“She was nineteen. She’d just finished her first year at college. Her father was Harold Calloway. He owned the biggest bank in the county. He was also chairman of the hospital board.”
Calloway Pavilion, I thought.
“Ruth’s father was furious when he found out she was pregnant,” Grandma said. “He sent her away to stay with an aunt for six months, so nobody in town would know. Then he arranged for her to deliver here. Quietly. In Room 214. And he arranged for the baby to be taken away and adopted by a family in another state. A family he picked. Ruth never even got to know who.”
“What about the baby’s father?” I asked.
Grandma and Dr. Hale looked at each other.
Neither of them answered.
“Ruth was in labor for nineteen hours,” Grandma said. “I was her nurse. I sat with her the whole time. She held my hand so hard she nearly broke my fingers. And the whole time, she kept looking at that little window. At the cherry tree. It was in bloom. That was the first spring it ever bloomed.”
