Breeding Like Rabbits Read online

  “Andy, I need to go upstairs to our apartment—alone—for a while. Could you please keep them out here with you for a little while?”

  “Sure.” He removed his and Tony’s arms, and she left. “Come on, kids, let’s go for a little ride.”

  Brit threw herself down on the hide-a-bed and cried. The crying soon turned into howling, and she pounded the throw pillow and then threw it across the room. Her tears threatened to dissolve her. She wished they would. Her sobs turned into hiccups, and she curled into ball of sodden misery. Andy tiptoed in, carrying Tony and with the other two close behind him—all had their eyes open wide as they stared at their mother. Andy touched her shoulder.

  “We could hear you. You almost set the neighborhood dogs to howling.”

  Britt sat up, face blotched and eyes swollen, and said, “There’ll be no more tears. Come into the kitchen and keep me company while I fix all of us something to eat.”

  Next visit, Britt was a mess, a nervous wreck. Dr. Arnold felt her stomach and listened to the baby’s heart. “Things are progressing nicely.” He gave her more vitamins, looked at her face, at her expression, and added a prescription for antidepressants. I must look awful. Does he know I’ve thought of suicide? But I couldn’t do it. I don’t want anyone else to raise my children—but if I were to crack, what kind of a mother would I be? Andy would be better off without me popping out a baby every year or so. Britt walked out, but she heard Dr. Arnold say, “Make an appointment at the desk.” On the way home, she stopped at the drugstore and filled the prescription.

  Britt skipped a visit, so the next time she saw Dr. Arnold, she was in her sixth month. The antidepressants had helped her—the rage in her stomach that always gave way to depression had lessened. Maybe the baby kicked it out. Yes, she felt the little one kicking, and that helped her the most. She didn’t want to die anymore. Britt wanted to see the person inside her, to nourish and raise this little person.

  Labor pains started a little after eight in the evening. Andy and Britt were watching the Ed Sullivan Show, one of their favorites. Herding the three kids and pregnant wife into the old gray Ford, Andy gunned the engine and took off for the hospital twenty-five miles away. August weather in northern Minnesota can be frying-pan hot, and it stays hot into the night, so their car windows were all the way down in front and half down in the back—didn’t want to lose anyone on the way. The faster he drove, but not exceeding the speed limit, of course, the cooler the car. Andy dropped Britt off and then drove back home to babysit and await news of yet another baby’s birth.

  Amy Hughes came into the world at 9:52 p.m., on August 22, 1960. She weighed in at six pounds, eight ounces. It wasn’t an easy entrance for either of them. When the nurse checked Britt’s birth canal for the extent of cervical dilation, she found that the baby was ready to come, but the face was in the “up” position in the birth canal.

  “Dr. Arnold, the baby’s head is down but in the faceup position. Are you going to deliver it that way?”

  “I could, but the baby won’t be able to flex the head on exit, and labor will be harder and longer for the mother.” He shook his head and said, “Too bad—only one in every five hundred babies nestles down faceup. If I don’t turn the baby, I might even end up doing a C-section.”

  “I hope not. That would mean a longer recovery time for the mother, and she has three more little ones at home.”

  “There’s no getting around it. I’ll have to turn the baby to a facedown position. It’s going to hurt, but it will be better for both of them.”

  Britt heard all this, but she figured she’d be out of it before the real pain struck. She had discussed anesthesia with Dr. Arnold. She told him that ether made her sick. Britt had had her appendix out when she was thirteen, so she knew this. Dr. Arnold said he’d give her some gas instead—he called it “laughing gas.” That name struck Britt as being completely inappropriate, considering the situation. But by the time Britt was in the delivery room, the anesthetist had gone home.

  The doctor began to turn the baby, and it hurt. Britt screamed. Am I being gutted like a deer? She was given a couple whiffs of ether—it didn’t help much. She wanted to get up and run away, but she was strapped down. Britt screamed and screamed—it hurt so much. Mrs. Strid, the delivery nurse, started slapping her, first on one side of her face and then the other, whipping Britt’s head around. The baby turned, thank God! And Amy slipped into the world.

  The next morning, the nurse, not Mrs. Strid, for which Britt was thankful, brought Amy in so mother and child could get acquainted. A wealth of straight, brown hair framed beautiful, dark blue eyes (they later turned green like Britt’s). Amy, named after Britt’s Newport friend, the one who watched Daniel when she took Sara to the hospital, was alert and latched onto the breast with gusto. Britt looked down at her new baby. She was responsible for the lives she’d brought into the world, and because of that, she made a decision. If I get pregnant again, I’m going on the pill as soon as the baby is born. I’ve read about it, and the FDA approved it in 1960. Pastor Thomas, when he visited me in the hospital after the snowplow hit our car six years ago, said that I was bound for hell because I’d married a Catholic. According to him, hell was my destiny. But I don’t want to be living there now, nor do I want my family to live in squalor. I’ll raise my children the best I know how, and I’ll help Andy support the family and realize his dreams. As my mother said so many times, “God helps those who help themselves.”

  Four days later, Andy brought them home—back to the dump. But a little white crib was waiting for Amy, snugged up against the TV set. Two months later, they moved to a more spacious ground-floor apartment, with a bathroom for them alone. Britt never forgot one incident that occurred in the old dump before they left it.

  I had gone to the bathroom, and when I reentered our apartment, there was Daniel, sitting on the folded-up hide-a-bed, with Amy on his lap. She was maybe two weeks old. How in the world did Daniel get her out of her little crib? Had she been crying, and he had become concerned? But he was only four years old! A quote from Shakespeare helped me deal: “All’s well that ends well.” And it certainly looked as if it had ended well. Daniel looked pleased with himself, and Amy was content.

  Amy was an easy baby; as long as she was fed and kept clean and dry, she was at peace with the world. “Dada” was her first word—she was twelve months old. Two months later, she came out with “Mama.” Another month, and she said her first four-word sentence: “Mommy, wait for me!”

  CHAPTER

  19

  Unlike Tony, who grew impatient with nursing when he was four months old, preferring the faster squirt of a bottle to his mother’s breast, Amy loved to nurse. Britt would try to sneak in a bottle of milk now and then, but Amy would get all red-faced and angry, turning her head from side to side and refusing to suck. That meant it would be awhile before Britt could start taking her temperature and graphing it to determine her fertile period. She was giving the rhythm method one last chance. Scuttlebutt had it that a woman could not get pregnant as long as she was nursing. Britt did not trust this—she’d heard of too many women who had been “caught” by believing this. Britt and Andy needed to talk.

  The week before her six-weeks checkup with Dr. Arnold—the checkup that tells a woman if she’s all healed up inside and can now have sex with her husband, Britt and Andy had that talk.

  “Andy, my checkup with Dr. Arnold is in a week, but don’t get any ideas. I have to start taking my temperature again, for a couple of months before we do anything.” She put on her green full-length robe over her nightgown.

  “I know. We waited when you nursed Tony. It wasn’t easy, that’s for sure.” He walked over and gave her a swift hug. “You just keep covering from head to toe as you did just now, and we can make it.”

  “But this time it will be longer. Amy simply will not accept the bottle! It might be an eight-month wait. That’s an a
wfully long time.” She slid her bare feet into her slippers and sat down on the bed, patting a place beside her for Andy. “I could probably force her to take the bottle—her survival instinct wouldn’t let her starve. But that would be so mean. And breast milk is the best.”

  “She shouldn’t be deprived because of us.” He looked her square in the eyes. “I can take it if you can.”

  “Wait. I should tell you something else. I decided that if the rhythm method fails again, I’m going to go on the pill after the next baby.” Britt looked down at her hands, clenching and unclenching, in her lap. “We can’t keep having child after child—I know I can’t, and you must be worried too.”

  “What’s this pill you’re talking about?”

  “There’s a pill, approved by the FDA in 1957, for use by doctors for severe menstrual disorders. You’d be surprised, or maybe not, by the number of women who now have severe menstrual disorders.” She folded her hands and squeezed them between her knees to keep them quiet. “I’m tempted to try and convince a doctor that I have severe menstrual disorders, but no doctor would believe I’ve even had a period. I just hope the FDA approves it for birth control by the time I want it.”

  “I won’t object to your using it, if you get pregnant again. Barbers never get rich. If I can’t support my family, I’ll feel—I’ll feel like a failure.” He turned his head and looked everywhere but at her. He stuck out his hand. “Like I said, if you can do it, I can. Shake on it?”

  As the weeks went by, tension mounted in the Hughes household. Britt was glad that he was working hard and brushing up on all he’d learned in barber college so that he’d be ready to take the examination for master barber in November. He usually came home tired, a good thing in their situation. If he wasn’t tired, he’d go to his parents’ house, a block and a half away, and play some cards—penny-ante poker was their favorite. Sometimes he and his brother would hang out on the golf course, but then cold weather and snow came, putting the kibosh on that, so they went hunting: rabbits, ducks, geese, and then deer. After those seasons were over, they went ice-fishing—drilling a hole on a frozen lake and putting down a baited fish line.

  If he had to stay home, he was quiet and withdrawn, treating Britt like a stranger and disciplining the children for the least little thing. It wasn’t easy for Britt either. A sexually frustrated husband is hard to live with. Though she wasn’t needy like Andy, she felt guilty because she knew she was denying him, even though he’d agreed—they’d even shaken hands—on the self-imposed celibacy.

  After they reached the four-month mark, the tension in the home was affecting the children too, turning them into little monsters. They fought with each other and whined and cried—even Amy was irritable. This is not how marriage is supposed to be. I know we don’t live in the Garden of Eden, but we don’t have to live in hell either.

  In the Garden of Eden, God gave only two commands to his newly created, naked humans: “be fruitful and multiply” and “don’t eat fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.” Andy and I have certainly obeyed the first command, the one about multiplying. Anymore multiplying right now could ruin our marriage, could cause a permanent division. Enough arithmetic—I never liked that subject much.

  The other command of God, “don’t eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil” was disobeyed. Truth-tellers sprouted from the earth like weeds—all proclaiming to know what was good and what was evil. All their truths were different, but all said their definitions were the only true ones. Britt’s definition of good was that which made her family happier and closer together.

  “Andy, you were saying that your shipmates had some ideas about how to make lack of sex more bearable in a marriage. What were they? This celibacy between married people is wrong. Tell me about those ideas.”

  Andy’s face reddened as he said, “Really? Are you sure? I’ll show you tonight after the kids are asleep.” He wiped his sweaty hands on his jean-clad thighs.

  That night, and other nights when needed until Amy would go on the bottle, they made love without intercourse.

  Naked, as were Adam and Eve, they caressed and massaged each other. They hadn’t realized how starved they were for skin-on-skin contact. Her nakedness, seeing all of her, aroused him. Her breasts, nursing breasts, were full, and he tasted them. She pressed against him and with her hand, relieved him. She welcomed his soft groans of relief.

  He became concerned about her pleasure on another night. The guys on the ship told him that girls loved it when guys went “down” on them. Britt found this hard to wrap her mind around, but if the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge hadn’t been eaten, no one would have thought this was wrong. She gave in. He tasted her sweetness and could hold back no longer—the excitement was too great. Britt found it was exciting too, but whenever it threatened to become too exciting, she could hear her mother’s voice: “If it starts to feel good, stop!” She preferred hugging, kissing, and caressing.

  Andy liked kissing too; he loved her mouth. He coaxed her to take his hardness into his mouth. Sometimes she would but not often. She didn’t like it—it activated her gag reflex.

  They made it through to the eighth month with their marriage intact, a fat and happy breastfed Amy and older children who didn’t fight, whine, or cry as much.

  In November, Andy took his exam and became a master barber. He could now own a barbershop, if he so chose. He could also be an instructor, a mentor, to an apprentice barber. Then he heard that Robert Stenshol, a barber in Rillstead, fifty miles from Great Prairie, was getting ready to retire soon. He wanted a master barber to work with him for a while until he sold his shop in the fall, at which time he and his wife would move to the Southwest. Andy went to see him, and they struck a deal whereby Andy could buy the business for a down payment of $2,000 and an additional payment of $2,500, paid off in amounts of twenty-five dollars a month until it was all paid up, provided that, after working in the shop for three months, Andy still wanted to buy it.

  Andy rented a room in Rillstead, and slept there at night—the commute would have been too long. He barbered Tuesday through Saturday, leaving for Great Prairie after work on Saturday, and driving back to Rillstead Monday night. The three months went by fast. It was time for Andy to make a decision, but first he had to talk it over with Britt. They had their talk on a cold February Monday, Andy’s day off, as they lingered over their morning coffee.

  “My three months with Mr. Stenshol are up. We have to decide whether to buy his shop or not. If I don’t buy it, he’ll try and find another buyer.” Andy poured himself another cup of coffee.

  “It’s your dream to own your own shop, but is this a good shop? Would you have enough business?” Britt looked at Andy, her eyebrows lowered—she looked worried, and her hands, tearing a paper napkin to shreds, proved it.

  “I’ve kept track of my customers—my customers, the ones that choose me, and quite a few of them do. If I owned the shop, they all would. I’d make more than I made at Montgomery Ward, and we managed okay with my salary then. And I’ll grow the business …”

  “Whoa! You’re jumping the gun. We don’t have enough money.”

  “I know, but if I let this opportunity slip through my fingers, I may never get another chance to have my own place.” He got up, put his cup in the sink, and started pacing back and forth across the kitchen floor. “Do you think your father would lend us enough for the down payment?”

  “Go talk to him. He likes you.” Britt rose to clear away the breakfast dishes.

  “I’ll do it today—right now. No sense putting it off.” He went to the coat closet, grabbed his storm coat and cap with the ear flaps, and headed out the door.

  Andy drove to Great Prairie and found his father-in-law in his potato house, sorting potatoes for a shipment to go out the next day.

  “Carl, I need to talk to you. Let’s go to the pool hall. I’ll buy you a cup of coffee and a p
iece of apple pie.”

  Carl smiled. He never could turn down apple pie. They set off walking the two blocks. They talked about the weather, about the latest snowfall—six inches—and how cold it was, minus ten degrees. Though Carl was a taller and heavier man, their strides matched, and they soon reached the pool hall.

  Two other men were there—that’s all. The pool hall never had much business on a Monday. Carl and Andy went to the back and sat in a booth. “Pop,” the owner and only waiter of the pool hall, came over for their order.

  “This is on me,” Andy said. “Two coffees—bring sugar and cream—and two pieces of apple pie.” He rested his forearms on the table, hands folded, and got down to business.

  “I have a chance to get my own barbershop,” Andy cleared his throat, “but the barber, who is retiring, wants two thousand dollars down, and I’m broke. I’m asking you to loan us the down payment.”

  Carl looked him in the eye for a long minute. Andy looked right back. Pop came with their coffee and pie, breaking the stare-down.

  “You do need to settle down,” Carl said. “It’s not good for children to be moving around like gypsies, not good for my daughter either. She needs to be in her own house. What’s that barber in Rillstead—Stenshol, isn’t it?—asking for his place?” Carl quit eating and put his elbows on the table and folded his hands in front of his chin.

  “Two thousand dollars down and twenty-five dollars a month until I’ve paid him a total of $4,500.”

  “Is it worth the price?”

  “We’ve been very busy—I’ve been busy. I’ve got men and boys who wait for me to cut their hair. It’s worth the price.”

  “Two thousand it is.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Here’s the deal. When you’ve paid off all you owe and the shop is yours, then it’s my turn. Twenty dollars each month.” Carl held out his hand, and Andy shook it. “Now let’s finish our pie. Can’t let that go to waste.”