Three Women at the Water's Edge Page 9

  Finally she brought them back up to the house. They were all drenched and shivering. She immediately put Danny and Jenny into a tub of hot steamy water, then dried them and put them in warm clothes. She served them hot chocolate and chicken noodle soup and lots of cinnamon toast. As Daisy ate the sweet toast, the anxiety which had been gnawing at her all day eased, and instead she was filled with a great exhaustion. She watched television with the children, read them stories, and finally got them into bed. Then she sat in front of the television set, staring for three hours without changing the channel; it didn’t matter what she saw, anything was diversion enough. Finally she dragged herself upstairs at eleven-thirty. She fell into bed, too exhausted to think or worry, and quickly fell asleep.

  A few hours later Jenny’s cries woke her. Daisy pulled herself up from her heavy sleep and went into Jenny’s room. The little girl was trying to say something, but she could only emit dry, barking sobs. She had croup. She could scarcely breathe.

  This had happened before, with Danny, and Daisy automatically and calmly grabbed Jenny up and took her into the bathroom and sat holding her on the edge of the tub while the shower ran full blast, filling the room with steam. Jenny’s breathing improved, and she fell back to sleep, but Daisy remained awake with worry: there was still a wheeze in her daughter’s breath that disturbed her. She filled a vaporizer and set it in Jenny’s room. She propped Jenny up on pillows and watched her, and finally, unable to sleep in her own room, took her pillow and blanket and slept on the floor in Jenny’s room, where she could hear her in the night.

  The rest of the night passed quietly, but at six in the morning, Jenny awoke crying and breathing again with an eerie honking catch. Daisy felt her forehead: she had a fever, and her eyes were dull. Oh, God, Daisy thought, oh, God, what had she done, how foolish she had been to take her little girl out into bad weather. She called the doctor, sent Danny to preschool, and the entire afternoon was organized around Jenny: getting her dressed and to the clinic, sitting in the waiting room for an eternity while Jenny sat on her lap, pale and passive, struggling for each breath. The physician saw Jenny finally, and said that she had a serious bronchial infection and an inflamed throat.

  “I don’t like to hospitalize such young children,” he told her, “when a breathing problem is involved. The anxiety of being in a strange place often counteracts the good a hospital can do. Besides, you can catch things in hospitals; it’s full of sick people.” He attempted levity, but it was lost on Daisy, who was achingly tired. He became businesslike again: “So she can go home with you, but you’ve got to be vigilant. You’ve got to keep Jenny quiet. You’ve got to keep her in a room full of moisture—use two vaporizers if you have them, and be sure they keep going. The next twenty-four hours are crucial. You’ll need to watch her constantly. I’ll give you a prescription for the bronchial infection, but it will be a few hours before the penicillin really helps. She’ll be okay if she gets through the next twenty-four hours; that’s up to you.”

  As she listened to the doctor, Daisy felt all her unfocused fears disappear: she could no longer worry generally about something as insubstantial as the future; she was sick with terror because her child was so suddenly, desperately ill; and she was overwhelmed with responsibility. She wrapped Jenny in blankets and drove to the drugstore, then walked up and down the aisles holding Jenny in her arms as she waited for the pharmacist to fill the prescription for the antibiotic and expectorant. Jenny snuffled and fussed and wriggled in Daisy’s arms, poking at Daisy’s swollen belly with her elbows and knees. Damn it, Daisy thought, why didn’t they have chairs in the pharmacy so that sick people or mothers with sick children could sit down? And why was the pharmacist taking so long, how could he be so nonchalant, back up behind the high counter—she hated that high counter, it made her feel that the pharmacists were setting themselves up like gods, dispensing the lifesaving medicine at their own pleasure. She could hear the male pharmacist chattering away, laughing and joking with his female colleague, and she wanted to stamp her feet and scream: “Stop it! Hurry up and give me that medicine! How can you do this? My child needs that medicine inside her now!” But when the pharmacist finally announced that the medicine was ready, Daisy took the white sack with meek gratitude, and hurried out the door.

  In the parking lot she discovered that her car was almost completely shut in, blocked on both sides by cars which had been parked at close and awkward angles to her own. She settled Jenny in the backseat and forced her own bulgy body behind the steering wheel, and began to maneuver her car out of its trap, furiously turning the wheel this way and that. She had to twist her body around to see if she was going to scrape the station wagon next to her; she grew sweaty inside her coat from the effort. Jenny began to cough and cry and the sack of medicine rolled off the seat with an ominous thump. Daisy stopped the car and searched around on the floor for the medicine, mashing her cumbersome stomach against the seat as she did. But the medicine bottle had not broken. She returned her attention to the task of squeezing her car out into free space, and as she did she saw two old men leaning against the wall of the pharmacy, watching her with smug, superior, critical eyes. Their scrutiny made her so nervous that she turned the wheel the wrong way, and all at once felt that it was all hopeless: she would never get the car out. She saw the watching men laugh and mutter, and frantic with anger at the entire situation, she rolled down her window and stuck her head out to yell at them:

  “Just shut up! Just shut up, damn it! Who do you think you are to criticize the way I drive! I didn’t park my car wrong, the idiots on both sides of me did! How dare you stand there, damn you, making fun of me! I’ve got a sick child here, I’ve got a sick child! You two should be ashamed of yourselves! Don’t you have anything better to do than to stand around laughing at someone with a sick child!”

  The men looked at Daisy with such total amazement that it occurred to her that perhaps they hadn’t been criticizing her after all. Burning with embarrassment and effort, she frantically edged her car up and back, and finally released herself from her parking space. She drove home in tears, wondering just how in the world she was going to cope with it all.

  But once in her house she calmed down, grateful to be on her own ground, to be getting on with it, to be performing the necessary tasks. Danny returned from preschool, and she put both children in the family room, with Jenny drained and unmoving on the sofa. She gave Jenny her medicine, then filled the vaporizer and lugged it into the family room. She covered Jenny with blankets; she told Danny that Jenny was very sick and that he would have to be very good and quiet. She sat for a while holding Danny on her lap for their mutual comfort, for his warmth, and at the same time she stroked Jenny’s hand or back. When Danny grew bored with television, she sat on the floor next to the sofa and did puzzles with him. She fixed Danny dinner and gave Jenny a bottle of apple juice and made herself a pot of tea. She watched Jenny. Jenny lay staring at nothing, laboring for breath. It hurt Daisy to watch her daughter struggle for breath; it hurt not to be able to help.

  Night came early, and as the windows grew blind with darkness, Daisy felt suddenly abandoned by the world, isolated. The wind stopped blowing and it began to rain, and as she hurried about the house, changing into her nightgown and robe, setting up a vaporizer in Jenny’s bedroom, the sound of the rain beating against the house made her feel besieged. Finally she carried Jenny up to bed, and gave her more medicine and settled her in, grateful that the room had grown thick and warm with steam. She helped Danny get ready for bed, and was touched by his willingness to be good; yet when he fell into his deep healthy sleep, she felt forlorn. She returned to Jenny’s room to pull down the shades; she closed the curtains to hide the cold of the night. She closed the bedroom door to keep the steam in the bedroom, but felt uneasy as she did, because then she felt shut off from Danny; she hoped she would hear him if he called her in the night.

  Jenny was not asleep; she lay in her bed, her eyes barely open, seeming to con
centrate seriously on each breath. Daisy sat on the bed next to her.

  “Would you like me to read you a book or sing you a lullaby?” Daisy asked. But Jenny did not answer. Daisy could only sit, watching her daughter, watching the small chest under the fuzzy pajamas rise and fall. She wanted to do something, anything, and there was nothing she could do. It had been less painful, less torturous, Daisy thought, when she had been giving birth to Jenny; then she had been able to labor for her child’s life. But now she was impotent. It was not fair, not fair—what could Daisy possibly have with which to bribe Fate that would be equal to her daughter’s life? At least, she thought, there was the knowledge of the antibiotics working inside Jenny’s body, a real and definite force.

  Outside the rain came down steadily, sounding like a persistent, gentle thunder. The room grew more and more moist from the vaporizer, and Jenny’s fine hair grew damp and curled around her head. Daisy stroked her daughter’s face awhile, then stopped, not knowing if her touch soothed or bothered. She thought she heard a noise: she looked up to see tiny drops of water dripping down the vinyl window shades. A minute movement caught her eye and she turned to see a yellow felt chicken losing its head. It was a sweet little chicken that Daisy had made for an Easter present for Jenny last spring. She had spent several nights after the children were in bed, cutting animals out of different colors of felt and pasting them together on a long bright green felt strip. The bodies and heads of the chickens were yellow, the feet orange, the wings and eyes black. Jenny had squealed with delight at the present on Easter morning—Danny had loved his felt bunnies—and Daisy had finally had to hang the chickens up high in Jenny’s bedroom where she could see them but not touch, not pull them apart with her eager love. Now the paste was coming loose from the moisture in the air. With infinite patience, as if part of a chic and subtle joke, the chicken’s head slowly, teasingly, tilted downward, downward, downward, and then fell free. It made no sound as it landed on the rug. Daisy watched, near tears, and saw that the wing of the next chicken was also beginning to droop.

  “Oh, God,” Daisy said, “everything’s falling apart.”

  But when she looked back at Jenny, she saw that her eyes were closed. She touched her face—it was all right; Jenny had simply fallen asleep. Daisy hurried down the stairs to fix herself more tea, then sat at the end of her daughter’s bed, sipping the hot sweetened drink, watching Jenny, waiting.

  At ten-thirty, she woke Jenny to give her the spoonful of pink antibiotic, the spoonful of yellow expectorant. Jenny fussed a little at being awakened, and Daisy soothed her, held her, and within minutes Jenny was asleep again. How pleased Daisy felt to see her daughter’s simple sleep; it made her nearly cry with relief. The next twenty-four hours were crucial; the doctor had said so. Daisy determined to stay on guard.

  But as the hours passed and Jenny continued to sleep peacefully, Daisy became aware of the discomforts of her own body. Slowly she eased herself off the bed and onto the floor. She arranged her nest of pillows and blankets so that she could recline against them yet still be high enough to watch Jenny. Though the room was full of moisture, Daisy’s eyes felt dry and harsh with the strain of watching. A very slight sound in the room made Daisy jump: another chicken’s head had fallen onto the floor, within inches of Daisy’s fingers. Oh, God, Daisy thought in her exhaustion, let all the chickens come apart, just let Jenny live. The vaporizer hissed steadily. It seemed almost a living creature, an obliging friend. She pulled a blanket about her and the warmth seemed so friendly that tears sprang to her eyes. She was so tired. She thought she would close her eyes for just a moment, to relieve the burning sensation under the lids. She could still hear, still listen to Jenny’s breathing. It was so steady now, in and out, in and out, and the rasping sound was gone…It was after two in the morning. Daisy slept.

  At five in the morning Jenny screamed. “MOMMY!”

  Daisy leaped up instantly, fighting out through clouds of sleep as thick as pillows to get to her daughter. Jenny’s breathing had gone insane: HONK. Pop. HONK. “MOMMY!” Jenny screamed again.

  “I’m here, I’m here!” Daisy called to her daughter and stumbled to the bed and grabbed her up in her arms. Her eyes cleared, her brain cleared, everything became painfully, achingly clear: the vaporizer had stopped. The room had grown dry. Jenny was sobbing, and a honking sound tore from her breast. Immediately after each breath, the honking sound came, followed by a strange palpable pop, the tiniest of trap doors snapping shut over her lungs.

  “Mommy! Mommy!” Jenny screamed, yet she hit at Daisy, fighting her off. She was awake and terrified by the fact that she could not breathe. Her eyes / were as bright and frightened as a wild animal caught in a trap.

  “It’s all right, it’s all right,” Daisy said, and grabbed her flailing daughter and ran into the bathroom with her. Jenny screamed and hit and kicked, and Daisy felt the blows in her stomach, a quick surge of fear for the new baby, and then the thought—no, let the new baby die, let this child live, let me make the trade! She nearly fell into the bathroom, nearly threw Jenny onto the floor, then shut the door behind them. She turned on the hot-water faucet full blast, closed the drain, pulled up the shower lever, yanked the shower curtain about the tub with such a force that the metal rings jangled. Then she grabbed up Jenny again and sat with her on the edge of the bathtub, inside the clinging shower curtain.

  “It’s okay, Jenny, it’s okay,” she said, absurdly sweet and gentle, trying to calm her frantic daughter. “It’s okay, darling, it’s okay.”

  Jenny had stopped screaming, but her sobbing was almost uncontrollable and her breathing had gone wild and wheezy, each breath followed by the hideous, damnable honk and pop.

  “It’s all right, Jenny, it’s okay, darling, Mommy’s here, I’ll take care of you, see the steam coming, it will make it all better, it will make it all right. See, there it comes, see that funny misty stuff rising, that’s steam, like in your vaporizer, it will rise and make your breathing better, you mustn’t cry.” Daisy babbled. She rubbed at her daughter’s back, she stroked her face. She had to make her daughter stop crying, she had to make her calm down, Jenny was nearly choking and her breath was coming in ragged uneven jags. “Calm down, Jenny, Mommy’s here, it will be all right, you mustn’t cry—JENNY STOP IT STOP THAT CRYING NOW OR I WILL SPANK YOU! STOP IT!!”

  To her horror Daisy heard herself yelling at her daughter, saw her own hands give her daughter a sudden desperate shake. Oh dear God, Daisy thought, and despair plunged deep within her, what kind of a mother can I be to scream at my child at a time like this?

  But incredibly, her anger had worked. Shocked at the sudden change from the lulling babble to the furious shout, Jenny had choked off a sob and turned to stare at her mother with wide eyes. Her lower lip quivered petulantly, but her breathing regained some evenness.

  “That’s better, Jenny. For heaven’s sake, you’ll wake up Danny,” Daisy heard herself say in her bossy mama tone of voice, one that Jenny was so familiar with. Obediently, Jenny calmed even more, her chest quivering with repressed sobs. “Settle down,” Daisy repeated. “Stop squirming.” Jenny was barely moving at all, but seemed to be reassured by Daisy’s irritated voice. She relaxed. And the steam rose and rose, while the hot water thundered into the tub, roaring like a flood.

  Daisy sat there holding Jenny, not thinking, full of agony, hypnotized by Jenny’s honking breaths and the force of the water, bursting downward from the shower nozzle, bubbling about, filling the air with lifesaving steam. She looked at her daughter who was now leaning weakly against her and saw a green streak of mucus run down her nose to her mouth. Jenny didn’t seem to be aware of it, but Daisy could scarcely stand the sight; she held her daughter against her with one hand and felt around in the pocket of her robe with the other for a Kleenex. She was so awkward with her swollen tummy that she nearly fell into the steaming tub, but she recovered, and pulled out a Kleenex, used but still usable. She wiped Jenny’s nose, and kissed the top of
her head. As she kissed her, Jenny began to cough, a painful violent cough that shook her entire body. Daisy’s heart exploded within her; she was mad with fear, afraid that Jenny was dying. Jenny choked; her face went scarlet; she gagged and retched; and then she vomited. She leaned forward, retching, and the vomit, thick with mucus, shot into the hot water in the bathtub.

  “Mommy!” Jenny screamed.

  “That’s good, Jenny, that’s good, it’s helping you,” Daisy said, but she was sobbing now, too, and clutching Jenny almost helplessly. “That’s good, it’s all right,” Daisy called out. Jenny screamed again in fear; her body shuddered; she vomited again. Daisy held Jenny by the shoulders, tears streaming down her face; and Jenny vomited again, and again.

  And then it stopped. Jenny fell back against Daisy’s breasts, panting. The honking noise had gone away.

  Daisy held Jenny firmly with one arm, and with the other reached out and grabbed a towel from the rack and wiped Jenny’s mouth and chin. Then she managed to reach the sink, to fill Jenny’s plastic Mickey Mouse cup with cool water. She put it to Jenny’s lips.

  “Drink this, Jenny love, it will make your mouth feel better,” she said. Jenny sipped at it obediently, then pushed it away. Her face was white with exhaustion. But she was breathing almost evenly, and the honking noise had stopped.

  “Mommy,” Jenny said after long moments, “I’m tired.”

  Daisy turned off the hot-water tap; the water was growing cooler, but the room was still steamy.