Chapter Ten

chapter ten

August 17, 1929

Lanesborough, New Hampshire

Ethel!” Will was shaking my shoulder.

I opened my eyes, sat up, heart racing, nightgown soaked with sweat.

“Another nightmare?” he asked, stroking my hair.

I nodded, sure that whoever had been chasing me in my dream had just been there in the bedroom; had somehow followed me into this world.

And they left a damp, rotting odor behind.

“Do you smell that?” I asked.

“Smell what?” his voice went up a bit.

“Nothing. It’s just my silly dream.” I forced out a little giggle, just to show how silly it was. The pale square of the window was just starting to lighten in the early dawn. “I’ll go make breakfast.”

Will gave my hand a squeeze. “They’re just dreams, Ethel. Don’t let them trouble you.”

I pulled on my robe and made my way to the kitchen to get the coffee percolator going on the stove.

It wasn’t just the strange dream and nightmares. There were the physical symptoms: feeling queasy, a fullness in my breasts, my dresses a bit too tight. Still, I dared not to hope. I told myself it was all the rich food I’d been craving: whipped cream cakes, butter scones, eggs fried in sweet butter.

Morning after morning I would wake up and make breakfast and try to distract myself with the world around me. I brought in the paper for Will and read the headlines each day: President Hoover celebrated his fifty-fifth birthday and Charles and Anne Lindbergh were among the guests, Babe Ruth hit his five hundredth home run, Winston Churchill gave a speech in Ottawa. How strange it all felt: this world spinning around me, the faces looking back up at me from the pages of the newspaper; people who had no idea who I was or that I even existed at all. “I am Mrs. Monroe from Lanesborough, New Hampshire,” I would whisper to them.

Sometimes, when I felt too lost, felt like I was in danger of floating away, I would give myself a little prick with a pin.

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Eliza Harding and I exchanged letters each week. I so looked forward to Eliza’s letters, and the glimpses of the hotel and springs: the list of which roses were blooming, the peacock who ran away to a neighboring farm and now thought he was a chicken.

In July, a man was cured of his limp. At the beginning of August, a woman whose asthma was so bad she could hardly breathe, threw away her medicines and danced all night without a trace of a wheeze. And it wasn’t just cures the pool gave to those who came to take the waters.

“Back in June,” Eliza wrote, “just before you came to visit, we had a man stay, a musician from New York City. He asked the water for the thing he wanted most: fame. I won’t you tell you his name, but if you turn on the radio right now, I guarantee you’ll soon hear his song. It’s a big hit. Someone from Hollywood has been in touch about putting it in a movie!”

I wrote back with details of my life in Lanesborough, which seemed terribly dull compared with her world at the hotel. I shared details of Will’s practice and how I helped with the books each week, writing out neat columns in the ledger documenting home and office visits (two dollars each), who’d paid and who still owed. “The life of a country doctor is not at all glamorous,” I told her. “Will spends some time in his office, but the majority of it is house calls. The highlights of last week included draining an abscessed foot, and a farmer who lost his eye after being kicked by a draft horse.” I told Eliza how my own flower garden was faring; it’s been a terrible year for aphids. I described the ladies who are members of the sewing circle and what each is working on (quilts and frocks and lace curtains), and of course, I’ve shared every detail about the foliage festival and how busy the preparations are keeping me. I invited her to attend if she was able.

In her last letter to me, she wrote of a family who had come to stay at the hotel, the Woodcocks from Brooklyn, New York. “Mr. Woodcock is in finance. His wife was an actress when they met—she’s been on Broadway! Little Charles Woodcock is four years old—a cherub, but has been unable to walk since birth. His legs seem small and shriveled, poor darling. And his sister, Martha, she’s seven, and oh she is such a delight! She has taken a great interest in the roses and wants to learn all their names. They have booked a room for an entire month with the hopes that bathing in the springs will help poor Charles. I just know it will! Don’t you agree, Ethel?” And I found myself nodding along.

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I busied myself with planning the foliage festival: horse-drawn wagon rides, apple bobbing, a pie-eating contest, and a chicken pie supper. In the evening, there would be music at the bandstand and dancing. There would even be a Charleston contest!

I grew fuller.

I watched the calendar—my time of the month came and went in July, then again in August. When I was certain, I cooked Will his favorite supper: chicken and biscuits the way his mother used to make, with triple-layer chocolate cake for dessert. I lit candles. Flitted around the house like a silly bird trying to make everything perfect. When he arrived home, I greeted him with a glass of the special apple wine that Mr. Miller, who owns the orchard, makes each Christmas and led him to the table.

“What’s all this?” he asked.

“We’re celebrating,” I said.

He raised his eyebrows as he sat down. “Celebrating what?”

“It’s a birthday, of a sort.”

“It’s six months till my birthday. And yours was in May.”

“A birthday yet to come,” I said, smiling.

His eyes grew wide, and he jumped up from the table so fast that he bumped the edge and his wine spilled. “Mother,” he said, wrapping his arms around me.

“Yes! A little girl.”

“How do you know it’s a girl?” He hugged me tighter. “Little Brunhilda,” he chuckled.

“We’ll paint the nursery pale yellow,” I said.

“Like a buttercup?”

“Too vivid. More like lemon chiffon.”

“I have an old cradle out in the barn, the one I slept in, if you can believe it. It could probably use a coat of paint, but it should still be in excellent shape.”

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The day after I told Will, I wrote my sisters with the news. Then I paid a visit to Myrtle, practically skipping down the street to tell her. I felt so light and strange as I passed each familiar house. Like an actress playing a role. I said the words to myself as I walked: “I am Mrs. Monroe from Lanesborough, and I am going to have a baby.”

The whistle blew at the woolen mill.

I passed the turnoff to South Main Street, which led into the heart of town, to the church and town green, and Will’s office. Up here on Elm, it was just big houses, almost all of them painted white, each with a tidy garden in the front. Myrtle’s house had trellised roses out front and a wide porch with a rocking chair where her husband, Felix, liked to smoke his pipe each evening.

Myrtle invited me in, and we settled at her kitchen table over tea, using her good china cups.

“Are you well, dear?” she asked. “You look feverish.”

I told her my news. She sprang up from her chair and threw her arms around me. “I’m so happy for you!” To celebrate, she cut into the pound cake she’d been saving for dinner. “Does anyone else know?”

I shook my head. “I’ve written my sisters, but other than Will, you’re the only one I’ve told.”

“When is the baby due?”

“Will has calculated her due date—March fifth.”

“Her?”

“It’s a girl. I know it is! Will doesn’t believe me, but I’m sure of it.”

“There are some things a mother just knows.” Myrtle nodded. She sank back in her chair. “A spring baby, how perfect. Born just as the leaves start to turn green and the first flowers are poking up through the snow.”

Myrtle stirred sugar into her tea. I took a bite of pound cake so sweet it made my teeth ache.

“Can I tell you a secret?” I asked. Her eyes lit up and she leaned forward in her chair. “When we were at the hotel in Brandenburg, I went out to the springs one afternoon on my own. I made a wish.”

Myrtle set down her spoon. “A wish?”

I forced out a little laugh. “I know, it’s silly, isn’t it? But I did. I wished for a child.”

Myrtle made a little sound, as if to speak, but no words came.

“I felt so foolish. But now… now I wonder. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence, right?”

Myrtle said nothing. She just sat there, frozen, as if she were unable to move. All the color had gone from her face. She was like a wax figure.

I picked at my dense, buttery cake.

I remembered Myrtle telling me about her trip to the springs with Felix. And what she’d said after: The water gives miracles, yes, but I think it takes, too.

At last, Myrtle smiled at me, said, “March fifth. That seems far off now, but it’ll be here in no time. Think of the baby clothes we can sew! Little dresses and nightgowns. I’ll crochet a blanket for her.” She picked up her teacup, and I saw her hand was trembling.