A Woman's Place

by Lynn Austin

  “The government decided that his job is necessary for the war effort. They hired Harold’s firm to oversee things and make sure everybody meets their quotas on time. He works very hard.”

  “So do you, Ginny,” Jean said. “When you stop and think about it, you’re working two jobs—here all day and then your usual work at home. I don’t know how you’re able to do it all.”

  “I just keep going from the time I get up in the morning until I go to bed at night,” she said, exhaling.

  “Is it getting to be too much?” Helen asked.

  “I can manage. I mean, before, with the boys in school all day, I felt like I wasn’t doing anything important. What does it matter, really, if you have a spotless house? This work is so much more important. I just don’t care anymore if my furniture is a little dusty or there are streaks on my windows or the kitchen floor isn’t perfectly waxed. I want to help win the war.”

  “That’s how I tried to explain it to Dirk’s father,” Rosa said.

  “Why should I waste my time cleaning all day when I can make ships to help Dirk and all the other boys? Wolter Voorhees can’t understand that there’s no such thing as men’s work and women’s work in times like these.”

  “How are things going with Dirk’s parents?” Jean asked.

  “They’re still mad at me, even though I stayed home like a good little girl last weekend and twiddled my thumbs.” She jammed the lid onto her Thermos, as if to emphasize her point, and gave it a twist. “I’ll tell you what, though: I was so bored I wanted to cry.”

  “Where is your husband stationed again?” Helen asked.

  “Virginia. He’ll finish his Navy Corpsman training in March, then he’ll probably be shipped overseas to North Africa or the Pacific. I get scared just thinking about it.”

  “My sister Patty’s husband is fighting in Algeria,” Jean said. “She doesn’t talk about it much but I know she worries about him. We also have five brothers who are scattered all over the place in three branches of the service. Every time we hear a news bulletin we’re reminded of one of them.”

  “Your poor mother,” Ginny said. “I only have two sons, but I know how I would feel if they were stationed overseas.”

  “That’s a very large family with five boys and two girls,” Helen said.

  “That’s not even half of us!” Jean laughed. “There are twelve boys and six girls altogether.”

  “Holy smokes!” Rosa said. “Eighteen children? Are any of them twins?”

  “Just my brother Johnny and me. He’s in the air force. My brother Dan was at Pearl Harbor when it was attacked, and now he’s out in the Pacific somewhere. Peter is stationed in Iceland, Rudy is in New Guinea, and Roy’s latest transfer was to Monterey, California.”

  “Your poor mother!” Rosa said, shaking her head. “How did she cope with all them kids?”

  “She loved and welcomed every one of us into the world. If anyone asks her about having so many children, she always says, ‘There are so many things that are worse than having children.”’

  “That’s beautiful,” Ginny said. “I’d have as many children as I could, too, if it were up to me.”

  “We came one right after the other,” Jean said, “from the time Ma got married at age eighteen until the youngest was born seven years ago. My oldest sister is twenty-nine.”

  “Your mother must have had remarkably healthy babies,” Helen said. “My mother gave birth to seven children, but I’m the only one who survived to outlive her.”

  “Oh, Helen! You really are all alone.” Ginny caressed her shoulder in sympathy.

  “Don’t you have to wonder sometimes why God gives eighteen kids to one mom and only one to another?” Rosa asked.

  Helen slammed the lid of her lunchbox with a bang. “I stopped trying to figure out God a long time ago,” she said.

  Helen’s bitter tone surprised Ginny. She was even more surprised a moment later when Helen added angrily, “And I certainly don’t understand why God allowed the disgusting Germans to throw the entire world into turmoil for a second time. We should have done away with every last German after the Great War.”

  Ginny could only stare at Helen in surprise. She had practically spit out the word German. “I was only ten years old when that war ended,” Ginny said, “so my memories of it are vague. I had two uncles who fought, and I remember seeing them in their uniforms—”

  Ginny stopped. Helen was at least fifteen years older than she was. Maybe she had lost someone dear to her in the war. Ginny was trying to think of a delicate way to ask when Mr. Seaborn strode up to their table, interrupting them.

  “I came to warn you ladies so you won’t get nervous. We’ve got some army people coming to tour this place after lunch to see how things are going. Just ignore them and keep working. They’re evaluating the management end of things, not the workers.”

  “Don’t worry, we won’t let them intimidate us,” Ginny said. “After all, they’re just people doing their job the same as we are, right, girls?”

  Later that afternoon, Ginny glanced up briefly when she saw Mr. Seaborn leading a group of men in uniforms and dark suits up and down the production line. She returned to her work on the ship’s deck, fifteen feet above the factory floor, concentrating on an especially tricky wiring job. Suddenly she heard a familiar voice speaking her name in utter astonishment.

  “Virginia … ?”

  She looked up from her work, her heart pounding. Harold stood at the foot of the ladder below her, staring wide-eyed. Fear surged through her like a jolt of electricity.

  “Virginia?” he repeated breathlessly.

  The screwdriver slipped from her limp hand. She felt boneless.

  “You know him?” Rosa whispered.

  “M-my husband.”

  “Oh boy! The jig is up,” Rosa breathed. “Just stand your ground, Ginny. You’ll be fine.” She patted Ginny’s back.

  She wasn’t fine. Ginny watched in horror as Harold climbed three rungs of the stepladder, looking up at her in disbelief. Mr. Seaborn and the other men watched from a distance. It seemed as though everyone in the entire factory was staring. She’d never felt more intimidated in her life. Her hands shook so badly she couldn’t even pretend to work.

  “What are you doing here?” Harold asked.

  “She’s screwing this gauge to the console,” Rosa told him. “It’s the oil-pressure gauge.”

  “But … but that’s impossible!”

  “Yeah, it’s tricky until you get the hang of it,” Rosa chattered on. “But Ginny does it the best of any of us. Right, Jean?”

  “Virginia, answer me!” Harold said. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m working … like Rosa said. I … I can’t talk to you right now, I have work to do. And so do you.” She turned away and sank down as low as she could, wishing she could disappear entirely. Tears blurred her eyes. She had to fold her hands into fists to control the shaking.

  “Hey, he really is good-looking,” Rosa whispered. “For an older guy, that is.”

  “Is he still there?” Ginny asked.

  “No, he went back with the others. He’s gone.”

  Gone. The word shuddered through Ginny as if echoing through an empty room. Harold was gone. She covered her face to hide her tears. Her stomach rolled as if the ship she was on had been launched into a hurricane. Her thoughts were as jumbled as the wires that she labored to connect, and she had to rush to the ladies’ room twice, afraid she might lose her lunch. Good thing her shift was nearly over because she couldn’t concentrate on her work. Jean seemed to understand and didn’t pressure her.

  Harold had seen her here, working!

  He was every bit as handsome as Rosa had said, with his dark hair and square, dimpled chin. Ginny loved him, and now she was going to lose him, just as she’d always feared. She couldn’t remember why she had ever taken this job.

  “You poor girl. Can I do anything to help?” Rosa asked as they punched the time clock at the end
of their shift. “Want me to come home with you in case he decides to slug it out with you?”

  “We don’t fight that way, Rosa. But thanks.”

  No, Harold fought with cold disapproval, withdrawing his love and tossing barbed, angry words at her. In many ways it was crueler than fists.

  Ginny started cooking pork chops and macaroni and cheese for dinner as soon as she got home. Harold arrived two hours later, walking past her as if she were invisible. He didn’t speak a word to her during the meal. The boys seemed to feel the tension and picked at their food. Ginny couldn’t force down a single bite.

  She stayed in the kitchen all evening, waiting like a condemned prisoner on death row. Harold wouldn’t discuss things until the boys were asleep, determined not to let them overhear their parents arguing. Even then he wouldn’t raise his voice. She wondered if she should get out the two ticket stubs she’d found in his pocket and ask him about them. She decided that she really didn’t want to know the truth.

  In the meantime he was snubbing her. Ginny wondered briefly if there was a more sophisticated word she could use in place of snub, but she was much too upset to worry about her vocabulary. After two and a half months she was only beginning to understand why she had needed to work at the shipyard and why she had taken the job in the first place. She could never explain her reasons to Harold, even if she had an entire dictionary full of words.

  She returned to the kitchen after putting the boys to bed, knowing that Harold would come out and speak with her when he was ready. She found herself praying as she swept the kitchen floor, Please, God, I don’t want to lose him. … Then she wondered if the terrible fear she felt was what Rosa and Jean and all the other women whose loved ones were in the military felt every day of their lives.

  At last Harold rose from his chair in the living room to stand in the kitchen doorway. He had his arms folded across his chest.

  “I have never been so mortified in my life,” he said quietly.

  Ginny was trembling from head to toe. She forced her gaze to meet his. “Why?”

  “Why? What a humiliating way for me to find out about your secret life!”

  “I tried to tell you that I’ve been working at the shipyard—dozens of times. You were always too busy or you weren’t really listening to me. You were aloof, Harold.”

  “How long has this been going on?”

  “I started training at the shipyard last September, right after the boys started school, and I’ve been working as an electrician for two and a half months now.”

  “Well, whatever your little game is, Virginia, it’s over. You’re quitting tomorrow.”

  She slowly shook her head. “No.” She spoke the word softly, and her voice shook, but she meant it.

  “What do you mean, ‘no’?”

  “I don’t want to quit. I … I’m not going to quit. And it’s not a game.”

  “I won’t have you working in a shipyard, of all places. You’re a wife and a mother. My wife! You have responsibilities here—responsibilities that you’ve obviously been shirking. No wonder things have been slipping around here. No wonder you’re doing the ironing and sweeping at all hours of the night, and there’s no supper on the table when I get home.”

  “You still have plenty of clean clothes to wear, and all your meals are—”

  “What about the boys? What have you been doing with them while you’re running off to work?”

  “They’ve been getting themselves to school in the morning. They’re fine without me for twenty minutes before I get home. You’re always telling me I smother them.”

  “What about Christmas vacation next month? Are you planning on leaving them here alone all day?”

  “I … I’ll work something out.” But Ginny hadn’t thought that far ahead, and at the moment she had no idea what she would do. Harold wasn’t listening anyway.

  “I’ve worked hard to establish a reputation in this community,” he told her. “I won’t have my wife tarnishing it by working like a common laborer. A shipyard is no place for a woman. The work is too heavy, too dirty, too dangerous for a woman.”

  “Have you bothered to look at any of the assembly lines in all of those factories you visit? I’ll bet more than half of the workers are women. In fact, I work right alongside Allan’s second-grade teacher, Helen Kimball.” He stared at her as if she were talking nonsense.

  “Helen Kimball isn’t my wife. You are. I don’t want you near all those coarse men, hearing their foul language. Why would you do such a stupid thing without consulting me first?”

  “Because I knew what you would say—the same things you’re saying now. But I needed to do something that matters. I’m bored and lonely and I hate staying home all day, ironing your shirts and making your supper and getting nothing in return but a peck on the cheek—not even a word of thanks, Harold!”

  “Nobody thanks me for all the work I do.” She groaned in frustration and turned away. “I’m not finished, Virginia. And don’t think you can turn on the waterworks and get me to change my mind.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it.” Ginny was too angry to cry. She had never argued with Harold this way, had never contradicted him in her life. She had lived to please him, in fact. But she was tired of being afraid of him. Intimidated by him. They should be a team, like the girls at work, not servant and master. She thought of her new friends and summoned courage from them: from Helen Kimball, starting a new job at her age; from Rosa, leaving her home in Brooklyn to move in with strangers; and most of all from Jean, so young yet knowing exactly what she wanted in life. Ginny was tired of walking on egg-shells around her husband, working so hard to please him when he never made a single move to try to please her. Enough was enough.

  “Well, I’m not going to change my mind, either,” she said, speaking with quiet conviction. “I’m going to continue working at Stockton Shipyard.”

  He stared at her in astonishment. “What has gotten into you, Virginia?”

  “My name is Ginny! I’ve told you a hundred times that I want to be called Ginny, not Virginia! Why don’t you ever listen to me?”

  “Are you having a nervous breakdown? Should I call the doctor?”

  “Listen to me! I make thirty dollars a week, Harold. For the first time in my life I have money to spend that didn’t come from you or from my father. I earned it myself. Do you have any idea how good that feels? Do you want to know what I’ve been spending it on? Last week I bought the roast beef that we had for Sunday dinner. I bought Allan a new pair of shoes for school, and I bought the new lipstick that I’m wearing—that you never even noticed!”

  “That’s my point, Virginia—”

  “It’s Ginny!”

  He made a face to show his exasperation. “I’ve worked hard to make sure that no wife of mine would ever have to work—especially in a place like that. I make a good living. I’m well able to support my family.”

  “I don’t have to work, Harold—I want to work! Why can’t you understand that? I need to know that there’s more to Ginny Mitchell than just somebody’s wife or mother.”

  “Where are you getting these foolish ideas?”

  “They are not injudicious ideas. Look here …” She pulled the newspaper article out of the drawer and pointed to the headline. “It says, ‘Millions of Women Must Be Shifted to War Work.’ I’m one of them.”

  “You’re being ridiculous. That’s meant for other women, not you.”

  “Why not me?”

  “Because you have a family!”

  “You mean the two sons that I’m not supposed to mother anymore? They’re the reason I can’t quit? What sort of a future will they face if the Nazis and the Japanese aren’t stopped? I listen to world events and I feel threatened and helpless. The attack on Pearl Harbor seemed so close! Most of Europe has been conquered, the Japanese have overrun the Pacific—and I’m sitting home dusting the furniture? Collecting tin cans and cooking fat?”

  “It’s a man’s job to protect his wif
e and family. That’s why I’m working so hard to get the factories up and running, making arms and ammunition.”

  “I want to help, too. I want to do something to win back the life we had, to make the world safe for our sons so they never have to fight in a war.”

  “You’re a God-fearing woman, Vir—” He caught himself, but she knew he was about to say Virginia. “You know that the husband is supposed to be the head of the household. I want you to quit this job tomorrow and put our home back in order. That’s all I’m going to say about it. I’m going to bed.” He turned off the radio on his way through the living room and stomped upstairs.

  Ginny didn’t know what to do. He had ordered her to quit, and she didn’t want to. She was so frustrated and angry with Harold that for the first time in their married life she slept on the couch instead of with him. It was also the first time in her married life that she had ever defied him. She cried herself to sleep.

  The next morning she was up before he was, her clothes wrinkled from sleeping in them all night. She was standing at the stove scrambling eggs when Harold came downstairs dressed in his suit and tie. He sat down at the table and ate in silence. Dark circles rimmed his eyes, and she wondered if he had slept as poorly as she had. When he finished eating and stood to leave, she turned to face him.

  “I love you, Harold.”

  He closed his eyes for a moment. “Then do what I’ve asked, Ginny. Give up this ridiculous idea and get our household and our family back in order.”

  “Do you love me?” she asked shakily.

  “Of course I do.”

  Tears of relief filled her eyes. She wrapped her arms around him, hugging him tightly, resting her head on his chest. After a moment his arms circled her, stiffly at first. But she snuggled against him and felt him relax.

  “I have to go to work,” he said with a sigh.

  “Wait.” She didn’t release her hold on him. “If you love me, then my happiness should be important to you. And working at the shipyard makes me happy.”

  “That works two ways,” he said coldly. He peeled her arms away and freed himself. “Isn’t my happiness important to you, Virginia?” He jammed his hat onto his head and stalked out.