A Violet Season (13 page)

Anabel shrieked on. Finally Ida took her into the bedroom and laid her on the bed and unwrapped her to take a closer look. She was slightly older than Mary had been when she arrived, but not by much, and not much bigger. Her hands and feet had a bluish cast beneath her translucent skin, and she folded her skinny knees up to her chest as she screamed, a sign of colic. Ida tried placing her on her lap, rolling her on her tummy and rubbing her back, but the screaming went on for another half hour before the infant wore herself into a fitful sleep.

None of her own babies had been screamers, but Ida had heard
of those who were—one of Harriet’s girls had been—and she knew it was not a single occurrence. As she had expected, the baby was up three times in the night, waking Mary with her, and she nursed only fitfully, so in the morning, when the noise of breakfast awoke her, she was hungry and screaming again. Ida left her in the bedroom and closed the door, keeping Mary and Jasper in the kitchen with her while she sliced the bread and fried the eggs and brewed the coffee for the others. Frank glared several times at the bedroom door during breakfast but said nothing. As soon as he and the boys were gone, Ida left the dirty dishes on the table and went into the bedroom to try to nurse and soothe the new baby again.

However, any soothing Ida managed lasted only a short time before Anabel was twisting her body, throwing out her arms, and screaming again. There was no living with it. On the third morning, deprived of sleep and patience and exhausted by the new regimen of nursing, which had left little time for anything else, Ida walked across the lane to Harriet’s, left Jasper and Mary with her, and drove with the baby into town.

Dr. Van de Klerk was out, so she left a note saying that she needed help. Because she was already in the village, she called at Mrs. Schreiber’s house. By the time she rang the bell, Anabel was asleep in the basket.

Mrs. Schreiber answered the door in her apron, and Ida saw she was busy cooking for her boarders. She felt sorry to disturb this morning work, but Mrs. Schreiber took Ida by the hand and guided her through the front door. “She’s a dear one, isn’t she,” Mrs. Schreiber said, leaning over to see the baby in the basket, which Ida had set down on the carpet. “Oh—it’s a different baby, isn’t it?”

“Yes, just up from the city this week. She cries and cries,” and then Ida was crying, too. She made no move to wipe her face, and Mrs. Schreiber took her hand again, saying, “Leave the baby there,” as if she understood that Ida secretly wished to do so and
walk much farther away than through the French doors into the dining room. Mrs. Schreiber pulled out a dining chair and Ida sat. Through watery eyes, she saw the baskets of lush houseplants hung in the sunny front corners of the room and standing to the sides of the deep windows. Mrs. Schreiber’s life, in which she had time to care for so many decorative plants, looked like heaven to Ida. She wiped her face with her gloved hands. Mrs. Schreiber sat opposite her, watching.

“It may be colic,” Ida said. “The doctor is out. I thought you might have something for it.”

“Oh, two of mine had the colic something terrible,” said Mrs. Schreiber. “It’s about as hard on the mother as it must be on the baby.”

“What can I do?”

Mrs. Schreiber shook her head. “Not much, I’m afraid. The best is for you to eat as bland a diet as possible. Bread and milk, fruit if you can get it. Not much meat, and cook your vegetables until they’re soft as can be.”

For a second Ida thought she was in her mother’s parlor, and recognizing it as the tag of a dream, she shook her head and straightened herself.

“You poor dear,” Mrs. Schreiber said. “You’re exhausted.” Then she disappeared into the kitchen.

While Mrs. Schreiber was gone, one of the boarders wandered into the room. Ida was too tired to care who saw her sprawled in the straight-backed chair, but the man reared back as if he’d seen an apparition and hurried up the stairs. A few minutes later, Mrs. Schreiber returned with a small paper bag.

“Try brewing yourself a tea of this,” she said. “If you can get the baby to take some cold, do that, too. See if it helps. I wish I could offer you more.”

Ida reached out for the bag. “How much do I owe you?” she asked.

“Five cents, whenever you’ve a chance,” said Mrs. Schreiber. “But only if it works.”

“Thank you,” Ida said, near tears again, for she had to stand and fetch that basket from the hall. This exhaustion wasn’t the same as the exhaustion she felt at the end of a day of picking violets. She could always rub her muscles with liniment and sleep off that ache to work another day. This exhaustion was hung on desperation, dragging her down like a sinker through water until she felt helpless to ever reach the surface of normality.

“You could try one other thing,” Mrs. Schreiber said. “With one of mine, a friend recommended a sling. It helped a bit. You can make it out of a scrap of fabric or an old sheet.” She glanced around the dining room and picked up a cloth napkin to demonstrate. “Imagine this were large enough to tie around you. Fold a large piece of cloth in a triangle like so, and tie it across your front like a sash, with a knot on your back. Nice and tight, so the baby nestles in close to you. Carry her everywhere, while you’re working—not by the stove, mind you, but everywhere else. That might help as well.”

“Thank you,” Ida said. “I shall.” Her tears fell again, profuse as milk, but Mrs. Schreiber paid them no mind. She had likely seen many neighbors at their worst.

“The baby’s still asleep,” she said. “You lie down here a few minutes.” She indicated a couch across the room near the fireplace. Ida needed no further invitation. “I’ll take care of the baby,” Mrs. Schreiber said, but Ida was already lying down, her head on a velvet-covered pillow. It seemed only an instant before Mrs. Schreiber was pressing her shoulder, and Ida could hear the screams of a large bird—no, the baby—and sat up to find that the light had shifted.

“There’s one hour you’ve caught up,” Mrs. Schreiber said. “I’m sorry I couldn’t give you more. Would you like to nurse her here? There’s a private room in the back.”

Ida thought with sudden panic about Mary, who would be hungry and wailing at Harriet’s house. But she didn’t want to drive through town with these inhuman screams coming from her rig.

The private room was Mrs. Schreiber’s office, with an open roll-top desk piled with papers and a bookcase holding an eclectic collection of volumes on ancient remedies, Chinese medicine, German history, poetry, gardening, philosophy, and a few romance novels all in a hodgepodge. When Mrs. Schreiber pulled out the desk chair, it nearly touched the wall behind it. “It’s the old pantry,” she apologized. “But it’s a good place to escape. They never find me in here.” Though she was speaking of her boarders, she had raised a houseful of children as well, and in her measured smile, Ida saw she was not alone.

*   *   *   

At home, as soon as she had nursed Mary, Ida took an old sheet from one of the attic trunks, tore it to size, and bundled Anabel in it, tied firmly against her rib cage. It wasn’t so convenient as it could have been if she weren’t nursing another baby, but it did calm Anabel somewhat, and it allowed Ida to go about the rest of her day with her hands free to do the chores and mind the other children.

Before supper that evening, Dr. Van de Klerk pulled up in his wagon. The December wind was sharp, and night was gathering as the pickers dispersed for the day. From the kitchen window, Ida watched the doctor make his way through them as if they were dry leaves blown in his path. She was grateful he had arrived in time to see her without Frank present; it would take him another hour at least to check all the fires and come in.

The doctor raised his eyebrows at the sling and humphed when he realized it wasn’t Mary she carried but another baby.

“How is the other one?” he asked, glancing around the room.

“She’s right here,” Ida said, pointing to the old cradle on the kitchen floor, where Mary slept soundly. “She’s fine. Growing strong.”

The doctor nodded. “And this one?”

Tears welled up, and Ida swallowed hard to contain them. “This
one screams,” she said. “She won’t nurse well, and she doesn’t sleep much. Evening is worst, but it happens on and off all day.”

She leaned the sling on the kitchen table until it took the weight of the baby, then reached behind her neck to untie the knot and drop the ends of the sheet.

“You don’t want me to wake her, then,” he said.

“No, please.”

He reached gently under the baby’s dress to touch her belly and, noticing the blue of her hands and feet, he touched them as well. “Colic, probably,” he said. “But there could be something wrong with her heart. I don’t care for the look of her extremities. How much does she nurse?”

“A few minutes at a time, and then she wriggles away. I nurse her the same times as I nurse Mary, six or seven times a day, and more at night for this one.”

The doctor stared at Ida. “And you, Mrs. Fletcher? How are you faring?”

Ida swallowed hard again. If she were able to step back and think, she could say it would pass. All babies grow up, quicker than expected, and Anabel would, too. Or she wouldn’t—a thought Ida couldn’t entertain. Dr. Van de Klerk took her by the elbow and guided her into a kitchen chair. Jasper dropped his wooden ship and came to the table’s edge to watch her. The doctor sat across from her.

“You need a rest,” he said. “What ever possessed you to take on another baby?”

Idiot! Ida thought. She had been prepared to confide in him, but to think she had chosen this for herself? She stood and grabbed a dishcloth from the sink on which to dry her eyes.

“One of these babies needs to go home,” Dr. Van de Klerk said. “Or both of them. And then you mustn’t take any more.”

Ida turned to look at him. “You’ll need to speak to my husband about that,” she said.

On the table, Anabel was stirring, and Ida wrapped her up again, fearful she would roll off. The doctor made no move to help her as she gathered up the sling and fastened it behind her neck. Instead, he stood and collected his coat and hat. Then he reached into his bag and placed a brown bottle on the kitchen table.

“You can try this for the baby. Just a drop if she can’t be quieted.”

“What is it?”

“Laudanum. You could try it yourself, but it may pass into your milk, and the other baby will get some.”

“Thank you,” Ida said.

The doctor nodded. After he stepped out into the icy night, she placed the bottle high in a cupboard where Jasper couldn’t reach it. She would not call the doctor again.

T
he Christmas season was always busy. Violets were part of festive decorations everywhere, and with so many parties, corsages were in demand. Ida hardly noticed the rush. Since Anabel had come, she’d slept no more than two hours at a stretch, with nary a rest in the daytime, for even if the baby was calmed and sleeping, neglected chores were waiting. Mrs. Schreiber’s tea soothed Ida, at least, but whether it helped the baby was hard to say. Perhaps she was a bit easier to calm during the day, but her screaming fits still ran from suppertime through the evening hours. Once Ida tried the doctor’s laudanum, and Anabel dropped into a deep, listless sleep. Exhausted, Ida slept, too, but later she awakened in a panic, for the baby hadn’t cried. Fearful that Anabel would never wake up, Ida ran out into the snow, scooped a handful into a bowl, and rubbed it on the baby’s arms and legs, raising a pathetic moan that eventually spread into the familiar scream. “Should have let her sleep,” Frank muttered, and behind those words Ida heard his real thoughts: if the baby never awakened, it would be a blessing.

A screaming baby brought evil thoughts into the home, yet Ida’s greatest fear was that a child might perish in her care. However, in the case of Anabel, no one but Ida seemed concerned. Frank had
not bothered to answer her questions about the baby’s family or to mail the letter she’d written to Anabel’s unnamed parents.

Despite her exhaustion, Ida had continued to write to Alice several times each week in care of Miss Sligh, but the letters had all gone unanswered. This was unlike Alice, who had written long, literary epistles to her cousins in Ohio. Finally Ida asked Frank again about the address to which she’d been writing.

“You’ve transposed the numbers,” he said, pointing with a grimy finger at the entry in her address book. “The four and the two are switched.”

“Wouldn’t my letters have been returned, then?” she asked, but Frank merely shrugged.

She tried again, mailing a letter with a package containing a scarf and a book of poetry for Christmas, gifts too dear for her budget.

On Christmas Eve, the temperature dropped into the teens, and a crooked wind knocked around the house. Ida stuffed rags along the windowsills and under the doors and hung a curtain between the front rooms to keep the kitchen warmer. The fire burned all day, but as soon as one stepped outside, no matter how bundled, the cold pried easily under layers of cotton and wool and numbed the fingers and toes. The boys and Frank wrapped scarves around their faces and went about their work. Ida was glad her work was in the kitchen.

After supper, she helped the boys bundle extra layers over their Sunday best so they could ride into town for the Sunday school Christmas exercises. Ida would have liked to join them. There would be singing and recitations and a visit from Saint Nicholas, who would bring something special for each of the children. Nora Hoskins had written a poem for the occasion, and Ida had hoped to hear her read it. But it was too cold a night for the babies, so Ida watched the sleigh bump down the driveway, lamps swinging wildly as it navigated the fresh, snowy drifts, then steady as
Frank and the children followed Harold’s family down the lane into the dark.

Ida felt so forlorn, with the wind pushing at the house like a bully, that after the babies were asleep, she lit some fancy candles she’d kept for a special occasion. As she rocked in the kitchen with her needlework, she sang some favorite carols and breathed in the honeyed scent of the candles, trying to chase the darkness from the edges of things. The irregular orange candlelight flickered surprising patterns on the walls and the beamed ceiling, and everything in her own kitchen looked different. Maybe the places she counted as so familiar all had the possibility of being this way—completely changed and unexpected. The dark room with the jumping light seemed like a huge pot stirred by a mysterious, unseen hand, as if a spell were being cast, and though Ida couldn’t say whether it would be a good spell or an evil one, she didn’t feel afraid. The crazy shadows told her: if she could only see things differently, she might find her way.