The Parasite

“How long does it have to go on? This punishment? Haven’t I done time enough, haven’t I served my term? Can’t I apply for a pardon?”

– Tennessee Williams, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

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“Well, a hard headed woman
A soft hearted man
Been the cause of trouble
Ever since the world began”

Lyrics: Hard Headed Woman, Elvis Presley

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Norma Jean never wanted children. She never wished to marry, either. But in the late 1950s birth control options were limited and abortions were both dangerous and illegal. So at 21 years old, when she found out she was expecting, it was not welcome news. It was devastating.

She would have taken her chances with a back-alley abortionist if she was a braver woman.

But she was not.

As the new life progressed it made her sick, first, and then started changing her body in ways she did not appreciate. It was like an unwanted parasite was feeding upon her body’s resources, depleting her life force and taking over without her permission.

She continued to smoke, drink and even take the “diet pills” her doctor had prescribed that kept her thin and gave her energy. It was not uncommon in those days for women to smoke and drink cocktails during pregnancy and few knew about potential harms prescription drugs posed to a growing fetus…if they even cared.

Secretly she kept wishing to miscarry…that the parasite would become dislodged and detach itself so her life could go back to what it was before…so she could have her body back.

But alas, the growing life would not give up even though she resorted to things like begging the father to take her out on tooth-chatteringly rough boat rides at high speed over the choppy winter ocean. She even begged him to hit her in the stomach in hopes of dislodging the thing….but that is not something he’d ever agree to.

Finally, she had no options left except to resign herself to waiting the dreaded process out until the inevitable end: married life and a baby that she did not want.

When the day came for the birth, arrangements had already been made and her husband drove her to the hospital and the nurses whisked her off to her assigned room. She arrived with a luggage bag containing nightgowns and a change of clothes as well as an outfit and blankets for the newborn. She settled into her hospital room and waited for the doctor to check in with painkilling drugs and something called “twilight sleep” that would render her mostly unconscious during most of the labor and the delivery.

She remembered very little after that… Any memory fragments were a feverish tangle of drowsy confusion and pain and sweat and body fluids. Truth-be-told, she was happy to be spared the gory details. She reached down and felt her empty, deflated abdomen and sighed…it was gone at last. But her body was left feeling torn apart and battered, ripped and sore from the ordeal. She rolled over, still in a drug haze, and slept.

“Mrs. Somerset, you have a lovely baby daughter. Don’t you want to hold her?” The nurse presented her with a tiny bundle swaddled in a pink receiving blanket. “No, I just want to go back to sleep.” She rolled over and faced the wall. The nurse sighed and gathered the bundle back up to take to the nursery for feeding and care.

On-the-other-hand, the baby’s father and grandmother were overjoyed when they came to visit to see the freshly hatched baby girl. They could hear her screams from her nursery crib clear through the thick glass of the visitor’s observation window. A nurse, seeing that the baby’s father was there quickly swaddled the little girl in a fresh pink blanket and came out to present her to him. She was still screaming like some kind of noisy little pink burrito.

“You have a beautiful baby daughter, Mr. Somerset. Here, would you like to hold her?” He reached out and gathered up the child bundle and held her and unfolded the top of the cotton blanket a bit to get a better look at her face.

“She looks just like Dick Tracy!” He remarked jokingly noting that her face and nose was a bit squished from the labor and delivery. “Don’t worry, that goes away. Babies look a little funny and wrinkled when they are newborn,” the nurse assured him.

He handed her over to his mother who cuddled her and rocked her lovingly, cooing at the child to calm her down. “She seems hungry. Should we give her to her mother for feeding?” she asked the nurse.

“No, Mrs. Somerset has not held the baby yet. She has been sleeping a lot and so we have been handling the feedings and diaper changes for her.”

“In fact,” she added,  “the baby does not even have a name yet,” and she motioned to the card on the front of the hospital crib. The card just said “It’s a girl!” with a blank spot underneath. All of the other occupied cribs had names on their cards.

Mr. Somerset and his mother looked at each other, both wearing concerned frowns. They knew this was a possibility so were not surprised but they had been hopeful. Hopeful that nature would bring on maternal, nurturing feelings that were not present at all during the entire pregnancy.

The baby’s grandmother held the bundle up a little closer and said, “I’ve always wanted to name a girl Diana. Diana would be a good name. What do you think?” She glanced over at her son for his approval. “Diana, goddess of the hunt and of the moon,” appropriate, she thought since her own name, Helen, was also the name of a goddess.

She handed the now quiet baby girl back to the nurse to take to the nursery for feeding.

After Mrs. Somerset and the new baby arrived back home she still was unwilling to do more than the bare minimum necessary to feed and tend to the baby. Diana cried a lot and this made her mother irritated…she felt as though she was being punished and resented the baby even more for it.

Fortunately, Diana’s father and grandmother were able to step in to give her attention and love and Helen even regularly whisked her off for the day to take to her own home a few miles away to let her mother rest and have time alone. Diana’s father doted on her and when he was not working he packed her off into a stroller for long walks at the beach and the bay and nearby parks. He took her for long drives to help quiet and calm her. The drives often ended up at his mother’s house where he would visit and chat. They fell into a kind of rhythm despite Mrs. Somerset’s aversion to motherhood.

Diana grew into an inquisitive, lively and bright toddler although she was a bit sickly at times. She caught measles when she was still in diapers and although it had no long-lasting health effects she lost a lot of weight which she did not put back on for months. She had food allergies and was prone to bouts of anxiety. Despite the setbacks and family deficits, by her 2rd birthday she appeared to be mentally and physically healthy, for the most part, and enjoyed playing with her toys and spending time following her father around on the weekends.

Mrs. Somerset reluctantly took on more of the roles of motherhood and focused on the proper raising of her daughter (so she would, “not grow up to be an embarrassment to the Somerset family”). In the early 1960s this meant things like ballet lessons and dressing, “Like a little lady,” on outings: patent leather shoes, tights, a hat, white gloves and sweater or coat to match her dress and sometimes even her own little handbag.

Diana, who would rather be wearing pants and sweatshirts and out roller-skating, tromping around the yard or playing with the neighbor’s dog, found the dress-up outfits scratchy, uncomfortable and cumbersome. But she quickly learned that it was better to put up with them to placate her mother’s stormy temperament than to object.

On the flip-side of the tense times with her mother, Diana loved spending time with her father and also (when he was at work) staying over at her grandmother’s house. Her grandmother had 2 big hunting dogs that followed Diana around everywhere and she loved their slightly oily, doggy smell. She and the dogs would play little games in the fruit tree-filled yard and follow her grandmother around while she was tending to her orchids in the lath house or weeding the colorful rows of pansies that lined the front path.

Sometimes she would curl up next to her grandmother on the old green sofa in the living room and Helen would chain-smoke Lucky Strikes and watch “Perry Mason” and “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” on the big black-and-white television. The dogs would curl up quietly on the floor in front of them while the big fish tank on the other side of the room burbled and gurgled comforting sounds and the mantle clock chimed on the hour.

No matter what they were doing, or not doing, when Diana was with Helen she felt calm and peaceful, happy, safe and loved.