Eve's Daughters (30 page)

“What more can we possibly accomplish here? We’ve answered as many questions as we could.” She pulled Suzanne’s file folder over to her side of the table and paged through it until she found the sheet marked
OBJECTIVES
. Grace ran her finger down the list.

“One, we discovered that Aunt Sophie is dead. Two, we found Aunt Vera and promised her we’d bring my mother back for a visit. Three, we found my grandfather’s church and learned that he was highly respected in Bremenville. Four, we learned that my mother was estranged from her parents because they sided with Karl. Five, we met Karl Bauer’s adopted son and got an unsettling glimpse of what my father was probably like. And, I might add, it confirmed everything my mother told us about him. Six, Karl divorced my mother because he thought she had committed adultery, and seven, he didn’t want me for the same reason. He
assumed
he was sterile from the mumps, but we have no proof that he was. Since he’s dead, we’ll never know. Eight, all the information we’ve gathered about Mother points to the fact that she always was a nonconformist and always will be. Nine, I concede that we still don’t know who sent her the love poems, but I don’t see how we can find the answer by hanging around Bremenville.”

When Suzanne signalled the waitress for more coffee, Grace nearly groaned
aloud. Just like Stephen, Suzanne would not let go of this until she had crossed every “t” and dotted every “i.”

“The love poem was written by Yeats, an Irish poet,” Sue began. “Maybe the man who sent it was Irish too.”

“I love spaghetti—does that make me Italian?”

Suzanne ignored her. “When Grandma left Bremenville and moved to the city, where did she get the money to live? How did she find a job? It was the 1920s, remember. ‘Working woman’ had a whole different meaning, and I assume that Grandma wasn’t one of those. Who supported her after you were born?”

“I have no idea,” Grace answered wearily.

“How did she end up living in the all-Irish section of town? Did she have friends there?”

“A few . . . but I have no idea why she picked Irishtown.”

“Your neighbors were all strict Irish-Catholics too, weren’t they?”

“Look, it wouldn’t have mattered if they were Irish-Hindus. My mother never went near a church. Ever. If you want to unravel a mystery, maybe you can figure that one out. Her father was a minister—why did she turn away from her upbringing and her faith? And while we’re at it, why did you turn away from yours?”

“My, my! Someone’s in a crabby mood this morning!” Suzanne abandoned her coffee and began gathering her things to leave. “If you insist on going home, I suppose I’ll have to drive you.” She had twisted Grace’s words, but Grace decided to keep her mouth shut and let it pass. Years of experience with Stephen had taught her that it was the safest course.

They loaded the car and took one last driving tour of Bremenville before heading out to the highway. The factories had long been abandoned, including the old woolen mill by the railroad trestle. Much of the population had apparently left with them. The rebuilt dam on Squaw Lake had turned Bremenville into a resort town, and when summer arrived, the population would likely swell with the season.

The shops on the village square had been converted into country boutiques and trendy galleries that catered to the tourist trade, including the store that had once been Bauer’s Pharmacy—now an old-fashioned ice cream parlor and candy shop. There was no trace of Mueller’s Feed Store, where Sophie and her husband had first lived, but the Ford dealership where Gus and Markus Bauer had worked was still selling cars. Grace and Suzanne never discovered which stately Victorian home Karl Bauer had built. It had likely been made
into a bed-and-breakfast, like all the other old homes in that neighborhood. None of them had opened for the season yet.

Grace couldn’t have said why, but she felt a sense of relief as they finally drove out of Bremenville. She wondered if her mother had felt the same way when she left more than fifty years before.

As soon as the car merged onto the freeway and headed south, Suzanne began raking the ashes of their earlier conversation, looking for a spark—just as Grace had feared she would.

“I can’t help wondering why Grandma never remarried. She was an attractive woman, and she had plenty of suitors before Karl. Did she ever have any serious boyfriends while you were growing up?”

“Not that I recall. She had a few male friends, but she never dated any of them. In fact, if anyone started to get a little sweet on her she would nip it in the bud.”

“Why?”

“I never understood how much of a social outcast my mother was until I was a teenager and none of the boys I knew would date me. Divorced women were considered loose and immoral in those days, and married women kept their husbands—and their sons—as far away from them as possible. No matter how carefully a divorced woman lived, she was considered a harlot if she entertained any male friends.”

“Do you remember who some of Grandma’s male friends were?”

Grace exhaled in exasperation. “I know what you’re after, Suzanne. You’re on a fishing expedition because you’re convinced Karl Bauer isn’t my real father.”

“I’m not convinced, but I am suspicious. And you have to admit that it makes sense that Grandma would run to your real father for help after Karl tried to abort you.”

“What
real
father? You want to make a grand mystery out of this, but there isn’t one. Having mumps may have made it unlikely that he would ever father a child, but it probably wasn’t impossible.”

“Why didn’t his second wife ever get pregnant?”

“I don’t know . . . maybe . . . maybe . . .” Grace was too tired to come up with a plausible reason.

“And another thing. Why didn’t Grandma stay in town and defend her reputation? If you resembled your father as much as Aunt Vera claimed, wouldn’t that have been proof enough?”

“Mother told us she was miserable with Karl. She wanted out of the marriage
and out of Bremenville long before she ever got pregnant. She probably jumped at the opportunity to do both. Why defend your reputation in a town you want to leave behind?”

“But wasn’t it hard for you and Grandma during the depression? Wouldn’t it have been easier for her to go home to her family?”

“Certainly. But that was probably sheer stubbornness on her part. You know Grandma. And I think she wanted to shield me from Karl so that I wouldn’t be hurt by his rejection.”

“But you still felt rejected by him.”

“Yes . . . It took me a long time to come to terms with my absent father and to deal with the abandonment so that I could get on with my life. That’s why I want you to stop all this useless speculation about whether or not Karl was my real father. It isn’t going to change anything. It’s only going to upset Grandma . . . and me.”

Suzanne was quiet for a moment, then said softly, “So how did you come to terms with not having a father?”

Grace closed her eyes and leaned against the headrest as her thoughts drifted into the past. “Well, when I think back on my own childhood, I can see how God was faithful to send some men into my life who were father figures to me. . . .”

NINETEEN

When I first met Father O’Duggan, I was four years old and staying with our landladies, the Mulligan sisters, while my mother worked as a waitress in a diner. He was a golden-haired giant of a man who seemed to light up the gloomy apartment when he walked through the door. He came to visit old Mrs. Mulligan, who lay dying in a bed in the spooky back room of their apartment. The old woman terrified me. She looked like a storybook picture of a witch, with her chalky face and spidery hands. I thought Father O’Duggan was very brave to go into that room alone with her and close the door—even if he was dressed all in black like all the Mulligans.

Of course, Kate and Aileen Mulligan went into her room sometimes too, but they were almost as witchlike as their mother. They had black hair, which they wore pulled back from their stern faces, and they dressed in long black skirts, and narrow pointy-toed black shoes. I was more than a little afraid of them as well.

What intrigued me the most was the fact that the spinster sisters called him “Father”—which I took to mean that he must be married to old Mrs. Mulligan, their mother. Yet he seemed much too young and handsome to be their father and his name wasn’t Mulligan and he didn’t live with them and, most mysterious of all, old Mrs. Mulligan called him “Father” too. At four years of age, I couldn’t untangle it.

I was already aware that something was missing from my life; other children had a mother
and
a father, I had only a mother. “You have a father. He just doesn’t live with us,” my mother explained whenever I asked about him. Perhaps my father was like Father O’Duggan, who didn’t live with his family either.

As Father O’Duggan stood at the door saying good-bye to Miss Aileen, I tiptoed out from the kitchen and tugged on the hem of his black clerical coat. “Why don’t you live here?” I asked. I hoped it might explain why my father didn’t live with me. I was so timid, my voice barely rose above a whisper.

Father O’Duggan crouched down so his eyes were level with mine. He rested a black leather book on his knee.

“What did you say, Grace?”

I don’t know how he knew my name, since the Mulligan sisters hadn’t introduced him to me. Whenever he arrived, they usually hustled me off to the kitchen as if I were an eyesore. I swallowed back my fear and asked again.

“If you’re their father, why don’t you live here?”

His smile went all the way to his eyes, which were very blue. “Because I’m not their real father, you see. ‘Father’ is a title given to men who do the work I do. I’m a priest . . . which makes me a ‘father’ to the people in my parish.”

“Are you my father too?”

“Certainly not,” Miss Aileen said sharply. “You’re not Catholic.”

Father O’Duggan laid his hand on my unruly nest of hair and caressed my head. “Now, now, Miss Mulligan, surely I can be ‘Father O’Duggan’ to wee Gracie too. Remember our Savior’s words? ‘Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God.’”

I didn’t understand what his words about suffering children meant, but I loved the sound of his deep voice with its lilting Irish brogue.

“Her people have their own priests to go to,” Miss Aileen said in a huff. “Didn’t you tell me her grandfather was a priest?”

“Aye, he’s a minister, Miss Aileen. They’re called ministers in the Protestant faith.”

“Well then, she—”

“I should be going now,” he cut in, then stood and tucked his black book into the breast pocket of his jacket. “Good day to you, Miss Aileen, Miss Grace. God bless you both.”

After that, the Mulligan sisters still marched me into the kitchen whenever he came, but I would peer through the crack in the door and call him “father” in my heart.

That winter my mother became very ill. She’d had a terrible cough for days, but one morning she didn’t get out of bed at all. I crawled up beside her, shaking her and calling her name, but she didn’t open her eyes. Her arm felt as warm as a loaf of bread from the oven, and she mumbled words that didn’t make sense to me. I decided to let her sleep and fixed myself some bread and jam from the cupboard. She didn’t get up when it was time for work either.

As the day passed, our apartment grew colder and colder. Even if I’d known how to keep the fire going in the stove, our coal box was empty. By suppertime, I was so cold I had to put on my coat. I covered my mother with both blankets. When it grew dark, I turned on the light and opened the door to the hallway like my mother always did to catch some warm air from the other apartments. The sound of Father O’Duggan’s voice drifted upstairs to me.

“The bishop is spending a few days at the rectory, so that’s where I’m likely to be if you need me. . . .”

I crept down the stairs, drawn toward the warmth of his voice. He was still inside the Mulligans’ apartment with the door opened just a crack. I couldn’t hear what they said to him in reply.

“. . . All right. I’ll be on my way then, Miss Aileen. Your mother will be in my prayers.” He opened the door wide and nearly tripped over me as he came through it. “I’m sorry,” he said, reaching out to steady me. “I didn’t realize you were there.”

“Grace Bauer! What on earth are you doing down here this time of night?” Aileen Mulligan asked.

“My mama is sick.”

“Sick?” Aileen repeated. “Has she been drinking?” I didn’t know how to answer because I didn’t know what she meant. Father O’Duggan frowned at her.

“Maybe we should go upstairs and see if we can help.” He took the creaking stairs two at a time, not waiting for Aileen Mulligan, who plodded slowly behind him, resting both feet on every step, gripping the wobbly bannister in her hand.

I hurried to keep up with him and heard Mother’s wracking coughs even before we reached the top step. She lay curled on the bed, shivering beneath the blankets. Two bright red patches flushed her cheeks. Father O’Duggan sat beside her and smoothed away her damp hair to feel her brow.

“Mrs. Bauer . . .” he said, shaking her slightly. “Mrs. Bauer, are you all right?” She mumbled nonsense in reply. I heard the squeak of Miss Aileen’s shoes on the wooden floor, and Father O’Duggan and I both turned to her. “She’s burning with fever,” Father O’Duggan said. “I fear she has pneumonia.” When my mother began coughing again, Miss Aileen froze in the door-way as if afraid to come farther.