Mother pulled her into her arms and held her tightly. “He isn’t coming home, Lucy.” Mother shivered, even though the room felt warm. Lucy didn’t understand what her mother meant.
“Well, where is Daddy going to live from now on if he isn’t coming home? I want to go live with him.”
“I’m sorry, but you can’t, Lucy. He died in the flood and now he’s in heaven. He’ll be laid to rest in the cemetery beside Grandfather Garner.”
Everyone called Lucy’s daddy a hero and said how courageous and brave he was, but Lucy didn’t care what he had done for everyone else in town. She wanted her daddy back, dressed in his blue satin bathrobe, smiling and giving her lumps of sugar while he drank his morning coffee. Her last glimpse of him had been when he had walked out of the front door and into the rain.
The memorial service was like a bad dream, with everyone dressed in black and walking as if they were asleep. Mother couldn’t stop crying, but Grandmama held her head high and tried not to show her feelings in public, just as she had taught Lucy to do. Hundreds of people filled the church along with huge bouquets of flowers, but Lucy’s father wasn’t there. When she’d had enough of all the sorrow and the meaningless words, Lucy sank down in the aisle of the church and threw a tantrum.
“I want my Daddy!”
For the first time in her life, she didn’t get what she wanted.
I will always remember Alice’s wedding because of what I learned about Grandfather Horatio that night. And just as the Great Flood of 1876 proved to be a turning point in Grandma Bebe’s life, the wedding opened a floodgate of changes in my mother’s life. That’s when she woke up one morning and discovered that she had nothing to do. She turned to me, sizing me up as her next project like a bear circling a bee tree, wondering how she could get at all that honey.
“Nothing doing, Mama!” I held up my hands, backing away like Neal MacLeod used to do. I had to stop when I backed into a wall. “I don’t want you to turn me into another Alice. And there won’t be another wedding, because I’m never getting married!”
She poked at my short hair, wrinkling her nose. “You’re like a wild thing, Harriet, and it’s all my fault. I should have kept a closer eye on you. As it is, I fear I’ve let you go for much too long.”
I grabbed the telephone and called Grandma Bebe, pleading with her to come over and rescue me. “Please hurry!” I begged. “You should see the way Mother looks at me—like she wants to cinch my waist in a corset and pin a gigantic hat on my head. I won’t let her do it, I tell you! I’ll run away from home, first!”
“Calm down, Harriet. I’ll be over as soon as I can.”
By the time Grandma arrived, Mother had all of my bureau drawers open and the doors to my wardrobe thrown wide. She was shaking her head and clicking her tongue as she examined my clothing. “This won’t do . . . and this
certainly
won’t do. . . .”
“See?” I whispered to Grandma. “I told you she’s lost her mind.”
Grandma nodded and approached Mother as if soothing a spooked stallion. “Lucy, listen to me. You need to leave Harriet alone. She is already her own person. Alice was very much like you, but Harriet isn’t like you at all.”
Mother turned to us, smoothing back her golden hair, wild from her rummaging. Her eyes had a wild look to them, too. “But whatever will Harriet do in life? She has no aptitude for proper manners and absolutely no social contacts.”
“I don’t have any manners or social contacts, either,” Grandma said, “and I’m perfectly happy. You know very well that when you were growing up, I wanted nothing to do with Grandmother Garner’s women’s clubs and teas. But I let you get involved with her social set, even though I thought you were wasting your time, because that was what you wanted. Alice wanted that type of life, too, but Harriet doesn’t. Besides, times are changing. Women are moving beyond the home and developing interests other than marriage and motherhood.”
Mother’s expression showed her horror. “But what else is there? I will not have Harriet getting caught up in all your protests and things. I don’t want her singing hymns outside those disreputable saloons and marching in parades.”
“Neither do I, dear. And I don’t think she wants to be involved in my work, either. But think about it, Lucy—would you have wanted me to force you to take up all of my causes? You can’t expect Harriet to become like you any more than you would have wanted to become like me.”
“But she’s turning into a wild thing,” Mother insisted. “Just last week I received another note from school about her unladylike behavior.”
Grandma gave me a glance that was more conspiratorial than condemnatory. “What did she do this time?”
“She kicked the police superintendent’s son in the shins!”
“He deserved it, Grandma. Tommy O’Reilly is a big, mean bully!”
Grandma paused before responding, biting her lip as if laughter might bubble out any moment. “All I’m saying is, we have to let our children lead their own lives. Let Harriet be herself, Lucy. Let her find her own way in life. She’s a smart young woman. She’ll do all right.”
Mother sighed and pushed the wardrobe doors closed. I sank down on my bed with relief. But Grandma Bebe turned to me, her forefinger raised as she gently scolded me. “I want you to promise your mother that you’ll behave in school from now on. No more shin-kicking, do you hear?”
“I’ll try.” It would be a small price to pay for my freedom. I thought the episode was over, but when I glanced at my mother I could see that she was still upset.
“I was always a disappointment to you, wasn’t I?” Mother murmured. She was talking to Grandma Bebe.
“I was wrong to feel that way, dear,” Grandma replied. “I had to learn what you’re learning now—that our daughters aren’t the same people we are, nor are they extensions of ourselves. They are unique individuals in God’s eyes, responsible to Him for the choices they make, not to their mothers.”
“I know you’ve always thought my life was shallow because I didn’t share your values or your passion for all of your causes—”
“It isn’t up to me to judge anyone’s life.”
“But I always knew you felt that way. That’s probably why we were never close.”
Grandma Bebe’s expression turned sad. “I’m afraid it goes back a few more generations before us,” she said. “My mother was dismayed by the choices I made, too—marrying Horatio, not being a woman of prayer like she was. The letters she wrote to me were very carefully worded, but I avoided visiting her because I could see that we valued different things and that she was disappointed in my choices. By the time I became involved with the Temperance Union and learned what it meant to really lean on God, my mother was already in heaven.”
Mother closed the drawers to my bureau, then leaned against it. “Grandmother Garner understood me, even if you didn’t. I knew exactly how to win her approval. But I always felt as though pleasing her meant displeasing you.”
I listened to their conversation, aware that I was repeating their pattern. My mother was disappointed in me, too. We would probably never be close because I refused to join her social world. But the things that were important to Mother just didn’t matter to me. I wanted to please her and make her proud of me, but it seemed impossible unless I turned myself into another Alice. I also wanted to make Grandma Bebe proud of me, but pleasing her meant disappointing my mother. I felt hopelessly confused.
“I was not the wife that Mrs. Garner would have chosen for her son,” Grandma Bebe continued. “I was an embarrassment to her and to you. Admit it, Lucy. I still embarrass you, sometimes.”
“Yes, I admit it. And I still don’t want a life like yours. But lately, when I look at my life, it seems like such a waste. . . .”
I sat up in concern when I saw that Mother was close to tears. I was afraid that I had caused them. It wouldn’t hurt to
try
to be more ladylike in the future. But my behavior wasn’t what had upset her.
“I keep thinking of all that time I wasted making sure that Alice’s wedding was perfect . . . all the money I spent . . . I just wanted her to be happy, and now . . . now . . .”
“When one era in our life comes to an end,” Grandma said, “and we have to start all over again, it can be a good thing. It gives us a chance to decide what’s really important. Nobody likes change, Lucy. But even if everything else is taken away, God is still with us.”
Mother didn’t seem to hear her. “I just want you to be happy, too, Harriet,” she said, turning to me. “Why won’t you let me do that?”
I’ll be happy if you leave me alone,
I wanted to say, but Grandma said it for me.
“Harriet has to find her own happiness in life, and living to please another person is never going to accomplish that. Living to please God is what matters. Meanwhile, we have to trust that He’ll arrange the events in Harriet’s life in order to lead her to the purpose He has for her.”
I looked to see what my mother’s response would be, but it seemed as though she had suddenly popped open an umbrella to fend off Grandma’s words and keep them from soaking in. Her spine stiffened and she assumed the faint smile and detached pose she always adopted for her society friends.
“Would you like some coffee, Mother? I’ll go and ask Bess if there is any left.” She floated from the room as if we had just arrived to pay a social call and she’d been neglecting her duties. Grandma looked at me and shrugged.
Grandma Bebe may have won me a reprieve from a life of foolish fashion, but my mother still drifted aimlessly without a project. I watched her wander around like a child who had lost her way, turning in circles on an unfamiliar street, searching for the way home. I felt torn. I hated seeing her so sad, but I wasn’t willing to sacrifice my liberty for her happiness.
Then at breakfast one Saturday morning, Father slid his newspaper across the table to her before leaving for work. “There’s an article on the front page you might like to read. It’s about your father.”
Mother read the social pages every day but seldom looked at the rest of the news, insisting that it only distressed her.
“I would
rather not know what’s going on in the world,”
I’d once heard her tell Alice.
“I have enough to concern me in my own household. I’ll leave it up
to the politicians to fix the messes they create. That’s their job.”
The United States had managed to fight a war with Spain right under Mother’s dainty nose without her ever knowing about it. I don’t think she was aware that the
Titanic
had sunk two months before Alice’s wedding, either, killing thousands of people. After all, Mother had flowers to choose and invitations to address.
But as I spread a thick layer of orange marmalade on my toast, I saw her reach for the paper and pull it toward her as if it were a sack of snakes. She opened it to the front page. When I looked up again, her face had turned so white I thought I might have to run and get the smelling salts. She had tears in her eyes as she laid the paper on the table again.
“Mother? Are you all right?”
She nodded, but I could see that she wasn’t. When she stood and tried to walk, her legs didn’t seem to work right, as if she were wearing someone else’s shoes. Somehow, she managed to wobble from the room and climb the stairs.
I grabbed the newspaper, of course, and quickly scanned the front page. The feature story wasn’t even about Horatio, but about a local man who had leaped into the Iroquois River to rescue some children after their homemade raft had capsized. He managed to drag three of the boys to safety, but he and a fourth boy drowned after the current swept them away. The mayor called him a hero. A brief sidebar article reminded readers of Horatio Garner’s heroism thirty-six years ago during the Great Flood of 1876.
Mother never returned to finish her breakfast. I reread the two paragraphs about her father, failing to see how the matter-of-fact prose could have evoked such a dramatic response. After the strange way she had reacted the other day in my bedroom, I feared that my mother would need a sanatorium soon. Father had left for work, and since our hired girl wanted to clear the breakfast table, I tiptoed upstairs and knocked on Mother’s bedroom door.
I heard weeping.
“Mother? Are you all right?”
“Go away, Harriet.”
I decided to walk to Grandma Bebe’s house and see if the story had affected her the same way. I found Grandma seated at her cluttered table, counting names on a batch of petitions. She held up a finger to keep me from interrupting.
“Did you see the story in the newspaper about Horatio?” I asked when she finished.
“I saw it.”
“Are you all right?”
“Why wouldn’t I be, dear? The flood happened nearly forty years ago.”
“Mother read the story and she got so upset she started crying. For a minute there, I thought she was going to faint.”
Grandma removed her spectacles and laid them on the table. “Oh, dear. Lucy never reads the paper. I was hoping she wouldn’t see the front page.”
“Daddy gave it to her. I read the article, too, and there were only two paragraphs about Grandpa Horatio. I don’t know why her face turned so white. I nearly ran for the smelling salts.”
Grandma slowly shook her head. “I don’t think it was the story about Horatio that upset her. Lucy was—” She halted, covering
her mouth with her fingers as if she had already said too much. That made me curious to hear more, of course. I stepped into the kitchen and got out Grandma’s teapot and two cups. While the kettle heated on the stove, I flopped down on a dining room chair with my legs outstretched to let Grandma know I wasn’t going anywhere until she explained herself. Mother would have told me to sit up straight and cross my ankles, but I could be myself at Grandma’s house.
“Well?” I prompted.
Grandma had been staring out of the window while I’d put the kettle on to boil, and she turned to me as if she’d forgotten I was there. “Hmm?”
“Mother has been acting very strange and melancholy ever since Alice’s wedding,” I said to get her started. “But today, when she read the newspaper, it was like the Iroquois Dam had burst all over again.”