A Mother's Promise

by K. D. Alden

  She missed Glory, but as she worked she hung on to the sweetness of her that lingered from the night they’d labored together here in the laundry, sweating and groaning along with her as she fed the starch-dipped clothes into the wringer.

  In Glory’s absence, Ruth Ann entertained herself by imagining that each shirt, pair of drawers and trousers she drowned savagely in the boiling water was, in fact, Doc Price. And each slip, work dress, brassiere and pair of bloomers became Mother Jenkins.

  She stabbed them up with the stick, flung them toward the huge iron pot as they hollered and screeched and poked them down, down, down until, spewing bubbles, they hit bottom and struggled back upward only to be submerged by Justice Ruth Ann Riley yet again.

  Do you repent? she asked them.

  We don’t answer to the likes of you: feebleminded, de-botched moron.

  Oh, but this here’s my domain. I’m the Dark Queen of the Livin’ Laundry. So I’m sorry to say that you do answer to me. Take this! And that! And yet another! Ha.

  Glug, glug, glug. Gasp.

  Do you repent?

  Never.

  Then down you go again…ha ha. That’ll take the starch outta you and your smug attitude.

  Oh, please!

  That’s the ticket. You beg me. But to no avail. This here’s for what you done to my momma, Doc. And this here’s for Glory.

  She supposed she did get a little carried away.

  And this, this is for my busted-up knuckles, you old biddy with the bat-infested behind—

  “Ruth Ann?” Clarence’s voice intruded on her dark doings.

  She reared back, blinking into what had somehow become the sunshine of high noon, and half-blinded by it. His silhouette was visible at the entrance to the laundry walls.

  “Who you talkin’ to?” he asked, peering inside.

  “Nobody.” It wasn’t possible for her face to heat any more than it already had, because of the fire under the huge cauldron. Next to it, she really must look and smell like a witch.

  “You must hate Nobody somethin’ fierce,” he teased.

  “That I do.” She pushed her hair back out of her face and wished that the bodice of her dress wasn’t soaked through.

  “What did Nobody do to you? You seem to be stabbing and drowning him—”

  “Clarence,” she interrupted. “You got a reason to be here asides makin’ me feel foolish?”

  “Well, yeah. I want my shoe back.” He sounded dead serious. “Trade you the gloves for my shoe.” He walked inside, the sun now illuminating his unsmiling face and level gray gaze.

  Stricken, she looked down at the replacement shoes Mother J had tossed at her the night before. “I—I—uh,” she stammered. How to tell him the sorry fate of his first gift? This was awful. She couldn’t. “It, ah…”

  “I’m kiddin’ around, Ruthie. You couldn’t tell?” He grinned.

  Her mouth worked. She stamped her foot, then bent over and rummaged for a dirty sock to throw at him. He ducked, hooting with laughter.

  “Your shoe got drowned in an outhouse,” she informed him, no longer feeling so bad about it.

  “That’s just plain wrong, Ruth Ann.” He shook his head sadly.

  “Where else was I s’posed to hide it from Mother Jenkins when y’all came around? In the baby’s cradle? She couldn’t know you helped me.”

  “And here I was, plannin’ to have it bronzed on account of you wore it.”

  “That is a big load o’ horsefeathers, Clarence, and you know it,” she said severely.

  “You filled my shoe with poo to save my hide, huh?” He was still chuckling.

  “Yes. Yes, I did. And I’m-a startin’ to think you’re full of it, too—you know that?”

  He just smiled at her.

  It did something funny to her insides, something that she didn’t like one bit. In fact, it came real close to giving her a gas pain.

  His smile faded as she scowled and shook her long stick at him. What if he was doin’ all these things for her so she’d let him under her skirt? Softening her up like butter?

  Patrick had acted all nice at first, too.

  “So what’s it you came back here for, Clarence? Huh?”

  He shoved his stump and his hand into the pockets of his overalls. “To tell you I didn’t have no luck with the first file cabinet.”

  “You already tried?!”

  He nodded. “But there’s somethin’ else.” He took off his cap, clamped it under his arm and scrubbed his fingers through his damp copper hair. His mouth was flat, his expression grim.

  “What?”

  His gaze poured over her like cool water with an intent to soothe. For that very reason, it made her shiver instead.

  “Sweet baby Jesus, Clarence. What is it? Is it Glory? Is she all right?”

  He nodded. “She’s holdin’ steady.”

  “Is it her baby? Did the baby die?”

  “I don’t know anything yet about the baby.”

  “Then what is makin’ you look like the Grim Reaper his own self?”

  “Ruthie…you’re on Doc’s list. For surgery.”

  Thirteen

  She was back on Doc’s list? This soon? Ruth Ann stared at Clarence blankly for a long moment before her nerves and her stomach took over. It began with more sweat all around her hairline, then extra saliva in her mouth. Then she ran past Clarence, out behind the wall of the laundry, and was sick.

  He followed her, to her chagrin. Offered her his handkerchief. Rubbed her between the shoulders.

  “Please, Clarence. For pity’s sake, just go away.”

  “Ruth Ann, I’m sorry—I just wanted to warn you. I didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t want you to be taken unawares.”

  “I know. Thank you.” She had braced her hands, in his gloves, against the stone wall, and her head now hung down between them as she spit the last of the sick out of her mouth. She wanted to upchuck a second time when she thought about Doc Price slicing his steel scalpel into her. She didn’t want to be naked around any man, ever again—and especially not unconscious, like a cut of beef laid out for a stew. The idea horrified her.

  Clarence waved his hankie near her cheek again, but she shook her head. She stood up, wiped her mouth with her hand and then marched around the corner and into the laundry again. She rooted around until she found a shirt that she was positive was Doc Price’s. She pulled it to her face, recognizing his fancy aftershave, and mopped her mouth, forehead and neck with it. Then she dropped it in the dirt.

  “I could use that for somethin’ even worse,” suggested Clarence.

  She gave a weak laugh. “You’d just get in trouble. And so would I, if they found out.”

  “Yeah.” He set a comforting hand on her shoulder.

  Even though she knew instinctively that he was only being kind, she moved out from under it. She felt dragged down by a heavy, sodden blanket of fatigue and hopelessness.

  Still, she thought of Mrs. Dade’s face when she’d begged her to keep Patrick away from Annabel. The dawning of belief there. The reluctant acceptance of Ruth Ann’s truth. The realization of the injustice that had been done to her ward.

  It gave her hope—though maybe hope was a curse.

  “I got to finish up here,” she said to Clarence. “And then I got to write a letter. I know you’ve already done more than enough for me, more than anyone could ask…but can you find a way to get it to Mrs. Dade? The lady at the house where you came to get us?”

  Clarence nodded. “Yeah. I’ll figure somethin’ out.”

  She almost threw herself into his arms. She had a weird feeling he could sense that. And he could also sense just how uncomfortable it would make her if she did.

  So he stepped back. “I’ll hoof it to her on one condition: you stop callin’ me any kind of fruit, you hear? Nor anything with feathers, neither.” He shook a finger at her, but the crinkles around his eyes belied the gesture.

  She nodded, her throat clogged with gratitude. “You’r
e the bee’s knees, Clarence. You truly are.”

  March 4, 1924

  Dear Mrs. Dade,

  I hope this letter finds you and Mr. Dade and little Annabel in good health.

  Thank you for your kindness during my recent visit.

  I write you now on account of what I told you, ma’am—that there is an operation planned for me—and real soon. I’m sorry to trouble you again, but I do not know who else to ask for help.

  Doc Price already done Glory’s surgery. Wants to do mine on Tuesday.

  Please, do not let them do this to me, if you ever cared for me at all, please help. I want to set my life right. I want to leave here one day and have a family of my own. You trained me your ownself to run a household…you know I ain’t so feebleminded that I cain’t do it. Please, Mrs. Dade, please help.

  Yours truly,

  Ruth Ann Riley

  Ruth Ann wrote the letter quickly with pencil and paper she borrowed from Mother Jenkins’s kitchen desk. She wrote it in back of the outhouse, away from prying eyes. She reread it and crossed out ain’t, changing it to am not. She struck out the i in cain’t. Then she folded the letter into a small square that she tucked into the pocket of her dress.

  She prayed that Clarence would remember to come and get it from her, since she never knew exactly where the Colony would have him working, and she could hardly march up to the men’s dormitories and knock on the door to ask for him—that’d make them think she was ab-whorrent for sure.

  She finished the washing, rinsing and starching assigned to her hours later. She was left with three massive baskets of wet clothing and sheets that weighed more, it seemed to her, than a whole quarry of boulders. Ruth Ann looked up at the sky before she even attempted to move them to the clotheslines.

  The sun peeked coyly from between a pack of puffy clouds, then disappeared again, casting an eerie, dirty-yellow light through them. She decided that maybe today, it was better to hang the clothes on lines in the lean-to. That way they wouldn’t get rained on, ’cept maybe a bit at the edges, and Mother Jenkins wouldn’t make her rewash the whole stinkin’ lot o’ them—totally unnecessary, if you asked Ruth Ann, since fresh rain had to be purer than collected rainwater in a barrel, and just as pure as well water. But nobody never did ask her opinion, on that or anything else.

  She hefted up one of the baskets of laundry-boulders and trudged with it down to the lean-to that sometimes sheltered animals from the wind, only to discover that it was chock-full of boys with hammers, planers, sanders and sawhorses with projects laid across them. They weren’t going to be displaced by something as unimportant as her wet laundry. Dismayed, she turned around and trudged back to the outdoor lines. She’d have to risk pinning the laundry again in the open air.

  The sun, truly fickle today, popped out again laughing, like a child playing hide-and-seek.

  “You sure think you’re cute, don’tcha?” Ruth Ann muttered at it.

  It scattered illusory gold coins through the trees and diamonds on the lawn, daring the likes of her to try to collect them, much less spend them.

  If she had a real bushel of gold and diamonds, the very first thing Ruth Ann would buy was one of them big Lamneck Laundry Dryers she’d seen advertised in last year’s Life magazine. The size of a shed, it had dozens of metal bars for hanging clothes and sheets upon, and it was heated! Imagine that. So it wouldn’t matter if there was a doggone hurricane outside: the laundry would be nice and toasty and Mr. Sunshine could play all the games he wanted. Wouldn’t that be sheer heaven?

  That would be a gift to the poor girls like her at the Colony, before she’d bribe the board to let her go. Why they called them folks a board did not make the least bit of sense to her, unless they were just real bored when they sat around listening to the Colony’s problems and voting on what to do about ’em.

  The second thing Ruth Ann would buy was her very own cottage, with a garden she could grow flowers in—and she’d paint the front door and the shutters blueberry blue. She’d get some window boxes and paint them the same color and put flowers in them, too. She’d put a rocking chair on the porch and sit in it every evening looking at the sunset and the flowers.

  Maybe she’d invite Glory over, or Clarence, and they could drink iced tea with her. She’d have Mrs. Dade and baby Annabel come for supper. Maybe she’d even invite Sheila, if she was behavin’ and promised not to screech vile things at Ruth Ann or try to burn the place down.

  What else would she buy? A motorcar! If Clarence would teach her to drive it. It didn’t look to be all that difficult…

  “Head in the clouds agin, I see,” Clarence’s voice teased her, as he came along trundling wood in his wheelbarrow.

  She blinked back to reality. “Well, if they’d just decide whether they’s goin’ or stayin’, my head wouldn’t need to be up in ’em,” she retorted. “They don’t make it easy on wash day.”

  “Want to set that basket on top o’ the wood?”

  She was sorely tempted. “Now, how’s that fair? To make you push the firewood and the soggy washin’? Thank you, but no thank you, kind sir.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  “Well, I mind on your behalf.”

  “Anybody ever tell you that you’re stubborn?”

  Her lips twitched. “Now, why’d they tell me a thing like that?”

  “No reason. So you got something for me?”

  Ruth Ann nodded. She looked to the right, the left and behind them to make sure nobody saw, and then she slipped the letter out of her pocket and tucked it into one of Clarence’s. “Cain’t thank you enough.”

  “It’s nothin’, Ruth Ann.”

  She stopped. “It’s everything.”

  Wilfred Block, Esquire, raised his eyebrows, blinked and adjusted his pince-nez when a slight, gray-haired woman with a baby stepped into his office. She was clearly uncomfortable, and as unused to seeking the counsel of a solicitor as he was unused to swaddling an infant.

  Block stood up, as a gentleman should do in the presence of a lady—though she wasn’t precisely a lady. Her clothing was worn, threadbare and not at all fashionable. Her shoes had seen better days. Her hair wasn’t cropped, it was coiled in a knot and secured with pins. This was no flapper; he pegged her as perhaps a factory foreman’s wife. She wore a thin gold wedding band that she twisted nervously as she gently bounced the baby.

  “G-good day,” she mumbled, taking in his own appearance and flushing slightly.

  Block took it as his due. He was used to making ladies overheat. “And a good day to you, madam. How may I help you?” he inquired. “Please, sit down.” He gestured toward the visitor’s chair in front of his imposing Chippendale desk. It was an excellent set piece for deposing witnesses. It loomed and they shrank.

  The woman paled in the face of its regal, legal magnificence, but she sat in front of it, settling the baby awkwardly in her lap. The infant, swathed in a pink blanket, aimed her myopic blue gaze at Block and blew a spit bubble.

  Charming.

  “What a lovely little daughter you have there, Mrs.…?” Truth to tell, she looked too old to be the mother of an infant.

  “Dade,” she said, seeming unable to look away from his eyes. It took her a moment to recover. “And thank you, Mr. Block. You’re very kind to say so.”

  “A bit young to require an attorney-at-law, though, eh?” he said jovially.

  “I beg your pardon? Oh! You’re only joking—”

  “Yes, yes. Apologies. I’m hopeless, a card-carrying card.”

  She smiled uncertainly and plucked at the baby’s blanket.

  “May I offer you assistance on some matter, Mrs. Dade?”

  She raised her troubled gaze to his. “Well, perhaps. I hope so. Everything I tell you is in confidence, correct?”

  “Indeed it is, madam. You may rest assured on that score.”

  “All right. Thank you. I hardly know where to begin…I had a ward, Mr. Block, for around a decade. She was placed with us at the age
of five, and she recently left us at age sixteen after finding herself in a…troubled condition.” Color tinged Mrs. Dade’s pale cheeks at the mention of this. “We could not tolerate such immoral behavior under our roof.”

  “Oh, dear. Of course not. I understand.”

  “So we had to send her away. But frankly, we were reluctant to lose the stipend we received from the state in exchange for looking after Ruth Ann—”

  Block jolted. “I beg your pardon? Did you say Ruth Ann?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “What is her last name?”

  “Riley.” Mrs. Dade blinked at him, while Annabel gurgled and blew another spit bubble.

  Block sat back in his chair, unable to believe it. Then again, his shingle was the most prominent in town, hard to miss.

  “Why, sir?”

  “Oh, nothing important. You were saying?”

  “Well, sir, she was of great help to me around the house as she got older. So arrangements were made for me to care for her baby, once she gave birth to her.”

  “Ah,” Block said, wondering where this was going. “So you wish to adopt the infant, then?”

  “No. Well, yes, perhaps eventually…but that’s not why I’m here. Ruth Ann paid me a visit recently—to say hello and to…to check on little Annabel. Ruth Ann was very disturbed because she’s been told that she will have to have an operation of a delicate nature. One that will prevent her from, ah, having any more babies.”

  “I see.”

  “Ruth Ann does not wish this surgery to be performed upon her. But it has been scheduled for Tuesday, nonetheless. She is quite upset and has asked for my help in preventing this medical procedure.”

  Block marveled at the delicious irony of this situation.

  “Does she not have the right to refuse it?”

  To think that he’d just been debating ways to approach the girl…and here God was dropping her right into his lap.

  “Where does Ruth Ann reside now?” he asked, playing dumb. “Is she in a home for unwed mothers?”

  “She’s at the Virginia Colony for the Epileptic and Feebleminded.”