Chapter Eighteen. Grace
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
GRACE
Two days later, I’m helping Ma shell peas. We sit side by side on the back porch, in wooden chairs worn soft and gray. Her round face is flushed; it’s already hot for nine o’clock.
“How’s Stanley?” she asks.
I split a pod cleanly with my thumbnail. The peas make a little plunk-plunk-plunk as they hit the tin bottom of the pail on the floor between us. I drop the pods into another bucket.
“Fine, I guess.” We’re still in a game of chicken. I didn’t say hello to him and his folks yesterday before church, and he didn’t bring me a lemonade in the fellowship hall after.
He was too busy flirting with Barb’s little sister.
It was humiliating, watching that girl hanging off his arm like an overripe peach off a tree, and every Methodist in town staring at me to see what I was going to do about it.
Luckily for me, Dad was too busy jawing with Barb’s father to notice. Something about sending his guests to the Oyster House once the hotel opens. Anything to ingratiate himself.
“Is he coming over later?” Ma asks. “It’ll be a nice day for a swim.”
I grab another handful of pea pods. “No.”
“Gracie,” Ma starts. I stare at her hands.
She slathers them with Pond’s cold cream every night, but they’ve got sunspots and callouses.
There’s a scar across the back of her thumb where she burned it on the oven a few years ago, and there’s dirt under her nails from the garden.
Her hands aren’t pretty like Mrs. Langford’s; her nails aren’t even varnished.
“Are you happy with Stanley?” Ma asks. I look up, startled. The kindness in her blue eyes almost undoes me. “You were so young when you started going together, honey. People change. There are a lot of other fish in the sea, especially for a pretty girl like you.”
I sink back in my chair. Pretty. Is that all anyone sees in me? Even Ma?
The screen door bangs. Dad walks onto the porch, sipping coffee from his thermos, right on schedule for his nine thirty meeting with Mrs. Langford. He likes to be waiting in her office, so he can complain later about what a layabout she is.
As he passes me on the narrow porch, I recross my legs at the ankle. My foot sticks out into his path. He trips over it, stumbling down the rickety stairs, righting himself before he tramples Ma’s cornflowers. But he’s spilled coffee all over himself.
Occasionally, things do go my way. All that scheming over my scrambled eggs paid off.
“Dammit, Grace!” he hollers.
I wring my hands in a show of dismay. “I’m sorry! Are you all right?”
Ma leaps up, clutching her pea pods. “Joe! Did you burn yourself?”
“Quit fussing. I’ve got to change or I’ll be late, and that’ll be another black mark against me with Her Majesty.” Dad stomps back into the house.
I hop down into the garden and pick up the thermos he dropped. “I’ll get him more coffee and see if I can get those stains out before they set.”
“Good girl,” Ma says approvingly. “Go ahead. I’ll finish up the peas.”
I pour more coffee from the Pyrex percolator (Dad’s prized possession) and knock on his bedroom door. I pray my plan will work. This could be my only chance.
Dad scowls as he buttons a fresh white shirt over his undershirt. “When will you learn to be more careful? I could’ve broken my neck falling down those steps.”
We should be so lucky. It’s four steps, for God’s sake.
“I’m sorry.” I hand him the thermos. “Here. I poured you more coffee.”
He grabs it and stalks away, leaving his clothes on the floor.
I pick up the pants he’s left in a heap, assuming Ma will clean them. A grin spreads over my face at the telltale jingle.
He forgot his keys.
The next five minutes are crucial. Once he reaches the hotel, he won’t come back for them till after the meeting. Which usually lasts about an hour.
I slip the keys into the deep kangaroo pockets of my pink dress. Hopefully, Ma will head up to the hotel soon, and Cooper will take a nice long run. I’m not overly worried about Magnolia; she’s liable to fall back asleep midmorning in this drowsy heat.
I’m in the kitchen, blotting the coffee stains with club soda, when Ma comes in.
“Let that soak a little before you rinse it,” she advises. “Cooper’s going to drive me to Brennan’s to pick up some strawberries. Joan’s been craving a strawberry pie.”
Joan? If Dad heard Ma speaking so familiarly about Mrs. Langford, he’d have a conniption. But this is perfect; Ma and Cooper will be out for at least an hour. Ma always runs into somebody she knows and gets to talking.
“Are you making us a pie, too?” Magnolia comes lumbering in from the parlor, where she’s been listening to the radio with her feet up. God forbid she help shell peas, or hang laundry, or do anything useful around here.
“I can,” Ma says, affable as always.
“Can I ride along to the market? I’m bored,” Magnolia whines.
“All right. Get your shoes.” Ma turns to me. “I’ll make meat loaf for dinner, with parsley potatoes and fresh peas. And strawberry pie for dessert.”
Her meat loaf is my favorite. We ate it a lot during the war years, enough that Dad grouses about having it now. I wonder if she’s making it because she thinks I’m broken up about Stanley. Will she cook something fancier for the Thorpes? Rose is probably used to prime rib.
While Ma finds her pocketbook and Magnolia finds her shoes, I set up the ironing board and throw Dad’s clothes over it to soak. When they leave, I watch out the front window till Coop’s old clunker rattles down the drive.
It worked! I can hardly believe it. I’m home alone, with Dad’s keys.
Now I’m glad that he insisted on having a study in the cottage, even if it meant there are three bedrooms instead of four and I have to share with Magnolia.
I tiptoe into the darkened room. I’ve only been in here to help Ma with the weekly dusting.
The window is covered with heavy floor-length drapes.
I pull the cord on the desk lamp, and it throws a circle of light that barely reaches the row of olive-green filing cabinets.
A big oak desk sits in front of the window with a banker’s swivel chair behind it.
On top of the desk is Dad’s old Royal typewriter, a tray with some mail (bills we can finally afford to pay, I reckon), and a stapler. Everything is orderly.
I try several small gold keys before I find one that opens the top drawer of the leftmost cabinet.
Inside, hanging files are organized by year, then by the girls’ last names.
This drawer contains files from 1905, when Granddad first started the Harrow Home.
The labels are written in his neat copperplate, the paper yellowed with age.
The first file reads: Abbott, C. Further back, there’s 1906, then 1907.
So many girls. Each with her own sordid, painful history.
There are dozens of files in this one drawer, and four drawers in each of the five cabinets. How am I going to find her file before Dad gets back from his meeting?
Fumbling with the keys, I move to the third cabinet. The top drawer starts with 1922. We’re getting closer, but there are more files per year. The late 1920s were the pinnacle of the Home’s popularity. Before Granddad died and Dad took over.
1930 is at the front of the fourth cabinet! I give a silent cheer and start thumbing through the files, frantic to find one that starts with D.
Bennett, D. My heart catches like a hooked fish.
I yank the folder out and open it with shaking hands. The first page is a typewritten admittance form with the patient’s information written in a cramped blue scrawl. Dad’s handwriting, not Granddad’s.
Name: Dorothy Bennett
Date of Admittance: September 26, 1930
Our birthday is August 12. Dorothy was admitted after we were born. That can’t be her. I close the file and shove it back into the cabinet. It catches on something and hangs askew, and I have to reach in and fix it. Dad will notice if everything isn’t in order.
I flip through the alphabet. Murphy, D.
Could this be her? Am I a Murphy?
Name: Diane Murphy
Date of Admittance: January 21, 1930
Estimated Delivery: May 28, 1930
No. Diane’s baby was due months before we were born.
I flip through the rest of 1930, but there are no other girls whose names start with D.
Could I have misunderstood the ghost’s clue? What if her surname started with D, not her Christian name?
I flip to the front of 1930 again. Donnelly, S.
Name: Shirley Donnelly
Date of Admittance: December 13, 1930
Admitted four months after we were born. Next.
Name: Roberta Dixon
Date of Admittance: February 14, 1930
Estimated Delivery: June 28, 1930
Two months before we were born, again.
Dammit! I lean my forehead against the cold metal of the cabinet. I don’t have much time. There are too many girls! Hundreds, all subject to my father’s rules and whims.
What if the ghost isn’t our mother? What if the newspaper was old, and she wasn’t here during the summer of 1930 at all?
Wait! Is it strange that none of these girls arrived during the late spring or summer of 1930?
Four is a small sample. I look at the drawer again. There are fewer files under 1930 than there are under 1931. A lot fewer. Quickly, I count them. There are only forty folders when there should have been—I do the math—at least sixty.
Maybe Dad stopped taking on girls for a while, after his father died that winter?
No. He isn’t the type to let grief interfere with business. And I found files from January and February, right after Granddad died.
I start at the front of 1930 and work my way through, glancing at the date on each.
I can’t help wondering about these girls. Ruth. Irene. Gladys. Ethel. Lucille. Edith. Anne. Lois. Jean. Marion. Sarah. Ida. Lillie. Betty. Helen. Mary. Some of them were my age. Did they date guys like Stan who pushed and pleaded? Did they say no? Or did they think they were in love?
And what happened after? Were they able to go home and graduate high school without folks being any the wiser? Did they find husbands and have children (children they were able to keep and raise and love)? Did they make amends with their families, forgive and forget?
How could you forgive being sent to a place like this?
I couldn’t. I wouldn’t.
When I reach the end of the alphabet, I lean against the cabinet. No girls were admitted from May until mid-September of 1930. Why? Because Ma was pregnant with twins?
Or because she wasn’t, and Dad didn’t want anyone to know?
My heart races. Is that why he got rid of his whole staff, too—everyone except the midwife?
I smack the cabinet in frustration. I’m running out of time, and I still haven’t found any proof. I’ve taken this enormous risk for nothing.
I could go ask Birdie O’Neill, but that old battle-axe is loyal to my father.
I can’t leave with nothing!
I open the drawer and grab one of the files.
Name: Sadie Haddaway
Date of Admittance: February 2, 1930
Estimated Delivery Date: June 13, 1930
Home Address: 123 Washington Avenue, Chestertown, MD 21620
Sadie Haddaway was at the Harrow Home that summer. And Chestertown is only half an hour drive. Maybe Rose and I could find her. She might remember a girl who was carrying twins, who came in a month or two before she left. Maybe she would even recognize the bracelet.
The back door bangs.
My stomach drops. If Dad catches me in here—
I shove the file back in place and shut the drawer. Turn the little gold key in the lock. I move as quickly and quietly as I can. I pray he’s refilling his coffee first.
I tiptoe out of the study and across the hall, into my parents’ bedroom. Dad’s wet trousers and shirt are draped over the ironing board. I slip the ring of keys back into his pants pocket.
“Grace?”
I freeze. Did he see me?
I pick up the iron.
Slowly, I turn. I feel hot and panicky, my heart racing, my skin prickling.
My fingers grip the handle. Even without water in it, the iron is heavy.
Swung with enough force, it could crack a man’s skull.
He deserves it. Think of how much pain he’s inflicted. Not just me and Cooper but all those girls. Hundreds of girls.
“What are you doing?” Dad asks. “Where is everyone?”
I set the iron down. I am horribly careful.
“I thought I’d iron your trousers.” I hardly know what I’m saying. “Ma went to Brennan’s to pick up some strawberries.”
“I was in such a hurry, I forgot my keys.” Dad fishes them out.
I shove my shaking hands into my pockets.
“For God’s sake, Grace, take your hands out of your pockets and stand up straight. How many times do I have to tell you? Nobody likes a girl who slouches.”
He leaves again, safe. My breath is coming fast.
I’m still me. Still Grace. And I’m not a murderer.
Not yet.