The Darling Dahlias and the Eleven O'Clock Lady

As she and Sarah got in the family Ford and drove back toward Darling, Ophelia was still worrying about what Jed was going to say when he saw Sarah’s bathing suit. Maybe she would just casually mention it to him at the same time she gave him his new plaid shirt, and bank on his usual lack of curiosity about things she bought for the kids. At least she hadn’t had to ask him for the money to buy it. She had her own money to spend, which she counted as a hundred blessings, one for every penny in the dollar.

Ophelia was able to buy clothes and groceries—as well as put tires on the family’s old blue Ford and finish paying for the living room suite she had foolishly bought on time out of the Sears and Roebuck catalog—because she had gotten a really lucky break. During the months that her friend Liz was working in Montgomery, Mr. Moseley had hired her to take Liz’s place three days a week in his office. She’d still been able to work for Charlie at the Dispatch on the other two days, so between them she was working five days a week. Then, when Liz came back and reclaimed her desk in Mr. Moseley’s office, Ophelia had gotten a three-day-a-week job at Camp Briarwood: another lucky break. A very lucky break, especially given how slow the feed business was.

Unfortunately, Jed didn’t quite see it that way. His masculine pride had been stung by Ophelia’s success, and he kept muttering that it was his responsibility to support the family and his wife should stay home where God had put her. Ophelia didn’t know about God, but she understood Jed’s feelings about her working. He came from a conservative family, and none of his womenfolk—his mother and aunts and cousins—had ever held a paying job outside the home. Women just didn’t; that was all. It was no wonder he hated to see her go out the door every morning, all dressed up and with lipstick on and heels, like she was going to the picture show.

But while Jed would never admit it, Ophelia knew that the money she brought home every week had been a lifesaver. Snow’s Farm Supply, the family business Jed had inherited from his father, had been in deep trouble for the last few years. Farmers were scrambling to find the money for seed and equipment, and Jed (who had a hard head but a soft heart) had extended too much credit to his customers. The Snows had been scraping the bottom of the barrel, and Ophelia—who never felt very secure, even in the best of times—lived in constant dread that he would come home one day and tell her that the business was finished and that they were going to lose their house. And their car. And everything they had worked for since they got married.

Through all those dark months, it was Ophelia’s earnings that had kept the family afloat and supported Jed’s parents, too, both of whom were too old and too sick to work. She didn’t mind helping them, of course. She accepted it as her obligation. Jed was their only child, so they had nowhere else to turn—except the county poor farm, and she and Jed would never let that happen, not in a million years. But where else could old folks turn if they didn’t have any children and couldn’t pay the rent or doctor or dentist bills, or buy enough fatback and beans to keep them alive? For many, it was a desperate situation.