The Art of Breathing

by Janie DeVos

  The audience went wild, with some of the patients actually coming out of their seats and excitedly jumping up and down. When they did, I wondered if the staff members along the walls were starting to mentally run through their plan of action in the event that the audience’s heightened excitement turned into uncontrollable bedlam. Realizing that something needed to be done immediately to quiet them, Dr. Sandell disappeared backstage for several seconds then returned with a fedora in hand. He whispered something to Nurse Silvers at the piano as he passed her then, holding up his hand to silence the noise of the crowd, he set the hat on his head at an angle and began crooning a very decent imitation of Frank Sinatra singing “Night and Day,” accompanied by Nurse Silvers at the piano. That was all it took to silence the audience. This was a side of the good doctor that we had never seen before, and would likely not see again, and no one wanted to miss a second of it. Somehow, we all felt privileged to be witness to it. The audience remained respectfully quiet through the last note of his song, then, as if in thanks for Dr. Sandell’s gift, the crowd’s behavior was perfectly polite as they applauded him, and it remained so for the rest of the evening.

  When the show ended, the psychiatric patients were immediately assisted back to their wards, as were the other patients who were not ambulatory. Roberta and Jane had walked on ahead, while Annabelle and I were slowly making our way back toward building three when she abruptly stopped. “Durn! I left my sweater on the back of my chair. You want to wait for me or go on ahead?”

  “I’ll go on, if you don’t mind. I’m ready for bed, to tell you the truth.”

  “You go, then,” Annabelle said. “I’m in no hurry. I’ll see who might still be hanging around. We don’t get enough time to socialize, if you ask me.”

  I laughed. “That’s because we’re all sick, Annabelle! As the aide told me when I was being admitted, this ain’t the Ritz. But go, and have fun. I’ll see you back in the ward.” We turned in opposite directions.

  I took my time, savoring the beautiful night. I’d gotten as far as the old overgrown band shell when I heard footsteps rapidly approaching. Thinking that Annabelle had changed her mind and decided to come on back, I turned around. “You’re fast . . .” But it wasn’t Annabelle. It was Philip McAllister.

  “So I’ve been told,” he quipped.

  I had to laugh even though the double entendre was a little bold. “I thought you were Annabelle.”

  “No doubt. Unless you’re waiting for her, I’ll walk back with you.”

  “She told me to go on. Good show tonight, wasn’t it?” We started down the path.

  “I’m still trying to decide which I liked better”—he mischievously smiled—“Sandell’s singing, or the impromptu hobbyhorse attack.”

  “The Cubs could use someone who can swing like that,” I pointed out.

  “They could, indeed!” He laughed. “But the whole team would be afraid of her.” We walked on for a moment in comfortable silence. The night was clear and cool. It felt wonderfully refreshing after being in the stuffy auditorium. Even with all of the windows open, it had been too warm.

  “Do you have a minute to see something magical?” He saw my hesitation. “It’s just over at the koi pond.”

  Philip didn’t strike me as the type to be overly dramatic, so I was curious as to what he found so magical, especially in a place like Pelham.

  “All right,” I said. We took our time getting there as we enjoyed talking about the evening’s performances. We passed our building and the gardens, and the tree where Philip had talked Captain Crow down from his nest, then finally neared the pond.

  “This only happens at night during certain times of the year, and is best when the moon is full. Tonight’s one of those perfect nights.”

  “What is it?” I laughed, but Philip was giving nothing away.

  “Patience, m’lady, patience.” We had left the walkway for the path that led to the koi pond and then it came into view. “Look,” he whispered in awe, sweeping his arm out in front of us.

  All around us were thousands of flowers that had opened themselves up to the light of the moon. Even though their bright yellow color was hard to distinguish in the soft glow, their beauty wasn’t. Their petals were softly rounded, and reminded me of a girl twirling in a circle skirt. The flowers’ heads gently bobbed in the light breeze, as if nodding their approval of our being there as witnesses to their extraordinary nighttime outing.

  “Night-blooming evening primroses,” Philip softly, almost reverently stated. “Beautiful, aren’t they?” I softly answered yes, awestruck. We just stood there, absorbing the wondrous sight.

  Finally, Philip broke the quiet. “C’mon, let’s sit for a few minutes and enjoy it.” Taking a narrow trail that had been made by thousands of feet seeking the comforting refuge of the pond over the years, we made our way around to a bench on the opposite side.

  “Back home, we use the oils from the plant for skin problems,” I said as I sat down.

  “Oh, you’re familiar with evening primrose?” Philip sounded surprised and a little pleased.

  “Oh, sure! Mountain folks have used it since long before I was born, and probably before my grandmother’s grandmother was, too. I know the Cherokee have used it forever, and where I come from—Howling Cut—we use what the Cherokees use. Evening primrose is good for a lot of things. I know that my grandmother Willa once gave it to my father for his hem—” I caught myself in time, but was mortified by what I’d almost said.

  With a smug smile on his face, as though he knew exactly what I was about to say, he urged me on. “Your grandma gave it to your dad, why?” His smile grew bigger as I grew more uncomfortable, and I could see he was trying not to laugh. When I didn’t answer, he goaded me on. “C’mon. You’ve got me curious now. What’d your grandma use it for?” He definitely knew. “Okay,” he said, “I’ll tell you what. If I guess and guess right, you have to sit next to me Wednesday during movie night. If I’m wrong, then . . .” He was thinking. “Then—”

  I jumped in. “Then you have to let me help in the garden. By the way, how do you know so much about gardening?” I changed the subject rather than respond to his request to sit next to him on movie night. Surely he realized I was married, because I never went without my wedding band. But perhaps he didn’t care. I did, though.

  “I’m the product of Illinois soy bean farmers. My parents had over a hundred acres of them, and we raised some corn, too. I learned a few things about crops over the years,” he modestly replied. “And as far as you working in the garden, you’re on restricted activity, aren’t you? I’ve seen you outside, watching us work, and with this look on your face like there’s nothing in this world you’d rather be doing than digging in the dirt. But I figured you must be restricted because I’ve only seen you do it that once.” He was referring to the afternoon he dug next to me while I cried. “You have a connection with the earth, just like I do.”

  “I love working with it. And once I’m off restricted activity, you’ll have to make room for me in the garden. You oversee some of the patients working in it, don’t you?”

  He confirmed that he did. “I guess the powers that be saw that I got along all right with most of the patients, including the not-so-all-right psych ones. And since there aren’t a lot of extra orderlies and aides around to watch everyone, I was asked to help manage a few of the patients—a mixture of non-psych and low-risk psych patients—during some of the gardening shifts. Gets me out of my room and involved with something I love. It just makes the days go faster; otherwise time crawls in this place.”

  “If you don’t mind my asking, Mr. McAllister, what did you do in Chicago, and what brought you here?”

  “First, call me Philip. Secondly, I’ll gladly answer those questions if you answer the one I asked a minute ago: What did your grandma use the primrose for?”

  “Hemorrhoids,” I blurted out. And we both laughed until I started coughing hard.

  “Okay, easy there, la
dy. Easy.” The smile on his face faded into empathetic concern, and he placed his arm around me for support. I turned away to conceal what I expectorated into a wad of tissues I pulled from my pocket. It took me several minutes to stop coughing and catch my breath, but for me, the laughter had been worth it.

  “I’m okay,” I said, moving forward slightly, and he removed his arm. I looked over and saw the kindness in both his smile and his eyes. “Why are you smiling?”

  “You’re a brave little thing, that’s all.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. There’s just a determination in you. Not self-pity or resignation, but real determination.”

  “Well, that’s the only thing that’s gonna get us out of here, isn’t it?” I laughed.

  “That’s exactly what I mean! You’re a little fighter, Kathryn. Is it all right if I call you by your first name?”

  “Well, considering we’re in a sanatorium, fighting for our lives, I don’t see the sense in polite formalities, do you?”

  “No, not really.” He smiled. But when we looked at each other, we could read the sadness in each other’s eyes, born from the cruelly unfair situation we found ourselves in.

  Awkwardly, I steered us back to the conversation which my coughing had interrupted. “Okay, I answered your question about the primrose’s alternate purpose, so now you have to tell me what you did in Chicago, and how you ended up here.”

  “Well,” he began, “I taught eleventh grade physics at the Mozart School in Chicago for a year. But after a particularly bad winter, I thought I’d see what the South might have to offer as far as employment. As luck would have it, the University of North Carolina, Asheville, was looking for an adjunct physics professor, and voilà, here I am.”

  “So you contracted TB down here?”

  “Out West, actually. This ain’t my first rodeo, kid.” He glanced over at me. “I’ve been hospitalized before. The first time was when I was in the navy. I joined up fresh out of high school, barely eighteen, but the war was winding down and I wanted in. I was based at the Naval Medical Center in San Diego as a private first class. I worked alongside the medics; I was considering going into medicine then.” His voice got softer as he remembered. “God, there were so many casualties coming in from the Pacific Theatre. We almost couldn’t keep up.” Philip stared off in the distance, past the beauty of the primroses, and I knew that he was seeing distant places and once-familiar faces that had been the center of his world then, but were now reduced to small, fading memories.

  “Anyway”—he shook it off—“there was an outbreak of TB, and I was one of the unlucky twenty-three who came down with it. The irony of it was that I didn’t have to go overseas to almost get killed in the war. Fifteen of the guys who got sick made it, including yours truly, but eight weren’t so lucky. I was in a sanatorium in California for thirteen months. For a while there, I didn’t think I’d make it out either. And to make a long story short, I went back home and back to school, got my PhD in physics at the University of Illinois, taught at the Mozart School, and then at UNC Asheville. I loved that job, too, and was only six months into it when I started coughing up blood again. X-rays showed a recurrence of lesions and the beginnings of a cavity. The veteran’s hospital in Oteen was full, but Pelham was close and had room, so here I am and have been for the last five months. And that, dear lady, is it in a nutshell.”

  I nodded but said nothing. There was nothing to say other than perhaps I’m sorry, or That’s too bad, but I knew that wasn’t what he wanted to hear. In just the tiny fraction of time I’d been around him, I guessed that he would hate being pitied, perhaps even more than losing the battle to this persistent disease. I had the feeling that Mr. Philip McAllister liked to look ahead, toward the future, at the possibilities it might hold, instead of dwelling on painful faded photographs of the past. I just prayed that there was a future to take pictures of.

  CHAPTER 20

  A Visit from Santa

  I had been at Pelham for almost three months, and had had no visits from anyone other than family members. For some of my Cabot friends, the distance was too far. Others, however, were simply too afraid to come to a place like this, and I couldn’t blame them. I wrote letters often, though, which helped to pass the time, and I received them on a regular basis, too. Each one I read was a precious little reminder that I had a life beyond my illness and that I was missed by those I had shared it with. So, it was an unexpected surprise when George Eisenhower, the director of the Cabot Children’s Home, came to see me one Sunday afternoon. He would be attending a conference in nearby Asheville for several days that week and had decided to take advantage of his proximity to Pelham to visit me. The day was beautiful and not overly warm for early July, so we occupied two chairs on the veranda outside of the dining hall.

  “Kathryn, you are sorely missed at the Home. For some reason the vegetables aren’t growing as abundantly as they do when you’re overseeing them, and I’d be willing to bet my bottom dollar that they’re not going to taste quite as good either.”

  “You’re prejudiced. I’m sure they’re growing just fine. George”—the tone of my voice changed from one of light banter to seriousness—“have any of the kids come down with TB?” I was afraid to hear his answer.

  “No, Kathryn, none have.” His answer was straightforward. We sat facing each other, and he reached across, grabbed my hand, and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “And no one is on any preventive medicine either, so rest assured, good lady, that all is well.”

  “Oh, George, you don’t know how relieved I am to hear that!” My eyes welled up. “I’ve worried myself sick over it.” I closed my eyes for a moment. “Thank you, dear, sweet Lord! Thank you. Now”—I refocused on George—“tell me all the news. How everyone’s doing—the kids, the teachers, et cetera!”

  “Everyone’s doing well, Kathryn, and we’ve actually had two adoptions since you’ve been gone.”

  “Oh, that’s such good news, George! That’s wonderful.”

  “Well, the bad news is that we’ve seen an increase in residents because of this new polio epidemic. If it’s not one disease it’s another; or another war, for that matter. First we’re overwhelmed by orphans from the TB epidemic and World War II, and now orphans are coming in as a result of polio and the Korean War. This balding head of mine is the result of every one of their heartbreaking stories.” Sadly smiling, he rubbed the top of his shiny head.

  I smiled, too, but out of great love and affection for this man I’d grown so close to over the course of just a few short years. And for the thousandth time, I thought about how much he looked like Santa Claus. In many respects, he was a real life version of the holiday icon, for not only did he look like Santa, with his “broad face and a little round belly,” he also gave so many children the wonderful gifts of love and security, not to mention a birthday gift for every child under his care, and little goodies at the holidays, as well.

  “So what are you thinking, George? That you’ll have to put on another addition?”

  “Well, yes. In a way, yes,” he cryptically answered, with a twinkle in his bright blue eyes. I’d seen that look before and knew my good friend had plans. And from the way his eyes sparkled, I figured they were mighty big ones. “My dear,” he said, leaning toward me with his forearms resting on his short, thick thighs, “I have a proposition for you.” I leaned in to hear it.

  CHAPTER 21

  A Birthday

  I went to the early nondenominational church service that was one of two offered every Sunday morning in the small chapel next to the auditorium. It was the first time I’d been to the nine o’clock service, as opposed to the eleven o’clock, and I was a bit surprised to see both Philip and Dr. Sandell in attendance. Afterwards, some of the congregation milled about on the veranda, enjoying coffee and cookies, but mostly the socializing.

  Dr. Sandell and I were standing off to the side of the snack table. He was munching on a ladyfinger. My a
ppetite had been off even more than usual in the last week, so I just had coffee. The truth of the matter was that I was feeling worse these days, and I dreaded seeing what the new lab results would show. I was scheduled to have them done first thing in the morning, but pushing aside my troubling thoughts about what might be discovered, I turned my attention to the doctor. “Dr. Sandell, had I known you were going to sing Frank Sinatra at the talent show, I’d have made sure I had a front row seat. You did a wonderful job!”

  He laughed. “Ah, Kathryn, you flatter me. I do appreciate your kind words, though, even if there’s not a grain of truth to them.”

  “You nearly had her swooning, Doc.” Philip had joined us. Reaching over to the refreshment table, he grabbed a macaroon. “Honestly, she reminded me of Lois Lane being overwhelmed by just the proximity of Superman.”

  “Ah, you two bolster one’s ego, but I think your medications have affected your hearing. There was nothing ‘super’ about my singing, but I thank you immensely, regardless. By the way, Kathryn, happy birthday.”

  “How did you know?”

  “A little birdie named Harriet told me. She’s working this weekend because a couple of the nurses are on vacation, but she was hoping there were enough on duty so she could join you and your family later this morning. Coincidentally, my daughter’s birthday is July fifteenth, too.”