loneliness. There is a song the natives sing at night, when drinking. It is called “La Golondrina” and it is all about a wandering swallow caught in storm and wind, so far from home. También yo estoy en la región perdida, ¡Oh, Cielo Santo! y sin poder volar …It is the most beautiful of all songs, Marion.
Marion, do not doubt my shame in leaving you as I have. My father, your father, these are men. I wish to be men such as these. My desire and commitment to take care of you was the most noble of my life—a life I have time and again thrown away. I intend to restore that part of myself strong enough, and good enough to be worthy of you. But to do so I must confront my own weaknesses and I must cure myself of them. I am working on just this with more diligence than ever in my life. What I mean to say is this: I have not touched the stuff, Marion, I swear to you, I haven’t had one taste.
Oh, what did she care, what did she care…Reading it now, the tenth time in so many missives…how much could it mean,this man who’d plucked her from her sawmill Midwest town, who’d danced with her at her church social and spoke of a cottage on a river and tousle-locked children and all that a committed young doctor could give…
It meant nothing.
And now, in her swivel chair, working, trying to do her work.
In her head, it was like this:
You turn your heel and press the ball of your foot, feel the quiver there. Because when he looks at you, you feel it five different places, places you did not know about, like a violin string vibrating. Like a string vibrating hot under your fingertips. A trickle hot now in the small of your back slipping from knot to knot on your spine. And most of all of course in that place where your cotton underthings meet, pressing against the metal of the garter, down to where the garter tugs mercilessly, as if gnawing the wool tops of your stocking itching, rubbing you raw, metal clasp cold, stockings rough, slashing strands of cold sweat, the friction unbearable and there and there again and the typewriter keys clapping, tapping, 4 DAYS FROTHY MUCUS SPUTUM, SOME NOCTURIA, MORPHINE, BROMIDES AND HYPNOTICS ADMINISTERED AS NEEDED. DIGITALIS LEAVES, GRAM 0.1, 3X/DAY, even as you feel everything twisting, churning, rubbing. Enough to make you sick and you’re smiling, you realize you can feel it on your hot-cold face. DR. WARNER ATTENDING, SCHED. UV RM. 2X/WK. Oh, to put him out of the head, to put him in a drawer and shut the drawer, she pictures herself —clap clap clap keys—putting the thinking of Joe Lanigan in the cardboard-bottomed drawer of her dresser and shutting it and shutting it and then the thinking of him gone and her legs stop trembling and and and…
L OUISE WAS CHATTERING away in the lunchroom yet again, chattering in such dipping lovely lyrical ways and Marion didn’thave to listen too closely and she could just let it hop along, brush up against her, keep her distracted.
“Oh, she’s a fine one, did you see her with no girdle swinging her stuff around? No sale here, swivel hips.”
Then:
“That orderly, he wants some of her honeypot, but I ask you, has he two dimes to spark? Orderlies, they can make time with chambermaids, factory girls. This is America, Marion, doll. Stars bursting.”
Then:
“Oh, Marion, did you see that? Myra. She’s always giving me the fisheye. She thinks I cost her friend Fern a job. And she’s right.”
Marion glanced over at Myra, a broad-faced country girl known for good spirits and a clear, sunny whistle that the patients loved.
The look she was giving Louise twisted that face into something rigid and brow-beetled.
“What did you do, Louise,” Marion asked, trying to focus, trying not to slip back away.
“That two-faced crackpot Dr. Milroy…I had to go back east to see my ma last fall. Was gone for nine days. Just nine days. Two days coming and going. And while I’m gone, he had no one to run the new X-ray machine. I’d gone
Marion, do not doubt my shame in leaving you as I have. My father, your father, these are men. I wish to be men such as these. My desire and commitment to take care of you was the most noble of my life—a life I have time and again thrown away. I intend to restore that part of myself strong enough, and good enough to be worthy of you. But to do so I must confront my own weaknesses and I must cure myself of them. I am working on just this with more diligence than ever in my life. What I mean to say is this: I have not touched the stuff, Marion, I swear to you, I haven’t had one taste.
Oh, what did she care, what did she care…Reading it now, the tenth time in so many missives…how much could it mean,this man who’d plucked her from her sawmill Midwest town, who’d danced with her at her church social and spoke of a cottage on a river and tousle-locked children and all that a committed young doctor could give…
It meant nothing.
And now, in her swivel chair, working, trying to do her work.
In her head, it was like this:
You turn your heel and press the ball of your foot, feel the quiver there. Because when he looks at you, you feel it five different places, places you did not know about, like a violin string vibrating. Like a string vibrating hot under your fingertips. A trickle hot now in the small of your back slipping from knot to knot on your spine. And most of all of course in that place where your cotton underthings meet, pressing against the metal of the garter, down to where the garter tugs mercilessly, as if gnawing the wool tops of your stocking itching, rubbing you raw, metal clasp cold, stockings rough, slashing strands of cold sweat, the friction unbearable and there and there again and the typewriter keys clapping, tapping, 4 DAYS FROTHY MUCUS SPUTUM, SOME NOCTURIA, MORPHINE, BROMIDES AND HYPNOTICS ADMINISTERED AS NEEDED. DIGITALIS LEAVES, GRAM 0.1, 3X/DAY, even as you feel everything twisting, churning, rubbing. Enough to make you sick and you’re smiling, you realize you can feel it on your hot-cold face. DR. WARNER ATTENDING, SCHED. UV RM. 2X/WK. Oh, to put him out of the head, to put him in a drawer and shut the drawer, she pictures herself —clap clap clap keys—putting the thinking of Joe Lanigan in the cardboard-bottomed drawer of her dresser and shutting it and shutting it and then the thinking of him gone and her legs stop trembling and and and…
L OUISE WAS CHATTERING away in the lunchroom yet again, chattering in such dipping lovely lyrical ways and Marion didn’thave to listen too closely and she could just let it hop along, brush up against her, keep her distracted.
“Oh, she’s a fine one, did you see her with no girdle swinging her stuff around? No sale here, swivel hips.”
Then:
“That orderly, he wants some of her honeypot, but I ask you, has he two dimes to spark? Orderlies, they can make time with chambermaids, factory girls. This is America, Marion, doll. Stars bursting.”
Then:
“Oh, Marion, did you see that? Myra. She’s always giving me the fisheye. She thinks I cost her friend Fern a job. And she’s right.”
Marion glanced over at Myra, a broad-faced country girl known for good spirits and a clear, sunny whistle that the patients loved.
The look she was giving Louise twisted that face into something rigid and brow-beetled.
“What did you do, Louise,” Marion asked, trying to focus, trying not to slip back away.
“That two-faced crackpot Dr. Milroy…I had to go back east to see my ma last fall. Was gone for nine days. Just nine days. Two days coming and going. And while I’m gone, he had no one to run the new X-ray machine. I’d gone
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