They Call Me Patrice

“Patrice, dear:

Though we’ve never seen you, you’re our daughter now, dear. You’re Hugh’s legacy to us. You’re all we have now, you and the little tyke. I can’t come to you where you are, because the shock was too much. I’m under the doctor’s care and he forbids my making the trip. You’ll have to come to us, instead. Come home to us soon, dear, in our loneliness and loss. It will make it that much easier to bear. It won’t be long now, dear. We’ve been in constant touch with Dr. Brett, and he sends very encouraging reports of your progress.

Mother Hazzard.”

It was like train-wheels going through her head.

Though we’ve never seen you.

Though we’ve never seen you.

The nurse eased it from her forgetful fingers after awhile, and put it back in its envelope. She watched the nurse fearfully as she moved about the room.

“If I weren’t Mrs. Hazzard, would I be allowed to stay in this room?”

The nurse laughed cheerfully. “We’d put you out, we’d throw you right outside into one of the wards,” she said, bending over her in mock threat.

The nurse left, and returned with the baby. “Here, take your young son.”

She held him protectively.

Five dollars. Five dollars lasts such a short time, goes such a short way.

She was in a dressing robe, sitting by the window in the sun. There was a light tap at the door and the doctor came in. He drew out a chair and sat down opposite her. “I hear you’re leaving us soon,” he said genially.

The book she’d been reading fell and he had to pick it up for her.

“Don’t look so frightened. Everything’s arranged. Here are your tickets,” He took an envelope out of his pocket, tried to offer it to her. Her hands withdrew a little, each one around an arm of the chair. He put the envelope between the pages of the discarded book finally, like a bookmark.

“When?” she said with scarcely any breath at all.

“Wednesday, the early train.”

Suddenly panic was licking all over her, like a flame.

“No, I can’t! No! Doctor, you must listen—!” She tried to grab his hand with both of hers.

He held her hand between both of his consolingly. “I understand,” he said. “We’re a little shaky yet. We’ve just finished getting used to things as they are. We’re a little timid about giving up familiar surroundings for those that are strange to us. We all have it; it’s a typical nervous reaction. But you’ll be over it in no time.”

“But I can’t do it, doctor,” she whispered passionately. “I can’t do it.”

He patted her cheek to calm her. “We’ll put you on the train, and all you have to do is ride. Your family will be waiting for you at the end of the trip.”

“My family!”

“Don’t make such a face about it,” he said whimsically.

He glanced around at the crib.

“What about the young man here?”

He went over and lifted out the child. He brought him to her and put him in her arms.

“You want to take him home, don’t you? You don’t want him to grow up in a hospital?” He laughed at her teasingly. “You want him to have a home, don’t you?”

She held the baby to her.

“Yes,” she said at last, submissively. “Yes, I want him to have a home.”

Chapter Three

A train again. But how different. No crowded aisles, no jostling figures. A compartment, all to herself. A little table on braces, that could go up, that could go down. A closet with a full-length mirrored door. On the rack the neat luggage, brand new, glossy patent finish, “P.H.” trimly stenciled in red. A little shaded lamp to read by when the countryside grew dark.

And on the seat opposite her own, and more important by far than all this, her baby. Something to cherish, something to love. All there was in the world to love and live for.

The wheels of the train chattered, saying to her ear alone:

“You’d better go back,
 you’d better go back,
Clicketty-Clack,
 clicketty-clack.
Stop while you can,
you still can go back.”

A light knock sounded at the door, and she started as violently as though it had been a resounding crash.

“Who’s there?” she gasped.

A porter’s voice answered, “Five mo’ minutes fo’ Caulfield.”

She opened the door. “No, wait! It can’t be—”

“It sho’ enough is, though, miss.”

“So quickly, though. I didn’t think—”

He smiled back at her indulgently. “We’ve been through Clarendon already, and Caulfield’s comin’ right after it. Ain’t never change since I been on this railroad.”

She closed the door. I can ride past without getting off, she thought.