The Boston Girl

I’ve seen Romeo and Juliet maybe twenty times since then: movies, Broadway, even high school performances. Remember when I took you to see it in the Berkshires, under the trees? I do love Juliet now, but every single time I understand something different about her. That’s probably why Shakespeare is a genius, right?

Stumbling into Mr. Boyer’s class was one of the best accidents that ever happened to me. When I started teaching, I remembered how he talked to us, and you know what? If you treat every question like you’ve never heard it before, your students feel like you respect them and everyone learns a lot more. Including the teacher.

I figure God created Margaret Sanger, too.

The Saturday Club was changing. Younger girls joined, older ones married and disappeared, including Helen, who moved to Fall River, which was a real schlep in those days. Filomena was still working for Miss Green, but she had stopped coming to meetings. Gussie said that Morelli was teaching art in Boston; I don’t know how she found out these things, but she did.

Irene and Rose were still Saturday Club regulars and best friends from Rockport Lodge. They shared a room in the South End and Rose got Irene a job as a switchboard operator at the telephone company where she worked. Irene always had some juicy stories about conversations she listened in on. “Rose never does it, but she’s too good for this earth,” Irene said. “If I didn’t eavesdrop I’d die of boredom.” Irene always ma

de me laugh.

But one Saturday when I was on my way to the meeting—it must have been in the spring because it was light outside—I saw Irene running toward me and I could see that something was wrong. My first thought was that Rose was sick. For such a big, strong girl, she always had a cold or a headache. But it wasn’t Rose.

In one breath, Irene told me that Filomena had come to their room that afternoon, pale as the moon, and asked if she could she rest there for a few hours. But after a little while, she started having terrible pains in her stomach.

I said, “Why didn’t you get her sister Mimi? She’d want to know if Filomena was sick.”

Irene cupped her hands around my ear and whispered, “She said not to go to any of them. She did something to herself so she wouldn’t have a baby.”

I’m not sure I ever heard anyone say the word abortion, but I knew exactly what Irene was talking about.

When a woman “lost” a baby, there were two different ways of talking about it. The first one was sad. People would say, “Poor thing,” and tell stories about how it happened to their cousin or their best friend who had wanted a baby for years.

The other kind of “lost” made people frown and bite their lips. “How is she?” they’d whisper, sometimes like they were worried, sometimes like she was the scum of the earth. When Mrs. Tepperman down the block died after she “lost” a baby, there was a rumor that they wouldn’t let her be buried in the Jewish cemetery, as a punishment. That wasn’t true but it shows you how people thought.

I said, “Maybe you should take her to the hospital.”

“Do you know what they do to girls who come in like that?” Irene said. She was right. I’d heard of girls being tied to the bed when a priest or a cop tried to get them to confess. And there was a story going around about a girl who ran out of the hospital and jumped off a bridge after the doctor said he was going to tell her parents.

“Rose said we should ask Gussie what to do,” said Irene, “but I worry about the mouth on her. I figured you’d want to know and maybe you’d have an idea of something we can do for her.”

I said I didn’t but that my sister might.

I never just showed up out of nowhere at Betty’s rooming house, so when she saw me—and I must have looked pretty grim—she said, “Which one of them died?”

When I explained about Filomena, Betty said, “Poor thing,” with tears in her eyes. I could have kissed her. And she did know what to do.

She said, “You know the Florence Crittenton Home? There’s a nurse there—Cécile or Céline, something French—I heard she helps girls in trouble. But stay away from the ladies who run the place; they don’t understand about things like this.” Then she said, “Why don’t I go get the nurse? Tell me where to bring her.” I did kiss her for that.

Filomena was sleeping when I got to Irene and Rose’s room. She was shivering and sweating and her face was the same gray as Celia’s had been when the policeman carried her down the steps so I thought she was dying for sure.

Rose was on the other bed with a rosary in her lap. She looked like a different person without a smile on her face.

Irene came in with a little bundle and said she’d been to see Mimi. “I told her that Miss Green twisted her ankle and asked Filomena to stay with her for a few days. She gave me some clothes for her.”

There wasn’t much we could do except wait for Betty. Rose patted Filomena’s forehead with a damp cloth and Irene put drops of water between her lips. I held her hand. The three of us were usually big talkers, but we didn’t have anything to say.

Filomena cried when she woke up and saw me. I told her everything was going to be fine, a nurse was coming to help, and she had nothing to worry about. I didn’t believe a word I was saying, but it seemed to calm her down.

She was asleep when Christiane got there. She was French Canadian and she looked like an angel in her white uniform, but she was all business. After she took Filomena’s pulse, she had us help her to the bathroom and into the tub.

Christiane handed me a pile of small cotton cloths and said I should roll them as tight as I could. She mixed something inside a hot water bottle with a tube at the bottom. Then she looked Filo­mena in the eyes and said, “Try to relax, my friend. It won’t take too long. Take breaths. Count to one hundred.”

Filomena’s face was like a mask, staring at the ceiling as the liquid went into her and blood gushed out. Christiane praised her and said she was doing great. It didn’t take too long, just as she’d said. But we were all exhausted. And Filomena? I don’t think she unclenched her jaw until she fell asleep.

After we got her into bed, Christiane took me, Rose, and Irene to the hall and told us we were to keep Filomena quiet, feed her soup and tea, and not to let her out of bed for two days.

“I think she used bleach,” she said. “At least she didn’t poke herself with an ice pick. Oh yes, I’ve seen that. When they poke, it is terrible. But I think your friend will be all right. It was good you found me so quick.”