The House of Eve, page 31
“I know you are in there, Eleanor. Please, open the door.”
Sighing, she turned the knob.
Rose stood on the slender wooden porch in a floor-length black mink coat and a matching hat adorned with a leather flower. She looked like a movie star who had been mistakenly dropped off at the wrong house, in the wrong town, in the wrong universe.
“Are you going to invite me in?” Rose blew on her hands. Eleanor knew that her mother would have her hide for being rude. She stepped aside so that Rose could enter her childhood home. Rose’s eyes appraised the shabbiness of the furniture in the front room. Taking in every nick and scratch from the years of use. Eleanor’s parents didn’t believe in replacing things until they were broken and beyond fixing. Whereas Rose replaced things with the seasons.
“So, this is where you come from?” Rose draped her coat and gloves over the arm of the recliner.
“How did you find me?”
“Sometimes a woman just needs to go home. Been there a time or two myself.”
Eleanor gestured for Rose to take a seat in the recliner, while she sank across from her on the orange sofa.
“Would you like some coffee or tea?” she offered, remembering her manners.
“No, thank you.”
There was a family portrait of Eleanor with her parents on the table, and Rose picked it up and studied it. Eleanor was sixteen in the photo. It was two years prior to her attending Howard University. Before she found out that Negroes like Rose Pride felt she’d been born on the wrong side of color, class and wealth.
“I know you think I’m a monster for orchestrating the adoption. I just wanted what was best for my son. And for you.”
“You don’t care about me, Rose. With just the two of us here, you can be frank.”
Rose cleared her throat. “I won’t lie. You were not my first choice for William. But, you have certainly grown on me. Let me tell you a little story. Do you have a few minutes?”
Eleanor nodded.
“My grandmother, Birdie, was born a slave. Her white father owned an infamous slave jail in Richmond and her mother, my great-grandmother, Pheby, was his mistress. Birdie was the only one of her three sisters who outright refused to pass for white. They went up north to attend college, but Birdie decided that she was going to stay back in Virginia and uplift her people. She married a doctor, my grandfather, who was so fair that he could have also passed for white, but he chose not to as well. My grandparents were able to build wealth and retain it because their near whiteness opened doors for them.”
Eleanor wasn’t sure why Rose was telling her all of this. What did it matter?
“We held ourselves apart from the common sharecroppers who were uneducated, black and dirt-poor. And why shouldn’t we? We had nothing in common with them. We were trying to get ahead and stay ahead. I’m sure you see us as uppity, but this was the only way to assure that our children and our children’s children could build a legacy.”
“What does this have to do with me?” Eleanor asked sharply.
“All I want is what’s best for William. I’m his mother. I just…” She swallowed, more nervous than Eleanor had ever seen her. “Eleanor, I just want to protect my boy.”
“No matter who gets burned in the process?”
Rose swallowed. “Now that you are a mother, you will understand.”
“I am not a mother.”
“How can you say that? My son loves you. He has done all of this for you.”
“He did it for you.”
“Eleanor.” She leaned forward in her chair. “I’ve had Greta Hepburn picked out for William since he was four years old.”
Eleanor wrung her hands in her lap. So that was it. She was here to offer her money to divorce William once and for all.
“But your spunk, tenacity and stubbornness are the things I’ve grown to admire most about you. You don’t back down, not even to me.”
“Why are you here, Rose? Just spit it out, please.”
“I did have a hand in getting Wilhelmina to you, but William is not her biological father. You must believe me. It’s a well-kept secret that the Magdalene home has a small market of well-bred Negro children for those who can’t naturally conceive. I was simply using my connections and resources to give you both what I knew you wanted most in the world. To start a family.”
“Why didn’t you just tell me? Why go behind my back?”
“Because I knew that if you knew it had been my idea you would have rejected it.”
Eleanor had to admit that Rose was right about that.
“It was me who was dishonest. Don’t make William and certainly not that sweet baby girl pay for my transgression.”
Rose reached into her clutch and pulled out a pearl bracelet with a gold clasp.
“This was my grandmother’s. I wanted to pass it down to my daughter, but I only had boys. As my first daughter-in-law I want you to have it. It’s my way of asking if we can start over. Turn over a new leaf.”
Eleanor was taken aback. She took the bracelet in her hand and ran her fingers over it. It was stunning.
Rose got to her feet and slipped back into her coat.
“William misses you. Please don’t stay away too long. And Wilhelmina needs you. She needs her mother.”
She took one last look around the living room and then let herself out. Her perfume stayed in the air long after she had gone.
* * *
Eleanor stayed in the same spot on the couch thinking about her conversation with Rose. She replayed it over and over in her head. Eventually, she put on her coat and went for a walk through her neighborhood. She walked past her old high school, the track that she ran on after school most days, the bleachers where she let her first boyfriend feel her breasts. She walked past the butcher and the fruit stand. This is where she was from. She could taste her roots on her tongue. When she returned to her parents’ street, she saw a shadow on the front porch.
Eleanor heard a soft cry as she reached the middle of her block and it touched her at the center of her core. She picked up her pace. The first thing she saw was William’s back, but this time instead of being bent over books in the library, he was bent over their baby.
A swelling of surprise, love and joy pulsed through her chest. When Eleanor started up the steps to the porch, William stood. He opened his mouth, but no words came out. Eleanor moved into his arms. William cupped the baby in one arm, and Eleanor with the other. The three of them locked in a fold.
“I’m so sorry.” He kissed her cheeks and then settled on her lips. “Somehow I felt justified in going behind your back with this because you never told me about the first miscarriage. It was stupid—I know two wrongs don’t make a right. Please forgive me.” He pressed his lips against hers. His mouth was warm and tasted like home. “I rushed here when my mother called and said you might be ready to see me.”
Eleanor squeezed his waist and then reached for Wilhelmina. “Rose wanted you to come get me?” Eleanor smiled to herself. Maybe Rose was turning over a new leaf as a mother-in-law. Maybe.
Eleanor brought the baby to her heart, before unlocking the door and letting her family inside.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN SIGNED AND SEALED
Ruby
I waited until I got back to Aunt Marie’s house before I loosened the flap on the envelope. My hands were unsteady as I brought the letter to my face.
Dear Ruby Pearsall,
Congratulations! We are pleased to announce that you have been awarded a full four-year tuition scholarship on behalf of the Armstrong Foundation We Rise program of Philadelphia. The financial award is contingent upon maintaining a grade point average of 3.0 or above. Please review your contract for more details. To accept this award, we must receive the completed acceptance form enclosed no later than the first day of March.
We are excited to have you and look forward to welcoming you on campus in the fall of 1951.
Sincerely yours,
Geraldine Clair Davis
Admissions Director
A lump formed in my throat. Mrs. Shapiro had made good on her promise. In a few months, I would go off to college. In that moment, I yearned for the type of excitement that would make me jump and shout, but the news that everything I had sacrificed for had come to fruition didn’t feel like I had imagined it would.
I flopped on the sofa and stared at the thick linen stationery until the words started running together, begging my body to feel something.
When Aunt Marie got home and I showed her the letter, she did all the praise dancing for me.
“Sweetness! You did it. You gonna be the first one in our family to go to college. I’m so proud of you.” She took my arms and swung me around the room, eyes shining with pride.
“You know Nene gonna want to have a seafood dinner to celebrate you.”
“I hope Fatty has figured out how to fry fish like Nene by now,” I said, attempting lightness. I wanted Aunt Marie’s glee to infect me.
“This will change your life. You won’t have to struggle like the rest of us, out here trying to make a dollar out of fifteen cents. You are going to make us all proud.”
Aunt Marie went to the record player and dropped the needle and while she swayed to the sounds of Dinah Washington, I knew that the only way I could do this was to take Mother Margaret’s suggestion.
The only way forward was to forget.
EPILOGUE Thirteen years later, July 1964
Eleanor
Eleanor sat in the den, sipping a cup of coffee that had grown tepid. She considered the new arrowroot-color wallpaper. It was a recent change to their decor. All the magazines were raving about the color, but Eleanor was not sure that she actually liked it. Rose said it made the right statement, so Eleanor had let it be.
William’s undergraduate and medical degrees from Howard University hung above the mantel. Eleanor’s eye fell on the spot next to it that held her own college degree and her most recent Archival Award of Excellence certificate, and the sight of both tickled her with pride. The television was on low as a breaking news banner crossed the bottom of the screen. Eleanor leaned in.
It was the fifth day of the race riots in Harlem. An off-duty white police officer had shot and killed James Powell, a fifteen-year-old unarmed Black teen. The city was in an uproar and the riots had spread to the surrounding boroughs. Eleanor made a note to phone her sister-in-law after dinner to check on Theodore and their three kids. Perhaps she should ask if they’d like to escape the city for a bit and come for a visit.
“I look ridiculous,” Willa shouted as she marched in from the kitchen, bringing her signature scent of lavender with her.
She wore a yellow sundress that Eleanor had purchased from Woodies while out shopping with Nadine. It had looked loose and flowy on the mannequin, but the dress hugged Willa too tight.
“Goodness me, I must have picked up the wrong size.” Eleanor crossed the room and lifted the label in the back of Willa’s dress. It was the correct size, or at least the size Willa wore three weeks ago. Her body seemed to be developing right before her eyes. At thirteen, she had more curves than most grown women.
Willa turned toward her, red-faced. “Why am I like this?” Her lovely ringlets bounced against her shoulders.
“Like what?” Eleanor feigned innocence.
Willa pointed to her busty breasts and slapped her wide hips. “You have those itty-bitties, and I get stuck with these sandbags. How is that possible?”
Eleanor blinked. “Body shapes run back a few generations. Just like your green eyes, sweetpea.”
“I’m such an oddball.”
“You are beautiful.”
“I want to look like you. Tall, slender, brown, not like this.” She pouted as her eyes filled with tears.
“Willa, calm down.” Eleanor reached for her, but Willa stormed out of the room and stomped up the stairs.
“I’m not going to lunch with you and Daddy,” she called, and then slammed her door shut.
Eleanor should have run after her and insisted that she accompany her, but she didn’t have the strength to wrestle her into a dress that fit and drag her out of the house. William would be disappointed, though.
Eleanor sighed and decided to at least try. When she got upstairs, she realized that Willa had gone into the spare bedroom and was hiding in her prayer closet, again.
“Sweetheart, come out of there.”
“No!”
“Let’s find another dress for you to wear. Daddy will be distraught if you don’t come to lunch.”
“Tell him I’m sick.”
“Wilhelmina Rose Lorraine Pride, come out of that closet right now!”
The door opened slowly, but Willa remained seated.
“Darling, are you coming or not? Your father doesn’t like it when we are late.”
“I’m not going.”
“What do you want me to tell him?”
“I said, I’m sick.”
“Very well. Mind yourself, I’ll be back soon.”
Eleanor walked away from the bedroom and down the steps. She picked up her linen purse and glided out the door to the car.
* * *
When Eleanor arrived at Howard Hospital she took the elevator up to the top floor. As her kitten heels clicked across the white tiles, she said hello to a few of the nurses on duty before walking back to her husband’s office. As assistant chief of staff, William had a well-appointed corner suite. Eleanor could hear voices from the office floating down the hall.
“Darling.” William beamed when he saw her, and then stood from behind his desk. A woman in a white lab coat with a stethoscope hanging from her neck sat in the seat across from him.
“I’d like you to meet our newest doctor on staff, Dr. Pearsall. She’s an optometrist and has just arrived from Philadelphia.”
The woman stood and reached out her hand to Eleanor. Eleanor shook it. Her touch was soft and somehow familiar. For whatever reason, Eleanor had a hard time making herself pull away.
“How do you do, Dr. Pearsall?” Eleanor looked at the woman’s face. Although her mouth smiled warmly, the feeling had chilled just below her dark eyes.
“I’m just fine. Happy to be here. Please, call me Ruby.”
“Where’s Wilhelmina?” William broke into Eleanor’s thoughts.
“Pretending to be sick. I think she’s suffering from summer fever.” Eleanor chuckled. “She sends her regrets and asks that we bring her back some dessert.”
William grinned. “Dr. Pearsall, would you care to join us for lunch? We are heading over to a new bistro that just opened up on U.”
Dr. Pearsall appeared caught off guard and quickly shook her head. “Thank you for the invitation, but I need to go down and get settled.”
Then something on the wall above William’s head caught her eye. “That’s a beautiful painting.” She pointed.
“Oh, our daughter is quite the artist.” William lit up.
“She has an eye,” Dr. Pearsall said, still staring at it. “Well, I better get on my horse. It was nice to meet you, Mrs. Pride.”
“Likewise,” Eleanor said, smiling, and then watched the optometrist walk out the door.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
My late grandmother became pregnant with my mother at age fourteen and gave birth to her at fifteen. It was 1955, and having a child out of wedlock was the ultimate sin. So they hid her pregnancy from everyone. Even to the child she gave birth to. My mother did not know her mother was her mother until she was in the third grade; she had been raised by her grandmother, and it had never been openly discussed. My grandmother told me that she was the black sheep of the family. Both she and my mother shared a feeling of deep-rooted disgrace, and as I was growing up, I could see it play out in their turbulent relationship.
My mother does not think there was love between her parents. She describes it as a onetime hookup. My grandfather did not make my grandmother an honest woman by marrying her. He couldn’t. His family was very light-skinned and from the “right” side of the tracks. She was mahogany brown and from the lower-class section of North Philadelphia. Like oil and water, they were not intended to mix. My grandfather married someone else, with whom he went on to have children, and my grandmother and mother were stuck with the burden of this lifelong embarrassment.
The idea for The House of Eve started with a what-if. What if my grandmother had had money and opportunity, and when she found herself pregnant and in trouble she was sent away to a home for unwed mothers? To erase the humiliation of bearing a child out of wedlock, and to be able to return to her life in North Philadelphia and start over. Like it never happened. Searching for the answer to this question, I read The Girls Who Went Away by Ann Fessler, who so graciously answered all my emails about this moment in history. I found articles about women who had been forced to surrender their babies and I found these two particularly helpful: https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2018/11/19/maternity-homes-where-mind-control-was-used-teen-moms-give-up-their-babies/ and https://washingtoncitypaper.com/article/273834/wayward-past/.
The astonishing fact is that between 1945 and 1973, 1.5 million women in the U.S. lost children to forced adoption in homes for unwed mothers. I say lost because they were forced to give their babies up. Until 1973, abortion was illegal and punishable by imprisonment for both the mother and the doctor. Unmarried women were also pressed to give up their babies because there were no IVF treatments, and the only way for married couples who suffered from infertility to have a child was through adoption.
But in trying to connect the dots between my grandmother’s story and the research, I didn’t find the story I wanted to tell, because of all the stories of women I uncovered, I couldn’t find a single story about a Black woman. When I asked around, I was told that Black women went down south to hide out, and then left the baby with a relative. Or they had the baby and dealt with the consequences because there was no other option. My mind couldn’t accept that this was it. Black women’s lives have never been a single narrative. There had to have been a small group of elite Black people who could not conceive but still wanted a family. How did the stories of wealthy Black families dealing with infertility play out in the 1940s and ’50s?
