by Scott Walker
Dear Mama,
I am glad you had me come here. Baltimore is so different and so much more interesting than Anmoore and Clarksburg. I can’t believe it’s me saying that! Julia has shown me all over, and I have gone out exploring on my own in the afternoons when she is at work, and I always discover some new place or thing. I am still a homebody at heart, but I feel for the first time that I’d like to see more of the country some day.
Julia is doing good, really good. She is happier and more content than I’ve ever seen her. She loves the work at the shipyard—she is just like that Rosie the Riveter poster!—and has a lot of girlfriends from her shift. They’ve taken me to buy a new dress and some shoes that are so nice I never want to wear them, and we went to see the movie Going My Way last night, and I could see it a dozen times. I would marry Bing Crosby tomorrow!
Julia has also gotten me on at the shipyard, and I’ll start next week. With the big invasion last month in France, they can’t build fast enough, and the yard is working around the clock. I’ll start just helping push things around in carts and cleaning up, but I hope I’ll get to do more before too long. You just wouldn’t believe the sight of all these women in overalls doing men’s work and building these huge ships! It’s a new world.
So, don’t worry about us, though I worry about you alone there with Richard all the time. I hope he’s not being difficult and is helping you with the housework. I love you and miss you!
Pilar
* * *
April 1945
John Goad was gone. Pilar and Julia had cooked dinner for the three of them, as they often did; then he and Julia went to her room, as they always did. There was no indication that anything had changed. But in the morning, Julia came into the kitchen for her coffee alone. John always woke first and had the coffee percolating in the electric pot by the time Julia rose.
“John sleeping late this morning?” Pilar asked.
“No,” Julia said without elaborating.
Julia took only two sips of her coffee and did not touch the eggs, bacon and toast Pilar had prepared. Julia stood and stared out the kitchen window, and smoked a cigarette, and left the kitchen without saying anything else. Pilar heard the bathroom door latch and then the sound of Julia vomiting. Pilar knew it was not a hangover.
After a few minutes of silence in the bathroom, Pilar went across the hall and knocked tentatively.
“Everything okay in there, Julia?” she asked.
“Goddamnit, Pilar,” she shouted from behind the closed door. “Can’t you just leave me be? Go outside and do something. Or are you incapable of leaving the apartment alone?”
Pilar did not take the rude outburst personally. Julia always stung blindly, like an angry hornet, when she fell into her black moods. After the frustration loosened its grip, she would apologize and vow never to speak harshly to Pilar again. It had happened ten thousand times. Julia would lash out again, of course, but she was always sincere when she made the promise.
Pilar effortlessly deduced what had transpired. Julia clearly was pregnant again, and when she told John after dinner in the bedroom, he left. Mama is going to be so disappointed in me, Pilar thought. And furious with Julia.
Julia had gotten pregnant again a year after she delivered Art Kelley’s daughter, whom she gave away for adoption, back in 1942. She miscarried that fourth pregnancy. Standing in the hallway of the apartment in Baltimore, Pilar felt guilty about hoping Julia would lose this one as well.
“I’ll go out, then,” Pilar said through the door. She put on a cheerful tone, as if they were sitting placidly together on the sofa. Pilar always felt responsible for helping Julia pull herself back together. “I found this park with a view of Fort McHenry that I like very much, and it’s a beautiful day. I’ll get myself a newspaper and go there and read it.”
“You do that,” Julia said through the door.
Pilar stayed away all day. When she returned to the apartment, Julia still was in her nightgown and bathrobe, but her mood had improved.
“Hey, kiddo,” Julia said when Pilar came into the kitchen. “I’m sorry about being so nasty this morning. I promise not to take it out on you like that again.”
“It’s okay, Julia,” Pilar said.
“I guess you figured out what’s going on,” Julia said. “It’s pretty obvious, especially to you. We’ve been through this, what, four times already?”
“Yes, I know, Julia,” Pilar said. “I’m sorry. Is John not ever coming back?”
Lighting a cigarette, Julia forced a grin. “I think we can count on that.”
“I’ll fix us something to eat,” Pilar said. “Do you need anything? A blanket? It’s getting a little chilly in here.”
“No, I’m good, thanks,” Julia said. “But some hot food would be very nice. I haven’t eaten anything today, and I feel my appetite coming back.”
Pilar made tortilla con patata—the thick egg and potato omelet ubiquitous in Spain—and they ate mostly in silence.
Pilar cleared away the dishes and returned to the kitchen table with coffee and some pastries she had bought that afternoon at the bakery around the corner. Julia said: “I guess we should quit our jobs at the shipyard and go back to Anmoore.”
“Yes,” Pilar said, though it made her sad to think of leaving the city so soon. “We’ve saved enough money to last us a year anyway.”
* * *
Once again, in November 1945, Julia was on Mercedes’ bed. Her mother had barely spoken to her over the six months since they returned from Maryland.
“I’ll deliver this baby,” Mercedes said coldly. “But I don’t want to hear a sound out of you. Not a sound.”
Julia obeyed, and silently gave birth to another daughter.
“What’ll you do with this one?” Mercedes asked.
“Adoption,” Julia said and closed her eyes.
Chapter 20
Anmoore December 1945
My dear brother and sister-in-law,
All three boys arrived home to stay this week, just in time for Christmas! It feels like a miracle they all made it through the war, and without a scratch. Of course, I should not call them boys. The years in the navy have turned them into big, strapping men, but they will always be my boys, no matter how old they—or I—get.
The carbon plant across the street is busier than ever, and because the foremen remembered how well Luis and Manuel worked before the war, the company is hiring the three of them immediately. How I wish Antonio had lived to see this day, the boys home and set to make good lives for themselves.
Now, I feel I must tell you something that I have hidden from you over the years. I have wrestled mightily with how and when and whether to write you about it, and never have because I find it such a horrible thing. But I suppose my advancing age and the many hours I have spent looking back at my life over this year and a half since I lost Antonio make me want to settle all the things I have left undone. And this certainly is one of the biggest.
As you know, Julia never has married. What you do not know is that she has not lived a virtuous life. She has three children, and would have two more but miscarried them. All of them have different fathers. Her son was born in 1936, and he lives with us. Pilar and I have done our best to raise him because Julia has never had much to do with him. The second, a girl, Julia gave up for adoption in 1942, and next month we will take the newest, another girl, to the woman who arranges the adoptions.
It pains me greatly to see my daughter debasing herself and damaging her soul, and I detest that she is throwing away her own children as our father threw me away. I have been so angry and frustrated with her that I have barely been able to be in the same room with her, which, of course, puts me, in a way, down on the same vile level as our father. I know I should just love her and forgive her and pray for her, but I have been unable to find that in myself. And I feel like a complete failure as a mother that she grew into such a wanton creature in the first place.
I hid this from you
for a selfish reason, because you always have lived such moral and responsible lives, and I feel that I have brought shame to our family even from so far away. And now I tell you for a selfish reason, because I do not want to reach the end of my life knowing that I have kept something so significant from the two people I have loved more than anyone other than my own children. I hope you will forgive me for all of it.
Mercedes González Conde
* * *
Steubenville, Ohio
January 1946
Mercedes, Pilar and Pilar’s husband, Jim, climbed out of his car with the baby girl wrapped warmly in a wool blanket on the winter day.
“They’re here, Ginny,” Elsie shouted back through the rambling house toward the kitchen. She let the curtain fall back across the front window and went out to the porch. “Hello again,” Elsie said cheerfully as Mercedes, Pilar and Jim approached. Virginia quietly emerged from the house and stood behind Elsie. Mercedes lingered at the foot of the stairs. She still spoke no English, and she wanted this shameful business concluded as quickly as possible. Pilar introduced Jim to Elsie.
“Just married? Well, that’s wonderful,” Elsie said. “Congratulations! What happy news.”
“Yes,” Pilar said. She beamed at Jim. “It’s been a whirlwind, and it still seems like a dream. Jim was just back from the war, and he came into this coffee shop with some buddies where I was with some of my friends. One of the girls pointed him out and said he’d been looking constantly in my direction. I was embarrassed, but I nodded at him when we made eye contact. And then he got up, came over to our table, introduced himself and sat down.”
“She was so pretty,” Jim cut in, letting loose a booming laugh that matched his burly frame, “that I had to talk to her.”
“And two weeks later, we got married,” Pilar said with a big smile.
“Two weeks!” Elsie exclaimed. “That must be Fate.”
“It sure feels like it,” Pilar said.
Mercedes, standing away from the rest of them, had no idea what they were talking about. But it annoyed her that they all were so jovial. Pilar looked down toward her. “And you remember my mother—”
“Martha, right?” Elsie said. She descended the stairs.
Mercedes winced at the sound of her Anglicized name and limply shook Elsie’s hand.
“Th-that’s right,” Pilar stammered. She knew her mother hated the name, but it was what the Americans all called her. Looking up to Virginia, who had remained on the porch standing silently near the door, Pilar said: “I’m sorry. Hello there. I don’t think we’ve met.”
“Oh,” Elsie said. She turned from Mercedes. “That’s Ginny. She helps me around the house with my kids, and with the babies while they’re waiting to go to their new families.”
“Nice to meet you, Ginny,” Pilar said with a friendly wave. Virginia mumbled something Pilar took to be a greeting.
“Don’t let her shyness fool you,” Elsie said. “I’ve never seen anybody with a bigger heart and a better way with children. They’ll be screaming their heads off, and I can’t do a thing with them. Then Ginny comes in, and in five minutes, all is happy and peaceful. I don’t know how she does it.”
Pilar looked down at the swaddled little girl in her arms. “I’m glad she’ll be in good hands.” She kissed her niece on the forehead and handed her to Elsie. “I’m sorry we’ve had to call on you again.”
“Aw, there’s nothing to be sorry for,” Elsie said. “These things happen all the time. The preachers and politicians like to act like they don’t, but they’re too wrapped up in their own business to really give a hoot and holler about what happens with real folks.”
“Thank you,” Pilar said.
“And how’s your sister, the baby’s mother?” Elsie asked.
“She’s fine, thanks,” Pilar said, though Julia was far from fine. She was depressed and swilling at the roadhouse until all hours of the night again as soon as she had recovered from the delivery. Julia was taking the birth, John Goad’s unceremonious departure, and the return to Anmoore hard.
“And did she give this little girl a name?” Elsie asked.
“We’ve been calling her Mary,” Pilar said. She extended a finger for the baby to grasp with her tiny hand.
“Mary. That’s a nice name. Hello there, Mary,” Elsie said to the baby, but Mary’s black eyes were fixed on Virginia, who had come down from the porch without anyone but the infant noticing, and stood at Elsie’s side. “We’re going to take good care of you.”
An uncomfortable silence fell. There was nothing else for them to say or do. Jim cleared his throat and spoke up. “Well, I suppose we’d better be going.”
“That is a fair bit of a drive for one day,” Elsie said. She handed Mary to Virginia. “You folks have a safe trip home,” Elsie told Pilar and Jim as they started down the stairs. “And don’t you worry about little Mary. I already have a nice couple lined up who can’t wait to get her.”
Pilar turned back and asked: “Can you tell me where she’ll be living?”
“No harm in that,” Elsie said. “She’s going to be a west-coast girl. The couple is from California.”
Pilar frowned. “California. That’s a long way.”
“Yes,” Elsie said, “but I promise, you have nothing to worry about. I insist on spending some time with all the prospective parents, and these are kind, loving people.”
“That’s good. Thank you,” Pilar said. She knew she should feel assured, but it made her miserable to think of Mary growing up in such a distant place. Elsie had placed Julia’s first daughter with a couple only a few towns over from where Pilar and Jim lived, and she was able to keep surreptitious tabs on the girl. With Mary across the country, she never would know anything of her again.
Pilar nodded and the three of them trudged toward the street. Mercedes was sad and disgusted with Julia. Jim was shocked that a perfectly healthy woman would give away her children like a litter of barn cats.
“It was good to see you again, Martha!” Elsie shouted across the yard. Mercedes looked back at her, and got into the car without a word.
* * *
The California couple took a baby closer to home. Two months had passed since the adoption fell through, and Elsie was beginning to feel desperate. She could not find another adoptive family. With three young children of her own, she could not afford to keep Mary much longer. Then her brother came rolling back into town.
“Good lord, Sammy,” Elsie said as he climbed out of the big Buick. The car’s spotless navy blue body and generous adornment of chrome glistened in the late-March sunshine. “Where’d you get that?”
“I won it!” Sam exclaimed, “playing cards over in Columbus.” Sam was living wherever the cards were hot. The army had discharged him four months before, under circumstances that were still not entirely clear to Elsie.
“So you’ll probably have it until the next card game,” she said. “Come on in the house. We were expecting you two hours ago. Supper’s on the table.”
Sam eagerly tucked into his heaping plate of food. “Ginny, you make the best fried chicken I ever ate,” he said. He grinned at her from the other end of the dining room table. His new gold-capped incisor gleamed like the Buick. “Better than my mom’s even.”
A very slight smile came to Virginia’s thin lips, and she looked down at her plate. She never knew how to take a compliment.
Sam turned to Elsie. “So, how’s the baby business, sis?”
“Not so good,” she said. “A Spanish family from over in Anmoore brought me a little girl two months ago, and the new family fell through. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
“What the hell’s the matter with them spics, anyway?” Sam said. “Giving their kids away. We ought to send them all back to where they came from. We didn’t just fight a war for that kind of trash.” He helped himself to another piece of chicken and more mashed potatoes from the platter and bowl on the table.
“Sammy, for God’s sak
e, don’t say things like that,” Elsie chastened. “A girl just got herself in trouble. Like any girl from anywhere can. Like plenty of white girls do.”
Sam sucked a lodged strand of poultry from between his teeth. “Well, if their parents took a belt to them more often when they were growing up, they wouldn’t get themselves in trouble. Spics and white girls.”
Rather than descend into yet another shouting match with her brother, who would never change anyway, Elsie got up and went to the kitchen to get the fresh pot of coffee that had been brewing as they ate.
“So, how are you doing, Ginny?” Sam asked after his sister left the dining room. “You look as pretty as a picture. I couldn’t hardly wait to get back here and see you again.”
“I’m okay, Sammy,” Virginia said. She pushed the last of the food around her plate with her fork to avoid meeting his gaze. “We’ve been busy with the kids.”
“I’m ready to be busy with some kids of my own,” Sam said. He grinned wider and winked at her. Sam craned forward, his elbows on the table. “I haven’t told Elsie yet, but I got me a job with the city, down in Huntington.”
“I been to Huntington a couple times. I growed up down in Logan,” Virginia said.
“Huntington’s growing like crazy,” Sam said. His voice brimmed with excitement. “The steel mills and glass factories are booming. I’ll have a good, easy job for life, working for the city.”
“What kind of job is it?” Virginia asked.
“Sanitation engineer,” Sam said. He reared back in his chair and pulled a cigarette from a pack of Winstons, lighting it with a battered Zippo. He was going to be a garbage man. “And that’s just to start. My brother went to work for the city six months ago, and he’s already been promoted twice.”
Elsie returned from the kitchen with the pot of coffee. “What are you two conspiring about in here?” she asked.
“I was just telling Ginny about my new job,” Sam said.
“You got a job?” Elsie was astounded.