Chapter Fifteen #2
Ann shrugged again. “Maybe they thought Aunt Dorothy and Uncle Al took one of you little ones, too? I don’t know.
It was probably kind of chaotic with the mine accident and all.
Twenty-three men died, or so I’ve been told.
I imagine most families either lost someone or knew of someone.
Maybe you wandered away and no one noticed. ”
Kate’s eyes suddenly filled with tears, but she blinked them back. She was used to being of little notice to anyone, but this time it hit harder than usual. “How many of us were there?” she asked, clearing her throat.
“Seven.”
Seven? Just like the Kerwyns!
“There was Joe, Tim, me, Tom, Jean, Emma and you,” Ann recited, counting on her fingers. “You, Jean, and Emma were the little ones.” Ann nodded. “It makes sense now though . . .”
“What does?”
“When I turned eighteen,” Ann said, “I wrote to Queen of Angels to see if I could find out what happened to you three. See where you’d all ended up. Jean apparently got adopted out to a family in Chicago, and Emma’s a nun now.”
“A nun?”
“Yes, cloistered, apparently, so I wouldn’t have been able to talk to her, even if I did find her.
Queen of Angels had no record of a Marie Esposito coming in.
I suggested maybe you were listed under a different name, that you would have come in with Jean and Emma, but they claimed to have no record.
I assumed it was a mistake, that you must have gotten adopted out.
That or you died, and they didn’t want to admit it. ”
A rebellious tear ran down Kate’s cheek before she could angrily wipe it. “That’s why no one ever came to look for me. All this time, you thought I was there.”
“That seems to be the size of it,” Ann declared and let out a deep breath. “But what did happen, Marie? You said a family took you in? Were they nice?”
Yes, they were nice, barring Ray, of course. Her mind went to Edmund, then, but he was not her family.
Kate nodded. “Yes, they’re nice. They’re farmers.”
“Oh, like Tim. He had a farm on the other side of Shullsburg. He lost it, though, in the Crash, and he killed himself.”
“Yes,” Kate murmured. “Mrs. Seitgart told me.”
“Mrs. Seitgart? From St. Peter’s? What did she want?” Ann’s ire seemed raised.
“She the one who told me to come talk to you.”
“Did she now? Damn Lutherans. Busybodies, every one of ‘em. Pearl Seitgart doesn’t know the first thing about me,” Ann huffed. “Why’d you go talking to her?”
Kate blinked, a bit perplexed by this new side of Ann. “Well,” she faltered, “the ladies at Kirschbaum’s suggested it. I—”
“Norma? Or was it Roberta?”
“Both, I think?” She wanted to add that Mrs. Seitgart had been extremely kind, but she didn’t dare.
Ann let out a disgusted breath. “Can you believe that, Jenny?”
Jenny gave a quick dutiful nod.
“So, Tim died,” Kate went on tentatively, desperate to turn the conversation back to what had happened to the rest of the family.
Ann sighed. “That’s right. He was never all that strong, poor thing. Fr. Fahey says we’re not to speak of him because he’s in hell now, but I don’t know.”
“How sad,” Kate murmured, feeling cheated all over again to have found and lost a brother in the space of an instant.
“Yeah, terrible sad. Evelyn—that’s his wife—she got remarried a few years ago. Had three kids with Tim, and now she’s got two more. Might have another on the way, not sure. Don’t talk to her all that much.”
“Well, what about Joe? And Tom, is it?”
“Joe ran off to Texas soon as he could. Hated Uncle Al. They were pretty hard on us. We used to be jealous of you three—well, of just Jean and Emma, I guess—that got to go to the orphanage. We always imagined their life was so much easier, but it probably wasn’t, poor things. Least you seemed to have a nice life.”
Another one gone. “And Tom?”
“Oh, Tom’s a drunk, ain’t he, Jenny?”
The girl gave another quick nod.
“He lives down by the river, or wherever he can find. Doesn’t come around here no more, not since Sam finally threw him out. Almost came to blows. Told him never to come back.”
“Who’s Sam?”
“Sam’s my husband. Sam Price. Used to be down the mines ‘fore they closed, but now he’s on the rails. Got a temper on him, though, don’t he, Jenny?”
Kate’s eyes rested on the girl in front of her. Her niece. “So, you’re Jenny?” she said with a sad smile.
The girl nodded.
“What’s the baby’s name?” It was impossible to tell if it was a girl or a boy, as it had very little hair and wore only a diaper and a dirty cotton shirt.
“Barbara,” the girl said shyly.
“So, you have two children?” Kate asked Ann.
Ann laughed. “Two? No, there’s eight. There’s Billy and then Susie, Herman, Charlie, Petey, and Vera. And Jenny and Barbara here.”
Kate looked around, perplexed. “Where are they all?”
“Well, most of ‘em is at school. ‘Cept Billy—he works down at the lumberyard. And Herman’s a hired hand down at the Bonnet farm. Stays with them. And I keep Jenny home to help me round here.”
“That’s nice of you,” Kate said to the girl, but Jenny didn’t react.
“Funny, ain’t it? Us livin’ so close all these years and not even knowin’ it!”
Kate stared at the now empty mug still in her hands and felt .
. . well, she didn’t know what she felt.
She had found her family, apparently, but it was somehow anticlimactic.
In fact, she felt mostly sad. She had envisioned them as .
. . well, she wasn’t sure how she had envisioned them. Perhaps a little more artistic?
“Growing up, I thought I might be from one of the tribes up by Prairie du Chien,” Kate explained. “The Sauk, maybe? Do you know anything about that?”
Ann’s face was aghast. “Whatever gave you that idea? Ain’t no Indian blood in us, that’s for sure.” She suddenly barked out a laugh. “Hear that, Jenny? Poor Marie grew up thinkin’ she was an Indian!”
“Well,” Kate said, unable to keep the irritation out of her voice, “what are we then? Mrs. Mueller thought Romanian? Or Hungarian?”
Ann scoffed again. “We ain’t no gypsies. Who is this Mrs. Mueller, anyway?”
“Well, what are we then?” Kate repeated.
Ann thought for a minute. “Da, I’m pretty sure, was from somewhere in Italy.”
Italy? “And our mother?”
Ann thought again. “Don’t remember where Ma was from. Don’t think I ever asked. Tom might know if you could track him down. Uncle Al or Dorothy mighta known, but they’re long dead, ain’t they, Jenny?”
More family lost. “But is ‘Esposito’ Italian?”
Ann shrugged. “Don’t know about that. Maybe they were originally immigrants to Italy from somewhere else? Who knows?”
Another tear began its slide down Kate’s cheek, but she quickly wiped it before it got very far. She was no closer to really knowing her origins. Just that she was half Italian. She supposed that’s where her dark hair had come from. Her mother could have been anything.
“What were their names?” she asked quietly.
“Who?”
“Our parents. What were their names? I don’t even know.”
“Oh!” Ann laughed. “Well, Da was Cosmo, and—”
“Cosmo? Our dad was named Cosmo?”
“Probably short for something. I don’t know. And Ma was called Maria, I think. Like you,” she said, flashing a smile.
Maria. That told her nothing. Every nationality had a Maria. Or maybe that wasn’t even her real name! She looked at Jenny, with her light brown eyes and light brown hair, and tried to detect any shared resemblance. There was none that she could see.
“What’s Sam’s nationality?” Kate asked.
“Sam? Sam’s about as German as they come. Blond hair, blue eyes.
Again, the same as the Kerwyns!
“We made a good mix.” Ann nodded at Jenny and Barbara approvingly.
Kate gave a weak smile.
“So now what?” Ann asked, her eyes wandering to Kate’s carpetbag, left crumpled at the front door.
Kate hesitated. She hadn’t thought that far ahead.
As much as she was eager to get to know more about what was left of her real family, she wasn’t so sure she felt comfortable staying here.
But neither could she face slinking back home, her tail between her legs.
Perhaps she should take Mrs. Seitgart up on her offer, but she had a sneaking suspicion that it would infuriate Ann, and she had no desire to alienate her family already.
“I . . . I guess I was hoping I could stay with you. For a while. Until I find a place.”
Ann shot raised eyebrows at Jenny before returning her gaze to Kate. “Well, I reckon you can stay here for bit,” she said slowly, “if you don’t mind sleeping on the floor. We’re all double and tripled up as it is.”
“Oh, I don’t mind at all. And I could help. Whatever you need me to do.”
“Well, I don’t know what yer da’s gonna say,” Ann said to Jenny and then looked back at Kate. “But you are my sister, after all.” She scratched her chin. “Come on, then, you can help me with supper. You know how to cook, don’t you?”
Kate obediently rose. “Oh! There’s just one other thing I wanted to ask. Do you . . . do you know when my birthday is?”
For the first time, Ann seemed to look at her with weary pity. “I don’t, Marie. I’m sorry. I was only a little girl myself when we lost you.”