by Lynn Austin
Finding my mother’s theater turned out to be easier than I’d expected. The turbaned Arab and his camel stood right in the middle of the Midway Plaisance, drumming up business for the Arabian Nights Show. The billboard outside the theater featured a woman in a harem outfit just like the one my mother wore in the photograph. According to the scheduled times, I had more than an hour to talk with her before the next show began.
I left the pathway and walked around to the back of the theater as if I knew exactly where I was going. It was what Louis had done when he’d led me backstage at the theater the other day. No one had stopped him then, and no one stopped me now. A sign above the backstage door read Employees Only. I tried the knob and found it locked. I drew a breath for courage and pounded on the door. It opened a crack, and a bearded man with oily hair peered out.
“What do you want?”
“I’m here to see Angeline … um … Angelina. She’s expecting me.”
He looked me over from head to toe like a greedy child eyeing an ice-cream cone. He didn’t seem inclined to let me in.
“Angelina said she might have a job in the show for me,” I added.
His lips curled into a smile. He opened the door very wide. “Second door on the right,” he said, pointing.
My knees shook violently as I walked down the short corridor. I quickly knocked on my mother’s door before I lost my nerve.
“Come in,” someone called from inside. I turned the knob.
The scent of roses overwhelmed the tiny dressing room. I knew I had found my mother.
She sat before a mirror at a lopsided dressing table, brushing her dark, loose hair. I had loved to watch her do the very same thing in her bedroom in Lockport. She looked up at my reflection in the dingy mirror and knew in an instant who I was.
“Violet,” she whispered. She stood and turned, and we rushed into each other’s arms.
“Mama!” I wept. “Mama, I found you!”
Memories from childhood flooded back as I felt her familiar arms surrounding me and heard her murmuring in her native language. I don’t know how long we remained that way. I only know that I had missed her embrace, her voice, her love, for eleven long years. I needed to make up for all that lost time.
“I’ve missed you so much, Mama!”
“And I have missed you, ho-cheech-ka,” she cried. “You will never know how much!”
At last Mother released me. She held me at arm’s length and gazed at me, her eyes brimming with love.
“Look at you,” she murmured. “You are beautiful! And such a lady! A proper young lady, just as I hoped you would be.”
I thought she would hug me again, but instead she turned away, tightening the belt on the ragged bathrobe she wore over her costume, drawing it closed. I saw shame in her eyes and in her manner as her gaze flitted around the shabby room, seeing it the way I would see it.
“I am sorry that you found me, Violet. Sorry that you see me this way.”
“No, Mama, don’t be sorry. I’m not—”
“Shh, shh … Listen, my darling. You must go back home. You must not let anyone see you here with me.”
I shook my head, swallowing the lump of emotion in my throat. “But I want to talk to you. I want to know—”
“Shh … No, darling. No one must know that I am your mother. I do not want to tarnish you.”
“You could never do that! I love you, Mama!” I moved toward her, longing to embrace her again, but she shook her head, holding up her hands to keep me away.
“You are very young, Violet. You do not understand how the world is.”
“Then explain it to me.” I sank onto her chair, wiping my tears as quickly as they fell. “I’m not leaving until you tell me everything I want to know. Why did you marry Father? Why did you have me? And why … why did you abandon me?”
“Then will you go?”
“If you want me to.” I couldn’t understand how she could hold me in her arms and weep one moment and push me away the next. “I know that you and Father met on the night of the Great Fire. I know that he rescued you, but I don’t know how.”
She paced the cramped room for several moments as if gathering her thoughts, searching for a place to begin. I was struck by how lithe and graceful she was—and how beautiful. She looked very young to me, not yet forty, and I realized that she had been younger than I was now when she’d married Father. My hapless, straitlaced father must have been as attracted to the exciting young Angeline as stuffy Herman Beckett had been attracted to me in bloomers.
“Listen, I came to this country with my family when I was only a small girl,” she began. “We were a family of gypsies—do you know what that means, what kind of life we led?”
“I-I think so.” Thieves. Like Silas McClure.
“My father and older brothers started a theater here in Chicago. It was not a very nice place, and they made my sisters and me … We had to do whatever they said. I wanted to get away and have a better life, but they forced me to stay. My brothers locked me in my room every night with no shoes and no coat so I could not get away. I was their prisoner.
“That is where I was, locked inside, when the fire began. My brothers saw that the city was burning, so they left me there and went out to steal things from other people. I would have died that night if John hadn’t saved me. He and his brother smashed down my door and helped me get out. Then John’s brother ran back inside to save more people—but he never came out. The building fell into the street, and we had to run and run to get away.
“I hope you never have to live through a night like that one, ho-cheech-ka. It was worse than any nightmare I have ever dreamed of. The flames roared like a hundred trains, and buildings crashed to the ground. The sky was as light as daytime, the heat as warm as a summer day. We ran from the smoke and from the hot sparks that blew over us like snow. The cinders stung our skin, blown on the wind that howled in our ears. Some of the burning coals were as large as chestnuts.
“We ran as fast as we could, but the fire chased after us, a towering wave of flames that rolled toward us, trying to drown us. The streets were full of wagons and horses and screaming people trying to escape. They would leave things behind, dropping furniture and belongings to lighten their load until we had to climb over mountains of baggage just to get away. Behind us the flames leaped hundreds of feet in the air and swallowed buildings in one gulp. No one was fighting the fire. They could only watch helplessly as everything burned.
“John and I walked for miles and miles. My throat hurt from the smoke, and my feet ached because I had no shoes. John carried me on his back much of the way, like a child. We finally got to where all the streetcars had stopped. The men had driven them as far away as they could to get them out of the fire’s path. They let us sit inside them to try to rest or maybe sleep.
“The city burned all night and all the next day. When the rain finally came and the fire stopped, my old life had all burned up. I could start all over again in a new place. John took me to his father’s church in Lockport. I had never seen such a nice, quiet town.
“I fell in love with John, with his kindness and gentleness—and he loved me. But it was a terrible mistake to get married. I did not belong like all of the other people in that town. John’s father disliked everything about me. The clothes I wore had too many colors. My hair should be put up, not hanging loose. I smiled too much; I was too foolish; I loved to dance. Everything was always wrong, and he said that I was turning you the wrong way too. He said I should not dance with you. And so I began to feel very sad. I stopped going out of our house. But I still had you and John. You brought me so much joy, Violet. I don’t have enough words to tell you how much.”
“Then why did you leave me?”
“After you were born, ho-cheech-ka, I had two more babies, but they died while they were still inside of me. Your grandfather said that God was punishing me for some sin in my life. I grew afraid that God would harm you or your father in order to punish me even m
ore. I loved you both too much to let you suffer because of me.”
“But that isn’t true. God doesn’t do things like that. And Father knows it isn’t true. Why did you listen to Grandfather?”
“Do you remember the game we used to play together?”
“I don’t remember very much …”
“I would ask something like: ‘If you could choose, would you rather be a butterfly or a firefly?’ And then you would have to choose.”
I closed my eyes as tears flooded them.
“If you could choose, Violet, would you rather live on the moon or under the sea?”
“Mama, listen …”
“No, you need to listen to me, ho-cheech-ka. In the end, it was no longer a game for me. I had to make a choice and it was a terrible, terrible one—like choosing whether to be blind or to go deaf. Except that I had to choose between staying with the man I loved, the daughter I loved more than life itself, and ending up destroying them—or choosing to go away so they could live.”
“I don’t understand—”
“Have you ever been in love?”
I shook my head, trying not to think of the tender look I’d seen in Silas’ eyes.
“Come back and talk to me when you do fall in love. Only then will you be able to understand.”
“But I need to know now. I won’t leave until you tell me everything.”
I could see her frustration and her reluctance. But I had waited too long and searched too hard to leave my mother now.
“Very well,” she said, exhaling. “Do you remember how I used to tell you tales about a princess who battled evil sorcerers and monstrous dragons and finally married a handsome prince? That was my life, Violet. My brothers were evil men, monsters who held me captive until a handsome prince came and rescued me. I did some very bad things before I met John Hayes. My father, my brothers—they were not good people, and they made me do bad things. John knew the truth about my past. When I told him, he said that Jesus forgave a woman in the Bible for the sinful life she lived, and He would forgive me too. But we never told John’s father the truth.
“Then one terrible day my two older brothers found me. They came to our little town and told John’s father.My brothers demanded a lot of money from him to keep quiet about all the things I had done. Your grandfather hated me even more for bringing this shame upon his family. Everyone in his church and in the nice little town would hear the truth unless he paid the money. I knew that my brothers would never be satisfied if we paid one time. They would always come back for more and more and more. So I chose to leave and go with them instead.”
“Father told me you left because you didn’t want to feel tied down anymore.”
“That’s what I told him. I wanted to make him angry with me so he would not follow me and beg me to come home. I left so that you and John could have the best possible life, not stained by my past. And look at you! You are beautiful. You look like a princess in your magnificent gown. You must have many rich young princes who want to marry you. And that is what I wanted most of all for you. A life of love and happiness—not a life like mine. The only way I could give that to you was to leave. I did it for you and for John. And now you must go and marry well, live well. You must forget all about me.”
“But I can’t forget you, Mama. I love you! I don’t care about your family. I want to stay with you.”
“No. That’s not possible. Don’t you see what I am?”
“Please, Mama. I could—” “I don’t want you here!” she said harshly. “You need to leave! It’s time for the next show!” She opened the door and pointed to the hallway. Exotic music had begun playing in the background, and I heard drums pounding in the distance. “If you love me, then live the rest of your life without me, Violet… . Go!”
I didn’t move.
She untied her ragged bathrobe and let it drop to the floor, revealing her flimsy costume. Then she turned her back on me and hurried away in the direction of the drums. The scent of roses trailed behind her. I ran outside, blinded by tears.
And I ran straight into Silas McClure.
Chapter
36
Hey, hey—whoa!” Silas said as he caught me by the arm.
“Let me go!” I wanted to run and run and never stop, but he didn’t ease his grip.
“There’s no place to go, Violet. Just take a minute, okay? Take a deep breath.” I did what he said. I had no choice. He wouldn’t let go of me. I could hear the music from my mother’s theater drifting faintly through the walls along with the relentless drumbeat.
“W-what are you doing here?” I asked when I could speak.
“I saw you leave the casino all alone, and I followed you. I was afraid you’d do something crazy like come over here. I figured I’d better come after you.”
“I found her,” I said, my voice shaking. “I found my mother. The woman in your picture—”
“I figured as much. There’s a very strong resemblance.”
“But she sent me away!” My tears started falling again.
Silas relaxed his grip on my arm and reached for my hand. “Come on. This is a lousy place to talk.”
He led me around the building to the Midway’s main street. The noise and bright lights and activity made my head swim. I was afraid that Silas was going to take me back to the smoke-filled casino, and I didn’t want to go there. But he led me in the opposite direction and stopped at the base of the giant wheel. He bought two tickets. A few minutes later we were slowly rising above the bustle and confusion. Silas was a strong, silent presence at my side, saying nothing as we ascended. Lights twinkled below us and in the starry sky above us, and I felt my sorrow slowly ease. By the time we stopped at the very top, my tears were under control.
“Do you want to tell me what your mother said, Violet? I’m sure there was a very good reason why she sent you away.”
The glorious wheel had worked its magic, and I was able to see past my bruised feelings and recall her words. “She left home because she loved me. She wanted a better life for me than the one she’d had. She thought I would be better off without her.”
“And is that why she sent you away now?”
I nodded, remembering her shame as she’d pulled her robe closed over her costume.
“Violet, I’m so sorry,” he murmured.
“My mother loves me. I finally understand that. She loves me so much she gave up her happiness for mine.”
By the time we reached the bottom again I was calm. “Thank you for finding her for me.”
“You did as much of the work as I did.”
I felt drained as I stood in the bustling Midway, hearing the excitement and laughter all around me. “I guess we can go back to the casino now,” I said with a sigh.
“No, Violet. I’m taking you home.”
I wondered if he and his friend had already robbed the casino and he was using me to make his getaway again.
“What about Nelson and the others?”
“I’m sorry to say that your friend is a fool. That casino is as crooked as a witch’s nose. If he borrows money to gamble in that place, he’ll lose it all. He might as well toss his money into Lake Michigan.”
“But what else can he do? He has to pay his father back.”
“Well, my advice to him was to tell his father the truth and suffer the consequences. From what I hear, his father will never miss a few hundred bucks. I’m not sure your friend was listening, though.”
We walked to the entrance gate, and Silas flagged down a cab. He helped me climb inside and sat opposite me. I couldn’t stop thinking about love on the long ride home, and what a truly powerful force it was. It made people take enormous risks and make huge sacrifices. There was so much more to it than what I’d learned from reading Ruth’s romance novels. Aunt Birdie had been the wisest of all the Howell sisters. I needed to make certain I married for love. And none of the three men who had proposed to me had loved me—the real me.
Now my time was up.
Father was coming tomorrow. I would have to join Aunt Matt’s suffragettes and remain a spinster because I didn’t want to marry Herman Beckett or Nelson Kent or Louis Decker. I had thrown away my chances with any of Aunt Agnes’ other suitors, even if I had wanted to live that phony life.
My parents had truly loved each other, but like Romeo and Juliet, interference from their families had doomed them. Katya and Nelson would likely face similar opposition from their families. Even so, I would be rooting for them to overcome all of their obstacles. I remembered the kiss they had shared and sighed.
What would it feel like to be kissed that way? Too bad none of my suitors had ventured to steal a kiss from me. At least I would have something to remember in my old age. I wondered if Aunt Matt’s beau had kissed her before she’d learned the truth about him. Did she have the memory of that one kiss to see her through the lonely nights? If only there was a way I could experience a kiss—just once—before I gave up men forever.
Silas didn’t say a word on the journey home. I noticed that he was no longer smiling. He paid for the carriage and let it drive away, then walked with me to the front steps.
“Are you still planning on leaving tomorrow?” he asked, pausing outside our front door.
“Yes. My father is coming to take me home to Lockport.”
“Listen, before you go, I need to tell you the truth about myself.”
“I already know the truth, Silas.”
“You do? How did—?”
“I found out about the robbery on the day we went to the fair because my aunt works in the Woman’s Pavilion. She told me the guards caught one of the thieves but that the other one got away. It wasn’t hard to figure out.”
“That was a real mess. I’m sorry—”
“Josephine and Robert were in disguise, weren’t they?”
“Violet, I’m so sorry about all of that. I didn’t know where else to get a chaperone, and I wanted to take you to the fair so badly.”