The GI Bride (30 page)

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Authors: Iris Jones Simantel

BOOK: The GI Bride
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Pete was a bashful and homely bachelor who,
when he wasn’t playing golf or travelling for his job, could usually be found at
home. He was a wonderful person and I always felt sad that he was alone. He would have
made someone a great husband although he always seemed somewhat ill at ease and shy with
women. He probably wouldn’t have been much of a father: he always said he
couldn’t stand children, but I thought that was just tough-guy talk.

When Pete answered his phone, I was so
relieved that I started to sob. ‘Pete, can you please come over? I need
you.’ He slammed down the phone and was at my door in minutes. I had to crawl to
the door to let him in.

‘What the hell’s going
on?’ he asked.

‘Can’t explain,’ I said.
‘Please take me to Cook County Hospital, Pete. I need help.’ I had no
medical insurance so I had to go to the free county facility. Without a word, Pete
wrapped a coat around me, then got me into his car,
where I must have
passed out because I don’t remember the rest of that journey.

When I came to, I was at the hospital, lying
on a gurney, and a nurse was wheeling me into the emergency room. Things moved fast and
it all became a bit of a blur, but soon someone hooked me up to an IV and the nurse told
me I was being admitted. It was only then that I focused on her nametag and realized I
was in West Suburban Hospital, not the free Cook County Hospital. At that point, I
didn’t have the strength to question it.

Later, when Pete came back to visit me, he
told me there was no way he could leave me at Cook County Hospital with what he called
‘all those animals’. I also learned that he had guaranteed payment of my
hospital bill. When I protested, he told me frankly that he had more money than he knew
what to do with and it was about time he did something useful with some of it. He sat
beside me and apologized for the way Palmer had been treating me, as though he felt an
element of responsibility. He said he wished he’d had the courage to do something
to help me before but he hadn’t known how. He and Palmer had been friends for
years but he couldn’t forgive him for what he had done to me and the kids.

After an examination and some tests it was
determined that I was still pregnant but that the foetus was dead; I needed a surgical
abortion.

‘Have you ever had a miscarriage
before?’ a doctor asked me.

‘No, never,’ I told him. There
was never any indication that they suspected I’d had an abortion.

‘You need to have blood transfusions
before we can
take you for surgery,’ a nurse explained.
‘You’ll need about five pints. Do you have family or friends who would
donate blood? If you can get donors, your hospital bill will be greatly reduced,’
she added.

‘I’ll see what I can do,’
I told her, but as I didn’t want anyone to know what was going on, how could I ask
them to give blood?

‘You might also need more blood
later,’ she said, but by then, pain medication took over. I began to feel woozy
and, at last, comfortable.

While I was receiving the transfusions, I
asked the hospital social worker to phone my church and tell the pastor I needed to talk
to him. I wanted him to issue a request for blood donors. I knew how expensive blood was
and if we could get the blood replaced it would be less of a burden for my dear friend
Pete. The pastor did not visit me but sent word that he had put out the plea, both at
the Sunday services and in the church bulletin. I waited for news of donors, but not one
person came. That was when I decided to leave the church. After my experience in Las
Vegas, and now this, I was convinced that it was the last place I was ever going to find
any actual Christians.

As I was receiving the third pint of blood,
I started itching all over and my palate swelled to meet my tongue, much as it had when
I’d had that allergic reaction to ragweed pollen some years ago. This, though, was
far worse I could hardly breathe. Suddenly the place was alive with bells ringing and
lights flashing: I was having a severe allergic reaction to the transfusion. Someone
stopped it and now doctors came running from all directions. I received massive
antihistamine injections, which
alleviated the situation. Soon after
that fiasco, my blood count was rechecked and it was determined that it was safe to take
me to surgery. I could have cried out of sheer happiness and relief.

When I woke up after the surgery, I was back
in my room, which was in the maternity department, and I felt fine. A nurse told me I
would not be having the rest of the blood transfusions, but that I’d probably
receive iron injections to get my blood count up to normal. My family physician, Dr
Leroy Besic, whom the hospital had called in, told me that if I hadn’t received
help when I did, I could have died because of the amount of blood I’d lost.

‘All’s well that ends
well,’ I told him. I was still a bit silly from the drugs they’d given
me.

Having told the hospital switchboard that I
wanted no calls, I was surprised when the phone rang. Cautiously, I picked it up and was
horrified to discover it was Palmer, the one person I hadn’t wanted to hear from.
Apparently, he had told the switchboard that he was my husband.

‘What are you doing in the maternity
department?’ he demanded. ‘Have you got yourself knocked up?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ I
told him. ‘I’m here because it was the only available room.’ That
seemed to satisfy him.

‘What are you in there for?’ he
barked.

‘Not that it’s any of your
business any more, but I was having some female problems and had to have a D and
C.’

‘Where are the kids? Who’s
taking care of them?’

‘They’re at my brother’s
and they’re fine,’ I told him.

My roommate had let me down again, her
promise to watch the kids forgotten. My good friend and neighbour Mary Nicholson was
there when the children had come
home from their weekend visits. Since
Palmer was under orders not to come to my apartment, he had watched Robin walk to the
door, and was unaware who had let her in a good thing because he hated Mary and would
have caused a scene; he still accused her of perjury in our divorce case, and brought it
up at every opportunity. Anyway, Mary had phoned my brother and sister-in-law, told them
I was in hospital for a D and C, and asked if she could bring the kids there for a few
days, so that was what had happened.

When I came home from the hospital, I was
still feeling very weak but it was as though the weight of the world had been lifted
from my shoulders. I could now look for a job and, with my child-support payments and
Deborah’s rent, I would be able to make it. However, just when the future was
beginning to look a little brighter, Deborah announced that she was leaving.
‘I’ve been offered a fantastic position with much higher pay,’ she
rattled on, ‘but the job is in Michigan and I have to move right away.’

I can’t say I was sorry to see her go
but the timing was lousy. Deborah had not turned out to be the wonder woman she had
promised. She frequently stayed away from home, sometimes for several days at a time,
but she did pay me well to take care of her two children. She did not exhibit good
personal hygiene and one of my naughty neighbour friends had taken to calling her
‘Nellie Rotten Crotch’ because of her body odour. Her idea of preparing
gourmet meals had turned out to be a joke. She once promised the kids a special treat if
they cleaned up their room. It turned out to be cereal for dinner instead of a real
meal, which I thought not only odd but mean. Deborah
often had flowers
delivered to her and I believed her stories of rich suitors, but after she moved out, I
found out some surprising things about her.

My friend Mary and I had the job of clearing
out the bags of belongings she had left in our basement storage unit. We were astounded
to find that she was using a fictitious name, and there was evidence of other names she
had used. We also discovered that her husband had not died of cancer but had divorced
her; the papers were there to prove it. There were dozens of unpaid bills from various
other US states, and we thought it pathetic when we also found the bills for the flowers
she had been sending to herself. She had moved out in a hurry, and had left such a lot
of her belongings that we suspected she was in some new trouble. I always felt sorry for
her two children and often wondered what might have happened to them.

I had decided to wait until I felt stronger
before looking for a job but with each passing day I felt worse and was growing weaker.
I couldn’t eat and was frequently nauseated, so I made an appointment to see Dr
Besic. ‘Do you know that I always refer to you as Dr Be Sick?’ I’d
told him on a previous visit.

He’d laughed. ‘Well,’ he
said, ‘my sister in California is also a doctor, and she had a K legally added to
Besic. She thought she’d have the last laugh.’ Weird, I thought, the things
you find out on any given day.

When I walked into his office this time, he
took one look at me and shook his head.

‘No wonder you’re feeling ill,
you’re seriously jaundiced,’ he said. ‘I’m surprised you
haven’t noticed. Here, look in this mirror.’

I was astonished at what I saw in the bright
light of his office. The lighting in my apartment was not the best, but I had been
leaving the overhead lights off because brightness had begun to bother my eyes.
‘Oh, my God,’ I said. ‘I look like a canary. What’s happened to
me?’

Dr Besic knew, of course, about my recent
hospital stay and I had told him about the abortion. He explained that apparently I had
contracted hepatitis either from the abortion itself or from the blood transfusions. He
assured me that I would be all right if I had plenty of bed rest and a good healthy diet
(I learned many years later that he should have told me to avoid alcohol entirely), but
all I could think about was what might go wrong next.

Wayne was at school and Robin was two and a
half when all this was happening. I figured I could get Wayne off to school in the
mornings, then lie on the couch while Robin played and sleep when she took her nap.
Later, when Wayne came home from school, he could watch Robin for a while so that I
could get dinner ready, and I would go to bed when they did. Somehow, we were going to
get through this.

Pete Huber had been calling from wherever he
happened to be in the country to check on us every couple of days. He seemed genuinely
concerned. He knew I was still ill, but I assured him that we had it all sorted out and
promised I would be getting plenty of rest. Then, a few days later, a special-delivery
letter arrived from him. I couldn’t imagine what he was sending, and when I opened
the envelope, I almost died of shock. It contained airline tickets for the children and
me to go to England for a month, plus some extra money for expenses. The letter
with it had me sobbing my heart out. He said that since he had no
family of his own he would consider it a privilege to be part of ours, even if only for
a little while. He said he would be on the road for the next few months, covering the
golf tournament circuit, and he would see us when we got back to Chicago. I didn’t
have a phone number where I could call him and I just stared at the plane tickets,
crying like a baby.

I tried to find out where Pete was from his
brother, Joe, but he didn’t know how to contact him either. I suspect Joe wondered
what I wanted with his brother, but he didn’t ask and I didn’t tell.

I’m sure my family wondered where the
money had come from for the trip but I simply told them it had come from a special
guardian angel. I hadn’t told anyone in my family about all that had happened, not
while it was happening or afterwards. Why burden my parents with the worry? What could
they have done? I hadn’t told my brother and his wife in America either because,
with their small children and problems of their own, they certainly didn’t need to
hear about mine. They had bought my stereo set from me and the money from that had
helped tide us over, and I had also cashed in a couple of Wayne’s savings bonds so
that we could keep going. It had been just enough to help make ends meet until I could
find a job.

We went to England, which was just what I
needed to rebuild my strength. My mother simply thought I was run-down and did her best
to see that I got plenty of rest and good food. The children had a great time and we
loved being with my family; I could happily have stayed there for ever, but that was out
of the question. Again, it
was hard for me to return to America. I was
frightened of having to face it alone, but I knew it would have caused an international
incident if I had stayed in England. I felt that I’d received another chance at
life, and I owed it to the friends who had so kindly helped me when I had most needed
them. I had to go back and give it my best shot.

21: Strange Encounters, and Life after
Palmer

Back in America, I had just started looking
for a job and was temporarily baby-sitting and sewing again when I received a phone call
from one of my adopted sisters, Mom Evans’s daughter Jeanne. Jeanne worked for a
large restaurant in Chicago but she also had another business on the side. It
wasn’t really a model agency, but she provided demonstrators and hostesses for
conventions and trade shows. She knew I needed work and said she had the contract to
provide girls to work in registration and in the exhibitors’ booths at the
National Restaurant Association Trade Show at McCormick Place Convention Center. She
said the assignment would last for seven days but the pay would be excellent, and she
would provide the clothes we were to wear.

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