Daughters Read online

  “Did I? Anyway…we went out again last Sunday. Saw On the Town and then had dinner at Madame Woo’s.”

  “So you really like him?”

  “I like him okay. But don’t get carried away. He’s just a nice guy.”

  “Wait! What about Christmas? Wouldn’t you rather spend it with him?”

  “No. He’s going back east to spend it with his family.”

  Marie flashed a smile. “Well, I am so happy for you. It’s been quite awhile since you’ve dated. How long has it been?”

  “Whoa! We’re not dating really. Just friends. Nothing more than that.” Karen didn’t meet Marie’s gaze.

  “Right.”

  “No, really.”

  “Did you kiss?”

  “Well, yeah, but…”

  “Then it’s a date, my dear.”

  “It wasn’t that kind of kiss.”

  “Doesn’t matter. It’s still a date.”

  She shot Marie a lopsided grin, reaching in her pocket and pulling out yet another piece of chocolate. “Forget it. You’re hopeless.” She wolfed down the chocolate and got up to leave. “Gotta go. See ya later.”

  Even though she knew she had had enough, Marie poured herself another glass of wine after Karen left, the rampant thoughts of her Thanksgiving visit still swirling in her head.

  Jonathan called Marie the following week. “Marie, did you say Richard went to jail for a short time earlier this year?”

  “Yes. For skimming.”

  “Well, my dear, if that was a felony, I think I may have some good news for you.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I spoke with an attorney client of mine who practices family law, and he told me you would have solid grounds for divorce if your husband was ever convicted of a felony subsequent to your marriage.”

  Marie’s heart raced. It may have been good news on one front, but it frightened her to think about what Richard would do if she filed for divorce.

  “I don’t know, Dad. What concerns me is that I know he won’t just accept the fact I want a divorce and be civil about it. He’ll do something…anything he can to either try to get me back or scare me.”

  “What do you think he’ll do?”

  “I don’t know. That’s the scary part.”

  “Here’s what I propose. Let’s you and I meet with this attorney when you’re here at Christmas and make sure we know all your options, and then you can make an informed decision as to what to do.”

  The next day, Marie went to the local library to renew her library card with the intention of looking further into divorce law for herself. When she arrived, the clerk behind the counter was giving an elderly woman a hard time about something. The woman was a Negro and appeared to be somewhere in her seventies. Marie had never seen colored people in the library before, or anywhere in town for that matter.

  As soon as Marie reached the counter, the clerk looked at her and said, “May I help you?”

  Marie looked at the elderly woman’s helpless face and said to the clerk, “I think she was before me.”

  “No. I’m through with her,” the clerk said with a disgusted tone in her voice.

  The older woman turned and walked away. Marie followed her out of the library.

  “Ma’am?” Marie said. The woman kept on walking. “Ma’am?” Still no response. Marie caught up to her and tapped her on the shoulder.

  The woman stopped and turned to look at Marie. “What do you want?”

  “What just happened back there? That clerk was so rude to you.”

  “And so what else is new?” She seemed to be out of breath.

  Marie took her arm and tried to lead her to a bench, but the woman jerked her arm free.

  “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “I was just trying to help you. You look like maybe you need to sit down.”

  The woman looked into Marie’s face for several seconds and said, “You’re really trying to help me.”

  “Of course I am. Come on, let’s sit down over here.”

  The two women sat down on a nearby bench.

  “All I wanted was a library card.”

  “And she wouldn’t give you one?”

  “No. She said, ‘Your kind is not welcome in here.’ I knew that, but the closest library for us is in Kansas City, and that’s too far for me to go.”

  Marie held out her hand. “My name is Marie.”

  The woman shook her hand. “I’m Doretha. Doretha Scott. I’m sorry I snapped at you. I’m not used to white people trying to help me.”

  Marie smiled. “I’m not white. That is, I’m not all white. My father is a mulatto.” She paused. “Want to have some fun?”

  The woman looked at her with a curious eye.

  “Was there a particular book you were interested in or just the card?”

  “I was told there might be a book on Harriet Tubman.” She paused. “She was my grandmother.”

  “Really?”

  The woman nodded.

  “You wait here. And don’t you dare leave this bench. Just keep watching for me to wave you in.”

  Marie walked as fast as she could back into the library and renewed her card. Then she went outside and waved to Doretha. At first Doretha didn’t understand what she was trying to say to her and just waved back.

  No, come here, Marie mouthed, gesturing her to come to her.

  Doretha finally came over to her and was about to say something, when Marie interrupted.

  “Just follow me.”

  Marie walked into the library with Doretha on her arm.

  “Hold it,” the clerk said. “What is she doing in here?”

  “She’s my grandmother!”

  Doretha gasped.

  Marie proceeded to walk past the clerk, Doretha still on her arm and holding on tight.

  The two women disappeared behind a row of shelving, looked at each other, and giggled.

  “C’mon. Let’s find that book and get out of here before they kick us out,” Marie said.

  They never did find the book. Marie offered to walk with Doretha to her home on the other side of town, but Doretha said she didn’t think that was a very good idea. “You’ll be just about as welcome in my neighborhood as I am here.”

  “Then you start walking. I’m going to pick up my car and come get you. I want to hear about your grandmother.”

  Doretha gave Marie a peculiar look before she shrugged her shoulders and said, “Okay.”

  On the way to Doretha’s neighborhood, she told Marie about her grandmother, Harriet Tubman. A railroad conductor for the Underground Railroad, she had helped hundreds of slaves to freedom in the early 1850s. “They called her Moses for what she did.” Doretha laughed. “My mother told me there was a forty-thousand-dollar bounty on her head for that.”

  “She sounds like quite the woman.”

  “Oh, it gets better. Later, at least from what my mother was told, she worked for the Union Army as a spy during the Civil War. And after that, before she died, she was involved in women’s suffrage in New York. Do you know she was given full military honors at her funeral, with Booker T. Washington himself giving her eulogy?”

  “I wish we could have found the book. That’s quite a story.”

  As they neared Doretha’s neighborhood, the scenery changed. A world apart from Marie’s neighborhood, the homes here were small and in need of repair. The lawns, if you could even call them that, were mostly dirt and weeds. Doretha asked to be dropped off.

  Marie wrote down her address and phone number for her. “You call me any time you want a book from the library, Doretha. I mean that.”

  She watched her walk down the dirt road toward a long row of unpainted houses until she disappeared in one of the driveways, the smell of poverty drifting into the car. She hoped she would hear from her, but was afraid she might not.

  The next day, Marie called her friend Esther at Marshall Field’s and asked her if she could ask their guest services girl to locate a
book on Harriet Tubman. A week later, Esther called her back and said they found one titled Harriet Tubman, the Moses of Her People.

  “Will you order two copies for me? I’ll send you a check.”

  CHAPTER 7

  She’s Here

  Marie was grateful she had unlocked the ground floor door to her apartment right before Rachael was due to arrive, because when she came, the young girl appeared to defy gravity as she raced up the steps two at a time. “Marie, I’m here!” Walter trailed close behind with her suitcase.

  Marie gave her a big hug. “How was the trip?”

  Rachael rolled her eyes. “Boring,” she moaned. “So this is your pad? Cool.” She took in everything as she walked around. “Man, I can’t wait ‘til I can have a place of my own someday.”

  “You’ve got quite a ways to go, don’t you think?”

  “I guess so.”

  “You must be hungry. What shall we do for dinner? Go out or stay in? Your choice.”

  Rachael was reading the book titles on Marie’s bookshelves. “Stay in.”

  “Do you like Chinese food?”

  “I don’t know. Never had it.”

  Marie gawked at her in disbelief. “You’ve never had Chinese food?”

  Rachael shook her head.

  “Well, you’re in for a surprise tonight then. Let’s get you settled, and then we’ll walk over to Madame Woo’s.”

  On the walk back to Marie’s apartment, Rachael asked her a question Marie had a feeling would come sooner or later. “How come I’ve never seen you at the Brookses’ house before?”

  “That’s a long story.” Marie wasn’t sure how much she should tell a twelve-year-old. “What have you heard so far?”

  “I asked Dad, and he said it was grown-up business. Then I asked Grandma, and she said you were part of the family. But that didn’t make sense ‘cause you’re…uh, well, you’re not…”

  “They’re colored and I’m not? Is that what you’re trying to say?”

  Rachael nodded.

  “Well, the truth is I am colored…part colored, anyway. It’s just that I have very light skin, so not many people would know that.”

  Rachael’s eyes grew wide.

  “I know. It’s pretty weird.”

  “So how are you part of the family? I don’t get it.”

  Marie hesitated before deciding the truth was the right route to take. “Rachael, Jonathan is my father.”

  They were halfway down Marie’s driveway. Rachael stopped dead in her tracks. “Get out of here!”

  Marie led her to the bench under the overhang of the coach house porch. “I know that’s probably shocking to you.”

  “I guess! So is Claire your mother? Wait. No, that can’t be, ‘cause you told me your mom died when you were sixteen.” She glared at Marie with a crooked smile and cocked head. “This is crazy.”

  “It’s complicated.”

  Rachael’s face fell. “You’re not going to explain this to me, are you?”

  “Like your dad said, it’s pretty grown-up stuff.”

  “I’m not a baby.”

  “I know you’re not. But some things are hard to explain to someone who hasn’t had that much life experience yet.”

  “Try me. I’ve probably had more than you think.”

  Marie bit her lip and studied the face of the wide-eyed young girl sitting next to her, fearful she was telling the truth. “Okay. You see, Jonathan had a relationship with my mother years ago…many, many years ago. And then I was born.”

  “So let me get this straight. Jonathan and your mother were married?”

  “No. They weren’t married.”

  Rachael shook her head. “Was your mother a Negro?”

  “No. She was white.”

  “This is so crazy.”

  “Let’s go in before our food gets cold. We can talk more about it over dinner.”

  Walter was waiting for them when they got back to Marie’s apartment after breakfast the next morning. Karen was in the car. The three girls talked the entire way to St. Charles. They talked about Marie’s background, how Karen and Marie met, Marie’s estranged husband, and Karen’s current friend who happened to be a man (she refused to call him her boyfriend). Rachael followed suit and talked about herself.

  “Mom and I lived on the south side of Chicago, always in some piss-poor neighborhood.”

  “Rachael!”

  “What?”

  “Your language.”

  “Sorry. Anyway, I didn’t like where we lived much, but I never really complained. We couldn’t afford anything better.”

  “Was it just you and your mother?”

  “Not usually.” Rachael rolled her eyes. “I remember when I was pretty small, maybe four or five, being curled up in the corner of my mother’s bedroom—a lot. I would cover my ears with my hands so I wouldn’t hear Uncle somebody-or-other beating up on her. There was always someone I was told to call Uncle in our house. Every one of ‘em drank, and they all had bad tempers.”

  Marie cringed at Rachael’s story. “I’m sorry you had to go through that, sweetheart. What did your mom do?”

  “Oh, she would get through the beating and just go in the bathroom, clean herself up, and then act like nothing happened. Just like always.”

  “Did your mom have a job?”

  “She said she did, but I don’t know what it was. She said it was a waitress job, but I don’t…sometimes she would leave late at night sayin’ she was going to work. And she wasn’t always home when I got up. And if she came home and I wasn’t in school, she’d get mad. Well, sometimes. Other times she would say it was nice to come home to someone else in the house. She was pretty messed up. Still is, I guess.”

  Marie wanted to show support for Rachael’s mother without condoning or minimizing her seemingly bad behavior. On the surface it appeared once Judy found a place to dump her child, she took off, which Marie couldn’t understand any parent doing. “I’m sure she would have done better if she were able.”

  Rachael shrugged. “The worst part was never knowing where we were going to live or if there would be any food in the house.”

  “You moved around?”

  “All the time. We’d go from one dirty apartment to another, until the landlord kicked us out.”

  “Do you have any good memories of your childhood?”

  “Nope. Well, there was this one time my mom came into a pile of money. I mean a pile of it. And we moved into this nice apartment in a neighborhood where I could actually go outside and play. She bought me all new clothes. We had food in the fridge. And no grease-ball guy in the house.” A slow smile formed across Rachael’s face. “Mom told me things would be different from now on. And they were—for about a month. Best month we ever had.”

  “I’m so glad your mom had the good sense to remove you from all of that,” Karen said.

  “She didn’t fit in at Ben’s, you know. Ha! Maybe that’s why she left. To go back to her old shitty ways.”

  “Rachael. Watch your language,” Marie warned.

  “Sorry.”

  Marie tried desperately to find the good in Rachael’s mother. “If that’s why she left, at least she didn’t drag you with her. Maybe she thought you deserved better.”

  Rachael twisted up her mouth. “I doubt it.”

  “And school, how was school in Chicago?”

  “Not like St. Charles. The classrooms were dirty, and so were most of the kids. Some days the teacher wouldn’t even show up, and we had to sit there and twiddle our thumbs until they found someone to babysit us.”

  “Not fun, I would think,” Marie acknowledged.

  “Nope. Most kids flew the coop every chance they got.”

  “Why did you leave Chicago?”

  “Mom got fired.” Rachael clapped her hand across her mouth. “Oops. I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone that.”

  “That’s okay. We won’t tell,” Marie promised, thinking it probably didn’t matter much now.

&nb
sp; “Anyway, then we came here, Mom and Dad got married, and that was that.”

  “Rachael,” Marie asked, “did you know who your dad was before you came to St. Charles?”

  Rachael lowered her head. “No. Why?”

  “Just curious. So your mom never talked about him?”

  “Nope.”

  “Where’s your mother now, Rachael?” Karen asked.

  Rachael shrugged. “Who knows, and who cares?” She stared out the window. “I know I don’t.”

  Marie gave Rachael a motherly look. “Don’t be too hasty to write her off. You don’t know the real story of why she left.”

  Rachael rolled her eyes. “Whatever it is, I’m sure it’s bogus.”

  Karen and Marie turned toward each other. “Bogus?” Karen asked.

  “Full of shit,” Rachael responded.

  “Rachael!” Marie blurted.

  “Well, it’s true.”

  “You need to stop with the swear words, young lady.”

  Rachael pursed her lips and shrugged. “No sweat.”

  Marie just shook her head. She completely understood Rachael’s anger toward her mother, but at some point she felt Rachael needed to accept things and move on. She didn’t know if that was too much to expect from a twelve-year-old. She wished she had a magic wand to wave over her to erase the bad times the girl had experienced in her short life.

  CHAPTER 8

  Christmas

  Walter dropped Rachael off at the Feinsteins’ before bringing Marie and Karen to the Brookses’ house, where they were greeted by Jonathan and Claire. Claire had decorated the house to the hilt. The scent of pine filled the air inside.

  “Would you like a glass of wine?” Jonathan asked. Both women nodded. When he handed Karen her glass, he gave her a wink. “So how’s that place of yours in Geneva?”

  A red flush crept up her neck. “I guess I should apologize for that.”

  “No need to. Marie told me all about your escapade on trying to find me, and quite frankly, I was impressed. So you’re not married to any doctor either?”

  “No, that was all part of the sham.”

  “No harm done. So tell me about your trip. What all did you girls talk about?”

  Marie filled him in, leaving out what Rachael shared with them in confidence.