by Karen Kelly
Suddenly Chap gasped. His eyes were wide and he was looking at a man sitting on the far side of the fire. Kit followed his gaze and swallowed hard. Wyatt hadn’t been wearing a shirt when he dove into the river, but he had been wearing suspenders. Chap’s outgrown trousers were too big for Wyatt, who at thirteen hadn’t hit his growth spurt, but he liked to wear them fishing and he kept them up with a pair of bright yellow suspenders. It was too much to hope that the man holding a brown bottle would have his own yellow suspenders, relatively clean and bright in the light of the fire.
Chap looked to Kit mutely, the color draining from his face. At that moment, Kit heard something else; when he spun around, he was looking straight into a pair of gray pebble-like eyes set in a mud-colored face, framed by lank and matted hair. A glinting flash revealed a knife poised at the man’s side. And below the knife—secured around his waist by a length of twine—were Chap’s outgrown trousers.
Grabbing Chap by the shirt, Kit started to run. Chap was quaking, nearly convulsive with blind panic. “Come on, come on!” Kit’s command was a whispered hiss. Fueled by adrenaline, he virtually dragged his friend through the woods, scrambling blindly over roots and rocks. Grasping onto limbs and saplings, they somehow made it up the hill—despite the drag caused by Chap, looking wildly back into the darkness. When they came to the road, they had to stop, doubled over and gasping. Chap fell to his knees, shoulders heaving. Kit pulled him by the arm. “Get up! We have to get help!” He was shouting now, but couldn’t think where to go.
Frantic, he scanned the road, but there wasn’t a soul in sight. The police station was all the way across town on Washington, but he started in that direction—practically hauling Chap—hoping desperately to find help somewhere on the streets.
Suddenly Chap snapped out of it, taking off like a shot dog. He was sprinting with preternatural energy, elbows and knees pumping, heading back toward the bridge. Kit struggled to keep up, and could barely get his next words out: “Where are you going?”
There was no response—Chap flew across the bridge and straight up Broadway. Kit realized then that his friend was making for home. The Collier house on Seneca was much closer than the police station, but Kit knew that no one was there. The Colliers were with his own parents at the Steel Baron’s Ball. Then it came to him: Chap was running for a car. Charles Collier did not have the extensive automobile collection that his boss did, but he had a Turnbull runabout that Chap knew how to drive.
Halfway up Broadway, he watched in amazement as Chap stopped dead in his tracks. Reeling back a few steps, he stood frozen on the street, staring at a cluster of cedars.
As Kit reached him—winded beyond sensibility—he heard a muffled shout.
“Over here!”
Though it was just a strangled hiss, they both knew the voice. They peered into the darkness, and after a moment a form stepped out of the cedars. And there was Wyatt, shivering and naked in the flickering gaslight of a streetlamp.
Chap fell backward. He sat straight down in the road, catching himself with his hands behind him. Then, silently, he leaned forward and put his head in his hands.
“HOLY MOTHER OF GOD, WYATT, WHAT HAPPENED?” Kit didn’t mean to sound so harsh, but he couldn’t control it.
Wyatt started to cry—silent tears rolling down his face—and Kit walked across the grass and put his arm around him. “You’re all right. It’s over. We’ll get those guys. We can go to the cops.” He was saying every soothing thing he could think of, but comfort in a situation like this was beyond his sixteen-year-old range, and it felt meaningless to him. He didn’t know what had happened to Wyatt, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to.
Chap stood up suddenly and took off his shoes and socks. Then he took off his pants and walked the pile over to Wyatt.
“I don’t really need the shoes”—Wyatt somehow managed a small, wry smile through a staggered breath—“but thanks.” He stepped into the pants, bunching the waistband in his fist. “I could probably make it home now, anyway. I had to hide in the woods until it got dark.” He shivered. “Even then, it was hard to get across the bridge.”
“Are you all right?” Chap was looking at his little brother with barely concealed dread, skirting the edge of the precipice, the free fall of knowing.
“Yeah, I’m fine. They didn’t hurt me. They just wanted my clothes. They didn’t even chase me when I ran.”
Kit felt something unclench in his chest as he watched his best friend—standing in his undershorts—close his eyes and hang his head. Then Chap stepped forward and wrapped his arms around Wyatt. “You little ninny. You just about did it this time.” He rubbed his hand roughly through Wyatt’s hair. “You didn’t have to go in after her, you know.”
Wyatt was quiet for a moment. And then, muffled against his brother’s chest, a small sigh escaped, and he responded the only way he could—weary and resigned. “Yes, I did.”
Three
AUGUST 1962
“We met a lady named Dough.” The dinner roll in Charlie’s hand had apparently triggered an association. “I think that’s a funny name.”
It took Joanna a moment to figure out what he meant. When it came to her, she laughed. “I think it’s supposed to be like a mama deer, honey.” She spelled it both ways for him.
Helen chuckled—a soft, creaky warble. “It’s Dorothy, actually, but no one calls her that. I’m delighted you met! Dear Doe. How is she? Still talking about her ghosts?”
“She has a real dead dog, and a not real little boy who plays on the swing,” Daisy said, leaning forward, her eyes wide for emphasis.
Charlie was not to be outdone. “I worked with Daniel,” he said importantly. “We trimmed the rhododrumdrums and the roses.” He held up his finger, bandaged now from a thorn Joanna had extracted.
“I worked too!” Daisy was determined, as usual, to put herself in league with her brother.
“You didn’t work. You just played on that grave. That baby grave.”
A sharp clink rang out across the table. Susannah had been pleasantly conversational over the course of dinner, discussing the pretty weather, the news that Justice Frankfurter had resigned, and—closer to home—the progress on the Burns Harbor plant. Frank’s chair was empty yet again, and she felt it was important that the children understand why their father was absent. But when Charlie had introduced the topic of St. Gregory’s, she became quiet. Now, as she cut a small slice of Cornish game hen, her knife slipped and clattered on the plate.
“I found a baby that doesn’t have a name,” Daisy said, her words weighty with her discovery. “Doe said, ‘There are some things we’re just not meant to know.’” She shook her head gravely.
Joanna couldn’t help smiling at her daughter’s mimicry, until she caught a look passing between Helen and Susannah. It was fleeting, but it registered nonetheless—obscure and covert.
“Daniel is there?” Helen cleared her throat in defiance of her aging vocal cords. “I’m glad to hear it. I never had the chance to meet him before he went to Pittsburgh, but I heard all about it. Doe was over the moon that he had come to them. What a blessing that he’s back. Doe isn’t much younger than I, you know. She has been spreading herself thin at that place for too many years to count. Not to mention Nico—he must be eighty-five now. That Nicolaus Janssen is a miracle of nature. He started bringing in help for the digging, but never anyone permanent. I can remember—not long ago—finding him up to his neck in a hole.” Her smile was highlighted by a perfect trace of Tea Rose lipstick—the same shade she had worn for fifty years. “Here I am being wheeled about or doing a dicey little dance with my cane, and those two are hopping around like spring chickens.”
As Helen’s quavering voice rambled along, Joanna thought there was something a bit … determined … about the discursion. And then Susannah advanced the ostensible campaign, turning to her mother with a question. “Sarah married a Mennonite, didn’t she? I thought they were in Lancaster.”
“Old Order Am
ish,” Helen corrected her, and then turned to Joanna. “They’re forbidden from using any worldly conveniences. Poor Doe and Nico have rarely seen their own grandchildren. But Daniel broke away from the Community—no small thing. He came to Doe and Nico, and then went to work in the coal mines.”
“He’s going to night school now, at Lehigh,” Joanna reported. “He wants to be an engineer.”
“Hmm.” Susannah expelled a little huff of approval. “Good for him. I’ve never understood blind acceptance of rigid belief.…”
“Now, now, dear … judge not, that ye be not judged.…” Helen tilted her head very subtly toward Joanna, but it didn’t go unnoticed. That Joanna had been raised in a strict Irish Catholic household was something the Parrishes tended to ignore politely, as though averting their eyes from an embarrassing split seam. Joanna hadn’t hesitated to point out to Frank that Episcopalians were only a few obligations shy of Catholic, but as Protestants, his family still viewed her religion with a leery eye. Helen’s graciousness extended to all things, however, and the fact that Joanna now attended Sunday services with her husband and children at the Episcopal Church of the Nativity didn’t hurt.
Susannah, however, wasn’t willing to drop the subject. “Tell that to the German Reformation,” she replied, with a wry little arch of the brow.
“What’s a German Reformation?” Charlie was predictably curious, and he never settled for anything less than a full explanation.
“Oh my … here we go.…” Helen made a weak grimace.
“Well, Charlie, the German Reformation is why we’re here. I’ll give you a simple version.” Susannah looked briefly at her mother: “Don’t worry, I’m not going to get into selling indulgences and such.” There was an intent gleam in her indigo eyes as she turned back to the children. “About five hundred years ago, there was only one Christian religion. It was known as Catholicism, because the word ‘Catholic’ means something that involves everyone. But the church didn’t want people to be able to read the Bible on their own. The priests were afraid to let people have their own interpretations and come to their own conclusions. And most people couldn’t speak or read Latin anyway, so even if they tried, they couldn’t know for themselves what the Bible said. Then a man named John Wycliffe translated it into English because he thought that people should be able to read the Bible for themselves. For his troubles, he was burned at the stake.”
She stated the last as a casual matter of fact, moving ahead as Charlie’s and Daisy’s eyes grew wide.
“After that, a group of people got together and decided that they would take the Bible as their only standard of faith, without any interpretation from a church. They settled in Germany and were doing just fine until Germany made Catholicism the official state doctrine, and that was the end of religious freedom.”
By this point, her aging mother was giving Susannah a sidelong look, surreptitiously waving her hand. If Helen had imparted nothing else to her offspring, she’d taught them that it was in the poorest of taste to hold forth about religion in any social situation—particularly at the dinner table. And with a confirmed Catholic sitting in the next chair!
But Susannah continued, blithely ignoring her mother’s signals. “In fact, that wasn’t quite the end. There were a few survivors. They called themselves Unitas Fratrum, but they were known as the Hidden Seed. And a man called Count Zinzendorf invited them to live on his lands in Saxony, where they were free to practice individual religious beliefs. Eventually, Count Zinzendorf came here to America, and brought this group with him. They became known as the Moravians, because Moravia was the place they were from originally. And they settled here in Pennsylvania and called the town Bethlehem.”
She sat back, satisfied with her history lesson.
“Susannah, really. Must you?” Helen shook her head, resigned.
“Are we Moravians then?” Charlie asked.
“No. We’re Episcopalians.” Susannah had the decency to bestow a brief, acknowledging smile on Joanna, an unspoken concession to her forfeiture. “But that’s because we get to choose, and that’s the important thing.” She sat back and took a sip of water, dabbing her mouth delicately with her napkin. “Do you know why this state is called Pennsylvania?” She had decided she wasn’t finished after all.
“Because of pencils?” Daisy was eager to win a point.
This earned a smile from her grandmother. “No, because of William Penn. The name comes from his name, plus the word sylvan, which means ‘woods.’ William Penn was the reason Count Zinzendorf came here, because Penn, as a Quaker, believed that all men were equal under God. And that concept is also why we don’t have a monarchy in America.”
“What’s a Quaker?”
Susannah paused, realizing her mistake. This could go on all evening.
Joanna came to the rescue: “Do you remember the picture of the man on the oatmeal container?”
“Yes, Quaker Oats!” Charlie was proud to make the connection.
“Well, that is William Penn, and that is a Quaker.” Joanna closed the conversation, shaking out her napkin. But before she could signal Harriet that she had finished her meal, Daisy piped in with her own question.
“What’s a monarchy?”
It was clear now that Susannah had launched a sizable armada. Joanna gave her mother-in-law a sympathetic smile, and then saved them all from further didactics with a concluding clap of her hands. “It means a king and a queen, which reminds me that you two have a chess game set up in the playroom. Let’s get your pajamas on and we can practice until bedtime.” She handed her plate to Harriet, checking herself too late. She may have imagined it, but she thought she saw Helen wince as she politely looked away, folding her hands in her lap and waiting patiently for Harriet to clear from the right.
* * *
As Joanna helped the children brush their teeth, she wondered if Frank would make it home in time to kiss them good night. When she had met him, he was a young plant manager at Bethlehem Steel, learning the industry ingot by ingot. The fact that his father was chief-in-command had nothing to do with Frank’s career advancement—an engineering degree and compulsory time in the machine-shop trenches proved his bona fides. But Frank’s real strength was people, and soon after Daisy was born he was made Director of Personnel. The title came with a cost—some evenings he didn’t get back to Chestnut Hill until after nine o’clock. With two babies in her arms, Joanna was usually so exhausted, she didn’t even notice that the dinner hour had passed.
For some time, Frank tried to convince her to hire help, presenting it as an opportunity to provide employment. “It isn’t slavery, Jo. It’s not immoral to pay someone for help. And it doesn’t speak to your competence, whatever you’ve been raised to think. Give yourself a break.”
Joanna suspected that in his subconscious, Frank hoped that relieving some of her burden would give him a break too, from the guilt of his familial dereliction, and the worry about his wife’s well-being. She finally relented and hired a cleaning woman, but on the days that Dolores was there, Joanna was awkwardly uncomfortable. It felt unnatural to have someone else doing her laundry and washing her floors. One of her mother’s best friends had cleaned for people. Joanna would never forget the stories Mrs. McKinney told sitting at Eileen Rafferty’s kitchen table with a bottomless cup of coffee: the empty beer bottles hidden under a teenager’s bed, the thick ring of grime around someone’s bathtub, the mysterious thing in the trash can that made Joanna’s mother laugh so hard, she spit out her coffee.… On most Tuesdays and Fridays, Joanna would pile the babies into the buggy and escape for as long as they would allow. She couldn’t calculate the miles she’d logged wandering around, avoiding Dolores.
One point on which she wouldn’t budge, however, was getting a nanny. In Frank’s world, it was completely normal to have a couple of them. But Joanna couldn’t pry away the steel grip of her mother’s opinion. She knew that Eileen Rafferty would have sooner set herself on fire than allow some stranger to care
for her babies. And so, Joanna had mutated into a three-headed Hydra, with the children attached to her body for most of the day. When she managed to get them both to nap at the same time, she often fell asleep right on the carpeted floor of the nursery.
And then, in ’59, there was a prolonged workers’ strike that practically swallowed them whole. And it was during that grueling tribulation that their world nearly collapsed.
It was the coldest night in ten Novembers, with an icy sheet of snow covering every inch—not even the busiest thoroughfares could melt it. Joanna had intended to wait up for her husband. She was worried about the drive from Bethlehem; the radio on the kitchen shelf broadcast repeated warnings about road conditions. Thus—after the crucible that was Daisy’s bedtime ritual—she settled into the Eames chair in the living room with Charlie on her lap and a pile of children’s books on the table next to them. This arrangement had become quasi-routine. About the time Charlie turned three, he developed a near-obsessive attachment to his father, made achingly poignant by Frank’s scant time at home. Many times a day, he would pepper Joanna with the same question: “Is my daddy here?” And so, she sometimes allowed the little boy to wait up with her, reciting together page after page of Mother Goose rhymes and cycling through a stack of Little Golden Books, until Frank finally came through the door, to carry his oft-sleeping son to bed.
The lounge chair was cozy—soft, cushiony leather with a tall headrest and matching ottoman. It was part of a modern design scheme that Joanna had labored over when they first bought the house, filling the rooms with Brazilian rosewood and sleek Danish teak and earthy tones of olive and russet and gold. The clean, spare lines spoke to her—honest and uncontrived. She wasn’t attracted to ornate decor. It felt false to her—like wearing a pretend tiara.