He tried to take Maggie from me, but I held tight to her. I put my own ear against her chest, listened to her heart beating, small and far away.
I made myself ask the question: “Will she live?”
“She’s a fighter. And she’s got the best mother in the world.” He gave a weak smile, but his eyes told me the truth. It was as though he’d reached into my chest and squeezed my own heart until it nearly stopped.
I felt as if water had rushed in, surrounding us, filling my mouth and lungs. I could not move or speak. Will helped me up from the chair. Again, he tried to take Maggie, but I would not let go. We hurried home and packed a suitcase for an overnight trip—an extra suit and pajamas for Will, my black wool dress, stockings, and a nightgown. And plenty of diapers and changes of clothes for little Margaret. I layered her up inher warmest things for the car ride, then wrapped her in the quilt my sister had made for her.
The drive to Boston went on forever. I sat beside Will in the car, the swaddled baby on my lap. She slept most of the way, and I kept checking to make sure she was still breathing. There was a blueish cast to her lips and fingertips.
We navigated the maze of city streets, Will white-knuckling the wheel, shaking his head at the traffic, the busyness of the city. The Children’s Hospital is quite impressive: a massive stone building next door to the Harvard Medical School on Longwood Avenue. There are four columns at the front and a large copper dome that houses the atrium.
We were immediately greeted by a team of doctors. Margaret was examined by cardiac and pulmonary specialists. The best there are, Will said.
After their examination, they brought us back into a wood-paneled office. A nurse brought us coffee and sandwiches, which neither of us touched.
“Perhaps you’d like to wait outside, Mrs. Monroe?” the tall doctor, the cardiologist, suggested. A nurse with a well-meaning face came and touched my elbow, ready to escort me.
“No,” I said. “I want to hear. I want the truth. Tell me what’s wrong with my baby girl.”
The doctors cast glances at Will. He looked at me, then back at them, and nodded.
The news was bleak. They confirmed that due to her premature birth, her heart and lungs would not grow and develop in a normal way. There was more to it than that, medical jargon about valves and oxygen. The doctors spoke slowly. Will asked questions. They all seemed to be speaking another language. Again, I felt the waters rising, roaring in my ears. I shivered from the cold, felt myself sinking down, down, deep underwater, holding little Maggie in my arms.
Together, we sank.
I am Mrs. Monroe and I am drowning.
There is nothing to be done, the doctors said. No operation or medication that may save her.
She is not expected to live to see her first birthday.
“There must be something we can do,” I said, the words little bubbles of air floating up to the surface and bursting.
“Bring her home and love her,” the doctors said. “Treasure each moment.”
Little Margaret struggled for breath in my arms.
And I clung to her, silently promised to never let her go.
April 3, 1930
Will tells me we must prepare ourselves for what is coming; for the inevitability of losing our child. How does one possibly prepare for such a thing? His words sound practiced and strange. He has become a wooden man, an actor reciting lines he doesn’t quite believe. He walks around in wrinkled shirts, hair uncombed, dark circles under his eyes.
“Why?” I demanded. “Why should we have to prepare for such a thing? It isn’t fair or right.”
“It’s God’s will,” he said.
“Then he is not a God I wish to believe in,” I said.
Will opened his mouth to say something more, to argue, to reason, but no words came. He turned and shuffled off like a sleepwalker.
Will sent Reverend Bickford in to see me, thinking surely the dear reverend could offer words of comfort, could quote scripture, give me something to cling to. But I closed my eyes, held the baby to my chest, and asked him, as politely as I could manage, to please leave us alone.
I heard them speaking in the kitchen after. The reverend said, “Even in the most difficult times, we must keep our faith.”
And I laughed then. A snarling, spiteful laugh.
I went into the bathroom and pulled down my thick wool tights. My legs had become a garden of scratches and pokes. I was like a grim version of the tattooed lady at the fair. Here was my daughter’s name, etched into my skin, surrounded by designs of dots, little constellations forming pictures: a sparrow’s egg, a rose, the Brandenburg Springs Hotel, the springs. I pulled out my pin and went over her name again and again, the blood blooming on the surface of my skin.
