Touched

by Carolyn Haines

  “For Duncan, yes. Will brought us a bottle of wine from one of the senators. A good merlot. It’ll be perfect with the roast. The glasses are in the dining room, the smaller bowl-shaped ones.”

  I’d studied the different shapes of her glasses but I didn’t know JoHanna had seen me doing it. Somehow, it made me feel like a child, like a loved child, and I smiled at her before I turned and ran across the yard and up the steps. At the top step I caught a whiff of the roast, and it made saliva spring into my mouth. I’d never felt so hungry, so ready for food.

  The day was still hot when we sat down to eat, but Will had to be at the train station early, not to mention that we also had to be in Mobile as early as we could. To my surprise, I ate and laughed as if I hadn’t a care in the world. Will McVay could do that to a woman.

  He teased me outrageously, making Duncan and JoHanna laugh at the blushes that added to the warmth of the evening. He told us about his meetings in Washington with powerful men who worried about the wax on the cars they drove or whether their coats were cut in an elegant enough fashion. He made us laugh at those faraway figures I’d never even thought to consider as human beings. With that laughter, he pried open the door to the world a tiny bit wider for me. When he told us that next summer, when Duncan was completely well, that he would take all of us to New York on the train with him, I felt as if I could do it. New York. With Will to show the way, it was within my grasp.

  JoHanna had been there, more than once, but Duncan had not. We would share that adventure together.

  “You’ll certainly have to teach me to dance before we go,” I told her across the table. “I’ve read about the hotels where there are orchestras that play all night and clubs where people go to dance and listen to bands.” A sudden image of a negro band in a blue-lit room made me stop. A giddy, sweet taste of bootleg rum choked me. My fork slipped from my fingers.

  “Mattie?” Will was sitting beside me and grasped my arm. “Are you okay?”

  My eyes connected with JoHanna’s. A piece of cornbread was in her hand, halfway to her mouth, and she didn’t move. Whatever was on my face made her eyes fill with tears. Even Duncan paled and looked down at her plate.

  Will stood up, my arm still in his hand. “Let’s go out to the swing and get a breath of fresh air.” He assisted me from the table, casting a look back at JoHanna that asked her what the hell was happening.

  He put me in the swing and sat beside me. Not close and not far away. The distance of a friend. He pushed the swing enough to get us going and to set up the steady, comforting song of the creaking chains.

  When I didn’t speak, he sighed. “Mattie, if he’s hurt you in any way, tell me and I’ll take care of it.”

  I don’t think anything in the world had ever frightened me as much as those words. Once, when Jojo kicked me in the stomach, and I saw his foot draw back to kick again, I thought I was going to die. But this was different. This was even more terrifying. I could not look at Will for fear he would see something that would make him act. I did not doubt that he would get in his shiny red car, drive to my small house, and drag Elikah out into the street and beat him to death. There was about Will a sense of definite action. He was like JoHanna’s stride, a force of nature that could not be stopped once it was started.

  We rocked on, the silence growing.

  “Mattie, if that man has hurt you in any way, you have to tell me.”

  I had to speak. “It’s okay, Will.”

  “He’s hurt your feelings then?” There was relief in his voice.

  “Yes. My feelings.” It sounded so silly, as if he’d said my fried chicken was too dry or my biscuits flat and heavy. But dear God, I did not want Will to know what had really happened.

  His hand on my arm made me jump, and when I looked at him in the dying light of evening, I knew he didn’t believe me.

  “Mattie, if he ever hurts you, I’ll take care of it.”

  I could not look away from his brown eyes. The amber center was gone. They were all dark and hard, angry, but a cool anger.

  “No man has a right to hurt a woman. Not for any reason. Not under any circumstances. A man who hits a woman is a coward.”

  I thought for a moment that he might have somehow known what Elikah had done, but he thought he was beating me. The relief gave me the strength to nod. “I’m okay.” I nodded again.

  “Are you sure?”

  Outside the screened porch the frogs and crickets had set up their evening song. Even the heat had gentled, lying on my skin like a soft, warm touch. “In a lot of ways, I’ve never been so lucky.” I lifted my chin. “I’ve never had friends who could stand up for me. Now I have you and JoHanna. I’m not so alone.”

  He reached across the swing and brushed my cheek with his fingers, testing, I think, to see if I’d flinch. “You’re a lovely child, Mattie. And you’ll grow up to be a beautiful woman. I don’t intend to let Elikah or anyone else disturb that process.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  For that instant, I believed it.

  Fifteen

  JOHANNA wore her hat with rooster tail feathers to Mobile. She loaned me a loosely cut navy dress, dark but sleeveless and cool in the baggy cut of it. She also gave me a hat, navy with a veil. I held it on the carseat beside me as Will drove the back roads out of Jexville toward the old federal road that led to Mobile.

  Will had gotten up at dawn and taken Duncan to have breakfast in Reba’s Café, one of their favorite places. JoHanna told me I could not eat or drink water, that it would make me sick. I could not have eaten anyway. The appetite of the night before was long gone, as was my small, budding hope that things would be okay. I rode in the back seat, silent and afraid. Though JoHanna cast me reassuring looks, they did no good.

  At the train station we waved Will off. He gave JoHanna a big, dramatic kiss right in front of everyone. A kiss that drew smiles from many, frowns from a few. They didn’t care. JoHanna waved until the train had disappeared in a hiss of steam and a cloud of grit.

  She didn’t talk as we went back to the car. JoHanna drove with the same determination that she walked. Both hands on the wheel, eyes straight ahead, she aimed for her destination. I didn’t want to talk. If she asked me again what I wanted, I might be too afraid to do this thing.

  The building we stopped at was dark brick, three stories high. Beautiful curlicues of wrought iron formed small balconies at double doors on each level. It looked somber, serious, but not dirty. It did not look like what I had imagined. We parked in the shade of a live oak that seemed to bend over the entire street, a gesture of good will.

  “Wait here,” JoHanna said. “I have to talk to him.”

  Real terror struck me. “He may not do it?”

  She didn’t say anything for a moment. “Mattie, you may not be pregnant. It could be something else wrong. And yes, if you are, he may not do it.”

  “But he’s done this before?” I was desperate. I gripped her arm.

  “He’s a doctor.” She shook her head. “Whether he wants to or not … The less you know, the better. For me, for him, and for you.”

  The possibility that he would not help me settled over me like the dirt of a grave. I was suffocated by my own helplessness. I nodded, indicating I would wait in the car.

  She got out, crossed the street in that long, long stride, and went inside the building.

  I don’t know how long she was gone. A while. The leather car seat grew hot, even in the shade of the tree. My mind seemed to stop working. I sat and watched the people come and go along the street. It was mostly men; some wore suits, some the pants and shirts of common laborers. Some stared at me; some passed as if I did not exist. I put the hat on, drew down the veil, and waited.

  JoHanna came back, her face set in an expression that told me nothing. She came around to my door, opened it, and motioned for me to get out. Together, we walked to the back of the building. Inside there was a staircase. At each landing there were double doors that led inside, but we w
ent straight to the third floor and into a long hallway darkened by heavy paneling.

  JoHanna led me to a room centered by a narrow cot with a light at the end. The veil cut the room into tiny diamond bites, little fragments of horror. Sun slatted into the large windows through wooden blinds that were semiclosed. Several shafts fell across a neat arrangement of silver instruments on a clean white cloth. On a counter was a bottle beside a silver strainer, a cotton cloth. There was nothing of familiarity in the room, except JoHanna, and I edged closer to her.

  “He’ll have to examine you.” JoHanna looked down at her feet. “I have to wait outside.”

  “Stay with me.” I grabbed at her hand. “JoHanna, I’m afraid.”

  She met my gaze, her own emotionless. “He won’t let me. I have to wait outside. Mattie, he’s risking a lot to do this. It’s his way or not at all.”

  “Will it hurt?”

  “Yes.” She never flinched. “He can’t give you any ether. He said it relaxes the uterine muscles and can make you bleed too much.” She swallowed and her throat worked. “He’ll give you morphine, but you won’t be completely asleep. I can come and sit with you when it’s over. Then we’ll go home. We have to leave before it gets dark.”

  I looked around the room. The instruments were hideous. I reached out to touch one, and JoHanna’s voice stopped me.

  “Don’t touch anything.”

  “Are there others?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Are there other women having this done? Where are they?”

  Still she hesitated. “No. This is special.”

  “Then why is he doing this for me?”

  She took a breath, gauging how much truth to tell me. “Because he doesn’t have a choice.”

  I didn’t want to know what she knew that was forcing a doctor to risk his career, his freedom, his future. She saw the paralyzing fear on my face and spoke again.

  “No one in this room wants to be here. Not you, not me, and not him. None of us are sure we’re doing the right thing. But that doesn’t matter now. What matters is that you come through this safely.”

  JoHanna was the strongest person I’d ever known, but she couldn’t give me what I needed. “You’ll wait outside?”

  “Right outside the door.” She reached out to me. “Mattie, it’s not too late to change your mind.”

  “How much does this cost?” I hadn’t even thought of money. Why hadn’t I thought of the cost? I would never be able to pay JoHanna and Will back.

  “Money isn’t an issue here. It’s the last thing to worry about.” She waved her hand in the air, brushing it aside.

  She looked back through the open door of the room. A shadow moved on the opposite wall. The doctor was out there, waiting. By the way he shifted, I knew he was impatient.

  “I have to go,” she said. “Mattie …?”

  “Go.” The word was barely a whisper.

  “Take off your underwear and get up on the end of the table. Just lie back and close your eyes. Don’t open them for any reason. Don’t look, and that way you won’t have anything to remember.”

  She was talking fast, desperate. She was scared, and that made me afraid. What if I died? What would she do with my body? She couldn’t leave me in this barren room. How would she get me back to Jexville?

  “Oh, Mattie.” She turned and fled the room.

  I took off my undergarments and didn’t know what to do with them. Lying on the floor they looked obscene. I balled them up in my fist and held them and got up on the hard, narrow cot. I closed my eyes and waited for the door to shut.

  The doctor did not talk to me. I held my eyes as tightly closed as possible. I tried to remember summer days when Callie and Lena Rae and I played in the field behind the house. Days before Jojo, when the red clay dirt and Mama were all we needed.

  When he hurt me, I didn’t cry out, but concentrated on staying perfectly still. He never said I was pregnant, but he didn’t say I was not. He did not talk at all.

  He lifted my arm, turned it so that the bend was exposed. There was a sharp bite. I tried to draw away from him, but he held me, his grip much stronger than I’d anticipated.

  “It’s morphine,” he said. He put my arm down and stepped away from me. I could sense that he had withdrawn. I heard him at the tray, the rattle of those metal instruments. I wanted to cry, but I was afraid he would leave in disgust if I did. He cleared his throat, but the noise was strange, something deformed trying to make a sound.

  In the darkness beneath my eyes there was a strange swirl of noise and color all blended together. There was the sound of a large bird calling my name and the pulse of water against land. I opened my eyes a tiny slit and saw him, a man of middle age with glasses and a worried expression. He was standing beside me and he lifted my arm. There was the feel of some restraint and I tried to struggle, but my arms were mine no longer. My body did not respond to my command to flee.

  “You have to be very still,” he said. There was no emotion in his voice. No sympathy. No anger that he’d been forced into this situation. “The morphine will help, but it may hurt. Please try not to scream.”

  I tried to talk but my mouth was dry, my lips thick and gummed together. He positioned my legs and the pain began.

  How long it lasted, I can’t say. At one point, JoHanna hovered over me, crying herself as she held a towel to my mouth to muffle the sounds I was making. There was trouble. I heard it in the panic in her voice and he doctor’s response, now electric with concern. My heavy body wanted to get up, to leave, but I could not move. Whether it was the straps or the morphine, I couldn’t say. I gave in completely to my terror and guilt and shame.

  I awoke in a dark tunnel. In the distance there was the sound of children singing. I knew if I moved to the sound, I would be saved. Their voices would lead me to safety. JoHanna was calling to me, but I wanted to go with the children. The tunnel was black, and I ran. At the very last minute I stopped. There was a steep ledge. Below were the children, all looking up and waiting. They held sharp instruments and their eyes were blank, hungry. Fire burned all around them, and there was the smell of sulfur. I felt my throat ripen and explode with the scream.

  “Mattie.” There was the whisper of a cool damp cloth over my face. “It’s over, Mattie. You’re coming around.”

  My eyes felt glued shut, but after the dream I wanted to open them and see where I was. I knew it had been a dream. A nightmare. But my heart was still pounding and I felt as if something had been ripped out of my body. “Am I going to die?” My voice was raspy, raw, and it hurt to talk.

  “No.” JoHanna put the cloth on my eyes, letting the cool water seep beneath my lids.

  “The doctor?”

  “He’s gone.”

  “Can we leave?”

  “In a bit. If you don’t start bleeding again.”

  I tried to reach down my body, but JoHanna caught my hand.

  “Don’t, Mattie. Just be still.”

  She gave me a tiny piece of ice. The nausea was almost instant, and she held me while I heaved into a pan.

  “Try not to do that,” she said as she wiped my mouth. “It can start the bleeding again.”

  I nodded, unwilling to risk speech. What was going to happen to me? I opened my eyes. I was still in the same room, still lying on the narrow cot. The only difference was the slant of light in the window. It was late afternoon.

  “We need to leave here, if you can,” JoHanna said. She looked around nervously. “I’ll go and get the car and bring it to the back of the stairs. You wait right here. Don’t try to move.”

  I wouldn’t have moved for a million dollars. My body was on fire. It throbbed with a burning pain that made me sick. I had not asked what they would do to get rid of the baby. I hadn’t wanted to know. Now I would never forget.

  Time meant nothing as I waited for her to return. I would drift away for small fragments of time, coming back to a reality that was too awful to be real. But I knew it was, and I
waited. I heard her step and heard the door open. I felt her hand on my arm. With her help I sat up and forced my eyes open again. The room was the same. For some reason that amazed me.

  “If you can make it down the stairs, we’ll head home.” She picked up my hat from the floor and put it on my head, adjusting the veil.

  I had no faith I could make the stairs, but I had no choice. We needed to go. I heard the desperation in JoHanna’s voice. It was a long ride home. It was getting dark.

  “Duncan?” I asked.

  “Floyd will take care of her.” She grasped my elbow. “Duncan is fine, Mattie. It’s you I’m worried about right this minute. Once we get home, everything will be better.”

  I slid from the table and felt my feet on the floor. I was amazingly steady, and with JoHanna’s support, I walked across the room and down the stairs. The cramps started again when I was in the car seat, but I didn’t say anything. JoHanna was already worried. Once we got back to Jexville and I could lie down, I’d be fine.

  “Go,” I told her as she got behind the wheel.

  And she did. Faster than Will drove and with less regard for anyone else on the road. We drove into the setting sun, and I closed my eyes and entered a red-hot place where blood ran down the walls and babies screamed in a distant room.

  Sixteen

  WE stopped in Jexville only long enough to retrieve Duncan. She and Floyd were at Nell Anderson’s. I cowered in the car seat, webbed in nightmare images, while JoHanna went in and rounded up Duncan, Floyd, and the rooster. In a matter of moments, we were, all five, on the way to Fitler and JoHanna’s Aunt Sadie.

  As soon as Duncan and Floyd caught sight of me, they fell silent. JoHanna asked about their day, apologizing for being so late. “Mattie is sick,” she said. “Aunt Sadie will know how to help her.”

  “Where’s Mr. Mills?” Duncan asked.

  “He has to work. He couldn’t come.” JoHanna pressed the gas harder, pushing the car to a reckless speed on the rutted road. In the three hour drive back from Mobile, my body had come fully awake. The pain was so large, so intense, I couldn’t begin to say where it came from. I wanted to curl into a ball and hide. Not even the mention of Elikah’s name bothered me. He could not hurt me worse than I was already hurting.