All Waiting Is Long

by Barbara J. Taylor

  “That’s comforting,” Mother Mary Joseph said.

  “Enough of the doom and gloom. Have you had a chance to try the new machine?” Jack asked, referring to the incubator he and Mamie had donated a month earlier. “My friend Couney swears by them.” Dr. Martin A. Couney, the world’s foremost expert on incubators, had delivered the machine in person. “He traveled all over the country setting up what he called incubator hospitals. State fairs, Coney Island, you name it.”

  “We haven’t had to yet,” the Reverend Mother said.

  “That’s too bad,” Jack replied, then corrected himself: “It’s good you haven’t needed it. I’m just anxious to see how it works.” He stopped tipping the chair and walked over to the doorway. “I have to wonder if a machine like that would have made any difference when our Nellie was born. Guess we’ll never know,” he murmured.

  Mother Mary Joseph stood up, signaling an end to the formal portion of the meeting. “How is Mamie?” she asked.

  “About the same.”

  “She’s in our prayers,” Thelma offered, collecting her newspaper and adjusting her hat.

  Jack nodded his thanks. “Yes, indeed,” he said. Still not finished with the topic of the incubator, he added, “Couney says you’re lucky to have such a modern piece of equipment in your hospital.”

  “We’re very blessed,” Mother Mary Joseph said, keeping whatever reservations she still harbored on the matter to herself.

  Reasons Why a Misstep in a Girl

  Has More Serious Consequences

  than a Misstep in a Boy

  If a girl makes a misstep . . . she has for the rest of her life a Damocles’s sword hanging over her head, and she is in constant terror lest her sin be found out . . . even if the girl escaped pregnancy, the mere finding out that she had an illicit experience deprives her of social standing, or makes her a social outcast and entirely destroys or greatly minimizes her chances of ever marrying and establishing a home of her own. She must remain a lonely wanderer to the end of her days.

  —Woman: Her Sex and Love Life,

  William J. Robinson, MD, 1929

  Caught on the horns of a dilemma. That’s how Myrtle Evans put it after Evan told her about that perfumed letter from Violet to Stanley. If it were our daughter, we’d want to know, but Grace is another story. The most innocent remark can set her off. Only last month, she huffed out of church after someone suggested Grace might want to keep a closer eye on Lily. Such a pretty girl. Beauty like that can lead to trouble. Better sure than sorry.

  In the end, Myrtle decided she was obliged to tell Grace, but not until after March 1. No sense ruining St. David’s Day for her and Owen. This year’s banquet is being held at the new Masonic Temple on North Washington Avenue. What a thrill. We’re eager to see if it’s as magnificent inside as out. A real jewel in Scranton’s crown, designed by a fellow named Raymond Hood, according to the paper. It promises to be a wonderful time, though we could do without the dancing later in the evening. That sort of cavorting might seem innocent to some, but as the saying goes, A great sin can enter through a small door.

  Or a perfumed letter. That’s why Grace needs to put a stop to Violet’s antics before she gets carried away and disgraces the whole family by marrying a Catholic. And a communist, if Evan has his story straight.

  We can’t imagine a worse fate for one of our own, and goodness knows we’ve tried.

  Chapter six

  ONE WEEK AFTER ARRIVING at the Good Shepherd Infant Asylum, Lily felt her baby kick for the first time. It was Saturday, the first of March, the morning of her sixteenth birthday. Although it was too dark to see, Lily knew all of the girls would still be asleep at that hour. Even the most troubled ones succumbed to exhaustion by early dawn. The baby kicked again, and Lily couldn’t decide how to feel about this startling sensation. Until that moment, she’d managed to convince herself that everyone around her must be mistaken. Perhaps her recently blossomed belly would turn out to be too much fried chicken and applesauce cake like Alice Harris next door, or better yet, stomach cancer like Mrs. Manley down the street. Lily often imagined herself lying on her deathbed with an inoperable tumor while her mother and sister begged for forgiveness. She’d absolve them with her dying breath, and they’d collapse in tears over her cold body.

  But now, as the baby kicked, Lily could no longer deny its existence. She had a life growing inside her. And all because she wanted to prove to George Sherman that she was no longer a child.

  * * *

  George Sherman Jr., the most handsome fellow in Scranton, lived in a sprawling house in the neighborhood of Green Ridge, where the moneyed people laid their heads at night. His father, George Sr., owned several company houses and the Sherman Colliery, an anthracite mine a few streets over in the Providence section of Scranton. It had some of the richest veins of coal in Pennsylvania. Even with the recent decrease in demand, Sherman’s mine continued to operate at full capacity. Almost everyone in Providence had family at the Sherman, including Lily. Her father worked there as a miner and had for the better part of thirty years, and even though the family struggled to survive on such low wages, they were still better off than so many others who’d lost their livelihoods outright in the months after the stock market crashed.

  George Jr., who attended the Providence Christian Church with his parents and siblings, never took particular notice of Lily until Easter of ’29. Prior to that day, if he paid her any mind at all, it was due to her incessant fidgeting in the pew ahead of him. George had four years on Lily, and by that fateful Easter Sunday, almost a full year of college behind him. Later that summer, while trying to steal a kiss, he would tell her that on Easter Sunday, when the entire congregation stood for the invocation, she turned to borrow a hymnal, and he saw her as if for the first time. She’d suddenly transformed into a woman, with ringlets of thick dark hair, lovely curves, and those sapphire eyes.

  When George showed up a few days later at the Morgan house on Spring Street, Lily had to pull her mother’s hand off the curtains. “You’re embarrassing me.”

  “He has his own automobile.” Her mother stayed planted at the window.

  “No daughter of mine is going out in a car with a boy.” A fit of coughing rolled through Owen with the intensity of a freight train. “I don’t care what his last name is.” To catch his breath, he leaned against the Tom Thumb piano in the front parlor—the only parlor in their four-room company house.

  “Making him pay for the sins of his father, is that it?” Her mother crossed the room and dragged the piano stool out.

  “The man may own my house,” Owen said, dropping onto the seat, “but he doesn’t own me.”

  Lily looked pleadingly at her parents as George walked up the front steps.

  Her father pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his mouth. “Let the boy in,” he said with a wave of the blood-speckled hanky.

  Most of that evening, George and Lily sat on the porch steps, talking and drinking lemonade. Around nine, Lily’s father opened the screen door and barked, “Time for all good souls to say good night.” The screen door snapped shut behind him.

  “Yes sir,” George called back, but he didn’t budge. Instead, he slid closer to Lily and started to play with a rebellious curl at the nape of her neck. “I’d sure like to make you my girl this summer,” he said, “but I’m afraid you still have some growing up to do.”

  When Lily tried to object, he pressed a finger to her lips. “I’m a Yale man. I need a girl who can ride around with me.” He nodded toward the front door. “Someone without a bedtime.” He stood up to leave. “Maybe we should try this again when you’re a little older.”

  Lily hopped up from the step, grabbed George by the shirt, and set her mouth against his ear. “I’m old enough to do as I please.”

  “That’s what I wanted to hear,” he said, and whistled all the way to his car.

  After that night, George would send Little Frankie over to the Morgans’ house when he wanted to be
with Lily. Seventeen-year-old Franco Colangelo, a runt of a kid with oversized ears and slicked-back hair, looked closer to thirteen, so as George explained to Lily, her father would see him as less of a threat. Frankie lived over in Bull’s Head, a predominantly Italian neighborhood in Scranton where his uncle ran a numbers racket out of a speakeasy behind the barbershop. Since Frankie supplied the Green Ridge boys with homemade vino and directions to the occasional game of chance, they allowed him to pal around with them, as long as he kept his hands off their sisters.

  When George wanted to see Lily, he’d have Little Frankie go over to her house with enough pocket change for both of them to take the Northern Electric Streetcar to Lake Winola. George’s family had a cottage up there, and he and his friends spent the better part of their summers at the lake, unchaperoned.

  The plan worked well for most of July. Frankie had a crippled sister whom Lily sometimes visited, so no one thought it odd when he came by the house to pick her up. Lily was thankful that George was willing to go to such lengths on her account, and George seemed happy to have her on his arm without the watchful eye of her father.

  George couldn’t live without Lily, he told her the afternoon he kissed her in the front seat of his Nash. They’d gone alone to pick up corn for the roast that night, and on the way back, ended up necking on the side of the road. Lily wanted to yell Stop!; she tried to yell Stop! but the word melted in the heat and slid off her tongue.

  “I think I’m falling in love with you,” he said, placing a hand behind her head, pressing his weight on top of her.

  A whispered “No” slipped past her lips like steam from a kettle.

  His fingers searched for the hem of her skirt, and he pushed it past her garter. “I thought you wanted to be my girl.”

  “No!” Lily stretched her arm and pointed out the window.

  George shot up. There, on the driver’s side, Little Frankie stood with his face pressed against the glass.

  “Get the hell out of here, you greasy Guinea.” George slammed his hands onto the steering wheel.

  “Everyone’s out looking for you.” Frankie watched as Lily tugged her skirt down past her knees and adjusted her blouse before dropping his eyes. “Thought maybe you was wrecked somewheres.” Frankie blushed, stepped back from the car, and raised his hands. “My mistake.” He turned and started to walk away.

  George lunged from the car and took a swipe at Frankie’s head. “What do I always tell you?” He glanced back at Lily hunched over, crying in her seat. “Never come looking for me!” He climbed back into the car and started the engine.

  Lily made George drop her off at the Northern Electric stop, a mile over from the lake. After trying to placate her with words of affection and consolation, he yelled something about seeing her when she grew up, and disappeared in a cloud of dust. Sweat trickled down her face as she stood waiting for the streetcar in the late-afternoon sun. What had she done? What had she almost done? The streetcar finally arrived, and she took a seat in the rear, away from the handful of passengers who boarded with her. She closed her eyes and felt the burn of his hand on her thigh. Even with the windows open, the smell of him clung to her skin and stirred some unnamed feeling within her.

  Little Frankie showed up at Lily’s house the next day to apologize. He said he hadn’t thought George would try that—not with a girl like her. He was just worried when they didn’t come right back. He felt responsible for her since he’d brought her to the lake in the first place. Lily thanked him, said she understood, but told him she needed to be alone.

  For the rest of the week, Lily thought about what had happened that afternoon. She’d been embarrassed, but that didn’t mean she had to run home like a child. Now she’d ruined everything. George hated her, she was sure of it. He’d find another sweetheart, someone older, like Debbie Tomasetti, the lanky blonde who always showed up at the lake uninvited. Or worldlier, like Janetta Baugess, the voluptuous one with the big eyes. Lily needed to talk to George, but what would she say? That she was sorry? That she loved him? No matter. Seeing him was out of the question. She knew if she spoke to him, smelled the sweetness of his breath, she’d surrender to the dangerous longing she’d felt every minute since he’d pulled her into his arms.

  When Frankie came by a few days later, Lily’s heart raced. She was sure George had sent him, that he wanted a chance to make things right. What would she do? Resist? Succumb? But Lily didn’t have to worry. Frankie had stopped by out of concern for her. And no, he hadn’t seen George for days.

  By the end of the summer, Lily returned to high school and George to college. Though the longing continued, it started to burn more slowly. She tried to convince herself that she was over him, and she succeeded for the most part—until the hayride.

  Lily hadn’t expected to see George that day. He was supposed to be off at college that first full weekend in September. She’d gone to Grayce Farms with Little Frankie, in part due to her mother’s prodding. “Get outside and blow some of the stink off you”—her way of telling Lily to stop sulking. She noticed George at the far side of the wagon, but just as she started toward him, Janetta Baugess, the most buxom girl in Lily’s grade, pushed past her, settled next to George, and took his hand. “Stop teasing,” the girl was saying. “You know very well how to say my name.” She held up a finger as if to chide him. “It’s Jane,” she paused, “and etta.” She laughed. “My mother knew I’d never be a plain Jane.”

  Lily dropped onto the bench across from them, pressing her palms into her lap to stop them from shaking. As Janetta prattled on, Lily learned that George had come home for his sister’s birthday, and intended to return to school on Sunday. Until then, the couple planned to spend every moment together. Lily looked up at George, trying to see the truth of the situation in his eyes, but he turned away from her and watched the horses. Being ignored is worse than being hated.

  When the driver pulled up alongside a table of cider and doughnuts put out by the ladies of the church, Lily allowed Frankie to take her hand to help her down from the wagon. “Why, you’re the sweetest boy I know,” she said, at a volume that rivaled Janetta’s. Frankie grinned. Once on the ground, she held his hand for another minute or two, long enough for people to notice.

  “Little Frankie,” George called, patting the pocket of his coat, “my turn to provide the hooch.” George motioned toward a line of white birch trees at the edge of the pasture. When Frankie nodded toward Lily, irritation registered on George’s face. “She can come, I suppose.” His eyes slowly traveled up and down her body. “Providing she’s grown up some.”

  “Let’s go,” Janetta said, already facing the woods. “What are you bothering with them for?”

  “Frankie here’s an old friend. A man always sticks by his friends.” George shot an elbow into the boy’s side. “Even the I-talians,” he said, chuckling.

  “So why are we standing around?” Lily said, as if George had been addressing his comments to her all along. “Last one across the field is a rotten egg!” She sprinted ahead of them, hoping the blush of her cheeks would be mistaken for exertion, but slowed soon enough with a stitch in her side.

  George pulled Janetta by the arm, and the two took the lead. Little Frankie hung back initially, but quickly caught up with Lily. “I’m not sure this is a good idea,” he said. “No telling what George has in mind.”

  “Don’t worry,” was all she could think to say, as they made their way past the birches, into a forest of golden ash trees whose leaves had already changed.

  Frankie walked ahead of Lily, lifting fallen branches, clearing a path. “Watch where you’re walking,” he said.

  “Over here!” George’s voice thundered from up ahead.

  Lily noticed a wooden structure about twenty feet in front of her, too small for the four of them to share. The roof rose to the height of a full-grown man, but the walls only reached the halfway point. George entered through what could be described as more of a gate than door, and handed items out
to Janetta.

  “Never knew there was a turkey blind out here till my brother mentioned it.” He grabbed a quilt and stepped back outside. “He found it hunting with a buddy of his. Makes a pretty good hiding place.” He snapped the cover across the ground and looked at Janetta. “It’s going to get chilly,” he said to her. “I have a couple more blankets in the car. Would you mind?” Before Janetta could object, he kissed her cheek. “I thought you wanted to spoon in the moonlight.”

  “Don’t start without me,” she said, winking.

  “Wouldn’t think of it.” George kissed her on the nose and squeezed her behind. “We’ll wait right here.” He motioned for Lily and Frankie to sit as Janetta walked away. “And grab a plate of those doughnuts if there’s any left.”

  As soon as Janetta disappeared, George unwrapped newspaper from around three of the four quarts of homemade beer he’d stashed in the turkey blind. “Down the hatch,” he said, passing two of the bottles to his companions. George watched as Lily touched the beer to her lips without drinking. “Still yellow, I see.”

  Lily looked at him straight on, took three large gulps, and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. She closed her eyes to keep them from tearing as the beer burned its way down her throat. When she raised the bottle again, Frankie pried it from her fingers.

  “Give the lady what she wants,” George said, offering his beer to Lily with one hand while removing a flask from inside his coat.

  “She’s had enough.” Frankie grabbed Lily’s arm.

  “Let go!” She pulled away and took a generous swig. “I’m not leaving till I talk to George.”

  “You have to drink a little more first.” George tipped the bottle up to her lips and held it there.

  Frankie stood. “You told me to bring her here so you could apologize. That was it.”