Chapter 10 The Two-Moms Idea
The townspeople of Pennacook were counting on Honor to be the black sheep in the Winslow family.
After all, she was reputed to be an unplanned child, a suspected child of passion, and Honor was a lot younger than her three sisters.
The ladies of the town were waiting for Honor to cause a rift among those Winslow girls.
Was something missing in Honor? Was there a hole in her?
“Whoever heard of four daughters who uncritically love and support one another?” those ladies of the town would ask themselves.
Thomas and Constance Winslow weren’t surprised that Faith, Hope, and Prudence already knew about Honor’s pact with Esther.
The three elder sisters were all in favor of the plan Honor and Esther had cooked up together.
As the eldest, Faith spoke first; she put it as plainly as possible to her parents.
“Honor wants to have a baby—she knows she wants to raise a child—but Honor doesn’t want a penis poking around in her vagina. ”
Not to be outdone, Hope put her heart into the childbirth business. “Honor wants to be a mother—she just doesn’t want something the size of a baby’s head pushing its way out of her vagina,” was how Hope explained it.
Prudence had waited for her turn. She’d clearly composed her thoughts on the unusual terms of her younger sister’s adventure in motherhood.
“We all know Honor will be a wonderful mom, and of course we’ll help her.
Given what Esther is offering to do, there’s no reason Honor’s vagina needs to be involved.
Nobody gets in, nobody comes out,” was the way Prudence put it.
“Well, really!” Constance exclaimed.
Thomas Winslow didn’t say a word. Notwithstanding that he was the father of four daughters, the vagina wasn’t his area of expertise. In the novels of the nineteenth century, vaginal matters weren’t brought to light. Honor’s child will have two moms; this was all Thomas thought.
The senior Winslows were similarly unprepared for what this plan meant for Honor’s secondary education.
With Esther off to Vienna, Constance had considered sending Honor to Abbot Academy, Constance’s alma mater.
The all-girls’ prep school would be more challenging for the good student Honor was, at a time when Honor might be missing Esther.
Abbot offered a rigorous college-preparatory program—English, foreign languages, math, science, history, and Bible study.
“Honor shouldn’t waste her time with Bible study, Connie,” Thomas complained.
Constance refrained from comment, although her memory of Abbot’s constitution lingered on.
Written in 1829, now more than a century ago, the words tormented Constance—“to regulate the tempers, to improve the taste, to discipline and enlarge the minds and form the morals of youth.” Oh, dear!
Constance Winslow was thinking. What would the framers of Abbot’s constitution make of the two-moms idea?
For a private all-girls’ school, the Great Depression of the 1930s was a tough time.
In the academic year of 1933–34, there were only 71 boarders at Abbot—down from 135 in 1929–30.
Constance had thought she would lend a hand to her struggling alma mater and send Honor there.
But it wouldn’t work out for Honor to go to Abbot.
As it happened, the two-moms idea took precedence over the senior Winslows’ ambitions for Honor’s education, and she went to the public high school in Pennacook.
Honor was such an overqualified student there, she took all the advanced courses and increased her course load by a third.
She would graduate a year and a half ahead of time, with flying colors—with the highest grades and the utmost esteem of her fellow students.
“And with no Bible study, Connie!” Thomas exulted.
His worries were focused on what would happen to Honor’s higher education.
He’d had lofty dreams for his fourth and youngest daughter.
Honor was the best fiction reader among his children.
When she was only thirteen and fourteen, Honor was already reading (and loving) those nineteenth-century novels her daddy loved.
In a liberal arts program at a college or university, Thomas had imagined her majoring in literature.
Too bad for Abbot Academy, but it was okay with Thomas that Honor chose to speed up her time in high school; he hadn’t realized why she was in a hurry.
Esther had her own timeline; she knew when she wanted to get pregnant and have the baby. Esther’s plans left her ample time to get pregnant, but it was a short time for Honor to complete her higher education.
“Esther is thinking about how old she’ll be when the baby is born,” Faith told her mother and father.
“If Esther waits till 1942, she’ll be thirty-seven—I wouldn’t want to have a baby when I was that old,” Hope said.
“Thirty-seven sounds like almost forty!” Prudence declared.
“Thirty-six sounds better, like you’re just over thirty-five—Esther says her baby will be born in 1941,” Faith explained to her parents.
“Early in 1941—the earlier, the better,” Hope had added.
“That’s why Honor is in a hurry—she wants to be finished with nursing school before she has a child,” Prudence told the senior Winslows, who’d not seen the nursing school coming.
Given Honor’s adoration of Esther, Thomas and Constance had worried that Honor would seek to imitate Esther; it was only natural that Honor would want to follow in Esther’s footsteps. Of course Honor had wanted to be Jewish, but Esther didn’t hesitate to put a stop to that idea.
As Esther told Thomas and Constance Winslow, “My job is to look after Honor, to protect her. There’s no protecting anyone who’s Jewish—I should know, right?” Not even the Druckers or the Rosenthals knew how Esther had worded her argument to Honor, but Honor stopped asking to be Jewish.
It was Esther’s idea that Honor should go to nursing school at the New England Hospital for Women and Children—a teaching hospital, where women could study and practice medicine, where women and children were treated by female doctors.
Only women physicians were on the full-time staff; the patients were exclusively women and children.
What Esther called an “all-women’s hospital” was the first hospital in the country to have a school for nurses.
Esther’s all-women designation made Constance question if Honor “liked” women.
“Not in the way you mean, Mommy—Honor doesn’t like men or women. She’s asexual,” Faith said.
Trying to steer the conversation to what Honor would be studying, Hope mentioned obstetrics, pediatrics, and gynecology—in that order.
In her summary way, Hope tried to tell her parents that Honor was mostly interested in obstetrical nursing, hoping to work with obstetricians and midwives.
“As for the pediatrics part,” Hope hurried on, “Honor will be studying prenatal development, and I suppose there’ll be other stuff—like pediatric primary care. ”
Thomas Winslow was relieved Hope didn’t elaborate on the gynecology part of the nursing program.
He was determined to change the subject, but he should have known Prudence would want to weigh in.
How her mother had questioned if Honor liked women probably annoyed Prudence.
“Honor is studying gynecology, Mommy—Honor isn’t attracted to anyone’s vagina or penis! ” was how Prudence put it.
“I understand—I was just asking!” Constance cried.
“I want to know what the two moms are thinking about the father,” Thomas Winslow interjected. “What qualities are under consideration for the father of Esther’s baby—the would-be father of Honor’s child?” Thomas had asked.
The three elder Winslow daughters didn’t look at one another; their heads were bowed. Constance had bowed her head as well. Faith spoke first. “He should be short, Daddy,” was all she said.
“He certainly shouldn’t be as tall as Esther—she’s too tall to be a Winslow!” Hope had cried.
“Ideally, to offset how tall Esther is, he should be a little guy,” Prudence added. She was the only Winslow daughter who would go to med school; Prudence knew better than to promise that height was genetically controllable.
“Winslows are rather small, Tommy—we don’t want Honor’s child to feel like a giant in our family,” Constance told him. She raised her head and looked tenderly at her husband, the little doll.
“I was thinking of other attributes, of more fatherly qualities than his size!” Thomas Winslow exclaimed. His family knew he wasn’t sensitive about his small stature; Thomas honestly didn’t care if Honor’s child looked like a Winslow.
“Esther likes men, but they have to respect her—she won’t tolerate a guy who pushes her around,” Faith said.
“The would-be father will have to be as dedicated as Esther is—he’ll have to be a hard worker,” Hope pointed out.
In the spirit of offsetting one of Esther’s characteristics, Prudence suggested that the father of Honor’s child should be disinclined to hurry.
“We all know Esther is making up for lost time, but it might be better if her baby’s dad is a cautious kind of guy—if he goes slowly, if he takes his time,” as Prudence tentatively put it.
Thomas Winslow was suddenly stricken with the vision of a persevering but uninspired student—a struggling plodder.
He’d had many such students, the ones who were diligent but fell behind.
Thomas both admired and pitied them. “I’m getting the picture—the two moms are looking for a short guy who’s a dogged plodder! ” Thomas declared.
“Mercy me, Tommy!” Constance cried.