The Unfinished Child (34 page)

I requested permission to stay with the case and suggested I work with Dr. Cooper, a former colleague of mine who now works in the Pediatric Department at the University Hospital. Permission was granted but only if all of Carolyn’s care was conducted here on site. In other words, Dr. Stallworthy disallowed the notion that Carolyn might be transferred to the university for care once she goes into labour. I believe this has more to do with his trying to keep the reputation of Poplar Grove intact. He also expressed a strong interest in Carolyn’s family and their likelihood to press charges. I told him that the mother had been suitably shocked upon discovering her daughter’s state, but that she’d left the matters in my hands. Staff records show that Mrs. H., Carolyn’s mother, only began to visit her when she was four years old. Monthly visits followed. Nobody but the mother has ever visited.

The seeds for an article have already taken root: Pregnancy and Mongolism. I have not been this excited in my studies for years.

Elizabeth closed the notebook and shook her head. How much medical literature had been written about her? She flipped ahead.

January 1967

Another six months have gone by and three-and-a-half-year-old Elizabeth appears to become more mature by the day. This morning she arrived in a new red velvet Christmas dress with white lace around the collar, wrists, and hem. She even brought her good black patent shoes to replace her snow boots once she arrived. What she seemed most pleased with, however, was the white fur hand muff into which both of her hands could simultaneously disappear. She played magician for a full five minutes, “Now you see them, now you don’t!” before her mother could divert her attention to something new. Santa had been very good to her, she told me; he had given her everything she wanted but a kitten.

Elizabeth hadn’t thought about that dress in years. He had known her then too. No wonder he had been so kind and attentive to her; he’d been keeping notes the entire time, holding a magnifying glass over her as he prepared for his next article.

March 12, 1967

This morning, Carolyn H. died of cardio-respiratory complications, four months shy of her twentieth birthday. As is the custom at Poplar Grove, her body will be buried in the graveyard on the grounds.

The time of death is estimated at 3:30
AM
. The nurse doing the morning rounds discovered Carolyn in her bed at 7:00
AM
, curled into the fetal position. Her body was removed and an autopsy was performed.

Had I known her time was so near I would have held a vigil by her bedside so she would not have died alone. I could have told her that she’d brought love into the world. I could have told her that her daughter, now four years old, is a vivacious and precocious child who was adopted by loving parents and who will live freely in the world from which she herself had been barred.

Elizabeth’s eyes burned with tears. In the middle of a lonely night on a dark ward, her mother’s heart had stopped and she’d left this world virtually anonymous and unknown. And her own child, not even four years old, had likely twirled about in her red velvet dress while some stranger dug a grave for the mother she would never know. Of course it was too much to think a child would know when her own mother died, but to be entirely oblivious? Elizabeth was being introduced to a grief she’d never known belonged to her.

March 13, 1967

Today I hand-delivered my resignation to Dr. Stallworthy, who is on the board of directors. At first he tried to talk me out of leaving, saying that the longer I stayed the more I’d get used to the place. I informed him that after four years of full-time employment I would never become used to the dehumanizing behaviour that passes for “care” at Poplar Grove. Dr. Stallworthy virtually hurled the epithet “liberal” at me when I spoke of reforms in the care of mental defectives. Yet what does he really know about how this place works? He directs from a distance and does not witness the daily bedlam of life behind locked doors.

As much as I shall miss Carolyn, I cannot help but be relieved that her days of monotony are over.

I must go now and pack my desk.

A bell rang at the school and the children began to leave the playground. Elizabeth closed the notebook, acutely aware of the irony of her situation. Women her age were worried about
having
a baby with Down syndrome, not discovering they were the
product
of a mother with Down syndrome.

If she told Marie about her birth mother, would it have any effect on her decision? She imagined Marie thinking about her baby right now, its every movement a glaring reminder of its condition.

What was Marie going to do?

And how much longer could Elizabeth wait for Marie’s decision?

She turned the key in the ignition and drove away from the doctor’s house. The notebook occupied the passenger seat like a long-lost relative.

“Any news from
Marie yet?” Ron asked during dinner.

“No, but you’re never going to believe what happened to me today.”

“Try me.”

“This is big, Ron. I just found out something that makes our decision to raise Marie’s baby even more complicated for me.” Her eyes filled with tears and she wiped at them in irritation.

“When I was younger I used to want to know more about my birth mother. I figured I’d go to the government registry when I was eighteen and find my real mother, but my parents always found some subtle way to postpone or discourage my attempts. I never gave it much thought, but now I know exactly why they did what they did.”

The flames on one of the candles hissed and a chunk of wax fell on the tablecloth. Elizabeth put her index finger onto the soft wax and pushed it flat to keep it from burning a hole in the fabric.

“Why?”

“I had a doctor when I was growing up named Dr. Maclean. I remember going to his office and being surrounded by people who had Down syndrome. When I turned twelve, we switched doctors.” She stood up and retrieved her purse. “Here.”

She handed Ron the black notebook.

He flipped through the pages with confusion. “What is this?”

“It’s all his notes about my case. It seems I was a bit of a medical miracle.” She tried to laugh.

“I’m still in the dark here.”

“Well, here comes the unbelievable part. My birth mother had Down syndrome. She was institutionalized when she was two days old and she had me when she was sixteen.” Her voice had begun to shake. “I was born at Poplar Grove Provincial Training Centre, an institution for the mentally handicapped.” It was hard to say those words out loud.

Ron stared with disbelief, unsure if she was joking, but she didn’t laugh.

“You’re serious, aren’t you?”

“One hundred percent.”

He looked confused. “What happened? How did you find out now?”

“To make a long story short, Dr. Maclean used to work at Poplar Grove. He was on staff when they discovered my mother was pregnant. Her name was Carolyn, by the way. He was one of the attending physicians at my birth, and he did a lot of follow up after I was born. Most of the medical community believed that a child born from a woman with Down syndrome would also end up being mentally deficient. That I was apparently ‘normal’ was remarkable to them. Because of me, Dr. Maclean became a leading specialist in the field of Down syndrome.”

Ron flipped through the notebook. “This is incredible.”

“When Marie told me that her baby had Down syndrome, I wanted her to talk with Dr. Maclean. I thought he might be able to persuade her that it would be okay. He knows it’s not all doom and gloom. So I tracked him down and called him. Once he realized it was me, he said he’d wondered when I’d phone him and stuff like that. At some point it occurred to me that we were talking about two different things and something more was going on than I knew. So I went to his house and we talked.”

Ron flipped through the book. “I can’t believe you never knew.”

“Well, at least it’s pretty clear now why my parents never wanted me to find out.”

“I guess,” Ron said. “It’s a pretty difficult thing to explain . . . but still, it doesn’t seem right that it was kept a secret for so long.”

“I know. It’s hard to wrap my head around it. I’m not sure what to feel. I’m sort of mad that my parents never told me, but now that I know I can see that they were only trying to protect me.”

“Listen to this,” Ron said, and he began to read out loud.

August 1967

Elizabeth occupies her world so entirely that it’s a joy to watch. She is the centre of all activities in the waiting room, and the other children naturally gravitate toward her. Today I discovered her patiently attempting to teach two of the young children with Down syndrome how to play patty cake. She is only four herself, and her matter-of-fact singsong lisp was delightful. However, it was the laughter of the three children that I recall best.

Elizabeth embraces all of life’s opportunities so fully it pains me to know that my adult sensibility is largely void of an immediate sense of wonder. Such is the gift of childhood—the ability to respond instantly without filtering or censoring one’s emotions.

“He sounds like a good guy,” Ron said. “He obviously cared for you.”

Elizabeth nodded abstractly.

“Did Marie call him?”

“I haven’t given her the number yet. I thought I’d give her a day before I call with it. I think I shocked her yesterday, and I don’t want to scare her off.”

She stood and reached to clear Ron’s plate from the table; he caught her wrist and pulled her into his lap.

“This doesn’t change anything, you know? That your mother had Down syndrome, wild as that seems, doesn’t mean that it’s meant to be that Marie gives you her baby. Right? She’ll make her own decision, no matter what you do or don’t do.”

Elizabeth knew he was right.

And yet . . . She slipped from his grasp and took their plates to the sink.

Thursday morning was hectic. Barry
left the house earlier than usual for a meeting at work. Sophia remembered at breakfast that she had a book report due that day that she hadn’t yet started. Marie lost her temper. “Fine time to remember, isn’t it? Do I have to be responsible for
every
single thing in your life?”

By the time she calmed down, Sophia was in a state and threatened to not catch the school bus. In the end, it was Nicole who managed to get her sister out the door by offering her full control of the television for the night.

Marie watched the skills of her twelve-year-old with admiration and shame. Who was the adult here? Wasn’t Marie supposed to be the one to set a proper example?

Finally the front door closed behind her daughters and the house was quiet. Marie picked up the phone with a trembling hand and dialled Dr. Cuthbert’s number. She gave her name to the receptionist, said the doctor was expecting her call, and was put on hold.

Five minutes passed.

“Hello, Marie. It’s Dr. Cuthbert.”

“Hi.”

It was a sunny morning. Likely the early rays were streaming across the doctor’s desk and spilling onto the carpeted floor.

“My husband and I have made a decision,” she said.

“That’s good. What have you decided?”

“You said we needed to make our decision quickly,” Marie began, hoping the doctor wouldn’t make her spell it out entirely. “So you could make an appointment for us.”

“Yes.” Dr. Cuthbert’s voice was neutral, neither supportive nor condemning. “If you’re sure about this, then I’ll schedule an appointment immediately. I’ll phone you back as soon as I know, but right now I’m thinking, given your dates and that it’s almost the weekend, we might be able to book you as early as tomorrow afternoon.”

The words sounded as if they were coming from a great distance.

“So soon?” she whispered. Tomorrow was Friday. By the weekend the baby might not be in her body any longer. She felt an immediate need to protect it. She hadn’t felt the baby kick since she woke up. Maybe it knew what was coming. Maybe she had listened to the conversation she and Barry had had the previous night, and she’d wrapped the rubbery cord around her neck, wanting to control her own destiny. Maybe right now she was floating peacefully—senseless and forgiving.

The doctor didn’t hear her question. “If it is tomorrow, then you’d have to go in tonight for a small procedure, but if tomorrow doesn’t work out, it would help to know if you could be available for any other day.”

Marie gripped the phone until it felt as if her thin bones might crack. She closed her eyes. “Any day,” she said quietly. “I can be ready any day.” Will I ever be ready?

The clock above
the sink ticked loudly. The faucet dripped once, twice, three times, big drops that echoed like shots in the stainless steel basin. Marie sat at the kitchen table and stared across the room at the sink. She watched four more beads of water drop and counted the time between drops as if she were counting the space between lightning and thunder and waiting for the big crash to come.

Everything she had ever wanted or dreamed about lived in this house. Barry, her girls, all of their things. How was she going to fit this event in?

Her foot tapped the metal legs of the kitchen table. The girls’ breakfast dishes rattled as the table slightly bounced. The baby kicked.
I’m still here. It’s not too late to change your mind.
She stood up, as if to distance herself from the movement within. What was she going to tell Elizabeth? Marie felt sick even imagining the conversation.
Hi, Elizabeth. Thanks for your offer to raise our baby. I certainly appreciate your generosity, but Barry and I have decided not to go ahead with the pregnancy. We like our family just the way it is. Sorry about that. Want to do lunch sometime?

Yeah, right. Elizabeth wouldn’t want anything more to do with her. So now she’d suffer two deaths—that of her child and of her lifelong friendship. Marie couldn’t help but feel that her suffering at the moment was greater than Elizabeth’s. It wasn’t her fault Elizabeth couldn’t have a baby. That didn’t mean she had to give up her own, did it? Her mind reeled. She was giving up her baby anyway, wasn’t she? But she couldn’t phone and destroy Elizabeth’s hopes. Plus, deep down, Marie knew that if she talked to Elizabeth, her friend might actually persuade her to change her mind.