A Woman of Independent Means

by Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey

  When Eleanor got married, Sam and I were left alone as husband and wife for the first time since our own wedding fifteen years ago. Too often in the past I have taken for granted everything that lay within easy reach and sought adventure abroad. But in the last two years, exploring the mysteries contained within the familiar boundaries of our own continent, I have seen evidence of a glacial era in Canada, an ancient civilization in Mexico, and hitherto undetected ardor in the eyes of my husband.

  Our newly discovered joy in each other’s company has been sealed by the presence of a grandchild in our lives. I see now what a child of his own would have meant to Sam. He has been unstinting in his affection and concern for my two children, always treating them as his own, but this is the first time he has shared in the miracle of a baby.

  He took such pride in her progress today. Tomorrow when I put on the harness I will only hold the belt for the first few steps then I will let go, and I am convinced she will walk alone. When she finally discovers that I am far behind, she will be too elated by her own ability to care. By the time her parents return, I am determined to have her walking everywhere. If I have my way, they will never see her crawl again.

  The presence of a grandchild has mercifully diverted my attention from the absence of my only son. I know now how you must have felt when your only son married me and moved away. When Andrew told me he was moving to Kansas City to open an advertising agency, I was overcome by a feeling of loss unlike anything I have ever experienced. He is so far from where I want him to be.

  The west bedroom is ready and waiting for you. It is still furnished with the organdy and chintz Eleanor chose when she was sixteen. After she left for college, she never occupied the room again, preferring the privacy of the third floor. For a while after her wedding, the house seemed much too big for us and I considered selling it, but now I look forward to filling it with grandchildren—and a visiting great-grandmother. It must be so thrilling to see your life descend into another generation. I am determined to have that experience before I die.

  Hope to see you soon.

  Much love—as always,

  Bess

  November 9, 1942

  Dallas

  Mrs. Hans Hoffmeyer

  240 N. Cheyenne St.

  Tulsa, Oklahoma

  My dearest Annie,

  How deeply I am grieving for you today. Last night I was reading the paper, feeling the war coming ever closer, when the name of Franz Hoffmeyer seized my attention. Above the name was the photograph of a captain in the United States Army, whose smiling countenance gave the lie to the accompanying news item “killed in action.”

  It does not seem so long ago that I was writing to another grieving mother whose son Franz had been killed in the war. But that was the First World War and your brother was fighting on the other side. At that time you and Hans were understandably torn between your loyalty to the country that contained your past and your commitment to the country that promised you a future. But this time there can be no doubt about your citizenship; I only hope its privileges can compensate for the heavy price you have just paid.

  Until I read your address in the newspaper I did not know you and Hans had moved to Tulsa. I hope that his automotive supply business is prospering and that you are continuing to pursue your chosen profession. I can vouch for your skill as a healer of wounded hearts as well as bodies. Had it not been for your devoted care after Robin died, I am not sure I would have found the courage to continue. I know too well the despair engulfing you at this moment. And the anger at a life denied. Franz was just twenty-five—with marriage and children still ahead of him. But at least he was allowed to reach the threshold of life—to exult in all the choices that seem open to a person on reaching his majority. After that so much is compromise, with each choice narrowing the range of succeeding choices.

  I do not mean to insult the sorrow you are enduring in the death of your son by comparing it to the disappointment I am sensing in my own life, but the subject of loss summons many variations to mind. And perhaps because I was forced to experience the death of a husband and a child so early in life, I am able to see more clearly the death that exists in life and, conversely, the life that survives death. The love I felt for my first husband continues unchanged by the fact that he is no longer at my side—and I must admit that there are moments I still prefer to share with him than with the man who greets me every morning at breakfast.

  The power of memory is that it preserves every image intact, safe from the tarnishing effects of time. For me Robin remains forever a happy little boy of eleven even at those moments when I wonder what kind of man he would have become. At his death I still cherished the illusion that a mother could shape the destinies of her children, could will them into attaining their full growth as individuals. But with each passing year you expect less from them until one day you find you are asking for nothing more than their physical appearance at regularly appointed times and places so that you can pretend you are still as close in mind and spirit as you are in the flesh.

  Nature as a process provides for no growth past physical maturity. Only the individual, through an effort of will and imagination, can add, enhance, enrich. Life unresisted merely subtracts. I no longer believe an individual can change the fate of other people, no matter how much she loves them, but I will not relinquish the responsibility for my own life until the day I die.

  Dearest Annie, circumstances have conspired to keep us at a distance since I moved from the house and the life we shared into one of my own, but I think of you often and my heart aches for you and Hans in this time of loss. Please know a devoted friend shares your pain—and that as long as I am alive, you are not alone.

  Bess

  July 8, 1943

  Dallas

  Dearest Eleanor,

  This is the most difficult letter I have ever attempted to write for it has to span the greatest distance—that ever-widening gulf that separates a mother from her married daughter. When you decided to make your home in the same city with me, I never dreamed I would one day feel further from you than I did when you were living abroad with only an ocean between us. But here we are almost within shouting distance and I am not even sure I can reach you by letter.

  I had a lovely time at your luncheon today—despite having to ask to be included on the guest list. Until you are my age I fear you will not be able to understand what it means to be treated like a contemporary by members of the next generation. I have such fun with your friends I forget I am not as young as they are—until I am once again alone with you. Why do you insist on relegating me to the company of people my own age? I shared my friends with you when you were a child and delighted in seeing them treat you as an equal. Why are you so disinclined to return the favor now?

  In the world of the arts people of all ages attend the same parties. Old playwrights advise young actors, promising artists question acknowledged geniuses, would-be poets fawn over literary lions. The only criterion for admission is talent.

  How dare polite society segregate people on the basis of age? This injustice makes me angrier than discrimination on the basis of race or sex. The company of the young (or the younger) is our only defense against that cruel oppressor—age. How painful to see my own daughter aiding and abetting the enemy by denying me access to the next generation.

  Has the fact that we are mother and daughter kept us from also being friends? Just because my company was imposed on you by birth should not prevent you from enjoying it as though you had chosen it deliberately. I must confess that I feel like a lively, witty conversationalist around everyone but you. However, in your presence I feel I am continually auditioning for the pleasure of your company, and I find myself apologizing for boring you with answers to questions you never asked.

  I know children are supposed to be beyond the reach of their parents’ rod once they are grown, but I cannot stand by silently while a child of mine deliberately inflicts hurt on someone who did nothing to deserve
it—even when that someone happens to be me. When I am with you, I am too afraid of losing the small part of you I still possess to express to your face the disappointment I feel on being excluded so callously from so much of your life. Even this tirade began as a thank-you note for reluctantly permitting me to intrude into your life one more time. But my pen will not continue the charade we act out in person, and I realize now I have risked your contempt by accepting so gratefully the few half-hearted invitations I have forced you to extend. It is an illusion to pretend I am part of your life just because we occasionally occupy the same room. You have my word I have indulged in it for the last time. Be assured that I will not inflict my unwanted presence on you again.

  I wish I had the courage to say all this aloud, but only in a letter do I dare express my feelings openly. At least when I am writing, I can pretend you are listening. When I am with you, I know better.

  I love you desperately,

  Mother

  July 10, 1943

  3 A.M.

  Dallas

  Totsie Fineman

  10011 N. Torrey Pines Road

  La Jolla, California

  Dearest Totsie,

  How dare you move to California when I need to talk to you so desperately tonight! Yesterday I wrote a letter to my daughter that may have lost me her love forever, and I have forsworn the written word—as soon as I post this mea culpa to you.

  Until now the act of letter-writing has kept me sane and calm, allowing civilized expression of all the emotions that trouble my sleep. However, today, for the first time in my life, the written word has betrayed me.

  I have never before lost my temper on paper and said things I would give my life to take back. I even went to the post office this morning and pleaded with them to return the letter before it was delivered, but neither rain nor sleet nor a mother’s tears can stop the U.S. mail from reaching its appointed destination.

  My only hope was to station myself on the receiving end and intercept the letter as it was delivered. But I was too late. Eleanor was holding the open envelope when I arrived. She stared at me without a word, then abruptly left the room. I followed her up the stairs, begging her to surrender the letter. But she informed me coldly that under law a letter once mailed becomes the property of the recipient, and she entered her bedroom with the incriminating evidence, closing the door behind her.

  I know you moved to California to be near your son, but please do not make the mistake I did of expecting physical proximity to result in intimacy of mind and spirit. I have yet to experience from my family the welcome you receive each time you arrive for a visit. How I wish that once in my life my children would greet me as eagerly as if I had traveled a great distance to be with them. I must face the fact that I have stayed too close to them for too long, but where am I to go? If only this wretched war would end and allow me to escape outside my own life! When my son was drafted and taken from me, I turned all my devotion on the only child who remained within my reach, and I fear that when peace is declared for my son, I will still be at war with my daughter.

  How can I make her forget—or at least forgive—all the harsh words I wrote in anger? Accusations hurled aloud are blurred by time and memory, but angry words on paper never lose their power to hurt. After tonight I will never dare put pen to paper again. A blank page to me is like a drink to an alcoholic. I do not know when to stop, and the next day I am overwhelmed with regret at all the things I said.

  How I long to see you! Though we were born of different parents, we are connected at the heart like Siamese twins. My daughter may have turned her back on me, but you are the mainstay of my larger family. I will love you all my life.

  Good night, sweet sister.

  Bess

  September 1, 1945

  Dallas

  Lt. Andrew Steed

  Barracks C

  Fort Sill

  Lawton, Oklahoma

  Dearest Andrew,

  We are waiting anxiously to welcome you home. But once you have been properly welcomed, I plan to start traveling. In your absence I have faced the fact that my children no longer need or want my constant presence on the perimeter of their daily lives. So I plan to see as much of the world as I can in the years left to me. I am counting on at least another twenty on my feet and hopefully another decade after that in a reclining position to look back on my life and try to make some sense out of it.

  How thankful I am that you will stay safely in Oklahoma until you are allowed to come home to Texas. I know you are frustrated not to have seen action on other fronts, but there are enough battles to be faced on the home front when you return.

  I do not know whether her letters have prepared you or not, but the wife who awaits your homecoming is not the shy, submissive mate you left behind. I have had ample occasion to observe her during the course of our volunteer duty with the Red Cross, and I have been surprised and delighted with her growing independence.

  She volunteered immediately for driving duty and has learned to handle huge trucks and buses with surprising ease for someone who appears so fragile. I would advise you to rethink the restrictions you applied so arbitrarily to her use of the car during the first years of your marriage—as well as any other nonreciprocal rules, spoken or unspoken, by which you attempted to govern her conduct—if you have any hope of celebrating a silver wedding anniversary.

  I am very happy that you decided to move back to Dallas before entering the service. Though the reasons for your return were financially regrettable, I can assure you that you will profit from our proximity in the future.

  I have just been by to see Eleanor and the new baby. They are doing fine and Walter does not seem the least bit disappointed to have a third daughter. I trust their family is complete now. Three children are enough for any couple, especially now with domestic help so difficult to arrange. I do not see how Eleanor survives with only a single servant, but she turns down all my offers of assistance, so I assume she has learned how to manage. In my day one would not dare ask the housekeeper to help with the children, but modern women, whether wives or servants, have to be prepared to do everything. I am not sure that can be called progress.

  I am sorry Mother Steed did not live to see her fourth great-grandchild, but at least she derived much pleasure from the first three. Babies brought us together in the last years of her life just as they did in the early years of my marriage. We shared many happy visits at my house until a few months ago when she became too ill to travel.

  I know you have been disappointed by the failure of your marriage to produce children, but there is nothing to keep you from adopting a child. Over the past few years I have made substantial contributions to a shelter for homeless children in Fort Worth, which would insure that your application received immediate attention should you decide to adopt. I trust you will give careful consideration to this alternative and not subject your marriage to the severe strains so often caused by the prolonged absence of children.

  All my love,

  Mother

  July 21, 1947

  Galveston, Texas

  Dear Mavis,

  Is there anything more exasperating than a rainy day at the seashore, especially when one has traveled a great distance to get there?

  I finally persuaded my children that it was time for their children to see an ocean, and so a week ago Nell with her little boy and Eleanor with her three girls accompanied me on the overnight train to Galveston. None of the children had ever traveled by train or seen a Pullman compartment, and they were thrilled with the magic of a disappearing bed and washbasin. I wish our husbands could have made the train trip with us, but they are driving down later.

  The weather was beautiful the day we arrived and we spent all afternoon on the beach. The children were fascinated by the never-ending movement of the ocean and crushed yesterday when we were confined to our rooms by heavy rain.

  I volunteered to keep all four children while their mothers took refuge in a movie and dec
ided to employ the time in an educational manner. I endeavored to explain the movement of the planets to them and climbed up on a chair so I could circle the ceiling lamp with an orange to illustrate the path of the earth around the sun. I became so enraptured with my own explanation, I forgot I was standing on a chair and suddenly stepped into space and fell to the floor.

  I am afraid I did further injury to vertebrae already damaged by my leap to safety when our house caught fire so long ago. I have stayed in bed today while the rain continued and confined my instruction to French vocabulary, paying each child a penny for every word committed to memory.

  Our husbands arrive tomorrow and sunshine is predicted. To celebrate their arrival, I have made dinner reservations for all of us, including children, at the Balinese Room on the pier. Eleanor and Nell were in favor of hiring babysitters and leaving the children behind but I find children behave as they are treated. If they are accorded the same respect as adults, they can be counted on to display comparable manners. Besides, none of them has ever seen food served on flaming swords, and it is time they got a glimpse of some of the wonders the world contains. Why is it I feel so much closer to my grandchildren than to my children? Perhaps because they are still young enough to consider me a peer—something their parents ceased doing years ago.

  The children speak often of the week we spent with you in Honey Grove. They prefer traveling without their parents because I allow them to stay up as late as they like. Remember the night you and I talked until dawn with Betsy trying her eight-year-old best to stay awake with us? The others had long since fallen asleep when she suddenly saw the sun rising and burst into tears, terrified to realize morning would come whether she had slept that night or not. But better for her to learn early that nature does not ask our consent to continue its inexorable circuit.