The High Tide Club

“Yeah. Them and Josephine.”

“I probably need to let the girls outside for a potty break,” Brooke said. “Can we talk outside?”

“Yeah. That’d be okay.”

It took her eyes a moment to adjust to the dazzling sunlight after the dim half-light of the house. The moment she set the dogs down, they ran straight for a clump of oleander bushes at the edge of the veranda.

Brooke pointed at a rusting wrought iron table and two chairs. It was the only furniture left on what must have once been a beautiful spot overlooking the ocean. The slate tiles were crumbling, with weeds poking up through the cracks. Still, a fine breeze ruffled the palms at the edge of the low wall, bringing the scent of gardenias blooming in what was left of the garden just beyond.

She studied C. D., who sat stiffly, staring out at the ocean. He still wore his ever-present oversized aviator sunglasses, but today he was dressed in a loose-fitting short-sleeved shirt, tucked neatly into a pair of baggy jeans whose hems just brushed the top of his bare brown feet. This, she realized, was as dressed up as she’d ever seen him.

“What’s on your mind?” she asked finally.

He looked at her now. “This morning, I was out in the kitchen, and I heard y’all talking about Josephine and how she didn’t have no close kin or nuthin’.”

“That’s right,” Brooke said. “If you’re worried about your job, though—”

“The thing is, she does have kin.”

“Yes, we know about the cousins, and they’ll be notified—”

“I’m not talking about the cousins. I’m talking about me.” He thumped his bony chest and raised his glasses to look her straight in the eye. “Me. I’m Josephine’s son. I reckon that’s about as close a kin as you can get.”

38

May 1942

“You’re the doctor? Thank God!” The woman who’d met him at the door was wrapped in a thin cotton bathrobe and didn’t wait for his answer. “She’s having an awful time. Please hurry.”

Thomas Carlyle was getting accustomed to receiving urgent phone calls in the middle of the night. All the younger physicians in Savannah, even the middle-aged ones, had enlisted in the war effort in the immediate aftermath of Pearl Harbor. But he was in his seventies, and his fondness for gin was well known among a certain clientele in the city.

Still, he was surprised to be summoned to this particular address. It was a handsome, pale pink double town house on one of the most fashionable blocks of West Jones Street, so he’d dressed for the occasion; his only black suit, too large for him now and full of moth holes, and a heavily starched white dress shirt, although no necktie. He was poised to ring the bell when the door opened.

He heard the moans and shrieks as soon as he began to climb the narrow stairs, which did nothing to quicken his steps. He’d heard it all hundreds of times before, and in his experience, babies took their own time.

He found the patient stretched out on a bed with an elaborate mahogany carved headboard. She’d thrown off most of the bedcovers and was thrashing around on the mattress, wild-eyed and clearly terrified. Her face, neck, and narrow arms were slick with sweat. Blood pooled on the white sheets.

“How long has this been going on?” Carlyle asked. He removed his suit coat, tossed it onto a chair, rolled up his shirtsleeves, and opened the satchel he kept packed by his front door.

“The labor pains started around two this afternoon,” the woman said, leaning down to stroke the younger woman’s hair. She crooned something inaudible, which seemed to calm the patient a little.

“And how far along is she?”

“Maybe seven months? It’s too early, I know. The bleeding won’t stop. I didn’t know there would be so much blood.”

“She should have been taken to a hospital hours ago,” Carlyle said, frowning down at the patient.

“I told you, that’s not possible.”

“No!” the patient cried. “No hospitals. My mother died in the hospital.” Her eyes widened again, and she cried out as another wave of contractions racked her body.

He sighed and reached into the satchel, bringing out a small clear vial and a hypodermic needle, which he set on the table beside the bed. He rummaged around again and brought out a brown paper packet of cotton balls. “Damn it,” he muttered. He reached for his jacket and extracted a half-empty pint of gin from the inside pocket.

Carlyle uncapped the gin and dribbled some on the cotton ball. He stuck the hypodermic in the vial of liquid, drew back the plunger and flicked the tube once, twice with a forefinger, to dispel any air bubbles.

He nodded at the woman. “I’ll need you to hold her down for a moment.”

“I’ll try,” she whispered, standing to lean across the bed.

“Noooo!” the patient cried.

“Just a small prick,” he said pleasantly. “Then you’ll have a nice sleep, and when you wake up, this will all be over.”

Her body tensed as another contraction began, and she writhed in pain.

“Hold her down!” he barked, and he jabbed the needle into her arm.

* * *

When he emerged from the bedroom, he carried a tiny, squalling infant wrapped in a pillowcase.

“It’s a boy,” Dr. Carlyle said, thrusting the baby into the woman’s arms.

“Healthy?” She looked down at the beet-red infant. “He’s so tiny.”

“Because he’s too early,” Carlyle said. His shirt was sweat-soaked and clung to his chest, his forearms were flecked with blood, and his white hair was plastered to his skull.

“Where’s the bathroom? I need to wash up.”

“Just there.” She pointed to the next door. “And how is she?” The woman gazed anxiously through the open doorway where the patient lay unconscious atop a mound of blood-soaked sheets and towels.

“She’ll live. But there won’t be any more surprise pregnancies, I’ll tell you that.”

“Just as well,” she murmured.

She heard water running. She looked down at the baby, no bigger than an undersized roasting hen. She didn’t particularly like babies, but she felt a strange pang of sympathy for this one. She touched a tentative finger to his fist, and he stopped crying, grabbed hold, and clung on with a surprising ferocity.

Carlyle was wiping his hands on a clean towel. “You’ll want to wash her properly when she wakes up, keep the incision clean, watch that she doesn’t run a fever, which is a sign of infection. If she does seem feverish, call me immediately before she becomes septic.”

“And what about the baby?”

“What about it?”

The woman looked down at the now sleeping infant and then pointed with her chin toward the bedroom. “She’s not married, you know. If anybody found out…”

He yawned, impatient to get home to his bed. “What are you trying to say?”

She bit her lip. “It would be better if she thought … well, if she thought the baby died.”

Carlyle bristled and feigned shock, though in his line of work this was a very old story.

“What if we could find somebody to take care of it?” the woman went on.

“What are you suggesting?”

“Surely there are orphanages?”

“This baby is not an orphan,” he said. “In any case, orphanages require paperwork. Questions would be asked.”