by Lisa Alther
When she really faced up to it, Mrs. Babcock couldn’t place herself in the vanguard of her profession of parenthood. She had been committed to endowing the world with three decent, imaginative, hardworking citizens. But she had to say now that she’d failed. There was nothing much wrong with her offspring, but they clearly weren’t the superior beings she’d envisioned. It wasn’t easy to admit that perhaps your life had been wasted. Having done so was possibly why she had found herself hemorrhaging in the emergency room on the first anniversary of her husband’s death. In any case, it was definitely the reason why she was scouring these last two volumes of the encyclopedia so greedily. If assuring the continuation of the species wasn’t what she was on earth for, what was?
There was a soft knock at her door. Normally the staff didn’t bother knocking, and visiting hours were in the afternoon. Who could it be? The door swung inward. A stream of words came from the next room: ‘…I don’t want to hear no excuses. You git out there and you do like I tell you, boy. You run till you drop, and then you pick yoursef up and you run some more. Do you understand? Do you understand? No excuses. Do you understand me or not?…’
A young woman stood in the doorway. She was dressed in stained white overalls such as housepainters wore and a faded navy blue T-shirt that had writing of some sort on it — ‘Sisterhood Is Powerful,’ whatever that meant.
‘Hello,’ Ginny said. Her mother looked up from her encyclopedia, then looked back down with indifference. Ginny couldn’t detect any hint of recognition. She was hurt. She hadn’t come all the way from Vermont to be not recognized by her own mother, for Christ’s sake.
‘How are you feeling today?’ Ginny asked.
Mrs. Babcock looked up again and studied the friendly young woman. What did she want anyhow? Who was she — a young nursing trainee from the lab? That might explain the unbecoming white work pants. Mrs. Babcock was an intriguing case to the staff. Strangers were forever popping in to poke at her bruises and take blood samples, but rarely were they so insistently sociable. ‘Which one are you?’ Mrs. Babcock asked in a hoarse, tired voice.
Ginny stared at her. Was it the drugs? ‘I’m Ginny, Mother.’ Her mother looked at her as though sorting through a stack of names and faces of other daughters.
‘Oh yes, of course, Ginny.’ But she was taken aback. She had seen Ginny yesterday, had accustomed herself to the notion of Ginny’s presence, had been expecting her to appear today. But what she had been expecting was the Austrian mountain girl from The Sound of Music, not this housepainter’s apprentice. Who, pray, was Ginny today?
Ginny was waiting to be told how nice it was of her to come all the way from Vermont. ‘From Vermont,’ she added pointedly.
‘I’m aware of that.’ Why was it that when someone was flat on her back, everyone immediately started patronizing her?
Ginny walked to her mother’s bed, leaned down and kissed her lined forehead. She felt her mother studying her quizzically, critically. Backing over to a chair, she plopped down in it and braced herself for complaints about her appearance, her posture, her failure to write once a week. A beam of sunlight through the window fell across her mother’s blanket at knee level.
‘Pretty day,’ Ginny suggested. When in doubt discuss the weather, she had learned at Tupperware parties in Stark’s Bog.
‘Is it?’ Mrs. Babcock rarely noticed the weather here in her hospital room, rarely glanced out the window. Doing so, she discovered that the leaves of an elm tree outside her window were a bright yellow-green. A red squirrel perched chattering on a branch.
‘It’s still June?’ Mrs. Babcock asked.
Ginny nodded yes, startled.
‘How’s your infant and your charming husband?’
Ginny grimaced. She longed to come clean right from the start and admit that Ira had kicked her out for cuckolding him — although in fact it hadn’t been like that all. But she and her mother had never been noted for candor. ‘They’re fine, thank you.’
Miss Sturgill came leaping in like a Cossack dancer and said brightly, ‘Good morning, Mrs. Babcock. How are we today?’ She nodded briskly to Ginny and then said to her mother, ‘All ready to go?’
Closing her eyes, Mrs. Babcock asked wearily, ‘Where is it you’re taking me now?’ If only they’d all go away and leave her alone with her bruised body. Here she was, supposed to be resting and recovering; and yet she was having to function like the hostess of a television talk show, humoring Mrs. Childress with her sciatica and the candy-striped volunteers with their tedious craft program, trying to figure out how to engage Miss Sturgill and Ginny in a conversation. It was exhausting.
‘To the porch. For lunch.’ Miss Sturgill folded back Mrs. Babcock’s bedcovers and helped her sit up.
The sun porch struck Ginny as a cheerful place, with windows on three sides and views of pine trees holding squirrels and bird feeders. In the distance was the Major’s factory with its billowing smokestacks, the ocher Crockett oozing in front of it. And beyond the factory were the scarred foothills blotched with housing developments, one of them Plantation Estates, where Joe Bob and Doreen were living.
Three other patients — two women and a man — were already seated around the Formica table. She and Mr. Solomon recognized each other at the same time. ‘Why, hello, Virginia!’
‘Hello, Mr. Solomon.’ She had always known him. He sold class rings to the Hullsport High students, had sold Joe Bob the huge ring that the Major had made her return. He’d also sold the Major the watch he’d given her for high school graduation. The tan plastic-covered matchbox of a couch trembled as Ginny plopped down on it. How come Mr. Solomon could recognize her when her own mother couldn’t?
‘Home for a visit?’ he asked.
Ginny nodded.
‘Where is it you live?’
‘Vermont.’ Ginny was amazed at the ease with which this lie rolled off her tongue. She no longer lived in Vermont, but Vermont would have to serve as her official place of residence until she could figure out someplace else.
‘Vermont, Vehrr-mon. Green Mountain. Lovely state, Vermont.’
‘You’ve been there?’
‘I’ve ridden through on a bus. My boat from Germany after the var vent down the St. Lawrence and docked at Montreal. I’ve never been so happy to see any place in my life. I rode a bus to my uncle’s in New York. It vas vinter. In Vermont the snow vas piled up along the road six feet high. I thought to myself, good God, vhat kind of people could live in a place like this. So now I know — Tennesseans.’ Everyone laughed.
‘Luckily, it’s only under snow half the year,’ said Ginny.
‘Good, good. You’re married?’
‘Well, yes,’ Ginny said with a quick glance at her mother.
‘Children?’
‘One. A little girl.’ With this admission came a sharp pang of desolation. By the time Ginny left, the interior of Ira’s house had looked like a flood plain after a flood. Toys, dishes, books, clothes, were strewn everywhere by little toddling Wendy. Like a tornado, she left a wake of destruction in her path. Ginny had finally stopped even trying to keep walkways cleared through the rubble. But actually the debris that Ira was always ranting about wasn’t debris at all. It played a vital role in their family ecosystem. Wendy was a cheery little spider in that cave of a house, who spent her days spinning shimmering webs of fantasy out of whatever material was at hand. Watching her at play among the cabinets and drawers and bookshelves had ushered Ginny back into the musty chambers of her own childhood. Through Wendy she had been able to hack out new toe holds in the slippery face of her past. She felt a tremendous debt to the little girl, a debt she was defaulting on by having left her. Where was Wendy today? What was she doing? Was she happy? Ginny began chewing her nails.
‘Ah, children!’ Mr. Solomon exclaimed. ‘Take my advice and have a houseful.’
‘Well, I don’t know…,’ Ginny said. Why was it that this piece of advice always came from people past menopause? She wanted to ask him how
he felt, what was wrong with him, why he was here. ‘Still selling class rings?’ she asked instead.
‘Ach, these kids today! They don’t buy rings like you did. In their ears. That’s how they vear rings today, girls and boys. Not on their fingers.’
‘So you’re selling lots of class earrings now?’
He chuckled. ‘I did sell earrings. I sold lots of earrings before I came here.’ He fell silent.
The electric chimes on the Southern Bapdst church began playing ‘Some Very Special Someone.’ Ginny looked up with horror. ‘What is that?’
‘The electric chimes Mr. Solomon installed at the Baptist church,’ Mrs. Babcock informed her hastily. ‘Aren’t they lovely?’ Ginny nodded with a tentative smile. After six of the twelve bongs to announce noon, the chimes were totally blotted out by the harsh protracted noontime whistle from the Major’s factory. No one anywhere in Hullsport could fail to know that it was now emphatically noon.
‘This is Sister Theresa, Ginny,’ her mother said. ‘Sister used to teach at St Anthony’s.’ Sister Theresa blushed and studied her plate intently. ‘And you remember Mrs. Cabel?’
Ginny nodded with a polite smile at the drooling Mrs. Cabel, remembering her swaying on a rickety piano stool as she pumped the organ with both feet and pounded out ‘Jesus Loves the Little Children of the World,’ while singing loudly in an off-key soprano. Now Mrs. Cabel was completely absorbed in trying to raise a forkful of rice to her mouth, guided by her crossed eyes. She kept spilling grains on her lap and stabbing her chin with the tines.
After lunch Ginny held her mother’s arm as they walked slowly back to her room. Her mother sat on the bed. Leaning against Ginny’s arm, she swung her legs up. Ginny found this proximity to her mother’s body very difficult to take and averted her eyes from the yellow gown that stretched tightly across her mother’s breasts. Here it was — the Forbidden Flesh, the Taboo Torso. And it was black and blue, and puffy and in pain. Ginny shut her eyes tightly with grief as she pulled the covers up around her mother’s chest.
All these bodies that she wasn’t permitted to lust after. First her mother’s and the Major’s, her brothers’. Then Wendy’s. But there was no denying that the bond between Wendy and herself was intensely physical. The most severe physical pain she could remember had been during Wendy’s birth. The most intense joy had been during her conception, or perhaps during breast feeding. Of the pain she couldn’t remember, undoubtedly battering her way out of her mother’s birth canal had been the most severe; and being suckled and bathed and cuddled and cooed at must have been the most intense joy. Both Wendy and her mother she thought of largely in association with certain sounds, smells, carresses. And yet her interest in them both was expected to be platonic. It would be so much simpler and cheaper than a lifetime in psychoanalysis if the entire family -her mother, the Major, Karl and Jim, Ira and Wendy — had just gone to bed together in one writhing mass some night and acted out all their repressed desires. This technique, applied on a nationwide scale, would force one analyst after another into bankruptcy. Western civilization would collapse once and for all, which would probably be an incredible relief.
As an infant, Wendy would wake in the night crying. Ginny would change her and wrap her in a flannel blanket and carry her, as cuddly as a baby kitten, into Ira’s and her bed. Outside, icy branches would etch lacy designs on the frosted windowpanes, and the spring snows would drift soft and deep. Wendy would nurse noisily, kneading Ginny’s bursting breast with her chubby fingers as Ginny’s other nipple burned and spurted and demanded equal time. In the moonlight through the window Ginny and Wendy would gaze at each other with mutual contentment. Ira would stir in his sleep and wrap his arms around them, and the three of them would fall asleep there until morning.
Had her own mother felt these things about her? Ginny glanced questioningly at her mother’s round yellow face. Surely not. Her mother was loath to admit that Ginny even had a body, had blushed and stammered every time the topic of sex had come up around the house.
As Wendy grew older, a routine developed. Her ears pricked like a fawn’s for early morning noises, Wendy would call out when she heard her parents stirring, ‘Mommy, come find me!’ Ginny would go into her room and search the drawers, the hamper, the bookcases. The more unlikely the places, the more it delighted Wendy. Finally Ginny would pounce on the giggling wiggly little mound and carry her off to Ira’s and her bed, where the three of them would make a tent with the covers and snuggle together with Wendy in the middle.
Often Wendy would grab one of Ginny’s nipples and lisp, ‘Wha dis?’
‘My nipple.’
‘Me drank milk there, right?’ She found this unlikely story hard to grasp and kept going over it to be sure she had it straight.
‘Right,’ Ginny would say firmly, determined not to pervert Wendy’s nascent sex life by acting embarrassed, as her own mother always had on similar occasions. Ira would laugh silently, and she would blush as her nipple became stiff in Wendy’s fingers.
Wendy would touch her own tiny nipples and say, ‘My nipples. For my babies.’
‘How many babies are you going to have?’ Ira would ask. She would hold up stubby fingers, one at a time. Seven, eight, nine. ‘Nine?’ He would laugh. “You’re going to be very busy feeding them all.’
‘Mommy can help me,’ she’d say solemnly.
Shit. Why was she torturing them all like this? Why not just go back to Ira and have another baby, damn it? He was a kind man, a devoted father, a reliable wage earner. She knew he would welcome her back if she went about it the right way…
Her eyes still shut with pain, Mrs. Babcock said with forced heartiness, “Well, thank goodness I’m not as bad off as Mr. Solomon and Sister Theresa.’
‘What’s wrong with them?’ Ginny asked dully.
‘Mr. Solomon has emphysema, and Sister Theresa has cancer. But they’re just keeping me here for a while to be sure I don’t have anything serious. Then I can go home.’
She sounded to Ginny like a small child trying to talk herself into believing that there were no monsters under her bed. ‘What do they say you have?’ Ginny asked, interested to hear what her mother’s version would be.
‘Dr. Vogel says I have idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura.’
“But what does that mean?’
‘A clotting disorder, that’s all’
‘Caused by what?’
‘Cause unknown. Idiopathic. “Not preceded or caused by any known condition.”’
‘So how do they know how to treat it if they don’t know what causes it?’
‘They don’t know what causes cancer either, but they treat it, don’t they?’ She looked up at Ginny pleadingly. ‘When can I go home?’
Ginny looked back with dismay. The tables had turned; her mother was looking at her as though she were the one in control of the situation. ‘I don’t know, Mother. I just got here. You know more about it than I do. I haven’t even seen Dr. Vogel. Who is Dr. Vogel, anyway? Where’s Dr Tyler?’ Ginny was accustomed, when being around her mother, to sinking into a stupor of passivity as her mother took charge of everything, organizing, arranging, planning, scheduling. The ball having been tossed to her, Ginny’s inclination was to toss it back as quickly as possible.
‘He’s retired,’ Mrs. Babcock replied glumly.
‘How can he be retired? You don’t just stop seeing people you’ve cared for all your life.’
‘I don’t know. Ask Dr. Tyler. I guess he had to quit sometime.’
‘What does this Vogel say about when you can go home?’
‘I haven’t asked,’ she confessed miserably.
‘I’ll ask.’ It was like playing dress-up as a child — putting on her mother’s lipstick and spike heels and pretending that she was in charge. It was so ludicrous that Ginny almost laughed out loud.
Just then, as though summoned by their conversation, a beefy face crowned by a blond flat top appeared around the door. The face was attached to a tall
broad frame that looked like that of a defensive left tackle for the Minnesota Vikings. ‘How are we today?’ he asked cheerfully, glancing at a chart in his hand. Not waiting for an answer, he inquired of the air-conditioned room at large, ‘Hot enough for ya today?’ And then the head disappeared as abruptly as it had appeared.
‘Was that Vogel?’ Ginny asked. Her mother nodded yes, her eyes closed again. Ginny raced out into the hall, catching sight of a massive white back turning a corner.
She sprinted down the hall, her clogs clattering like the hoofs of a runaway horse. Her wide painter’s overall legs swirling like dust mops gone berserk, she skidded around the corner and almost ran into a huge white wall. Dr. Vogel turned around at the clattering and looked at Ginny with alarm.
‘Excuse me, Doctor. I’m Mrs. Babcock’s daughter, Virginia. May I ask you a few questions about my mother?’
Well, I’m pretty busy, Miss Babcock.’
‘Then I’ll just take a couple of minutes. What’s her prognosis?’
‘She has idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura.’
‘So I hear. But what does that mean?’
“Platelet insufficiency of unknown origin. Perhaps an autoimmune response. Perhaps a malfunction of the spleen, or a megakaryocytic disorder. Characterized by multiple petechiae and ecchymoses.’
‘The bruises?’
‘Hmmm, yes. Hemorrhagic bullae of the buccal mucosa are a common feature…’
‘I see,’ said Ginny, dazed. ‘Is she — like, you know — badly sick or anything?’
‘Please don’t worry about your mother, Miss Babcock,’ he said with a winning smile. ‘We’re performing batteries of tests. There’s quite an arsenal of treatments. If one doesn’t work, we’ll try another.’ He patted her shoulder paternally.
