I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what to feel.
“I don’t understand any of this,” I said finally. “How did you end up with her baby? What does any of this have to do with a window? Why does this doctor know my name?”
Grandma reached over and took my hand. Her fingers were cold.
“I need to start at the beginning,” she said. “Not with Ruth. With me. Will you let me do that?”
I nodded.
She looked out the little window in the consultation room. There was no courtyard view from this one. Just a brick wall and a drainpipe and the rain.
“I was a nurse here for almost forty years,” she said. “I started when I was twenty-three. On the second floor. Labor and delivery.”
“I didn’t know you worked here. I thought you worked at County General.”
“I moved to County in 1976,” Grandma said. “I couldn’t stay here anymore after… after everything. But I started here.”
She was quiet for a moment.
“Your grandfather and I tried to have a baby for four years,” she said. “Four years, Daniel. Every month, I’d hope. Every month, I’d cry. And then finally, in 1972, I got pregnant.”
She smiled a little. A sad smile.
“Frank was so happy he cried. He started building a crib that same night. He built it out of cherry wood, with little stars carved into the headboard. He spent every evening in the garage working on it for months.”
I knew that crib. It was in Grandma’s attic. I used to play in it as a kid. I never knew why there were stars carved into it.
“I went into labor early,” Grandma said. “In March of 1973. Seven weeks early. I was working my shift when it started. Right here, on the second floor. They put me in the nearest empty room.”
She looked at me.
“Room 214.”
I felt something cold go through me.
“It wasn’t a real patient room back then,” Grandma said. “It used to be a storage room. They’d turned it into a little private room for… well, for the girls who weren’t supposed to be seen. I’ll tell you about that later. It had a bed and a chair and a sink. And four blank walls. No windows. Just white walls. And a light in the ceiling that buzzed.”
Her voice dropped very low.
“My baby girl was born at 11:42 that night. She was stillborn.”
“Oh, Grandma,” I whispered.
“They let me hold her for a little while. Not long. That’s how it was back then. They didn’t think it was good for you to hold them too long. They said it would only make it harder.” She shook her head. “Then they took her away. And they left me alone in that room for two days.”
She looked at the brick wall outside the window.
“Two days, Daniel. Staring at those blank white walls. There was nothing to look at. No sky. No trees. No light except that buzzing bulb. Frank was there as much as they’d let him be, but he had to sleep sometime, and he had to work. And I just lay there in that bed and looked at the wall and thought, this is what the end of the world looks like. Just a white wall that never changes.”
I squeezed her hand. She squeezed back.
“We named her Grace,” she said. “We buried her at St. Joseph’s, next to my mother. You’ve been to her grave, Daniel. You just didn’t know it.”
I had. The little white stone at the end of the row in Grandma’s family plot. Every Memorial Day, Grandma would bring flowers there first, before she went to anybody else’s grave. A tiny stone with just one word on it. GRACE. I always thought it was a great-aunt or somebody from a long time ago.
I never asked.
Ethan Blake is a skilled Creative Content Specialist with a talent for crafting engaging and thought-provoking narratives. With a strong background in storytelling and digital content creation, Ethan brings a unique perspective to his role at TheArchivists, where he curates and produces captivating content for a global audience.
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