieces in the basement so Grandfather Gordon wouldn’t get mad at him.”

  I laughed, but had to stop quickly because it hurt my stomach. “I wonder if the pieces are still hidden. Might be something to track down with your spy work.”

  He stood up on the bed to look into the bassinet. “What is the baby’s name?”

  I sighed. “Dad and I can’t agree on a name yet.”

  “How about Maid Marian?”

  “From Robin Hood?”

  He sat back down on the bed, cross-legged. “She tried to be a good person.”

  “I like Marian, too.” In fact, I liked it quite a bit. “Do you want to ask Dad if he likes that name?”

  And Robert did. So our baby was named Marian Marta-Elisabeth Gordon, which William immediately shortened to Meg when he realized what her initials would be. It was even easier for William to say than Marian, I explained to Robert when he complained it was a nickname.

  After everyone left me to rest again, I tried to sleep but kept hearing low voices rumble in the kitchen. Slowly, oh so slowly, I got out of bed and went over to my radiator, leaning against the window for support.

  I heard Alice ask, “Did Ruth ever tell you I stopped by?”

  “No,” Robert answered. “When?”

  “With my boy, Ryan, years ago. I hoped to see you, but you were away at a conference. She wasn’t very interested in seeing me.”

  There was a long silence. I leaned my forehead against the window. I knew this was painful news for Robert. To think that Alice had made some effort to see him, and he didn’t even know about it. Had he only known, they might have reconciled years ago.

  I was too tired to listen any longer. I stayed in bed for the rest of the day, dozing off and on. Alice woke me once to say she was leaving. She took my hand. “Good-bye, Louisa. I need to return to Colorado tomorrow.”

  “God bless you, Alice,” I said with feeling. I hoped we would see her again.

  By evening, Elisabeth still hadn’t come in to see me or meet the baby. I heard her familiar stomp upstairs to get ready for bed. Slowly, I got out of bed and picked up the baby. It wasn’t easy to bend down and reach in the bassinet to pick baby Meg up, but I was determined.

  I knocked on Elisabeth’s door and went inside. She was sprawled out on her bed, reading, and looked up at me, surprised. “You wouldn’t come to see us, so we came to see you,” I said. Ever so carefully, I went over to her bed and sat down on it, ever so gingerly. “Don’t you want to meet your cousin?” I asked, gently setting the baby between us on the bed.