LIZZY

by Jim Wetton

  “You’ll do nothing of the sort, Mrs. McKeever!” Nellie groaned. “We need you for the long haul so what you need to do is rest and place your trust in the woman you’ve not only raised, but also taught very well. I promise I’ll keep you updated, OK?”

  “OK, you win,” Lizzy said in defeat.

  Nellie turned around to leave the room but stopped just short of the doorway. She turned around and saw that her mother was already sound asleep. Her slight grin turned to a frown as she gazed upon the woman who had given life to her. She sighed deeply and slowly shook her head.

  Nellie couldn’t hold back the lump in her throat at the sight before her. Her mother was sixty-eight years old. She’d outlived all of her siblings, her husband and all of her children, with only one exception. Nellie felt a sense of duty to ensure that the drive that kept her mother alive continued. She had her sister-in-law, her dear friend Edith and now Molly Brown in the next room planning on doing just that. Her biggest concern: Was that enough? She knew all too well that the answer was no.

  She looks so frail. Nellie’s thoughts sharpened the lump in her throat. Got to get this done and see her stroll up and place her ballot in that box that she’s been yearning after for half a lifetime.

  “I’m going to get you to vote, Momma. I promise.” Nellie’s whisper only caused Lizzy to mumble something inaudible as she turned over to her side and purred herself into a deep slumber.

  *  *  *  *

  The first knock on the door was faint. The second was more pronounced but still couldn’t be heard over the voices of the dozen women in Lizzy’s living room. The third pounding startled everyone to stop talking as they all looked towards the front door.

  Lizzy walked towards the door and opened it slowly. She looked back at the women in the room and smiled. “Ladies, we have an unusual, but very welcomed caller at the door.”

  As Lizzy pulled the door open, Theodore Roosevelt stepped in, hat in hand, but missing his signature grin that everyone had come to love about him.

  The women became suddenly quiet as if seeing a celebrity for the very first time.

  “Now ladies, now, now!” Lizzy could see by their reaction that the unannounced caller had stirred up quite a commotion. “Edith, please, if you will, could you pull up that chair over there and Caroline, could you bring Mr. Roosevelt a refreshment, the one I keep in the kitchen cupboard, above the stove, you know.”

  Edith jumped up and began moving furniture. Caroline nodded her understanding and left the room, giving one last glance at the former president as she went into the kitchen. Nellie, knowing full well about the relationship her mother had always had with the former president, took everything with the grain of salt. To her, it was just like good ol’ Uncle Teddy had come for a visit, despite the whispers starting to rise from the women around her.

  “Uncle Teddy, come on in, if you dare!” Nellie yelled out with a laugh.

  As Roosevelt entered the room, he stopped and stared at a room full of gawking women. He looked over at Nellie who was sitting next to Molly Brown and another woman from Maryland. He then looked over at Lizzy, who was grinning from ear to ear.

  “Oh Lizzy, you don’t know just how much I need your smile right now.”

  Lizzy was the first to take notice of her dear friend’s demeanor. She stepped forward and as she reached for Roosevelt’s hand, Caroline arrived with a snifter of brandy in hand.

  “Here, Teddy, take this and then take my hand,” Lizzy spoke softly, her eyes searching for what ailed her dear friend.

  She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but something was different. She’d seen Roosevelt during good times and bad. Something was different. His hair had greyed and thinned. The wrinkles in his face were more pronounced and the furrow of his eyebrows told her that her dear friend was getting old.

  Lizzy circumvented the room and moved women from here to there by just nodding. Once in his seat and all the other women placed in their new spots, Lizzy breathed in deeply and said, “So . . . ?”

  “We lost,” was all Roosevelt could say.

  “Taft?” Nellie asked out loud from across the room.

  “No, he lost too.”

  “Wilson. . . .” The word came from Edith, who had just taken a seat next to Nellie.

  “Yes, my dear friends, we now have a new president and his name is Woodrow Wilson. This ol’ boy is going to have to call it quits until you all can get the chance someday to cast your voice for me to come back, but hey!” Roosevelt’s voice vibrated in the room as the women turned their heads towards him.

  “We all have to remember that we live in a democracy. We evolve, we come and we go but we evolve. I can’t deny that I’m disappointed, but we evolve. So many were devastated when Theodore Roosevelt entered the White House in 1901 but they accepted it and we did a lot of good. Now, the same must be for our new president. Disappointed or not, we must stand behind him and believe that he will continue to lead us . . . lead you.” Roosevelt paused and looked around the room. He noticed so many eyes staring down to the floor and he cleared his throat as a precursor to an announcement of importance. “Lead you towards your right to vote him in or vote him out of office in four years!”

  His raised voice caught everyone’s attention and it was Caroline who first came to her feet. “We will vote! We will vote! We will vote!”

  Soon all the women were standing, each chanting in unison.

  Roosevelt’s smile widened and he too added his own chorus before he turned and walked into the kitchen, followed by Lizzy.

  “I know that was hard for you to do, Teddy, but it meant a lot to those women.”

  “We are so close, Lizzy, so very close. I’m just afraid that Wilson won’t see the importance of it all and he’ll shelve it for another decade or so.”

  “I’ll be dead if he does that, Teddy.”

  Roosevelt stopped and turned abruptly. “My dear friend, we are in this together; trust me. I may not be president anymore, nor have any influence with what Taft left, but I will never give up on what’s right and what is wrong.”

  “Nor shall we.”

  Lizzy and Roosevelt turned at the sound of Nellie’s voice.

  “You two have been our rock, but it’s time we start making our own noise. I’m so very sorry, Uncle Teddy. I know what it meant for you to come back and I know what it meant for my mother to have you in that office, but it’s not to be. Now, more than ever it’s time for all of us, us women, to unite and bring all the states together as one; if our new president can’t see that, then it’s going to be up to us to vote him out or to vote him back in.”

  “Come next March, who will join me in meeting with the new president?” Nellie announced out to the women in the living room. “Who will be with me to let him know that we are not going away and though our Uncle Teddy isn’t in that big white house anymore, we still have his big stick and have no qualm of using it, right?”

  The cheers vibrated throughout the house. Hannah, Bonnie, Teddy and Nancy Lee were all crouched together at the end of the hall, looking on. Each in their nightgowns, but each very much in agreement.

  Nellie spotted her children and smiled. She nodded to Lizzy, who looked over at them.

  “Whoa, ladies!” Lizzy abruptly announced. “Hold your horses and sit yourselves down!’

  Once the room had calmed, Lizzy moved to the center. She winked at Roosevelt as he secretively exited through the front door and then returned her attention to the ladies in the room.

  “Ladies and Little Teddy!”

  The eyes in the room went down the hall and to the only male in the house. “I’d like you all to know that we McKeevers . . . we Monroes . . . we are all in this to the end. All of my girls and—my Teddy included—are all in this together. We can and we will bring about the right for all women to vote. If our new president is smart, and I’m sure he is, he will see the value of including us in all of his decisions because if he doesn’t, then before the day I’m called up
to heaven, we will vote him out.”

  Lizzy breathed in hard. Her chest ached as she placed her hand on her heart. She blinked and forced herself to focus. “Ladies, we have to; I can’t implore it enough. We have to win the right to cast our voice, if it’s the last thing we do.”

  Nellie rushed forward and grabbed onto Lizzy’s arms before she fell.

  “Momma!”

  Hannah rushed into the living room clad only in her nightgown. Bonnie followed as well as Teddy and Nancy Lee. The younger children huddled in a corner as Nellie guided Lizzy to the couch. The women in the room had moved as soon as they realized how fragile Lizzy had become. Some moved outdoors to the porch, but most remained and looked on with concern.

  “I’m, uh, I’m fine, please.” Lizzy’s voice was weak, her skin pale and damp.

  Lizzy blinked once, blinked again. She could feel a damp cloth on her forehead. Could hear the murmurs around her.

  “Nellie?”

  “Right here, Momma.”

  “Caroline?”

  “Yes, Mother, I’m here too.”

  “Got to meet with Wilson . . . ,” Lizzy’s voice trailed as Nellie looked over at Caroline, fright in her eyes.

  “We will, Momma, we will. You just relax and rest. I’ve got a call to the doctor.”

  “Nonsense, child! I’m fine. Just a bit overdone, that’s all.” Lizzy waved her hand in the air.

  Nellie’s frantic eyes buried into Caroline. Edith came in and put a hand on Nellie’s shoulders; behind her stood Molly. Everyone’s eyes were focused on Lizzy’s labored breathing.

  *  *  *  *

  “Doctor’s here, Nellie,” Edith whispered gently.

  Nellie looked up at the doctor, her eyes welled with frightful tears. Just a few hours before they were all laughing and now. . . .

  “Momma?”

  Nellie barely heard her voice but could feel her oldest standing near her.

  “Is Nana . . . ?” Hannah started.

  “Your grandmother’s going to be just fine,” Nellie stated a bit too emphatically.

  Nellie immediately wanted to take back her reaction as she turned towards her daughter. She reached out for her as she too saw tears coming down her cheeks. “Nana’s going to be just fine. Just tired, that’s all, just tired.”

  Caroline had called all the other women together and asked them to give the family some privacy until Lizzy could recover. With respect, all of the women left, each giving their own well wishes and thoughtful prayers.

  Caroline returned to the living room and seeing it was empty, moved down the hall to Lizzy’s room.

  “Momma?” Nellie’s voice cracked. “Momma, they’ve all left and it’s just us now, us and Doctor Saunders. You rest now and let the doctor take care of you. I’ll . . . We’ll all be right here, OK?”

  Nellie choked in a need to cry when she didn’t receive an answer.

  “She’s in good hands, Nellie,” Edith said as she took Nellie’s hand and led her to the front room.

  “It’s just so odd,” Nellie began as she took a seat on the couch. “At one point, Mother was joyful as all get out. She receives a visit from her dear friend, Uncle Teddy, and then once he leaves, she. . . .” Her voice trailed off as she remembered the moment.

  “It’s all going to be just fine,” Edith said again, still holding on to Nellie’s hand.

  “She’s absolutely right, Nellie,” Doctor Saunders voice was heard from the other end of the room. “Your mother is just extremely tired. She’s still recovering from that bout of the flu, remember, so to see her in this condition is no surprise. She shouldn’t have even tried to hold a party like this to begin with, but I’ll have that conversation with her another time.”

  The doctor paused and looked at Nellie and then at the others. He noticed the children gathered around and nodded for Nellie to follow him. Once out on the front porch, the doctor turned towards Nellie, softness in his eyes. “Nellie, your mother’s not getting any younger and though she still thinks she can work at the pace she did with the Underground Railroad and bring about voting rights for all women, the truth of the matter is she’ll kill herself doing it.”

  Nellie’s eyes welled up with tears at the very sound of the words the doctor used.

  “I know, Doctor, I know,” Nellie choked. “She’s just got this promise she made and I don’t know how anyone can ever talk her out of it.”

  Doctor Saunders tilted his head, unable to understand Nellie’s meaning.

  “I’m sorry; it’s such a long story, but I’ll do my best to take the load off of her. We have an army of women who can do it all for her and though I know it’ll never be the same to her, it has to. She’s all I have left and I can’t think of her not being here. Just tell me what I need to do, Doctor, and then consider it done.”

  “Keep her rested and well nourished. If she insists on her involvement, then monitor it and give her plenty of fluids and breaks. She’s not a spring chicken, child, even though I’m sure she’d debate that very comment until we both are in our graves.”

  Nellie enjoyed the laugh they shared, but she could see the seriousness return to the doctor’s face.

  “Nellie, your mother has a condition. She could live many years or just a few. It all depends on how she takes care of herself, or I should say how well you take care of her. One, two, five or ten years, only God knows. She’s at the age where she needs to glide into her twilight years, not rush into it like a locomotive. All I can say is tonight is a warning for you. Social issues aside, your mother needs to remain calm.”

  As Nellie walked the doctor to the front door and thanked him, she closed the door and turned around to a room of family and friends.

  “Momma’s going to be just fine and when she wakes, we’re just going to tell her that we have already won the right to vote and leave it at that, OK?” Nellie’s smile quickly faded as her eyes filled back up with tears of worry.

  Who am I kidding?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  The Year for Rejuvenation

  1913

  “Oh Moses, how in some odd way, I wish I could join you up there.” Lizzy shifted her gaze from the sky and looked out upon the Potomac. She breathed in deep and released an intense sigh. She felt the softness of the breeze gently caressing her cheeks as she turned towards the Washington Monument directly in front of her. A family of geese flew by, each one following the other in a magical sequence that only God could create. She looked farther to her right and saw the corner of the Capitol. She sighed again and smiled slightly. Oh, how I do love it here.

  It had taken Lizzy several months to recover from her pneumonia but the doctor told her that if she’d take it slow, rest often and build up her strength, she’d have a full recovery. She had left the planning and organizing of the women’s leadership to Nellie, Edith, Caroline and Molly, which was fine with her. She hated to admit it, but she didn’t have the stamina that the younger women had.

  “Used to, but not anymore.” She laughed at herself as she shifted on the bench. “Either my backside is getting boney or this old bench is getting harder but I just can’t get comfortable.” She laughed again, knowing how ridiculous it must look, her shifting around on the bench while talking to herself.

  Once settled, Lizzy breathed in a sigh of relief and leaned back. After a few moments listening to the sounds around her, she thought of Harriet Tubman again. “Oh, Moses, what we did together . . . you, me, Martin.”

  Lizzy’s gaze turned skyward again as if she was speaking directly into Heaven itself. “You’re with Martin now, Moses, and for that I’m so very thankful. I imagine you two are probably planning some form of Heaven’s Railroad, hey?”

  Her chuckle caused her chest to tighten. Her eyes widened as she forced herself to slow down her breathing. A hawk flew down near her and scooped something from the river’s edge before ascending back high into the sky. “Dear God, Moses, I’m only sixty-nine. You held on to ninety-one, so what’s my complai
nt, hey?”

  She laughed again. “Holy Moly, Lizzy. You’ve been hanging around too many New Englanders. What’s with all the ‘heys’?”

  Lizzy shifted herself on her bench again. She patted the splintered wood lightly and smiled. It was the same bench that she’d walked to for longer than she could remember. She settled back down, resting her back against the back side of the bench. “They really need to refinish this thing. Gonna give me splinters where no one in their right mind would want to get out and that’ll be the end of me for sure, hey?” She laughed, which hurt, but the thought made her feel good.

  “Oh Lizzy, so many are gone now, so many wonderful people. Sixty-nine . . . longer than any other Monroe, but who knows? I bet you Daniel would have lived longer than sixty-nine and probably Micah, too. No, not Micah, no, he always had that wild side in him. Oh, how I miss them all so.”

  Lizzy scooted herself forward in order to rest her head on the back of the bench. She closed her eyes. The sounds of the birds chirping as they flew by created a lullaby effect that had her falling into a somber sleep and soon into a blissful dream.

  *  *  *  *

  “You didn’t do what I asked!” Lizzy’s eyes opened abruptly at the harsh words screaming her way. “I thought I made myself perfectly clear, Lizzy; you were to take care of the women in our family. You are a Monroe, aren’t you? Yes, you are a Monroe!”

  Lizzy could barely make out the image of a woman in the distance though she could hear her plain as day. She had blond hair but her face was twisted into a scowl and her eyes pierced deep with burning embers around the lids that made the color of her eyes flash red with fire.

  “You promised, Lizzy. You promised!” Lizzy’s head jerked forward at the force of the woman’s voice.

  Lizzy gasped for a breath of air. She lunged forward from her place on the bench, her hands clutching her chest in a tight hug. She frantically looked about, yet saw no one other than the woman and she was closing in. Voices around her began to increase, not only in volume, but in magnitude. Soon she was surrounded by hundreds—no, thousands—of voices, all yelling at her, screaming at her their disappointment that exhumed her very soul.