“Thy father,” came the low, stern voice.
Charlotte was napping on our mattress in a corner. I ran and propped a pillow to hide her, then moved a chair to block his view further, draping a skirt across it. I grabbed the drying diapers from the line that hangs wall to wall and stuffed them beneath the mattress.
His voice shot through the room: “Open the door, Lillian.”
I did. Father strode in, dressed in his work clothes, sprinkled with sawdust and drops of shellac, glowing with exertion. The room shrank around his presence.
“Father,” I said, offering my hand.
He stared as though seeing a ghost. The force of will that had propelled him across town dwindled and sputtered out. “Thee looks like thy mother. And as thin as she was before she died.”
Couldn’t he see the life surging in me? Or had I died for him when she did? That frightening thought clicked into place as I pointed to our small table and chairs, thankful that Johan had found them on the street and hauled them up. “Please sit,” I offered. “I’ll make tea.”
He sat and looked dully at one of the walls I hadn’t yet washed, with its grime and ripped paper. After removing his broad-brimmed hat to a chair, he rubbed his face with thick, muscled hands. I dipped our one pot into a water bucket—filled at the hydrant three stories down—and placed the pot on the stove. I stayed to let the stove’s warm currents bathe me, despite the gathering heat. I looked at the chipped pottery upon the nearby shelf, the few rations, the painted horse that had passed from Margaret’s father to Margaret to me, and wondered. What strangers occupied this space before us? A hook for a stirring spoon hung on the wall. Who’d put it there? At home I knew it was Mother, or Grandmother, or Great-grandmother. When I replaced a spoon on its hook, my hand and forearm moved in the layers of their similarly shaped hands and arms doing the very same. I was taking part in a palimpsest of gestures.
This was the modern way: my one hand, a new tin spoon, a hook put in by someone I would never know. Samuel de Jong in his daughter’s apartment, waiting for tea.
“How is thy work as a governess?” he asked. “Does the family live in this building?”
I’d forgotten about that ruse. “I’ve—I’ve left that work.”
My father nodded and waved his hand, urging me closer. “Come. I’ve brought things for thee.”
I walked to him and sat, feeling the warmth emanating from his person and the anxiousness bubbling in mine. He reached inside his leather vest, then paused. “Am I too late to prevent thee from caring for this Johan fellow?”
“It depends on what thee has for me,” I replied.
He withdrew a thin packet from his vest. Sighing, he laid it on the table and opened the paper wrap to reveal a short stack of envelopes. “I didn’t want thee to be encouraged,” he said.
I froze in place. The longed-for missives! Which Father had intentionally withheld!
“Here.” He thrust the envelopes forward. I hesitated. “Take them,” he demanded.
I did. The one on top had been much smudged and abused on its journey from Pittsburgh. I broke the seal and withdrew a single sheet written in Johan’s loose and generous hand. He professed his ongoing love and his wish to marry as soon as he’d saved enough at the steel mill and located suitable chambers. The date was Eighth Month, Day 10, when I was two months along. He’d sent the address of their lodgings; I could have gone and married him before my pregnancy became evident. I glanced at the other postmarks: Tenth Month, Day 3, when I was still living at home, four months along; and Third Month, Day 30—the day after I’d birthed our daughter.
“Does he ask for money, as thy brother did?” asked Father.
“No.” I could hardly open my mouth.
“Does he tell where Peter is?”
“He’s at work, in Philadelphia. They returned over a week ago. They leased this room.”
Father raised his powerful arm and smashed his fist onto the table. A split appeared and widened between two boards; this evidence of shoddy craftsmanship further loosened his restraint. “How can thee care for that fool?” he yelled. “He lured thy brother from me and broke his promise to work five years in my shop. I work fourteen hours every day to fill my orders. And what does thee do? Thee loves the very man who sentenced me to this.”
In her corner Charlotte began to whimper, but Father didn’t notice. What had become of him? He was utterly lost without Mother. I’d never seen him strike anything. Tears dropped from my cheeks to my lap as he continued yelling.
“What kind of a life is thee going to have with that”—and here he stood and scraped his chair back on the floor—“that poet?”
Charlotte increased her cries. Father turned toward the noise, brow creased, mouth frowning. I rushed over and lifted her. Her weight formed a reassuring anchor.
He pointed a thick finger. “Whose baby is that?”
I pointed to her red curls. She mouthed my dress frantically. Father couldn’t speak but merely sputtered. Finally he asked, “How?”
“Didn’t thee wonder why I left so suddenly?”
“No.” He shook his head. “Becoming a governess was a sensible—”
“Thee should have wondered,” I said amid my baby’s wails. “I meant to go to Pittsburgh to marry Johan once I had their address. But I never had it! Then Patience discovered my condition and forced me out. I gave birth at a charity. We were living on the street when Johan and Peter found us in late Sixth Month.”
Milk dripped to my abdomen. My father’s face went blank, as if in search of an expression.
“If thee will excuse me,” I said through a choked throat. “I need to feed my daughter.”
I stepped to the chair by the mattress and sat. I got Charlotte settled, then covered her with the shawl from Clementina. Two washings in soap and vinegar had returned the shawl to a glorious golden yellow.
To his credit, Father didn’t leave. He occupied himself in trying to fit the pieces of the table back together, as if he were a human vise. He muttered with frustration, the chair creaking as he shifted his bulk. Then, reacting to my revelations, he huffed in disgust. “Disgracing the memory of thy mother,” he said. If he’d been out of doors, I believe he would have spit.
I felt astonished. He’d withheld the letters that could have saved me from a year of grievous exercises and disgrace. Then he’d stood aside and asked no questions when I left home precipitously, forced to leave by the thief he’d married while Mother’s dying breath hung close upon us.
And he dared to despise me.