10
Passion and Pain
Spokane, 1916
The joy on Lucy’s face and the respect in the ardent gentleman’s eyes remained with Nellie for the rest of her life. In the years ahead, she learned to reserve judgment. But as she gypsied up and down the Pacific coast, recording court proceedings and collecting stories, she could not help notice the trouble people brought on themselves for want of prudence and a proper sense of purpose. She began to question her ambitions.
“I spent the first half of my life praying for the wrong thing,” she told Jessie during a visit. “I prayed for a life that would engage my imagination and allow me to use my mind. I was wrong to do that.”
“How were you wrong?” Jessie stood at the sink, washing up the lunch dishes.
Nellie recited a favorite quote from memory: “It is for us to pray not for tasks equal to our powers, but for powers equal to our tasks, to go forward with a great desire forever beating at the door of our hearts as we travel toward our distant goal.”
“Helen Keller.” Jessie finished drying the china soup tureen and set it back on the sideboard.
“Yes. Miss Keller rallies against all preparations for war. She urges women to be heroes in an army of construction. As much as I enjoy my job, I can’t pretend I am working for any great cause. Due process keeps society orderly. It changes nothing.”
“Are you saying that you are as dissatisfied with your career as you were with your marriage?
“No, I am just wondering. Instead of all the grumbling I did, what if I had prayed for the power to perform my mundane tasks with good grace? Might I have been granted a higher calling?” Nellie removed the unused dishtowel from where it hung draped over her arm, refolded it, and set it aside.
“Perhaps.” Jessie pulled the plug on the sink and wiped away the moisture that glistened on her forehead. She eyed the clean towel. “Then again, it’s never too late to start.”
Noise and laughter erupted from the back bedroom. The sound advanced like the tremors of a California earthquake. Walls shook, and the floor resounded with the thud of small feet. Leading the pack, Leone burst into the kitchen and threw her arms around her grandmother’s waist.
Four years before, Opal had returned to Spokane with her child barely out of diapers. Before the dance troupe arrived in Chicago, Jack had abandoned the tour and traveled to California where there was an opportunity to make some quick money in Oroville. He wrote Opal, suggesting she give up their apartment and go back to Spokane to wait for him.
Desperate and lonely, Opal managed to get a telephone call through to her mother. “What could be in Oroville that interests Jack so much?” Opal asked Nellie.
“Gold, gambling, and a growing olive industry are all I know. Come home, and we’ll figure it out.” Nellie sent her a train ticket.
They rented a small house in Spokane near Jessie, and Nellie helped Opal find clerical work. She bit her tongue and bridled her ambition, telling herself that it was just for a season.
It took Nellie only a few inquiries among her colleagues to discover that Jack was a gambler. But Opal could not acknowledge that Jack might not be ready to settle down, that family life with a drifter might not be in the cards. Gentle Opal would not confront her husband. She would wait.
Nellie had little hope that Opal’s letter campaign would lure Jack back to her side, but if anything could do the trick, perhaps it might have been the photograph a friend took of Opal and Leone. In the portrait, Opal shined in a stylish black dress that showed off her tiny waist. She sat on a small stool alongside her waif, who was dressed in a frilly white frock and seated on a tricycle. In the photo, Opal gazed at her child with a look of pure love. Leone looked straight at the camera, a small smile on her lips.
Three years ago, it had been that photo that Nellie spotted lying on top of a pile of mail when she returned home from work. Hadn’t Opal sent it to Jack? She heard noise in the hallway. Could Jack be …? A door shut. Nellie flipped the photo over and read the words penciled on the back. If only you saw her, you would never want to leave us. Down the hall, behind the closed door, someone sobbed. Nellie walked down the hall and tapped on the door.
“Opal?”
The bed creaked, and the door opened. Tear-stained Opal, holding Leone in her arms, stepped aside, and Nellie walked into the room.
“What has happened?”
Opal held out an envelope clutched in her free hand. Stamped in red across the Oroville address were official words, Return to Sender, Addressee Deceased.
Leone wriggled in her mother’s arms, and Opal set her down. When Nellie wrapped her arms around her daughter, the little girl began to wail. Opal pulled Leone into the folds of her skirt and rubbed her back.
“He never saw her. She will never know her father. What will I tell her?”
Nellie procured the death certificate. It wasn’t a weak character that killed Jack Barry; it was a weak constitution. At age twenty-five, he succumbed not to a gentleman’s disagreement or a barroom fight, but to pneumonia. A harsh winter, the virulent flu, and a compromised immune system put him in his grave.
The ensuing three years, Nellie had tried to be patient with her grieving daughter, but she had grown frustrated with Opal, who was sad and tired all the time. Hadn’t Nellie felt the same way after Mabel died? Yes, but in her experience, it was best not to sit too long with the loss. She must find a way to help Opal move forward.
Now six-year-old Leone hugged Nellie’s waist and raised her arms to her grandmother. Nellie placed her hands on the girl’s shoulders and pushed her arms gently to her sides.
“You are too big for me to pick up, Leone. You would break my back.”
Leone grinned and skipped off. Nellie called after her. “Get your coat. We need to get home so I can pack my bag.”
“Off again?” Jessie gave the counter a final swipe.
“Los Angeles.”
“How long this time?”
“Three or four weeks, I imagine. I am taking a little time off to look in on Johnny and meet his wife and son.”
“Oh good. I’ll be interested to hear if marriage has tamed that rascal son of yours.”
Before she left, Nellie slipped some money into an envelope and handed it to Opal with the suggestion that she employ a neighbor to watch Leone one evening and go out with her co-workers.
“Go see Douglas Fairbanks in Habit of Happiness,” she suggested. “That should cheer you up.” Her words sounded hollow, but maybe small doses of happiness could inoculate Opal against the chronic sorrow that threatened to overwhelm her. She prayed it would be so.