The last time I’d gone to the Derby was two years ago, the month before Rose had gotten sick. She and I had gone with Daddy, over Mother’s protests that the horse track was no place for two nearly full-grown proper ladies. The memory of that afternoon sat in a golden ephemeral bubble in my mind. Rose and I had dressed in our fanciest pink dresses and matching pink hats and clung to Daddy’s arms. The day was warm, the sun so bright it was almost blinding. Daddy had bought us caramel corn that we struggled to eat without making a mess. And as Tom and I walked into the viewing area now, the smell of that same corn was so strong, so overwhelming, it invaded my senses. It was Daddy and it was Rose. It was a past I could never have again.
“Daisy,” Tom said. “Are you all right?”
I closed my eyes for a moment, blinking away tears. I could hear Rose’s voice, telling me to be good. And Mother’s voice, telling me we had lost everything. Had Daddy been losing money on the horses, even then? I inhaled, remembering the way Rose and I had both been so carefree here once, laughing at the stickiness of the corn on our fingers. There was no worrying about illness or death or money.
“Daisy?” Tom’s voice cut through my memory.
I opened my eyes again, and there was Tom. In the bright afternoon sun, his beige suit glowed yellow. He was just a man, a collector of ponies, but in this light he looked positively ethereal. I smiled at him. “I’m sorry. I just got caught up in a…” I thought about telling Tom about Rose, about Daddy, but then I changed my mind. I didn’t want to ruin the moment, or whatever glorious image he had of me in his head. A girl who’d lost her sister and her daddy in such a horrific way was no kind of good luck charm at all, was she? “I’m fine, really,” I said firmly. “Should we sit and watch? Or should we go find your pony?”
* * *
LATER, AFTER THE sun set, after we had found Tom’s pony and he had bought her, Tom walked me home. A wind came across the river, making the air turn crisp and cool, and as we approached my street, I shivered a little. Tom stopped walking, stood underneath a streetlamp, and took off his suit jacket.
“She really is beautiful, you know,” I told him, as he gently draped his jacket across my shoulders.
“Yes,” he said softly. He pulled the jacket tighter around my shoulders, then reached his hand up to touch my cheek. He stroked it softly with his thumb. “She really is, isn’t she.”
“I was talking about the pony,” I said. Lillibelle was a striking mare, the color of night. And as soon as we laid eyes on her, I’d told Tom he should buy her. He’d gone and done it, without even inquiring about the cost. It was thrilling, the way I could say it, the way I could command him to buy something, and it was done. Just like that.
“So was I,” Tom said now, his mouth falling into a teasing smile. His thumb caressed my cheek and then traced my bottom lip slowly.
That aching worry that had settled in my chest ever since Mother had said the word debts finally eased. And standing there on the street with Tom, I felt lighter again. His suit jacket was warm, and my face tingled at his touch. I put my hand up to catch his hand. And I held on to him for a moment.
He leaned in closer, and I thought he was going to say something, that he was going to ask me if he might kiss me. But then he just went ahead and put his mouth on mine so fiercely that for a second I couldn’t catch my breath. My heart expanded in my chest, and my body shook. And Tom pulled me closer, held me tighter, and kissed me harder.
It was a kiss that took control of me, and I leaned into him, my body fading into his, relieved. For the first time in a long time, I suddenly felt that everything was going to be all right.
Catherine 1918
NEW YORK CITY
MYRTLE SHOWED UP AT MY door unannounced, in the most sweltering moment of August, her neck wrapped tightly in a red knit scarf, her cheeks flaming red to match.
“Are you ill?” I asked her, ushering her inside. I lived in a tiny apartment in lower Manhattan with my roommate, Helen Dupont, who also worked with me as a wireless operator at the National Women’s League. By day we patched calls and helped women find work, and by night we went to suffrage meetings and plotted protests to picket the Senate’s inaction.
“No, I’m not ill,” Myrtle said, stepping inside, gently unwrapping her scarf and placing it down on my sofa. She turned and I instantly saw purple marks cascading from the side of her neck.
“Oh my goodness, Myrtle.” My hand instinctively went to her neck and she flinched before my fingertips even grazed her skin. “What happened?”
“Oh, it was nothing.” A laugh gurgled in her throat and then died before it completely escaped her lips.
“It doesn’t look like nothing.”
It had been weeks since I’d seen my sister last, or, had it been months? I tried to remember now. We spoke on the telephone a few times a week, but the last time she’d come to the city to see me… it was before the summer. April, maybe. Had it really been that long?
I loved seeing Myrtle, spending time with her, but she had a drastically different life than I did. She had her husband and his business to worry about out in Queens. I had my job in Manhattan, my volunteer work with the suffrage movement, and on the weekends, Helen and I had gone to parties in the city all summer long. We were young and untethered here. We drank and we flirted with strange, beautiful men, and on some Saturdays we stayed out until dawn, just because we could. I never went out to visit my sister and brother-in-law. I didn’t like it much out there, where it was always gray and dirty, with the smell of ash from the incinerator heavy in the sky. Anyway, Myrtle never invited me or wanted me to come to them. Instead, she came into the city to see me when she had the time and could get away.
I glanced at her neck again, guiltily. I should’ve been going out to see her, checking on her, invited or not. I’d moved to New York to be near her, after all. But I’d become wrapped up in my own life here, and Myrtle’s life was consumed with George. I hadn’t realized before now that maybe that should’ve worried me.
I reached my hand up to touch her again, and this time she let me. The bruises made an arched line on her neck. “Did George do this?” I asked. I imagined my brother-in-law’s thick hands clinging so tightly to her neck that his fingers left marks, and it made me queasy.
“No, of course not,” she said quickly, pulling away. “It was just… an accident. It was so silly really, I’m tired of explaining it. It’s why I’m wearing a scarf in August, for heaven’s sake.”
“What kind of accident?” I raised my eyebrows and looked her directly in the eyes. She blinked and looked away.
“Oh, you know… What was it Mother always used to call me because I was never watching where I was going?”
“Turtle?” I said.
“Yes, right. Myrtle the turtle.” Myrtle’s voice came out thick with annoyance, but when Mother said it, it had always been in a completely endearing way, her voice brimming with affection. At home on the farm, Myrtle never watched where she was going—and there were so many times she had stepped in cow dung or had tripped and broken an egg. And Mother used to tell her to stop hiding that beautiful head of hers inside her shell. Myrtle the turtle.