Portion of the Sea (48 page)

Men. They’ve had rights all along, rights that women haven’t always had, including working overtime and the night shift. But men—they’ve had to do things no woman would envy. I would never want to do what those men were over there doing, and I could no longer relate to the feminists wanting to be treated in every single way like men. That movement had become a bit too extreme for me to identify with fully, not to say I wasn’t grateful for the strides they were making.

Thanks to them, I was glad to be a woman in this world, now more than ever. In 1966, women had federal protection from discrimination in the workplace, and I felt more secure at my job than ever. I was part of a small group of women covering the Vietnam War. Hardly any women were actually sent there, so I covered angles from here at home. About ninety-nine percent of desks in the newsroom still belonged to men, and women were still mostly section writers in the features department, or they covered education and medicine, but more and more, women like myself were marching into hard news.

There were, however, unspoken rules that existed in the newspaper business at this time and I lived accordingly.

“Sorry, but I’m divorced,” I’d say anytime a man—and there were many—around the office gave me the look or asked me out. It was a lie, but a woman who was married or searching for a man was labeled a short-timer with regard to her career. I, on the other hand, never had a husband but played the part of being divorced. It worked for me. Divorced women were considered “serious” journalists.

Even sources I interviewed for stories asked me out “off the record,” and again I’d reply, “I’m flattered. But you better try someone else. I’m bitter and divorced and not the least bit interested in any relationship.”

I became known as the woman married to her work, and that was exactly what I wanted. I had no intentions of becoming anyone’s wife and of letting any man ground my career after working hard to get to where I was. The only male I thought I needed in my life was little Jack. But the
bigger he got, the more he talked. At first, things were simple. “Clouds. Clouds. Clouds,” he’d squeal on my days off when I walked him to the city parks. But soon it turned to, “Birdies. Birds. Pigeons. Poopy.”

“Jack,” I’d scold. “Don’t say ‘poopy’ so loud. It’s a word meant to be whispered.”

“Pigeons. Mommy pigeon. Nanny pigeon. Baby pigeon.”

“That’s right,” I answered aware that one of these days Jack might ask where all the daddy pigeons are, including his own. But as the number of American troops was increasing and the draft quotas doubled, I feared that Jack’s daddy might become a statistic. I thought of Josh daily. It was hard not to. As Jack grew bigger, he looked more and more like his father, and it was hard for me not to think about him. Jack had his daddy’s eyes and his love for nature, something so strong that even a baby brought up in downtown Chicago couldn’t hide. When I took Jack to the park just two blocks away, it would take us an hour to get there because he stopped to observe worms or dried-up leaves or green things growing from the sidewalk cracks. I know he didn’t get those outdoorsy fetishes from me!

Josh’s two years of volunteer work in the Peace Corps had ended, and he was probably back in Florida, where I wanted him to be. However, I feared the father of my child might get away once more. I thought about what Ava had said in her last entry, that she could think of nothing worse than a father not knowing of the existence of his own child.

One morning I decided I had to catch Jack’s daddy before he got drafted, before he got away once more. I had to tell him I loved him and that another little person in the world would too and that we were willing to pick up and relocate and do anything necessary to make it work—that is, if he was interested.

There are perks to being a journalist. I spent that entire morning at work making investigative phone calls until I learned all I needed to know about Josh’s whereabouts. My worst fear had already come true. He finished his assignment in the Peace Corps and went straight to getting drafted. He was already in the midst of the war and had been for several months. I put my head down on my desk and cried. I cried because he wasn’t at all a fighter. He was a peaceful man, wanting to fish and
boat and play music. And then, I walked into my boss’s office and begged to go there to Vietnam.

My boss refused to send me there, saying he already had enough journalists assigned to that region. I knew the truth. He didn’t want to send any more women there. He only wanted male journalists to cover horrific things. And it was probably a good thing, for Jack needed me more than the war needed my coverage of it. But for the next several months I followed the horrific events and the casualty reports as they came into the newsroom, and I started praying for the poor men out there, especially Josh, as I had never prayed before. It felt good to pray. I had hardly ever asked anyone for help with anything, but now, I was asking help from God, and it felt okay to be doing so. I always assumed I’d save my prayer requests for a time when I might be starving, homeless, or dying, but it dawned on me that two of those three things—starving and homeless—might never happen and the third—dying—would surely come but might come all of a sudden, leaving me no time for prayer, so I started now and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

And like Ava, I found it easy to thank God, and soon I prayed so consistently that I started feeling as if the Lord was living beside me like a constant companion. I found comfort in praying and began to realize why it was that people did it in the first place. Any time the slightest fear crossed my mind, I muttered, “Please, Jesus, hold Josh in your arms, wherever he might be and keep him safe. I pray for a miracle. May Josh hear music in the midst of the chaos he’s in.”

And as I held Jack in my arms and sang to him at night, I wanted for him to have the chance to meet his father. I was no longer an immature woman selfishly obsessing over the guy she once loved. I was now a mother longing more than anything for the father of her son to be alive and well. I felt guilty and ashamed for having kept the baby a secret from him all this time. I felt like a thief, one who robbed a good man of the right to know he has a son. I felt haunted by what I had done and considered picking up my life and moving to Sanibel, where I could at least let Jack’s grandfather know so he could begin a relationship with Jack in the meantime. But, no, I couldn’t do that to Josh. He would have to be the first to
know the news of his son, and I would just have to pay the consequences of my crime and wait. Wait and pray until the war ended or Josh got sent home. I had resources, and I would check on his status and whereabouts daily.

In the meantime, I would have to focus on my career and trust that Jack was in good hands with his nanny. I surrendered him the best I could to her, but then one December day in 1967, I learned that nanny wasn’t who I wanted Jack spending another day with. I was working on anti-war stories, one in particular that sent me to New York City. Rosie had never been to any city other than Chicago, and Jack had never been outside Illinois. I was making a fine salary and decided to take them along with me, treat them to a new city. As I conducted interviews during the day, I assumed they were lounging around the lavish hotel, waiting for me to return so we could have dinner. But when I returned from my assignments, I could find them nowhere.

At first, I didn’t think much of it so I took a long, hot bath in an effort to unwind. It was then that the phone in our hotel room rang and I quickly hopped out of the bath and answered it, dripping wet and coated in bubbles.

“Rosie, is that you? Where are you?”

“Jail. I need your help.”

“Jail? What on earth for?”

“I’ve been arrested. Me and five hundred and eighty-five other antiwar protestors.”

“My God! That’s the story I was working on today. Where’s Jack?”

“He’s fine. He’s here. They’ve got him and want to talk with you.”

“You took a child to an anti-war rally? My child? My Jack? I didn’t even know you were opposed to the war.”

“I am. Can you please get me out of here?”

It was late at night by the time I held Jack in my arms. I took him straight to the hotel room where I wrapped him in a blanket and held him securely as I did when he was first born. At first, he was delighted to play the role of mommy’s baby again, and he did a good job, his fingertips softly reaching
up for my lips and nose and his own lips smiling with delight over all of mommy’s gooey words of affection. But then, he returned to being a big boy in search of independence, and he fought his way free from the blanket.

“I want more candy canes,” he said, glancing over at Rosie. “How many did you have today, Jack?” I asked.

“One, two, three, four, five, six …”

I glared over at Rosie, not looking happy as his counting continued.

“You need something healthy in your tummy now, Jack,” I said after he counted to twelve. “I’ll order you a grilled cheese sandwich and soup. We’ll eat right here in the room.”

“I rode in police car today,” he said. “I went to jail with monsters and bad guys.”

Ever since I picked them up at the jail, I had been giving Rosie the silent treatment, not because I didn’t have a million things to yell and scream at her, but because I was worried about Jack and I wanted to make him my number-one concern. I hardly looked at Rosie as I listened to Jack’s long, detailed account of going to jail.

At three and a half, he was already taking interest in the newspaper. He liked pointing to a story, any story, and then he would ask me to read it to him. Of course I didn’t read it, but rather, made up something wonderful. I subjectively skewed the objective truth, so he would think the world he lived in was a good place to be. I didn’t want him knowing about jail and rapes and political scandals and robberies and car thefts and all the darker sides to living in this world. I especially didn’t want him knowing about war. There were nearly half a million U.S. troops involved in the war now and a little boy didn’t need to know that grownups are unable to resolve things peacefully and diplomatically, and that they engage in war and people get killed. Jack knew about monsters. They were scary enough.

“Rosie,” I said once I turned on cartoons. “He must have been terrified in all those crowds today.”

“At least those crowds were antiwar. Until the end, they were peaceful and pleasant, or I wouldn’t have taken him. Can you imagine Jack going off to war one day?”

“That’s not the point.”

“Maybe it is. Things that happen in the world today are going to affect the world Jack lives in tomorrow. You realize our children do inherit the world the way we left it, don’t you? I know you’re a journalist and you’re supposed to play objective, but do you agree with the war in Vietnam, Lydia? Do you? Because there’s a danger in shutting off your opinions for the sake of doing your job.”

I wanted to grab hold of her and wring her neck. “Look,” I said. “The issue right now isn’t whether I agree with the war or those anti-war protestors. The only perspective I’m claiming at this moment is that of a mother. Jack doesn’t need to worry about how bad the world is. He’s too young. You shouldn’t have taken him there. End of story, Rosie.”

“But …” she dared to continue.

“Rosie, pack your bags. You’re going home. And you better start looking for a new job. I can no longer trust you with my son.”

I didn’t like firing her so abruptly, but as a mother, my son was more important. And I didn’t want to leave him another day with her, not after this. Suddenly, I didn’t want to leave him with anyone. But I had to. When we returned to Chicago, I called around and relied here and there on anyone who was available out of desperation. I had done my best to provide for Jack and for me, and I was tired. I was tired of doing it on my own and of being unbreakably strong and tough and not needing the help of anyone, especially any man. And now that all the good men were off to war, I suddenly appreciated them and feared for them, and prayed for the men, the grown-up little boys, as I had never done before.

And in the weeks following, I continued relying on interim nannies, working my way up to the next level at work and was covering the horrific facts concerning the war, something that in the past would have only been assigned to male journalists, but now it was I who got to write about the gory details. I was working ten- to fourteen-hour days, coming home drained, trying to be a mommy to Jack and doing the best I could to gather enough energy, so he wouldn’t think his mommy was a zombie. And then I’d collapse into bed and begin it all again just a few hours later.

I had no energy left at night to do anything but fall fast asleep, and
even then I’d wake a couple hours later with scary headlines running through my mind.

CASUALTY STATISTICS ON THE RISE

MORE ANTIWAR PROTESTORS FILL THE STREETS

My mind went from one headline to the next, and every so often it stopped long enough to think about my life and how hectic it had become. In the mornings, when I touched my feet to the floor, I was becoming aware that I had no time to listen to the birds outside my window. And, yes, there are birds and things that are beautiful-sounding even in a city. The sounds of beauty are everywhere, not just on some island. The problem is that I was too busy and stressed to ever listen for them. I was even getting too busy to listen fully to my own son’s voice.

One particular morning, after only getting a couple of hours of sleep due to worrying about deadlines and appointments and nannies getting sick, I sat up in bed when the alarm went off and asked, “Is this it, Lord? Is this rat race all there is to my life?” I then heard my son turning on the television all by himself in the other room. “Please help me. I need help, Lord. I’m desperate.”

I poured Jack his cereal, showered, dressed and rushed to work.

Later that week I received a letter in the mail from Marlena. She was back on Sanibel in between films and wanted to let me know that she saw Josh at the store. It was major news, and she did a superb job reporting it to me.

JOSH IS BACK FROM THE WAR WITH A CAST ON HIS LEG