What were the specifics behind these abstractions? Somewhere in the mountain of scribble he found that she had borne a girl child at eighteen, given it up, suffered “severe paranoia.”
Is that why they had given her shock treatments in one place and insulin shock in another? What had she done to the nurses who over and over again quit on account of “physical attacks”?
She had “run away” at one point, been “forcibly committed” again. Then pages were missing, whole years uncharted. “Irreversible brain damage” was noted in 1976. “Patient sent home, Thorazine prescribed to prevent palsy, mania.”
It was an ugly document, telling no story, revealing no truth. And it discouraged him, finally. Had a legion of other doctors talked to her the way he did now when he sat beside her on the side porch?
“It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it, Deirdre?” Ah, the breeze here, so fragrant. The scent of the gardenias was suddenly overpowering, yet he loved it. Just for a moment, he closed his eyes.
Did she loathe him, laugh at him, even know he was there? There were a few streaks of gray in her hair, he saw that now. Her hand was cold, unpleasant to touch.
The nurse came out with a blue envelope in her hand, a snapshot.
“It’s from your daughter, Deirdre. See? She’s twenty-four years old now, Deirdre.” She held the snapshot out for the doctor to see too. A blond girl on the deck of a big white yacht, hair blowing in the wind. Pretty, very pretty. “On San Francisco Bay, 1983.”
Nothing changed in the woman’s face. The nurse brushed the black hair back from her forehead. She thrust the picture at the doctor. “See that girl? That girl’s a doctor, too!” She gave him a great superior nod. “She’s an intern, going to be a medical doctor just like you some day, that’s the truth.”
Was it possible? Had the young woman never come home to see to her own mother? He disliked her suddenly. Going to be a medical doctor, indeed.
How long had it been since his patient had worn a dress or a real pair of shoes? He longed to play a radio for her. Maybe she would like music. The nurse had her television soap operas on all afternoon in the back kitchen.
He came to distrust the nurses as he distrusted the aunts.
The tall one who wrote the checks for him-“Miss Carl”-was a lawyer still though she must have been in her seventies. She came and went from her offices on Carondelet Street in a taxicab because she could no longer climb up on the high wooden step of the St. Charles car. For fifty years, she had told him once when he had met her at the gate, she had ridden the St. Charles car.
“Oh, yes,” the nurse said one afternoon as she was brushing Deirdre’s hair very slowly, very gently. “Miss Carl’s the smart one. Works for Judge Fleming. One of the first women ever to graduate from the Loyola School of Law. She was seventeen years old when she went to Loyola. Her father was old Judge McIntyre, and she was ever so proud of him.”
Miss Carl never spoke to the patient, not that the doctor had ever seen. It was the portly one, “Miss Nancy,” who was mean to her, or so the doctor thought.
“They say Miss Nancy never had much chance for an education,” the nurse gossiped. “Always home taking care of the others. There used to be old Miss Belle here too.”
There was something sullen and almost common about “Miss Nancy.” Dumpy, neglected, always wearing her apron yet speaking to the nurse in that patronizing artificial voice. Miss Nancy had a faint sneer on her lips when she looked at Deirdre.
And then there was Miss Millie, the eldest of them all, who was actually some sort of cousin-a classic in old lady black silk and string shoes. She came and went, never without her worn gloves and her small black straw hat with its veil. She had a cheery smile for the doctor, and a kiss for Deirdre. “That’s my poor dear sweetheart,” she would say in a tremulous voice.
One afternoon, he had come upon Miss Millie standing on the broken flags by the pool.
“Nowhere to begin anymore, Doctor,” she had said sadly.
It was not his place to challenge her, yet something quickened in him to hear this tragedy acknowledged.
“And how Stella loved to swim here,” the old woman said. “It was Stella who built it, Stella who had so many plans and dreams. Stella put in the elevator, you know. That’s just the sort of thing that Stella would do. Stella gave such parties. Why, I remember hundreds in the house, tables over the whole lawn, and the bands that would play. You’re too young, Doctor, to remember that lively music. Stella had those draperies made in the double parlor, and now they’re too old to be cleaned anymore. That’s what they said. They’d fall apart if we tried to clean them now. And it was Stella who had paths of flagstones laid here, all along the pool. You see, like the old flags in the front and along the side … ” She broke off, pointing down the long side of the house at the distant patio so crowded by weeds. It was as if she couldn’t speak any more. Slowly she looked up at the high attic window.
He had wanted to ask, But who is Stella?
“Poor darling Stella.”
He had envisioned paper lanterns strung through the trees.
Maybe they were simply too old, these women. And that young one, the intern or whatever she was, two thousand miles away …
Miss Nancy bullied the silent Deirdre. She’d watch the nurse walking the patient, then shout in the patient’s ear.
“Pick up your feet. You know damn good and well you could walk on your own if you wanted to.”
“There’s nothing wrong with Miss Deirdre’s hearing,” the nurse would interrupt her. “Doctor says she can hear and see just fine.”
Once he tried to question Miss Nancy as she swept the upstairs hallway, thinking, well, maybe out of anger she’ll shed a little light.
“Is there ever the slightest change in her? Does she ever speak … even a single word?”
The woman squinted at him for a long moment, the sweat gleaming on her round face, her nose painfully red at the bridge from the weight of her glasses.
“I’ll tell you what I want to know!” she said. “Who’s going to take care of her when we’re no longer here! You think that spoilt daughter out in California is going to take care of her? That girl doesn’t even know her mother’s name. It’s Ellie Mayfair who sends those pictures.” She snorted. “Ellie Mayfair hasn’t set foot in this house since the day that baby was born and she came to take that baby out of here. All she wanted was that baby because she couldn’t have a baby of her own, and she was scared to death her husband would leave her. He’s some big lawyer out there. You know what Carl paid Ellie to take that baby? To see to it that girl never came home? Oh, just get her out of here, that was the idea. Made Ellie sign a paper.” She gave a bitter smile, wiping her hands on her apron. “Send her to California with Ellie and Graham to live in a fancy house on San Francisco Bay with a big boat and all, that’s what happened to Deirdre’s daughter.”
Ah, so the young woman did not know, he thought, but he said nothing.
“Let Carl and Nancy stay here and take care of things!” The woman went on. “That’s the song in this family. Let Carl write the checks and let Nancy cook and scrub. And what the hell has Millie ever done? Millie just goes to church, and prays for us all. Isn’t that grand? Aunt Millie’s more useless than Aunt Belle ever was. I’ll tell you what Aunt Millie can do best. Cut flowers. Aunt Millie cuts those roses now and then, those roses growing wild out there.”
She gave a deep ugly laugh, and went past him into the patient’s bedroom, gripping the broom by its greasy handle.
“You know you can’t ask a nurse to sweep a floor! Oh, no, they wouldn’t stoop to that, now, would they? Would you care to tell me why a nurse cannot sweep a floor?”