All for a Sister (20 page)

I imagined myself, when my period of mourning ended, receiving the continued, courteous sympathies of some of the ladies in my social circle, and perhaps one would lean close and ask, “Whatever happened to her poor drudge of a mother?”

At which time I would affect a reluctant air and mention that the poor woman found herself with child, and to deter her from doing something drastic with it, I’d opened my home for the duration of her confinement. And then, later—after—I would send out a tasteful announcement of our intention to adopt.

That is almost how it happened.

I’d managed to meet the needs of Mrs. Lundgren without informing the other members of the household—not even Arthur or Mrs. Gibbons. Shielding her presence from Arthur proved to be easy; he spent so much of his time at the lab or university that he was often home just long enough to fall into bed asleep, and
when he was awake, he was barely alert. Always preoccupied and foggy-headed with his ideas and plans and, I like to think, his own muffled grief.

It helped, too, that Mrs. Lundgren herself seemed reluctant to reveal her presence to anyone, especially my husband, saying, “He might not want the baby, especially knowing that it’s mine.”

I told her there was no need for him to know, as there were foundlings born every day needing a home. I worried, though, that her fear might make her disregard our agreement.

At that, she reassured, “I’ll do anything I need to do to get my daughter back.”

That statement made me all the more resolute that I was doing the right thing in relieving her of the care of the child she was about to bring into the world. Look, I reasoned to myself, how willing she is to give it away. And it affirmed my idea of the balanced equation: she would have one of her children, I would have one of her children, and God would have one of mine.

Concealing her from Mrs. Gibbons, however, proved a mightier task. I took to giving the woman copious, time-consuming chores that would keep her bound to the first floor for much of the morning—creating inventories of our china and silver, alphabetizing the books in the library, meticulously mending articles of clothing to be donated to the poor. I began to request my breakfast brought to my room, which I promptly delivered to Mrs. Lundgren before going downstairs and declaring I was still famished. For lunch, I made cold sandwiches from whatever meat had been served, along with slices of cheese and fruit. Under the excuse of taking an afternoon nap, I whisked them upstairs in a small basket, along with a jar of cold tea.

Supper, though, proved to be both tricky and costly.

I decided to raise Mrs. Gibbons’s wages in the form of renting
a small apartment for her close by, saying that, with just the three of us, and Calvin ever more self-sufficient, there was no need for her to confine herself to the tiny room behind the kitchen. Each evening, after washing up the supper dishes, she took herself home. With Calvin tucked away in bed and Arthur not due home before ten o’clock, I might bring Mrs. Lundgren down to the parlor for a game of rummy. We talked to our cards more than to each other, but it was a respite from loneliness. I made her a plate of whatever I’d been served (food reserved for Arthur, but he rarely ate upon his arrival) and, to keep her company, consumed a second plate of my own. Following the meal, we ate enormous slices of cake washed down with milk, for the good of the baby, I said. Both of us eating for two.

“I suppose if I’m to be a prisoner, there are worse circumstances,” she said one night after soundly trouncing me on the scorecard. We’d wagered the last almond cookie, which she popped into her mouth triumphantly.

Eyeing the crumb at the corner of her lip, I agreed, saying that her poor daughter most assuredly wasn’t sitting beside a cozy fire with such genial company.

I don’t know how she managed to swallow that bite. In fact, I feared she’d choke right there at the card table. Tears filled her eyes, and I gloated inwardly at the hollowness of her victory. Truly, I shouldn’t have said such things. Such were a cruel abuse of my superior position, but from time to time I felt the need to remind her of our agreement. We were not friends, despite my employment of the euphemism. Later, when I knew the child to be rumbling around inside her, I dropped such comments more frequently. In between, though, our conversations were nothing short of cordial, and I suppose in some way, she helped me prepare for my reentry to society.

Mrs. Lundgren had been a guest in our home for nearly two weeks before I had both strength and opportunity to venture from the house. A missionary newly returned from China had been invited to speak with some of the ladies from my church, and a personal invitation had been sent to me hinting that a glimpse into the hardships of others might help to heal my own sadness.

Make no mistake: my reluctance to leave the house stemmed from my sense of propriety in mourning, but I concede that failure to engage in such an opportunity might earn me more suspicion than sympathy. So when I received the invitation to attend the lecture from the missionary to China, I did not hesitate in penning a response thanking my friend for her personal attention to my well-being and stating that I would be more than happy to attend.

By the time the day of the event arrived, I daresay I felt some sort of excitement at the idea of getting out of the house. Mrs. Lundgren wasn’t the only one feeling somewhat like a prisoner, as I’d only ventured out to attend Sunday services since the morning Mary was taken from me. I had graduated from wearing my black mourning gown to simple housebound dresses, and I spent a good thirty minutes surveying my wardrobe to find the perfect suit that would draw the proper balance of compliments and sympathy. I settled on simple, light wool, fawn-colored with black piping, and a black silk blouse underneath.

During my homebound days, I’d allowed myself to roam without cinching my corset to the point of discomfort, and my first attempt to button the blouse made it clear that those days of freedom were at an end. I called downstairs to Mrs. Gibbons, who came immediately, given that she had standing orders not to
come up the stairs unannounced, and told her somewhat sheepishly that I required assistance with my lacings.

She tried again and again, but no amount of red-faced tugging would bring my body to the size needed to close the buttons on the blouse, and we had no better luck with the skirt.

Admitting defeat, I instructed Mrs. Gibbons to return the garments to the closet and find something more accommodating. I’d taken to my sofa, exhausted from alternating huffing and breathlessness, and there sat with unbridled girth spilling out around me, when she emerged, a shy, knowing smile on her face.

“Oh, missus, I think it’s a grand thing.”

I asked what, exactly, was so grand about not being able to fit into one’s own clothes.

“I just now put it together. Takin’ your breakfast in bed, and nappin’ in the afternoon. An’ I wasn’t going to mention it for fear crowdin’ into your business, but I’ve noticed there’s never a crumb of dessert left each mornin’ from the night before.”

Her words piled up more like accusations than discovery, and I harshly chided her for having the nerve to commend me for growing fat.

“Oh, it’s not gettin’ fat when there’s a child growin’. And I’m so happy for you and the mister. We’re all still grievin’ for little Miss Mary, but it’s a gift from God, isn’t it? This new one come to the family. When do you expect it to be born?”

Until this point, I didn’t count anything that I’d said to be a lie. Ruthless, perhaps, and clearly outside any rule of law, but truthful in both intent and execution. I sat for a moment, looking into Mrs. Gibbons’s sweet, monkey-like face, with lilac powder caked into its fine wrinkles and pale-gray hairs tufted at the corner of her lips, and I calculated.

Spring, I said. Late March or early April. It’s hard to know exactly.

She clapped her hands in glee. “Well, that makes you nearly three months gone already, doesn’t it? I suppose you’ll have to wear some of what you did when you were carryin’ Miss Mary, won’t you? If I’d known, I’d have taken ’em out of storage yesterday. Now I’ll have to press somethin’, and I’m afraid it might make you late.”

I assured her we had plenty of time, especially once she made clear that the clothes were stored in a second-floor guest bedroom and not in the attic. After sending her off, trusted to find something appropriate without my guidance, I fell to my knees.

I cannot, in this document, recount my prayer. Words uttered to God in our darkest hours are, I believe, sacred, and I cannot say for certain that any fully formed syllables fell from my lips. It was a cry for both forgiveness and favor, drawing on grace for sins I had yet to commit, but fully intended to. My grief granted permission for me to seek his tolerance of my actions and to spare the flesh-and-blood baby any of the consequences of my deceit.

The two mingled together, my weeping and my prayers, until Mrs. Gibbons came back with a pile of garments heaped in her arms.

“There, there,” she said, dropping them across the corner of the bed before coming to kneel companionably beside me. I reached for her and held her close, the way I would a mother, if I had one, and confessed to her white lace collar that I was a horrible person, more horrible than anybody could ever imagine.

“I don’t blame you for being emotional.” She patted my back. “I know you can’t just replace Miss Mary with a new baby, but you have to let yourself love it anyway. It’s still a child, a gift from God, and we cannot question his timing. Loving this baby don’t
mean you love your other children any less, not Master Calvin in the house nor Miss Mary in heaven.”

My voice hitched as I promised that I would love this baby just the same. Just as if it were truly my own.

“But of course it’s your own,” she said without a hint of suspicion. “For as long as God allows.”

Two hours later, after warning Mrs. Lundgren to rest quietly in the afternoon, as I would be out, I sat in Mrs. Scott’s parlor, daintily nibbling on a most delicious lemon cake and sipping apricot punch while wearing a delightfully comfortable elastic-waist skirt and generous blouse. I’d left a similar outfit with Mrs. Lundgren, though ironically, she was nowhere near my girth.

My appearance was met with the reception I’d hoped for. Repeated expressions of sympathy and decorous joy at my obvious condition. In years past, even when I was pregnant with your brother, custom dictated that a woman simply did not socialize when she was so obviously with child. But this was a new century, with the smell of the Vote in the air, and I’d had enough reclusion for a while—such I said with a practiced smile and laugh that served to garner even more compassion.

Each lady in turn echoed the sentiments I’d heard from Mrs. Gibbons, with the addition of Mrs. Phillips, who said that, were she married to Arthur DuFrane, she would spend her life with child for the privilege. I don’t know if anything so ribald had ever been said in Mrs. Scott’s parlor, and certainly our missionary from China was unused to such raw conversation. Still, we hid behind our gloves and tittered—I more than anyone, wondering what they would think should I share the truth that I’d only known Arthur in a marital sense three times since Mary’s conception.

When we’d finished our cake and punch, the missionary from China, the renowned Lottie Moon, stood in the middle of the parlor and calmly waited for our attention. She was a tiny thing, with only the tangible wisdom in her eyes to differentiate her from being a child. Even at her advanced age—sixty, I’d wager, if a day—she sparked with energy and passion as she began to recount the horrors she’d encountered over the course of her work.

“Children, so malnourished as to resemble twigs, cast into the street to beg. Barefoot, wearing rags, their little hands outstretched . . .”

Her words, spoken in this room of silk and chintz, seemed every bit as vulgar as Mrs. Phillips’s stated desire for my husband’s attentions, but she was very gracious not to call attention to our obvious excess.

“I will be blunt,” she said, speaking as if her diminutive form were of no consequence. “We find ourselves experiencing great, great need in China. I cannot enjoy the luxuries of our nation while my heart is so burdened for the lost in that great country. And when I speak of luxuries, I speak not of this.” She gestured her tiny hand to encompass the wealth around us. “I speak of the freedom to study God’s Word. To worship him freely. To find a Bible in nearly every home . . .”