“It’s okay,” the midwife assured her. “We’ll just bring in a wet nurse if you can’t manage it.”
But the baby was still crying and so was Alva. She couldn’t help it. She desperately wanted her mother, wanted her alive and by her side to show her how to do this. She didn’t want Alice and Louisa there, telling her everything she was doing wrong, making her doubt herself and second-guess her every move. Her sisters were still making their way from Mobile, where they’d gone to visit an elderly aunt. Besides, none of them were married and they wouldn’t have known what to do, either. Consuelo was in Europe, Emily had her hands full with a baby of her own, so the only friend left was Jeremiah, and he was of no use in this situation. Alva had never felt so alone. She cried harder, unable to stop. Her head was congested, temples pounding; her body felt wrenched.
At some point she wore herself out and drifted off into a chain of restless dreams. When she awoke early the next morning, Willie K. was fast asleep in the chair next to her bed, his hair as rumpled as his clothes, a shadow of whiskers coming up on his cheeks and chin. She worried that he was going to wake with a kink in his neck. The maid said he’d been there all night, wanting to make sure “both his girls” were okay.
Alva watched him sleeping and realized that, in fact, she wasn’t alone. She had Willie K. and she had her baby. A family of her own. Why this very obvious fact hadn’t entered her mind before, she couldn’t say, but this time when her little girl cried, Alva didn’t panic. She knew what her baby needed. As the nurse placed the infant in her arms it felt as natural and as right as anything ever could have. When that tiny mouth latched onto her breast, Alva felt her power coming back.
In that moment Alva realized that everything—everything—was different now. She was seeing the world through the eyes of motherhood, a kind of double vision; one eye on her daughter’s future, the other on her own. Her priorities shuffled, falling into different places. All at once society seemed a shallow pursuit for herself and yet absolutely essential for her daughter. Alva vowed to do whatever was necessary to ensure that her daughter would be received by the finest families, welcomed in the very best circles. She looked at the child in her arms, those eyes staring up at her, all innocence, and she vowed that her girl would never know the kind of rejection that Alva had faced since she was sixteen.
Willie awoke shortly after she’d finished feeding the baby. “You’re peacocking,” she said, pointing to his charming little cowlick, right on the top of his head. It was sticking straight up like it usually did in the mornings. The first time she’d seen it, she’d laughed, said he looked like a peacock.
He smiled back at her, flattened his hair down with his palm. He asked how she was feeling and asked if he could hold their little bundle.
“‘Little bundle.’” Alva smiled as she placed the baby in Willie’s arms. “We can’t call her that. What do you think of the name Consuelo?”
“Really? After your friend? I was thinking maybe Louisa, after my mother.”
“But Consuelo introduced us. And we already agreed she would be our baby’s godmother.”
And so, it was settled. The newest Vanderbilt heiress would carry on with the curious moniker, and Alva, a new mother and the wife of a man $2 million richer, would carry on in her quest to be accepted into high society with even more vigor and greater urgency. She wasn’t doing it just for herself and the Vanderbilts now, she was doing it for her daughter, too.
* * *
—
Later that morning, after Willie had cleaned up, shaved and changed his clothes, he returned to Alva’s bedroom, kissed the crown of her head and announced that he’d been called away for a meeting at his father’s home.
“Now? But—”
“I’m sorry. My regrets to your sisters. It really can’t be helped. Family emergency. They’ve asked us all to be there—Cornelius, George, Fred, Mother—everyone. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
After he left, Alva sat up in bed, her pillows fluffed, propping her up from behind. The baby was sleeping in her bassinet in the corner of the room. Alva wished she could have rested as well, but she was too curious and mildly irked, wondering what constituted a family emergency. What could have been more important than their coming over to meet the newest member of the Vanderbilt family?
She’d never understand her in-laws. They were cold people. Such a contrast to her sisters, who had ridden a train all night just to be there. And as soon as they’d arrived, they had gathered around baby Consuelo, taking turns holding her, cooing, marveling at her tiny fingers and toes. Jennie thought she looked like Willie. Julia thought she was “all Alva.”
Armide, with her dark brown hair piled high and pinned slightly off-center, disagreed with them both. “She’s the spitting image of Mama.”
Mama. They all sighed. A swell of pride, of longing. Each year the sisters made a pilgrimage to her gravesite on the anniversary of her death. Their father’s grave, as far as Alva was concerned, just happened to be there. She couldn’t speak for her sisters, but she herself would never have gone out of her way to pay her respects to him.
“How did Mama manage with all of us?” Alva said, dreamily looking at Consuelo nestled in Jennie’s arms. “Four daughters.”
“She had help,” said Julia, resting her foot on the stand of the baby cradle.
“Oh, be careful, Julia,” Alva said, pointing.
Julia removed her foot and raised her hands, giving her other sisters a look. “Is it okay if I touch this chair?”
“Oh, stop it, Julia—I’m sorry, but that’s a very expensive cradle. That wood is imported from Africa. It’s very rare.”
“Oh, ‘it’s very rare,’” mocked Julia.
“Now you were a handful,” Armide said to Alva, changing the subject, restoring peace.
“That’s not so,” Alva attempted to protest before her argument collapsed and they all broke into a fit of laughter. From a young age Alva had it in her head that the rules and conventions that everyone else abided by did not apply to her. She played by her own rules, repercussions be damned.
“You knew how to manipulate and bully everyone,” said Jennie.
“It’s because of her thumbs,” Julia said to the others, as if Alva weren’t there.
“That’s right—she has those crooked thumbs,” said Armide.
“Oh, no,” said Alva. “That’s an old wives’ tale.”
“Put ’em up,” said Jennie, volunteering, raising her thumbs and joined by Julia and Armide—all of them perfectly straight. “Alva?” Jennie taunted. “Come now—your turn.”