The Art of Breathing

by Janie DeVos

  “Are you feelin’ that much worse, honey?” I could hear the worry in her voice. I assured her that I wasn’t. It would do no good to tell her the truth. “Well, all right, I guess,” she acquiesced. “We’ll wait till a week from Wednesday to come, but only because I understand your concerns about Donnie. Don’t worry about the drive, though, honey. We’ll make it a nice outing. I’ll pack us a picnic lunch or we’ll stop and get somethin’ along the way. You just let me know if we can come, and what times y’all are allowed visitors.”

  “I already know that visiting hours are from ten to one, then three thirty to five in the afternoon, and seven to eight in the evening. Could y’all come around eleven, then head back after one? I don’t think Donnie can manage more than a couple of hours sitting reasonably still—especially in a place like this. We’ll have to visit outside though, because they don’t let anyone under sixteen inside the facility. But they have plenty of covered porches and verandas if it’s nasty out.” We talked for several more minutes about what they’d been doing with Donnie before I glanced up at the clock above the nurses’ station and realized how late it was getting. “Mama, I hate to do it, but I have to go. I need to give Geoffrey a call before dinner. Right after we eat is rest time, and they don’t like folks to use the phone then. Listen, I’ll give you a call later this afternoon to let you know what my results were and if the doctor still says it’s okay to have visitors. Maybe Donnie will be around this afternoon, too, and I can talk to him.”

  “I’ll make sure he’s here, honey. He’s gonna want to talk to you, too. Figure you can call around four?”

  “Yes, that’s a good time. Mama . . . thank you for everything. You don’t know how much I appreciate what you and Daddy are doing. I love you so much and miss . . .”

  She heard my voice break. “Darlin’, it’s gonna be okay,” she quickly assured me. But I could hear the emotion in her voice, too. “You’ve got to have faith that you’ll get through this. You’ve been through bad times before with the scarlet fever, and you came out of that okay. You’re going to pull through this, too, Kathryn. You’re a tough little gal, honey—always have been. Now, you go ahead and call Geoffrey, then call back here later. We’ll be waitin’ to hear from you, okay? I love you, darlin’.”

  “Okay. I love you, too, Mama.” I couldn’t seem to say it enough, or hear it enough these days. “Talk to you later.” I set the receiver down in its cradle and stared at it as I let the sound of her voice linger in my head for just a moment longer. Then, after looking around to make sure no other patient was waiting to use the phone, I dialed Geoffrey’s office number. His secretary put me right through to him.

  “Kathryn, hello! I’ve been waiting to hear from you! How are you feeling?”

  “I’m doin’ all right, Geoffrey. It’s so good to hear your voice! Are you doin’ okay?” He confirmed that he was, then asked me what I thought of Pelham. “It’s a good place,” I could honestly tell him. “I like my doctor real well and everyone I’ve met so far.” I repeated what I’d told Mama. “If I can have visitors, when would you want to come out?”

  “I was thinking about a week from Saturday, if that’d be all right.”

  “That would be good. Mama said they’d come a week from Wednesday. Speaking of visiting; when do you think you’ll go see Donnie? Being away from both of us has to be breaking his little heart. Do you think you can manage a trip out to Howling Cut pretty soon?”

  “Maybe in a couple of weeks or so, Kathryn. Work has been especially busy. I’ve been working six, sometimes seven days a week. I just can’t take more than a day or so away from it right now. I might just have to leave early one morning, visit with him for a few hours and head back that night.”

  “Oh, Geoffrey, couldn’t you put work aside this once and spend the weekend with him? Just getting a few hours here and there with us won’t be enough. It’ll be hard on him.”

  “I’ll try, Kathryn, honestly I will. Let’s see how this week goes, and if I can get Walter and the new man, John Egan, to cover what I’ve got going on with three new patents coming through, then I’ll take a weekend off soon. Okay?”

  “I guess it’ll have to be.” I could hear the irritation in my voice, and I silently scolded myself for it. I wanted to sound cheerful when I spoke to my family, even if it was forced. On the other hand, I wanted Geoffrey to understand how important it was that he be the father Donnie needed him to be. This was a critical time in the foundation of their relationship, and depending on how attentive he was to Donnie’s needs, and how selfless he was about his own, could either leave deep fractures in that foundation, or give it strength and cohesion. “Geoffrey, I need you—Donnie needs you—to be there for him now. This is a scary time in his life, and he’s confused and sad. He needs your reassurance that no matter what happens to me, you’ll always be there for him, and that you’ll do whatever it takes to be with him. He needs to know that he’s not secondary in your life, but the most important thing in the world, without question. He’s your son, Geoffrey, and he’s hurting right now.” I was breathless and started to cough.

  “Kathryn, you’re upsetting yourself for no reason. Do you think I’m unaware of the role I play in my own son’s life? I work as hard I do to provide all the good things in the world for you two; to give you both everything you want and need. And if my time is limited because of that, well, I expect you to understand the reason why. I assume as our son grows, he’ll not only understand but appreciate all of the sacrifices I’ll have made in order to give you both what you desire.”

  “Geoffrey, we do love you for all that. But don’t you see? It’s not what you can give us in the material sense that matters as much as your time and love. I don’t know how to make you understand that. I know you’re doing what you think is best for us, but at least for now, will you spend a little less time at work and a little more time with Donnie? Please?”

  “I’ll try, Kathryn. But I can’t let the firm suffer because of it.”

  “But, Geoffrey, your son is suffering.” I sounded tired, and I was more exhausted than I’d ever been before. “Listen, I have to hang up now. The nurse just told me it’s time for dinner, so I have to go. I’ll let you know what my test results are.”

  “Yes, please do. I want to know. And, Kathryn, I promise, I’ll be there for Donnie.”

  “You need to promise him that, Geoffrey. Promise Donnie. I have to go now. I’ll talk to you soon.” I softly set the receiver down, and stared at it. How could a man who was blessed with a son as wonderful as Donnie choose not to spend as much time with him as he possibly could? I thought about all of the patients in this one hospital alone who would give everything they own to have the joy of spending more time with their families, doing those little everyday things that are so taken for granted. Life is packed full of ironies, I thought. And it seemed to me that most of them were just downright cruel.

  CHAPTER 16

  Spirits of the Darkness and Light

  The light tapping of the rain awakened me from my afternoon rest period. I wasn’t getting wet, though, as the light wind was blowing the storm away from my window rather than through it. Though the tapping of the rain was soft and comforting, it was not the usual sound filling the ward, so it disturbed my sleep. Ironically, the endless harsh, ragged coughing of others no longer kept me awake, staring at the ceiling, hour after hour; only my own coughing did. It was a world I was quickly becoming accustomed to in the week I’d been at Pelham.

  It was only midafternoon, but the storm had muted the light. On sunny days, it was usually hard for me to sleep, lying next to the open window beside my bed. Above or beside all sixteen beds in the ward were windows. My bed was at the far end, and only one of two whose window was beside it rather than above it. I was glad I’d been assigned to that one because the window was low enough to look out while still lying in bed. From what I was told, the windows were always open, no matter the season, or the time of day. On colder days, additional blankets
were piled onto our beds and on one particularly cold night, one of the women in the ward slept in her parka. Fresh air was supposed to accelerate “The Cure” for our battered lungs, and it helped to lessen the spread of our contagious disease by keeping the air circulating. Though it could be uncomfortably cold, I figured that come July and August, the cooling breezes would be a great relief. The damp air was another story, however. It seemed quite likely that it would kill us rather than cure us if we ended up with a bout of pneumonia, which was a common ailment among the tuberculosis patients. It was the deadliest and most feared complication.

  Sighing with both frustration and resignation, I adjusted my pillows so that I could sit up a little higher and look out the window. If Nurse Silvers came in, she’d read me the riot act for not lying flat on my back. Rest, rest, and more rest, the thin, middle-aged night nurse was so fond of reminding us. Her other favorite saying was, One needs a backbone not a wishbone to get well. She reminded me of a little hen running from the ax in Mama’s chicken coop. She moved quickly, no matter what minor errand or chore she was involved in, with her eyes darting this way and that. And she constantly pointed out the should-do’s and the can’t-do’s for every patient under her care, no matter how limited or unlimited each one’s daily activities might be. Nurse Silvers went by the rules in the hospital’s rule book as if it were the Holy Bible, and the recitations of her favorite sayings were making us sick from their endless repetition.

  But she wasn’t the only one who irritated me. In just the short time I’d been there, I’d witnessed some of the staff treating the sane tuberculosis patients much as they did the insane ones. And no doubt some of the former had slipped over the line into a gossamer world of blissful detachment in order to escape the boredom, not to mention the constant worrying about death.

  Staying positive was as hard to do as taking a deep breath without coughing. It wasn’t just worrying about my own health, but also the health of the other women in my ward. I quickly learned that our moods were quite dependent on each other’s progress as well as our own. When Peggy came back from her monthly X-ray after finding out that two more lesions had formed, and her large cavity had not decreased in size, we all suffered with her. That day left each of us quietly withdrawn, staring longingly from our windows at the world beyond the high fence. It wasn’t a world that we were allowed to be a part of. To any passersby who caught a glimpse of us peering out, we must have looked like pitiful personifications of Rapunzel trapped in her tower.

  I was drawn out of my melancholy thoughts by sounds outside my window. Dr. Ludlow had come out of the building and was standing on the porch, talking with a middle-aged couple I’d seen arriving earlier during visiting hours. Both the man and the woman were listening closely to what the doctor was saying, leaning in toward him as if they were hanging on his every word. To watch them, one might think the couple was hard of hearing, but I had witnessed that scene before: the look of great despair on faces belonging to the family of those being left behind. It was a look created partly by guilt and partly by sadness, with a pinch of hope in the mix, as well.

  The couple spent several more minutes with Dr. Ludlow, then the man briefly shook the doctor’s hand, while the woman could do nothing more than stare down at the tops of her shoes while wiping her nose with a handkerchief. They turned away from the doctor and then the woman clutched the man’s arm as they walked down the front steps into the soft rain. Neither one had an umbrella, but neither did they hurry or even seem to notice that they were getting wet. Perhaps, they simply did not care. As they slowly made their way toward the visitors’ parking area, the doctor watched them go. I could only make out his profile, but it was enough to see the grim look on his face. Even from the window, I could see the set of his mouth. There was anger there, or frustration, perhaps both, but it remained there even after he turned back toward the front door and walked away, out of my line of vision.

  For the brief second I could fully see his face, I saw the weariness there. He had to be tired. But perhaps it was the victories of reuniting families with their loved ones that kept him going. Perhaps that made it worth it to him to keep going back through the front door. With nothing more to see, I lay back against my pillow and thought about all the people who had come and gone over the years, both the patients and their loved ones. I thought about my own arrival at Pelham, and the admissions process I’d had to go through, as countless others had before me and no doubt countless others would, long after I was gone. I also thought about the fact that I was not only one of the patients, but also one of the witnesses to the suffering of other patients; people who had become confidants, friends, members of the makeshift families we created. In many ways, watching their suffering brought the worst pain of all as we found hope for our own recoveries by watching theirs. And when they slipped away from us so did that hope—our most precious lifeline.

  When it became clear the cavities in Peggy’s left lung weren’t healing, the doctors decided that it was necessary to perform an aggressive and painful procedure called an extraperiosteal thoracoplasty. Small sections of three of her ribs were removed in order to fill those areas with paraffin oil that would compress the diseased area of the lung. It all seemed more than the small, fair porcelain doll could bear. We watched her vibrant youth seemingly fade overnight, leaving her an even smaller, more shriveled-up version of herself.

  Then, several days after the procedure, Peggy developed pneumonia. The doctors kept her sitting up in bed to help prevent her from drowning in her own fluids, and we sat quietly by her, watching her slipping and losing a hold on this world. After the pneumonia set in, it didn’t take as long as it took the good Lord to create Heaven and Earth before Peggy breathed her last raggedly shallow breath and gently closed her eyes on a life that was cruel and unfairly short. Annabelle, realizing the end was near, had crawled into bed with her dying friend and had remained there, holding her and whispering words of comfort, until Peggy was finally released. The rest of us on the ward, having seen Annabelle get into bed with Peggy, realized what was happening and respectfully left them alone. We called no nurses or doctors, for this was a time that was to be shared among patients alone.

  We knew the end had mercifully come when we heard Annabelle call out Peggy’s name in a wounded sob. Quietly, we gathered around the bed, holding hands while shedding our last tears for her. I began to recite Psalm twenty-three, and the women joined in, then Marsha Beckley, who’d been admitted just two days before, led us in singing “Amazing Grace.” When the last note died down, all was still. No one wanted to move, for when we did, Peggy would have to leave us forever. Finally, I broke away from the circle to press the nurses’ button, saying a silent prayer of thanks as I did so that it was Dana who was on duty that day; then I rejoined the women as we waited in patient silence.

  I heard Dana walk in a moment later. She walked over to us, peered between Roberta and me, and upon seeing Peggy, softly and sadly uttered, “Oh, dear.” Then Dana asked us to please allow her to check Peggy’s vitals to confirm what was so apparent to all of us, for her sunken chest no longer heaved in a fruitless attempt to trap a good lungful of air. I stepped aside to let her through, but no one waited for Dana’s confirmation. Instead, we turned away and retreated back to our beds and our grief, except Annabelle, who went into the bathroom and threw up.

  Lying in bed, I looked out the window. I wasn’t watching anything, really. It was just my way of retreating into a small world of my own, cutting off everyone and everything around me for a little while. I had always needed time to myself, and I especially longed for it now. I needed time to digest the loss. Even though Peggy had been such a fragile, soft-spoken woman, there was a soothing strength to her. We had dubbed her “the balm of the ward.” She never got angry, nor pitied herself and her situation, though she hated the fact that her illness separated her from the husband she so dearly loved, and hated the sadness it caused him. But Peggy always found something to smile about, even
in her darkest days. Now, the balm was gone, leaving a noisy emptiness in her wake.

  One of the doctors on duty was summoned to pronounce Peggy’s time of death; then an orderly was called in to remove the body. With my back to the room, I shielded myself as best I could from the tragic scene playing out behind me, and focused on the activity below. The evening’s visiting hours were nearly over and I watched people depart down the front steps of our building. As they descended the last step, umbrellas popped up against the light drizzle, and then they moved away from the glow emanating from the porch and the building’s many windows, and out into the deepening gray of the parking lot. Headlights cut through the fog, creating ghostly pathways as vehicles navigated down the long drive toward the front gate. God, how I wished I was riding in one of them! I’d thought the same thing on Saturday as I watched the visitors leaving, Geoffrey being one of them.

  He’d come every Saturday, and only missed one in the five weeks I’d been here, when he spent the weekend in Howling Cut. I was only too happy to give up that visit because it meant he and Donnie would finally have some time together. According to Donnie, they’d had a fun time, but Daddy didn’t like baiting the hook and asked Papa if there wasn’t just a good seafood market to buy trout. Papa laughed so hard that he knocked the can of worms into the creek, so we had leftover meatloaf for dinner. Daddy took all of us to the ice cream parlor afterwards and we got milkshakes! Lord, how that had done my heart good to hear him tell it. I wished it’d done the same for my lungs.

  As planned, Dr. Ludlow had gone over my test results performed the day after I’d been admitted. Comparing them to the ones taken at the Flat Rock clinic less than a week earlier, Dr. Ludlow could see a slight enlargement of the cavity in my lung, and the development of two more lesions. He wasn’t overly concerned with the changes at the time the two sets of tests were taken. He immediately started me on the antibiotic cocktail of streptomycin, para-aminosalicylic acid, and the newly discovered isoniazid.