Maybe I was imagining it, but Morgan’s concern was so deep and genuine it seemed like more than just sympathy for a cherished hero. Then again, perhaps it wasn’t anything more complicated than that. He was mad about planes and the men who flew them and dreamed of flying on his own one day. Maybe it was just the Lindbergh name that drew him. Or could he be picking up on my own distraction and worry? As I watched him kneeling on the cold floor night after night, begging God for a happy ending, eyes and hands clenched so tightly you couldn’t have pried them open, I couldn’t help but wonder. Maybe he knew, in some deep recess of his soul, that they were connected, he and his curly-headed half-brother. The Lindbergh babies. I dared not ask him.
Finally, we learned the truth. Our prayers had been fruitless from the beginning. The baby was dead. He had been from the first night and for all the drawn-out days and nights that came after. They found him with his skull crushed in, lying in a shallow grave so near his home that if he’d been alive, Slim and Anne could have gone outside and called for him and he’d have run, laughing and wobbling on stubby toddler legs, back home where it was safe. During all that time, the killers called Slim and cruelly acted it all out, played on his hopes and fears and desperation, when all along hope was dead and had been from the first moment they’d stolen it away.
The world was in shock. It was so unbelievable, like some horrific fairy tale of witches and lost children, but without a redeeming moral or the small comfort that the tragedy had been caused by some mistake on the parents’ part or some flaw in their character. Therefore, there was nothing in this story to assure the public that their lives, their children, would be secure as long as they never made a similar mistake or developed a similar flaw. There was no such comfort. Nothing made sense. People everywhere, women and men, shed tears of sympathy. They knew exactly how they would feel if one of their own children were lost, cold and alone, bleeding and dying among strangers. The thought was too painful to be borne. So they held their own children close and wept, because it was the only thing they could do. Everyone had learned a little more about how cruel life could be.
Morgan wanted an explanation. He looked at me with accusing eyes. “Mama, why would God allow something so awful to happen to a baby? Colonel Lindbergh is the bravest man alive, and his wife is so pretty and smart. They can’t have done anything wrong. I just don’t understand how bad things can happen to people like that.”
“I know, Morgan. It’s all so sad. The only thing we can do is pray for them.”
Morgan shook his head, and I could see that he wasn’t satisfied. Some of his trust had been stripped away. Simple answers couldn’t erase the doubts. He looked at me with eyes like his father’s and dared me to find an explanation.
“I already did that,” he insisted, “and nothing happened. If God is out there, wouldn’t He hear my prayers? And if He heard them, why wouldn’t He answer them?”
I began to tell him that God knows best. That there’s always a reason, even in something as senseless as this, but we just can’t see it. But as the words took shape in my mind, I didn’t believe them myself, so I told him the truth.
“Morgan, I could tell you the things mothers are supposed to say, but you’re too old now to believe what I say just because you’re my son, so I’m going to tell you plain.” I took a deep breath and searched once more for some elegant collection of words that would make sense of everything, but none came to mind. “I don’t know,” I finally admitted. “There’s a lot of things I just don’t understand. But I feel sure deep inside myself that God is out there and He cares. So many things just don’t make sense to me. I can’t fathom why such terrible things are allowed to happen to people. I don’t expect I ever will.”
“Then why even go to church?” he shot back in anger. “Why pray if nobody hears?” His brows pulled together in an impatient line that again dared me to answer.
“Because I have to. There are some things you have to decide for yourself, Morgan, and you may choose to accept it or not, but I sincerely believe that God hears my prayers, even when He doesn’t answer them the way I’d like. I have to believe. If I didn’t, I’m not sure I’d be able to get up in the morning. That’s just the best I can do.”
Morgan pushed a curl out of his eye to see me better and bit his lip thoughtfully, his expression a mixture of surprise at seeing my lack of confidence unmasked and gravity as he realized that adults don’t have all the answers. He ground his fist into his hand and said, in voice that seemed wiser and deeper than it had a moment before, “It doesn’t seem right, does it?”
“No,” I agreed, “it surely doesn’t.”
That night, after everyone had gone to bed and Ruby’s breathing sounded deep and regular on the other side of our room, I buried my head in my pillow and sobbed. I mourned that dead child as though he had been my own. In a way, he was. He was my family. I grieved for Baby Charles and for Slim and Anne and the people they would never be again. They were dead, too. The golden, untouchable couple had melted to dross, never to shine as brightly again, and the hope of the whole world was a bit dimmer than it had been the day before. We were all wiser and sadder.
I felt like Morgan. I wanted to run to the highest peak and stand on it, shake my fist to heaven, scream “Why?” and refuse to move until I got an answer, though I knew none would come.
I didn’t hear Ruby creep across the cold wooden floor to perch on the edge of my bed. She patted my back and shushed me, told me it was all right, that everything would be all right. I choked back the tears and apologized for waking her.
“No need to be sorry,” she said, patting my arm. “No need at all. You feel better now?”
“Oh yes,” I muttered, wiping tears off my cheeks. “I shouldn’t get myself so upset. I just can’t get over that poor baby. And the parents. I’ll be all right now.” I sniffed. “I can’t think what’s come over me.”
“You don’t have to explain. Cry all you want to,” Ruby soothed. “Get it all out. I understand. You love him, Eva, and when he suffers, you suffer. It all comes too close to home, but you can thank God that Morgan’s safe and you’ll keep him that way. Nobody knows about him. Nobody even suspects, though I can’t think why.”
Panic rose in my throat as I realized what she was saying. I made my voice flat and unemotional, not wanting to give anything away in case she knew less than she pretended to. “Ruby, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I sniffed again and wiped my eyes on the sleeve of my nightdress.
Ruby pulled a cigarette out of the pack she kept on the nightstand, lit a match, and drew a deep breath through the filter. The tip glowed red in the darkness, and she blew smoke out through her mouth in a long, impatient sigh. “I am talking about Morgan Glennon, your son and Lindbergh’s,” she said simply.
Words of denial bubbled up in my throat, but she interrupted before I could get them out.
“Oh, Eva!” Her eyes twinkled at me, like they used to when we were children and shared our whispered and terrible secrets. “Don’t look at me that way! I won’t tell a soul. I’m just so happy I finally put it all together.”
She grinned as wide as her mouth would allow and threw her arms around me. “Eva, you were in love. I’m glad for you!”
I pushed her away, then held her by the shoulders. “Listen to me, Ruby.” Glaring into her eyes, I spoke more sharply than I’d intended to, but it was important she realize I was serious. “You can’t tell anyone about Morgan. Not ever.”
“Of course I won’t,” she answered a little indignantly. “How could you even think such a thing? Look,” she said, crossing her heart solemnly with her index finger, the signal from our youth that meant we’d take each other’s secrets to the grave, “I swear. Are you satisfied?”
I was. Ruby would never go back on her word. Still, if she could figure it out, who else would? “Do you think anyone else knows?” I asked in a worried voice.
“No.” She dismissed the thought along with another puff of her L
ucky Strike. “They ought to, of course. Morgan looks so much like him, especially around the eyes, and has that same half-smile, like he’s embarrassed to show his teeth, and he’s so crazy about airplanes. But, shoot, every kid in town is nuts for fliers. They all think they’re goin’ to grow up and break records instead of grow wheat. “Still”—she shrugged—“You’d think they would have figured it out. Maybe if Lindbergh had already been famous when he came to town instead of after, they’d have paid more attention.”
“Of course,” I answered wryly, “it helps some that it’s me. They might have put two and two together if we were talking about Mary Kay Munson or Edith Hopkins or one of the other local beauties, but nobody would expect the handsomest, most famous man in the world to take up with the town cripple.”
“Oh, Eva,” Ruby clucked in an offended voice. “I never said that.”
“I know you didn’t,” I said, laughing. “I did. Believe me, I’ve thanked God a million times He made me so twisted and people so blind. How else would I have been able to keep Morgan to myself all these years? They’d be hunting him, too, if they knew. But what made you so smart? Did you figure it out, or did you always know?”
“I didn’t realize it until the night of the kidnapping. The look on your face was like death, like it was your baby they’d taken. I knew then that you and Slim shared something more than you’d told me. The next day I watched Morgan, his gestures, his face, everything. It was like a map leading to treasure. All the clues were there, I’d just never looked for them before.”
A treasure. She was right, Morgan was my treasure and Slim’s, too. Until Ruby mentioned it, I hadn’t really thought about Morgan being in danger. If someone was crazy enough to steal one Lindbergh child, they might be crazy enough to try for two. I had to be more careful than ever, and not just to preserve Slim’s reputation. I would keep Morgan hidden, safe here in Dillon, growing tall and strong and golden like wheat ripening to harvest, a promise that someday things would be better.
Morgan couldn’t take his half-brother’s place, I knew. Each child is irreplaceable. But I hoped it would comfort Slim to know that Morgan was protected, a small secret piece of himself that lived and thrived, untouched in the prairie. He would grow to be as we had been on that one perfect afternoon, lying on the warm earth, gazing upward at an incomparable piece of sky. He was the firstborn of the flock, flawless and without blemish. I would keep him that way for both of us and for what we had been on that day, as a matter of trust.
Ruby interrupted my thoughts. “Seems like Slim got everything in the world except what matters most. If you think about it, that’s everybody’s story, isn’t it? Sometimes life seems almost too sad to live, but what else are you gonna do?”
“I don’t feel sad,” I said sincerely, “Not anymore. I’ve got Morgan.”
“That’s a better reason to get up in the morning than most people have,” she agreed.
Ruby took another long drag on her cigarette and held it out to me. I took it, and she lit up another for herself. We sat on my bed, our backs to the wall in the half-darkness, smoking, not thinking, not talking. We didn’t need to say anything, just be together, inhaling deeply of the same acrid, widowed air, lighting the day to come with twin tips of ash glow.
Chapter 11
1935
“Evangeline!” Papa called, striding into the kitchen, tapping a clean white envelope against the palm of his hand. “Got a letter here. Looks like it’s from that Mrs. Clemson in Houston.”
“Thank heaven,” Mama said with relief.
Ruby glanced up from the bowl of beans she was sorting for supper. “About time,” she grumbled. “Now maybe we can afford to buy some ham to go with these beans.”
My spirits were buoyed by the sight of the long awaited letter. “Ruby,” I said, grinning, “after we pay the taxes, we’ll buy ham and some beefsteaks and ribbons for our hair.” I laughed with relief and took the letter from Papa’s outstretched hand. Thank God it got here in time, I thought as I ripped open the envelope and searched for the check I’d been expecting for weeks, payment on five quilts that I’d made for Mrs. Clemson’s daughters. It was eight months’ work I’d compressed into five so we’d have the money we needed to pay the taxes. After that I didn’t know what we’d do. There were no new orders coming in, but I’d been counting on the Clemson payment to get us through tax time. There was a check and a note written out in careful, copperplate script, but it wasn’t the check or the letter I’d expected. My face must have told the story.
“What’s wrong?” Mama asked. “Didn’t she like the quilts? She doesn’t want to send them back, does she?”
“She loves them,” I said quietly. “Says they are even more beautiful than she could have imagined.”
“Of course she does,” Papa said stoutly. “It’s your work she’s buying. It’s art, not just something to throw on the bed. How could she not love them? What’s the problem?”
“It’s her husband. He’s a banker, and his bank closed. She can’t pay me, not all of it, anyway. She’s sent me ten dollars now and says she will send me five dollars a month until she’s paid up the whole amount.”
“That’ll take years!” Papa bellowed. “And you’re just supposed to sit by and let her pay on time without even a bit of interest attached? That check doesn’t even come close to covering the cost of your material and the postage, let alone your time. Write her back, Evangeline! Write her back and demand she send back the quilts. You can sell them to someone else and get a good price for them with money you can put in your pocket.”
“No, she can’t,” Ruby said flatly.
“And why not?” Papa blustered irritably. “It’s beautiful work.”
“Ruby’s right,” I said, rubbing my brow with my hand, trying to soothe the headache I could feel coming on. “It may be fine work, but no one can afford it. I use the best fabrics, and each quilt takes me hours and hours of handstitching. No one around here can pay enough to make it worth the time, or even the cost of materials. I’m better off to leave them with Mrs. Clemson. I might get the money back eventually, and we need every penny just now.”
Papa jammed his fists into the pockets of his overalls and frowned at the floor. I wished I hadn’t said that last part. Even though he worked every day, as hard as he ever had, he couldn’t coax a crop out the ground to save his soul. Time and time again, though it pained him terribly, he’d borrowed money from me for seed and sown it only to watch his work blow away in a cloud of dust and bitterness. He was ashamed, and nothing I could say would soothe his wounded pride. Papa worked as hard as he could, but it wasn’t enough. He’d been reduced to living off his daughter. Now even that thin stream of sustenance was drying up.
“It’s all right, Papa,” I said hopefully. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe we should ask Mrs. Clemson to return the quilts and look for a buyer. If I cut the price in half I could still make a little money on them.”
“Nobody around here has twenty-five dollars for a quilt, Eva. Not even one of yours,” Ruby remarked practically. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Mama throwing an irritated glance in Ruby’s direction, but she didn’t correct her, probably because she’d been thinking the same thing herself.
We all thought about what to do for a long moment. Ruby broke the silence. “You’ve got enough for the taxes?” she asked seriously.
I hesitated a moment before answering. “Yes.” It wasn’t a lie. I did have enough, if I dipped into Morgan’s college fund. Something in me had always resisted spending that money. At first it was just a desire to hold on to it for Morgan, but then something deeper was involved. Pride, I suppose. After Slim married, I was more determined than ever to prove I could stand on my own two feet—not that he’d ever know about it, but it was important to me. I’d tried my best to release him, forgive him, and mostly I had, but there was still some resentment there. A tiny part of me felt that taking his money would somehow turn me into nothing more than his youthful indiscr
etion, a mistake bought and paid for and forgotten. That was my worst fear, that he’d forget us. Some debts can’t ever be paid. I didn’t want him to have the escape of thinking he’d “settled up” with me and Morgan.
Now it seemed there was no choice. Morgan needed a home, and everyone was depending on me, and it wasn’t the first time. The money I’d saved from quilting before the crops started to fail had been winnowed away until only eighty-five dollars and sixty cents were left. “Yes,” I said. “I’ve got the money.”
Ruby thought for a moment more. “Have you got any extra?” she asked. “Because if you do, if you could scrape up even twenty or thirty dollars more, I think we might be able to come up with a plan that would save your quilting business. We’d just need a little seed money to get started.”
“What are you talking about, Ruby?” I asked in exasperation. “I can’t see the sense in putting the last of my savings into a business that’s losing money as it is.”
“Just hear me out for a moment,” she insisted, holding up her hand to interrupt my objections. “I saw a sign in Dwyer’s store that somebody was wanting to sell an old sewing machine real cheap. If you could buy it, then invest in some inexpensive yard goods, nothing fancy, just the ends of the bolts that get marked down, and sew them into real simple, quickly made, nine-patch quilts, we could do it assembly-line style, like Ford makes cars. You could probably make them fast and cheap enough so you’d have something you could sell at a price people could afford. We could drive around and sell them, maybe go up into Kansas even. We could even trade them for food if people didn’t have cash.” She paused and studied my face to see what I thought of the idea.
I was uncertain about the whole thing but had to admit I didn’t have a better idea. “Do you really think it could work?” I asked.
“I think so.” Ruby nodded convincingly. “What do you think, Mr. and Mrs. Glennon?” Mama and Papa agreed it was worth a try. “Good!” Ruby said. “Eva, I’ve got an extra ten saved up that I can give you toward the price of the machine.”
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