The Unfinished Child

by Theresa Shea

  When Marie MacPherson, a mother of two, finds herself unexpectedly pregnant at thirty-nine, she feels guilty. Her best friend, Elizabeth, has never been able to conceive, despite years of fertility treatments. Marie’s dilemma is further complicated when she enters the world of genetic testing routinely offered to older mothers and is entirely unprepared for the decision that lies ahead. Intertwined throughout the novel is the story of Margaret, who gave birth to a daughter with Down syndrome in 1947, when such infants were defined as “unfinished” children. As the novel shifts back and forth through the decades, the lives of the three women merge in an unexpected conclusion.

  * * *

  “The Unfinished Child is a compelling, unflinching portrayal of the complexities of motherhood and family.”

  —Jacqueline Baker

  “In The Unfinished Child, Theresa Shea trains her compassionate eye on the heartbreaking pressures and counter-pressures felt by the woman who has conceived a child with Down Syndrome. The novel is the debut of a gifted and sensitive writer, and one who has important things to say."

  —Merna Summers

  “The Unfinished Child is a heart wrenching and honest story. Shea's exploration of the lives of those affected by Down syndrome is unexpected, well-researched, and hopeful.”

  —Canadian Down Syndrome Society

  “Theresa Shea tells an important story of womanhood, motherhood, and friendship. I read The Unfinished Child in a weekend and was sad to say goodbye to the characters after I put the book down; they left a deep imprint on my soul. I love it when a book affects me that way.”

  —Gail Williamson, Founder/Director of Down Syndrome in Arts & Media

  For my children, Dashiell, Sadie Rain, and Levi

  There is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.

  —Vincent Van Gogh

  ONE

  1947

  At five in the morning, Margaret felt her water break—as if a crystal had been shattered by a lone, high note. An invisible hand, or perhaps the unborn child’s deft heel, flicked a switch and the floodgate opened. As the warm liquid rushed from her body she moved as quickly as her lumbering figure would allow from her reclined position on the couch, where she’d been elevating her feet to relieve the swelling in her ankles, to a standing position beside it. It’s time, she thought calmly. Finally it’s time.

  After carefully preparing for months, she was ready. An overnight bag sat packed beside her dresser in the bedroom where her husband, Donald, slept soundly. The nursery was equipped with all the necessities—a crib with a shiny white finish, an oak rocking chair with a padded cushion tied onto two of the back rungs, and a multicoloured mobile hanging from the ceiling above the crib.

  In the bathroom she removed her wet underwear and cotton nightgown and rinsed them in the sink. Then she washed her thighs with a warm cloth, wondering when the contractions would begin.

  Start a pot of soup, her mother’s voice echoed in her mind. That had been the only advice her mother had given her about labour. Keep yourself busy. There’s no knowing how long it will take, and you might as well pass the time by being useful. Farm women like her mother believed that leisure was as unnatural as a two-headed calf. Sleep was the time to do nothing, she used to say, and from the time her feet touched the wooden floor in the morning until the time they lifted off that floor at bedtime, her mother didn’t stop doing. Margaret watched her mother with a mixture of admiration and dread. The lines on her mother’s face stemmed from irritation and fatigue, not laughter. And her dark hair, tucked into a scarf, was constantly covered. She could have been pretty if she’d tried, or if she’d cared, but she’d spent her entire life keeping busy.

  Keeping busy was the one trait her mother had tried to pass on to her only daughter. To follow in her footsteps would mean living a life without joy.

  Garlic sizzled in the hot oil, an unusual sound and smell for the early morning hour. Margaret sliced into an onion and cut quickly before her eyes teared from the pungent fumes. The carrot skins curled against the peeler and dropped onto the cutting board.

  She thought of her mother, already up and working at the farm, and recalled the time she’d threatened to cut Margaret’s hair off if she spent one more minute brushing it. She thought of her father, tight-lipped, dusty, and stoic. She thought of her brother, gamely hiding his affliction as he shyly put his arm around Ethel, the girl from the neighbouring farm. She thought of stones in her back. And she thought of Donald, her young husband, asleep still and not knowing that today was the day.

  Thirty minutes later the first contraction tightened her belly into a shell as hard as a turtle’s. Then the heat came and she felt as if her torso were roasting over a flame. She held her breath and stared at the hard, moving swell of her belly, and she was both amazed and afraid. This was it. There was no turning back. No saying she’d changed her mind.

  The stories about childbirth she’d heard her mother and women friends talk about in corners and kitchens, with astonishing and descriptive details, sprang vividly to mind. Babies lodged inside birth canals. Forceps puncturing infant eyeballs. Infections and depressions. Detailed descriptions of the sounds and smells of new life ripping its way into the world. Her own mother’s voice describing her inability to have more children after Margaret. My labour was so hard that my insides ruptured after Margaret came out, sounding both proud and aggrieved at the same time. No, this was it; even if she couldn’t endure the pain, the pain would happen anyway. The labour would come, and the labour would go. That’s how time worked; both the things you dreaded most and the things you wanted desperately came and went. Margaret knew that by this time tomorrow she’d be a mother, and all the events leading up to her child’s birth would be behind her. She put her hands below her bulging belly and rocked herself gently. “Let’s go, little one,” she whispered, adopting a joyful tone, trying it out. “I can’t wait to meet you.”

  Outside the kitchen window the eastern sky glowed a soft pink. It would be another warm day, sunny with blue skies and the threat of an evening thunderstorm if the heat built up throughout the day. A great prairie storm with a dramatic display of lights and sound, and the brownish surface of the river quickly rising, carrying sticks and twigs that turned in slow circles and snagged on the concrete bases of the High Level Bridge that spanned the waterway.

  Margaret reached for the wooden spoon and stirred the blackening onions and garlic in the pot. Then she opened a jar of tomatoes and gripped it tightly as her body contracted again and the tomatoes rushed from the jar’s smooth mouth.

  By the time they arrived at the Misericordia Hospital, her body was a third-degree burn desperate for cool comfort. Margaret bit her lip and felt hot tears slide down her cheek as Donald helped her to the admitting desk, where the nurse recognized her panic, quickly put her into a wheelchair, and found someone to take her to a room. She was wheeled past a small population of pain and injury in the waiting room. Metallic smells and guttural moans assailed her senses. Life and death were intricately connected here, linked by an orderly’s mop, each pull a bleached path that connected hope and fear to a long history of human struggle.

  This is what delirium must feel like, Margaret thought as her mind bounced from one image to the next in the small pain-free moments. A kindly nurse put an ice chip in Margaret’s mouth, and she sucked the cold shaving with silent thanks in the pale green delivery room.

  Then the injection came and she welcomed the oblivion that followed.

  Twilight sleep, they called it, even though she wasn’t asleep. But she no longer felt her body, so the pain was entirely gone. Sweet Jesus. A voice from far away issued instructions. Push. She tried to obey but wasn’t sure if her numb body listened.


  Four seasons could have passed before she finally heard a small whimper. Had she made that noise? Or was someone crying?

  There were sounds all around her. Hands on her body. Was someone knocking at the door? Answer the door.

  Slowly she became more aware of her surroundings. She was in a hospital, that much she remembered. How long had she been here? Was Donald still outside pacing? Had the child been born?

  She felt a hand on her wrist and opened her eyes to see a dark-haired nurse taking her pulse.

  “What time is it?” she whispered hoarsely, licking her parched lips.

  The nurse smiled. “It’s just after nine o’clock.”

  “At night?”

  “Yes. We’re done now. You did great. The doctor will be back again any minute.”

  She opened her eyes again to Dr. Morrison’s deep voice. He had long, shaggy sideburns that almost reached his chin, and big hands.

  Soup on the stove. Did she turn it off?

  Darkness.

  “Margaret?”

  Someone was shaking her. She opened her eyes and a wave of dizziness almost made her vomit. Donald’s creased brow was before her; his eyes were wet and full. She smiled weakly as he squeezed her hand.

  “The baby?”

  “It’s a girl,” he said with relief. “We have a daughter.”

  The world tilted; everything was different.

  “Where is she? Have you seen her?”

  He shook his head. “No, not yet.”

  “I want to see her.”

  “Okay. She’s in the nursery. They’re just having a look at her, cleaning her up. They’ll bring her in soon.”

  Margaret tried to sit up. Everything hurt. There was a burning sensation between her legs, a throbbing heat from where she’d been sewn up. She groaned with embarrassment when she realized someone had shaved between her legs.

  The umbilical cord that had attached her to her baby had been cut, replaced by an invisible cord that tightened as the minutes passed. Where was her baby?

  “When did they take her away?” she asked. “How long has it been?”

  Donald’s calm demeanour started to fade. “I’m not sure. The nurse came to get me just before I came in.”

  “Go find her,” Margaret said. “Tell them I want to see her.”

  The minutes ticked by on the big round face of the clock over the door to the hallway as Margaret waited for her baby, and with each passing minute her sense of dread deepened. Donald returned and said they’d be bringing the baby soon, but when Dr. Morrison finally entered the room, he was empty-handed. Donald stood up and the two men shook hands, but there was something missing from their transaction. The doctor wasn’t smiling. The crow’s feet around his eyes were stark scars etched into tanned skin.

  “You’ve delivered a baby girl,” he said, scratching his right sideburn thoughtfully. “But I’m sorry to tell you that she is a mongoloid.”

  Margaret looked at her husband to see if he registered what the doctor had said. Donald was a city boy, born and raised. Unlike her, he’d never seen how nature can go horribly wrong. On the farm, she’d seen chickens hatched without feet. A calf born with its intestines spilling out of a hole in its side. A kitten with no eyeballs. Her father’s gun was always ready and loaded to dispense with nature’s accidents. Or sometimes he’d leave the gun and wring a neck with his strong, bare hands. But mongoloid? The word came as if spoken from a great distance through a thick fog.

  “What does that mean?” she asked, repeating the word in her head as her brain began nonsensically to search out rhymes. Mongoloid. Celluloid. Unemployed. Sigmund Freud.

  “It means your child will be sick a good deal and require special medical and nursing care, which cannot be given at home,” he said. Then Dr. Morrison switched to autopilot, delivering blow after blow until the bruises quietly blossomed beneath the surface of her flesh. She didn’t even remember delivering the child, and she had yet to lay eyes on it. She wasn’t squeamish; farm women were practical to the bone. It was city people who talked too much without taking any action. Margaret knew first-hand that schooling didn’t necessarily make a person smart. Or good. How could Margaret make up her own mind about the child without seeing her? “I would advise you not to take the child home, or even see her, for that matter, as there’s no sense becoming attached. To do so would make it even more difficult when the time comes to place her in an institution. Besides,” he continued, glancing quickly at Donald, “the child will be difficult to feed, and you’ll need to think of the larger picture: she will require a lot of time and money.”

  Dr. Morrison made eye contact with her husband again, and his tone took on a more paternal note. “You’re young,” he said, placing his hand on Margaret’s shoulder. “I’m assuming you’ll want to have more children, and this child will take time away from their normal development. Having a child who is so difficult will be a strain on your relationship with your husband and it will restrict your friendships.”

  The fog was thickening now. Dr. Morrison’s face was hazy, his lips shone with saliva and moved in slow motion. Margaret locked her gaze onto his mouth, saw the once-white teeth now stained yellow from tobacco, and marvelled that his lips would not stop moving.

  Should their daughter live, he continued, she would have the mental development of a three- to six-year-old. She would have no friends, never be allowed to go to school, never work, and would spend all her days at home with nothing to do. The humane thing was to put her in a place where she’d be housed with others who were just like her. Society’s rejects. The retards, mongoloids, and imbeciles. Those weren’t the doctor’s exact words, but they could have been. But didn’t Margaret herself feel like a reject most of her waking hours? A move to the city was almost like moving to another country. She didn’t speak the same language as the women she met. Around Donald’s family, with its comfortable money and polite conventions, she felt as if she had four arms, three legs, and stood ten feet tall. Maybe that’s the kind of girl child Dr. Morrison saw, one ill at ease in a foreign land, stunned by her removal from her mother’s warm body.

  “The odds of you having another mongoloid child are slim,” he went on, patting her shoulder as if she could now look forward to her next delivery. Then he smiled and made some quip about lightning never striking twice in the same place.

  “I want to see my baby,” she said.

  Dr. Morrison’s face grew stern. “I don’t think . . .”

  The invisible cord that tethered her to her child tightened. “I want to see her now.”

  The doctor fixed his gaze on Donald and shook his head almost imperceptibly. Margaret cleared her throat and Donald met her eyes. Her heart constricted. He was just a boy, really, sweet-natured and kind, used to being taken by the hand and safely guided through his days. He’d never learned how to push against someone in authority. Make waves in a still pond. There was fear in his eyes, and as he reached out to take her hand, she could see him waver between asking her to lead him and taking the lead himself. How quickly his first test as a father had come, before he’d had any time to get used to the role, before he’d even set eyes on the being he’d helped bring into the world. Margaret found she was holding her breath. What kind of man was he going to be?

  “We need to see her,” she said firmly. Donald nodded.

  “I think you’re making a mistake,” Dr. Morrison said, “but if you must see her, please do so quickly. Believe me, it’s for your own good.”

  The doctor left the room. Two minutes later a nurse arrived and placed the swaddled infant into Margaret’s arms.

  Margaret felt the weight of the child sink into her chest. If only she could absorb this child back into her body and hold her safely there. The warm flannel blanket against her skin radiated heat like a late winter sun in a blue sky reflecting off newly fallen snow. She closed her eyes against the brilliance and took a deep breath. Then, slowly, she peered down at her child, at the flawless skin on her baby’s face
, perfect as a newly ripened peach. Such relief. Her baby wasn’t monstrous in the least. In fact, she didn’t look that different at all. How could they possibly know she was a mongoloid?

  The girl had thick, dark hair covering her scalp. Her chestnut eyes were slightly up-slanted, but they weren’t dull in the least. A spark of life burnt within, just waiting to be fanned. Margaret’s heart melted and broke at the same time. Was what Dr. Morrison said true? Was she to look at her baby with only the future in mind? Couldn’t she mother her child in the present? Give her love and sustenance for just this day? Surely there was hope.

  She continued to inspect her child. Maybe her nose was a bit flat, as if she didn’t have a bridge, but maybe she just had a little nose that would fill out in time. Hadn’t Margaret spent endless childhood hours pulling the tip of her nose down to stretch it from its blunt roundness into a more dignified and lengthy line, with little result other than developing a bad habit of pulling at her face all the time.

  Margaret placed the baby onto the coarse bedding that covered her outstretched legs and unwrapped the blanket. “Look, Donald. She’s not missing anything.” Ten toes, two dimpled knees, ten fingers, two ears, a tiny cleft in her small chin. The dread was fading now. Margaret lifted her baby to cradle her against her chest, but the child’s arms fell slack like a rag doll’s and her neck rolled perilously toward her shoulder blades.

  “Careful,” the nurse cautioned kindly. “Her muscle development isn’t what it should be. She needs extra support, like this,” and she put Margaret’s hands not just beneath the baby’s neck to cradle her head but also at the base of her shoulders to keep her arms from flopping too low.

  Margaret raised the baby to her chest and held her. Then she lowered her face, placed her nose atop the baby’s head, and breathed in the scent of her. She had never smelled a newborn before, but the infant smelled like she imagined a normal baby would smell—sweet, needy, and infinite.