Eve's Daughters
Authors: Lynn Austin
Eve’s Daughters
Copyright © 1999
Lynn Austin
Ebook edition created 2012
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
ISBN 978-1-4412-0223-9
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
Cover by Lookout Design, Inc.
Unless otherwise identified. Scripture quotations are from the King James Version of the Bible.
Scripture quotations identified NIV are from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved. The The “NIV” and “New International Version” trademarks are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by International Bible Society. Use of either trademark requires the permission of International Bible Society.
Scripture quotation on page 294 is from the Living Bible © 1971 owned by assignment by Illinois Regional Bank N.A. (as trustee). Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. Wheaton, IL 60189. All rights reserved.
Published by Bethany House Publishers
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Bethany House Publishers is a division of
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“
. . . for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments
.”
EXODUS 20:5-6 NIV
Contents
PROLOGUE
1980
“All right, what are you two arguing about this time?” Emma Bauer knew her daughter and granddaughter had been quarreling the moment they walked through her apartment door. Her daughter’s carefully groomed eyebrows were creased in a frown, her mouth pinched like the drawstring of a sack. She held her arms and shoulders rigid, clutching her purse to her side. Emma inhaled the pungent scent of French perfume as Grace kissed her cheek.
“We weren’t arguing, Mother.”
Emma chuckled. “Well, I can see plain as day that you were. Honestly, it’s only a thirty-five-minute drive over here. Can’t you two last longer than that without squabbling?”
“Suzanne and I came to help you move, not to air our dirty laundry.”
“My dear, if you could see the thundercloud hanging over the both of you, you wouldn’t be talking about doing laundry.”
“You’re imagining things, Mother.” Grace smiled briefly at Emma, then turned to Suzanne with a withering look that clearly said,
Not in front of Grandma
.
Suzanne rolled her eyes. “Grandma’s going to find out sooner or later.” Her features and gestures were loose and careless, like the faded jeans and oversized blouse she wore. Suzanne was thirty years old, but she tossed her shoulder bag onto Emma’s sofa and dropped beside it like a pouting teenager.“You’re afraid to tell her because you know Grandma will be on my side.”
“I know nothing of the sort.” Grace’s flushed cheeks served as a barometer for her rising temper, just as her father’s always had. “Our discussion is finished, Suzanne. We’ve come here to work.”
“To work?” Emma repeated. She examined her daughter with mild amusement. Grace wore pale blue linen slacks and a matching cashmere sweater with her trademark string of pearls fastened around her neck. At fifty-five she was still slim and fashionable, her reddish gold hair and lacquered nails fresh from the salon. “Well, Gracie, I’m glad to see you wore your old work clothes today.”
“Those
are
Mom’s rags,” Suzanne said, scornfully. “The pearls are fake.”
Emma laughed, but when Grace’s prim expression didn’t change, she gave a shrug of resignation. “All right, if you’re determined not to tell me what the feud is all about, come pour yourselves some coffee and let’s start packing.”
Grace tossed her car keys to Suzanne. “Here, go get the rest of the empty boxes out of my car, please.” Grace followed Emma into the kitchen and looked around in dismay. “You haven’t done any packing! I thought . . .”
“I know, I know, I promised I would sort through things. But when the time came, it was very hard to get started. I’ve lived here thirty-five years, you know, and the memories keep crowding in around me. I can’t seem to get anything done.”
“Now, Mother, it was your decision to move to a retirement home. You said you wanted to get out of the city and move closer to Suzanne and me. We discussed this months ago.”
Emma covered Grace’s hand with her own. “I’m not changing my mind, dear. I’m just mourning all the losses—the old neighborhood . . . all my friends . . .”
“I hate to spout cliches, but you’ll have dozens of new friends in no time. People always seem to flock around you wherever you go. Stephen calls you a people-magnet.”
“Well, if I don’t weed out some of this junk, there won’t be enough room for
me
in my new suite, let alone flocks of people.” Emma opened one of her kitchen cupboards and stared at the jumble of mismatched dishes, then closed it again. “I just can’t seem to decide what to keep and what to toss.”
“Then why don’t we move all of it and you can weed it out once you’re there?”
“Oh no, you don’t,” Emma said, laughing. “I may dress like a bag lady, but I’m not going to start living like one. I couldn’t fit all this junk in Birch Grove if I used a trash compactor.”
Emma heard the familiar jingle of chimes on her front door, then the hollow, empty sound of cardboard boxes dropping to the floor. “We’re in here,” she called.
Suzanne wandered into the kitchen and sank onto a chair as if she had already done a day’s work. She was usually so animated, her blue eyes sparkling with life as she talked, her expressive hands adding energy and shape to her words. She was a career woman, editor of a magazine for career women, and she usually charged into a room and took control. She was decisive, organized, assertive—some would say hard-edged if they didn’t know her as well
as Emma did. But something had dimmed Suzanne’s vibrancy. Her dark hair fell across her face as if she were trying to hide behind it.
“Where do you want us to start, Grandma?” Her tired voice lacked enthusiasm.
“Well, that’s the problem, you see. I can’t seem to decide where to begin. When I started setting aside all the things I wanted to give you, I was surprised to find there’s very little worth giving. I never really thought about it before, but I guess when I divorced Karl years ago I left my own heritage behind.” She took a sip of coffee, remembering Karl’s bitter words as clearly as if he had spoken them yesterday. She shook herself to erase them from her mind, then exhaled. “We’d better start packing if I’m going to be out of this apartment by Wednesday.”
Emma led the way into the living room and stopped in front of her antique curio cabinet. She opened the curved glass doors and gestured to the shelf of pink and green depression glass.
“Let’s start with these. Do you want them, Gracie? They’re yours, you know.”
“Mine?”
“Yes. Don’t you remember where you got them? Tell Suzanne.”
“Oh yes . . . They gave them away at the movies as premiums during the depression.” Grace’s voice betrayed her impatience at Emma’s rambling excursions into the past.
“If you and Grandma were so poor during the depression, how could you afford the movies?” Suzanne asked.
“I don’t know . . . you gave me the money to go, didn’t you, Mother?”
“You mean you don’t remember?” Emma asked in surprise. “All those books you read, Gracie?”
“Oh, that’s right. The parish priest paid all the children in the neighborhood five cents for every book we read.” Grace almost smiled. “That’s when I first learned to love books so much. I used the money I earned to go to the movies every Saturday. I’ll never forget what a big heart Father O’Duggan had. I wasn’t even Catholic, but he paid me just like all the other kids.”
“But you were the only one who cleaned out his pockets,” Emma said. “None of the other children ever did much reading as far as I remember, even for a nickel.”
Suzanne examined a green, etched-glass dessert bowl. “They really gave these away for free? They’re so pretty.”
“Do you want them, Gracie?” Emma asked again. “Get some newspaper
and we’ll wrap them up. Phew, they’re dusty!”
“No, I’d better not take them,” Grace answered slowly. “Stephen hates little knickknacks like this cluttering up his house.”
Suzanne’s reaction was swift and angry. “Mom, it’s your house too!”
The tension Emma had first noticed between them snapped as taut as a rope as their secret tug-of-war resumed. She placed an empty carton on the floor between them, hoping to ease the strain. “Just wrap up the dishes and put them in a box, then,” Emma said. “If neither of you wants them, I’ll let the antique dealer buy them. It doesn’t matter.” She hoped her voice hadn’t betrayed the disappointment that knifed her heart.
The room was quiet except for the rustling of paper as they removed each piece and carefully wrapped it before placing it in the cardboard box. A knobby pink sugar bowl rattled as Suzanne took it down from the shelf.
“There’s something inside here, Grandma. Oh look . . . is this coal?” Suzanne held up a shiny black lump the size of a walnut.
Tears came to Emma’s eyes as she remembered words heard long ago. She repeated them to her granddaughter. “That’s not coal, honey, that’s a diamond-in-the-making. God will use pressure and stress to turn it into something beautiful.”
“Sometimes we ran out of coal during the depression,” Grace explained to Suzanne. She was wrapping dishes with her back to Emma and didn’t notice her tears. “Coal was almost as precious as diamonds to us in those days. I remember one winter it was so cold your grandmother caught pneumonia and nearly died. But after that we never ran out of coal again. It was like the miracle in the Bible—the widow with her jar of oil that never ran out. Our bin always had a couple of pieces of coal in it. Did you ever find out who was filling it for us, Mother?”
“I always knew who was filling it.”
Grace whirled to face her.“Who?”
Emma realized that the truth would lead to more questions—questions she wasn’t willing to answer. She smiled faintly. “You wouldn’t make me break a promise by telling, would you, dear?”
“But that was ages ago. What difference could it possibly make now? I’ll bet the mystery person isn’t even alive anymore.”
“What is it about moving that dredges up the past so vividly?” Emma asked. She stared at the dusty cabinet shelves as if they were a window into her own past. “Lately I’ve been thinking so much about all our old friends and neighbors from King Street, I’ve almost expected one of them to pop
through my door—like Crazy Clancy or those dreary Mulligan sisters. Remember them?”
Grace folded her arms across her chest. “You aren’t going to tell me who filled our coal box, are you.”
“No, dear, I can’t. But take the coal home with you. Keep it to remember how much we were cared for back then, even in hard times.”
As Emma reached to take it from Suzanne’s palm, she noticed that her granddaughter wasn’t wearing her wedding ring. A paler band of skin marked the place where it had once been. Their eyes met. Suzanne quickly shoved her left hand into the pocket of her jeans as if to hide an ugly scar, then bit her lip, struggling to hold back her tears. The room fell silent except for the drone of traffic in the street below, the distant wail of a siren.