by Terrie Todd
No, better to go along with what everyone tells me is best. Once the baby is handed over to its new parents, my life can go on. In time, I’ll forget it ever happened. Or so I’m told.
One sentence jumped out at Benita and raised a resounding pang of jealous longing in her heart: “. . . I’ve never had a doubt my father would die for me if it came to it.”
She tried to imagine what the unconditional love of a father would be like. Did it even exist? In her experience, men were people who left you alone to fend for yourself. She turned the diary page over and smiled to see a poorly done drawing on the other side. It featured a teenage girl, obviously pregnant, seated on a blanket along a riverbank. Standing next to her was a man holding out a chocolate bar to the girl. She had clearly penned the words Jersey Milk onto the bar. Below the picture were these words:
Oh Lord God, how I need you! You have been there for me before. Even when I hated you, you were the sustainer of my life, my every breath. You are the friend I need, the father I need, forever. You have promised to never leave me or abandon me. Thank you, Lord.
As Benita stared at the picture and reread the words of the prayer, the hungry ache deep inside her grew stronger.
She laid the diary page aside with a sigh and allowed a lone tear to fall to her lap.
CHAPTER 29
May 1940
Just as she had done every spring for three years, Miriam Simpson caught the Monday train for Winnipeg and made her way to the Correspondence Branch offices of the Department of Education, where she would spend one week marking examination papers for extra cash.
She brought along a letter and package from Corrie’s father and found her way to the Robertses’ home to deliver it in person. When she arrived, Mr. Roberts informed her that, sadly, Corrie was out of town with Mrs. Roberts for the entire week and would not return until after Miriam went back home. She left the package anyway, and returned to the rooming house where she was staying.
Now she was on a lunch break from her work and heading out for some air. A brisk walk around the block will do me good, she told herself. She’d never been one to admit that the city fashions in the store windows intrigued her as much as they did any other woman.
When she reached the bottom of the staircase, two young ladies waited to speak to the registrar. One of them appeared to be pregnant, and Miriam found it surprising that a married woman would be taking her high school classes by correspondence. Then she stopped in her tracks. The pregnant woman caught up in conversation looked exactly like Cornelia!
Miriam stepped behind a pillar to collect her thoughts. As she listened, she overheard the young woman explaining that the department had scheduled her to write two different exams in the same time slot. Miriam felt certain the voice was Cornelia’s. She couldn’t move. Her feet couldn’t have been more firmly planted on the marble floor if they’d been tree roots.
She listened as Cornelia resolved her conflict with the registrar and then watched as she left by the front door. Only then did she step out from behind the pillar. Now Miriam had a clear view through the window of Cornelia walking down the sidewalk, papers in hand.
It was most definitely Cornelia, and she was most definitely pregnant.
CHAPTER 30
June 1940
The fragrance of lilacs in full bloom always filled Cornelia’s heart with memories of her mother, and the scent swept over her now. She stepped out into the June sunlight and slowly bent down to pick up a milk bottle from the front step. Her size made this quite a feat, but she was determined to do it. Dr. Colburg said the baby could come any day now, and she should expect to stay in the hospital for a whole week. Already she was experiencing cramping that left her anxious about what was to come.
Returning to the kitchen, she poured milk over the oatmeal that was waiting in a bowl and sat down to eat. When the mailman came up the walk, she waddled over to take the mail straight from his hands and happily spotted the familiar Department of Education envelope in his hand. She tore it open and was rewarded immediately by the sight of her name on an official grade eleven diploma. I did it. She smiled. With her grade eleven completed, she could again begin to dream of one day becoming a teacher.
After breakfast, and with little else to do, Cornelia turned to her diary.
Dear Diary,
I haven’t written for months because I’ve spent every waking moment either working on my studies or washing dishes in the restaurant downstairs. All of it helps me to forget my circumstances. I’m as big as a house, and the only shoes I can wear on my swollen feet are slippers. I have two outfits I can wear now: one dark blue dress and one gray skirt with a flowered blouse. Both were given to me by Mrs. Marshall, the woman who runs the home for unwed mothers.
It’s not much of a home, really . . . merely two bedrooms over a restaurant. Mrs. Marshall sleeps in a room off the kitchen downstairs. I don’t know whether it was compassion or desperation that drove her to open her home to girls like me, but I can be thankful to Henry’s parents for finding this place and for footing the bill as they promised.
I try hard to save the little cash I earn. Mrs. Marshall says I can stay on after the baby comes if I’m prepared to work long hours . . . but I can only live with her until another girl needs my room. There is one other girl here right now. She is only fifteen and so frightened. But at least she knows she can go back to her parents afterward.
I reached a decision for my future. With the money I’ve saved so far, and the money I’ll earn if I continue working really hard through the summer, I’ll have enough to enroll in Normal School in September. I know it won’t be easy and I will need to find a job while I’m in school, but I would rather be a teacher and invest my life in other people’s children than go home and forever pine for my own.
As for how it will feel to give up this baby, I can’t even let myself think about it.
My Grade Eleven diploma arrived today and I feel like celebrating, but I have no one to celebrate with. Eva has stopped by twice to drop off letters from Daddy and Jim, but she never stays long. Between us, we keep up the charade, making it look as though I’m still staying with them. I’ve never been deceitful with my father before. No, that’s not entirely true. He always believed I was a good little Christian girl even when I hated God.
How that has changed! I maintain my friendship with Jesus by talking to him daily—all day, every day, actually. I read my Bible, too, but it’s still my experience of last December, of actually having his messenger beside me, which sustains me. The encounter with Aziel has not faded in the least, but remains the most profound thing that ever happened to me. Jesus is far more real to me than Henry now. Though it is Henry’s child I carry inside, I carry Jesus in my heart forever.
Yesterday morning, everyone in the restaurant hushed while Winston Churchill’s speech to Parliament was broadcast over Mrs. Marshall’s radio. I didn’t catch it all, but he spoke of the importance of defeating Mr. Hitler and the dark consequences if the man is not removed from power. I grabbed a pencil and copied down the last few lines that Churchill spoke:
“Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that if the British empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, ‘This was their finest hour.’”
Cornelia stopped writing when she realized a trickle of warm liquid had soaked through her dress onto the chair. Her heart started pounding hard.
Though she felt certain she was soon to enter the battle of her life, it seemed highly unlikely that what was about to transpire would be her finest hour.
CHAPTER 31
June 1940
Mrs. Marshall recruited a neighbor, Mr. Lapinski, to drive Cornelia and herself to St. Joseph Hospital, where she stayed long enough to make sure the admitting office had all the information they required.
“Good luck to you.” Mrs. Marshall placed a hand on Corn
elia’s shoulder as she sat waiting in a wheelchair. It was the closest the woman had ever come to any display of tenderness, and Cornelia wanted to beg her to stay. But lunch hour was nearing at the restaurant, and she knew she dared not ask. She watched as the only familiar face in sight turned away and left the building without a backward glance.
A nurse wheeled Cornelia to a labor room, where she was assisted into a hospital gown. Most of the nurses were dressed in nuns’ habits, and a crucifix hung in every room and hallway she’d seen. As the pain intensified, Cornelia focused her gaze on the image of Christ on the cross. She reminded herself that Jesus knew what pain was all about, but under these circumstances, the thought didn’t make her feel any better.
She hadn’t known it was possible to feel this alone. Though one of the nurses, Sister Marcelene, was kind, another treated her with outright disdain and judgment. Sister Estelle looked like she had been nursing at this hospital since it opened its doors seventy years earlier. “The pain will help cleanse you of your sin,” she said. “Don’t try to fight it.”
Sister Marcelene caught Cornelia’s eye and shook her head gently without a word.
A small booklet entitled Preparing for Motherhood provided the only formal childbirth education Cornelia had received, but back on the farm she’d helped her father birth a calf and a set of twin lambs. The animal mothers never seemed to be in this much pain, and Cornelia wondered if she was doing something wrong. But from the moaning and even occasional screams coming from other rooms, she knew human birthing must be quite different. Determined to get through it, she found herself begging God for help. Hadn’t the angel promised Jesus would never leave her? Where was he now? If only she could feel his presence. If only her mother could be here. If only she had told Daddy. With every excruciating breath, another if only rose to Cornelia’s mind until she thought she would burst from the pain, the fright, and the longing. No one held her hand or spoke an encouraging word.
At long last, Dr. Colburg came and Cornelia was glad to see someone at least a little familiar. He was all business, however, as he told her it was time to push. Through the blinding pain, Cornelia worked harder than ever before. Her resolve to be brave weakened with each exhausting effort. Just when she thought there was no more use in trying, that she must surely give up and die, she heard Dr. Colburg say, “Here it comes!”
In another moment, Cornelia heard the wail of a newborn baby. Her baby! In a blur of activity, the baby was hustled out of the room and Cornelia was poked, prodded, washed, moved, tucked in, and told to rest.
It was over.
Two days later, Cornelia stole down the hallway and peered through the nursery window until she spotted a bassinet with a card labeled Simpson. Just below the name, in finer print, she saw the words For Adoption in brackets. Though Cornelia had not been given the opportunity to hold the baby, Sister Marcelene had told her it was a little girl, and Cornelia had named her Mary Sarah. She studied her newborn daughter’s face and let the tears run down her own.
Never before had she felt so overwhelmed with both love and pain. Intense longing for Henry overshadowed the relief of knowing the birth was now behind her, and the grief of losing her mother felt suddenly fresh in the face of this new loss. These feelings were jumbled together with loneliness and with passionate affection for the precious little bundle she longed to cuddle. Her breasts ached, swollen with the milk that would never nourish her little girl.
At the same time, Cornelia tried to feel hopeful for her future, a hope based on what she’d been told—that she would soon be able to put all this behind her. Now she wondered how such a thing could ever be true. She wanted Jimmy to meet his niece and Daddy to meet his first grandchild. She wondered whether she could ever go home. As far as she knew, no one there knew the truth about why she hadn’t returned.
In his letters, her father had told her how he bragged about her when folks asked: “She’s going to school and providing companionship for the Robertses in their time of grief. We’re proud of you, Corrie.” He made her sound like a saint. At least the situation spared her father the shame of knowing the whole story.
Now Cornelia’s heart felt like it would rip in half. How can I do this, Jesus? she prayed. Was giving up her baby a just consequence for her actions? If only Henry hadn’t died, they could have gotten married and kept their baby.
A part of her burned with anger at Henry for his insane insistence on going off to a war he never even saw. She could see his features in Mary Sarah’s little face. So this is motherhood, she thought. And it is the deepest pain I can imagine. Had her mother loved her as much as she loved this little one? If Samuel and Eva loved Henry the way she loved Mary Sarah, how could they go on? How would she?
When Cornelia pressed her forehead against the glass and closed her eyes, she thought back to that day by the creek, and she heard Aziel’s words to her once again: “There is more sorrow to come. But don’t be afraid. Jesus will be there with you, and he knows all about sorrow. It’s one of his nicknames.”
Man of Sorrows. Cornelia knew the words from an old hymn, and in this moment it was the scarred hands of Jesus that she saw. From some long-ago Sunday school lesson, a memorized snippet of Scripture surfaced: “. . . by his stripes, we are healed.” Oh God, I don’t even know what that means, her heart cried. I only know I desperately need healing. Jesus, heal my broken heart.
A nurse gripped Cornelia’s shoulders and guided her away from the window and back to her hospital room. “You’ll only make it harder.”
“Can I at least write her a letter?” Cornelia asked. “Her parents could give it to her when she’s older.”
“I’m sorry, no. Even if it were advisable, it’s too late. They’re here for her now.”
Cornelia whirled around, but the nurse held her firmly. From this distance, she could tell Mary Sarah’s little bassinet stood empty, and her eyes frantically searched the hallway for a couple leaving with an infant.
“Wait!” she called out. Wriggling free from the nurse’s grip, she moved as quickly as her aching body would allow, back to her room. There, she rummaged through her purse and pulled out a page torn from Henry’s hymnbook.
“Can I just give them this, please?”
“I’ll see they get it.” The nurse took the page. “You need to get back into bed.”
Five days later, Cornelia rode back to Mrs. Marshall’s on the streetcar. Mary Sarah’s adoptive parents had taken her home, and Cornelia had not seen her again.
She rode along in silence, the hot sun beating through the windows. Everywhere she looked, she was reminded that the world was at war. Large, colorful posters encouraged men to enlist, and women to contribute to the war effort by gathering scrap metal and growing and preserving their own vegetables. Store windows displayed We Accept Ration Cards signs, and women in coveralls walked to jobs formerly held only by men.
Yet the war in her heart trumped it all, at least for Cornelia. She knew the only way to survive her situation was to focus on working as hard as she could, saving the money for Normal School, where she could train to become a teacher, and then studying like crazy. Her father had not been wild about her plan when she first wrote to him about the waitressing job, but he finally accepted it and even offered to send a little money each month.
“You got half an hour to get yourself settled back in upstairs,” Mrs. Marshall barked when she walked in the back door of the restaurant. “Then I need you down here for the lunch rush.”
And so it begins, Cornelia thought, as she carried her bag up the narrow stairs with a heavy heart.
CHAPTER 32
February 2007
Sunlight beat through the storefront windows, creating a soft glow in Benita’s corner display. On a shelf stood her attempt at preserving a fragment of the original atmosphere of Schneiders’ Grocery: a collection of old cracker, syrup, and coffee tins. On the floor below sat Gram
’s ice-cream maker and an old pickle crock. Beside that, Benita sat at an old-fashioned checkerboard table mounted on a wooden pickle barrel, reading the morning paper and sipping her coffee. The early afternoon lull provided her only chance to sit, to breathe, and to think about something besides business. She stared at the paper without reading, stared into her coffee cup, stared out the window.
Her thoughts turned to her marriage, as they always did when she had a spare moment. Her last major spat with Ken had been at Christmas, when she’d spent more than Ken thought she should on gifts for the children. Even as she spoke the words, she’d known they would cut him like a knife, but she hadn’t stopped herself.
“What’s wrong with getting them what they want for Christmas? You’re working day and night to take care of your family. I would think you’d be pleased, now that you’re Mr. Big Provider.”
“I am not your father,” Ken had said with a sigh.
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“What does my father have to do with anything?”
“Your father never provided for you, and you’ve decided I never will, either. No matter how hard I work or how much I earn, it will never be enough for you, will it?”
Benita had stood speechless, shocked by his accusation. As soon as Ken left the room, her eyes welled up with tears. Was it true? Was she projecting her anger against her father onto Ken? But how could she be angry with someone she’d never even known?
That night, she’d again broached the topic of marriage counseling.
“Go ahead. But keep me out of it,” Ken told her.