Fields Of Gold

by Marie Bostwick

  “But Papa will be so angry!” I sniffed, trying to get hold of myself and failing. “I’ve disgraced him! I won’t be able to make him understand ...” I choked on my thoughts and buried my head in Mama’s shoulder, unable to put words to my fear, terrified that my father could never love me again. Somehow discovering so suddenly that I was to be two instead of one made me feel smaller, more alone, and more in need of my father’s love than ever.

  “Nonsense!” Mama clucked in reproach. “Your papa could never be ashamed of you. This won’t be easy, not for you—or us, either—but whatever we have to get through, we will. We’ll manage, as a family, just like we always have. I’m not saying he’ll be happy or that it will be easy to tell him, but you’ll see, he understands, oh ... a lot more than you think.”

  Mama fished around in her handbag for a handkerchief. Her tone softened a bit, but she kept her eyes downcast, searching inside her bag while she spoke. It was hard for her to speak plainly about such things. “Your papa and I ... we were ... we got married in a hurry, Eva. You understand what I’m saying? We were engaged anyway, and I’ve never for one instant regretted a thing, but when we moved the wedding up, well ... there was a lot of talk. You understand?”

  I nodded as I dried my eyes with the hankie she held out to me. Suddenly a lot of things about my parents, but especially about Mama, made more sense than it ever had.

  “Oh, Eva, people can be awfully cruel, but loose talk is the least of your problems. You’re so young! It’s going to take all your courage, but, like it or not, you’re going to be a mother and you have to be strong. Life is hard for a woman and even harder for a woman alone, but you’ll see, in the end it will all have been worth it.”

  She put her arm around me and stroked my hair. I could feel the sadness in her fingertips and knew that it was the last time she would touch me like that and the last time I could cry on her shoulder. From now on I would be too big for that kind of comfort. “You’ll see, Eva. Children are always worth it.”

  I believed her, everything she said.

  It took several days before I worked up enough courage to tell Papa about the baby. He was known for his ready grin and Irish humor, but when he was finally pushed to anger it was something to behold. His thick brows would draw together to a single, immovable line, and a stream of language would spill forth from him that was part English, part Gaelic, part gutter, and pure fury. His wrath had almost never been directed at me, but I was sure I was in for it this time. A part of me actually wanted to face the anger I felt he was entitled to. However small a penance it might be, enduring his righteous fury might remove some of the shame I’d brought on him.

  But he didn’t yell, or bluster, or even slam his fist into his hand. He didn’t allow himself the smallest gesture of ire. Instead he just stared at me hard, then looked at Mama, who confirmed the news with a nod of her head. Silence clouded and filled the room for a long moment before Papa spoke.

  “Will you be finishing school, then?”

  I shook my head no. Even if such a thing would have been possible, a ruined girl allowed to go to school with the rest of the students, I wouldn’t have returned to class. All my life, people had stared at me and whispered behind my back. I wouldn’t have them doing the same to my baby.

  “And, that fella. That ... Slim,” Papa said, a curl of derision playing at his lip as he spoke the name we both knew was no name at all, “will he be coming back, do you suppose?”

  “I don’t know, Papa.” Heat rose on my cheeks and the back of my neck when I realized how cheap he would think I’d held myself not even to have exacted a promise of return from my baby’s father. “I don’t think so,” I whispered and hung my head, too ashamed to look him in the eye.

  Surely it would come now, I thought. Surely all the anger and hot words he held back would finally spill out and soak me through to the bone. I wouldn’t have blamed him. Instead, he just rocked back on his heels and stared at a corner of the ceiling as though something important were written there. “I see,” he said, without looking at me, then turned and went to the barn, mumbling something about being late feeding the stock.

  He didn’t come in for supper. When the clock struck nine, Mama said we’d better be getting to bed. I wanted to go out and get him, but Mama said he needed some time alone. “Best let him come back when he’s ready. He’s got to think things through. Now go to sleep and quit brooding.”

  I went to bed, but didn’t sleep. I lay awake, ticking off the hours by tracking the moon’s progress across my window and waiting for the sound of a footfall on the porch and the squeak of the screen door opening. The moon had set, and I was half-dozing, waiting for day, when I heard the sound of someone trying to be quiet and a whispered shuffling of papers. Papa stood in his stocking feet, his boots removed to keep from waking anyone, bent over the kitchen table and poring over a stack of books he’d pulled out of a trunk where he stored them. He jerked in surprise when I asked him what he was doing.

  “Evangeline, why are you up? You should be getting your rest, especially now.” He gestured awkwardly in the direction of my still flat belly.

  “I was waiting for you. I ... I thought, maybe ...” I didn’t know what I’d thought, just that if I could think of something to say, maybe it would prime the pump and end his silence. That silence was more painful to me than a slap on the face.

  “Look here,” he said, pointing to one of the books on the table. He opened it and began flipping the pages, “I’ve got out my collected works of Shakespeare. He wasn’t a bad writer for an Englishman.” He winked. “Here’s my Hume’s history, and a book on French painters, and another by Saint Augustine. What I was thinking,” he continued excitedly, “is that you can keep studying here at home, even if you can’t go to school. I’ve got more books in here than you could read in a year. You finish these and you’ll know more than they’d ever teach you in high school anyway.”

  “That’s a good idea,” I agreed. It was such a relief to know he was still speaking to me, I’d have endorsed any plan he’d proposed, but I was genuinely interested. The sight of a new book always piqued my interest, and the idea of passing the time until the baby arrived wrapped in study of places and ideas far removed from Dillon was appealing.

  “Good!” he enthused. “I won’t have it said that the mother of my grandchild was dull-witted. We Glennons have never had much formal education, but we could never be called ignorant. Most of these books were my mother’s. Before she married, she was a cook for a rich family. When the old woman died, she left these books as a legacy to my mother. They were her most treasured possessions. She couldn’t read them herself, so she made me read them to her. We both got quite an education that way.”

  He was quiet for a moment, still with remembering. “My mother put a great store by learning. She wanted me to go to university, Trinity College in Dublin.” He spoke the name reverently, and I could almost see what a magical place it had become in his mind, a fairy tale of heaven whispered from mother to son. He smiled and brushed back the memory and longing. “We were so poor, I’m sure it never would have happened in any case, but when Ma died and there were so many mouths to feed, university couldn’t be thought of. My father buried his sorrows in the bottom of a bottle, and I caught a boat for Boston. That was that. I wanted better for you.

  “I’ve never spoken to you about this, Evangeline, but I’d thought, when you were done with the high school, you might go on to be a teacher before you settled down and got married. I’d put over two hundred dollars by already. If I could’ve gotten two or three more good crops, we might have managed it,” he said wistfully.

  “Oh, Papa!” I cried. “I’m so sorry, Papa. Not about Slim. I won’t ever say I’m sorry about him. I love him, and, heaven help me, if he were here today I don’t think I’d have done a thing differently, but I am sorry I ruined all your plans. I never meant to disappoint you or embarrass you.”

  “There, now. That’s enough.” He dismissed
my apology with a wave of his hand. “Sometimes the fates blow our plans to dust and something better comes out of it. If my mother’d had her plan for me, I’d be the most educated potato farmer ever to scratch an existence out of the rockiest five acres in County Tipperary. Instead, I’ve got a fine farm, a fine wife, and a fine daughter that I’m proud to call my own, no matter what her queer ideas on love, and a fine grandchild on the way that’ll probably be born with wings sproutin’ out of his back like Pegasus.”

  “You mean Hermes, Papa,” I corrected gently. “Pegasus was a horse.”

  “There now, you see? You’ve not even read my books and already you’re smarter than me. This baby’s bound to be a genius!”

  I laughed and put my arms around him. “I love you.”

  “I love you too, Evangeline.” We held each other, squeezing tight for a long moment before he spoke again.

  “You’re sure, then, that he won’t be coming back?” he asked, the hope that he was wrong showing plainly in his voice and face.

  “I’m sure, Papa.”

  He sighed. “Then I suppose this child will be needing a grandfather, won’t he?”

  “Or she,” I corrected him with a smile. We’ll both be needing you, I thought. I can’t even imagine how I could go on without you.

  I squeezed him again, even tighter.

  “Whooo-ah! Eva! Hey there!” I saw Ruby come loping across our yard, carrying a lumpy-looking gunnysack, waving her arm high and wide like she was signaling a train. Usually I was glad to see her, but today I bit my lip and sighed as I watched her hustle toward me. Well, I thought, no use putting it off. I put down the feed pail I’d been carrying and waited until she was near before opening the porch screen to let us both pass.

  “Hey, Ruby. How are you?”

  “How are you!” She made an exasperated face at me. “You drop off the face of the earth for over a month and all you can say is, ‘How are you?’ Eva Glennon, if you weren’t my best friend I swear I’d—” She lowered her voice and composed her face when she saw Mama coming up from the cellar, carrying a basket of potatoes. “Oh, hello, Mrs. Glennon.”

  “Good morning, Ruby.”

  Ruby stood awkwardly for a moment, wanting to continue with her interrogation, but knowing she couldn’t as long as Mama was in the room. “Oh, I almost forgot!” Ruby dug into the depths of the gunnysack she was carrying and pulled out a pint-sized Ball jar capped with red gingham and tied with green yarn. “My ma asked me to bring you this jar of strawberry preserves. Early Christmas present.”

  “How kind. Your mother’s preserves are always so much more delicious than mine. She’s quite a cook. Is she teaching you all her secrets, Ruby?”

  Ruby smiled and shook her head no, embarrassed by the question. It was well known in Dillon that Ruby couldn’t boil water. Once she’d made an apple pie for her papa’s birthday and mistook the salt for sugar. Mr. Carter told the story often, and each time he told it, his show of spitting and sputtering, pretending to taste the pie, became longer and more exaggerated. Ruby always laughed good-naturedly along with his audience, but I could see the color rise in her face each time he repeated the tale. After that she kind of lost interest in the kitchen.

  “Don’t you worry, Ruby,” Mama said reassuringly. “It takes years of practice and mistakes to make a good cook. You’ll learn how yet. Thank your mother for me. I’ve got something for her, too. Make sure I give it to you before you leave.”

  “Thank you, ma’am,” Ruby answered automatically. I could see in her eyes that though she knew Mama was trying to be kind, she’d just as soon be spared such painful encouragement. When Mama turned, Ruby raised her eyebrows at me and twitched her head in the direction of my room. There would be no avoiding the list of questions I knew was coming. We excused ourselves and went into my room, where we could talk privately.

  Ruby flopped stomach-first onto my bed like a rag doll and propped her head up on her hands, staring at me as I settled myself next to her on the patchwork quilt.

  “Well,” she pressed, “where have you been? At first I thought you were sick. I came over three times to see you, but your mother said you weren’t feeling well and I should come back another day. About a week after school started, Mrs. Carmondy assigned Carla Winslow to sit beside me in your old seat because she said you weren’t coming back to school, so I thought you must be dying or something. Now I come out here and you’re fine, feeding the chickens and looking at me like I’m the odd one for asking where you’ve been!”

  I sat calmly watching her face, working hard to keep myself from smiling and enjoying the mounting frustration my flat expression was causing my impatient and dear friend.

  “So?” Ruby huffed impatiently.

  “So what?” I asked innocently. Ruby heaved a down pillow at me and let out a growl of irritation as the pillow thunked me softly on the head and a stray feather floated calmly to the floor.

  “So, are you dying or what?” she demanded. A stricken look passed over her face, and she put her palm over her mouth the way she always did when she realized she’d said something she shouldn’t, which was pretty often. “You’re not, are you? I mean, you look fine, but ... Oh, Eva! You don’t have some rare disease that makes you look like always but eats up your insides and turns them black, do you?” Ruby clapped her hand over her mouth again and then thumped herself on the forehead with a fist, “Oh no. There I go again. I’m so stupid! I always say the wrong thing. What I meant was—”

  “I know what you meant, you goose.” Poor Ruby, I thought. I should have told her before. She was my best friend. It was wrong to have kept her in the dark. “I’m fine. Really.” I took a deep breath and plunged ahead, determined to sound casual and brave and normal. “It’s just that I’m going to have a baby, that’s all. That’s why I can’t come to school anymore. I’m studying at home instead. Papa is helping me.”

  Ruby stared at me, her mouth gaping in a perfect round O of shock. “A baby! A real baby?” She was surprised into silence for a long moment, and then her expression boiled and clouded into anger. I felt my heart sink. She is scandalized, I thought. All my worst, secret fears about telling her were going to come true. She would stomp out of my room and slam the door. I’d never see her again, except in town on the arm of Mary Kay Munson, in whose ear she’d be whispering, telling her all my confidences and laughing at me. I really was alone.

  I steeled myself for her exit. Ruby eyes sparked, and a deluge of words poured from her. “Eva Glennon, you’re going to have a baby and you didn’t tell me? I’ve never kept a secret from you in my whole life. I even told you about my drunken Uncle Dwight grabbing me and kissing me in the barn. I thought we were friends! I thought we were always supposed to depend on each other, no matter what!” she spat accusingly. “How could you keep a thing like that from me?”

  “Ruby, I’m sorry,” I said, genuinely bothered to think I’d hurt her feelings. “I was going to tell you eventually. I just thought it would be best to keep it to myself for a while. I was afraid you’d be mad at me or ... I don’t know what I thought. I was just afraid you wouldn’t want to be my friend anymore.”

  She calmed down some, but I could see that she wasn’t entirely ready to forgive me. “Well,” she said, “I can see not telling the whole world, but I’d think you’d fill in your best friend, at least to let me know why you weren’t coming back to school. You had me scared to death. You should know me better than that. We’re friends forever. Nothing could change that.”

  “Oh, Ruby, do you mean that?” She nodded an affirmation, and I reached over and squeezed her so tight I’m sure she couldn’t have drawn a breath if she’d wanted to. “I’m so glad! Nothing could ever be as good anymore if I didn’t have you to talk to. And I’m going to need you, you know.” My eyes started to fill with tears of relief. “I don’t have any blood sisters, and the baby’s going to need an aunt. I guess after all we’ve been through together that makes us practically related, doesn’t it?”
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  “’Course it does.” Ruby nodded firmly, then broke into a wide grin of surprise. “Aunt Ruby! Think of that! We’ll be great together. We’ll sew baby kimonos and blankets, and when she’s older... Oh, I hope it’s a girl! When she’s older we’ll take her riding on Ranger and go on picnics and everything! I’ll be just like a real aunt. Except for one thing. I’m not changing diapers, Eva; that’s your job.” She chuckled at the thought and started to laugh, but stopped when she noticed the tears streaming down my face.

  “Now, don’t go crying, Eva. I’m sorry. I was only joking about the diapers. I’ll change them too, I swear I will!”

  “It’s not that.” I wiped tears from my face. “I’m just happy, and everything makes me cry these days. Ruby, you’re such a good friend. I’m so lucky! I should have told you before.” We both grinned, me through my tears and Ruby with all her teeth showing. We hugged once more and promised never to keep secrets from each other again. She swore she forgave me, though I knew a part of her was still miffed that I’d kept her in the dark for so long.

  Ruby spoke soothingly. “I ’spect it was your mama’s idea to keep things quiet anyway. Old-fashioned. Like you read in those English novels, a girl gets in trouble and then disappears, never to be seen again. A lot of married ladies still hide out when they’re expecting, as though no one will notice and folks will think babies just pop out of the air like magic.”

  “No, it wasn’t Mama’s fault,” I protested. “I wanted to keep it to myself for a while. I wanted time to think about the baby, you understand?” But I could see from the look on her face that she didn’t, and I didn’t blame her. How could I explain it to her?

  Confinement sounded like a punishment, something that people came up with because they were embarrassed that other people might look at a woman’s swelling belly and know what she’d been doing, but I didn’t think so. I thought it was something women had invented as an excuse to be alone, sit very still, and treasure every little sensation and change going on inside, to quiet their minds in preparation to meet the most important person in the world.