Eve's Daughters (57 page)

“About time for a little break, anyhow,” he said as we walked to the corner. “Can I carry your bag for you?”

“No thanks. I’m fine.”

“I . . . uh . . . I need to tell you about the room,” he explained as we walked. “Maybe you’ll want to stay, maybe you won’t.” He drew a long final drag from his cigarette and threw it onto the ground. “I’m operating a still over there, you see. My wife doesn’t even know.”

That explained the source of his nickname—Booty. He was a bootlegger, making bathtub gin during Prohibition. He led me to a cramped basement room he’d rented in a tenement several blocks away. It was smaller than Papa’s tool shed and not half as clean, but it was comfortably warm, thanks to the stove that needed to run nonstop to power the still. “I’ll be happy to let you live here, rent-free,” he said as he poured coal into the belly of the stove. “My . . . uh . . . my activities will be less suspicious if the cops see a respectable woman such as yourself coming in and out. You can help me keep the stove going too.” I wanted to hug him in gratitude.

“How can I ever thank you?”

“No need,” he said shyly. “No need.”

I scrubbed the room until my hands were raw, then furnished it with a bed, a hot plate to cook my meals, a washbasin, and a dresser with one drawer missing that I’d salvaged from the trash. Booty gave me some dishes and pots, and a mirror that was so wavy I felt like I’d been sipping his moonshine every time I combed my hair. The stove that powered his gin mill kept the room tropical, even in winter.

Booty came once or twice a day to check on the still; his friends Black Jack and O’Brien, who lived in one of the apartments upstairs, picked up the hooch and delivered it to their customers. Eventually Booty helped me find a job as a waitress in a nearby diner. Both the apartment and the diner were far enough away from Patrick’s church and the rectory that I didn’t need to worry about accidentally bumping into him.

I worked in that greasy-spoon cafe as many hours as they were willing to give me, then came home to my tiny room and collapsed. I knew that I could be arrested and thrown into jail if the police raided the apartment, but I felt safe from Karl and that was all that mattered. I’d found refuge on my tiny island, surrounded by a sea of Irish-Catholics.

My sense of security was short-lived. I had just returned to my apartment after working the breakfast and lunch shift one bitterly cold afternoon in November when there was a knock on the door. Always wary of a police raid, I took a minute to hide the still behind the screen Booty had made from an old packing crate. Then I stood on the bed and peered through the basement window.

Karl Bauer stood in the stairwell outside. Papa was with him.

The combination of shock and exhaustion from the long working day turned my knees to water. I collapsed onto the bed, weeping uncontrollably.

“Emma?” Papa called. “Emma, please open the door.”

I didn’t answer. I didn’t know what to do. There was no other way out of the apartment.

“We know you are in there,” Karl said. “We saw you come home.”

“Go away, Karl! I never want to see you again!” I was terrified of him. I hugged my body to protect the tiny new life it sheltered.

I heard the low mumble of voices as they talked, then Papa said, “May I come in alone, Liebchen?” The sound of Papa’s gentle voice addressing me as his beloved child tore my heart in two. I was ashamed to face him. But he had traveled so far to see me.

“Send Karl away first,” I finally said.

I stood on the bed again and watched until Karl climbed from the stairwell. I heard an engine start, then a spurt of gravel as the heavy car drove away. I opened the door to let my father in.

Papa wrapped me in his arms and held me tightly. “Liebchen . . .” he said in a hoarse voice. “Thank God we found you.” I felt sheltered, safe—a little child in her beloved papa’s arms. I savored the familiar scent of his after shave, the damp wool of his overcoat.
My papa.
But in my heart I knew that after today, he would never love me again as he did at that moment.

“How are you, Liebchen? Are you all right?” He held me away from himself and studied my face. His own face was creased with worry, his shoulders bent with weariness.

“Yes, Papa. I’m fine. Here, have a seat on the bed. Let me take your coat.” He glanced briefly around the tiny room, then sagged onto the bed, still wearing his overcoat. He never asked about the sound of the dripping still or the sweet smell of Booty’s moonshine that wafted from the corner. I sat beside him, numb with dread, and waited for him to speak first.

“Emma . . .” He cleared his throat and tried again. “Emma, I will come
straight to the point. Karl says you are expecting a child—and that the child is not his. Is this true?”

“Yes. It’s true,” I whispered.

“Oh, Liebchen . . .” He closed his eyes. Causing Papa so much pain was one of the worst moments of my life. How could I have hurt this gentle man whom I loved so much? When he lifted his head again he said, “I’ve come to bring you home. Karl is a good Christian man. He’s willing to forgive you for the sake of your marriage vows.”

I shuddered at Karl’s deception. How could Papa believe he was a good Christian man? “Did he tell you that he tried to force me to abort the baby?”

“Karl said nothing about an abortion.”

“No, of course he wouldn’t tell you. But that’s what he tried to do. That’s why I ran away. And that’s why I won’t let him near me.” Sorrow and confusion clouded Papa’s gentle blue eyes. And I saw something else there—doubt. “You don’t believe me, Papa?”

“I don’t know who to believe,” he said quietly. He spread his hands in a gesture of bewilderment. “How can I know the truth?”

“Because I’m your daughter! I wouldn’t lie to you!” Papa didn’t reply. “See? I knew you and Mama would take Karl’s side. That’s why I left Bremenville.” I started to rise, but he seized my hand and pulled me down beside him again. His hand was as cold as stone.

“Emma, I didn’t come here to talk about what has already happened. I’m trying to find a way for you to be reconciled. Karl wants you to come home. He’s willing to forgive you.”

“Under what conditions?” I knew Karl. I knew there would be a price to pay.

Papa sighed. “He’ll arrange for you to have the child in secret, then put it up for adoption.”

“But it’s my child too, Papa! My flesh and blood! How can I give it away to strangers?”

“We can find a good Christian family who will—” “Papa, no! I can’t believe you would agree to this! We’re talking about your own grandchild!”

“My grandchild deserves to grow up with parents who love him. Karl may never love your baby as a father should. Can you understand why it might be difficult for him to raise another man’s child?”

“Yes. But can you understand why it’s impossible for me to give away my baby?”

“Karl is meeting you more than halfway, Emma. He is willing to forgive you if . . .”

“What about you, Papa? Are you willing to forgive me—even if I don’t go back to Karl?”

“Repentance precedes forgiveness, Liebchen. It means being sorry for what you’ve done. I pray that you have confessed your sin to God and have asked His forgiveness. Then of course I will forgive—”

“But I’m not sorry!”

“Oh, Emma.” My words stabbed Papa so painfully, I might have shoved a knife into his heart.

“It’s the truth, Papa. I love Patrick. I’ve never loved Karl.”

“So,” he said, swallowing. “So Patrick O’Duggan is the child’s father?”

“Yes. And I’m not sorry we spent that night together. I only wish it could have been a lifetime.”

“You’re not sorry for the sin of adultery?” Papa asked in a horrified whisper. My words had twisted the knife deeper.

“The only regret I have is that I didn’t marry Patrick to begin with. I’m sorry I married Karl. My marriage vows were a sin because I vowed to love Karl and it was a lie. I couldn’t love him because I still loved Patrick.”

“Emma, your child has been conceived in adultery and—”

“This child I’m carrying is innocent of any wrongdoing. I won’t treat it like a dirty little secret that must be hidden under the rug. I won’t give Patrick’s baby away. It’s all I have left of him!”

“If you love your child, then I beg you to repent . . . for the child’s sake. The Scriptures say that the sins of the fathers are visited on the children to the third and fourth generation. Is that what you want? Do you want your children and grandchildren to be separated from God as well?”

“How can I say I’m sorry for what I did, when I’m not?”

“Emma, God can’t forgive you unless you confess and repent!”

I let the awful truth sink into my heart, then said, “I guess I’ll never be forgiven for what I’ve done.”

Papa lowered his head and covered his eyes with one hand. He was silent for a long time. We sat mere inches away from each other, but I knew that the rift that had widened between us was unbridgeable. “That’s your choice, not God’s,” he said at last. “And not mine. Do you remember the story of the Prodigal Son from Sunday school? God will always be waiting for you to return to Him. Waiting to forgive you.”

He rose from the bed as if every joint in his body ached and walked to the
door. After he opened it, he turned and said, “And I’ll be waiting for you too, Emma. With open arms. Every day of my life.”

Sunday, the Lord’s Day, was the hardest day of the week for me, reminding me painfully of both Patrick and Papa. I wouldn’t go to church. The diner where I worked was closed, so I often spent the day exploring the city—though I was always careful to avoid the area around St. Michael’s. Booty’s store was also closed, and he sometimes spent the afternoon in my apartment while I was out, tinkering with his still.

One Sunday in December I decided that the weather was too cold for my usual walk. It had begun
to
sleet. I lay on my bed resting, while Booty lay on the floor beneath the still, trying to unclog a hose. We had been talking quietly, when I suddenly felt the baby stir inside me for the first time. “Oh!” I gasped and sat up.

I startled Booty, who must have thought the cops had arrived. He tried to sit up, too, and banged his head on the leg of the stove. “Ow! Wha . . . what’s going on?”

“Oh, that’s so . . . incredible! I just felt my baby move, I felt it! It was like . . . like a butterfly’s wing or . . . or the fingers of a tiny little hand brushing against me!” Booty wiped his hands on a rag and came over to sit on the other end of my bed. He was dewey-eyed, his voice soft.

“Ah, so that’s why you’ve been hiding out here . . . it’s a wee baby, is it?”

I nodded. “Karl . . . my husband, didn’t want the child. He tried to make me get rid of it.”

“Poor lass . . .”

A furious pounding on the outside door interrupted us. This time we both thought the cops had arrived. Booty froze, too panicked to move, but I quickly climbed onto the bed and peered outside. “It’s a woman, Booty. She—”

The next thing we knew, the door flew open and she set upon Booty like a whirlwind. “Aye! So this is what you’ve been up to behind me back? Mary and Joseph and all the saints! Ye’ve taken a mistress!”

“No! Sheila, no! It’s not what you think at all!”

“I might have known, you lousy, no-good—” She had a huge brown purse in her hand the size of a small suitcase, and she swung it at Booty, clubbing him in the head. The blow stunned him, and before he could react she hit him two more times. When he collapsed to the floor, shielding his head, she began kicking and clubbing him at the same time.

“Stop it! You’ll kill him!” I screamed. “Stop!”

She whirled to face me. “You’re next, pretty lady! We’ll see how many married men will want you after I’m done with you!” I slowly backed away from her.

“No, listen!” I stammered. “I’m not his mistress! I’ll swear to you on . . . on a Bible that your husband and I never—”

“Oh, you’ll get your chance at confession, girlie, and don’t you think that you won’t! I’ll send for Father O’Duggan, and we’ll see what he has to say about this little setup.”

“No, please . . .”

Booty had struggled to his feet again. He crept up behind his wife, pinning her arms and her colossal purse to her sides. “Sheila, darlin’, listen to me. Mrs. Bauer isn’t my mistress. She’s a friend of Katie’s, and she needed a place to stay. We never—”

Mrs. Higgins wasn’t listening. As she wrestled to free herself from Booty, she uttered a stream of Irish curses at the top of her voice that would have left poor Booty deformed and gelded for all eternity if the saints had heeded her. I slipped into my shoes, preparing to run.

“What are you doing here all alone with her, then?” Sheila cried.

I’m here to fix the still.”

“The what?”

“It’s a still, Sheila, for making gin,” Booty told her. “That’s what I’ve been doing over here all the time.”

“You’re a
bootlegger
? Breaking the law on top of everything else?”

“Me and O’Brien are just trying to earn a few extra bucks while we can. Lots of people are doing it, Sheila. There’s probably a hidden gin mill or two on every block.”

Sheila freed herself from his grip and stormed out. Booty followed right behind her. I closed the door behind them and sank onto the bed. But it was a long time before I could stop shaking.

THIRTY-ONE

A week before Christmas, I returned home from a long morning at the diner to find Mama and my sister Vera shivering in my stairwell. I was so ashamed to have them see how I was living and to find out that I was expecting a baby that I almost ran in the opposite direction. But it was too late. They had already spotted me walking toward them. Mama set down the parcels she was carrying and ran to me. She pulled me into her arms, weeping.

“Let’s all go inside,” I said a few minutes later, “before our eyes freeze shut.” I dried my own tears and unlocked the door.

As Mama and Vera glanced around the tiny room, noting my sagging bed, the gray cement walls, and the bubbling still that I’d left uncovered, I knew they were picturing the beautiful home I’d left behind in Bremenville, the home Karl had built for me. I didn’t want to ask why they had come, so I busied myself with their coats, then heated a pot of water for tea on the hot plate. Mama would tell me what she had come to say when she was ready.