New Manse,
Glen St. Mary,
August, 1932
Jo,
Everything is chaos. It began with Mary refusing to have young Marshall Douglas sent to Charlottetown. Gil wanted him in one of those contraptions– iron lungs? – and Mary won't have it. Something about how she got Jims' through Diphtheria Croup by smoking him over hot coals, and she could do it again. Rarely have I seen Gil so angry. That lung contraption is his best solution to a terrible situation and if Mary won't have it...
Since then, Di's children have come to stay. Ingleside is in bedlam. I'm not strictly sure how much Gil will tell you. How much he'll want to – how much he'll be able to. So, you may need to forget I said anything. Di is ill. Infant paralysis, Gil says, which is what they call poliomyelitis in adults. None of us knows how it happened. But it has happened.
All Gil wants to do is hover over her indefinitely, but he can't because that would be playing favourites and he's still got a list of patients long as his arm. Longer. He did it when she had that influenza in 1918, but when one's surrounded by dying children – well, he just can't. That's all.
All little Miss Abby does is sit on our sunniest window-seat and wait for her mother to fetch her. She doesn't read, she doesn't sew, she doesn't knit. She just spooks like a wild gazelle every time she sees a flash of red hair. I can't bear it.
It's not all grim. Betty's boy is recovering, and so is the older of the Boyd children. But the best thing of all; Joanie is out of the woods. When Rosemary took a pie over yesterday, Naomi told her and they had a good long relieved cry over it together.
Thinking of you, Jo, and hoping all of yours are well. And because I don't say it often enough, thank you for all those lessons over the years on how to be present in a community. Mine has never needed me more, and I'm sure I shouldn't have known where to begin without your advice.
Love and blessings,
J.M.
Ingleside,
Glen St. Mary,
August, 1932
Jo,
The month we've had. I'd go into it, but I can't bear to. It's been hell. Can one say hell to a minister? Sorry, Jo. I'm not sure I care. I'm sorry. My diary's full of notes like paralysis – permanent and time of death…
We were all watching the babies. Obsessively watching them, even. It can't be healthy. I'm sure it's not normal. If I'd had the least idea Di would catch it…But I didn't. How could I? Infant paralysis. I suppose John told you? He must have.
I don't know where or how or why it happened. When she complained of a headache, I chalked it up to a bad day at the paper. When she felt tired and sluggish the next day, I thought it was summer flu. When it persisted, I thought, well early pregnancy does that to mothers. When she couldn't walk without fatigue, I got Dick Parker over to tell me what I already knew; That he hadn't seen a case of Infant Paralysis this bad since the whole mess started. Then Dick kind of smiled crooked and said maybe I had. I didn't tell Dick he was a terrible liar, although he is. I got him a cup of tea with honey instead of sugar because that's how he takes it, and said I hadn't seen anything like it, either.
I gave Di all the attention I could, which wasn't enough, because this village is riddled with blasted poliomyelitis. Somewhere in there, Joanie recovered and I didn't know which of us would be gladder. I'd begun to think one couldn't get over polio. And yes, all right, she may have a withered limb forever, but she's alive. What's dancing an impeccable waltz next to continued existence?
Di was still sick, so we sent the children to the manse, and hoped we were doing the right thing. At first, Miss Abby wouldn't go. Just wouldn't. She hung off of doors and flattened herself against walls, until I finally carried her bodily out of the house, limbs flailing, red head thrown back in a banshee-wail. The look she gave me when I deposited her on John's doorstep, Jo. I'll never forget it.
'You're going to take Mummy away,' she said.
What could I say to that? I had no idea if Di would survive or not, and God help me, I couldn't lie. Oh, I know adults lie to children all the time. But I couldn't look at my Abby with her head in a Shirley tilt and Shirley nose in the air, spitting like no hellion I've ever met and lie to a diminutive Anne.
I thought about calling Faith to come help me. Instead, I rang Kitty and she told me what the death rate was in Kingsport. I didn't call Faith. Of course I didn't. My God, Jo. The work you must have on your hands.
Then I delivered the misshapen lump of tissue that should have been my daughter's daughter. Anne. They were going to call her that, if it was a girl. Anne Elspeth, for the grandmothers. A boy would have been Gilbert. I think I could have born that. But this half-formed, unsaveable Anne – and oh God, Jo, the worst part was that I was relieved because maybe without the baby to keep alive, my baby would get better. A blasphemous prayer. Forgive me. But it was Di and if I had to choose the unknown over the girl I pulled through Spanish Influenza – whose scraped knees I salved, who demanded scratchy kisses before my morning shave, and who screamed the house down the morning of her third birthday because she woke to find I'd set up the dollhouse she longed for while she slept…Oh Jo. It was no choice. No choice at all.
Anyway, blasphemous or not, my hideous hoping made not a jot of difference.
Di wouldn't get better and wouldn't get better. Shirley and Mara visited again, and I guess some of my worry showed.
Mara looked me levelly in the eye and said, 'No one is going to die.'
It wasn't lost on me I'd said exactly that to her back in 1918. I kept saying it too, all the time I was at Swallowgate, because I couldn't let Anne's little girl die. I couldn't let my child die. I'd failed Joy and I couldn't save Walter…but if I could save Di…
The Fox Corner Blythes left, and Di still wasn't better. I kept thinking about my Swallowgate tenure and No one is going to die, and how much I meant it. But thinking about that influenza reminded me that it got into Di's lungs, and now her lungs were full of polio. And she wasn't getting better, and wasn't getting better. Dick had the bad manners to agree. I visited the grandchildren at the manse and Abby asked me if her mother was dead yet with her eyes glued to John's parlour windows.
'She isn't getting better,' I said because I still couldn't lie to Anne's eyes and Anne's freckled nose in Di's daughter.
And then, finally, gratefully, she did. For a value of recovery. Dulce came and lay beside Di, and I was so busy rejoicing in my daughter being awake that I didn't mind. Neither did Susan. She actually brought Dulce's food up to her and let her eat on the bed. As I said to Anne, I have now lived to see everything.
Then Dulce put her coppery head on Di's feet. She got her nose under the quilt and started licking them. I'll never forget that.
Di looked at me – not dead! – and said, 'It's strange, having Dulce beside me and not trying to give me one of her baths.'
I stared like an idiot at Dulce doing exactly that and didn't know what hurt more; The shock on Anne's face, or the knowledge that that blasted Infant Paralysis had done it again.
Alive. Di is alive. I focus on that. Today, or perhaps tomorrow, someone will call for the children at the Manse and bring them home. We'll have to explain that their mother won't be the same as before. That recovering will take time. But to be alive. At least I did that much.
Keep well Jo, you and all of yours. And know I really am glad about Joanie. I've temporarily misplaced the ability to say so, is all.
Love ever,
Gil
Martyrs' Manse,
Kingsport,
August, 1932
Gil,
Faith told us. Immediately she got Anne's call, she called us. Do not be afraid. Do not be discouraged. You've fought and won a battle. So there were damages. There always are on battlefields.
You know you can always say what you like to me, even the painful, ugly and hard truths of the universe. I'd be a poor friend and a worse minister if you couldn't. This polio has turned the world upside-down. I don't understand medicine, but I understand that.
I know you. Notwithstanding the circumstances, you'll continue to be well, do good work and keep in touch.
Jo
New Manse,
Glen St Mary,
September, 1932
Jo,
Nan and Jerry trekked way across the country to visit. It was Nan's idea. Her non-medical cure-all, she called it, reuniting the Ingleside twins. It was almost like the old days. You never found one twin without the other. Except these days, Di sits wrapped in a blanket, and Alastair and I carry her everywhere.
It won't stick. I mean, she'll learn to crutch her way around in time. I hope. I can't bring myself to tell her even crutching may be beyond her. Not when I can see how Di hates being dependent on us. She's never been dependent on anyone in her life. She's not the God-bargaining type. That's Nan. It hurts to see it. Not all the time. Occasionally Nan laughs, or Di does, or the children do, and we all forget about polio for five glorious seconds. Or I'm surprised by the beauty of an autumnal tree, all scarlet and gold and fire.
Then Di falls because she forgets she can't stand up, or she tires out before she wants the visit to end, and I remember.
Nan can't stay forever, and I worry some of Di's spirits will go with her twin. A part of her went when Walter died, and the polio took another. If the world keeps taking pieces of her, there may be nothing left, someday. She used to joke when her children were all young and demanding, and motherhood overwhelming that someday Alastair or I would come home and find her babies had eaten her and were playing in the Wendy House of her bones.
The polio made me remember that. How Anne laughed and said motherhood was like that. But I think it's life, too. It whittles away at the soul if you aren't careful.
I don't think I've said properly. I really am glad Joanie's all right. So very, very glad.
Thinking of you, as you and the Kingsport Contingent face that inevitable resistance that comes with the resumption of school. After the summer we've had, you and the others will weather it with flying colours. Probably Faith won't even complain if the children are back to choking on allies.
Love and blessings,
Gil