When I arrive at the hospital, I still don’t know what I plan to say. An old resentment rises in me, and I realize I’m still incensed by the idea that the woman just walked away from it all after Lou dropped the charges against the clinic. Yes, she lost her job, but I’m certain she got another one. I imagine her going home each night, fixing dinner for her family, watching television, putting rollers in her hair before going to bed.
Eugenia Wooten is at the desk when I approach. I immediately know it’s her even before I read the name tag. She looks just like her mother, the same bright red hair. But the face is softer, rounder. The woman smiles brightly at me.
“May I help you?”
I place my hands on the counter. There’s no one at the station with her. The hospital smells as they all do—slightly bitter, antiseptic. I have been on the oncology floor many times. It’s different from the other floors: the voices more hushed, the families more tense. The work is dismal, and the mood reflects it. Mrs. Wooten’s disposition seems at odds with that seriousness. I’m put off by her. She isn’t what I expected.
“My name is Civil Townsend.”
“Do you have a loved one on this floor, Mrs. Townsend?”
She looks at me quizzically. I gather my nerve, galvanized by the familiar hospital environment. “I worked at the Montgomery Family Planning Clinic,” I say. “In 1973. With your mother. I was the nurse for the Williams sisters.”
Her face drops. The smile disappears, and my first question is answered. She knows everything. Her hand moves slowly to her mouth, and I see the fingernails are polish-free. Blunt and short and clean, just the way her mother had required of us. She squeezes her eyes shut so tightly the lids wrinkle. Then she opens them and slowly comes out from behind the desk, unhooking the half door.
I face her and cross my arms over my chest. She steps closer to me and places a hand on my forearm. “I get off at seven. It’s a twelve-hour shift today. Will you meet me after work? I really want to talk to you.”
I relax and drop my arms. “You’ll be ready to go home. I don’t want to—”
“I have wanted to find you so many times over the years, Mrs. Townsend. Please. Meet me in the cafeteria downstairs?”
“Alright,” I say. “Around seven?”
“Yes, perfect. I’ll see you there.”
We eye each other warily, but for the moment, I’m relieved.
* * *
? ? ?
BY THE TIME she arrives in the cafeteria, I have already drunk three cups of weak coffee. I claimed a table near the window, close enough to the entrance so she can see me. There’s a garden outside with two stone benches, and ashtrays throughout. The cafeteria is too warm and smells sweet like ketchup. Dinner is still in full swing, but I’m not hungry and couldn’t eat even if I were.
Eugenia Wooten enters, carrying a large purse on her shoulder. She has changed out of her scrubs into street clothes—a pair of jeans and a simple scoop-necked gray top. When she spies me, her face breaks into another wide smile. She sits down and apologizes for taking longer than she’d expected. I dismiss the apology and study her. Her eyebrows are natural and unruly. There are pinch marks from her eyeglasses on each side of her nose. Her shoulders are covered in light freckles.
“Do you still live in Montgomery?” she asks me as she hangs her purse on the back of the chair.
“Not anymore. I’ve lived in Memphis for years now.”
She nods. “You still a nurse?”
“A doctor.”
“Oh? What kind?”
“OB-GYN.”
“That makes sense.”
“Really? Why?” She pauses, and I regret my confrontational tone. I offer a weak change of subject. “You hungry?”
“I’m too knotted up to eat,” she says.
“Me, too,” I say. I have nothing to do with my hands. My coffee cup is empty. I pick it up and take a sip of nothing.
“How is that family? The Williamses. Are they alright?”
I don’t know how to answer that question. It seems so complicated, the way she phrases it. It could be read as a question of whether they are dead or alive. Or it could be asking whether they survived the trauma. Either way, the question feels fraught.
“India has cancer. She lives in Rockford. I’m headed down that way.”
“Oh God.” She blinks rapidly. “You know, Mama never wanted to talk about it. I knew, of course. So did my siblings. But we never told our children. Then one of my sister’s grandchildren found the story online. She wasn’t but thirteen years old and was sure enough mad at us for not telling it to her. Little Miss Nosy.” She shakes her head, as if to say, kids.
Thirteen. Same age as Erica when her tubes were tied. “Then you told all of the children?”
“No; I mean, not all of them. Dr. Townsend, it was just so awful.”
“Yes, it was.”
“I mean, Mama was trying to do the right thing, right? That’s what I always wanted to believe. It’s why I always wanted to reach out to you. I wanted to ask. Were you ever able to forgive her?”
“Forgive who? Your mother?”
“Yes.”
I stutter. “N-no. To be honest, no.”
“Mama wasn’t a Klan member or nothing like that. She wasn’t a Confederate or a slaver. She was just a nurse trying to do the right thing at a difficult time. I mean, it was the year of Roe v. Wade, for goodness’ sake.”
“It was.”
“She wasn’t a monster, right? She was a nice lady to Blacks? I mean, she did work at the clinic.”
“She did.”
“She wasn’t no racist, right? Please tell me, Dr. Townsend, what you thought of her. Was my mama a racist?” The woman’s eyes are desperate, pleading.
I twirl the empty coffee cup between my fingers. I want to give this kind woman the relief she craves. I have carried this burden for so long that I understand her anguish. We are bound together by this tragedy. As much guilt as I have carried over the years, I know, with the discernment of a woman my age, that my pain does not rival what Linda Seager inflicted upon her own family.
THIRTY-SEVEN
Montgomery
1973
India and Erica walked timidly into the water.
“Come on. I’m not going to let you fall.”
The white sand stuck to my feet, and a shell pricked my toe. I was thinking of our last trip to the beach, when Mama had laughed and laughed. This beach had always meant something to my family, but it was usually where Mama lit up the most. As soon as Mace had said he wanted to take the girls to see the ocean, I had known exactly where I would take them.
Mace was still wearing his tube socks and shoes. I had not invited him, but when I arrived to pick up the girls he had followed us out of the house with his fishing pole in his hand. I must have suspected he would want to come, because I had taken extra care choosing from the three swimsuits in my closet. All of them made me self-conscious, and on my drive over to their house, I worried how much weight I had gained that summer.
India laughed, an audible hawing sound, and her smile lit up her face. With one moist palm in mine, she used the other to bend down and scoop up water. We stopped walking once we made it in up to our shins. A foaming wave hit our legs, and India squealed. The water was cold.