Secret Sisters

by Joy Callaway

  “Thank you,” I said, unsure what else I should say. I’d read Fuller’s essay some time before, but couldn’t quite remember if it lined up with my thoughts, but I knew she’d been a pioneer and a known feminist. “What do you think of it?”

  “I agree with her, actually. On most points. The main theme . . . at least that I’ve gathered thus far, is that elevating the education and enlightenment of women will, in turn, elevate that of men. I told you already that I see a need for females to seek higher education.”

  I nodded, forcing myself to hear him without offense.

  “Does her essay speak to professions?” I asked, knowing full well that I was plunging head-first into a territory that could swiftly end our conversation.

  Grant shrugged.

  “Not specifically. At least I haven’t gotten there yet.” He placed the book back in the briefcase and snapped the clasp. “Fuller did write something interesting, something I hadn’t thought of before. She basically says—and I’m paraphrasing here—that the only thing anyone wants is freedom. And that if a man exercises superiority over his wife, he is in essence, stealing her freedom, robbing her of her self-worth, encouraging a struggle for power in his marriage.”

  “I can understand that point,” I said.

  He looked down at his hands and then at me, brown eyes soft. “Perhaps I haven’t come across it yet,” he continued, “but how is a marriage supposed to work if the man gives his wife reign of everything, and instead of coexisting harmoniously, she takes the power for herself?”

  “There’s always the risk, I suppose,” I said, trying to understand his point, but all I saw in my mind was my mother on her hands and knees scrubbing the floor—my father couldn’t stand a dirty home—while he repeatedly called for a beer from his worn leather chair in front of the fire. What would she have done if she’d had the freedom to choose?

  “Don’t you think that your mother would have turned the tables on your father if she’d had the freedom to do so? That she would have disappeared from your life as my mother has?” Grant asked, as though he’d somehow read my mind.

  I looked at him, expecting smugness, but instead, I saw confusion. He was trying to reconcile his hurt, trying to fit his family into a formula that didn’t exist.

  “No. She wouldn’t have ever left me,” I said. “Above all else, she loved me. Her heart wouldn’t have allowed her to leave.” I blinked to stop the burning behind my eyes, startled by my grief.

  Grant was silent, his head bowed.

  “I’m sorry.”

  I’d only been honest, but in the course of it, I’d just reminded him that his mother hadn’t loved him—at least enough. I reached for his hand and his fingers curled around mine, but otherwise, he didn’t move. Unable to stand the silence, I spoke. “My parents didn’t know each other before they married. They were from neighboring towns. My father was selling firewood door to door and when my grandfather answered his knock, he saw my mother sitting next to the hearth. He asked after her immediately and my grandfather essentially agreed to their marriage on the spot. She was the youngest of five and they were poor, so my grandfather needed someone else to take care of her. They married two weeks later.”

  My mother had told me the story on Saint Valentine’s Day when I was young. I’d asked how they’d met and she’d recounted the story without a hint of a smile. She’d been an arrangement. From that point on, I’d looked at my parents differently, doubting my mother had ever been happy.

  “Sounds a bit like mine,” Grant said. “My grandmother was determined to strike a deal with a business tycoon in America—a match promising a connection to the peerage for a son and money for her daughter. My grandfather was the only man in New York greedy enough to take the bait. By the end of the week, my father was engaged to my mother.” His hand broke from mine and rose to my cheek.

  “Both arrangements sound terrible,” I said.

  “Beth . . . I . . . I’ve never felt comfortable speaking this candidly to anyone.” Warmth pooled in the pit of my stomach as I took him in—the strong jaw, the full lips, the eyes that suddenly seemed to blaze.

  “I’m so glad you confided in me,” I said.

  “I know we haven’t spent much time together, but for the first time in years, I’ve felt like myself,” he said. “And I can’t help but think it’s because of you.” He stood and leaned into me, and I could feel the whisper of his lips on my ear. “Our parents didn’t have a chance. They didn’t know each other. Perhaps, somehow, there’s a way for us if we take our time, if we do.”

  His lips met my forehead, but I was only vaguely aware of it. In a matter of a day, he’d begun to look ahead, to see his future changed. And, he’d thought about it with me.

  11

  A few hours later, I descended the library steps on the heels of a group of men talking about a girl named Julianne Peterson. Richardson Library had been a popular choice for study hours—I’d barely been able to find a seat—and shortly after I’d located the college’s copy of Carl Ernst Bock’s Atlas of Human Anatomy, I knew why. A group of divinity girls keen to be pastors had planned to practice their sermons to a crowd of senior men, and nearly the entire library was filled for the occasion. Only a few of us hadn’t realized our mistake by the time the attendance logs had been passed around for signatures and study hours officially started. The first two girls were somewhat bearable, their voices almost droning and easy to tune out, but the third, Miss Peterson, was both passionate and striking, her sermon on Romans 8 a compelling, well-thought lesson on the scripture. Though I’d never heard of her before this morning, I wasn’t likely to forget her.

  I glanced across the frozen quad to the hill, wishing I could see Everett Hall through the old oak trees’ gnarled arms, but could only make out the wash of yellow sun on the horizon. I wondered if Lily had slept, if she’d been able to forget about our argument.

  I’d withdrawn from Grant after his revelation. I couldn’t help it. He’d been searching for a sign that I felt the same, but I refused to answer him, finally saying that it had been quite a morning and that I was exhausted. Thankfully, he’d believed me, but had still wanted to walk me home, an occasion I knew would encourage more questions I wasn’t prepared to answer. The riddle of his feelings and mine, Lily’s anger, and Will’s hurt were all too much to process. So I’d told him that I’d decided I was going to study at the library—only a building over—and that there was no need to accompany me.

  As I left the library, campus was still quiet as it always was on Saturday mornings. The majority of our classmates would remain tucked away in their dormitories until the Unitarian service at eleven-thirty. The clock on the chapel read five until ten. An hour until our meeting. I shivered, bunching my cloak’s overhanging sleeves around the cuffs of my dress.

  I paced back toward Old Main, figuring I’d wait for the girls there instead of making the trek back up to the dormitory only to turn around and come back. Getting to the chapter room early would give me time to think anyway, to figure out a way to make things right with Lily.

  I slipped into the dark damp of the basement, reaching the room in a few strides. I turned the knob, but it didn’t budge. I tried again, pushing my hip into the wood, but the bolt simply jostled in place. It was locked. I backed away and slumped against the stone wall. The chill seeped through the heavy fabric at my back as I stared at the patches of waterlogged rot along the bottom of the door. They’d locked me out. Suddenly it made sense. Lily had asked me to leave so that she could call a meeting without me, a meeting to vote me out without giving me a chance to apologize, to explain myself. I knew my logic was ridiculous, that our friendship, our sisterhood, was stronger than a quarrel, but I worried the worst all the same. I placed my palm on the door, unexpectedly homesick for the tiny room and the handwritten letters that I’d found so temporary and unsatisfactory before. It was a glint of gold in a pan of pebbles, the start of a dream, and I’d taken it for granted.

  Something
clattered on the other side of the door, followed by the soft padding of footsteps. I rapped my hand against the wood, did it again, knocked four times, and rolled my knuckles. Perhaps they’d show me grace. The jangling stopped abruptly and I heard a cough.

  “Who knocks on the door of Beta Xi Beta?” Katherine. Before I could answer, the door opened.

  “Beth,” she breathed, but I barely noticed. The floor was blanketed with crates, some in stacks four or five high.

  “What . . . what’s this?” I edged past her, barely able to fit through the doorway. Katherine fiddled with the brass buttons lining the front of her white shirtwaist, fingers pausing on the cameo she always wore in the middle of her bodice. Instead of explaining how and why the chapter room had been turned into a storehouse, she just looked at me as though I was carrying a secret. Perhaps I was. I’d kissed Grant twice, after all.

  She reached to straighten my cap and snorted.

  “I knew it. He kissed you, didn’t he? Already this morning, too.”

  “I—” I started to explain myself, but she cut me off.

  “Your lips are a touch swollen, your cap is cockeyed, and though you’re trying your hardest, you can’t help grinning.”

  “It’s not what you think,” I said, knowing she was likely thinking I was as carefree as she was, that I’d had a romantic night with Grant and couldn’t resist falling into his arms again this morning despite my reservations. In a way, she’d be right. “I got into an argument with Lily and . . . and Will as well. I spent the night trying to study in the gathering hall because I couldn’t sleep and then as soon as the first girls went out to breakfast, I went out to speak with Will.”

  “And then Mr. Richardson stole you away for a morning tryst.” Her lips pulled up at the corners.

  My cheeks were hot and I shook my head.

  “It wasn’t like—”

  “Don’t be so embarrassed. Being close to a man you enjoy isn’t a crime.”

  “Perhaps you don’t see it that way, but I wasn’t, Katherine. I only—”

  She waved her leather-gloved hand at me.

  “Protesting only ruins the story, dear. If it makes you feel more comfortable, I first kissed a boy the day after my sixteenth birthday, and every week after for nearly a year until one evening it became something more. After, I knew I should be ashamed, frightened about what should happen if he should leave me with child, but I kept doing it. We were careful, of course.” I nodded, holding my tongue from commenting something disapproving. “At first it was because I thought he loved me and I felt whole in his arms, and then, after I found out he didn’t, I did it to win his heart . . . until I realized that I didn’t care anymore, that I was only offering myself because I wanted to. I miss it. I’ve yet to entertain another man in that way, and I doubt I will again unless I get married, lest I turn away all prospects with my reputation. It’s silly, really, the stigma that comes with intimacy. I don’t see what all the fuss is about.”

  Pregnancy, an undesirable reputation, disease—the arguments for abiding morality’s rules struck my mind, but I didn’t bother voicing them. She wasn’t a dolt and something about the way she acted as though the man hadn’t mattered made me altogether sad for her. He’d clearly mattered a great deal.

  “Tell me what this is,” I said, casting my hand over the sea of crates, and Katherine smiled.

  “You’re being entirely unfair, you know, withholding a delightful story from me. I was the only sister absent from the ball. I think I deserve at least a bit of gossip as a consolation.”

  I kept my gaze fixed on the boxes. Katherine hadn’t been asked because she was Southern. She knew it as well as I did, even though no one really talked about it. I’d seen the way men looked at her. She was alluring, beautiful, and wealthy, easily the most eligible woman on campus if she hadn’t had the misfortune of hailing from Confederate stock. But her heritage prevented interest from any well-to-do Northerner. Families still recalled the war, remembered the sting of loved ones lost to the rebels. Both of my uncles had died fighting for the Union.

  Katherine sighed at my silence. “I suppose I’ll concede a subject change this once. You’re looking at two hundred gallons of Kentucky’s finest rye. I’ll have it out of here tonight . . . at least I hope.”

  “What?” I ran a hand across my face, wondering if my exhaustion was causing me to hallucinate. “Why would you have two hundred gallons of whiskey?”

  “To most, Daddy’s a corn grower. To some, Daddy’s a distiller,” she said. “And not quite of the legal variety.”

  I felt my mouth drop open. I suppose I hadn’t asked about her family, but she didn’t seem like the type. When I thought of illegal distillers, my mind didn’t exactly conjure a woman as elegant as Katherine. “I suppose I should have asked y’all before I volunteered the chapter room, but I found out last night that Daddy’s man in Green Oaks was arrested by the revenue agents the other week, so naturally his barn’s out of use.”

  I had no words. Was she out of her mind?

  “Are you upset with me?” She looked shocked at my stony countenance. “Like I said, I would have asked, but seeing as how all of you were at the ball without me, I—”

  “Are you truly wondering if I’m angry at you for storing your illegal liquor in our chapter room?” I could feel my wits snapping like tiny explosions in my chest. I knew that my reaction was in part due to the fact that I’d felt altogether undone since my conversation with Lily last night, but it didn’t matter. Mary had been wrong to let her into the sisterhood so quickly. I’d been right to keep my distance.

  “Yes.”

  “Of course I’m mad. I’m livid. It’s obvious that you didn’t think. Did it even cross your mind that we’d all be expelled if you were found out? And even if you could somehow convince President Wilson that all of this was your doing alone, they’d find our things, they’d know we’d been meeting here.” I inhaled the mildew-tinged air, trying to calm down.

  She opened her palm, and it was then I noticed she’d been holding a wreath pin. Lily must’ve made one for her. I narrowly refrained from snatching it from her hand.

  “Of course I thought about it,” she said. “But, Beth, no one comes down here. Otherwise, y’all wouldn’t meet here, and you have to understand. James and I . . . we didn’t know what else to do—”

  “You told your brother about us? You took him here?”

  “No,” Katherine said, grabbing my wrists. “I would never. I just told him to tell Daddy’s driver to deliver to the back of Old Main and that I’d be waiting. Our driver loaded it in here himself. He’s from Kentucky. He didn’t pay one bit of mind to the letters on the wall or ask any questions.” She paused for a moment and let my hands drop. “I would have left them in the hall, but I worried that someone might come down here and see the crates. I thought that they’d be safer behind a locked door.”

  “Who’s coming to get it?”

  “Another one of Daddy’s drivers. He’ll be here at eight. He’s carrying them up to Chicago in a livestock wagon.” She smiled, as though she thought disguising liquor as livestock was genius. “And before you ask, we’ll make sure no one is about while he’s loading the wagon. He won’t think twice about the letters on the wall either. In our business, this isn’t even close to the strangest thing he’s seen.”

  I fingered the black braided stitching along the cuff of my cloak. My anger couldn’t change the fact that our chapter room had become a distillery’s storehouse.

  “Is breaking the rules worth this much hassle?” I asked, scanning the piles of beaten crates. Some were splintered, exposing the necks of dark brown bottles. “Why don’t you do it the legal way?”

  “We turn a thirteen dollar a gallon profit while the legal distillers are lucky to turn five. So, yes it’s worth it,” she said. “And it’s what we’re due for the work. Mama was a terror to be around after she settled the books each month back when we were simple corn growers. We were always on the brink of lo
sing granddaddy’s farm until Daddy’s friend in Ohio, a distiller himself, came calling. I remember listening outside of the drawing room door with his son, George.” Katherine’s cheeks flushed, and I wondered if he was the man she’d referenced earlier. “That was the first time he held my hand. I shouldn’t have let him. In any case, Mr. Foster told him that the administration’s only taxing hard-working people like Daddy so that they can pay off the cost of a war they started. Daddy’s never been one to sit on a profitable idea, so he began forming the distillery the following week. Since he didn’t want to be a part of this country anyway, Daddy doesn’t see why he should pay for it to be rebuilt.”

  I flinched, thinking of my uncles.

  “If you’re so loyal to the Southern cause, why aren’t you still there?” I was losing my composure, but could hardly help it. Each time I began to calm, she riled me anew.

  “I said that that was my daddy’s view,” she said. “Not mine.” She sat down on a crate, causing the glass necks to clang underneath her. She situated her red velvet skirt over her legs and attached the wreath pin above her heart. I couldn’t believe she had the gumption to believe she’d still be accepted as part of Beta Xi Beta after all of this.

  “And you aren’t worried about getting caught yourself? Shouldn’t your father be worried about you?” My mind swum with the contradiction of who she’d convinced me she was and the person sitting in front of me.

  “No,” she said, pursing her lips. “I’ve never really been Daddy’s focus. See, first it was my sister, trying to tame her rebellion, but then she died and he turned to grooming James.” I expected her to elaborate on her sister’s death, but she kept on. “I suppose he and Mama assumed I’d turn out fine. The only time he really paid me any mind was when he thought I’d be Mrs. George Foster and would need to know the business like Mama does.”