The Chaperone (39 page)

But the longer they waited, the less likely it seemed they would ever be able to tell her the truth. Now she was almost an adult, and she’d grown up believing Cora was her blood relation, her aunt. Greta didn’t look anything like Cora; she was blond and tall and still so thin, which caused her great distress, as curves were back in fashion. But she once pointed out, quite happily, that she and Cora had similar noses and hands. “I know from pictures I look like my mother, at least in the face,” she told Cora. “But it’s nice that I look like you, too. And your mother died when you were a baby. You and Papa both know how I feel.”

There was no telling what the news would do to her, or what she would do with the news. Every other member of the household mistrusted Greta’s boyfriend, Vern, as he had made a long but as yet unsuccessful campaign to convince Greta to abandon her plans to go to university after graduation. Joseph had made the strategic decision not to get into a tug-of-war with the young man, and so no one overtly voiced his or her dislike for Vern. Greta still considered herself very much in love, so it seemed likely that if and when she learned the truth about her aunt Cora, she might confide in Vern, even if they asked her not to. Vern seemed to Cora capable of great spite, and they would all be in that much more danger.

And so they’d kept on with their secret, even at home. They knew they might be making a terrible mistake, and that if Greta discovered them by accident, she might be irreparably wounded. Then again, as of now, she appeared happy, and it seemed reasonable to suppose that if they didn’t tell her, she might very well stay that way. After all, Howard and Earle had grown up with a lie.

But it was fair to say that year after year, Joseph and Cora’s happiness was compromised, keeping their secret not just from Greta, but from almost everyone. They could go on walks or to movies or to the theater together, anything a brother and sister might do. But they couldn’t hold hands, or use each other’s names too often. They might have gotten away with dancing, but they didn’t try. She once complained to Alan how wearying it all was.

I’m sorry, Alan had said. I’m so sorry.

It wasn’t what she’d wanted or what she’d meant. Alan was still her great friend, and now, her only confidant. She didn’t blame him. On the contrary. She meant to say she understood.

“You are upset?
The brunch was not good?”

Joseph reached over and touched her cheek with the back of his fingers. They were sitting on the couch in the parlor, the heavy curtains shutting out the sunlight. There was a time when these afternoons alone always began with a rush upstairs, to his room or hers. Sometimes they still began that way. But more often than not, they just wanted to spend their time sitting close and talking, his hand free to rest on her leg, her head free to lean on his shoulder.

She turned to him and smiled. She was upset, but she’d tried to hide it. They only had a few hours together, and she didn’t want to waste them complaining about Winnifred Fitch’s brunch. But she was still thinking of Louise. In truth, she was worrying, which seemed as silly as it always did. Louise was likely fine. She could be moving on to another marriage to another millionaire. And perhaps she’d grown tired of Hollywood, and not the other way around. That seemed entirely possible.

In any case, Cora hoped she was fine. It occurred to her, just then, sitting next to Joseph on the sofa, that this hope for Louise was something to be proud of, proof she hadn’t belonged at that brunch. A thought came to her. It was just an idea, a wild thought. But already, the annoyance and confusion she’d felt that morning shifted into a restlessness that didn’t feel bad. A grasshopper, undistressed by their presence, moved slowly up the opposite wall.

She lifted her head. “I got a letter from some doctors the other day.” She saw the worry on Joseph’s face and took his hand. “No no. Nothing about me. I’m fine. I just know one of them from the club. He and another doctor, and a donor who wasn’t named… They’re starting a home for girls in Wichita who are… well, who are pregnant and not married. They’re trying to get a board of directors together.” She watched the ceiling fan spin, Joseph’s hand warm in hers. He was a patient listener, which was so helpful at a time like this, when even she didn’t know where she was headed. “They’d like to have a woman on the board. Mostly fundraising.” She smiled. “They said they wanted a woman of good repute, which was why they contacted me.”

He reached down and squeezed the flesh of her hip. “Good repute,” he said.

She pretended to fluff her bobbed curls with the flat of her palm.

“They only write you?”

“I don’t know. No one mentioned it at the brunch this morning. But then, unwed mothers aren’t a popular cause.”

He drummed his fingers on her leg. As clean as he was, as hard as he scrubbed when he came home from work, his nails were usually lined in black. Oil from the engines.

“You are wanting to do this?” he asked.

“I don’t know.” She stared up at the fan. It would be taking on so much. But then, Greta would leave for college next year. Already, Cora spent most of her days reading. Howard and his wife had a new baby, but they lived in Houston. Earle and his wife had no children yet, and in any case, they were in St. Louis. “I’m forty-nine years old,” she said. “I’m not sure I should be starting up with something I don’t know anything about.”

He smiled. “I have felt this way.”

She pressed her forehead against his shoulder. Of course. She’d forgotten. She rarely thought of all he’d lost, how he’d had to start over, following her out here with nothing but his daughter. He’d not only climbed back up—he’d climbed higher. Prohibition was still alive and well in the state of Kansas, but he was free to go back to New York, or just about anywhere, and start brewing again. But now he loved working on the planes, the constant puzzles and challenges each plan presented. He didn’t want to go back to brewing, he said. If Kansas legalized alcohol tomorrow—they both knew this was unlikely, but if it did happen—he might stop at a bar and have a beer now and then. Otherwise, his life wouldn’t change.

She lifted her head and looked at him. His head dropped to the back cushion of the sofa, and wisps of dust rose up.

“All right,” she said, fanning the air above his face.

The doctors,
good men that they were, wanted to call the home Charity House. They thought it was vague enough to appeal to potential donors, with no specific reference to the clientele. And they already had a house—from a woman who had willed it to the doctors, knowing their intent. It was a gigantic Victorian, all gables and porches, sitting on two acres just out of town.

“Charity House sounds like Dickens,” Cora said. Like
The New York Home for Friendless Girls
, she thought.
A Home for Fallen Women.

“How about Monica House?” asked the younger doctor. “Saint Monica? She was a mother.”

“Too Catholic,” the older doctor said. “Sorry.”

The younger doctor was Catholic.

“How about Kindness House?” Cora asked.

The doctors frowned at each other.

“It’s a bit…” The older doctor shook his head. “Sorry. It’s a bit twee.”

“Kindness isn’t twee,” Cora said. “Sweetness is twee. Not kindness.”

She looked from one man to the other. Both were kind. Neither was twee. “I’m just thinking that idea should be the cornerstone of our mission. Our guide.”

“What idea?”

They both looked at her, waiting. She tried to think. There was just one way to say it. “Well, that… compassion is the basis of all morality.”

The younger doctor smiled. “You read Schopenhauer, Cora?”

“A little.” She smiled back. “He’s often right, isn’t he? But I don’t know about Compassion House.”

The older doctor shook his head. “If we say ‘compassion,’ people will hear ‘passion.’ That’s not what we want with this population. No. That’s no good.”

It was difficult work,
raising funds for Kindness House, especially in those early, lean years. Lots of people had a hand out for good causes, and, as some of Cora’s rejecters plainly told her, she was competing with charities that served completely innocent children, who’d done nothing to deserve their suffering. Unwed mothers, one woman at the club told Cora, had sealed their own fates. “I feel sorry for the babies,” she told Cora. “But the girls chose to uncross their knees.”

“Some of them, certainly,” was all Cora said. She would gain nothing with impoliteness. But it hurt her to hear the mothers talked about this way, especially after she got to know a few of them. She and the doctors had hired a house manager, along with a teacher and a live-in nurse, and Cora didn’t help with the day-to-day running of the home. But she often stopped by just to see what was needed, and though some of the residents saw only a middle-aged woman in hat and gloves whom they didn’t want to talk to, others seemed pleased to have someone smile and ask how they were. There were girls as young as thirteen, as well as two women in their thirties. Clearly, some were from good homes. A few sounded more educated than Cora, though the girl who seemed the brightest—a former college student—admitted being duped by the claims of Lysol. Some of the home’s residents were from Wichita. A few were from smaller, drought-ridden towns, and one came from Oklahoma City. Whether they were locals or not, they couldn’t go into town, certainly not once they were showing. Cora would take requests for little luxuries—chocolates, hairbrushes, books. One girl, six months along, asked for a teddy bear.

But Cora’s main duty was to raise money, and it turned out that she was good at it. She’d raised money for many causes over the years, but now, perhaps because of the unpopularity of her cause, she felt more inspired, more determined. She learned to apply for aid, both state and federal. She held well-planned lunches and teas. She went to parties with Alan and worked on his colleagues, and she did the same when she visited each of her sons. She was smooth. She could be both polite and persuasive. She learned to talk more about the babies than the mothers. Yes, she answered, again and again, most of the mothers would choose to give their babies up for adoption. Either way, she always emphasized, it would serve the babies’ interests if the mothers were treated well.

Raymond gave her one of her largest donations. There was no fanfare, and there didn’t seem to be a hidden meaning or message. He just came out of Alan’s study one evening and handed her the check. He thought her project worthwhile, he said. And what else was he going to do with it? It wasn’t as if he had children.

“Thank you,” she said, or tried to say—she temporarily lost her voice. They were both surprised by the reddening of her face, and then Cora was compelled to put her arms around his wide shoulders and pull him close, to breathe in his clean, soapy smell. He was clearly startled, and for a few moments, he kept his back straight, his arms at his sides. She didn’t let go. Under her hands, under the layers of Raymond’s fine suit and shirtwaist, were the same freckled shoulders she had seen that awful day she thought her life was over—and when she was sure this decent, beloved man was her enemy.

She was grateful life could be long.

On a mild winter day in 1937,
Cora went downtown to Innes Department Store to do some Christmas shopping, and Greta, home from college on break, came with her. Cora was glad for the help, as she still needed to get presents not just for Howard and Earle, but for their wives and for Howard’s two small children, who would all be at the house by Christmas Eve. For the last week, Cora had been making up beds and beating curtains and even baking misshapen and slightly burned gingerbread men. She’d also purchased two pairs of warm, soft socks for every resident of Kindness House, and she’d bought Greta a tube of the lipstick she liked and a good-sized bottle of Chanel No. 5. She got Joseph a nice suit, having realized he would never buy one for himself, and she bought Alan and Raymond matching neckties, hoping they would find the inside joke inside enough to be funny.

“Greta? Do you think Howard’s boys would like a pull toy?” Cora rolled a tiny wagon across a shelf, causing Mickey Mouse, the only passenger, to wildly thump a drum. “Walter’s four now. Is that too old for something like this?”

When Greta didn’t answer, Cora looked up, and just then, the bell of the front door clanged and Myra Brooks walked in. She wore a black beret and a long black coat, the neck lined with fur. She looked very pale, perhaps because of her brick-red lipstick. But it was her. Their eyes met, then Myra’s darted away. As she moved down the center aisle, Cora was silent. There was a chance Myra just didn’t register who she was—so many years had passed, Cora’s hair was now streaked with gray. But it seemed as likely that Myra just didn’t want to talk—to Cora, maybe to anyone. In any case, Cora, still holding the pull toy, was resigned to let her pass.

But just as Myra was beyond the toy section, she stopped, facing the opposite direction. Even in heels, she seemed small, shrunken. Her shoulders rose and fell twice before she turned around.

“Hello, Cora.”

“Hello, Myra.” Cora tried to hide her surprise with a smile. “How are you?”

Myra appeared to find the question amusing. “Well,” she said finally, “I’m here.”

Cora wasn’t sure what to say. Myra’s voice and expression were both so resigned that a cheerful response would seem doltish. And now that she was close, Cora could see she really was unwell, her beautiful face now gaunt, her neck thin under the fur collar. She stared at Cora as if waiting for something, until Cora, uncomfortable, glanced away. Greta was over in women’s accessories, smiling at Cora and pointing to the red knit hat she’d tried on. Cora gave an appreciative nod.

Myra seemed irritated.

“Sorry,” Cora said. “That’s my niece over there. She’s home from school. I don’t know that you ever met her?”

“Hmm.” Myra, clearly uninterested, didn’t bother to turn around. She continued to stare. If she was going to be rude, Cora thought, Cora might as well ask what she really wanted to know.

“How’s Louise?”