11
Displays of Grief
Los Angeles, 1916
Being on her own usually lifted Nellie’s spirits, but after a long day transcribing a lengthy cross-examination that yielded nothing significant, she was tired and sore. She limped through the downtown Los Angeles shopping district toward her hotel. Her toes throbbed in her tight shoes and her neck chafed under the starched white collar attached to her navy cotton-serge day dress.
At the end of a day like this one, the prospect of dining alone made her a little teary. On occasion, she would accept an invitation from a judge or attorney to dine at his club, but only if the evening held promise to produce enjoyable conversation. No such invitation had been extended.
The week before, Nellie had ridden the streetcar out to East Los Angeles to visit Johnny and meet his wife and their son—her grandson, she had to remind herself. A beautiful boy, but she would not be there to watch him grow up the way she likely would for her granddaughter. That’s how it was with sons.
This thought did nothing to coax Nellie from her dark mood. She was a block from her hotel when a floral fragrance with a lemony-peachy float pulled her from her malaise. The energizing scent lingered in the wake of a slender woman passing by on the street.
How lovely to be young and able to treat yourself to a little time in a parfumerie. The woman who now walked ahead of Nellie was all peaches and cream, from her blush-colored tea dress with its alabaster-satin-beribboned waistline to her delicately heeled shoes. Where was the sprite headed? To the Palm Court, to meet a gentleman? Back home, where a nanny waited to hand over a curly-headed tot? Nellie laughed at herself. How easy to imagine a dream life. Like a new perfume that warms on the skin, thrills the senses, and dissipates, so it was with dreams. After you wear them for awhile, you hardly notice.
Back in her hotel room, Nellie sat down at a small writing table and reached for words to describe her new daughter-in-law in a letter to Jessie.
Dearest Jessie,
How shall I describe the new Mrs. Scott? Her name suits her. She is a formal sort, very ladylike. That Johnny would choose jewel-like Pearl for such a rough setting surprises me. I am even more surprised that the latest Mrs. Scott accepted him, but they seem very much in love.
I sometimes wonder what my life would have been if I had considered my choices more carefully. At one time, married life seemed like freedom. I did not realize then that I would be chained to home and hearth, while my husband roamed freely.
I can only hope that Pearl will turn out to be a better homemaker than I was and that Johnny will be more appreciative of her unique talents than his father was of mine. Of course, I’ve yet to discover what those talents are, but every woman has them. I can say this, she is soft-spoken, and there is a natural sweetness about her that puts one at ease. That’s a talent, don’t you think?
It was a joy to meet my new grandson, another, John! They call him Jackie. He is adorable.
Ever,
Nellie
R
Nellie continued to arrange her schedule to remain in Spokane as much as possible. A year passed, and the United States finally declared war on Germany. An upshot for Nellie, Opal, and Leone was that female households were now the norm. Women planted victory gardens and went to work filling the jobs men left behind. A sense of sisterhood pervaded neighborhoods and workplaces.
Nellie happened to be back in Los Angeles when she received some sad news. One day while she worked with other officers of the court filling in for members of the legal community who had marched into battle, her supervisor pulled her away from her desk to take a telephone call. The caller identified herself as Leota. The young woman had to talk awhile before Nellie put together that the bearer of bad news was her former husband’s new wife.
Leota and Pearl had taken three-year-old Jackie shopping for his birthday. Leota relayed what had happened in a somber, halting monotone. Nellie had to strain to catch it all. The gist of it was that as a special treat, Pearl bought the boy a balloon. She wound the string lightly around his wrist and cautioned him to keep a tight hold of it. What happened next played out in Nellie’s mind like a silent film. So mesmerized was the child by the bright red balloon bobbing in the air, he let go of the string. A breeze tugged the balloon, the string unraveled from its loose tether, and the balloon floated off. With a yowl, young Jackie pulled away from his mother and dashed into the street to retrieve his prize. He was hit by a motor car and killed instantly.
Several days after the funeral Nellie found herself sitting in the circle of her ex-husband’s new family. Although she was hesitant to intrude on their grief, she accepted an invitation to her son’s new Spanish bungalow. The visit required more courage than she had anticipated.
Pearl never left her bedroom. The men quickly excused themselves to the backyard, and Johnny followed. Through the window, Nellie watched them adjust their hats, wipe their brows, smoke cigarettes down to the nub, and stub the butts out in the palms of their hands. Furtively, they looked over their shoulders toward the window before swigging the communal flask that passed hand to hand.
When Nellie pulled her attention away from the men, a pattern of smudges on the window above the slipcovered sofa came into focus. Pearl was an excellent housekeeper. How did those smudges get there? Fingerprints. Oh God, tiny fingerprints formed parentheses around a nose print. Directly below, she thought she could make out the outline of little lips. Her imagination filled in the hunched shoulders, the blond curls on the back of a child’s head as he stood on the sofa and pressed his face to the window. For an instant, Nellie thought the specter of the boy was in the room. A last farewell. She pinched the inside of her arm, and the wraith vanished.
Nellie desperately wanted to get up, get a towel, and wipe the evidence away to spare Pearl renewed anguish. Instead of sitting here murmuring about nothing, shouldn’t these women be making plans for how to help the grieving mother dispose of reminders of her loss?
After Mabel had died, Nellie had been quick to get rid of her things. All that remained of her eldest daughter were the childish possessions of a young girl barely out of her teens, one who left no legacy of womanhood. And now, this war. How many other young lives would be cut short? How many women would lose themselves in sorrow while their men drowned their grief in drink? A woman who lost a husband was a widow. A child who lost parents was an orphan. What was a mother who lost a child?
It was selfish she knew, but she was grateful that her only son had passed his thirtieth birthday by the time the Selective Service Act became law. Perhaps Johnny and Pearl would have more children.
In the tiny stucco house, the bedroom door remained closed. In the living room, the women continued to prattle. Was it her place to organize them in a campaign to coax Pearl from her tomb back into the land of the living? No. She had no place here. Nellie made her excuses and let herself out the front door to catch the trolley back to her hotel.
Perhaps she should have gone around to the backyard to say goodbye to Johnny. She hesitated at the end of the walkway.
“Nellie?”
John’s voice sounded in her ears. She turned to see him round the corner of the house and lope toward her.
“You’re leaving?”
“Yes, I …,”
“Okay, well, could we talk for a minute?”
He planted himself in front of her and hung his head, tapping the palms of his hands against his thighs.
“What’s on your mind, John?”
He raised his head, and she saw something she had seen only once before. His eyes glistened with tears.
“He was a sweet boy. I can’t believe he’s gone.” John pulled a handkerchief out of his back pocket and blew his nose. “First our Mabel, and now our Jackie.” He shook his head slowly. “The sins of the father, I guess.”
“What are you saying?”
“I should have been able to keep us all together.”
“You think this was God’s judgment?” Nellie put her hands on her hips. “Accidents. These were accidents. No one is to blame.” She reached out, grasped John’s shoulder, and held him at arm’s length. “You think I haven’t said the same thing to myself?” When her voice broke, John pulled her into his chest, and they both sobbed.
Nellie was the first to back away. Wiping the tears from her cheeks, she glanced toward the curtained front windows. “Goodness, I hope no one saw that.”
John shrugged. “Pay no mind to that, Nellie. If we can’t mourn our children together, what was it all for?”
John stood tall and resumed his habit of beating his hands in rhythm against his legs. “How are Opal and her little girl?”
“They are getting by. Opal appreciates the money you send.”
John slid his hands into his pockets. “I do what I can.”
Silence like an old friend took up a familiar place between them. If she had any overtures left to make, now was the time. “I don’t know if I’ve told you: I like Leota very much. For one so young, she appears quite capable.”
John laughed. “I seem to be drawn to capable women, don’t I?”
“What I mean to say is that she is capable in ways I am not. She handles family matters well.”
“I suppose she does.”
Before the conversation could go any further, the front door opened. Visitors engaged in extended leave-taking spilled onto the porch. Nellie used the distraction to scoot away.
On the trolley, she reviewed her encounter with John. To know that he thought of her as capable in any sense gave her comfort. She would write Johnny and Pearl a long letter of sympathy and encouragement. Well chosen, heartfelt words were of much more value than inadequate postures of grief. She would find the right words. Expressing herself on paper—of that, she was more than capable.
R
When Nellie returned to Spokane, she described the goings-on to Jessie, omitting the part about her encounter with John. When she got to the part about her desire to help by packing up all remembrances, her sister looked troubled.
“Don’t you ever feel like you might have been hasty in getting rid of every reminder of Mabel?”
“Why dredge up such sorrow?”
“Perhaps sorrow is the path we have to walk to preserve the memory of someone we love.” Jessie excused herself and left the room, returning several minutes later holding Mabel’s treasure box, her scrapbook, and her bisque doll. When she laid the keepsakes in Nellie’s lap, tears left unshed washed down Nellie’s cheeks.
“How?”
“I know we agreed that I would dispose of everything that belonged to Mabel, but I feared there might come a day when you regretted that decision. I kept a few things back.”
Nellie picked up the doll. She ran a finger across its round glass eyes—brilliantly blue, clear and unseeing—eyes that fixed on the unknown. A familiar pain thrust itself deeply into her chest, a quick cut that took her breath away but did not stop her heart. When she was able to catch her breath again, she felt peace settle into her inner being and begin to do its healing work. Perhaps Pearl knew best. Maybe the only way to grieve was to be allowed to feel the pain.