Children's Ward

ANONYMOUS

STAND here,” said the head nurse, “I want you to see him before he sees you. You’ll then be able to notice how much he’s improved.”

She stationed me behind the window in the nursery door but for a time I couldn’t find him. Then again as a shock, his extreme smallness became apparent. Most fearfully it seemed to me that in six weeks he should have grown more. Had they not told me that the rate of growth at three is extremely quick? He seemed, on the contrary, to have dwindled. His head of fluffy yellow curls looked dreadfully unprotected, and he wore unfamiliar pale blue velveteen overalls, not his own clothes at all, strange clothes like an orphan. But, of course, his own would be in a drawer somewhere. Here they only wore what the hospital gave them.

“You see?” said the nurse. “Did you see that? A wheel came off. He tried to fix it. Four weeks ago he would have just cried. Now he attempts to cope.”

He was standing in the middle of the room, silent in the cacophony, trying to fix the wheel to the plastic truck; then he lost interest and dropped them both on the linoleum floor. Now he stood aimlessly not caring what he looked at. I slipped through the door. He walked quite close before he saw me.

There was no hint of the transition. Suddenly he was on my shoulder. “I told you,” he yelled, “I told you my mama would not leave me. I told you.” His free arm waved and gesticulated as though he were making a speech. The other caught at my ears and hair. “I knew, I knew she’d come back to me. Go home now?” Immediately he was quiet, snuggled down under my chin, his thumb in his mouth.

“They adjust faster than you think,” the doctors had said. “An hour after you’ve gone, they’re busy with other people and toys and have forgotten all about you. But as long as they’ve got your emotional reaction, they’ll put on quite a show. It doesn’t mean much though, really.”

I sat with him on one of the very low chairs. He admired the pleats on my waist, my earrings; he stuck a finger tentatively up my nose. He didn’t seem to care to speak and was uncommunicative about what had been going on, nor very much interested in the games around.

“Don’t you want to string beads with those nice children?” I asked.

He shook his head and flattened himself against me as though he were going to send out roots all down his body and fix himself to me for keeps.

The nurse said it was lunchtime and the children began getting ready. I started to carry him. He jumped down and said, “No, I can,” went to a locker behind his high hospital crib, and selected a towel and washrag. Then he marched in a businesslike way to the bathroom and turning on the spigot of one of the very low little washbasins dabbled two fingers in the stream of water, drying them smartly on his towel. “ Who taught you to do this?” I said marveling. His face lightened with pride. Any attempt to wash his face and hands before had brought on such struggling that. I had learned to wash him with one leg thrown across his knees to protect my own teeth and face. I very soon learned never to diaper and wash him when he wore shoes.

All neat and proud, he escorted me to the table. They sat about eight to a table. There was an older girl at the top of ours, who, the doctor told me, had been mothering my Peter.

“Eat your potatoes, dearie,” she said pointing. He looked at her with large eyes, then looked at me and all but winked. His thumb went into his mouth, the other hand reached for mine. Emily, who was about eight, continued.

“The food here has been getting worse and worse. I’m going to have my mother complain. It’s not fit, that’s what it is — not fit. You know why it’s no good, don’t you?” She cupped her hands and whispered to her nearest companion. All the younger children stared at them and quietly put down their spoons.

“The potatoes look perfectly fine,” I said. “I’m sure they’re delicious.”

Emily smiled at me pityingly. “Do you know how long I’ve been here?” She tossed a braid over her shoulder and fingered her locket as she confidentially leaned forward. “Seven years. What do you think of that?” I was astonished. “And do you know why?” she simpered modestly with pleased self-consciousness, tapping a thin finger on the bony plate under the locket. “It’s my chest.” She dropped her eves becomingly to her well-polished disk.

“Goodness!” I said. “Surely not.”

“Oh, yes indeed.”

“You mean you came here when you were one?”

She looked out the window and twisted her mouth for all the world as though she were in a rocking chair on a summer porch and could tell much, much more if she chose. “ You might say so. . . . That’s good,” she added suddenly very loudly to Peter, who was startled into dropping the bit of potato and two peas he was shepherding to his mouth.

There seemed to be some trouble in the far corner — a girl of about seven was wailing and whimpering in her bed while a nurse and three civilian grownups bent over her. One leg was encased in a cast to the hip.

“She doesn’t want to leave,” said Emily, pouring some thick cream on her Jello. “They’re taking her away and she doesn’t want to go. I know where she’s going and I don’t wonder she doesn’t want to go.” Her little uneven teeth met luxuriously through a chocolate biscuit.

“She’s going to that place in the valley, isn’t she?” asked her friend Frances, darting a glance hungrily through thick glasses. The scene in the corner seemed to be approaching some sort of muffled crisis. “Get your coat on, there’s my girl,” said a harassed woman — I presumed her to be the child’s mother. The intern was wheeling a stretcher through the door.

“Why down there,” continued our little ghoul, “parents never go. You don’t see anyone at all down there. Weeks pass — months — and not even the doctors will go down there. I surely pity her. And if you think this food is bad —”

“Emily, I want you to be quiet,” said the student nurse with understandable exasperation. “Just finish your lunch.”

“You can’t make me be quiet,” said Emily happily. “I’ll tell all I know about this place. You don’t like me to talk because it makes trouble for you. But you’ve got no way of making me be quiet. No way at all. We both know that, don’t we? Oh, look— Jane’s eating with her lingers again and Paul’s drooling.”

Peter went on not eating his peas. He put his head against my waist.

A twittering feeble sound came from a little creature table-height standing apart. I presumed her to be female because of the great thick brown braids that hung on either side of her staring eyes. Her neck was entirely swathed in bandages. A tear rolled down her cheek. She looked like a bird with a wig on. She was three and a half, I learned later, and weighed about fifteen pounds. Emily rose and addressed her.

“Now just stop your whimpering, Althea, and don’t hang around watching the children while they’re eating. It isn’t comfortable for them. I’ve told you this repeatedly.” Althea wiped a tear away and shook her head. “Your constant crying is getting on my nerves,” said Emily, fastidiously brushing all her crumbs on the floor. “You think you’re the only person here with any nerves. We have our troubles, too, I can tell you, and there’s no use to take on like that.”

“In God’s name, what’s the matter with her?” I whispered to the nurse.

“Faulty esophagus. She’s resting up for a second series of operations. It bothers her when the children sit down to eat. She can’t eat.”

Althea picked up Peter’s broken truck and drifted away.

The nurse continued, “It’s hard on her — serious, in fact. But she’s really quite happy, you know. Her parents absolutely adore her. They are very proud of her. We have quite a time keeping them from spoiling her.”

The little thing was sitting all by herself on the sun porch with the two pieces of the truck untouched on her lap.

“She needs some T.L.C. right now,” said the student nurse, gathering plates, “but we’re all busy at the moment.”

I knew at least what T.L.C. meant. I’d learned that long ago. It’s hospital jargon for tender — loving — care.

“Does it frighten or depress the children to see these very hurt ones about ?“ I asked in some alarm of the head nurse who was just returning to lake me to lunch.

“Heavens no. They don’t notice the difference. It’s the parents and relatives who make the trouble coming in gaping and staring and saying the stupidest things! We try to keep them out. We had a tonsillectomy recently — a tonsillectomy!” — she spoke as though it were a case of hangnail — “and the child’s uncle accompanied him. The trouble that man made in one hour! Staring and gaping — gaping at Althea, for instance. I’d have turned him out if I could have. The children had to take her away.”

“Now,” said Emily, “I’m going to read a good book,” and she settled on her bed with a dog-eared volume she pulled out of a box. “Don’t any of you youngsters interrupt me.”

“Shut up,” said a robust boy, whose arm was in a sling, to a lovely babbling baby who was knocking a doll’s head on the floor.

“There’s a tragedy,” said the head nurse, relaxing for a minute into human depression. “Perfectly normal until a truck hit her. The family will have to do something about, permanent arrangements. She’ll never be normal. We can’t keep her here indefinitely and they can’t have her home with the others. It’s a problem.”

“I can see that,” I said.

My son was seated comfortably and unheeding at my feet with three or four choice toys he had stolen from the cribs of the bedridden. Their wails were gradually diminishing into thumb-sucking.

“Put them back,” I said sternly. “That’s mean of you. They’re sick children and they can’t get out of their cribs.”

He looked at me with bottomless reproach. “Put them back,” I said.

He returned them sadly; their owners were asleep. “I want to go home.”

“Pretty soon,” I whispered.

“Don’t go away,” he begged, clinging.

“It’s naptime,” I whispered. “I have to have lunch; they won’t let me stay here. I’ll be right in this building. I promise I’ll be back with you in an hour.”

“Mama?”

“Pretty soon.” He took his thumb. “I promise.”

He turned his head away wearily.

Lunch at the head nurse’s table was wholesome and ample as it had been at the children’s. I did not feel much like conversation. But I tried.

“Tell me about Emily.”

“Emily gets a bit beyond herself.”

“Is there really something wrong with her lungs?”

The look that was shot at me all but withered speech. “Emily gives herself airs.”

The younger nurses twittered and giggled. The head matron poured our tea and passed helpings and did not trouble to commit herself on anything. There was one doctor at the table, a young Australian house physician. He did a considerable amount ol talking, particularly about the modern woman, the woman with only one child who did not do her own baking and laundry. I was instantly aware that my blouse was a French import and my pearls cultured, and I turned the blanc mange in my plate over once more. His wife was going to be different all right. He had her down at the beach with their four kids and no servant. They were expecting another — a baby he meant—not a servant. The smell of home-baked bread as his mother took it from the oven and his seven brothers and sisters stood around hungry was one of the most refreshing memories of his youth, as was the smell of newly washed floors, and the sight of his mother on her knees smiling up at him.

“This, I suppose, is your only child?” he said looking at me for the first time full in the eyes.

“Yes,” I apologized. “Unfortunately he’s been so gravely ill —”

“Oh, I know all about him,” he interrupted. Interesting case. Would have been more interesting if it had been a girl though. Female Hirschprungs are rarer.”

“Did you watch the surgery?”

“Yes, yes. Splendid! Top-hole! You picked a jolly good man!”

“We had to. It was important.”

Removing eleven inches of the colon is always a bit of a nuisance. In Melbourne — and London too of course — we do it differently, but I’m bound to say this was very ingenious — very ingenious.”

He is one of the two authentic geniuses I have ever met in my life,” I said with, I felt, warranted heat.

“Oh, quite. Yes, I can see how you think so. He’s damned good.”

“And he saved the life of my only child.”

“I understand.”

“And he’s kind.”

There was a beat of two and a half before he turned to the youngest nurse and said, “Do you call that little red job a hat I saw you going out in last evening?”

The matron touched my hand lightly. “I think,” she said rising, “I’ll take you to my room for a short lie-down. This trip has been tiring for you.”

“All night on the train,” I murmured, “and then the bus —”

“It’s the emotional strain,” she said, breaking the news to me. “If you’ll excuse us, doctor.”

“Don’t let me lose one minute with the baby,”

I begged.

“You mustn’t overdo the first visit. You can’t see him more than one hour this afternoon. He’s been going through something too, you know. We separated you for a reason. Don’t you think he’s come on wonderfully? He saw the others behaving and minding — and then we don’t give in to tempers. I expect you’re the worrying type. Did you give in to him?”

“I tried not. But he was in such pain — screaming all night. And then sometimes — the pain you know — he tried to hurl himself on the floor. It was hard to be disciplining when he was like that.”

“Ah, well, anything to do with the intestines is disagreeable. I expect that’s over. Let’s hope so. But he soon realized he could get his way. He’s had to learn.”

I shut my eyes.

“There, there. It’s probably been harder on you. He likes being with the children. He likes eating with them and playing with them. If he had brothers and sisters. . . . But there, I expect it’s all for the best. You did what you could.”

“Nurse, what is the matter with Emily?”

“That one!” she said, turned down the radio, drew a rug over me, and left.

The hour afternoon session was very quick. I tried to find out if the loneliness had got at him. Did they kiss him good night? If he woke in the dark, did someone talk to him? I knew very well the perpetual unquiet of a children’s hospital at night—but how was it here in the convalescent ward with these strange sophisticated little gnomes, not really ill, but by no means well? Did he have bad dreams? Was he aware of how long it had been ?

“Are we going home?” he asked.

“Not yet, dear.”

“ When?”

“A little later.”

“This afternoon?”

“No, but when you come we have a new radio.”

“Television?”

“No — and a new gramophone. And there’ll be surprises waiting. Some lovely blocks —and a fire truck — and a bunny that walks.”

“Today, mama?”

“Don’t you like the children here?”

He didn’t answer.

“I miss you so dreadfully. I want you to remember this.”

He turned his head away.

“Tomorrow, mama, please?

“No, darling, just as soon as the doctor says. Pretty soon now. Pretty soon.”

He didn’t bother to answer. He had learned to submit after little fussing.

We had opened all the new toys I’d brought. We had looked at all the picture books. The other children were playing with his toys already. He saw his new possessions distributed with a strange lack of passion. In the ward one owned nothing oneself, not even clothes nor any one nurse, no privacies, few personal rights.

There was a little cart, a little play-cart for pulling the children about in. I put him in this in the new sweater I’d brought him — “lellow,’ his favorite color. Althea was standing by. I lifted her in also. She was older than he but he was much stronger and he supported her with his arm.

“They’re making Althea a beautiful new throat,” he said and touched the bandage with infinite delicacy. “So she can eat with us.” Althea smiled an aged smile. Saliva moistened her lips. She put her head against his shoulder.

We went up and down the room six times and to the end of the glassed-in corridor and peeped into the wards where the older children played and were having school.

“When you go, go quickly,” said the nurse. “Don’t linger — just kiss him and go.” There was no use trying to sneak away. I’d done that often enough in the hospital. He was on to every trick, the cars out the window, the surprise present on the other side of the room, the nurse telling the fairy story — all, all he knew. He seemed to smell the moment of departure and fastened on to me.

“Look,” I said kneeling to his height. “I must go. Don’t cry. I must. But I’ll be back.”

His face was stricken, slow tears filled his terrified eyes. His mouth shook. “No — no — mama — no.”

“Did I ever lie to you?”

His head moved softly.

“Ever?”

The thumb went into his mouth.

“I’ll be back next week and in three weeks you come home.”

How do you explain time to a three-year-old child? How do you explain three weeks? How do you explain abandonment ?

“Tomorrow?”

“No, next week.”

“Day after tomorrow?”

“No — six days. Do you understand?”

“No.”

“Don’t cry. You’re frightening Althea. Take her by the hand and wave me good-by at the door.”

His hand was wet from his lips and from his tears. His cheek was warm, fragrant and sally.

“Be good to Althea. She’s very little.”

She swayed slightly under the great braids. IBs arm tightened around her.

In order to be congenial, Althea whispered, “Good-by.”

“Good-by,” said Peter at the end of the corridor.

Peter continued motionless in the pale winter sun. Somehow he managed a smile. His free hand wiped his eyes and waved. “Pretty soon,” he called.

The nurse had told me to run for it.