We wrestled with our differences. Finally she relented as to my writing Peter, saying she would explain my points to our mistress. But she wanted me to tell Peter about Charlotte and to have him urge Johan to make reparations.
I assured her that Charlotte and I will get by on our own after my time here, for surely others will see our virtue and not block our progress toward a decent life.
“Get by on your own?” Frau Varschen said. “Be seen as virtuous?” Behind her thick glasses, her eyes lifted to the ceiling and back to me. “I doubt it.”
“Why?” I asked. “I’m young, I have skills, I have principles—”
“Principles? Bah! If only everyone had them. How can you make it alone with a bastard? Do you want to end up a strumpet?”
“Of course not.” I stared at her, aghast. “That won’t happen to me.”
She rolled her eyes skyward again. “So why does it happen to so many like you—because they love to be poked by drunken strangers?”
I blushed. “I’d guess not.”
“Something bad happened,” she said, “and no one gave them a second chance.”
A bad feeling took up residence in my stomach then.
Be that as it may, I wrote to Peter in the manner I’d described. I used Clementina’s fine parchment, which Frau V. procured with permission. I struggled over what to write and decided on this.
1883. 5th mo. 3
Peter de Jong
General Delivery
Pittsburgh, Penna.
Dear Peter,
No letter has come from thee or Johan. How is thee faring? How is Johan? I am not well. Please consider returning, or at least write me immediately, care of the Burnhams, 18xx Pine Street, Philadelphia, Penna.
With love and concern, thy sister,
Lillian de Jong
Frau V. may have pulled this mule onto a path unwillingly, but now I’m trotting down it, and my spirit is aflutter with the possibilities. Perhaps Peter will return, or offer us shelter in Pittsburgh. Perhaps the hole that has threatened to swallow us will fill with solid earth instead!
Fifth Month 5
I’ve just nursed and changed Charlotte, then Henry, then Charlotte, then Henry. I run from one to the other, up and down the stairs, day and night. Apart from strict necessity, what keeps me rising to my tired feet? It must be the delight these babies bring.
Henry reveals deep dimples when he smiles. His brown eyes open wide. He gurgles when I place him on the changing table. Charlotte, by one week his elder, stares upward and grins while I clean her, making a percussive sound that seems to be a laugh. Within seconds she can go from smiling openmouthed to pursing her brow to pressing her lips in discomfort to belching and sending curdled milk to the folds of her neck to grinning toothlessly again.
I carry her around and around in our limited realm of garret and third-story hall, showing her things. I point out my window at the birds perched on the roof across the street, amuse her with silly facial expressions, let her try to trace a crack in the wall’s plaster. I sit before my trunk and help her touch my clothing and shoes, a brush, a hair comb. She grabs my clothing in her clenched-up fingers. Her grip is so powerful that a stocking tore when I tried to make her release it.
Her growing plumpness soothes my conscience.
I brought her to the kitchen today, and Frau V. showed me how to place her on her stomach. For a few seconds at a time, Charlotte held her arms and head up, as if flying.
“Our baby learns quick,” said Frau V., patting my daughter’s diapered bottom.
Of course Clementina is correct; I reserve my finest care for my own baby.
Frau V. has me drinking nettle tea to rebuild my strength. Soon, she said, nothing will remain of my wound but a bluish scar.
Fifth Month 7
With never sleeping more than two hours straight because of a suckling at my breast, I can barely follow a simple train of thought, much less form a plan for Charlotte. But Clementina grows ever more stone-faced toward me, and I need to earn full pay. Albert has forgotten to bring the papers. Frau V. promises she’ll bring one tomorrow.
There’s trouble here. The Burnhams often argue in the dining room. And lately, while I nurse one or the other of my charges in the night, bitter tones pierce the darkness. Worst was last night, when from Clementina’s bedroom came yelling and the sounds of objects and bodies shifting, and then a bout of sobbing from her. She hasn’t emerged today. Margaret has said nothing of it but brings meals to her mistress’s room. Albert skulked out early.
This afternoon I brought the infants behind the house to the narrow yard and settled us on a blanket. Simply breathing the air born of such rampant blooming and sprouting did us good. Henry lay on his back, cooing at passing clouds. When a breeze blew over and the leaves flitted about, Charlotte dashed her head side to side, openmouthed.
The newness of such things as clouds and leaves to them is marvelous.
Yet something has me bothered. I’ve been shown today two instances of desperation among the flying creatures. At early light I woke to squawking from the tree below, and out our window I spied a father swallow, greatly agitated, defending his nest of babies from a hawk. A parcel of will he was, flinging himself before the hawk every which way it traveled, poking his beak into its side, until finally it desisted. And later, on the blanket out back, while Henry drank at me and Charlotte moved her limbs, a mother robin flew at a hawk, flapping her wings into its head and screeching, then aiming all her force like an arrow into its side. She attacked until the harried giant left her nest alone.
These parents must risk their lives continually to win their babes another day.
My Lotte nearly died by being too far from my protection. Frau Varschen was right: I hadn’t understood the danger.
Fifth Month 9
The cook brought in the Public Ledger this morning. Among the many advertisements for wet nurses was one placed by a woman describing herself as a healthy Irish Catholic mother seeking a baby to nurse because she had lost her own baby at birth. She claimed to offer a clean home and asked one dollar fifty cents a week, which was higher than some. Margaret said the address was ten blocks southwest of here, in a section known as Shantytown.