Four of a Kind: A women's historical fiction (42 page)

“You kissed her,” was all that came out of me, like a sleepwalker might mutter in a bad dream.

He scowled at me. “What would you have me do? Slap her?”

“No, that will be my job,” I hissed. “But you could have told her how we feel for each other.” His dark profile became blurred.

He peered into my face. “How do we feel about each other?”

“Well, I certainly know how I feel!”

“I don’t. How do you feel, Bess? I’d like to know.”

“Oh Thomas, you’ve opened my eyes and my heart so much it hurts!”

“That’s a start. Go on.”

“I love you.” What a release this brought! I threw my arms around his neck and hid my flushed face in his neck.

He hugged me tight. “So, you love me then?”

I sniffed. “I must - I’m only happy with you. This house only feels like a home when you’re here. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but it’s so true. And it feels so good to say it.”

“Then say it again.”

“I love you, Thomas.”

“I love you, Bess.”

“Then tell her, Thomas. Tell her how you feel and then I want to send her back home. That’s all she talks about anyway.”

He grasped my shoulders and pulled me away. “Bess, the jealous woman, I would never have guessed! I’m enjoying your sudden affections, but let’s be mature about this. I think Mary Sue understands my feelings for you. If she is blind to it, then soon you and I will be living here as man and wife and she will have to see the truth.” He lifted my chin to face him. His hat brim further shadowed his eyes and nose. I could only watch his mouth move in the dim light; lips that had kissed me so passionately so short a time ago, and then had kissed another. “She needs us. We can’t kick her out now. Give her a chance to grow up.”

I nodded. He leaned down to kiss me and I turned and gave him my cheek, not wanting residue from her mouth on mine. I could see the disappointment drawing tight around his mouth as he pulled
away. He silently headed toward his motor car. The green-eyed monster was back and between us, only now he held both the ghost of Cady and a real live girl. I would have to think more about this.

I was grateful to have a mission the next morning. Mary Sue had been left to her own studying devices, papers and books strewn about her in the front parlor. School admission tests were only weeks away and I had little hope she’d pass. She gave me her customary scowl as I gave her the assignments and then I was on my way to Mama’s house.

I walked in to find Mama feeding Papa his breakfast in their bedroom. Mama jumped up from the edge of the bed and turned off the radio as I said my hellos. Quiet settled around us and Mama’s countenance relaxed with it. She rewarded me with a genuine smile. Papa eyed me accusingly as he chewed his egg. His skin had grown more sallow since last I visited, his eyes more sunken. Mama’s worried expression and pallid complexion gave me further notice they hadn’t slept well.

When asked how they were, Mama shook her head. “We had a long night.” She brought a glass up to his lips. “Drink your milk,” she said as to a child. “You need this.”

He took one sip and then turned to me. “I heard about you on the radio yesterday. Perhaps you can explain why you’re smearing the good name of Wright. What will the neighbors think now?”

Mama shook her head and sighed. She returned the glass to his tray. “I tried to explain to him it wasn’t true, but you know how he is with that radio.”

I sat in the chair on the other side of the bed and returned her sigh. Inhaling their weariness wore on me. “Some things are not true, some things are. It is hard to tell the difference. I wish I could say the radio was all lies.” I came prepared with my handkerchief and this I fiddled with nervously. Telling them was going to be harder than I had anticipated.

Mama raised another bite of egg to Papa’s lips but his attention stayed on me. She sighed again, not seeming to have the strength to finish feeding him. She removed his napkin from his chest and his tray from his lap and this she set on top of the radio cabinet.

That got his attention. “Ruby dear, do not take the chance of food falling onto my radio knobs. Take it out please.”

She took the tray to the hallway floor by the door. Returning to sit again on the edge of the bed, she brushed off his sheet and smoothed his blanket. She moved methodically, as if out of a long habit, without thinking. From my youth I recalled how he had insisted on obedience from her and he would have it no other way, but at what cost? Did she love him after all these years of marriage? Did this question even matter to Papa? Did only her allegiance to him matter? Perhaps I wasn’t to judge so harshly; this may be the course for all long-term marriages. Mates attached only at the hands, to lift and feed during the day, to pat to sleep at night. After my own fitful sleep the night before, with Thomas and little ‘niece’ spinning in my mind like a merry-go-round, marriage appeared bleaker by the moment. I would simply have to tell him I couldn’t marry him.

“I know for a fact that the radio tells lies,” Mama said, finally resting her hands in her lap and turning to me. “I heard advertised a beauty oil that if rubbed onto the face, would take away twenty years of wrinkles and lines.” She touched these with her fingertips. “I am living proof this is a lie.”

“Ruby dear, I told you that was a ridiculous purchase and if asked as I should have been, you would have been forbidden. Age is a natural progression and we’re now in our old age. Why, at forty-eight I’m nearing my life expectancy. You dear, are not far behind me at forty.”

“Fine, I’ll give you another example. Mrs. Potts’ Irons. Yes,” she poked his leg, her spirit seeming to perk up in the banter. “Her Sad Irons were to make ironing so much easier than the old-style flat irons. This would reduce my ironing time in half so that I may spend more time in my well-equipped engine room of the home, my kitchen. Ha, the wooden handle broke in half! It reduced my time
all right. To nothing! Now I must order another one. All lies, the radio is all lies.”

I didn’t have the heart to tell her I wrote that advertisement.

“You must send Bess out to buy you a Hotpoint Iron then. I just heard it advertised this morning. It has a cantilever handle that will save exertion all through your body. It requires electricity, however.”

“You wouldn’t allow a receptacle in the kitchen, Robert, remember? I suppose I could unplug your radio and iron up here.”

“Now you’re getting ridiculous.”

“We could have a twin receptacle installed. Aimee has one in her kitchen in the same space as her single outlet and can plug in two appliances at once.”

I was becoming restless. I had to jump in or Papa would be asleep soon. “Papa, what exactly did you hear on the radio yesterday that upset you?”

Mama glared openly at me, her puckered brow questioning my question.

I gave her a feeble smile but she didn’t accept it. She turned her attention to Papa who cleared his throat as was customary when he felt he had something important to say. “A radio talk show. Most interesting. Candidate for mayor, Mr. Groves, said his opponent, Mr. Pickering, lived in immorality. He couldn’t be trusted in public when he held such secrets in private. Something of that nature. Well, that sparked my interest. George Groves is a deacon in our church and I should vote for a man of God. However, bad judgment prevailed for I intended to vote for Mr. Pickering and since your mama has won such an important privilege, I directed her to do the same, trusting your judgment. He’s always been good to you, gave you a home and employment. Your mama had assured me many times that he didn’t live there in the same house.”

“He doesn’t,” I broke in.

“Well, what I’m hearing is that the two of you – but that’s not the worst of it …” His hands clenched and unclenched.

“Robert, this is silly,” Mama said, patting his leg. “You’re going to get upset all over again over lies.”

“You heard that I’m already married, didn’t you?”

“Bess has an explanation for all of this, don’t you Bess?” Mama said, her eyes pleading with mine to agree with her.

“I have one but you won’t like it.”

Mama’s shoulders sagged a little. Papa closed his eyes. What if the news of my secret marriage to Jere weakened my father to death? How would Mama ever forgive me? How could I forgive myself? Besides, I hurriedly reasoned, I’m no longer married. Mr. McCorriston said the annulment meant the marriage no longer existed. I could live with that.

“You’re right, Mama, it is all lies. Today as we speak, I am not married. But …” My hand clutched my handkerchief. “Mr. Pickering and I are engaged to be married.”

Relief wiped Mama’s worried brow smooth. “Bess, you are going to be
married
! See, Robert, I told you she would marry some day.”

Papa gave me a weak smile. “That fellow must be as old as I am. You certainly took a damn long time to do it.”

Mama frowned at him for his use of language and turned a smile to me. “Bess, I’m happy for you. And to Mr. Pickering of all people. He is a respected man and he will make a fine husband. He certainly made Cady one; I remember envying her for his support in her fight for women’s suffrage. Why, he had an open debate with this same Mr. Groves in City Hall Park just over that very thing, his arm fast around Cady, and their love for one another there for all to see. Oh and my first ride in a motor car was with Mr. Pickering. I can still remember the smell of the leather and the sound of that engine. We seemed to be moving so fast.”

“Too fast for my liking, if I recall, dear,” Papa said with a grimace. “You did not receive a warm reception when you arrived home in that contraption.”

“We won’t discuss that any further,” Mama said. “I did what I had to do and you did what you had to do.”

“What did you do?” I asked, glad to have the conversation switch.

“I spanked her,” Papa said.

“Robert, don’t,” Mama said.

“Just like the spoiled child that she was,” Papa continued, ignoring his wife’s embarrassed blush. “If a wife doesn’t know how to behave, it is the man’s responsibility to teach her.”

“Papa, you hit Mama?” More of a scold than surprise. I had heard as much coming from their bedroom when around eleven years of age.

“Bess, that was a long time ago,” Mama said. “We won’t discuss this any further. Your father and I both grew up after the birth of our Little Cady, may God rest her soul. This strong heroine medication your father takes is making him blurt out whatever is on his mind.”

“It’s a truth serum,” Papa said. “Something you and Bess should be taking from the sound of it.”

“Have you set a date yet?” Mama asked.

“Yes, it’s set for Christmas Day. We haven’t discussed the details.” For example, can I go through with it? I added silently.

“Mercy! So soon and on Christ’s birthday. I suppose you could wear your grandmother’s dress. I was married in it. Light blue, blousy sleeves, high neck, lace collar, scratchy if I recall.”

“How appealing,” I said with a sardonic smile.

“Of course,” Mama said, understanding. “More and more girls wear white these days.”

Papa closed his eyes. A wedding for his oldest daughter; something he had waited for, for a very long time, and he would not be able to give me away to my husband. Of course he no longer owned me to give away, but any walk down an aisle would be impossible for him at this stage. I would have to think on this some more.

“Can I go?” asked Mary Sue.

“Definitely not,” I said.

“After dishes,” Lizzie said to her, “I’ll help you study.”

Mary Sue rolled her eyes. “Darkies can’t
read
!” She ran out of the room.

A night out with Thomas alone! And to a movie house! What had taken us so long to do this? We were so accustomed to routine, as if marriage had already taken place.

Without discussion we turned toward downtown, instead of toward the motor car. We trekked the ten blocks that I took to and from the newspaper office, while Thomas gave me his day’s campaigning events, brightly colored with anecdotes. “I challenged him on the facts in his story – his brain is like a coconut in a boxcar – and told him to stop pissing on my leg and telling me it’s raining.” He seemed more relaxed when not under the watchful eye of Lizzie and Mary Sue. They both appeared ready to answer his beckoning, but for different reasons. He seemed more comfortable as “boss” in the office, than as “master” of the house.