Daughters

by Florence Osmund

  “Okay, I’ll stop.”

  “Thanks. It’s hard to be this fired up and talk good grammar too.”

  I give up.

  Marie arranged for a limo to pick them up at the airport. Once home, she showed Rachael to the guest bedroom, which she had spiced up with new curtains and a bedspread that were more contemporary than what she’d had before. On the pillow she had put a stuffed bear that Karen told her was popular with teens.

  “Hey, this is cool.”

  “So I’m officially hip?”

  “Of course you are. Now my Dad, that’s another story.”

  “Now, now. Don’t be too hard on him. Just remember, he came into his dad role late in the game. That makes it a lot harder, you know.”

  “I know, I know.” Rachael rolled her eyes. “Grandma tells me that all the time, but I came in late too. No one seems to notice that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Nothing.” She tossed her suitcase on the bed, her back toward Marie. Then she turned around and said, “There’s no lock on this door.”

  “No, of course not. Is that a problem?”

  “No. I’m just used to locks, that’s all.”

  “Okay…well, let’s get you settled in.” Marie showed her where to hang her clothes. “We’re going to have dinner at the local pizza parlor in about an hour. Karen’s going to join us. Then I thought we could take in a movie. How’s Harvey?”

  “The one about the imaginary rabbit?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “That’s for…okay, I can dig it.”

  They met Karen at Mario’s and ordered the largest pizza on the menu, loaded, the way Rachael liked it. When Marie and Karen ordered a glass of wine, a look of horror swept across Rachael’s face.

  “You’re gonna drink?” Rachael asked.

  Marie glanced at Karen and then Rachael. “Yes. Is that okay?”

  Rachael stared past Marie with an emotionally flat expression.

  “Rachael?” No response. “Are you okay?” Marie asked.

  Rachael smiled. “Sure,” she said, snapping out of the momentary fugue that had engulfed her. Marie and Karen exchanged glances, but before either one could say anything, Rachael had changed the subject.

  Marie asked about Rachael’s school and her studies. She asked about her teachers and how her horseback riding lessons were coming along. Karen must have had other ideas about suitable subject matter. “So, do you have a boyfriend?” she asked.

  Marie shot Karen a foreboding look. Karen shrugged. “No. Well, kinda,” Rachael said. “And he’s from a good family. Anyway, there’s this boy in my homeroom that’s cute. Nathan. And he likes me, I know.”

  “How do you know that?” Karen asked.

  “Because Susan Jeffrey told me.”

  “How does she know?” Marie asked.

  “Because Nathan told Johnny, and Johnny told Susan.”

  Marie and Karen exchanged glances.

  “Boys are so immature,” Rachael explained.

  “I have news for you, Rachael,” Karen advised. “That doesn’t change much as they get older.” All three laughed, and then Marie and Karen laughed some more.

  “We’re going to see Harvey after this,” Marie told Karen. “Do you want to join us?”

  “No, once was enough for me. Maurice and I saw it last weekend.”

  “Okay. Do you want to join us for breakfast tomorrow?”

  “No, I’ll grab something at home. Maurice is going to call me in the morning from New York.” Karen smiled through a blush.

  “Maurice is Karen’s beau,” Marie explained to Rachael.

  “He’s not my beau,” Karen corrected.

  “Is so.”

  “Is not.”

  “Every time she talks about him, she eats chocolate.”

  “Do not.”

  “Do so.”

  “And they talk about us,” Rachael mocked.

  Marie and Rachael returned to Marie’s apartment just past eleven-thirty. “We should go to bed. It will be a long day tomorrow. Do you need anything, Rachael?”

  “Are you kidding?”

  Marie stared at her for several seconds. “Do you need anything, like…”

  “Sorry. No, I don’t. But do we really have to go to bed now? It’s not that late.”

  “It’s almost midnight. How does that compare to your normal bedtime?”

  “Okay. Okay.” More eye-rolling. “Good night, Marie.”

  “Good night, Rachael.”

  “Marie?”

  “Yes?”

  “Thanks for everything.”

  “You’re welcome, sweetheart. Pleasant dreams…about H-A-R-V-E-Y.”

  “Oh, Marie.”

  Rachael was up, bathed, and dressed by seven the next morning. “So what’s cookin’ for today?”

  “I thought after breakfast I would give you a tour of my little town. How does that sound?”

  “Like crazy. Let’s go.”

  After breakfast they walked to Marie’s studio, where Rachael was introduced to Marie’s staff. Rachael sat in Marie’s high-back desk chair and twirled around several times. “You’ve got to be kidding. This is crazy. I can’t wait ‘til I’m on my own.”

  “And just what will you do then?”

  “I don’t know. Not have an office like this, that’s for sure.”

  “Why not?”

  “Girls like me don’t end up in places like this.”

  “Says who? You work hard in school, and then in college…”

  Rachael shot her a look. “No way am I goin’ to college.”

  “Why not? A lot of girls go to college nowadays.”

  “Right. Where I come from, you’re lucky to make it through high school.”

  “You’re with your father now. Things will be different. My guess is he expects you to go to college. Everyone in his family has gone, including the women.”

  “Yeah, right. ‘Til my mom comes back. Then we’ll see what happens.” She twirled around in the chair one more time. “If she comes back.”

  Rachael jumped out of Marie’s desk chair and headed toward the door. “So what’s next?” she asked.

  Marie wanted to take Rachael by the shoulders and shake her, but her nurturing instincts prevailed. She took Rachael’s arm. “Let’s walk down to Karen’s shop.”

  “Hey, you two. What’s cookin’?” Karen said when they entered.

  Good grief. Rachael’s slang had gone epidemic.

  “I’m just trying to be hip.”

  “Marie has tried that, too, Karen,” Rachael said. “No offense, but you two are just a little too…”

  “Hey! Careful. I can have you on the next plane back to Chicago, you know.”

  “What I was going to say is that you two are just a little too hip already.”

  “Nice save, sweetheart.”

  Karen walked Rachael to the jewelry counter. “Pick out any pair of earrings you want, Rachael. My Christmas present to you.”

  “Get out of here.”

  Rachael spent the next twenty minutes trying on almost every pair of earrings in the case while Karen told Marie about her Christmas with Maurice. “He laid a little bit of a bombshell on me Christmas Eve.”

  Judging by the look on Karen’s face, what she was about to say wasn’t going to be good. Marie braced herself for the worst. “What was that?”

  “Turns out he’s Jewish.” She pulled out a chocolate candy bar from behind the cash register and began eating it.

  “Jewish? And this is the first he’s mentioned it?”

  “Yeah. A year later, and now he tells me.”

  “So what does that do for the two of you? Are you okay with it?”

  Karen searched the area where Rachael was standing and lowered her voice. “Here’s the thing. I don’t think it matters to me. His mother is Jewish, but he wasn’t raised in that religion. He wasn’t raised in any religion. But the fact that he didn’t tell me up front bothers me.”

&nbs
p; Marie thought back to the numerous times she had been faced with whether or not to tell someone something important about her background, up front or otherwise.

  “His mother the hypochondriac?”

  “That’s the one. He said they didn’t go to temple because she thought there were too many germs there.”

  “Good grief.”

  “My dad’s Jewish, but I’m not. No big deal,” Rachael said.

  “How did you hear what we were talking about all the way over there?” Marie asked.

  “I have good ears.”

  “Rachael, you and your good ears may pick out any outfit in the store. My Christmas present to you,” Marie said.

  Karen finished complaining about Maurice while Rachael tried on clothes.

  “So now what?” Marie asked.

  “I’m giving it time to sink in. I’m hoping it won’t matter as much in a few days.”

  After Marie paid Karen for Rachael’s outfit, they left her shop and continued with the tour of Atchison.

  The next day, Marie and Rachael started to get ready for the theater where they were going to see a local performance of Oklahoma!. “Can I wear my new outfit?” Rachael asked.

  “Sure. Hurry up. We’re going to leave in twenty minutes.”

  Five minutes later, Rachael came out wearing her new clothes. She had a wide smile on her face. “Thank you for the outfit.” She rushed to Marie, gave her a hug, and mumbled something into Marie’s chest that sounded a lot like “I love you.”

  The following day, they had lunch at Whitey’s, a coffee shop frequented mostly by local business owners. Afterward, they walked back to Marie’s apartment to pick up her car so she could show her the rest of the town.

  “You sure know a lotta people here,” Rachael said, referring to all the people in the restaurant who singled her out to say hello.

  “It’s a small community, not that different from St. Charles. Both our fathers know just about everyone there too.”

  “Yeah, but that’s different.”

  “How so?”

  “They’re men.”

  “So?”

  “Men are different.”

  Marie smiled. “I’ll give you that, but what’s that got to do with knowing people?”

  “When men know a lot of people it means they’re successful. My mom knew a lot of people, too, but…” She paused. “Can we change the subject?”

  “Sure.”

  “Cool.”

  Marie drove by Amelia Earhart’s birth home. “First female to fly solo across the Atlantic.”

  “Cool.”

  “You could learn a lot from her.”

  Rachael rolled her eyes. “Yeah, right.”

  Marie ignored her response. “She was determined to be a pilot, even though it was a man’s world, and she didn’t give up, even when she was faced with huge obstacles.”

  “Where is she today?”

  “She and another pilot were attempting to fly around the world when their plane disappeared somewhere over the Pacific. She was just thirty-nine.”

  “That’s crummy.”

  “You know what I think you should do when you go home?”

  “No, what?”

  “Go to the library and look her up. You may find her to be an interesting role model. One of her quotes I remember from college is, ‘The woman who can create her own job is the woman who will win fame and fortune.’ Isn’t that a great quote?”

  “Mm-hmm. From someone who probably grew up in some fancy house with rich parents who gave her everything she needed to be someone.”

  “Think again, Miss Know-It-All. She didn’t have it so easy. Her father was an alcoholic, and she didn’t always live with her parents because of it. She tried to attend college on two different occasions, but dropped out both times due to illness. When she decided she wanted to take flying lessons, she didn’t have enough money for them, and neither did her parents, so she worked every job she could get her hands on, even driving a truck.”

  “That’s cool. I get it.”

  “She was gutsy.” Marie gave her a warm smile. “Like you.” She put her arm around Rachael’s shoulders. “C’mon. Let’s go home.”

  The Edwards family was outside when they arrived home. Marie introduced Rachael to each of them: six-year-old Wayne, Jr.; three-year-old Fran; one-year-old Ellen; Julia; and Wayne, Sr. Julia invited Marie and Rachael to join them for dinner. Before Marie could say anything, Rachael blurted out, “Cool, what are you having?”

  “Rachael…” Someone was going to have to teach that child manners.

  Julia laughed. “That’s okay, Marie. We’re having pot roast, and there’s plenty to go around.” She looked directly at Rachael. “And peach cobbler for dessert.”

  Rachael’s face lit up. “Can we, Marie?”

  Marie smiled. “Of course. What time would you like us, Julia?”

  “How’s six?”

  “Can we come early and help with anything?”

  “If Rachael would like to come a little early and spend some time with the kids, that would be great.”

  Marie panicked. Without me? “Sure.”

  Once in her apartment, Marie and Rachael sat down in the living room. Marie gave her a solemn look, and Rachael burst out laughing.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “The look on your face when Julia asked me to come down early to be with the kids. That was crazy.”

  “First of all, you should have waited for me to respond to her invitation to dinner. It wasn’t your place to accept it. Secondly, it’s Mrs. Edwards to you, not Julia. Third, it was rude to ask what they were having. And fourth…”

  Rachael put her hands on her hips. “And if you’re going to tell me you don’t trust me with her kids…”

  “I wasn’t going to say that at all.”

  “I’m fourteen years old, and…”

  Marie sighed. “I wasn’t…”

  “I’m sorry for the other things I did.”

  Marie peered deep into Rachael’s eyes and into the wounded soul she suspected was in her all along but was too scared to emerge. “Why don’t you wash up? It will be time for you to go down to Julia’s before you know it.”

  “Marie?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m glad you invited me here.”

  “Me, too, hon.”

  The car ride to the airport the next day was a solemn one. Marie kept trying to lift Rachael’s spirits, but Rachael kept sinking back into an unpleasant mood. While Marie thought she needed to snap out of it, she also had to keep reminding herself of Rachael’s troubled past and the fact she had just turned fourteen.

  Once seated in the gate waiting area, Marie presented Rachael with a small white box tied with a blue ribbon, Rachael’s favorite color.

  “What’s this?”

  “Open it.”

  She removed a gold bracelet from the box. A heart-shaped charm with her initials engraved on it dangled from the bracelet. She glanced up at Marie.

  “Read the back.”

  Rachael turned the charm around.

  Happy 14th birthday

  Love, Marie

  Tears welled up in Rachael’s eyes and then rolled down her cheeks. She made no attempt to swipe them away. She leaned in for a hug. Marie held her until her shoulders stopped jerking.

  “No one has ever done this much for me. Not in my whole life.” She pulled herself away from Marie’s hold and gave her a sad look. “So what’s in this for you?”

  Marie stared at her for several seconds. “What’s in it for me? I’ll tell you what’s in it for me. It gives me great pleasure doing something nice for someone I care about.”

  Rachael stared back. “You know you just ended that sentence with a preposition.”

  The stewardess announced they were ready to board the plane. Rachael wiped her eyes and got up from her seat. She turned to Marie and saluted. “Later, gator.”

  On the hour-and-a-half-long drive home from the airport, Mari
e reflected on the past four days with Rachael. Her initial objective of merely wanting to be there for her, during a time period in her life when she so desperately needed a female adult to talk to, had been accomplished, but she hadn’t been prepared for the delicate psyche she discovered when she peeled back a few of Rachael’s layers. Most disturbing had been Rachael’s comments about how success wasn’t in the cards for someone like her.

  She thought about Rachael’s moodiness and unexpected reaction to things, like when she and Karen had ordered a glass of wine with dinner, and when she’d asked if there was a lock on her bedroom door. She rehashed their conversation outside of Amelia Earhart’s home about how men knowing a lot of people was different from women knowing a lot of people, and the so-called uncles who had periodically stayed with them, men who got drunk and routinely beat up on her mother. Marie wondered what else these uncles had done.

  Rachael’s mother. How could she abandon her own daughter like that? It had been eighteen months since anyone had heard from her. Even if Marie gave Judy every benefit of the doubt, unless she was dead, there could be no legitimate excuse for not getting in touch with Rachael or Ben, if for no other reason than to make sure Rachael was alright.

  Marie thought about her own abandonment issue with her father, and while he at least provided for her financially while she was growing up, she still felt the consequences of his not being in her life in other ways. She could only imagine how Rachael felt.

  CHAPTER 17

  Segregation

  The next day, worn out from craving more now than ever to someday have a family of her own and understanding the consequences of her racial identity, Marie phoned her father.

  “Can I ask you a huge favor, Dad?”

  “Sure. Anything.”

  “I want to see the South.”

  “The South?”

  “Yes. I want to see where colored people live and how it differs from white people. I want to see where you and your parents and grandparents lived. I want to…”

  “Hold on, daughter. Let’s talk about this. What are you really looking to gain from going there?”

  “I want to be closer to you and Claire. And everybody. I want to understand your background—which is my background too.”

  “Sweetheart, you don’t want to see the South firsthand, believe me.”