Pa’s fork fell to his plate with a clatter and he pushed the paper and pen away. “She ain’t staying somewhere in town. I need her here to help in the evenings.”
“You think she’s going to spend half her day marching to and from school? No. She needs time to study. Or are you planning to hitch up the wagon and take her back and forth?” Again, Ma pushed the letter in front of Pa, but now she hovered over the table, hands on her hips, glaring at her husband.
Pa shoved his chair away from the table, crossing one leg over the other. “How you think we’re going to pay for this?”
“The state’s making some money available for boarding rural students this year. I secured an allowance for us.”
“You been thinking about this for a while now, huh?”
“I have.”
Helen sucked in her breath and gawked, dumbstruck. This was a whole new Ma. Helen had never seen her stick to her guns like this. Ma’s jaw clenched and her face paled, but her resolute expression never wavered.
No one said a word.
“It figures Uncle Sam’s gonna waste his money on something like this. How about a little more help for us fellas working our knuckles bloody each day?” Pa’s eyes darted back and forth along the letter and then he scraped his chair toward the table and commenced eating again. “Fine,” he said, through a full mouth. “I’ll sign it, but I ain’t driving her back and forth from town on the weekends.”
“She won’t need any rides. She can walk.”
Pa kept his gaze on his plate and used his fork to spear his food with such force, Helen wondered if he was leaving gouge marks on the plate, but Ma slid into her seat, her head held high, and started eating. Helen exchanged a wide-eyed glance with Bobbie Lee.
Silence.
After several long minutes, Pa grabbed the pen to scrawl his signature at the bottom of the page, leapt to his feet, and stormed out the kitchen door to the backyard. With the gust of wind from the slammed door, the paper blew off the table and fluttered to the ground. Unfazed, Ma bent to lift the document and smoothed it against her apron, not looking at either child as she tucked it back into her pocket and then took a long drink of water from her glass. She turned to Bobbie Lee. “Now tell me about what Miss Cross taught you in Sunday school earlier.”
Helen only half listened as Bobbie Lee nattered on about his morning. Often, in the evenings before bed, if she poked her head out of her doorway and looked down the hallway into her parents’ room, she could catch a glimpse of Ma in the midst of her nighttime routine. Before Ma climbed into bed, she always paused in front of the diploma from William Woods College that hung on the peeling wallpaper above the lamp on her bedside table. She would stare at it, slowly wringing her hands together as she rubbed lanolin into her fingers, roughened from vegetable gardening, laundry, and washing endless dishes. Helen watched Ma’s faraway expression as she took in that piece of paper on the wall, and sometimes she’d adjust its black wooden frame, even though it always hung perfectly straight. Though the paper curled at the edges within its frame, the cursive lettering had faded, and the gold foil stamp looked dim, Ma appeared to take comfort in it.
Now, sitting at the kitchen table, she saw the faint glow of pink in Ma’s cheeks and the way her hand kept ghosting over her pocket, touching it to reassure herself the document was still there. Helen started to think. She glanced at the few pieces of macaroni remaining on her plate. For once, her appetite had left her. In its place was a hunger for something else. An education.
13.
September 1931
Malden, Massachusetts
BY THE END OF THAT SUMMER, BLUE RIBBONS AND medals filled the Stokeses’ front room from all of Louise’s running successes, but the most important award, the one that made her the proudest, was the Mayor Curley trophy. Louise had won this gleaming silver cup after clinching first place in Boston’s largest track and field meet, and it now held a place of honor, perched front and center on the mantel. It was Louise’s final year of high school and the outdoor racing season would be ending soon.
One evening Louise and Emily were preparing dinner in the kitchen when Mama appeared in the doorway. Julia and Junior were working on homework at the table and Papa was replacing a latch on the girls’ bedroom door that had become loose. Until Mama cleared her throat, no one noticed her arrival.
“Oh, you’re home early,” Julia said.
Louise turned and couldn’t miss the ashy pallor to Mama’s complexion. “What happened?”
Mama sighed and moved to the table, where she dropped onto an open chair and massaged her temples. “Mrs. Grandaway passed this morning.”
The children gaped, all thoughts of dinner forgotten.
“How?” Junior asked, his dark eyes wide.
Mama rubbed her palm across her forehead. “When I went into her room this morning to help her rise, I found her.”
“So you saw her . . . dead?” Julia asked.
“She looked peaceful.”
“Were you scared?” Junior asked with a noticeable gulp.
Mama shook her head with a weary heaviness. “No. She led a long, commendable life.”
“But what did you do?” Agnes said.
“I went about the business of making calls and alerting her family. My day’s been filled with preparations for her service and readying the place for guests. Her children descended upon the house, so I helped them find important documents, fed them, and made up the guest rooms for them to stay.”
“Is her body still there?” Junior asked.
Mama shook her head.
Papa moved to put his hands on Mama’s shoulders and rub them. “Mrs. Grandaway was an admirable lady. Always treated you well. What does this mean for your job?” he asked, his expression solemn as he comforted her. With colder weather approaching, his hours would be reduced, as they were each winter when there was less to do in the Conways’ yard and garden.
“I don’t know. We knew the old lady was becoming frail, and she had her health issues to be sure, but this comes as a surprise. I’ve been so busy all day, I’ve scarcely had time to realize what’s happened.” Mama accepted a glass of water from Louise and drank it all in one gulp. “It’s the only place I’ve ever worked. Mrs. Grandaway hired me to work when I was about your age, Louise. Since then, the house has grown quieter as her children moved on to start lives of their own. Charlie and I are the only ones left.”
Louise felt a pang of sorrow when she pictured Charlie, Mrs. Grandaway’s driver and groundskeeper. He was older than Mama and always had butterscotch candies in his pocket. What would he do now?
“Are you sad she’s dead?” Junior asked.
“I’m sorry to see her go. Papa’s right, she’s taken good care of our family over the years in many ways.”
Louise remembered the last time she had gone over to Mrs. Grandaway’s to bring Mama a message. Of course, Louise never went anywhere in the house, just stayed in the kitchen, but even there, she got a sense of the old lady. Lists lay on the counter or were tacked around the room, all covered in a spidery but graceful script. These lists contained exacting directions for how Mrs. Grandaway wanted tasks completed. On the second Wednesday of each month, all windowpanes needed to be scrubbed with newspaper and a mixture of warm water and vinegar. The silver was to be polished every Thursday, and the china in the corner cabinet needed to be taken out every Friday, dusted, and placed with dinner plates along the back, salad plates stacked on the right, dessert plates to the left, and all other pieces in between in rows from largest to smallest.