Evidence of V

by Sheila O'Connor

  But bathing in the tub or brushing out her hair before the mirror at the sink, V tells herself she’s someone special still: a girl with secret talents, a girl imprisoned in a tower like Rapunzel. A girl destined to be greater than these yellow boots she’s knitting for the birth.

  Visitation Sunday, September 1936

  The first time Mr. C arrives he’s V’s thoughtful “Cousin Harold,” chauffeuring V’s sisters in his beautiful black Ford. (A secret hint smart V is quick to catch—Cousin Harold doesn’t drive.) Cousin Harold delivering V’s beloved older sisters: Lydia and Rose. (Ida far away with Baby Wesley in Cheyenne.) Proper Lydia pregnant just like V, but so much prettier in a Swiss dot dress their mother made last week. Sweet Rose in V’s old skirt. She’s home now from Milwaukee, and secretly divorced. A barely one-year marriage that Rose has managed to erase.

  Clean slate, Rose smiles. Mother says five years from now, no one will remember. Sweet Rose always on the bright side. I’m home with Mom and Ray; sleeping in your room.

  V so shocked to see her sisters that she cries. I can’t believe you’re here, she says, embarrassed by her great balloon of belly, her greasy pimpled forehead, her cracked hands calloused from the work.

  Thanks to Cousin Harold, Rose says with a wink. He’s parked down the road with all the other men. Too far away for V to even steal a glimpse. Female family members only at the school.

  And Mother? V asks, worried. She didn’t want to visit, too?

  Worn thin, like always, Lydia says, taking in the Morse Hall fancy parlor where the girls may greet their guests. Gleaming hard wood floors. Vases of fresh flowers the girls cut and arranged. You know how hard she works. And all your troubles haven’t helped her health.

  Cousin Harold says he’s sorry he can’t see you, Rose says to change the subject. But he sent you a few things. She hands V a fancy Dayton’s bag of tissue-papered gifts: silk stockings, lemon drops, an expensive ruby pin. Nothing V can wear or eat or keep and so the bag goes back to Rose.

  I can’t, she says, more tears hot on her cheeks.

  Oh sweet little V, Rose soothes, twisting V’s limp hair into a curl, wiping off V’s tears with her soft thumb. Cousin Harold hopes you’re singing. Is radio allowed? Have you heard Amateur Hour? Cousin Harold says you’ll be singing on that someday, and you’ll win. He says he’s never seen such talent. Never once. And I guess he’s a good judge—

  He did? V asks, unsure of fact or fiction. Mr. C, a family stranger, told all of that to Rose?

  Ah yes, dear Cousin Harold. Proper Lydia’s sharp sigh a scissor of suspicion. Did you know he bought Mother a brand new Philco? A radio when she and Ray can barely make their rent? Does that make sense to you, V?

  V shakes her head. It doesn’t. None of this makes sense. Her sisters’ sudden visit. A radio from Mr. C. Did he go to her apartment? Tell her mother who he was? The owner of the Cascade? The man who named their daughter Little Fox? The father of this baby? V doubts he told them that. And then to drive her sisters—

  He knew Mother would be lonely with V gone, Rose says, like all of Lydia’s suspicions should end with those few words.

  And is she? V dares, hoping for a yes. Does her mother truly miss V? Does she wish that V were home?

  I just find his generosity— Lydia says, her hands on her round belly while she’s staring hard at V’s. Well, don’t you find it odd, V?

  I guess, V says. Wishing she could see her man of minor honor. Her man who kept his word.

  [The inheritance of fiction.

  Fiction as survival.]

  “It cannot be said the labor of the girls is exploited.”

  —Handbook of American Institutions for Delinquent Juveniles, Vol. 1: West North Central States, 1938

  “Labor:

  Persistent exertion of body or mind; bodily toil for the sake of gain or economic production; those engaged in such toil considered as a group or class;

  Work or a task done or to be done; the product or result of toil; the process of childbirth.

  To perform labor; exert one’s power of body or mind; work; toil; to move with effort or difficulty; roll or pitch heavily as a ship; to be burdened, troubled, or distressed; to be in travail or childbirth.”

  —New Webster’s Dictionary of the English Language, 1980

  [Excerpted here from the rare gift that June bought me. College graduation. 1982.]

  [Examples of Labor ]

  1.The girls’ labor was undocumented.

  2.To maintain the school, the farm, the fields, the girls’ (unexploited) labor was required.

  3.V went into labor this morning.

  4.Will V’s labor ever end?

  5.V had a difficult labor.

  6.The doctor rested from his labor.

  A Difficult Labor

  1.

  The first pain hits V during laundry. V working the soap along the washboard leans against the metal tub and howls. A river of hot liquid rushes down her leg, pools like pee around her leather boots. November 3. Ten days overdue, but now this stubborn baby will be born.

  2.

  So much worse than V imagined. Could imagine. Could not.

  3.

  V has no words, just moments moving into moans. Wet washcloth on her forehead. A room at Higbee Hospital. A gag over her mouth to silence screams.

  4.

  Someone squeezing her small hand.

  Someone scolding,

  someone saying,

  You’ll survive.

  You’re not the first or last.

  5.

  Crushing waves of pain strangling V’s abdomen and back. A boulder. The baby is a giant boulder now.

  6.

  V just ninety pounds when this baby was conceived. Not even five-feet tall.

  7.

  Fifteen.

  8.

  Next time she’ll think twice, the doctor says.

  9.

  Eighteen hours later V howls into the night, feels the boulder smash her pelvis, her tailbone, her back. Push, the doctor orders. This baby isn’t going to get here on its own.

  10.

  Things inside V now:

  Forceps. Scissors. Hands.

  This baby.

  This baby not wanting to be born.

  11.

  The animal of pain that is V’s body. Living, breathing anguish V will not forget.

  12.

  Next time she will think twice.

  13.

  What she knows is finished.

  Done.

  Delivered.

  The sound of someone crying with her now.

  That thing.

  That thing.

  14.

  A girl, the doctor says. Another goddamn girl.

  15.

  He rested from his labors.

  Postpartum Dream One

  In V’s dream June is a cat, black-lashed and gray-bellied, mewing at V’s breast, begging V for milk. June’s a cat brought in a basket, a birthday gift from Mr. C, one V wishes to return, but she can’t say it. Instead V climbs a tree, the gnarled low-limb oak at Loring Park. V finds a rope, ties a noose around June’s neck. The cat’s too quick. V cannot kill the cat.

  Postpartum Dream Two

  While V sleeps there is a ship docking in a harbor, and her mother new from Norway walking down the gangplank with a steamer trunk of custom clothes she’s sewn for the rich.

  A woman walks a lion on a leash. Another wears a twist of fox fur knotted at her neck. We’re in America, one says, and they all laugh.

  June trails like a tail attached to V’s old coat, a foreign child frozen by some fear. You’re here, a tall man says as he lifts June to his shoulder, points out the Foshay Tower, the courthouse clock, the Cascade Club. She’ll need a ticket in this count
ry, he tells V. A ticket to the city.

  The Minneapolis skyline a dazzle of bright diamonds in the dark.

  [REPARATION]

  “In Minnesota, under a joint resolution adopted in July, 1918, by the State board of health and the board of control, hospitals and maternity homes must require their patients to nurse infants at the breast, as long as they remain under the care of the institution.

  [. . .] It has been the experience of the association that the appeal to the un-married mother to nurse her baby at least for the minimum period of three months as a kind of reparation for having brought him into the world so handicapped is an almost unfailing argument.”

  —Emma O. Lundberg, Children of Illegitimate Birth and Measures for Their Protection, Bureau Publication No. 166, U.S. Department of Labor, Children’s Bureau, 1926

  [June.

  A name that will be changed in two short years.

  And yet I call her June here

  in honor of that baby girl she was.]

  How They Bond

  From the dark crate of Higbee Hospital, the future is a pinhole of possibility, a tinfoil crown of someday V can’t live without. June screams while V dips into a dream, spreads her arms wide into wings, flies back to fifteen, Mr. C, the Cascade Club. June, a squalling, angry infant enraged at V’s hot breast. Nurse Kelly clasps June’s neck, coos shhh and shush to make a show of patience, but June rears her stubborn head. V’s milk a trick of poison June can’t trust.

  Let her know there’s love, Nurse Kelly orders.

  How? V asks, while Nurse Kelly shoves V’s raw nipple in June’s mouth.

  After Birth

  1.

  V begs to leave like Esther. Esther, daughter of a banker and ready to go home. Baby birthed at Higbee Hospital, then gone. No baby in the nursery. Rich Esther leaving on an ordinary Wednesday. Esther in a new blue dress to hide what might have happened. Esther disappearing in a Cadillac, as if that baby boy were never born.

  2.

  So why can’t V leave, too? Give the baby to a stranger? Because the Minnesota Resolution requires every baby born out of wedlock to be breastfed. Requires everyone, but Esther. A lesson V must learn: mother’s milk is best for these poor babies. The state can’t afford to feed them all. Next time you’ll think twice. V holds the angry baby to her breast, endures the excruciating latch, rooting June, June sucking, sucking, sucking, V’s nipples cracked and bleeding, scabbed, milk leaking down her dress while she scrubs floors, breasts engorged, breast infection and a fever, a hot hard lump the doctor must massage, hot packs day and night until V’s well, and still June feeds. Breasts put to proper use. Breasts for babies only. Babies only. V understands that now.

  “Handle the baby as little as possible. Turn occasionally from side to side, feed it, change it, keep it warm, and let it alone; crying is absolutely essential to the development of good strong lungs. A baby should cry vigorously several times each day.”

  —William S. Sadler and Lena K. Sadler, The Mother and Her Child, 1916

  Nursery Magic

  1.

  Slow as it unfolds, and unexpected. V’s the only person that can make June’s crying stop. June only calms for V, and V won’t let June cry. June’s wail is full of want that V knows well. The baby only asks for love; why not let her have it?

  2.

  So there is V swaying baby June until she calms. V singing hush-a-bye, and rock-a-bye, and “Tea for Two,” even that strange Norwegian lullaby her mother used to sing. Old country words V doesn’t really know and so she hums. V changing June’s soaked diaper, cleaning June’s chapped butt, V reeking of dried milk and spit, V warning all the officers—That isn’t how you hold her, rock her, burp her. V the fierce new mother of a baby she didn’t want.

  3.

  June blinks. June yawns. June smiles. June reaches for the rattle. June makes a fist around V’s fingers, won’t let go. June’s eyes follow V. June listens. June settles at the sound of V’s soft voice. June turns her head toward V. Dark-eyed June like Mr. C. A head of jet-black hair. June blows bubbles and she gurgles. June laughs. V teaches June to waltz; June loves to waltz. June holds up her head. June lifts up from her belly. June only likes to nuzzle in V’s neck. June won’t let the others hold her. She just won’t. Day after stubborn day, June insisting on V’s heart.

  Minnesota History Center Notes, January 10, 2001

  Our morning gone to research, June’s hips aching from the stiff-backed wooden chair, her eyes exhausted from the harsh fluorescent light, still she refuses to quit, refuses to leave her state-held papers for even an hour to grab lunch.

  You should eat, I urge, but June won’t budge.

  She’s deep into the adoption papers now, dissecting every sentence, taking notes on every detail of her early missing years. Pausing at the mysteries: Breastfed? I was breastfed for three months? I lived there as a baby? But then they took me? Doesn’t that seem strange? Cruel, too?

  It does, I say, confounded by a detail it will take ten years to solve.

  And look at this, June urges, her whisper verging on a tremble, except June doesn’t cry. Not ever in my lifetime. V wanted me, she did. It says so here: “V intends to keep her baby.”

  Proof June needs to show me, a revelation in the papers June wants a witness to record. Gray-haired June suddenly that infant taken from V’s arms. Even at fifteen, June says in awe, as if that one fact in the file is all we’d come to find.

  First Christmas June

  What V has for June today—a hand-sewn gingham rabbit, floppy eared, black whiskers stitched in thread, pearl buttons for the eyes; a bar of perfumed soap (V’s gift from Ladies’ Aid) that V will share; talcum powder from the matron; the knitted yellow boots; a winter land of icicled white trees, laced filigree frozen on the windows; Christmas morning silence; the gift of V’s young love. V’s promise of bright holidays ahead—how it will be once V is freed. Their someday tinseled tree; presents in bright paper; June ripping off the wrapping with surprise. Krumkake and pepperkaker, lutefisk and lefse; the perfect Christmas life V’s precious girl deserves. A warm apartment rich with rømmegrøt and pine; V singing “Silent Night”; sweet Rose on the piano; June in a special velvet dress and shiny shoes; a restless night of Santa dreams. In the life V dreams for June, Santa always comes.

  Babies at Minnesota Home School for Girls at Sauk Centre

  [What They Will Be Called in June’s Lifetime:

  Bastard. Illegitimate. Adulterated. Unfortunate.

  Baseborn. False and fake. Impure.

  Misborn. Misbegotten.

  Always misbegotten.

  Irregular, ingenuine, a sham.

  Damaged goods from the beginning.

  Unworthy and unwanted.

  Always damaged goods.]

  Collect

  Without warning, Rose and Mr. C come to “collect.” Collect, as if V owes them a debt, and June is what they’re taking in return.

  June, this baby born from V’s body, will be V’s mother’s baby now. V’s mother and sweet Rose at home to help.

  She’ll be in good hands with your mother, Matron Turnblad says. What better place than family for the child?

  Whose hands? Her mother’s hands exhausted from the sewing? The second husband’s filthy hands? V doesn’t want that man to handle June. She won’t, V says, clutching June against her chest. June needs me.

  It’s just until parole, Rose says, to reassure. She’ll be your girl again when you get out.

  V’s first hearing will be April; June can’t live without a mother for that long.

  But Esther, V says to Matron Turnblad. An argument V’s fought before, but she’s prepared to fight again. V wants her chance at justice: she can raise this baby that she loves. V and Mr. C the true parents June deserves. (Mr. C outside at this minute, posing once again as Cousin Harold in the Ford. He can marry V. He
must love V and June, or he wouldn’t be waiting now.) You let Esther leave. She didn’t even keep her baby. I’ll take good care of mine. You’ve seen it for yourself. June can’t be without me. We’ve never been apart.

  V, Rose pleads. She doesn’t want a scene here in the office.

  I know it was their money, V says, a flood of fresh tears dripping from her cheeks to June’s dark hair. Baby, baby, baby, V coos, swaying side to side. If V’s father owned a bank, she’d be home now. I can give you money.

  V, Rose says again. Her hand against June’s leg; June rearing back. June will be with family. And we’ll bring her here as often as we can. Cousin Harold’s promised—

  Good-hearted Rose always on V’s side. Still, V detects new greed in Rose’s eager, reaching hands. The rush to play new mother with her locked-up sister’s child. Divorced Rose, without a baby, can play house now with June.

  Say your last good-bye, V, Matron Turnblad orders.

  Hush-a-bye, V sings. Mother ache, a pain she’ll need to beat down to survive.

  V looks into June’s eyes, dark and wise and full of trust in V. What will she remember of V’s love? All their days of stories. Secrets V has shared. June’s fist around V’s finger; June’s fist around V’s hair. Noses tip to tip. June sucking on V’s cheek. Hush little one, V sings, kissing her own tears on June’s damp head. Baby, baby, baby. It isn’t quite a song. A song could end. This one V can sing until tomorrow.

  That’s enough, the Matron says, yanking June out of V’s arms. June screaming for V now. Screaming June handed off to Rose. Rose jostling and bouncing to make the screaming stop.