EUGENE DAVIS DID not like to hear any news of his daughter. In fact, he didn’t hear much at all, which explained, at last, why his wife was in the habit of shouting the way she did.
He was a decrepit man in late middle age with a pot belly and wobbly knees. He sank into a chair, still in his dust-covered dungarees, and put his hands out to rest on top of his legs very gingerly, as if they required special handling. Constance couldn’t help but stare at them, as she’d never seen hands so scarred and mangled. One index finger had been sheared off at the top knuckle, and a pinky finger on the other hand looked like it had been worn down to a useless stub. They trembled helplessly and seemed, just as Mrs. Davis had claimed, entirely unsuited to any kind of work.
Constance explained the purpose of her visit and said, “We have your daughter at the Hackensack jail, but please understand that she hasn’t been charged with a crime. She’s being held as a witness. That’s why I’ve come to see you. If you can speak to the judge, it would go a long way in helping to get her released and brought back home. I’m sure you’d all like to put this behind you.”
Eugene Davis spoke in a hoarse voice, worn down from years of shouting over the noise of a factory floor. His lips moved a little before any words came out. “That girl’s not coming back here, if that’s what you mean to say.”
Constance hadn’t come prepared for such heartlessness. “It would take nothing more than a word with the judge . . .”
“I’ve had a word with the judge.” Mr. Davis jerked his arm up and pointed a finger heavenward. “She needs to speak to my judge if she wants to get right.”
Goldie kept her eyes on her lap. Edith Davis was leaning forward and nodding encouragingly at her husband as he spoke.
“County jail might be the best thing for her,” he said. “Any Bibles in that jail?”
“Of course,” Constance said. “And services on Sunday.”
“That’ll do just fine.”
“But you must understand that the judge won’t release a sixteen-year-old girl on her own. Someone would have to take her in.”
Mr. Davis acted as though he couldn’t hear, although she’d shouted at him just as his wife did. He leaned forward, and Mrs. Davis rushed over to help him up. “We’re going to get on with our supper,” he said by way of dismissing her.
“It’s nice that you can,” Constance snapped. “Your girl has nothing but a jailhouse supper waiting for her tonight.”
Mr. Davis huffed and turned away.
“Take an address, at least, so that you might write when you have a change of heart.”
But the Davises were unmoved. Mrs. Davis pointed her in the direction of the train station and sent her on her way. Before she went, she pressed her hand into Goldie’s and left the jail’s address in her palm. Goldie made no expression as she pocketed it.
Once outside, Constance picked her way down the dark and pitted street. Here and there, a faint yellow light fell out of kitchen windows. Even in the thin February air, a few boys ran up and down the street with a leather ball. At the bottom of the hill, a tattered newspaper was caught in a bare tree, snapping in the wind like a flag.
When the breeze hit her, she took an enormous breath, relieved to be out of the Davises’ stifling sitting room. There was no point in staying longer anyway: she couldn’t have put those two before a judge and trusted them to say anything that would cast Minnie in a favorable light. Even Goldie couldn’t help, as she was possessed of knowledge of her sisters’ dalliances with out-of-town men and might—if questioned sharply and compelled by a judge to speak truthfully—see no choice but to confess what she knew.
Constance reached the edge of town and walked along the boardwalk, where she could perfectly imagine Minnie going to wait for the boats. Even with the operation shut down for the winter, it wasn’t difficult to picture the carnival atmosphere that would have prevailed in the warmer months. There were wooden booths, shuttered and locked, that advertised pretzels and beer. A wide shingled shed offered three shots at a target for a chance to win a set of ruby glass. At one end stood a bandstand, with benches in a half-circle around it.
The wind came up off the gray river. Constance gathered her collar around her neck and turned her back on the place. It held the promise of merriment, even though there was none to be found.
14
UP IN POMPTON LAKES, installed once again in her little room under the eaves at Mrs. Turnbull’s boarding-house, Edna Heustis turned over a pamphlet that someone had dropped in the train station a few days earlier.
On one side was a picture of a woman in a smart gray uniform, standing on a hill. Behind her lay a ruined, smoking battlefield. It read:
Are you going to help us win this war?
Answer not with words and cheers, but with shells, ships, food, and bandages.
Is the work heavy, you ask?
Not so heavy as the soldiers’ work.
Are the hours long?
Six days and nights in the trenches are longer.
On the other side was the announcement of the Women’s Preparedness Committee’s weekly meeting at the church, with this call to join:
Just as our young men are not waiting for their nation’s orders to go to France, so can women take up the call and follow them. In hospitals and ship-yards, in aeroplane sheds and railways, in homes and workshops, there is work overseas right now for American women who are willing to do it.
Edna turned the paper over again and looked at the woman sketched in pencil, with just a few lines to suggest dark hair tucked under her cap, and a single mark along her jawline to show a strength of purpose. She wondered how she would look in a uniform like that. She’d never met a woman who professed an interest in boarding a ship for Europe and serving alongside the men, but she’d read about it in the papers. Women were volunteering for the Red Cross and the Ambulance Service. They were serving as nurses, cooks, and secretaries.
She wondered if her brothers would meet women like that when they went to France. All four of the Heustis boys were ready to depart as soon as President Wilson gave the order. Early last year, they’d each gone out to join in some sort of war-work to prepare themselves, which their father heartily encouraged. Charlie had taken an orderly position in a hospital with the hope of joining an ambulance service in France; the twins worked at the munitions depot on Black Tom Island; and Davie, the youngest, apprenticed himself to an automobile mechanic, thinking that he might drive his brother’s ambulance, even though he grew dizzy at the sight of blood.