Breathing Room

by Marsha Hayles

  I crossed my ankles.

  No help.

  I tightened my muscles and tried to zip my body shut.

  Can’t the nurse tell what’s wrong?

  I squirmed to give her a hint.

  She checked her watch, not me.

  Please just take the thermometer out of my mouth!

  My brain jumped into action, making up a song that bounced around inside my head: Evvy had a little pan, little pan, little pan. Evvy had a little pan and surely had to go.

  At last Nurse Marshall tapped her watch and slid the thermometer out of my mouth. The word “bathroom” spilled out of me.

  Nurse Marshall brought over the bedpan. It was oval—like a small, squashed toilet seat made out of metal. She pulled the curtain around my bed, had me bend my knees up like two snowy mountains under the sheet, and tipped me just enough to slip the cold bedpan like an icy shovel under my bottom. I did my splattery, noisy business, embarrassed that everyone could hear. She pressed tissue into my hand so that I could wipe myself. Will I always be able to do that? If I get too sick, will that be her job? I was just glad that at least this time I didn’t have to do anything that would stink up the room.

  My head dropped back to the pillow, and patient 22781 fell sound asleep.

  CHAPTER 6

  The Land of Rules

  “SPIT,” A VOICE ORDERED.

  My eyelids felt glued shut.

  “We need to check your sputum,” the voice said, this time sounding more insistent.

  One eye unsealed. The other eye opened to see a cup jammed in front of my face. A strange cup. More square than round, with a metal lid flapped open and a paper liner inside.

  “Expectorate, Evil-in,” the voice ordered again.

  I looked around at the other girls. They were all spitting into little cups.

  I leaned forward and coughed something thick and yellowish that landed with a wet thud onto the bottom of the tin.

  Once the hock-hocking stopped and the spitting was done, cup lids were closed, and we each used a paper hankie to wipe our mouths. The other girls placed their soiled mouth wipes into the bag by their beds. I did the same, then dropped my head back to my pillow.

  “I see we’re feeling better,” Nurse Marshall said as she gathered the cups. At first I thought she was talking about all the girls in the room—what were their names again?—but then I realized her eyes focused just on me.

  “You spiked a fever, Evil-in,” Nurse Marshall said. “No matter how carefully we try to instruct families in advance, new patients invariably arrive here exhausted. Dr. Keith insisted I allow you to sleep. But now you must eat.”

  The back of my neck was slick with moisture, and my legs and arms felt limp and jittery at the same time. Worse, my mouth had a terrible taste, as if I’d eaten a fat slug. But at least I could remember their names now—Pearl, Beverly, and Dena.

  The three were allowed to sit up and feed themselves off tray tables positioned over their beds. Not me. Nurse Marshall propped me up on pillows, just high enough so I could swallow. At least, I hoped I could. She then spooned me my first meal.

  “Drink your milk slowly,” Nurse Marshall cautioned as she slipped the straw into my mouth. “Gulping encourages gas.”

  “Good to know something gets encouraged around here,” a voice across the room grumbled.

  “Dena!” Nurse Marshall snapped without turning to look at the girl.

  I glanced around between bites of boiled egg to see which one Dena was—oh, the one with straggly dark hair. Her bed was directly opposite mine. She ignored me and Nurse Marshall’s reprimand.

  How old were these girls? Were any of them thirteen like me, or were they all older? I certainly felt like the baby in the room with Nurse Marshall feeding me this way.

  Beverly, the one with the blond braids, put down her glass and turned to look out the window. Could she see anything out there? The lake, a bird, a mosquito—anything? My brain felt hungrier than my stomach.

  Then Pearl got my attention just by the careful way she placed her movie magazine down on her bedside table. I bet she was the oldest—at least she acted the most grown-up. I watched as she lifted her egg cup and moved it like a chess piece into playing position. She held the egg with one hand, then with the other tap, tap, tapped the eggshell at the top to make a small opening before scooping out spoonfuls of soft-boiled egg. In between bites, she painted butter on the toast, then ate the bread—crusts and all. I had never seen anyone make such a show of eating. When she finished, she pressed her napkin against her lips and let it fall the way I imagined a queen would drop the train of her gown.

  By then, Beverly and Dena were done too, though with a quick lift of my head I could see some food left on Dena’s tray.

  Nurse Marshall did as well. “A healthy, rich diet is essential if you are to defeat your illness. Those who squander food squander their health!” She emphasized her point by feeding me drippy chunks of grapefruit and spoonfuls of oatmeal. I chewed and swallowed and chewed some more, and felt like a clogged drain about to overflow. But I ate everything.

  Nurse Marshall gathered the dishes from the other girls’ tables and loaded them onto a cart, telling me more rules as she worked. “No talking, no laughing, no unnecessary activity. Control your coughs or they will control you. Your work here, Evil-in, is to rest and recover. This is not summer camp. You are here not to make friends but to defeat your disease.”

  Her long list of Loon Lake rules felt like the hardest thing to swallow.

  CHAPTER 7

  Smelly Stuff

  I LOOKED STRAIGHT UP into Dr. Keith’s face—well, actually, up his nose. Did all doctors have so much hair in their nostrils?

  “Roll onto your side, please, so I can listen to your lungs.”

  I felt the cold metal of the stethoscope play hopscotch across my back. I thought of all the questions I wanted to ask. Like, why did I feel so twitchy and jumpy? My fingers tapped atop my sheets; my toes wiggled all day under the covers. Was this because I was sick, or did I just have a case of the fidgets, as Mother called them? Why did I wake up with my pajama top sticking to my skin? And when would I earn my first privilege, like being allowed to get mail or sit up and read a book?

  But after four days at Loon Lake, the one thing I’d learned is that no one seemed to ask doctors or nurses questions. Maybe they were too busy to give us answers. Or maybe, because we were kids, no one would tell us the truth anyway.

  Still, couldn’t someone at least give me a hint or two about what to expect at this place? Or maybe ask how I was feeling, or tell me why Dr. Keith looked like he’d stirred rather than combed his hair, or why Nurse Marshall always acted liked she’d just swallowed a box of starch?

  Dr. Keith whirled out of the room, and Nurse Marshall returned. She stepped over to a locked metal cabinet, opened it, and brought out a brown glass bottle with a picture of a fish on it.

  “Ah, shoot,” Dena said in a low voice.

  Nurse Marshall arched an eyebrow in Dena’s direction, then took a large spoon from each girl’s tray and filled it with a yellowish fluid from the bottle.

  Dena pinched her nose to down the smelly stuff, Beverly closed her eyes and strained as if swallowing a balled-up sock, and Pearl—forgetting for the moment to be a queen—drank sloppy gulps of orange juice to flush the rotten taste out of her mouth. All three watched to see how I’d handle my first taste of this stuff.

  Only, it wasn’t. I’d tasted it many times before, thanks to Grandma Hoffmeister.

  She would make us take cod-liver oil whenever she stayed with us, though we always complained. Then, as news of the war in Europe came in, she read that supplies of cod-liver oil were running low in England. “Zis war—bad for children, bad for everyone!” She smacked her rolling pin down hard on her strudel dough, exploding a cloud of flour onto her apron and face. Abe and I took our cod-liver oil without saying a word. When we had finished, she lifted the clean corner of her apron to wipe her cheeks, the
n said with a sheepish smile, “Look how I make a snow grandma instead of apple strudel!”

  I missed my snow grandmother now as Nurse Marshall pushed the spoon between my lips. I didn’t flinch or gag as I swallowed the fishy oil, though no one seemed to appreciate my skill.

  Maybe I should have pretended to hate the cod-liver oil, just to fit in. Abe would have laughed and smacked me on the back if I’d shown him up, then challenged me to some other contest. We competed but cheered each other on.

  Here at Loon Lake, it looked like I was a team of one.

  CHAPTER 8

  Going Home

  “DO YOU THINK the new girl’s ever going to talk? I just know she’ll like me.”

  “You don’t know anything, Pearl. Let her sleep.”

  The girls had been off to Activity, though what that meant exactly and how active anything around here could be, I didn’t know. But at least it seemed to include some talking. I listened but kept my eyes closed, pretending to be asleep.

  “Oh, be quiet, Dena. If Mr. Clark Gable himself walked in this door, you’d find something rude to say to him. You have no manners.”

  “And you have no brains, Pearl. No movie star like Clark Gable would ever set foot in a place like this.”

  I let the two voices bounce back and forth in my head, the way I did in bed at home when my parents called to each other from different rooms in the house.

  “He might for charity, Dena!”

  “Oh, that’d be great, Pearl. To have famous people feeling sorry for us.”

  A third voice entered the conversation now. “Quiet, please, both of you. She doesn’t need to hear you two squabbling with each other.”

  “Ah, quit playing mother hen, Beverly. Look, Evvy’s not even awake.”

  Someone had just said my name—and said it right. I opened my eyes. Dena was looking down at me, her bright eyes full of interest and irritation, as if I were the last crumb in the cookie jar. She turned away. “Sleeping Beauty’s awake.”

  I blinked, not sure what to say. Pearl glanced in my direction, then grumbled to Beverly, “Dena woke her up, not me!”

  Beverly slowed as she walked by, smiled, and touched my blanket, as if that’s how you’d say hello at the sanatorium.

  “Is there someone in that bed?” I asked, pointing to the empty one next to mine.

  Beverly twisted the end of one of her braids, her smile fading. “You’re in what used to be Shirley’s bed. She aged up to the women’s ward—”

  “I’m the next one to turn sixteen,” Pearl interrupted. “But I should be leaving Loon Lake before then.” She stepped back into bed, letting her sheets flounce and flutter around her.

  Dena looked toward the empty bed. “Or going home like Marianne.”

  “You know that wouldn’t have happened,” Pearl protested, “if Marianne had let them do a pneumo.”

  “Please, you two—” Beverly coughed into a paper handkerchief, then crumpled it up and put it into the brown bag by her bed.

  “A pnuemo?” I asked.

  “The doctors push air into your chest so your lung goes flat and can rest,” Dena explained. “It’s just another stupid treatment.”

  “No, it’s not stupid!” Pearl snapped back. “A pneumothorax can make all the difference! That’s why I want one.”

  Dena laughed. “It’s all a lot of hot air. It hasn’t done anything for me.”

  Pearl sat up straighter in her bed. “That’s because of your attitude, Dena. If you did just one thing recommended in the Loon Lake Booster, you’d be discharged in no time. Look at me—why, I can even walk to the lake now!”

  Dena let her dark, stringy hair flop down in front of her face, then aimed her eyes in Pearl’s direction. “Why don’t you just jump in it next time, Pearl.”

  I’d never heard two people bicker like this before. I could see why Beverly looked out the window so much, though I didn’t know how she managed to smile at all, living with these two.

  “So, can we talk around here or not?” I asked.

  Beverly sighed. “We really shouldn’t, Evvy, but we do. Usually when the staff is busy—like right now, before they bring us dinner.”

  “Can I ask another question?”

  Beverly nodded. “Just don’t ask them all today. And if Dena points her finger at you, stop talking. She always seems to know when someone’s coming.”

  “Especially Old Eagle Eye,” Dena said with a smirk.

  “Really, Dena, there’s no need to call Nurse Marshall a name,” Pearl said.

  “It’s not a bad name. I coulda called her an old bat or something worse—”

  The two started arguing again, though I had to side with Dena on this point. Nurse Marshall did have an eagle eye, and she wasn’t exactly young either.

  But I didn’t want to talk about her. I had too many other questions to ask. I cleared my throat. No one paid any attention. I waved my hand. Still no one noticed. Finally, in desperation, I lifted my legs from under my covers and swung them around in the air.

  That got their eyes on me. “Could I ask a question now?”

  Beverly smiled and nodded. “Please do.”

  I let my legs drop back to the bed. “Okay. What do they do with our spit?”

  Dena chuckled, though not in a friendly way. “Spit’s called sputum here, Evvy. We cough some up into those sputum cups, and the docs look at it under a microscope to see if there are still TB germs swimming around in there.”

  I wished Dena hadn’t used the word “swimming.” I imagined germs diving and kicking around in my lungs like squirmy little versions of Abe and me swimming in Lake Pepin last summer.

  Pearl changed that picture fast. “Oh, those poor little piggies!”

  How did pigs fit in to all this?

  “You don’t care about those pigs, Pearl, and you know it,” Dena sniped.

  “I do too care,” Pearl whined. “It’s just so sad.”

  “They call our germs pigs?” I asked.

  Dena propped herself up on her elbows. “Nah. But every so often, the doctors stick our germs into a guinea pig. If the pig lives, you’re negative for active TB. You might get to leave this place. That doesn’t happen much. We like to kill guinea pigs around here.”

  Beverly gave Dena a weary look. “We don’t kill the pigs, Dena, our disease does.”

  “Well, my next guinea pig will live. I’m certain of it,” Pearl said. “I can feel myself getting better every day.”

  “We all are.” Beverly spoke in such a soothing tone, I almost expected her to read us a bedtime story next.

  Then something else clicked in my mind. “A negative result would be good, but the opposite … Is that what the plus sign on my chart means? That my spi—my sputum—is still positive?”

  “That’s right. You’re as sharp as a knife, Evvy,” Dena said in such a gruff way that I didn’t know if I should feel complimented or not.

  So I looked at Beverly with my next question. “Would a negative sign mean I’m cured?”

  Beverly hesitated. “Not exactly. That means your body has learned to fight off the TB by building walls around it.”

  “In other words, Evvy, sick or well, you’re a bug for life.” Dena didn’t seem to mind calling us bugs, but I didn’t like it. Just because I had TB didn’t mean I’d sprouted antennae and needed to be swatted.

  I tried switching topics. “Didn’t you say that girl Marianne went home?”

  More uncomfortable quiet.

  Finally Beverly looked over at me, her eyes glistening. “She didn’t go home, not the way you’re thinking, Evvy. When people in the sanatorium say someone’s going home, what they mean is—”

  Her voice faltered, and Dena jumped in. “What they mean is that the person croaked. Sold the farm, rode the last train, swallowed the last pill, killed their last pig, breathed their last breath, dropped doorknob dead. You get it?”

  Dena’s words came at me like gunshots and filled my eyes with tears.

  “Look, D
ena,” Pearl said, “you made her cry.”

  Beverly whispered, “I’m sorry, Evvy.”

  But Dena didn’t apologize. “Lying to Evvy won’t do her any favors. She might as well know the truth. People die at Loon Lake all the time.”

  CHAPTER 9

  A Different Tune

  I COULDN’T SHAKE Dena’s words, especially when the room got dark in the evening. I didn’t believe in ghosts, but I also didn’t not believe in them. Every puff of air felt like it could be the dead girl’s last breath whispering to me. Abe might think I was acting like a ninny, but he’d never tried sleeping in a room where someone had died. If he had, he might not be so brave either.

  Still, I didn’t mean to gasp when the night nurse appeared by my bed, flashlight in hand, to check on us.

  “Oh, I startled you,” she said. “Sorry. Here I’ve gone and scared you, and we haven’t even met each other yet. I’m Nurse Gunderson.”

  I squeaked out my name, then said hello.

  Her lively blue eyes smiled at me from above her white mask.

  “Well, welcome, Evvy,” she said. She put her hand atop mine. It felt light and warm and, best of all, unhurried. No quick moves to check my pulse or reach for a thermometer or straighten my pillow. “I’m happy to be taking care of you.”

  “I’m glad too,” I said, even happier because she didn’t shush me when I spoke.

  Her blond hair was pinned up under her nurse’s cap, but little tufts snuck loose and, unlike anything else at Loon Lake, looked soft to the touch.

  “Now I need to take your temperature, Evvy.”

  Could she tell how much I hated the long wait it took to get an accurate temperature? She must have, because she leaned over and said, “Pick a song, Evvy, and sing it in your head. We’ll have your temperature done in no time.”

  I thought for a second, then whispered, “In My Merry Oldsmobile.” Nurse Gunderson started to hum the melody as she slipped the thermometer into my mouth. Soon I was riding along with Lucille and her suitor in their merry Oldsmobile.