Grace looked over and stared at the single word on the slate. Then a short sniff. Straightening her back, Grace darted her eyes away and then gazed back at the girl again. Her voice was a whisper. “Was there no one else who could take you in?”
The girl shook her head.
“I’m so terribly sorry.”
The girl gazed away.
Grace said, “Have you never spoken?”
The girl shook her head again, this time with vigor.
“Did you stop speaking because of the storm?”
The girl gave a single nod.
Grace’s mood changed from sadness to resignation. “I can help you.”
In that long moment, a new sensation was beginning to surge through the girl, a premonition, something coming up in her throat. But there was such sincere determination in Grace’s face. “I can. I can find you a home. A better place, a safer place.”
The girl thought of asylums. She pictured herself chained to a steel bed in a room without windows, without light or sound, a place worse than death.
Surely this woman Grace wouldn’t send her there, but Reena always said not to trust a one of them. She said you could start out with a well-meaning one and have that person overpowered by a mean one. Better not to trust the lot of them, she’d said. The girl shook her head, forgot about the slate she held in her lap, and pointed strenuously to the house behind them.
“I can see that someone has shown you a great deal of kindness. But I can do so much more. I have at my disposal the ability to make a real change, a lasting change, for you.”
The girl listened.
“We could see a doctor—”
At that the girl stiffened. She picked up the slate and chalk and thrust it back into Grace’s lap, anger firm in her movements and her back, which had gone rigid.
Grace appeared stricken. “I’m sorry,” she said.
The girl held still.
Grace didn’t move for a long time, either. “I see that I’m pushing you too fast. I regret what I said.” She took a deep breath and let it out. “Truly I’m sorry.”
The girl blinked.
“For now, let’s simply be friends. How about that?”
The girl pursed her lips and then finally nodded.
“Very well. I have only one more question to ask of you. What, pray tell, is your name? I’ve asked around, and no one seems to know it.”
The girl almost took back the slate and wrote it out for her. But Grace said, “Of course, in the newspapers you’re known as Miss Girl—”
The girl pulled back again. Newspapers? Reena had mentioned something about newspapers, too, but what did the newspapers know of her? Fear knotted inside her stomach. She would not tell the woman, kind as she was, another thing. The girl stood up and pushed aside the satchel and the other things Grace had given her, this time with even more urgency.
Slowly Grace rose beside her, regret and worry written all over her tensed face. “I’m sorry again, truly I am. It seems I always say too much.” She sighed. “But keep the slate, please. It’s my gift to you, as are these other things. Nothing is owed in return.”
The ocean wind picked up long strands of the girl’s hair and sent coils of it flying. Out in the alley, sandy swirls had kicked up like ghosts at play.
Grace looked the girl over. “I’ll see you again?”
The girl nodded.
Grace seemed reluctant to leave, but she walked down the steps and into the yard before turning. “Soon, I hope.”
Watching Grace walk farther away, the girl would’ve liked to believe the odds would someday be in her favor, but the knot of fear still lived in her stomach, and she wanted the nice young woman, despite her dresses and her good intentions, to leave, to disappear into those sandy ghosts that blew up out of these alleys. Doctors and newspapers?
Grace reached the gate and let herself out. The wind whipped at her hair, too; long streams of it went flying like ribbons, freed from her hat. She plucked the stray ones off her face, turned back one more time, and said with a smile, “By the way, you look beautiful in the dress. Like any other girl.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
GRACE
I walked into the office and told Ira, “You’ll never guess what happened this morning. I talked with her.”
After I placed a bag of donated clothing on the table, I smiled, remembering. “Well, I talked to her, actually, and she wrote to me. It was fascinating, and I learned the most tragic thing. All the members of her family died in the storm three years ago. She was left utterly alone.”
Ira stood in his usual pose, hands clasped behind his back. His face was freshly sunburned again.
“She took another dress of mine, gladly, in fact, and some other things, too. She didn’t seem terribly impressed with the poetry book; much more so with the dress and the art supplies I’d sent her way before, but that’s only natural, a girl of her age. Then I pulled out the slate and began asking her some questions. She didn’t hesitate to write back to me.”
“Congratulations.”
“Don’t be so quick to congratulate me, however. In only a few moments’ time, I managed to somehow frighten her. I’m not sure what I did. I offered her help.”
“What sort of help?”
“I mentioned a doctor. She didn’t like that.”
“Many people are superstitious. They don’t trust modern medicine any more than the quackery of the past.”
“I realize that now. And another thing, Ira: she is the one the newspapers are writing about. The Miss Girl who runs the wall.”
He looked baffled. “I’m sorry, but I haven’t taken the time to read the newspapers lately.”
I gave him the short version of the story. “It’s no matter. Public interest should die down soon. I haven’t told anyone else, and as far as I can tell, you and I are the only people who know she is the one.”
Now he was wiping off his spectacle lenses, but he gazed my way with a smile. He was much more attractive without the hardening effect of his eyeglasses. I was sorry that he must wear them. “I’m surprised she would call so much attention to herself, or perhaps it was unintentional.”
“Most definitely it had to be unintentional. Anyway, I do believe I’ve started something valuable with her. I do feel we have the beginnings of an open exchange.”
“Good for you, then,” he said, but he looked troubled.
“Are you well?”
“Yes,” he said, then gestured to a letter on the desk. “But I’ve heard from a colleague of mine who has been working in the Rio Grande Valley, near Brownsville, on the border with Mexico. His father in Houston has taken ill, and therefore he must leave his post and come this way. And he writes of the most deplorable conditions. Most of the poor are immigrants from Mexico: penniless, starving, with sick children, and still they work, picking fruit for the most part, because it is all they can do to earn a living. I think he would like to switch positions with me.”
Ira brightened, but it seemed rather forced. “As always, there are so many places in need and not enough of us to go around.” He gazed toward the window wistfully, as if he could imagine himself leaving, flying free of complicated feelings. But perhaps I was flattering myself. He had served in many places before Galveston, though it staggered me to think that he would someday leave here as well.
My voice cracked when I said, “Of course.” I had to think of something else or I would collapse. “Do you ever wonder, then, why all this suffering? I mean, do you ever question God or your faith?”
His shoulders lowered, and then his entire demeanor softened. “All the time. I question it all the time. But even though I don’t understand everything about God’s plan, I still must persevere and continue to work. That is how I get past the doubts.”
“Such an honest answer.”
“Faith can be fragile, even among those of us in the ministry.” And then his voice was softer still, and his eyes were more open. “The biggest mistake is to try
to go through it alone.”
He moved closer, then took another step, which brought him right before me, and before I could breathe, he had wrapped his hand around my wrist, the most considered and caring of gestures. I smelled hair pomade and shaving powder and the scent of him, and in that moment I desperately wanted to cling to him again, to put my arms around him and lay my head on his chest, as one would lay one’s head on a feather pillow. Sinking, falling.
My shoe squeaked when I moved my foot, and a floorboard creaked when Ira shifted his weight and moved closer still.
“Hold still,” he said and then he touched my hair.
It came out of me too quickly to stop it. “Did I ever tell you that I am engaged?”
Something had been caught in my hair. A piece of a leaf, and Ira was removing it for me. His touch so gentle. He offered it, now on the tip of his finger, for me to see.
But his face fell as my words hit him, and there was an immediate sense of retreat. I was engaged; thus, it was too late for him already. Too late for me, too. In my world, one did not break an engagement; to agree to marry was a solemn, almost-sacred promise.
Releasing my wrist, he stepped back and said, “No, I wasn’t aware of that.”
“I’m to be married next year.”
He cleared his throat and blinked several times. “Then I give you my best wishes.”
“He’s a wonderful young man. His name is Jonathan, and we’ve been friends since childhood.”
The walls made short popping and creaking sounds. When Ira said, “I shall pray for you a blessed union,” they could have been the sounds of my bones breaking.
“Even our parents were friends.”
His face showed the shock of this new information, along with a deep hurt. But there wasn’t even a hint of sarcasm in his voice when he said, “How wonderful for you.”
That evening I attended a party with Jonathan. After long days at the seawall and our separation from each other and our friends, he was almost desperate to socialize and spend the evening out together, and I was willing to go for his benefit. Additionally my impossible feelings for Ira demanded that I spend more time with my fiancé.
In the carriage on the way to the party, he told me, “Father will not let up. He continues to insist that I spend my days down at the seawall, observing this ‘modern engineering miracle,’ as he now calls it. But what I do is actually quite simple. I report back everything that I’ve learned about the wall, even some things I didn’t learn . . .” He stopped and gave me a wink. “But he still doesn’t find it enough. My education has not been satisfactory.”
For me, the first two months of summer had passed quickly. I watched the sky blazing with gold and burgundy as the sun went down. “Summer is well under way. It will be over before we have time to appreciate it.”
Jonathan said, “You sound like my father.”
“I’m sorry.”
He folded his hands into his lap and kneaded them together. “And what about you and your days? How are you holding up? Are you tiring of the work yet?”
“Surprisingly, no. Even though Mother has released me from my obligation early, I don’t want to stop. I find it rewarding. And I feel a sense of duty to the people and to Ira.”
Jonathan seemed hurt, but he looked over at me and smiled. “Ira, is it now?”
I remembered why I’d fallen for Jonathan. He rarely took anything too seriously. “We agreed to use our given names on the first day we met.”
“Very modern. But is he not a self-righteous bore? I’ve heard he is.”
“Not at all.”
“He probably goes to bed with a Bible and wakes up in a bordello.”
I was surprised he would say something so crass. “Impossible.”
“He’s genuine?”
“Yes.”
“Well, what do you know?”
“He’s truly dedicated, and I find that true dedication is never boring.”
Jonathan stared straight ahead, and his voice grew softer. “I’m worried about you.”
Smiling, I tried to catch his eye. “Whatever for?”
His focus stayed on the street ahead of us, but his tone became serious. “The other day someone suggested, uh, made me think that . . . Well, since you haven’t had a father, you might become attached to older men and their causes . . . more easily than others would.”
I released a long breath. It was true that I held on to childishly idealized images of my father, of a man too perfect to stand up to the kind of scrutiny that the rest of us put each other through so regularly. But my work in the alleys was the most authentic thing I’d ever done. Jonathan’s concerns were appreciated but unwarranted. “Ira isn’t an old man. He’s probably only about thirty.”
“I didn’t know that.”
As we rode onward, the night air was warm and heavy around us, comforting as a blanket. “Don’t worry about me, Jonathan. I’m fine.”
He looked surprised as he turned to me. “Even with Etta . . . ?”
“Yes, even with Etta here, stealing all of the attention. She must need it. I only wish I could know her better. She remains so unknown to me.”
“To us all.”
“I’ve tried to regain my footing with her, but to no avail.” A new headache began to throb at my temples. I shouldered the blame for the break with Etta, but she was choosing to maintain it. Viola had once called her “Etta the Aloof.”
“Perhaps you should do something away from the house, just the two of you.”
“Perhaps,” I answered and then began to think about it, about the respite we would both feel if we were to finally clear the air. Maybe I would try again with Etta.
At the event, the unexpectedly cool evening floated me from face to face. I mingled and caught up on my friends’ activities, enjoyed excellent food and entertainment, and was a bit surprised that I found so much pleasure being among my usual company. In fact, many times during the night my love for them welled up within me. Clearly my work with Ira had not taken away from my enjoyment of this other life. There was room for both inside me.
Later I saw Etta at the party, surrounded by admirers, of course, but it was now a smaller group of admirers. I managed to pull her aside and ask her to lunch with me the following Sunday after church, and she agreed. Then she walked about the grounds with Jonathan and me, and later we watched fireworks rocket over the city and erupt against the bowl of black sky, trailed by their smoky, weblike remains. The evening had been lovely, with Jonathan at my side, and a cleansing sense of relief washed over me, too, as I knew that I would perhaps soon make my peace with Etta.
Over lunch the following Sunday, I wasted little time with small talk, and as soon as the waiters had taken our order, I said to Etta, “I apologized once before when the wound was still fresh. I’m offering you my apologies again.”
We were sitting at a table next to a picture window with views of the beach and the gulf beyond. Etta stared that way for a long moment. “It’s not necessary for you to apologize again.”
“I think it is.”
“Your disclosure about my circus man did me no harm.”
“Yes. I’ve noticed that.”
“So, again, there’s nothing to be sorry about.”
“You’re too gracious. Despite your protests to the contrary, I was wrong.”
The waiter arrived with our first course, a seafood bisque.
I wished I could tell her about Ira. I wished I could tell someone. His hand on my wrist, his eyes when they rested on me. I had no one to talk to about it.
Etta accepted my apology once again but would not open the door. She would not talk to me, really talk to me. We ate the next course in silence.
Over dessert, she spoke of the house, the servants, and my mother’s business. She wanted to know about the construction of the house, overseen by my father’s father, how long we had lived there and how long Clorinda had been with us—for all of my life.
She always perked up at any m
ention of my mother. Finally she said, “Bernadette has spent several long days away from the house conducting business by herself, and although I have offered her my assistance, she always turns me down.”
I set aside my spoon. Her rebuttal and this meaningless talk were too hard to swallow. I answered her unspoken question as best I could: “I don’t know where she goes. She has always done business on her own, and I’ve always been relieved not to have to share it. Someday, I must learn to handle our affairs, but for now she takes on that chore and always has.”
With a look of serious consideration, Etta pondered my answer and then went back to eating. I still did not know her at all, because that was obviously the way Etta wanted it. Etta and I would not recover from my mistake; the damage had been too deep.
Chapter Twenty-Six
THE GIRL
“Don’t you be wearing that one, child,” said Reena when she saw it.
The girl clutched the pale-blue skirt in both hands, as if to say, You’ll have to pry it off of me. She had tried to wear the flowered hat, too, but found that it was too big on her head and the wind kept threatening to blow it away for good. She loved all of her new things, however, and had been familiarizing herself again with the poems of Emily Brontë. So many were sad, many about dying.
Reena shook her head and pointed straight into the girl’s face, like an arrow. “Of course you like it, and maybe that nice lady meant to be nice. But it’s no good. You be asking for trouble if you wear that one about.”
The girl shook her head.
“Mark my word.”
Looking down, the girl held still.
“Save it for a dress-up game, but don’t you be going anywheres in that frock.”
The girl nodded but didn’t mean it one bit.
“You best listen to me this time.”
She nodded again, hating to lie to Reena, but she had no intention of not wearing that silky blue dress and all of the new undergarments beneath it, too. It was, however, a hot thing to wear when the sun was bearing down, so she saved it for the evening. During the day, she wore her old discards on the boat with Harry, but she wasn’t about to give up either of the dresses that had come from Grace. What Reena didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.
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