After Alice

Chapter 28: Mary Ellen II

Alice

December 31, 1976

Dear Mary Ellen,

I am being discharged from the hospital tomorrow and moved to hospice. That means I'm officially dying. They can't do anything more for me here except give me painkillers, but I have been refusing them. Imagine that! I was drunk for over half my life and now, when my physical pain is the worst it's ever been, I won't numb it! I have to finish these letters to you, and I can't do it if I'm drugged up. Morphine makes me want to sleep all day.

This may be my last letter to you. The nurse is typing as I dictate, but she won't be with me at the new place. I don't want to ask your sister, either. Not yet.

Once I'm dead, and you have these letters, you can share them with her. Hell, she may already have read them, but I doubt it. She is a good girl, a rule follower, and always has been. She will find you. I am sure of it.

My pregnancy with your sister was a nightmare. When Jacob left me, I went nuts. Twice, I woke up in a cloud of smoke because I had left the burner lit on the stove. I barely had food, except when I felt strong enough to walk to the soup kitchen or the closest church. My body and mind were wasting away, and I feared I would die alone with my unborn child.

Then one wet day, when I was over six months pregnant, Jacob came back. He showed up at the door, went down on his knees, and hugged me around the middle. He said he was sorry, and he truly seemed to mean it.

We left that place a few days later and moved in with Jacob's parents, out on Buzzard's Bay. They were simple people. They didn't care where I came from, or comment on my flaws. What I didn't know then was that Jacob had just lost another child, a boy named Terry. He never told me he had a son, and a wife, before the war.

Terry went missing around the time I got pregnant. His body was found a few days later on the tracks of the old Cape rail line. His foot had gotten stuck, and a train had run him over at dusk. The engineer didn't even see him. He was ten years old.

Jacob got this news from his parents while he was still on his bender. His mother told me he changed from a young man to a ghost overnight. He stopped eating and sleeping. He spent days and nights walking up the coastline. After the funeral, she finally sat him down and asked him what he was going to do now. His life wasn't over yet. Surely there was something he could live for. That's when he finally told her about me, and that I was pregnant. What had seemed like a trap before now felt different after his son's death.

His mother told him to go fetch me and bring me back to their house. She wanted to be around her grandchild. Even if he wasn't ready to be a father again, she would not let this one out of her sight. So, he did.

I was a basket case, but my new mother-in-law treated me like royalty. She massaged my feet and gave me poultices to ease my cramps. She was my midwife and led me through a fast labor at home. I remember it was painful, but it didn't leave me sore and confused like the sleep birth I'd had with you.

Your sister was born on October 4th, 1947. I named her Mary Ellen, because the entire time I was pregnant, I thought only of you. When I told Jacob and his family the name I wanted, they thought it was lovely. I didn't tell them about how I lost you, but in hindsight, I think Jacob's mother would have understood. She'd lost five babies herself.

After your sister was born, I nursed her from my breast, and we bonded right away. She was a wonderful baby, not very fussy at all. Jacob's mother relieved me during the night so I could get some sleep. It was a miracle. I had no depression for an entire year.

Everything was great until your sister got the German Measles. Her lungs filled with fluid, and overnight she went from a happy baby to a listless sack of potatoes. The doctors said her chances were 50-50. Jacob reacted by going to the bar, and I went to bed and couldn't move.

Finally, at the urging of my mother-in-law, I called my Aunt Gert for help. Thank God she picked up. We hadn't talked since I left Troy, but she didn't bring that up. She said she'd pay for your sister's transfer to Boston Children's Hospital and put me up in an apartment nearby. It was a godsend and probably saved your sister's life. It wasn't until a few years later that Gert exacted her price on me. She must have helped the lawyers track me down to complete the divorce, which pushed me out of your life forever.

In any event, your sister recovered, and three months later she could go home. That was a joyful moment, but I couldn't celebrate it. While she was in the hospital, I lost my confidence as a mother again. How could I protect her from all the threats known and unknown? This time, taking walks didn't help. I was afraid if I took her outside, she would catch pneumonia, or I would drift out over a ledge like I almost did with you. So, I turned to my old friend, gin.

Jacob had long gone back to the bottle, too. He lost his job at the cannery and spent his days at the bar. We ended up moving out of his parents' house into a small cottage, a shack, really, on the other side of Buzzard's Bay. It was lonely, but there was a pub nearby. Drinking became our pastime again.

I'm not proud of this. I was a drunk for thirty years. It's a horrible habit, and it killed Jacob in the end. For a while, I thought I could stop. I just didn't want to. Now, looking back on it, sober at last from a hospital bed, I can see that drinking was only masking my pain. I didn't think about you. I didn't worry about your sister. I didn't hate myself, and I didn't feel Jacob's punches. When our house burned down, I didn't notice. The only thing I cared about was where my next drink was coming from. When that was covered, all seemed right in my world.

Only now, as an invalid two inches from death, do I see how I wasted what could have been the best years of my life.

God willing, I will write to you again tomorrow.

Love,

Your flawed but now clear-eyed mother