Sing in the Morning, Cry at Night

by Barbara J. Taylor

  * * *

  Doc Rodham had waited in the parlor for the undertaker to arrive, so they could discuss the condition of Daisy’s body. Extra measures had to be taken because the death was so traumatic. After carting his embalming equipment into the house, Mr. Parker assured both the doctor and Owen that he’d take the utmost care with the little girl.

  While Owen had seen Doc Rodham to the door, the undertaker moved silently into the center of the parlor and opened his portable cooling table like a book. He pulled four wooden legs toward him, locked them into place and set the contraption upright in the middle of the Morgans’ parlor. What had looked like a suitcase too thin to be of use opened to a length of six feet, long enough to accommodate the tallest bodies. He adjusted the top portion of the table, so a corpse’s head could rest at an upward angle, and draped a gray cotton bed blanket over the caned surface. Looking around the room, past the couch, the two upholstered chairs, and the little red lacquered piano, Mr. Parker spied a gate-leg table in the corner. He pulled it toward him, lifted one leaf, and swung the base into position. With his work area ready, he opened a black valise and placed its contents—formaldehyde, glycerin, sodium borate, boric acid, sodium nitrate, eosin, and assorted tools for drainage and injection—on top.

  “Mr. Morgan,” Mr. Parker had said, “whenever you’re ready.” After a moment of silence, the undertaker added, “Please, take what time you need.”

  * * *

  “Where’s the boy?” Doc Rodham tugged on Owen’s arm.

  “Outside,” Owen said, remembering his purpose, motioning for Doc Rodham to follow.

  “Who applied this tourniquet?” the doctor asked as he climbed into the wagon and placed his stethoscope on Stanley’s chest.

  “That’s my doing,” John responded from his place near the boy’s sweat-soaked head. “Don’t know if I—”

  “May have saved the boy’s life.” The doctor motioned the men to carry Stanley inside. “Easy now. Very gentle.”

  * * *

  Half an hour later, Evan Evans Sr. arrived at the hospital to check on Stanley. He found Owen and John waiting in the hallway, outside Stanley’s room.

  The door opened and Doc Rodham asked, “Has someone notified his kin?” Inside the room, Stanley lay on a bed, dimly conscious.

  Evan Sr. peeled off his cap and started fingering the brim. “Don’t have none,” he said. “His ma’s dead.” He picked up his head, eyes darting from Owen to John and back to the doctor before adding solemnly, “And his pa was killed at the Sherman this very morning.”

  Shock crossed Owen and John’s faces as they turned toward Stanley, who gave no sign of distress or understanding.

  “I see.” Doc Rodham looked back at the boy and pulled the door closed. “The lad’s condition is grave. He’s in need of an operation. Blood vessels have to be tied off. Bones need to be shaved to keep from pushing through. Flesh should be trimmed and stitched if he’s to have any chance at all.”

  “Maybe we should tell the widow Lankowski,” Evan Sr. suggested.

  “Is she related?” the doctor asked.

  “No, but my missus seen her take the boy to Polish church for the last few months.”

  “That Myrtle always seems to get an eyeful,” Owen said. Then he added, “I’ll go and fetch the widow.”

  * * *

  Owen stepped off the streetcar and headed toward Spring Street to deliver the news. He could offer the widow Lankowski honesty or hope, but not both. Which one would be more merciful? He needed to give her a fair evaluation of Stanley’s condition, but every time he tried to picture the boy and his injuries, he saw Daisy on that bed.

  After Grace had finished bathing her, Owen lifted Daisy and carried her down the hall. The sheet, still draped over her body, fluttered as he walked back into the parlor. He stopped in front of the cooling table, laid Daisy out, and arranged her body in a state of repose.

  Mr. Parker stepped over to the front window and drew the curtains. The family’s official grieving period had begun. As was the custom, a mourning wreath already hung on the front door. Though it was afternoon, the undertaker lit two oil lamps, so he could set about his work in the darkened room. He took a step or two toward Owen and Daisy, and waited.

  Owen had started to tremble from the inside out. Mr. Parker grabbed a kitchen chair in time to catch him in mid fall. Every part of Owen shook violently, desperately. He set his hands on the lip of the table to steady himself, but pulled them back as soon as he noticed Daisy’s body quivering because of his shakes.

  “I’ll take it from here.” Mr. Parker had lifted Owen gently by the shoulders.

  “Not Daisy, God. Not my Daisy.” Owen’s voice shook in tandem with his body. “Why not me, Lord?” He paused for a moment in the doorway. “Take me. Anybody but Daisy.” He grabbed a shovel from the cellarway, hitched his horse to the wagon, and went off without a word. Owen traveled up Spring Street, past the No. 25 School, which Daisy and Violet had both attended, and headed toward the old cemetery on Shady Lane in Chinchilla. Along the way, he saw neighbor children cooling off in Leggett’s Creek, while their mothers swept or nursed or hung up the wash. Scrubbed fathers made their way to the mines while blackened ones returned. Life hadn’t stopped after all, much to Owen’s surprise.

  When he’d arrived, he found several of the church men with shirtsleeves rolled and collars opened, already digging the small grave. “Much obliged,” Owen said, piercing the earth with his shovel. The unforgiving July sun beat down on them.

  * * *

  A gust of January’s frozen wind reminded Owen of his obligation. He glanced across the street at his own house before climbing the widow’s front steps.

  * * *

  The widow Lankowski sat in one of ten chairs lined up along the tiled wall of the hospital’s white hallway. A string of wooden beads, rough-hewn at their inception, worn smooth by years of prayer, pooled in the middle of her broad lap. Gnarled hands, mapped with rivers of veins, cradled a pitted silver crucifix. She made the Sign of the Cross, an automatic gesture for the fifty-year-old woman who’d grown up in the Polish National Catholic Church, and mouthed the words to the Apostles’ Creed in her native tongue, “Wierze w Boga, Ojca Wszechmogacego Stworzyciela nieba i ziemi, I w Jezusa Chrystusa . . .” Thus began her nineteenth recitation of the rosary, three hours worth and counting.

  She began a Hail Mary, “Zdrowaś Mario, łaskiś pełna Pan z Toba,” as Doc Rodham entered the hallway with rolled white sleeves and a bloodstained apron. Owen and John, who had stepped out for a drink sometime during the second hour of surgery, came around the corner at that moment.

  “He’s holding his own,” Doc Rodham said.

  The widow kissed her crucifix and held it up to heaven.

  “Can’t ask for more than that.” He paused. “Not out of the woods, though, by any means. Lost lots of blood. And if infection sets in,” he shook his head, “we could still lose him. We’ve done all we can.” Glancing at the rosary beads threaded between the widow’s fingers, he added, “Medically speaking.”

  Owen took the doctor’s hand and looked him in the eye. “Thank you. For today. For everything.” He dropped his eyes. “I never did have a chance to thank you proper.”

  “We’ll see how the boy fares. At least he has a chance. We’re not always so lucky, but I don’t have to tell you that.”

  “How long will he be here?” John asked.

  “Weeks. Months. Time will tell.” Doc Rodham unrolled his sleeves.

  “And after that?”

  “The Home for the Friendless, I suppose.”

  The widow shot out of her seat, her rosary dropping to the floor. “Not while I’m breathing,” she said, bending down to scoop up the beads. “Not mój drogi, not my dear Stanley. He’ll come home with me.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  “THERE’S BEEN AN ACCIDENT,” Violet’s mother said to her that night. “Your little friend. The one who came around on Thanksgiving night.”

&nbs
p; Violet shot up from the couch. “Stanley? You don’t mean Stanley?” She started to tremble.

  “He’s quite grave, I’m afraid. Lost his hand in the mine.” Grace picked up the blanket that had fallen to the floor and draped it around Violet’s shoulders. “I’m sorry. Truly.” She closed her eyes. “So much pain for those who least deserve it.” She shook her head and plodded toward her bedroom. “You’ll want to include him in your prayers,” she called back before stepping inside and shutting the door.

  * * *

  The next day, everyone in school knew about Stanley’s accident. “I wonder if he’ll still be able to play stickball,” the boys said, as if they’d ever asked Stanley to play any game with them before. The girls took turns crying and comforting one another, as if Stanley had been the secret sweetheart of them all.

  “Where were you when he needed a friend?” Violet yelled at Olive Manley who seemed particularly broken up. Olive simply cried louder, compelling Miss Reese to hold Violet inside during recess.

  * * *

  Just before lunch, Olive leaned over to Violet and whispered, “If you’re such a good friend, why aren’t you with Stanley?”

  Because it’s my fault he’s dying.

  The thought slammed into Violet’s brain like the coal car that had taken Stanley’s hand, unearthing other words buried along its track. Daisy. Father. Mother. And now Stanley.

  The Fourth of July. That was the start of it. But what had she done to make God so angry? Jealousy. Was that it? “Nothing more disappointing than a jealous child.” Her father had said so that very day when he sent Violet and Daisy into the yard. And she was. Jealous of Daisy’s store-bought dress, her baptism, her long hair. Could jealousy ignite a sparkler? And Stanley. The widow took him to church, went with him to buy the gumdrops. She favored him. Had Violet been jealous? The thought soured in her stomach. “A jealous child.” She knew truth when she heard it.

  * * *

  With only her right hand, the widow dipped a cloth into a basin of cool water, squeezed most of the water out, and placed it on Stanley’s forehead. Her left arm dangled at her side. She needed to see what a person could do one-handed.

  It had been three days since the accident, and the boy remained in a sort of limbo, a half-coma, eyes open but empty, lips moving without sound. “How soon before the fever breaks?” she asked.

  The nurse, a stout woman who moved languidly through the twenty-bed ward, simply shook her head. She placed a glass bottle and several lengths of cotton batting on a small side table.

  “Show me how,” the widow said. “I’ll need to do for him once I get him home.”

  “It’s different with an amputee.” She pulled small scissors out of her apron pocket to cut off the old dressing of cyanide gauze and salicylic wool. “You have to wrap the bandages to shape the stump.”

  The first snip unloosed a smell so foul, both the widow and the nurse choked on the fetid air.

  “Get the doctor!” the nurse yelled in the direction of the door. A pair of feet ran down the hallway, and in less than a minute, Doc Rodham arrived at Stanley’s bedside.

  “I was afraid of this.” He slowly peeled back the dressing. “Acute inflammation. Happens in such cases.” He poked at a pocket of angry flesh. “Pus needs draining.” He lifted the swollen limb. “No line of demarcation. Not gangrenous yet.” He placed the arm back on the pillow. “Not a stone’s throw away from it, though.”

  The doctor continued his examination. Temperature, 103 degrees. Pulse rate, rapid, 112. Tongue, furred and milky. When he finished, he announced his course of action to the nurse: “Drainage and bloodletting.” Turning to the widow he added, “And prayer.”

  The nurse scampered out the door and down the hall, faster than the widow had ever seen her move.

  “It’s best if you step out,” Doc Rodham said, “so I can tend to him here.”

  “My place is with the boy.” The widow peered out the window, settled in a nearby chair, and pulled her beads out of her pocket. “I’ll not get in your way.” She glanced outside once more and wondered momentarily if Tommy Davies would show up this time with Violet. The widow had asked him every day since the accident, knowing how good she’d be for Stanley. She looked again and saw Tommy turning the corner, alone. Perhaps it’s best for now, considering Stanley’s condition, she thought, as she crossed herself and started in on the Apostles’ Creed.

  The nurse reappeared with all the necessary tools: anesthesia, forceps, scalpel, tubing, needle and thread, milk, and a small glass cylinder. She had the table set up by the time the doctor returned with the jar of leeches.

  Doc Rodham poured an ounce of ether, half the amount given to surgical patients, into the chamber of the inhaler, since the boy was already in a semi-unconscious state and the cutting would be minimal. He placed the facepiece over Stanley’s mouth and nose, and after he took a few breaths, his body seemed to relax.

  The doctor sliced into two abscesses, and soaked up a dark, foul-smelling fluid before stitching drainage tubes into the incisions. Next, he rubbed the milk around the circumference of the stump while the nurse plucked one of the leeches with the forceps and dropped it in the narrow cylinder, tail first. She handed the container to the doctor, who tipped it over, placing the mouth of it against Stanley’s skin. The doctor held it there until the leech latched on, sucking out the bad blood, then he handed it to the nurse to be filled again.

  * * *

  On Monday afternoon, Violet set out for the hospital after school. It had been four days since Stanley’s accident, and three since she’d realized her part in it, but she couldn’t stay away any longer. She had to see him for herself.

  Violet headed down School Street and over to North Main Avenue. She intended to keep walking toward downtown until she reached the State Hospital, where she’d heard Stanley had been taken.

  When she reached the square, she froze in front of the church, listening to the whistle of the finch. She thought of all the birdcalls that required two hands, sat down on the steps, and sobbed.

  Half an hour later, Violet turned around and headed back up and over to Spring Street. She looked at her own house with its curtains drawn against the day, crossed over to the widow’s place, and let herself in the back door. She shoveled just enough coal into the stove to throw a little warmth in her direction. She couldn’t go, not today. “So much pain, for those who least deserve it,” her mother had said. How true, Violet thought, as she rested her head in her arms. If anyone deserved to suffer, it was she, not Stanley. And certainly not Daisy.

  * * *

  People had come from all over town to view Daisy’s body. Some knew the family and wanted to pay their respects. Others had read about the accident in the papers and wanted to see the little girl who sang hymns as she lay dying. Mr. Edward Baker Sturges added extra trolley runs on the Providence line to accommodate the number of riders going to and from the Morgans’ house. Though he’d never met the family, George W. Bowen, the poet, came over from Wayne Avenue to, as he put it, “see one of God’s angels.” There had even been talk that Mr. Sherman would shut down the mine for the day of the burial, but that never happened.

  Several of Daisy’s friends showed up accompanied by their parents. On their way up to the porch, some of the mothers could be overheard reminding their children of the dangers of fireworks and matches, and of not minding their elders. Others kissed the heads of sons and daughters, muttering, “There but by the grace of God,” as they opened the screen door and stepped inside.

  Flowers had occupied every corner of the modest parlor. A painted banner with the words Beloved Daughter stretched across a wreath of Shasta daisies propped up in front of the coffin. Their yellow eyes watched from white-petaled lashes as people stepped forward to pay their respects. All manner of fragrant flowers bloomed from vases, pots, and any container that could hold water. The cloying scents of roses, phlox, and daylilies mingled with the rising smell of decay.

  A fine layer of n
etting stretched across the top of the casket, inviting mourners to view Daisy without touching her. As Mr. Parker had explained, “It’s best, considering the condition of the body.” Neither parent had objected.

  Her mother and father stood in front of the coffin to receive condolences and stand watch over their daughter. Even with the netting, Mother said she could still think of a handful of people who might try to get at the child. Some folks believed they had to touch a body to grieve it.

  The casket itself lay atop a wooden stand of Mr. Parker’s design in front of the parlor window. What furniture there was had been pushed flush against the opposite wall, like condemned prisoners awaiting execution. Even so, there was hardly enough room for the number of people who showed, and most who chose to stay made their way out to one or the other of the porches.

  Flo Watkins, Ruth Jones, Marion Thomas, Janie Miller, and Susie Hopkins, all friends of Daisy’s who’d been baptized the same day, arrived together. They stood in the line for almost forty-five minutes before moving inside, their Sunday dresses dripping and clinging from the savage heat. They had waited about twenty minutes more before stepping forward, to allow Myrtle Evans and her sister Mildred a wide enough berth for their grief. The sisters held their ground at the coffin, wailing in tandem as if rehearsed. The performance had ended with Mr. Parker thanking the women for coming as he ushered them past Owen and Grace, into the kitchen.

  The girls took their turn before the coffin. A white slumber blanket that looked to be silk covered Daisy to the chest. Her blue capped shoulders and hand-smocked neckline hinted at the dress underneath. The face had already begun to turn like an overcast day before a storm, though anyone who knew the girl could still make her out. Mr. Parker had managed to set her features in a natural expression, a difficult task considering the body’s condition. Someone had plucked a flower from the wreath and tucked it behind Daisy’s right ear before the official viewing, before the netting was set in place. Mr. Parker had placed blocks of cedar under the coffin lining, so the sharp smell of fresh-cut wood wafted up into the girls’ noses.