When the front door clicked open, I was silently shutting my bedroom door behind me and Truman was at the kitchen counter, making himself a ham and cheese sandwich.
I stretched out on my bed in the maid’s room, waiting for the next chance to get something to eat without being seen, musing on what I could make of myself with four thousand dollars to assist me. Feather-soft movements beneath the skin and muscle of my abdomen reminded me I would not be alone.
17
JUNE 1939
I feel as if I’m made of thistledown, drifting high above the weary world. I can hear Momma in heaven calling my name, which means I am dead. My next thought isn’t that my life is over so quickly but that my arms are empty and they ought not to be.
Gradually the feeling of lightness begins to fade, and I realize I’m not dead after all. I am waking from a bottomless slumber. The more awake I become, the more I’m aware of pain—everywhere—from deep within but also on the outside of my body. Everything hurts.
I open my eyes slowly. There is a woman standing over me, saying my name. Not my mother, but a nurse in a white dress and starched hat. I am in a bed, not on a cloud. My head hurts, as do my cheek, my hands, my shoulder, the space in between my legs, my stomach. The nurse peers down at me.
“You need to wake up now, Rosie,” the nurse is saying. “Time to wake up.”
I want to close my eyes and go back to the sky, but I know something is wrong about where I am, something is missing.
Amaryllis. Where is Amaryllis?
“Where’s my baby?” I whisper as the nurse’s face comes into better focus.
“How about a drink of water?” the nurse says.
“Where is Amaryllis?” My voice sounds as if I have grit in my throat.
“Can you sit up a tiny bit?” the nurse asks, and I see that she is holding a glass of water.
“Where’s Amaryllis?” My gaze darts about the room. Amaryllis is nowhere in sight.
“How about if I prop up your pillows and then you can take a drink? You’ll feel better after you’ve had some sips of water.” The nurse sets the glass down on a bedside table.
As I allow the nurse to bend me into a semi-sitting position, a burst of heat spreads across my abdomen. I reach down instinctively to put out the flame and the nurse gently bats my hand away.
“Now, you don’t want to be pulling at the bandages,” the nurse says. “Nor do you want to sit up too fast and tear the stitches on your tummy.”
Alarm shoots through my sore body. “What stitches?” I push back the covers.
“Careful, there. It’s just three little incisions,” the nurse says calmly. “Nothing to fret about.”
With shaking hands I pull up the hospital gown someone has put on me and I look down at my stomach, at the three bandages: one over my navel, one on the lower left side of my tummy, and one on the right.
“What have you done?” I groan, wanting to yell the question, but it feels like there is no air in the room to draw across my vocal cords. None.
“It was a simple procedure, dear. You’ll be feeling like yourself in no time.”
“What have you done to me?” I look up at the nurse, but I know what they have done. They cut into me. Changed me.Sterilized me. Just like they had done to Charlotte. To the childlike young woman in the bed across from me. To who knows how many others here.
“Why in the world don’t they tell you people ahead of time what’s going to happen?” the nurse mutters in an exasperated tone. “How about that sip of water?” She reaches for the glass.
“Where is my baby? Where is Amaryllis?” I swing my legs over the side of the bed and attempt to stand. I have to get out of here. Pain sends me back to the mattress.
“You need to calm down,” the nurse scolds, pulling the covers back over me.
I sweep them off again. “Where’s my baby?”
The nurse takes out a hypodermic from her pocket. “If you don’t stop thrashing about, I’m going to have to give you something to make you stop, and it will just slow down your recovery time. Do you understand?”
But I keep screaming for my child. Another nurse comes into the room.
