Chapter 8

Anna

Hotel Ottawa
1897

Today is Sunday, and it seems odd not to attend church. Last night I dreamt once again that Mama and I were sitting together in a church service. I must have been very young in the dream because my feet stuck straight out from the pew instead of touching the floor. When I looked over at Mama, she was crying and wiping her eyes with her handkerchief. I thought it odd that it wasn’t one of the Belgian linen and lace ones she always carries, but a plain square of white cotton, hand-embroidered with blue flowers. Her tears frightened me. My mama shouldn’t be sad. I patted her arm to soothe her, and she smiled at me through her tears and pulled me close. “It’s all right, darling,” she said. “These are happy tears.” Then she took a white peppermint from her bag—my favorite candy—and placed it in my palm, folding my fingers around it. “Here, darling.” I put the candy on my tongue and let it dissolve slowly in my mouth so it would last longer. When I woke up, the dream had left behind a lingering sadness.

I get dressed and eat breakfast, then walk down to the pier and sit on the bench, watching the Sunday fishermen lined up along the dock with their poles jutting out over the water. I have my diary with me, and I’m still reading through it, slowly reliving the events of the past five months. I see a pattern emerging. I have been unhappy for quite some time, even before William ended our engagement. Shouldn’t the months before my wedding be the happiest days of my life? Shouldn’t the glorious excitement of being loved by someone and loving him in return fill my days with laughter and joy? Instead, I’ve felt a deepening loneliness, even when surrounded by people—and especially when I’ve attended Chicago’s genteel social events. I have written again and again in my diary that I feel as if I don’t belong there, that I am somehow different from the other young women in my crowd.

Ever since that first January day when my driver took a wrong turn and ended up on the corner of Chicago Avenue and LaSalle Street, I have been inexplicably drawn to the castle church—as if hooked by a fisherman reeling in his catch. Was that the church in my dream last night, or am I only imagining that it was now that I’m awake?

I am still sitting by the water’s edge when a steamship arrives from the town of Holland, which is only a few miles away at the eastern end of Black Lake. The quiet morning is suddenly filled with excitement as picnickers and bathers disembark to spend the sunny summer day here at the beach or along the shores of Black Lake. Many travelers are dressed in their Sunday best, and my attention is drawn to a woman who steps off the ship with her little boy. He is wearing a white sailor suit and blue cap, and he lets go of his mother’s hand the moment he reaches the end of the gangplank, eager to run. His mother grabs him and pulls him back. “Wait, lieveling! Don’t run near the water,” she says. “Hold my hand, lieveling.”

A shock tingles through me at the foreign-sounding word. I know that word. Mama spoke it in my dream last night after I’d noticed her tears: “It’s all right, darling.” But she hadn’t said darling, she’d said lieveling. Somehow I know that it means the same thing. I watch the little boy, and I can almost feel the peppermint in my palm as Mama curls my fingers around it. “Here, lieveling.”

For a long moment I feel paralyzed. Am I losing my mind? William said that the castle church was making me crazy. Is it true? My diary slides from my lap and falls to the ground as I leap to my feet. I want to chase the woman and ask her what nationality she is, what language she is speaking. But how can I ask a stranger such a question? Besides, she and her son have disappeared into the crowd.

The mother had thick, golden blond hair like mine. I was the envy of all the girls at school because my skin was so fair and my hair was so thick and curly. I can’t recall ever seeing another woman with hair like mine. Our Swedish maid’s blond hair is as fine as silk.

I sit down on the bench again, too shaken to walk much less run after them. I bend to retrieve my diary. When I sit up again, the sun blinds me as it reflects off the lake. I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to remember Mother speaking to me in another language when I was a child. But why would she? And what language would it be? Mother’s ancestors were English. So were Father’s.

I pull my straw hat down to shield my eyes and open my diary to the place where I stopped reading.

March 9

I don’t know what to think. Last evening in his sermon, Reverend Torrey asked us the same question that Jesus asked: “For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” The question haunts me. The answer eludes me. William will be giving me “the whole world” when we marry, yet my soul feels lost and empty. I had told Mother I was going to visit a friend yesterday, but I went to the castle church instead. I know it’s wrong to tell lies, yet I find myself doing that very thing. When I arrived home, I went into Father’s library and searched for the huge family Bible that he keeps on one of his shelves. The servants are the only ones who ever touch it, and that’s only when they dust the bookshelves each week. I carried the heavy Bible up here to my bedroom so I could read Jesus’ words for myself. The sermon gave me so much to think about. I already know I’ll go back to the church again, in spite of William’s order to stay away.

March 12

I’ve been reading the Gospel of Luke from Father’s big family Bible. I was deeply moved by the parable Jesus told about a rich man who had no pity on a poor beggar named Lazarus. The story reminded me of the question that still haunts me: “For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” I wish I had someone to talk to about everything I’m reading. I have so many questions.

March 13

It’s after midnight. I’ve just arrived home from a dinner party with William, and I’m so upset that I know I won’t sleep. The dinner was at the Mitchells’ magnificent new mansion, and there were endless courses of food. I watched people nibble at each course or take a sip or two of their soup, and then the servants would clear away our plates and bring the next course. Naturally, there was entirely too much food to eat. And I realize that this is the way these elegant dinner parties have always been. But as I dined beneath the gilded ceiling and dazzling chandelier, I couldn’t stop thinking about the rich man in Jesus’ parable and the poor beggar, Lazarus, who would have gladly eaten the crumbs from his table but was never given any. The uneaten food tonight would have fed a family of immigrants for a week. And on the carriage ride home afterward, that’s exactly what I told William.

But he stared at me as if I were crazy and said, “Which immigrant family?” Then he asked where I was getting such wild ideas.

I told him they were from a story in the Bible, that Jesus told a parable about a rich man who never helped a poor beggar. But he cut me off and stated that his family gave very generously to charity. “And so does your father.”

“But in Reverend Torrey’s sermon he said—”

“Who? What sermon? There’s no one by that name preaching at our church.” I realized my mistake too late. William had been holding my hand as we rode home, but he suddenly let go, practically tossing my hand back into my own lap. “You went to that ridiculous church again, didn’t you? After I told you not to.”

I couldn’t reply, my throat was so tight with tears.

“Your silence condemns you, Anna.” Then William turned away, gazing out of the carriage window not at me, his chin lifted in contempt.

“William, please listen . . . I don’t understand why you’re so against that church.” But he shook his head, refusing to say another word to me for the rest of the ride home.

I can’t read any more diary entries, or I’ll begin to weep. William had forced me to choose between him and the church, and by continuing to sneak back there to attend services, I had chosen the church. Had I been foolish to do so? I remember feeling so lost and alone at social events, even with William by my side and dozens of people surrounding me, and yet that emptiness always lifted when I sat by myself in the pew, listening to the minister talk about God’s unfailing love.

I stand and slowly walk back to the hotel’s wide front porch. The walkways are crowded with people and I look all around, hoping to see the woman and her little boy again. I still can’t imagine how I understood the foreign words she said to him.

My mind bounces from that mystery back to William again. If he decides to give me another chance, should I take it? He would give me everything I could ever want—except the freedom to attend the castle church. I could never go back there again. “What is a man profited,” I wonder, “if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”