her late twenties, but she always looks so young and lost when she shows up at the door. And the way she looks at her grandmother— my goodness. It’s as if the tiny woman lying on the bed is powerful enough to raise the sun into the sky.
When Gracie finds out that I have two young children, she starts asking questions about childbirth. She seems to know astoundingly little for a woman well into her seventh month of pregnancy. I get the feeling even when she asks the questions that she is not ready for the answers. She is speaking to me because her grandmother is too tired to give her any attention. Her eyes are a mixture of fear and vacancy while we talk.
I tell her, “You should get an epidural when you can’t bear the pain anymore. There’s no reason to be a martyr. You’ll be able to enjoy the birth of your child much more if you’ve had some relief.”
“Gram says the McLaughlin women give birth easily.” Gracie glances at the bed, where Mrs. McLaughlin is lying asleep. “But then Gram doesn’t feel pain like normal people.”
“What do you mean?”
“She’s lost three children and a husband.” Gracie sighs. “She’s unbelievably strong.”
Three children. I look over at the woman on the bed. I think of Jessie’s toothy smile and Eddie Jr.’s curls. I wonder if there isn’t a limit to how much pain can be borne.
Gracie says, “I know that you lost your husband, because he was one of my father’s men, and I’m sorry.”
He was my man. “Thank you.”
She gazes downward and seems to notice her round belly. She says, “Which part of the birth hurts the most?”
I pull myself upright in the hard-backed chair. Be professional, Noreen. “It all hurts,” I say. “But when the doctor puts your baby into your arms for the first time, it will be worth it. You’ll be filled with so much love, you won’t believe it. The feeling is different, and more, than you’ve ever had with any man. You’ll want to change the world so it’s a better place for your baby to live in. You’ll feel like your heart is going to explode.”
“Really?” Gracie says, looking doubtful.
“Really.”
Each time Gracie leaves at the end of a visit, she does an odd thing. She opens up the top drawer to Mrs. McLaughlin’s desk, peers inside without touching anything, and then shuts the drawer without a word.
ALL THE family members I met in the hospital visit here, too. Louis and Kelly come separately. Mrs. McLaughlin’s other two daughters and daughter-in-law drive up from South Jersey together and eat turkey sandwiches in the room while Mrs. McLaughlin rests. Her other grandchildren come as well. A young girl named Mary prays out loud over Mrs. McLaughlin’s bed until her cousin Dina tells her to shut up. Mary keeps praying then, her lips moving without a sound. The only grandson, John, stays close to the door, a hazy look in his eyes that tells me he is stoned. Kelly brings Ryan for a visit, an event that seems to make Catharine, Kelly, and Ryan very anxious. Mrs. McLaughlin’s oldest son, the one who never showed up at the hospital, calls twice a week.
After a nursing career during which I was always working in a different department, on a different floor, surrounded by different kinds of illness and doctors of different specialties, it is odd to sit still in this room and get to know this one woman and this one family. It was always my choice to move about in the hospital. Most nurses with my seniority had long since chosen a department to work in. Those who like old people pick geriatrics. The tough ones choose oncology, or worse, pediatric oncology. Those who wanted to do less hand-holding and more medicine became skilled surgical nurses. Many of my colleagues returned to school to earn advanced nursing qualifications in their field of choice so that they could become indispensable to the patients and the doctors they are devoted to.
I, on the other hand, never wanted to settle down. I liked the change and the movement as I switched from one part of the hospital to the other. I didn’t want to get too friendly with anyone, or become too essential in one place. I wanted to feel that I belonged only at home. Only there did I want to feel the pull of loyalty. I had my family: my husband and son and daughter,