Embracing Darkness (19 page)

“We need to keep our stories straight,” Gertrude interjected.

“So that when Robinson asks us we can say you were telling the truth,” added Constance.

The two girls broke off from Ellen at the stairs, and while they went upstairs Ellen just stood there. Finally there was quiet in the orphanage.

Bald Amanda had been sent to the hospital and would eventually be adopted by the doctor in charge of burn patients, who took an instant liking to her feistiness. He actually admired her impudence. She won adoptability with the first words she uttered when the doctor directed the mirror strapped to his head at her: “Get that goddamn light outta my eye, you asshole!” Years later Ellen would reflect back on Amanda’s good fortune, stating simply, “Incredible how lucky some bitches get.”

Standing at the foot of the stairs, Ellen could detect the sweet smell of the burned blanket, its strong odor still emanating from the common room. She walked over to the fireplace and stared into it, absorbing the residual toxins of the fire into her lungs. She breathed in deeply, closing her eyes. Only charred bits of her beloved afghan remained, but the smell persisted.

Over the next few weeks Ellen tried desperately to replicate the odor of the burning blanket. She tried igniting cut-up pieces of her bedclothes, but the end result was hardly the same. What’s more, in her opinion, these gave off an offensive odor. She also tried burning stockings, but still the same outcome. Then she was caught trying to ignite a doll belonging to one of the newly arrived orphans. Nurse Ross was the one who saw what she was doing and put the fire out immediately. She thought only that Ellen was playing with matches, not noticing the doll lying in a pile of sticks.

Ellen knew she’d need another means by which to get her high, and her reasons were that it was an instant release from the pain she’d felt from losing her blanket, and, besides, the smell of her blanket while on fire was her last memory of it. She needed the smell, or something like it, to hold on to that memory. For Ellen a toxic fume equaled the sheer joy she’d gotten from her afghan.

One day, about a year after her attempt to get high by incinerating a doll, a workman was up on the second floor painting the recreation room, whose walls were in the worst shape imaginable, due to the fact that Macy Nugent and Evelyn Wild had busied themselves with tearing off long strips of dry paint for their “paint strips and chips collection.” The entire upstairs floor was filled with the smell of wet paint. The girls were told to stay out of the way of the workman who, on his ladder now, was busy painting the ceiling. He didn’t want girls coming through the hallway, fearing that they might bump into the ladder and send him flying six feet down onto his bottom.

But Macy had still been busy in the closet, peeling off the paint in there. The game she and Evelyn had once played became a contest to see who could peel off the biggest and longest and prettiest pieces of dried paint. At lunch it was clear to Nurse Ross that Macy was the only one missing.

Wanda Peterson snickered, “She’s kinda hard to miss in a room, isn’t she?”

The other girls laughed. Nurse Ross clapped her hands twice for the girls to quiet down and eat.

She then went over to Ellen and asked her tenderly, “Can you go upstairs and see what’s keeping Macy? But be sure to stay out of the way of Mr. Hobbs. He’s busy and doesn’t want any fooling around near his work.”

Ellen made her way upstairs and passed the workman on the ladder. “Hi Mr. Hobbs,” Ellen said.

He ignored her and resumed his work.

“Macy!” Ellen shouted. After hearing no reply, she breathed in deeply to get enough lung power to call more loudly this time, but as she did so the sweet smell of wet paint, ever so slightly present before she came upstairs, was even stronger now. She noticed a bucket filled with white paint, which sat right under her nose.

She liked the smell, but she didn’t
love
it until she began feeling lightheaded, just as she’d experienced that day in front of the fireplace. Ellen’s nose hovered just above the bucket. The intoxicating smell was reminiscent of her mother and her incinerated blanket.

Ellen found Macy in one of the closets a few moments later and just shook her head in adult-like disapproval.

Ellen had never really liked Macy before this. Some of it had to do with the prejudices she’d been brought up with in turn-of-the-century New England. Arrogance blended with narrow-mindedness comprised part of Ellen F.’s personality, along with spitefulness, selfishness, and aloofness. Ultimately, however, Ellen’s reason for disliking Macy Nugent was simply that she never liked anyone, except for Nurse Ross and the mother she’d never known. But now that Macy had inadvertently helped Ellen find a new path to toxic bliss, all would be different.

“You’re not so bad, Nugent,” Ellen said. “You’re alright,” and she nodded her head slowly in approval of the Negro girl. Macy smiled back at her, then thumbed through her “paint strips and chips collection,” like they were pages in a book. She found a huge piece and offered it to Ellen.

Ellen took the gift between the tips of her thumb and index finger and brought it up to her nose. She closed her eyes as she inhaled deeply. Nothing. Not even the faintest trace that would make her head go woozy. No sweet smell that would take her for a split second away from this place.

“Hmm. Doesn’t smell like anything, does it?” said Ellen.

She carelessly threw the paint strip back into the bucket, an action that made little Macy gasp. As Ellen opened the closet door, she gently elbowed Macy. “I guess that we both like paint,” she said. “It’s just I prefer mine wet.”

A few weeks afterwards Ellen was asked by Grimalda Robinson to fetch Nurse Ross because a new baby had just been brought to the orphanage, and it was Nurse Ross’s job to verify that the child appeared healthy and free of disease or infection. Argyle Hobbs, who was still at work painting one of the spare rooms upstairs, grunted and shot an indifferent look at Ellen as she greeted him from the hallway.

After knocking on Nurse Ross’s door, Ellen heard muffled muttering from the other side. It sounded like a woman’s voice. With her ear pressed closely to the door, Ellen knocked again.

“Yes?” a voice called from within.

“Uh. Nurse Ross?” Ellen replied. “It’s Ellen. There’s a new baby here. Mrs. Robinson wants you to come downstairs right away.”

There was silence for a few seconds before Ellen heard footsteps. She removed her ear and stood up straight. When Nurse Ross opened the door, a pleasant smell of freshly extinguished candles reached Ellen’s nose, though it was not as fragrant to her as the smell of wet paint and definitely not as satisfying.

“What were you doing in your room with the candles?” Ellen asked in curiosity, poking her head between the door jamb and Nurse Ross’s left shoulder in order to get a peek.

“I was praying, Ellen,” said Nurse Ross. “That’s all. Nothing more than that.”

Ellen tilted her head slightly up to Nurse Ross. By now they were almost the same height. At eleven years old Ellen was nearly equal in height to five-foot-tall Nurse Ross.

“May I see?” Ellen asked excitedly.

Nurse Ross smiled, stepped aside, and let Ellen squeeze between her wide body and the door frame. This wasn’t the first time that Ellen had been in the nurse’s room. There had been many times when the child needed comforting. And here was a place with a door and a lock where the two could have their privacy away from judgmental eyes, yet caressing Ellen’s blond hair and gently stroking her cheeks were as far as the nurse would ever venture. Likewise, Ellen’s exploration of the nurse’s breast was limited to putting her hand inside Ross’s dress and feeling her hard nipple.

The room was dark, since the window’s red curtain was drawn, and the lights had not been turned back on. There was enough light in the room, however, for Ellen to see the tall statue of a woman in blue and white robes that covered her head but not her face, a face that smiled serenely. Her hands were pointed downward, the palms facing outward. Under her naked feet was a snake, its mouth wide open as if in agonizing pain. Ellen walked over to the statue and examined it.

“Who is this?” Ellen asked.

“That’s the Blessed Virgin Mother,” replied Nurse Ross.

Ellen turned her head around as far as she could while maintaining her current position. “What’s a virgin?”

Nurse Ross walked over to the girl and tapped her on the back as if to tell her to come along. Ellen straightened up but didn’t take her eyes off the statue until Nurse Ross put her arm around her shoulders and pulled her away.

“Come,” said Ross. “We mustn’t keep Mrs. Robinson and the new baby waiting.”

Ellen considered the statue as the two walked out of the room. She was still staring at it as Nurse Ross closed the door. “What’s a
virgin
?” Ellen persisted as the two made their way downstairs.

Nurse Ross chuckled, wondering how direct she should be with the child. Halfway down the staircase she explained, “A virgin is someone who has never been touched by the dirty hands of a man.”

Ellen asked in bewilderment, “Then does that mean I’m not a virgin because that old Mr. Parker touched me? I bit him, so does it still count?”

Nurse Ross roared with laughter as she tightened her arm around Ellen’s shoulders. “No, nothing like that, my dear! I mean touch you in your special ‘girly place.’”

As they reached the bottom of the stairs, Nurse Ross turned to Ellen, put her fingers under Ellen’s chin, and raised her head up until their eyes met. “A woman’s own body and what she wants to do with it are her own right! HER OWN RIGHT! When a man wishes to invade her body, if it’s not for the sole purpose of procreating—sorry, dear, I mean making babies—if it’s not for the sole purpose of making babies, then there is no reason for a man to touch you in your ‘girly place.’ Not to put his ‘boyish thing’ into your ‘girly place.’ You
do
know what I’m referring to when I say ‘boyish thing’?”

Ellen smiled and said, “Oh, sure. Some of the boys across the yard saw a bunch of us girls playing on the grass last summer. They called and told us to look. From the window they all pulled down their pants and showed us their bottoms. I saw their ‘boyish things.’ It was disgusting! They looked like fat slugs with tiny, half-filled water balloons.”

Nurse Ross, not amused to learn of the boys’ stunt, had a good mind to tell Mr. Carson, headmaster of the orphanage across the way, all about it, but as it had been a whole year after the fact she let it go. “Just remember, Ellen,” she added. “As a woman it is YOUR RIGHT to do whatever you want with your body, whether it is to lie in your bed with a man or a woman or to remain celibate. I mean, to choose to lie with no one at all.”

Ellen’s eyes widened. “You mean, I can sleep
alone
in my bed for the rest of my life? I don’t have to ever share it like all those mothers and fathers who come to the orphanage do at home? Oh, Nurse Ross, I’d much rather have
that
!”

Over the next several weeks the nurse introduced Ellen to Roman Catholicism. A devout Catholic in her own way, Nurse Ross prayed every day and even invited Ellen to join her. She taught Ellen the essential prayers: “Our Father,” “Hail Mary,” “Act of Contrition,” and the “Apostle’s Creed.” Within a year, seeing how her teaching Ellen about the Bible was making a lasting impression, Nurse Ross decided that it was time to bring Ellen, now twelve, to her first Mass.

Before going to the service, Ellen peeked into Argyle Hobbs’s workroom (the orphanage had given him full employment as their handyman six months before), closed the door, and opened one of his paint cans to take a couple of deep whiffs. As she sat there with her eyes closed, letting the fumes take effect, the doorknob abruptly turned. She gasped and haphazardly replaced the can’s cover.

It was Argyle Hobbs. “What the devil a’e you doin’ in here?” he shouted.

Ellen quickly ransacked her brain for a plausible excuse. “I, uh, I just came in here to look for something for my bedpost,” Ellen said nervously. “The knob by my headboard came loose.”

Hobbs regarded her sternly, then looked around his work area and pulled out a bottle. “This here oughta do the trick,” he said. “I’ll take care of it. Now scat!”

Ellen flinched at Argyle Hobbs’s harsh voice and scurried out of the room. Seconds later, with the bottle in hand, Argyle shook his head and said, “Now did she say ‘headboard’ or ‘footboard’?”

In the church Nurse Ross pointed out all of the important things: the holy water, confession, altar, and the lighting of the candles. “You see, Ellen,” explained Nurse Ross, “when you lose something, you pray to Saint Anthony. And it will come back to you. And when you pray to Saint Christopher, he will protect you when you go on long journeys, because he is the patron saint and protector of travelers.”

“But I thought men were wicked,” said Ellen F. “And except for the Blessed Mother over there, all these statues are of men. All the saints, Jesus Christ, God—all men. Even the priest is always a man, isn’t he?”

Nurse Ross began to giggle quietly, a thoracic response that eventually culminated in a hacking cough. After she had regained control of her breathing and cleared her throat, Nurse Ross said quietly, “Well, dear. You see the Church was built by men, so they think they need to have the most important role.”

“Yes,” replied Ellen F., “but our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ was a man too.”

“But just remember that there would have been no Jesus Christ without our Blessed Virgin Mother.” Nurse Ross then began to cough again, and this time she couldn’t stop.

“That cough’s getting worse, Nurse Ross,” said Ellen. “You really should see a doctor.”

Detecting the humor in that statement, Nurse Ross managed a weak smile as she continued to cough. The priest, who had just come into the church to start the Mass, told one of the altar boys to ask the congregant whether she wouldn’t mind coughing outside.

Walking back to the orphanage, Nurse Ross was humiliated for having been asked to leave the church. As the two reached the orphanage’s steps, Nurse Ross said, “Please, Ellen. Don’t mention this to anyone.”