Kitty touched Abigail’s shoulder. “You can trust me.” This was an emergency, she felt; anything could have slipped during one of Emma’s binges.
A look of recognition appeared in Abigail’s eyes, and in a split second, Kitty knew she’d given them away. “My God.”
Kitty didn’t confirm, but she also didn’t correct or clarify the woman’s realization. “I have to protect her. You understand that, don’t you?”
Abigail looked at Emma, whose arms were hanging, deathlike, off the bed. “I don’t want any trouble.”
“We’re at your mercy.”
The floodgates opened. “I’ve seen gifts tucked in his suitcase, gifts he doesn’t give to her.”
“Do they fight about it?”
“She pretends not to know, but they fight about her drinking.”
“I thought you said he didn’t know about the drinking.”
“He doesn’t know how bad it is.”
To distract herself from further worry, Kitty started tidying. Abigail followed suit with the glasses, plates, and other trash covering the floor. Side by side, they cleaned, forging an alliance against whatever was trying to take Emma down. Careful not to crash glasses or make unnecessary noise, they moved slowly, working in quadrants around the room. Their care was in vain, Kitty finally decided; a band could have marched through the house and Emma wouldn’t have stirred.
It was after four in the afternoon before she did. Groggy and rubbing her eyes, she propped herself up on her elbows. “You’re not supposed to be in here.” Her head dropped to the pillow as if she couldn’t bear to hold it upright.
“You’re a drunk.”
Emma slid off the bed and walked to the bathroom, pausing every three steps as if she was going to be sick. When she made it to the toilet, Kitty came to the doorway.
“Can I have some privacy?” Emma asked, reaching to close the door on Kitty with her foot.
Kitty slammed it open. “Did Rick find out about you? Does he suspect anything?”
“No!”
“Are you sure? Who knows what you might have spilled while drunk.”
“He doesn’t know!” She put her head in her hands. “He wants a baby. Before he left for this trip, he told me that if I won’t agree to have at least one, he’ll divorce me.”
“What about a diaphragm?”
“That’s what started all of this. He found it and threw it away. My doctor is one of his scotch-and-cigars buddies, so I can’t get another one without him knowing. Meanwhile, Rick’s been directing Abigail to fatten me up so I can get pregnant, and I just refuse to eat and make up reasons not to share a bed.”
“But you’re not pregnant?”
She flushed and turned on the sink. “No, but I have to fix it so I can’t get pregnant. I can’t refuse to sleep with my husband forever.” She looked at Kitty. “I need you to ask where I should go. I can’t be seen or heard inquiring about such things.” She sank to the floor and started crying, wailing in a way that made Kitty want to plug her ears. The emotion made Emma sick, and she started throwing up and dry heaving. Finally, she crawled away from the toilet to lie on the bathtub rug. Kitty sat on the floor and pulled her head into her lap.
“Do you ever imagine what your life would be like if you didn’t pass?”
It was the last question Kitty had expected Emma to ask. “Not anymore.”
“Of course not,” Emma said. “You created a life for yourself. All I did was find myself in someone else’s.”
“But you have everything you wanted.”
“Nothing to call my own. I’m a fixture, like the furniture. Everything is his.”
“Rick loves you.” Kitty could tell by the way he had tried so hard to give Emma everything she asked for.
“He’s wonderful—he is. But he’s not enough. I didn’t know how much I wanted a baby until he did.” Her eyes glazed over. “Maybe there was a baby meant for me … who passes on God’s gift like that?” Her wanting, Kitty saw, made her question everything. “Dreams of babies keep me up at night. The drinking puts me to sleep.” She emitted a small, sad laugh. “I was so busy managing you, I didn’t manage myself. You’ve pushed for everything you want and look at you now. Perhaps I should have pushed a little harder too.” She buried her face in her hands. “I can’t pretend anymore. I’m miserable in this so-called charmed life.”
* * *
Lucy volunteered to take Emma to the man, located two hours outside of Los Angeles, who took care of such things. Rick was traveling again, and Emma would stay with Kitty on Orange Drive until she recovered. Kitty felt they could trust Abigail to care for her, but Emma argued her loyalty was to Rick.
Emma returned with intense abdominal cramping. It took both Lucy and Kitty to get her into the house.
Bloody sheets, a stained mattress, and hours spent sitting on the bathroom floor while Emma soothed her cramps in a hot bath were moments Kitty wouldn’t soon forget. If she never married, she thought, she would never be forced into a position where she had to remove her own womb.
Rick was heartbroken to hear of Emma’s “miscarriage.” She was too weak to leave Orange Drive, and the blood-stained mattress served as proof. Kitty settled on the couch in the living room while he paced, and Emma slept.
“I don’t know what to do.” He was fumbling to undo his tie, having come straight from work.
“Activity would do her some good.”
“I try to take her out, but I’ve been really busy with work.”
“She’s bored, and because of it she’s started mixing cocktails.”
Rick was willing to do anything to make her happy. “What about a trip to Europe, or Boston? She might like a visit home.” He didn’t say it, but Kitty knew he was hoping that if he could fix her, they could try to get pregnant again.
“No, not Boston. What if she went back to work?”
He frowned. “She was paid so little—I’m not sure it’s worth having to get another car so she can get there.”
Kitty remembered how much her operator salary had seemed to her then.
“I’d rather she develop a hobby,” Rick ventured.
“Piano?”
“Then I’d have to buy her one.” Rick bit his lip.
Kitty wondered why that was a problem; they had plenty of space.
“And … it would take a while for her to get good.”
Hearing Emma call for him, he rushed down the hallway. They left shortly after, with Emma wrapped in a blanket in his arms as though she was a baby.
Before she knew it, Emma found herself on their neighborhood beautification committee, visiting an elderly woman at a nursing home, and volunteering at the library three times a week. Emma called every week with feigned apathy—she wanted Kitty to know how cared for she was, how lucky. She was trying to turn her husband’s affection into yet another competition between her and Kitty, who was genuinely happy for her, knowing she needed him and that feeling of superiority to validate her life.
The library was the only thing that stuck. She was hired in a part-time capacity sorting the racks. Nonetheless, witnessing a vast improvement in Emma’s self-esteem, Kitty recruited her formally into Blair House. This time, Emma began donating monies from her own paycheck and advocating for diverse hires in the public library system. She started a reading group to teach literacy skills to Colored women.
Emma never relinquished her gin, but it became less of a crutch and more of a pacifier again. Rick was happy to have his wife back, and Kitty was proud she’d become a more productive citizen. Neither made a fuss about her one or two nightly drinks.
CHAPTER 29
Kitty
January 1960