Maude

  I knew Evelyn was expecting and guessed that she’d had a miscarriage. People who knew both families were only too happy to pass along any gossip.

  “When did she tell you that?”

  “Mama Mayse told me.”

  “Honey, Evelyn didn’t change her mind. The baby she had inside her got sick and died. She’ll have one for you someday.”

  “Why didn’t she just tell me that?”

  “Sometimes people don’t think children are old enough to understand. She was just trying to make it easy for you.”

  “I understand a lot more than they think I do.”

  I was shocked by the girl’s remark, but realized the truth of it. I’d never seen a child who studied adults the way this one did.

  A few months later Donna was at the house when Betty Sue suffered her second miscarriage. She watched as they carried her aunt out on a stretcher to a waiting ambulance. Betty Sue was only four months along this time, so it wasn’t as hard on her as the first time had been. Scared by the blood and the upset of the adults, Donna put her arms around me and leaned her head against my side. “Is she going to be all right?”

  I patted her on the back, reassuring the girl as much as I was myself, “She’ll be fine. The doctors will fix her up, and she’ll be good as new.”

  Chapter 59

  The next few years seemed to go by in a blur. Betty Sue had a miscarriage about every six months, but the doctors kept insisting there was nothing wrong with her.

  Donna did well in school and we saw her regularly. At our house, she spent a good part of her time with George. They played checkers or poker with matchsticks as money. He taught her how to roll a cigarette, but I’m sure he never let her try one. Even George wasn’t that crazy. When he came upstairs to listen to the radio at night, she would sit between George and Gene, holding on to one and then the other. She never called me Grandma, the way you would have thought, but, since everyone else except George called me “Mom,” she did too. It was all right with me. It must have been the same at her other grandmother’s, because she called her Mama.”

  When Donna was around eleven, Evelyn and Junior moved to a flat on Fairview, only a few blocks from our home. Donna was still splitting her time between her two grandmothers.

  The Mayses sold their house on St. Paul and bought a wonderful, big house on Van Dyke. Donna lived with the Mayse family during school, and mostly at our flat on St. Jean on weekends and during school vacations.

  She didn’t sleep with her daddy any more, but since she was six or so, shared my room. As she climbed in the first time, she told me she liked my bed. It was soft, warm and comfortable, with a feather ticking on top of the mattress. I got in bed next to her and started to turn out the light. Donna was wide awake. She lay there for a few minutes, then sighed. “I’m not sleepy. I’m used to reading. Can you tell me something about how things were when you were my age?”

  I thought about it for a minute. “All right, I’ll tell you about when I was a little girl.”

  I talked for a long time. At one point I turned on the light and showed Donna the keepsakes in the bottom drawer of my dresser. I picked up the nightgown I’d made for my wedding night to James. I hadn’t held it in my hands for a long time and the sweet memories that came rushing back brought tears to my eyes. It was wrapped in yellowed tissue paper and tied with a ribbon. I untied the bow and unwrapped the papers so Donna could see it.

  She ran her fingertips over the soft fabric. “It’s so pretty. Aunt Dorothy helps me with my sewing. I hope I can make something like this someday.”

  Gene had bought Donna a little red and white Singer sewing machine that was powered by turning a wheel. The only interest she had in dolls from that time on was in making them little dresses. I liked to think that she got that from me, because her grandmother Ola didn’t sew at all. Dorothy, Evelyn’s youngest sister, sewed very well. I had seen some of her work, and it was lovely. I was glad that Donna had someone to teach her, now that my eyes were too weak.

  Another night, I told her about Lulu. I wasn’t going to tell her how awful it had been the way she died, but her curiosity wouldn’t let up and I finally had to tell her everything. I showed her the picture of my first little girl. Donna gasped, “Mom, she looks just like me!”

  It was true. Donna bore a great resemblance to Lulu. She cried along with me when I told her about burying Lulu.

  Most of the stories took a long time to tell. I think sometimes I kept talking for a long time after she fell asleep. It felt good, to tell someone about my life.

  Chapter 60

  Inflation made it harder and harder for me to keep the bills paid. Even though it was less than half of his forty-hour pay at the plant, George took his Social Security pension and quit his job as soon as he was sixty-five. One of my friends from church told me that she took in boarders to help her get by. That seemed like a good idea. I was already cooking and cleaning for four or five. What difference would two more make?

  We rented a larger house and moved a few blocks away. The two extra bedrooms were rented out to young men who had come north to work in the factories. I made their breakfast, a sack lunch to carry to work, and dinner on weekdays. On Saturday and Sunday, they were on their own. I laundered their sheets once a week.

  Although he was a grown man by then, there was no help coming from Paul. He found and rapidly lost a number of jobs. Employment was easy to find, but a boss expected some sort of work to be done. Paul would go in to work for two or three days and then come home saying the boss didn’t like him, or the work was too hard, or he couldn’t read and write well enough to do what was expected of him.

  George told him that he if didn’t want to work, he didn’t have to work. We argued over it time and again. I wondered what would happen to him when George and I were gone.

  Chapter 61

  In 1954, when Donna was twelve, I heard Evelyn was carrying another baby. This time, she passed the sixth month with no problems.

  One day, Donna surprised us with a weekday visit. The front door of our home was never locked during the daytime. She came directly there after school and came in the kitchen. She knew I would have a snack ready at that time of day. Gene, Paul, and I were at the table when she walked in. She kissed her daddy and me.

  Gene hugged her. “How did you get here? Did someone drive you?’

  “I walked. I’m going to be living with my mother on Fairview. I can walk here any time I want. Isn’t that great?”

  Gene’s forehead creased, “Living with your mother? Who decided that?”

  “I guess she did. She’s going to have the baby in February, and she needs me to help her. I hope it’s a girl.”

  “Are you happy about living with her, Donna?” he asked.

  “I guess, as long as I get to be with the baby.”

  Gene opened his mouth to say something else but then thought better of it.

  Later that day, when Donna was down in the basement playing checkers with George, Gene talked to me about it. “Mom, what do you think about this, Donna living with Evelyn? She hardly knows her.”

  I shook my head, “If that’s what Evelyn wants, there’s not much we can say about it, unless she tries to keep her away from us. Then we could go to court or something. Donna seems to be happy about it. Most little girls love to have a baby to play with.”

  “What about him? How do I know he’s going to act right?”

  “She’s old enough to tell us if he doesn’t.”

  As it turned out, Donna was at our house after school almost every day until the baby came.

  Donna came over all excited to tell us that, just as she wanted, Evelyn had a beautiful, healthy little girl. She named her Nancy. She was the image of her father, thick black hair, a round face, and deep pink complexion. Junior had his own Indian ancestors just like Gene did, and that showed up in the baby. Donna said Evelyn called Nancy her little Papoose. As soon as she was allowed, Evelyn went back to her job making tires on the pro
duction line at the Rubber Company.

  Donna came home from Foch Junior High and let the daytime babysitter leave. She took care of the baby until her mother got in from work. Nancy was born in the middle of February, and the cold weather dragged on so long, we didn’t get a look at the baby until she was around three months old. As soon as the weather was warm enough, Donna put her in her stroller and brought her over to the house. She was a beautiful baby, and all of us were taken with her right from the start, except for Gene. He held the baby in his arms for a moment and stared down at her. Then he handed her to me and left the room, wiping tears from his eyes.

  Donna was crazy about that baby, and took her everywhere she went after school, to our place, to her girlfriends’, to the corner sweetshop. She was the best behaved baby anyone had ever seen. Donna told me Nancy even sat quietly in her stroller in the school auditorium and watched Donna rehearse her school plays.

  The money I made from my two borders was a Godsend. I felt strong enough to do more, so I rented a large three-story house on the corner of Kercheval and Lycaste that had nine bedrooms on the upper floors and two on the bottom.

  Now I was cooking and washing and cleaning for eleven people. For the first time since Betty Sue left home, I had enough money to pay all the family expenses and still put a little aside each month. I even bought a television for the living room and had a telephone installed. It was the first one we ever had, but the only people I called in Detroit were Bessie and Betty Sue. I even called my sister Helen and my friend from Missouri, Clara, but only once or twice a year. I didn’t feel I could afford long distance. Besides, I wrote them both from time to time and would often read their letters several times. I liked having the letters. I kept them in bundles, tied with a ribbon in a bottom dresser drawer.

  Betty Sue miscarried twice again in one year. She cried and cried and wailed, “I’ll never have my baby. Pretty soon, I’ll be too old.”

  Ellis made clumsy tries to console her, but it didn’t help much. Her doctor told her the work she was doing at the factory was probably too much for her, so the next time she got pregnant, she took a leave of absence.

  I began paying her to help with the lighter household chores and cooking. I was sixty-three years old and the burden was almost more than I could bear, but for the first time since we came to Detroit, I didn’t have to worry about money. George made no effort to help with the work around the house. He called it woman’s work. He either hung around with the neighbor’s, joking and laughing the way he’d always done, watching the television in the living room while he sipped on a beer, or napping in the basement.

  Evelyn’s father died not long after Nancy was born. I know how she and Donna loved him, and I felt bad for their grief. Gene and I went to the funeral, but we sat in the back. We wanted to pay our respects but didn’t want to stand out. Gene could hardly stand seeing Evelyn with Junior, so we left right after the service.

  Chapter 62

  When Donna was fifteen and going to Southeastern High in the tenth grade, she came to my house one afternoon carrying a bag of clothes and stayed. Nothing was said about her reason for leaving her mother’s place.

  I was curious, but she seemed unharmed, so I didn’t press her about it. We were all happier when she was in the house. Donna spent her whole life going back and forth, so it didn’t seem strange to any of us that a girl so young had always come and gone as she pleased and no one asked why, where she was going, or when she would be back.

  Shortly after that, Evelyn left Junior, filed for divorce, and moved into an apartment a few blocks east of our home. I wondered if Donna leaving was connected to Evelyn’s divorce. Donna didn’t talk about it, and I didn’t ask.

  An old friend of the Mayse family took over babysitting Nancy. With Junior out of the picture, Donna went to see her little sister more often. She brought her to our house, and the Foley’s were happy to have Nancy back to visit.

  As they had before, Gene’s hopes of winning Evelyn back returned, and he began seeing her again.

  Chapter 63

  In 1956 Betty Sue was pregnant again and safely into her sixth month, farther than she’d ever been able to carry her other babies. She and Ellis were at our house one Saturday for lunch. Donna and the men sat at the table in the kitchen, and Betty Sue and I were cooking dinner, a big pot of pork neck bones, white cornbread that we fried in a cast iron pan, Irish potatoes, and string beans. George took Betty Sue’s hand. “How’s my girl feeling today? Are you all right?”

  Betty Sue put a plate in front of him, then kissed her father’s forehead. “I’m fine, Dad. I feel really good.”

  Ellis picked up his fork and took a bite. “She’s going to have to be more careful this time,” he said, “or she’ll mess it up again.”

  You could have heard a pin drop. Betty Sue got a look on her face that reminded me of Grandma Foley and Bessie, and it made my stomach flop over. She whispered, “Ellis?”

  He looked up at her. She doubled up her fist and hit him square between the eyes. His chair fell over backward. He lay there in a stupor, his body still sitting in the fallen chair.

  Betty Sue landed a kick to his side. She had her leg back to give him another one when I ran over and pulled her away.

  George shook his head. “Honeymoon’s over.”

  Ellis staggered to his feet without help, picked up his chair, and sat back down at the table.

  When George finished his sandwich, he stood to leave. “You all right, Ellis?”

  “I guess so, but I think I’m going to have two black eyes.”

  “Looks like it. Come on out to the porch. I want to tell you something.”

  Ellis held onto the back of the chair to steady himself. He got his balance and followed George out the door. Betty Sue sat and ate as if nothing had happened.

  When we went to bed that night, Donna asked me about what her grandpa wanted to tell Ellis. I told her about George’s mother, Bessie’s sometimes hot-tempered behavior, and how Betty Sue acted like them.

  Chapter 64

  Ellis was able to talk his boss into giving Paul a chance to work with him. Ellis said he could cover for Paul and keep his attention on the job.

  He went to work with Ellis Monday morning. I made him a special lunch with his favorite food, a bologna sandwich and chocolate chip cookies. I said an extra prayer as he left that he would be able to stay with the job. When Paul came home that night, I could tell by the look on his face he wasn’t happy. I patted him on the back. “How did it go, Paul? Can you do the work?”

  He twisted up his face like he smelled a skunk. “I can do it, but it sure isn’t easy. All I do, all day long is pick up a car bumper and hold it against a big brush that spins around and polishes it. It makes my arms hurt.”

  “It’s because your muscles aren’t used to it. Once you’ve been there a few weeks you won’t even notice. Let me get some of that Absorbine, Jr. that Gene uses and rub it on your arms. It’ll make the soreness go away.”

  He nodded. I got the bottle and rubbed the ointment up and down both his arms from the shoulder to the wrist. It was the most I had touched him since he was a child.

  I woke him the next morning and made his lunch, holding my breath to see if he would go to work the second day. I breathed a sigh of relief when he came downstairs dressed, ate his breakfast, and ran to catch Ellis so they could walk together.

  For the rest of the week, I rubbed the ointment on his arms every night. Every morning, I didn’t relax until he went to work.

  On Friday afternoon of the second week, he drew his first pay. He didn’t come home at the regular time. At first, I didn’t worry. I figured he stopped with Ellis at Betty Sue’s house for a while and would be home for dinner.

  Betty Sue was due in four more weeks and she’d put on a lot of weight and waddled more than walked. She still felt like working as much as she could, and she was with me, cooking the evening meal for the boarders. When they finished eating, she helped clean up and
wash the dishes. By that time, it was almost seven o’clock. Every evening she worked with me, Betty Sue made up two dinner plates to carry home for her and her husband.

  At nine o’clock, Betty Sue was back at my house, worried sick. “Did Paul come home yet?” she asked.

  “No. I figured he was at your house.”

  “Neither one of them is there, Mom. Do you think something happened?”

  George sat on the sofa, watching Gunsmoke. He didn’t take his eyes off the screen and said, “They probably stopped for a beer. It’s payday, the first one for Paul. They’re just celebrating. They’ll be home when they’ve had enough. Let them have a little fun.”

  My heart sank as I realized the truth of what he said. It might not be a big deal to George, but our daughter was almost ready to deliver and shouldn’t be worried over anything. The last thing I wanted was for Paul to start acting like his older brother, Bud, who’d gotten drunk at every opportunity. Why couldn’t my other boys be more like Gene?

  When Paul went to work every day for two weeks in a row I thought maybe there was hope for him. Now, that hope was draining out of me.

  I put my arm around Betty Sue’s shoulder and walked her to the door. “You just go home and rest. Don’t worry about them, they’re grown men. They can take care of themselves.” I walked with Betty Sue down the block to her house, and saw to it that she made it safely inside.

  With so many boarders coming and going, my front door was left unlocked. It was shortly after midnight when there came a knock at my bedroom door. I kept it locked when I went to bed, so I got up and asked who was there.

  “It’s me, Mom,” said Betty Sue. I could tell she was crying. I unlocked the door, and Betty Sue came in and sat on the edge of the bed, “He’s still not home, Mom. I can’t stand it. What if he’s hurt somewhere?”