“So when Jewel was born, once I was allowed into the room and saw her, love seized me—so deep and strong and raw, more powerful, primitive, even, than anything I’d thought to feel. We were tired and exultant. Our mothers, who’d been in the bedroom for the birth, left for us to have some private time with the baby. For those first hours, we just cuddled her. Mary Beth, first until she slept. And then….” He let out a breath, a small smile of remembrance playing on his lips, and placed his arms together in a cradling motion. “My darling daughter.”
Ivy could imagine how sweet Jewel must have been as a newborn.
“At that point, the baby was only swaddled. The nurse took her from me to bathe her. I leaned back. My eyes were so heavy, and I closed them, lightly dozing. Still, I tried to keep my ears pricked for what the nurse was doing with the baby, and I heard her talking to the doctor in a low voice. Naively, I thought they were consulting about another case.”
“Jewel’s condition wasn’t obvious?”
“Not to me. How many newborns had I held?” He made azerohand sign.
“The doctor started an examination of the baby. I sat up and watched, interested in what I thought was a normal exam. He stared intently into her face. Looked at her ears. Traced a finger down her neck. Then he looked at her hands, especially the pinky finger, opened her palms, and ran a finger across the middle.”
Ivy remembered noticing the crease running diagonally across Jewel’s palm and not thinking anything of it.
“All of a sudden, the frown on the doctor’s face sent this…thisterrorthrough me. That expression, more than the words, gave me the inkling…. Yet, I refused to believe something could be wrong with our beautiful baby. Then Mary Beth woke up. The doctor ushered in our parents. The nurse still held the baby.”
The stone of their seat was beginning to feel hard. But Ivy didn’t want to wiggle to a more comfortable spot and risk him stopping his tragic tale.
“The doctor told us she was Mongoloid. I’d never heard the term before. He said it came fromMongolianfor the slanted eyes of these children. I’ll never forget what he said next. That she wasn’t quite right. That she wouldn’t be able to do anything. She couldn’t talk more than grunts. She’d live a short life—three to five or six years, on the average. Ten, if we were lucky.”
She’s twelve now.The thought sent a spike of fear through her. Glancing at Jewel, sleeping, looking the picture of health, made her take a deep breath and focus on the story being revealed.
“That we needed to put her into a home for children like her who aren’t right in body or mind. I couldn’t absorb what they were saying.”
“I can’t believe they wanted to institutionalize her.” Cora had told Ivy too many horror stories about the foundling home where she sometimes volunteered. Just the thought of sweet Jewel being confined in one….” She repressed a shiver.The doctor’s prediction of death by three years old would probably have come true.
“Our parents watched the doctor, growing horror on their faces. Mary Beth had this distant look, as if she wasn’t there. My mother started to cry. Gradually, our parents all stepped back from the bed as if the baby had a contagious disease.”
His words painted such a vivid picture.
“The nurse tried to hand the baby back to Mary Beth. To say good-bye, the woman said. But Mary Beth wouldn’t take her. Pushed her back at the nurse and screamed to take the creature away.”
Creature!Ivy sucked in a breath, her anger flaring.How dare she!
“I swooped in and scooped her up. ‘No, no,’ I told them. ‘We’ll be all right.’ I tried to smile at Mary Beth. ‘We can figure this out.’ But she turned her head away.”
“I can’t imagine a mother doing that. Not being maternal to her baby,” Ivy said her tone sharp.
“My father gestured toward the nurse. ‘Let the woman take the baby, Torin.’ He spoke in a tone he hadn’t used with me since I’d grown up and started working in the business, as if talking to a wayward child.”
The burn of tears in her throat made Ivy unable to speak. She placed a hand on his arm.
“I felt as if I stood on shifting sands, and I couldn’t find my balance. But one thing was as firm as bedrock.No onewas taking my daughter!”
“Good for you!” she murmured, squeezing his arm.
“Mary Beth burst into hysterics, and her mother fluttered uselessly around her. My parents ushered Jewel and me out of the room and into the parlor, where the rest of the families had been waiting for their turn to see the baby. My three brothers were there. Mary Beth’s grandparents and her brothers and sisters.”
So many family members.
“My father explained to them all that the baby wasn’t right, and she’d have to be institutionalized. Everyone looked shocked. Their eyes slid away from us. My brothers obviously didn’t know what to say. I kept saying, ‘No. No. We’re keeping her. We will raise her.’” He huffed and shook his head. “I still, futilely, thought if I stated my adamant wishes enough, they’d get over their shock and agree.”
“And they didn’t?”
Torin shook his head. “At some point, my father proclaimed what would happen with the baby, and it was as if everyone had changed. This family that I thought I was so close with—I loved them, and they loved me—they were acting like Jewel was this abomination, and she was only this innocent little baby. And instead of seeing her as I saw her, they viewed her as something to be ashamed of and hidden away. They tried to tell me that we’d have other children, ones who’d be normal. But I didn’t care about those other children. I cared aboutthis one.” He cradled his arms again, as if holding baby Jewel. “My father drew a firm line.”
“What was the line?” Even as Ivy asked the question, she suspected the answer.
This time, he looked at her. The bleakness in his eyes made her heart crack. “If I didn’t give up the child, I’d be cut from the business and disinherited. Mary Beth’s father chimed in and vowed she would be too.”
