Or was it home? She lived with an ambivalence she could not escape, like the weight of the heat itself. In her mind, it was still Howard’s flat, furnished with Howard’s things, his silver in the drawer, his china in the cabinet, his heavy-lidded pots in the kitchen. His clothes in the chifforobe: one nice gabardine suit, three finely starched shirts, a long cotton nightshirt, one black wool bowler, and a pair of brown leather house shoes. Even the sheets and the slightly stained down comforter belonged to him. When they married, she had brought with her only the table linens she had embroidered for herself, three sets of them, and a wedding ring quilt and a crazy quilt, which she and her mother had made by the hearth from dress scraps on cold prairie nights, each seam line embroidered with complicated stitch designs she had practiced over and over.
She had one albumen print of the family, taken before she left the farm in 1896. She remembered the day they had made the trip into town for that photograph at the pleading of her mother. It had been her eighteenth birthday. In the photo, the boys stood behind their father, each with a hand on his shoulder. There was a space between her parents’ chairs, and Alice stood, as if alone, on the far side, a hand on her mother’s shoulder. She remembered that after the photo the menfolk had donned their hats and walked outside. Her mother had smiled at her, but Alice remembered seeing the light catch the tears in her eyes.
Her father had made it clear to Alice that the farm would be divided equally between her brothers, Gifford and Clancy. They were the men of the family, and they would farm it. Her mother by then had become right frail. Alice could remain there until she married. It was assumed she would marry. Her mother took her aside and confided, almost in whispers, that life would be difficult and lonely for her here on the plains. She wanted more for Alice and hoped Alice would think about trying life in the city, in Chicago, where, her mother fantasized, there would be ample opportunity for her to flourish, thanks to the trove of sewing skills her mother had given her, feeling this day would come. And so, with only a plain denim bag made from the legs of her youngest brother’s worn-out overalls, embroidered with daisies on the outside, and featuring an inner pocket to hold the roll of bills her mother had secretly stashed away for years, Alice at last surrendered her home. On her first train ride she crossed those wide expanses with endless sky and abandoned the open prairie for her first glimpse of the unfamiliar, bustling, chaotic city life of Chicago just as the turn of a new century was approaching.
Her first days in Chicago were disorienting, to the point that she longed to take her remaining bills and buy a ticket back to the plains. By inquiring at the station, she learned of a rooming house for women and then ignored the terrible fear overwhelming her at both the cost and uncertainty of mounting a cab alone to reach it. The place was dire in appearance, but the matron was kind, the mattress clean at least, and the food adequate. Some other poor girl had discarded a newspaper, and in it, Alice found a wanted notice for an experienced seamstress at Carson Pirie Scott & Company. She was hired.
That chain of chance brought her to Howard, whose abandoned wife she now appeared to be, waiting uselessly on news from the police. As the days passed with no word, Alice rattled about the flat, scanning the street below, fanning her increasing anxiety with a day-old newspaper the boy at the corner had given her. She ate bread and cheese, not daring to spend more on food, since all household funds came from Howard. Afterward she tackled the housekeeping. With the broom, the mop, and the feather duster in hand . . . she was suddenly not sure how different this was from what life might have been like on the prairie—the life her mother had hoped to save her from—but she urgently needed everything to be perfect for Howard’s return. Alice stepped into the small kitchen, but the sight of the enamel sink stopped her. Instead, she retrieved the vinegar from the cabinet and wiped the windows as high as she could reach, then lowered the upper panes, cleaned and closed them, grateful that the sashes slid easily, unlike in the cramped single room she had occupied before her marriage to Howard. Sweating profusely now, she opened the windows again. This gave her no relief, as the heat from the street below rose and mingled with the heat in the room.
Alice eased into Howard’s armchair, unbuttoned her limp, wrinkled shirt at the neck. She fanned at herself, released three more buttons, then let her arms go limp on the dark leather of the chair. She laid her head back and closed her eyes. It was late in the season for such unrelenting heat. Once it eased, of course, there would quickly be the frigid Chicago winter to survive. And where was Howard?
Alice opened her eyes, gazed around her husband’s flat. She had met Howard Butterworth at Carson Pirie Scott & Company two years ago, when he’d come into the store to purchase an expensive light green twill skirt for his mother in Memphis. It had needed to be shortened, as his mother had lost some height through the years, he said. The manager had summoned alterations. Alice had been the one available at the moment. When she arrived, Mr. Butterworth presented her with a set of carefully written measurements for the skirt, which she found both odd and endearing. What man had she ever encountered who knew his mother’s skirt measurements? Let alone had them tidily written out and at hand in his pocket.
When Mr. Butterworth returned the following day to retrieve the skirt, he first examined her work, holding it close, as if he were a bit nearsighted. When he lowered the fabric, he smiled at her and complimented her handiwork. Smiled again and invited her to dinner at a fine restaurant, one she had never walked by, let alone entered. She demurred, however. How unsafe might she be with such a total stranger? A moment later, the floor manager bustled by and stopped to greet Mr. Butterworth, with exclamations of recognition and pleasure that he was once again shopping for his mother at the store. A brief conversation ensued regarding his mother’s health and well-being in Memphis. When the manager departed after offering effusive thanks for his return business, Mr. Butterworth turned back to her and repeated his invitation to dinner. She accepted.
He was unfailingly decorous throughout the ensuing courtship, opening doors, assisting with chairs in restaurants, offering his elbow on the muddy streets, even urging her to wait while he readjusted street planks across a mud puddle. When first he delivered her back to her low-rent fourth-floor walk-up, he remarked, “Well, we shall soon need to remedy this.” He never pushed for feminine “favors,” kissing her chastely on the cheek or forehead in farewell, sometimes the back of her hand. She was unused to such a man, so startling in his difference from her father and brothers, who were brusque, rowdy, rough farmers of the plains, men for whom women’s function was to serve them, and that right quickly. In contrast, Alice was both puzzled and impressed that this gentlemanly stranger was interested in her at all. And always respectful.
Howard’s profession as a cotton broker with the Memphis Cotton Exchange burdened him with an erratic work schedule involving frequent train trips between Chicago and Memphis. Alice was often surprised by his unexpected appearances, and equally frustrated with the disappointment of waiting an extra day, sometimes two, for his return.
The courtship was not extended. Though she hesitated, Howard stated somewhat bluntly that since marriage between them was inevitable, stretching it was a waste of valuable time. He considered an impulsive trip to the quick marriage mills of Crown Point, across the state line in Indiana, but he had no personal transportation in Chicago, and Alice insisted that they could manage the short waiting period required in the city, since he would be traveling with his work regardless. Finally, without fanfare, Alice became Mrs. Butterworth in a simple exchange of vows before a local justice of the peace.