Unexpected Gifts

by Mallery, S. R.

  “And here is a hospital report about your great grandfather.” Her voiced hushed.

  “Okay, okay, Mom. What's the big mystery? Did he have Leprosy or something?”

  “Just read it and find out what happened.”

  Annoyed, Sonia took the report. It looked like he had probably died on route to the hospital. Massive internal injuries, a broken neck, scrapes, bruises, you name it. Then she remembered about his job. Of course! He was a Highsteeler, wasn't he? Knowing his tendencies, he was probably up on a high beam, drunk as a skunk, and his luck finally ran out on him.

  “He fell off the Empire State Building or something, right?”

  Lily was starting to put the boxes back.

  “Mom?”

  She turned and simply mouthed, “Read.”

  Shannon's dreams of late had a reoccurring theme. Brownies. Making brownies, serving brownies to a happy Pete, putting the brownies away in her grandmother's porcelain jar after watching him take small bites out of each one and saying, “Girl, you're the best!”

  The day before had been grueling. A trip to the jail and a meeting with their lawyer, then finally, a total collapse onto their bed by seven p.m. At two twenty a.m., when she was on one of her many trips to the bathroom, she tried hard to block out another brownie dream.

  She stumbled in, holding onto the walls to prevent herself from falling, just like Pete had urged her to do. With only the nightlight on, she sat on the toilet, her chin resting on her left hand, and after a few seconds was starting to reach for the toilet paper when it hit her.

  “Oh my God!” she exclaimed, rushing to finish wiping and stand up. She switched on the overhead, did a fast hand-wash, and padding down to the kitchen, hurried over to her grandmother's porcelain jar. With a deep breath, she slowly lifted up its top to peer in. Sure enough, staring back at her was a floppy disc, wrapped in a plastic baggie. Good old Pete, she beamed.

  But how to play this with no computer? She glanced at the clock. Two forty-five a.m. Most of the city was dead to the world. Where could I read this? Sonia. Of course. She tried to go back to sleep but it was impossible. Opting for TV, she bided her time by trips to the bathroom and checking the clock. By seven thirty a.m., she figured Sonia might be waking up.

  “Sonia?”

  “Yes?” The voice was heavy with sleep.

  “I found it!”

  “What?” filtered through a tremendous yawn.

  “Pete's floppy. Remember how Pete was going on about the brownies and how I kept them so fresh? Well, it was in my grandmother's jar. Can I come over right now and put it into your computer? Please?”

  “Of course. I'll make coffee.”

  When Shannon arrived, she took one look at Sonia's apartment and blurted out, “But you told me you were so neurotically neat!”

  Sonia surveyed the disorder. Wow, she thought. Since when have I stopped picking up every second? As she led Shannon over to her computer and turned it on, she couldn't help smiling. Maybe she wasn't just like Grandma Rose after all. How about that.

  She pulled up a second chair and slipped the floppy labeled Julius into the computer slot. Shannon's breaths were coming out short and raspy. Was the woman going to go into labor right here in the apartment? When the floppy contents popped up, they both leaned in as Petra wound around their legs like a soft, moving blanket.

  “What's this? Will Strathern, private detective?” Sonia read out loud.

  “Why, that's an old friend of Pete's. My God, I haven't heard his name for years.”

  Sonia opened the next item. A letter to Will from Pete, then, a return letter from Will. Two more correspondences later, Sonia sat back and stared at Shannon.

  “Oh God,” she muttered.

  “Exactly!” Shannon agreed while Petra kept purring and rubbing, purring and rubbing.

  They moved to the sofa to plan their next step, and it wasn't until after Shannon left at eleven forty-five a.m. that Sonia even thought about Adriana's journals. A cup of chamomile tea in hand, she opened up to Book One, page one.

  Chapter 14: Adriana—Guilty Freedoms

  “A woman is like a teabag…you never know how strong she is until you put her in hot water.” - Eleanor Roosevelt

  “Take a method and try it. If it fails, try another. But above all, try something.” - Franklin Roosevelt

  As the Pennsy K4 Pacific train lurched forward out of the Detroit station, I viewed my traveling companions with a certain degree of skepticism. Daria, busy fidgeting with Rose's hair, clucked maternally, while my little niece sat as still as a porcelain doll.

  I could understand why my brother Tony had fallen for this dark-haired Irish beauty, but now, to be perfectly honest, with the three of us jiggling through the countryside, I wondered how in the world I was ever going to survive living with this quiet, domesticated woman and her equally shy daughter.

  Clatter-chug-clatter-chug went the train, lulling me into a light doze. The sun flickered through the trees, invading my eyelids with tiny flashes of memory; click—playing with Tony in Detroit when we had first arrived from Bulgaria, click—always defying Andrei, click—Eugenia forever washing dishes, click—Andrei snarling at her, click—Eugenia's frozen face. Clatter-chug-clatter-chug.

  “Next stop!” jolted me out of my slumber like a tin can hit with a baseball bat. I shot a quick glance over at Daria and Rose and extracting a letter from my purse, read it for the fifteenth time.

  Dear Lorena,

  Adriana Balakov has been a friend of mine since the Suffragist Movement. She is highly intelligent, and displays an extraordinary dedication to any cause in which she becomes involved. In addition, she has written several articles for newspapers and has shown a remarkable propensity for investigative reporting.

  I truly appreciate your doing this favor for me, and I can assert with the utmost certainty that you shall not be disappointed in her performance as your research assistant/ journalist.

  Best always,

  Sarah Braunstein

  Women's League of America

  Fingering the thin paper, I contemplated my life journey that was at last beginning to reap some real rewards. I was soon to be head research assistant to Lorena Hickok, journalist extraordinaire and good friend to Eleanor Roosevelt!

  I had assumed all of New York City would be enchanting, but our apartment building was horrific. Dark, depressing, and so dilapidated you'd think the rats held total ownership. Daria rose to the occasion, unlike her daughter and me, as Tony appeared from the top floor, trying desperately to reassure us that everything would work out in the end.

  “Where will I be sleeping?” I finally inquired, seeing only their doorless bedroom and the living room we were all standing in, with an anchored laundry cord floating through it.

  “Ah, actually, it could be fun. You'll be sharing the living room with Rose. When you cover this here laundry cord with a blanket, it'll almost be like having your own boudoir, madam.”

  “Cute, Tony.” I wouldn't look at him after that and amidst the muted sounds of love-making coming from the other room, “I shall succeed. I shall succeed. I shall succeed,” helped me drift off into a deep sleep.

  My initial meeting with Lorena Hickok took place at the house that she was sharing with Marion Dickerman, Nancy Cook, and Carolina Day, with an occasional visit from Eleanor herself. The lovely, old ivy-covered residence was situated alongside the Val-Kill River, a mere two miles away from Hyde Park, the official Roosevelt mansion. The rooms were spacious, the wood paneled walls gave the illusion of warmth, and the smells wafting out of the kitchen made me want to never return to my own wretched surroundings.

  Lorena was a rather dumpy looking woman, overweight, with a round face that reminded me somewhat of a soft pillow, but the moment she spoke, I became spellbound. Along with Eleanor, she vowed to change the world, repairing the many problems that had loomed large in America for far too long. I was not only to be her assistant, in time, if I proved satisfactory, she would let me
write some articles myself, provided, of course, they were worthy of the President's wife.

  I glided home, my cocoon of happiness protecting me from our meager walk-up. By the time I arrived, the apartment had already been dimmed by the evening light. Tony was out drinking. (Some patterns never change), while Daria stood in the kitchen area, preoccupied by the mindless task of washing dishes, and Rose had settled into one corner of the living room, arranging and rearranging her dolls and toys.

  “I had a wonderful meeting today with Lorena Hickok my new boss. I'm going to be traveling all over the U.S. and be a part of something really important,” I announced.

  Daria stared up at me as if I were from Mars, Rose kept on with her obsessions. What pathetic fools they all are, sifted through my brain as I prepared my room divider for the night, listening to Daria retelling an Irish folktale to Rose, her words slurring softly like gentle prayers murmured at church.

  Lorena, or ‘Hick’ as everyone called her, told me Eleanor wanted our first observations to be made in New York City, where we found women cutting sheets lengthwise before re-stitching them to prolong their wear, reshaping their own clothes for their daughters, or stuffing their family's shirts with newspapers to ward off the cold. Shoes seemed be a real problem. Pasteboard worked as inner soles, and cotton in the heels served as an excellent buffer against the harsh pavement. Burlap bags wrapped around your legs might make you look like Santa Claus, but it worked miracles against those frigid winds whipping around city buildings. People also learned to order a free extra cup of hot water along with their cup of coffee. That way, when nobody was looking they could toss some ketchup from the counter into the water, creating instant tomato soup. In addition, men re-sharpened their old razor blades, and while they stood on breadlines, sent their children off to different queues blocks away to return soda bottles for two cents each.

  Rounding the corner of Broadway and 34th, I noticed a well-dressed, familiar looking man, with newspapers stuffed inside his jacket, sitting on a ledge. I instantly approached him.

  “Why, hello Mr. Washburn.”

  Our neighbor's eyes shifted up to me, then instantly turned down towards the ground.

  “Mr. Washburn?” I repeated.

  He wouldn't look at me for a few seconds. “If you tell the missus I'll kill you!” he hissed, his frightened eyes bulging.

  I jumped back. What the—? All of a sudden, the Washburns' daily morning dialog on our landing came to mind.

  “See you after work, Arthur. You sure you don't need your overcoat? It's cold out today.”

  “Naw. It's always warm at the office. See you later, dear.”

  Still reflecting on Mr. Washburn's plight, we approached the next corner, where a group of itinerant men were standing around, aimlessly chanting:

  “Mellon pulled the whistle,

  Hoover rang the bell,

  Wall Street gave the signal

  And the country went to hell.”

  I couldn't have expressed it any better I thought as I finally entered our tenement at the end of the day. Upstairs, the mood was considerably lighter. Tony had brought home a brand new radio, and the oohing and aahing that was still going on in the apartment helped me forget about the world. A comedy show was on the air, and I must admit, the laughter in our living room was infectious.

  There were cries of disappointment when an announcer interrupted the program, but I got excited. “Wait, wait, here it is! Our new president is about to speak to the nation. I heard he was going to do these Fireside Chats. Now, everybody listen.”

  “Let me first assert,” President Roosevelt's educated, tinny sounding voice said, “my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.

  I shall ask the Congress for the one remaining instrument to meet the crisis—broad Executive power to wage a war against the emergency, as great as the power that would be given me if we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe. The people of the United States have not failed, they have registered a mandate that they want direct, vigorous action…”

  If a pin had dropped you would have heard it in the room, and I breathed a sigh of relief. For once my family and I were all in accord and perhaps hope was on the horizon. Dinner that night was the most stimulating it had ever been and I went to sleep thrilled that with this new president, perhaps things would work out.

  The family honeymoon didn't last. The following day, after reading The Herald Tribune, The New York Times, and the Washington Post, all lambasting FDR's radio address and his future plans, I couldn't contain myself.

  “My God! Is the country run only by the very wealthy and the Southern Democrats? Do they not care about the average person?”

  “Aw, stop your jawing. There's no point in getting so worked up about this. I'm working, you're working. We're all sittin' pretty easy these days.” Tony ignored Daria.

  “Doesn't it bother you that other people are suffering so much? How can you be so selfish?”

  “Once a suffragette, always a suffragette, right? Just relax, Sis,” he snickered.

  My first assignment was to accompany Hick and Eleanor herself to the Bonus Expeditionary Force's Hooverville camp. These WWI veterans, once numbering twenty thousand and still waiting for their Bonus payment, had installed themselves and their families in a swampy area across the Potomac, with tents, cookware, and laundry lines. In 1931, when the Senate voted No, many of them returned home, and that's when the trouble really began. Hoover sent his armed forces, with tanks and machine guns, to roust out the remaining eight thousand six hundred “Damn Squatters.” One-legged veterans, women, and children ran screaming through clouds of tear gas and heavy artillery, shocking a nation and helping to decide Hoover's 1932 presidential bid.

  Now it was Franklin Roosevelt's turn and shrewdly, he chose to send his wife deep into their midst. With Hick and me at her side, she attempted to greet as many of the veterans as she could, listening to their tales of woe, stroking their children's unwashed hair, and eating their wives' meager chow. Despite critics who claimed she aided and abetted Those Insurrectionists, we kept returning to the camp and by the third day, people were even coming up to me, blurting out, “Bless you, bless you for coming. It helps just to know the new administration is on our side.”

  Much like a drug addict, I was hooked and as the days and months progressed, the Roosevelts loomed larger than ever in my life. Early on, Hick had told me about how at an impromptu press conference, apparently Franklin had been asked by a reporter why Eleanor had so much energy and his laughing reply rang out across the country, “Oh, Lord, please make Eleanor tired.” I knew exactly what he meant. She was amazing.

  She never stopped. She rode her horse first thing in the morning before breakfast with her husband, a routine that was followed by meetings with her secretary Tommy and a day's race to try and help people in need. By her side were her constant companions, Hick, Marion Dickerson, Tommy, Louis Howe, and her irascible dogs, Major and Scottie.

  “See my pistol?” the first lady called out across the White House lawn to Hick and me a few weeks later, proudly displaying her gun-filled holster. Outfitted in new jodhpurs, high boots, and riding cap, she made quite a picture.

  “Eleanor, you're being ridiculous,” Hick shouted back. Then, muttering to me, “If she had taken those threatening letters seriously and accepted the Secret Service, she wouldn't have to even carry a gun.”

  “Threatening letters? Why does she refuse their escort?”

  “Adriana, you're going to learn a lot about Eleanor. She does what she wants and nobody can tell her otherwise.”

  I loved the Roosevelts' rambunctious get-togethers as well. After our conferences, I'd walk past the back lawn, the sound of giggles, shrieks, and singing of her grandchildren surrounding me like a live concert. Sistie, Sara, Ruth, and little Buzzie were obviously having the time of their lives and suddenly, I thought of R
ose. How lonely she seemed in our quiet, joyless apartment. And poor Daria, trying so hard to nurture Rose, unaided by a husband, vacant both physically and emotionally. I continued on to my own mother, cowed by Papa, unable to create the kind of vibrancy so apparent in this boisterous family. Was I to blame? Should I have stayed with Mama when she pleaded so hard? Should I be more attentive to my niece and sister-in-law now? I pondered, as I went over to Val-Kill for a Rundown-of-the-Week's-Events meeting with Hick.

  When I arrived, Eleanor was already there. “Adriana, I have heard such good things about you from Hick. Are you enjoying your job?” She leaned in so close, I could smell her lavender toilet water.

  “Yes, it is a great opportunity.”

  She smiled. “Tell me a little bit about your family. Are you, ah, close to them?”

  “No, not really. I didn't have a great childhood.”

  Her eyes turned wise. “I know about that. What was the problem? If you don't mind my asking.”

  Mind? I was flattered beyond belief. “My father was terrible to us. He didn't start out that way, but something happened to him before we came to this country.”

  “That sounds similar to my father. After my mother died, he changed. Did he drink? Mine did, well, tell me about yours.”

  “He made me feel ugly. He made fun of me.”

  “My mother called me Granny.” Eleanor's voice turned bitter.

  “My God. My father used to say I was like a woman, old before my time!”

  She cleared her throat. “Ah, perhaps we are kindred spirits, my dear.”

  I nodded, looking down.

  “Just remember, Adriana, the bottom line is, a woman is like a teabag; you never know how strong she is until you put her in hot water.”

  That made me laugh and as the famous First Lady's female reporters filed into the room, Eleanor reached out to give my hand a gentle squeeze before taking the floor, leaving me with the strongest feeling that with her around, we would all be safe.

  Our next journey took Hick and me across the U.S., to delve into general living conditions in 1934 America. We stopped in one neglected small town after another, each one possessing a hard gripping poverty that could turn the heartiest person into a skeleton.