The Art of Breathing

by Janie DeVos

  Pushing myself up from the chair, I took off my beige sweater, stepped out of my brown loafers, rolled up the sleeves on the yellow cotton blouse that I wore under a dark green jumper dress, and not caring in the least that they were about to become damp and muddied, headed for the farthest row in the garden, which was only now being prepped for planting. There were no tools around for me to use, but I didn’t care. Kneeling down in the dirt, I buried my hands in it as deeply as I could. I needed to intimately connect with the soil. I needed to feel it and have it feel me. I needed its warmth and reassurance that it was still there for me. Using my hands as a sieve, I began clearing away small pebbles from the brown-black soil, and plucking away defiant weeds. Finally, my tears began to fall, moistening the soil as they did. Slowly, inching down the row, I sobbed, abandoning myself to my intense anger and sorrow, and the frustrating powerlessness I felt about so much of my life and, more importantly, the life of my son. Suddenly, my deep sobbing was interrupted by violent coughing, and I braced myself on all fours as my back arched and heaved with the desperate intake of breath and the forceful bloodied expectoration from my diseased lungs. Pulling a handkerchief from a large pocket on the front of my jumper with a dirty, shaking hand, I spit the nauseating phlegm into it and waited for the attack to subside. Once it did, I was left completely winded and exhausted, so I stayed still, giving my body a chance to return to its new version of normal. Then, very slowly, I resumed my digging, only this time I wasn’t alone.

  Turning my head to see who had found me out, I saw Philip McAllister kneel down in the dirt about ten feet away from me and begin sifting the soil just as I was doing. He looked over at me and I could see the deep compassion on his face. Then he softly spoke just two words: “I know.” He said nothing after that, and I didn’t speak at all as we continued working together in silent understanding until we finished the row, leaving it ready and ripe for the planting.

  CHAPTER 18

  The Great Divide

  “Of course, I wouldn’t, Kathryn! I wouldn’t do anything if you were that opposed to it, and obviously you are about sending Donnie to Penmire. God, Kathryn, you’d think I was trying to sentence him to hard labor at Salisbury Prison!”

  “To a five-year-old child, it will feel like you’ve done exactly that, Geoffrey.” It was taking every bit of self-control I had to speak calmly to him. I’d actually taken the time to eat dinner before calling him. I was so angry or scared or both that I didn’t trust what I would say to him, so I decided I would get some food into me and talk with my ward mates before I called him. Returning to my ward, I found that the women had already gone down for dinner. Quickly changing out of my soiled clothing, I joined them in the dining hall and told them about Mama’s visit and the conversation she’d had with Geoffrey.

  As I was quickly learning, our newest ward mate, Marsha Beckley, was a level-headed person, with two nearly grown children of her own. She was a tiny woman, but what she lacked in size, she made up for in courage. A widow who had lost her husband in World War II when his plane was shot down over Germany, she and the children had been stationed overseas in England with him, and upon his death, she’d pulled herself up by the bootstraps and promptly gotten herself and the children back to the United States. She’d raised them in her hometown of Spartanburg, South Carolina, on a secretary’s small salary and large doses of good sense and love. Over dinner, Marsha readily offered her advice on the importance of staying calm, cool, and collected, especially given the fact that I was in a position of limited control.

  “Remember, honey”—Marsha pushed her tray aside, rested her forearms on the table, and leaned in closer to me as if to emphasize her words—“your husband’s not just a lawyer, with his own firm behind him, but he’s the father of your boy, out there in the world, free to make whatever decisions he chooses without too much worry about you gettin’ in the way. It’s a man’s world, unfortunately, and that’s especially true when a man has the power that yours does. Stay calm, stay cool, and buy yourself and your boy some time until you can get back out there and have a real say in how things are gonna be.” Her words rang true, and just underscored what I already knew.

  “Geoffrey, you hated Penmire, so how could you even think about sending Donnie there? It’s bad enough that I’ve been taken out of his life right now, but to remove yourself from his life for the most part, too . . . I’ll tell you this: Donnie will think that you’re removing him from your life because he’s an unwanted, inconvenient part of it. That would be the cruelest thing you could ever do. And hear me when I tell you this, Geoffrey, you will live to regret it. For Donnie to come home only on holidays, or to just see his family on the weekends, would crush him. And it’d crush me.” I stopped to catch my breath, and to stop myself from saying what I really wanted to say: You’re a thoughtless and selfish man, and not the person I thought I married.

  “Kathryn, why are we even discussing this? He’s not starting school for almost four months. Hopefully, you’ll be well, or at least well enough to come home and continue your treatment here, and then we can all resume our normal lives and this whole subject will be moot. Donnie will attend school here in Cabot, and you can personally take him and pick him up every day if you like.”

  “Don’t patronize me, Geoffrey.” My voice was deep, flat. I felt like a mother panther protecting her young from a circling predator. “September isn’t far off, and prior to starting school, a child has to be enrolled, given the proper vaccinations, uniforms have to be ordered, et cetera. Schools will be closing for summer vacation in another month, so now is the time to enroll him for the coming year. Wherever Donnie’s going, he’s got to be enrolled immediately to start on time in September. You know it, Geoffrey, and I do, too.”

  “Fine, Kathryn.” He was keeping himself in check, as always, but I knew him well, and I could sense the anger simmering just below the surface. “Then you tell me where you think we ought to enroll him.”

  “Enroll him in either George Washington Primary, which is a wonderful public school and the closest to our house, or Chesterfield Academy, if you insist on sending him to a private school. I’m fine with either. Though, honestly, Geoffrey, if you truly want to know where I’d like him to go, it’s Howling Cut Elementary. Let him stay with my—”

  “Absolutely not! Under no circumstances will a child of mine attend a hillbilly school in the backwoods somewhere. That is out—”

  “That ‘backwoods somewhere’ was my home, Geoffrey! And one I’m very proud of. I think we need to hang up now before we say anything more we’ll regret.” Taking a couple of deep breaths—as deep as I could at that point, anyway—I forced myself to calm down, and to stifle the cough that I could feel rising in my chest. I didn’t want him to think I was too sick to make clear and rational decisions for our son. Swallowing hard in a useless attempt to hold off my cough, I added, “Geoffrey, I know this has been as hard on you as it’s been on Donnie and me. For the sake of all of . . .” My coughing worked its way up and out. I held the receiver close to my body to mute the sharp bark-like hacking; it took a minute or so to pass, and another to catch my breath. “Are you still there, Geoffrey?”

  “Yes, Kathryn, I’m here. You sound worse than ever! What are the doctors saying, and what are they doing about this?”

  I didn’t want to be sidetracked from our original conversation. “I’m all right, Geoffrey, and the doctors are doing everything they can. Getting back to what we were saying, let’s try to resolve things by finding a middle ground and respecting each other’s feelings. We’ve built a wonderful life together, and created a beautiful child. Let’s not let my illness corrupt every aspect of our life together. Donnie loves you and needs you and I need you to be there for him. Please. I know it’s difficult, but you have to carry the weight for both of us right now, even if it’s an inconvenience.” It pained me to even say the offensive word.

  “First of all, Kathryn, Donnie is not an inconvenience. I’m just trying to do what�
��s best for him and for all of us, and placing him in a school that will attend to him twenty-four hours a day, making sure all of his needs are met, seemed like a good solution.”

  “Donnie is not a problem, requiring a solution. And, no, Geoffrey, Penmire would not be able to meet every one of his needs. What he needs most is to feel loved and secure and wanted, and he won’t find that at any school, much less one that cares so much about shoes being polished all shiny bright and knowing which fork one should eat one’s ambrosia with!”

  “Maybe not, Kathryn, but just like those shoes you mentioned, he’d be polished and shaped and groomed into becoming the young man we want him to be.”

  “No, Geoffrey, you want him to be. All I want for him to be is happy. Listen, I need to hang up now. The rest hour is starting and we aren’t supposed to be on the phone. Please, call either Washington Primary or Chesterfield Academy and get him registered for the fall semester. Will you do that?”

  “Yes. I’ll take care of it. I’ll see you this weekend.”

  “All right, Geoffrey, thank you. I’ll see you Saturday . . . and I’ll look forward to it.”

  “I will, too, Kathryn,” he said, immediately followed by the sound of a click as he hung up the phone.

  As I softly hung up my phone, too, I knew we were both lying.

  CHAPTER 19

  A Hobbyhorse Rodeo

  The auditorium was not quite full, but staff members were standing along the walls just the same. They were to provide security, as well as assistance in case of any sudden health concerns during the show. Some of our biggest orderlies and aides had been assigned this shift with both purposes in mind. The auditorium’s massive size allowed a maximum occupancy of 632, though there were probably no more than three hundred patients in attendance. However, the crowd included many low-risk psych patients, and losing control of even a fraction of them while gathered together in one large room with just three exits available was unthinkable.

  Everyone looked forward to this event all year, if for no other reason than the diversion it provided from our everyday routine. From what I was told, the administrative staff had begun to have the annual talent show many years before, when Pelham was strictly a tuberculosis sanatorium, and it was still put on now for the same reasons as it was years ago. It was easy for depression to set in here, and that was especially true for the many patients who were never visited by anyone outside of the facility. Whether visits were impeded by embarrassment, fear of contagion, or mere distance was anyone’s guess, but the fact remained that many a patient saw no one from their previous life from the day they drove through the sanatorium’s gates until the day they drove back out. That fact resulted in widespread depression, which had to be treated as well as the patient’s primary illness. Suicide was not unheard of, and occurred more often than staff or patients cared to think about. So, the sanatorium’s administration did what it could to add enjoyment and variety to the patients’ lives.

  The show’s lineup of entertainment included any patient who was deemed safe and sound enough to participate, and those same qualifications held true for the patients in the audience. The event was highly anticipated, talked about, planned, and practiced for. As might be expected, some of the acts were strange, to say the least, but entertaining they were, and everyone who planned to attend readied themselves with great gusto as they selected their nicest street clothes (if they were permitted to wear them), while the performers rifled through old stage costumes that had been provided decades before when money was more available. Women worked on each other’s hairstyles and makeup, all the while discussing who would be performing in the evening’s show, as well as gossiping about who would be necking with whom in the audience once the lights were dimmed. For some, it was the rare opportunity to have a “date” in a strange imitation of what they’d known outside the sanatorium’s walls. It was not unusual to see a woman wearing the lovely linen suit she’d worn upon being admitted, while on the arm of some male patient wearing his worn overalls and farm boots because those were the only remnants of clothing that he had from the outside world. No one cared. Everyone was just happy for the chance to be happy for a night.

  The TB patients were relegated to the balcony. The irony was not lost on any of us that those with the most severe pulmonary issues were being asked to climb a flight of stairs in order to stay as far away from the others as possible. There was an elevator, but only those in wheelchairs, or using canes or walkers, were allowed to use it. So, like the invalids that we were, we helped each other up the stairs. Marsha was recovering from a segmentectomy, the removal of a section of one of the lower lobes in her right lung, and had stayed in bed. As frightening as it was for her, it was commonly done, and as her doctor explained, removing this area where cavities kept recurring might prevent her from yet another relapse and might just send her into remission once and for all. Hearing those encouraging words had Marsha practically throwing herself onto the surgical table and personally handing the scalpel to the surgeon.

  Annabelle and I found seats together. Three other women had been admitted to our ward in the last two weeks, and while two of them were given FBR orders, the other, Jane English, attended the talent show with us and sat next to Roberta at the end of the row below Annabelle and me. When Jane first arrived, she seemed nearly as meek and mild as dear Peggy. However, we quickly found out that unlike Peggy, Jane loved to gossip, much to the delight of Roberta, and the two became bosom buddies almost immediately. No one’s reputation was safe where these two women were concerned, and it grated on my nerves, as well as Annabelle’s.

  I felt we had enough to worry about without having to concern ourselves over how such-and-such had happened to so-and-so. I couldn’t keep far enough away from their mindless chatter, though I tried to by staying outside. Fortunately, the weather accommodated my desire for lots of outdoor hours, as did Dr. Ludlow through his approval. Another fortunate thing was that my cavity had shrunk in size, though by just a couple of millimeters; but still, I was improving.

  The lights on the stage came up and our weekend nurse, Ida Silvers, began to play “Me and My Shadow” on the piano, which was set up on the far left side of the stage. Sounds of the tuberculars chuckling and then coughing rolled through the rows in the balcony. The title of the tune was a little black humor for those of us whose lives were dictated by the shadows on our lungs. We all knew that if we didn’t do a lot of laughing in order to keep a positive attitude, we’d end up doing a lot more crying, and dying.

  At the end of the song, Dr. Theodore Sandell walked out onto the stage to enthusiastic applause and cheering. Tonight, he would be the show’s master of ceremonies, but by day, he was the facility’s assistant director. A wise man of great wit and unending patience, he was far more visible and readily available to patients and staff alike than was the actual director, Dr. Bernard Schwartz. The consensus was that Dr. Schwartz was not much more than an expensive empty suit, who was away from Pelham far more than he was in attendance. But no one seemed to miss him much, for the very capable Dr. Sandell handled the goings-on at Pelham with amazing skill and thoughtfulness.

  “Thank you, thank you all.” He held his hand up to quiet the crowd. He was not deaf to the increase of coughing, and wanted everyone to settle down. “All right, ladies and gentlemen, let’s get this show on the road, shall we?” More applause. “First up, we have Betta Knowles doing what I’m sure will be a splendid version of Marlene Dietrich’s ‘Falling in Love Again,’ from the movie Blue Angel.”

  The brightly illuminated stage dimmed down to a single blue muted spotlight. A woman walked onto the stage wearing a black, sequined evening gown, feathery purple boa, platinum-blond wig, and sporting a long black cigarette holder, complete with burning cigarette. Polite clapping was cut off by the piano as Nurse Silvers began to play an introduction. The audience was spellbound, caught up in Betta’s transformation. Slowly, she took a pull on her cigarette holder for dramatic effect then began to sing in
perfect imitation of the German-born actress’s famous song in a low, husky, accented voice. She mesmerized the audience, and I looked around at people’s expressions, as fascinated by their reactions as I was by the singer herself. Faces were softly illuminated by the spotlight. Some watched with mouths slightly ajar and eyes open wide, while some seemed overcome with emotion and wiped their eyes or quietly blew their noses. And some of the patients were gently smiling, including Philip McAllister, who happened to catch me looking over at him.

  It startled me to see someone looking back. It especially startled me to see that it was he. I quickly turned my attention back to the stage as Betta, aka Marlene, finished her song. Loud and long applause, accompanied by cheers of “Bravo!” were her reward, and she shook Dr. Sandell’s hand as she exited stage left and he walked back on.

  “Wasn’t she something?” he enthusiastically asked. “Well, that’s going to be a hard act to follow, but if anyone—or any two—can do it, it’s this couple: Lloyd Bishop and”—I was waiting for the name Maude Mosby to follow—“Linda Houser”—who?—“singing the ever popular Dale Evans and Roy Rogers tune, ‘Happy Trails.’” Oh, Lord! I bet poor Maude is fit to be tied! She and Lloyd were our regular cousining couple during the afternoon’s gardening hour, and I couldn’t imagine she was thrilled with this duo now prancing out on the stage atop homemade broomstick hobbyhorses, and dressed in full cowboy and cowgirl regalia.

  Suddenly, a woman stood up in the back of the main level. We were sitting above her and at a bit of an angle, but we could see her nevertheless. Unsurprisingly, it was Maude Mosby. Though her face was in partial shadow, I could still make out that she was mad just by the way she was standing: stiffly erect, with hands clenched into fists by her sides. Meanwhile, Roy and Dale had set aside their hobbyhorses and were strolling side by side, arm in arm, gazing into each other’s faces as they went on with their song. And as they did, Maude moved out of her row and down the aisle toward them. Her stomping added an accompanying drumbeat to Nurse Silvers’s piano playing. Once Maude reached the stage, she climbed up the stairs, and grabbing one of the broomstick hobbyhorses, proceeded to swing it at a very startled and very horrified Dale Evans, who screamed and immediately ran off the stage, exiting through the curtain on the left, followed by Maude and the thick whacking sound of the mop-headed hobbyhorse. Meanwhile, the faux Roy did exactly what the real Roy would never have done: He ran the other way, exiting through the curtain on the right.