“The rules said Mrs. Seager could sterilize those girls.”
“You don’t work there no more, Civil. And I don’t want to lose my job. I can’t just go home and live with my mama.”
“Speaking of your job, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you. How did Mrs. Seager find out I’d moved the girls to the apartment? And that I’d taken them off birth control? You told her, didn’t you.”
Alicia just stared at me.
“I knew it!” I threw my box on the table. “This is all your fault!”
Alicia’s face crumpled. Ty walked over to the stereo and turned the volume down, then turned back to us and said, “Civil, that’s not fair. This ain’t nobody’s fault.”
“Why did you tell her, Alicia?”
“She asked me,” Alicia said in a weak voice, “and I couldn’t lie. She had already found out on her own about them being moved to Dixie Court—the agency sent her notice of their new address. She started asking me a bunch of questions, and I didn’t know what else to say. I swear I never thought she would do what she did.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? And I haven’t even heard from you since I got fired.” I handed her a tissue, trying not to cry myself. It was a horrible situation for all of us, and I knew that.
“I’m sorry, Civil. I should have told you, but I didn’t know how.”
Ty sat beside me on the sofa and put an arm around my shoulders. “What’s done is done, y’all. Now we’ve got to figure out what to do next.”
“She still has the legal authority to do this to the patients,” I said. “Maybe she’s stopped doing it to minors, but what if she’s doing it to twenty-year-olds? Having them sign forms they don’t understand? I’ve overheard her pressuring women to tie their tubes.” I moved to pick up the boxes and trash. I had lost my appetite.
“She wouldn’t do that now. Not with the lawsuit,” Alicia said.
“Alicia, you know who was with Mrs. Seager that day, right?” I asked after I had put everything in the trash can. “Val was there. Have you said anything to her now that the lawsuit is public? How can you work with her?”
“I told you, I need this job.”
“Y’all need to cut it out,” Ty said. “How many nurses are there, anyway?”
“Eight. Well, seven now that Civil’s gone.”
“Civil’s right, Alicia,” he said. “The nurses can help.”
“Help how?”
“Think about it, Alicia,” I said. “If you’re one of our patients and you’ve had a tubal ligation, you probably don’t come to the clinic anymore unless you got an STD or an infection. Surely there are other women in Alabama who’ve been sterilized against their wishes.”
“Or maybe they didn’t understand the procedure was permanent,” Alicia whispered.
“Some women can’t read those forms that well, and others sign without reading. The system is built on trust.”
“How do we find those women?” Alicia said.
“The nurses can help us reach out to folks all over the state.”
“That’s a long shot, Civil. It’ll never work.”
The telephone rang. The clock above the console ticked loudly between rings. It was probably Daddy calling to say he was on his way home.
“Be right back,” I muttered as I ran to pick up the telephone, which was in the hallway. “Hello?”
“Civil, it’s Lou Feldman.”
He had never called me at home. My mind went to the worst-case scenario. I sat down on the stool we kept beneath the phone.
“It appears that Senator Ted Kennedy has caught wind of our case down here.”
“Senator Ted Kennedy? As in . . . John F. Kennedy’s brother?”
“The very same one. He’s established a subcommittee to investigate federal oversight of health care–related abuses. A few months ago they interviewed a survivor of the syphilis experiment. Now they want to question the Williamses.”
“You kidding me.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Question? Like testify?”
“He wants them to tell their story to the committee.”
“The committee? How is that? They coming to Alabama?”
He made that strange grunting laugh again. “No, we’re going to Washington, DC. This is big. It means the case will get national press coverage.”
“I thought we were already getting national press coverage. Besides, it’s out of the question. India already started her new school. I just met with her new teacher. Did you know they got Black nuns—？”
“Civil, we have no choice but to go. The case needs this coverage.”
“And what about the girls?” I was trying to wrap my head around what Lou was saying. The girls had just started to adjust to their new normal. The last thing they needed was a media circus.
“I was hoping you could help with them. We’ll all go up.”
“We?”
“Yes. Civil, we can’t do this without you.”
The girls would need me. If they were going, I was going. “How will we get there?”
“We’ll walk. It ain’t that far.”
“That’s not funny, Lou. Mace could get fired from his job if he takes too many days off.”
“I’m sorry; you’re right. I didn’t mean to sound insensitive. We’ll fly. The government will pay for our travel. I can put in a call to the Whitfields to get Mace a few off days.”
“You’re putting the Williamses on an airplane?” I thought of our conversation in the car that first time, when Mace had asked me where I’d traveled. “Have you told the family yet?”
“No. You were the first person I called.”
“When do we leave?”
“We’ll fly up Monday.”
“This Monday?” I ran my finger over the calendar hanging on the wall beside our telephone. That was just four days away. I mumbled a good-bye and placed the telephone back in its cradle.
“Senator Kennedy wants y’all to come to Washington?” Ty stood at the entrance to the hallway. “Y’all going to Washington?”
They would travel to Washington, DC, for the fancy politicians to stare and make a spectacle of country Alabamans. Mama had been right all along. I nodded, overcome with emotion.
* * *
? ? ?
THE DAY BEFORE our trip I stopped by the Williamses’ apartment to bring the suitcase Mama had loaned them and help them get packed. In the bathroom, I slicked the girls’ hair into three or four smooth ponytails with plastic barrettes and crossed my fingers the hairstyle would hold up. Mrs. Williams had been surprisingly calm after I’d cut their hair that first time. She said she would have done it herself if she’d had a pair of sharp shears. Since then I could tell she had been keeping up with their hair, because it was starting to grow.
I finished up and opened the suitcase. It was blue with a gold buckle. The girls and Mrs. Williams would share it. While I folded their dresses, Erica chatted about her new friends. She was the tallest girl in the class because she was two years older, but she had still managed to make friends.