"Baker, Kage - Katherine's Story" - читать интересную книгу автора (Baker Kage)

When they did bring her in, Katherine's first thought was: _Why, she looks like Mickey Mouse. _Both her eyes were blacked and all the dome of her head was one black-purple bruise.
"Oh, that's normal, sugar," the nurse told her, too quickly. "She just had a big head, that was all. It'll go away." The baby lay quiet and waxen in her arms, barely moving, but they told her that was normal too.
1939
It wasn't normal. Bette Jean was an exquisite baby, with delicate white skin, with perfect little features, with enormous solemn eyes the color of an aquamarine. Her hair was black and wavy. She looked like a doll, but by her first birthday she was still unable to sit up.
When it became impossible to deny that something was wrong, Katherine wrote to Mother. Mother sent money -- Anne had the lead in a Broadway show now, she could afford to -- and told her to take the baby to a specialist.
There was a doctor in Chapel Hill who saw "slow" children. It was most of a day's drive in the old truck but Dick took them, tight-lipped and miserable. Bette Jean stared at the trees, the sky, the mountains, and exclaimed in her funny little unformed voice, a liquid sound like a child playing with panpipes.
In the waiting room were retarded children, spastic children, children blank and focused inward on private and inexplicable games, gaunt listless children sprawling across their parents' laps. Overalled fathers silent, shirtwaisted mothers staring like wounded tigers. Dick took one look and murmured that he had to see the man about the mortgage, and he left. "It's all right," Katherine whispered to Bette Jean, who wobbled her head and looked astonished.
Through the transom she heard a man's voice raised. "She's still not thriving. You can't be following my orders! I told you she needs lots of green and yellow vegetables. What on earth have you been feeding her?"
"Corn bread," replied the raw cracker voice, defensively. "Corn's yellow, ain't it?"
Katherine shuddered.
The doctor was tired, and perhaps not as kind as he might have been. He listened to Katherine's story, interrupting frequently as he examined Bette Jean. When he had finished he leaned back against a cabinet and took off his glasses to rub his eyes.
"Well, Mrs. Loveland -- your baby has spastic paralysis. I'd conclude she was brain-damaged at birth, either by the forceps or the fact that birth was delayed so long. There is no cure for her condition, unfortunately. Given that the family is of limited means -- I'd recommend you put her in a home."
"Oh, I couldn't!" Tears welled in Katherine's eyes, but the doctor raised his hand.
"She'd receive excellent care. Do you understand that her illness is only the result of an accident? You're young; there is no reason why you can't have healthy, normal children after this. When you do, you'll find yourself increasingly hard-pressed to give this abnormal child the attention she'll require every day of her life. You owe it to the child, to your other children -- and, I need hardly say, your husband -- to put this unfortunate occurrence behind you."
Katherine wept and refused. The doctor wanted to speak to Dick, too, but he never put in an appearance. He was nowhere in sight when Katherine carried Bette Jean out to the truck. They waited another half-hour before he came up the street, unsteady, and climbed into the cab. He'd had a drink or two. It was a long ride back, in the dark.
* * * *
When they understood the diagnosis, Dick and his parents argued at once that the only sensible thing to do would be to follow the doctor's advice and place Bette Jean in an institution. Katherine screamed her refusal, wrote a tearful letter to Mother. Mother received the news with her customary stoicism and responded by inviting Katherine to bring Bette Jean to New York for Christmas, thoughtfully sending money for the train fare.
* * * *
It was almost Heaven. No boarding houses any more: a fashionable apartment. Anne's name was now in lights, and there was talk about Hollywood. And, oh, the Metropolitan Museum! The bookstores! The music! The shows! Katherine took Bette Jean to Central Park to watch the ice skaters, and Bette Jean stared and stared from her arms in wonder, never cried at all.
But there were telephone calls, there were letters and visits from all her aunts and uncles, who'd loaned Mother money over the lean years, who'd shaken their heads over The Divorce. Every one of them told her to put Bette Jean in an institution, for the sake of her marriage if nothing else. After the latest such call she put down the phone and wandered disconsolately out to the sitting room, where Anne had Bette Jean on her lap at the big Steinway piano and was pretending to play a duet with her. Bette Jean was whooping in delight. Mother looked up from her book, peering at her over her glasses.
"And what did your Uncle James have to say?"
"Just -- more of the same." Katherine sank down to her knees by Mother's chair. She drooped forward and leaned her head on Mother's arm, wanting to cry.
Mother stared straight forward.
"Don't do it, child," she said at last. "You'd regret it the rest of your life."
* * * *
Bette Jean caught a cold on the train going back; she was feverish and wailing when Bert picked them up at the train station. Katherine sat with her in the rocking chair beside the kerosene heater, rubbed her tiny chest with Vicks Vapo-Rub, desperately fought off pneumonia. She slept sitting up with the child's head cradled on her shoulder. Dick bought a steam vaporizer and set it up beside them, with the pan of water and eucalyptus oil simmering over its little flame. It was a week before she felt safe leaving Bette Jean long enough to attend to any chores.
Scattering feed for the chickens, she looked across at the pen where she'd kept the black one and saw that it was empty. When she questioned Dick he looked away, and said at last:
"Ma had me kill it. It couldn't hardly walk, Katherine, you know that."
She wouldn't let him see her cry. She went into the house. Bette Jean was awake, and her eyes tracked to follow Katherine as she came close and sat down on the edge of the bed.
_Ma-ma._
Katherine was so shocked she just sat staring. After a moment the voice came again, odd and artificial-sounding as a doll's but with a note of pleading. Bette Jean's mouth was slack, did not move, but her eyes were intent.
_Mama._
Trembling, Katherine reached out and took Bette Jean's hand. Her little fingers, long and white, were ice cold. Katherine raised them to her lips and kissed them.
* * * *
It was so strange she wouldn't think about it, but it kept happening; little silent greetings, complaints, questions, observations. Nobody else heard them.
1940
A long letter from Mother: Anne had been offered a contract at RKO studios in Hollywood. Mother had quit teaching and was going out on the train to look for an apartment for them. It promised, she said, to be quite an adventure for a lady her age.
Katherine sat reading the letter over, uncertain how she ought to feel. Wonderful news for Anne, surely, but ... She had a momentary vision of red taillights winking, receding, leaving her in darkness.
_Mama. _Bette Jean was staring at her, and one little white hand beat against the blanket with a motion like a leaf fluttering. _Mama!_
* * * *
Mother sent the money. Katherine made it easy on Dick; it was only for the child's health, after all. She needed a warmer climate. The divorce would come later, and they both knew it, but it was better not to talk about that now. He was so relieved he became kind, attentive, made the last days almost nice.
* * * *
The journey was interminable on the train, but her heart was singing the whole way. Bette Jean sat propped beside her, in her best dress. With her tiny feet stuck out before her in their patent leather shoes, she looked more like a doll than ever. She whooped and moaned in excitement, staring at everything, fascinated; and the silent voice kept up its running commentary too. _Mama, nice! Mama, happy now._
They came into California and Katherine felt as though she'd escaped into her books at last, because it all looked like a Maxfield Parrish illustration: the smooth golden hills crowned with stately oak trees, the glimpses of Spanish-style houses with their red tiled roofs and white walls, the green acres of orange trees in blossom. The fragrance came through the windows of the train for miles.
"We're going to Hollywood, Bette Jean!" Katherine told her. "We'll see all the movie stars. We'll be together, and we'll never be cold any more, and this is such a beautiful place, don't you think? Maybe we're about to have adventures!"
Hollywood was where miracles happened to ordinary people. Maybe there was a place in Hollywood for extraordinary people.
As they neared the station, the porter came to see if she'd need any help getting Bette Jean down to the platform.
"Well, Hello, Miss Big Eyes!" he said, bending to look into Bette Jean's face. "My goodness, that baby's got pretty eyes."
"Thank you," said Katherine, smiling.
"My sister's boy was born like her," he said, standing straight and pulling down Katherine's suitcase.