“Do you want more cake?” she asked me now. I shook my head, and she stood to cover the cake plate. The sleeve of her dress shifted a bit, and I caught a glimpse of purple encircling her wrist. The cake I’d just eaten rose in my throat, threatening to come back up, and I swallowed hard. I had been right to be worried, to come out here today.
“What’s that?” I asked, pointing to her wrist, trying to keep my voice steady. She ignored me or pretended she hadn’t heard. But clearly she had because she tugged her sleeve down a little before she finished covering the cake. “Myrtle,” I said her name loudly, and she startled a little, jumped.
“Jeez, Cath. You’ll wake George.” It was early evening on a Saturday, but George was exhausted from a long day at the garage and Myrtle said he’d sent his apologies but had gotten into bed before I’d arrived. He’d taken an early supper and had conked out. I’d wondered how much whiskey he’d had to wash down the dry ham and potatoes.
“Sorry.” I lowered my voice. I certainly didn’t want to upset her, or wake George. “But what happened to your wrist?” I asked softer.
“My wrist?” She sounded distracted and focused all her energy on finding the perfect spot for the cake on her kitchen counter.
I stood and walked over to her, put my hand lightly on her wrist, and she flinched. I pushed up her sleeve a little, and there it was, a round purple bruise. “Dammit, Myrtle.” I cursed softly before I could stop myself.
She yanked her arm away. “Mother would turn over in her grave hearing that mouth on you,” she chastised. “That’s all you’ve gotten from living in the city, Cath? No man and a mouth like that.” She tsked softly.
I frowned, though it was true. Mother never could stand for impropriety. And well, honestly, Mother would probably turn over in her grave for half the things I did with my life these days. The gin I drank, the nights I spent with Jay, and even all the protests I’d marched in with the other suffragettes. “Myrtle, that’s beside the point.” I picked up her wrist again, pushed up her sleeve, traced my hand around the shiny ring of purple.
She flinched, then forced a smile. “Cath, it’s nothing. Really… it’s nothing.”
It didn’t look like nothing. It looked like George had hurt her, again. I swallowed back this hard, hot hatred that rose in my throat for him, my brother-in-law I barely knew. The few interactions I’d had with him, he was always quiet, almost bordering on dim-witted. I tried to imagine him in a fit of rage, tearing at my sister, and tears burned my eyes. How dare he do this? How dare he?
“You should leave him,” I said bluntly.
“Leave?” Myrtle laughed a little, but the sound caught in her throat and came out sounding like an odd quack. “And where would I go?” Her voice floundered as she sat back down at the table. “Look around you. I don’t have much. But at least I have… something.”
I thought about it for a moment. “You could come live with me and Helen in the city.”
“In that small apartment? There’s barely room for the two of you to move.”
I shook my head and kept talking, undeterred by that one tiny, factually correct detail. “Maybe I could get you a job…” The Women’s League wasn’t hiring for any more wireless operators at the moment, but there must be something there I could find for Myrtle. Anything would be better than this.
“A job?” She laughed a little. “So I could have less than I have now?”
Sure, the apartment I shared with Helen was very small, a quarter of the size of Myrtle’s tiny place, and I didn’t make a lot of money working for the Women’s League. But I always had food to eat and plenty of fun, and most of all, plenty of freedom. How could she believe she would have less?
“I’m worried about you,” I said. “I want to help you. You deserve so much better, Myrtle.”
“Oh, Cath”—she patted my hand—“marry a rich man and I’ll come live with you in his mansion.” She laughed a little; she was joking, but only half. The other part of her was dead serious.
* * *
LATER THAT NIGHT I lay in Jay’s bed, my head on his bare chest. We were naked and both satisfied and he absently stroked my hair with his hand, twirling a strand in between his fingers.
I’d come to his apartment straight from Myrtle’s, directing the cabbie last minute to take me here instead of to my place. For the past few months, I’d been coming here once a week or so, or Jay climbed up the fire escape to my bedroom if I knew Helen would be out. But one of us always telephoned the other first. There was a propriety to our affair, a sense of mutual agreement. We didn’t barge in. We didn’t cling or demand commitment. We scheduled ourselves into each other’s lives whenever it was mutually convenient.
Tonight, though, was different. Driving away from the ashes of Queens I’d felt sad and helpless, and I’d suddenly needed Jay in a way I’d never wanted to need anyone. I’d directed the cabbie to change routes, take me here. And I’d shown up at his door without telephoning first.
“Cath?” His face had turned in surprise when he’d opened the door and saw me there. I’d pushed myself into his apartment and kissed him hard enough to make us both dizzy. And then, what had ensued, a rush to pull off clothes, to fall naked into his bed, to grope and tumble until we both were satisfied—it had nothing to do with love or commitment, but everything to do with need.
“Is everything all right?” he asked me now. “You seem…” He didn’t finish his thought but instead kept absently twirling my hair.
I leaned into his chest, closed my eyes, but all I could see was that horrible purple bruise on Myrtle’s wrist. Jay and I didn’t normally talk about our lives, beyond small talk. I hadn’t talked to him about Myrtle since our first drunken night together. But I couldn’t keep it inside of me now, and I told him everything: about Myrtle’s continued bruises and George and how she believed leaving him and being poor and alone was worse than being with him.
When I finished talking, I was crying, which I only realized when Jay’s fingers moved from my hair to my cheeks. His thumb brushed away the wetness, then trailed down to my lips. “Poor Cath,” he said softly. “Let me help.”
“I don’t know how you can,” I said petulantly. In fact, now I wasn’t even sure why I’d told him. Saying it all out loud hadn’t made me feel better at all. I felt decidedly worse.