The Free Spirit

Don's 'Illness', 1962 (Part Four)

"Listen to the rhythm of the falling rain telling me just what a fool I've been..."

October of 1962 started with the Cuban Missile Crisis in America, where Russia gave Cuba missiles that were pointed at America, terrifying it's citizens. America had already dealt with Sputnik back in '57, and then several other incidents related to the Red Scare, but this one was the worst yet. It was the closest to nuclear war that the world had ever come, and the closest it would ever get, and the whole world was terrified. I remember hugging my children and my husband close to me the day we first heard the news about the crisis, as I was so scared I'd lose them to a war started by two men over silly politics. But President Kennedy handled it well, and the Cuban Missile Crisis ended with no blood being shed.

After spending some time in the Maternity Home, I was feeling a little better after an experimental medication that temporarily took away the nausea (but not entirely, unfortunately) so I was helping out at the maternity home as a nurse. It was the thirteenth of October and I was in the delivery room preparing a mother for birth when all of a sudden, Trixie showed up rather unexpected. "I'm managing perfectly all right," I told her.

"I'm sure you are," she said to me, a sad tone to her voice and a sad look in her eye. My stomach dropped.

"What's wrong?" I asked, worried that something happened to Stacey or Elton, who were at Nonnatus House being watched by Sister Monica Joan and whoever was on call.

"We got a call that your husband collapsed at a rehearsal at the Prince of Wales..." she told me, and I felt my whole body go numb. The Prince of Wales Theatre was in the West End of London. "He's been brought to St. Thomas's. You should go to him. I'll take it from here." I nodded my thanks to her, then quickly undid and pulled off my apron, tossing it aside.

"What about my children?" I asked, now worried about my two-and-a-half-year-old daughter and almost four-year-old son.

"Barbara and Tom are watching them. Don't worry, just go to your husband," Trixie replied, shooing me out of the delivery room. I bolted out of the maternity home and hopped on my bicycle to cycle quicker than cyclers in the Tour de France to my parents' home in Stepney (it was still a fifteen minute ride), telling my father that something had happened to Don and I needed him to pick up the kids from Nonnatus House and bring them to my home in Poplar, before making the five minute run to the Stepney Green tube station. It took two minutes for the train to arrive and I hopped on, quickly claiming a seat and waiting out the twenty-two minute ride on the District West Line to the Charing Cross station. Once there, I ran to the Bakerloo South Line and rode on the train for another eight minutes to the Lambeth North station, which was another ten minute walk to St. Thomas's (I ran and made it in about eight minutes). I then burst through the doors and startled the nurses at the information desk as I launched myself at it, still in my nurse's uniform.

"I need to see my husband. He's Isaac Donald Everly, he's twenty-five and-"

"I know who you are, Mrs. Everly, I read the magazines!" the young nurse said cheerfully, excited to be in the presence of the wife of a rock and roll legend, but her cheerfulness only irritated me further.

"If you could direct me to where he is, I would appreciate it," I said.

"He's in the ICU, it'll be-"

"Thanks, I'll figure it out!" I said as I bolted off towards the intensive care unit, peering through the windows until I finally saw my very pale and skeletal husband lying unconscious in a slightly-elevated bed. I felt tears stinging my eyes as they fell upon what looked to be the lifeless form of my much beloved husband of five years.

"They pumped his stomach..." I heard Phil mutter behind me, and I turned to face him. "They said he had narcotics in his system. A lot of 'em. They think he... oh god, I can't even say it!" I watched as my brother-in-law burst into tears, and I knelt down beside him and pulled him into a hug.