I wrote down our street and number and said, “You go back to that place where I met you, and the doctor there will tell you about it.”
The next day I was called up unofficially by a social worker, one of those who used to send us cases on their own initiative. She wished to explain to me: the husband would be let off if he promised to live with his family and support them; otherwise he had to serve a sentence. His wife had seen him and shown him my note; he had said he would rather go to the Island for three years than come out, unless we could not only guarantee his getting the information, but, furthermore, that it would work. He was fed up with having a new baby every year.
We suggested he talk it over with us and bring his wife. She was silent, glum, did not appear to know what it was all about. He was discouraged and doubtful. We gave him the information and he departed. “I’m the one to do this. She won’t,” glaring at his wife, who tagged on behind him.
We hoped for the best.
About half a year later both returned for the check-up, she with her hand on his arm. This vague, dumb, immobile woman was now in spruce jacket and skirt, head up, stepping lightly. You would never have known her for the same person. The two were off to the movies together.
Few social workers were understanding enough to smooth the lives of people in such difficulties. One agency was told by a doctor that a certain family on its rolls must not increase; the mother had already borne four babies and had a bad heart. A visiting nurse relayed this to the husband one Sunday morning when he was home from work. “If your wife becomes pregnant again, you’ll be a murderer.”
He was frightened. “I don’t want to kill her. What shall I do?”
“Sleep alone.”
The husband’s disposition began to change; he became gloomy, would not talk to his wife, was ugly in sudden tempers, slapped, shouted at, and even kicked the children, rushed into the house to eat his meals and then out again, not retreating to his own bed until after she was in hers, which had been made up in the kitchen where it was warm. She was so unhappy over the metamorphosis that she made tentative approaches, whereupon he beat her and ran into the street. The next day she marched to the nurses’ settlement to tell them what she thought of them. “If all you can do is keep my husband from me, stay away. I’d rather be dead than live like this!”
The case was taken to a physician, who sensibly warned, “You can’t separate people by such barriers. That’s not the answer.”