Chapter Two

chapter two

Ethel O’Shay Monroe

June 8, 1929

Lanesborough, New Hampshire

Ihave a sparrow egg tucked against my breast, softly resting there, a strange secret.

I am a great keeper of secrets, have been since I was a little girl. Oh, the secrets I kept then! The things I dreamed! I was a princess in a fairy tale. I was Sleeping Beauty waiting for the prince to come and wake me with a glorious kiss.

There were other secrets I kept. Terrible things I saw in the dark but knew better than to speak of. Sometimes, to make them go away, I’d scratch myself with a pin. Seeing the little red line, the tiny drops of blood, was a way to ward off evil. The scratches on my skin, hidden under dresses, they were secrets, too.

“You hold things close to your chest,” my friend Myrtle says. “It makes you a fine card player. But at times, a difficult friend.”

Myrtle’s a good deal older than me, and the person I am closest to here in town, the person I share the most with besides Will.

My darling Will. I watch him walk around the Lanesborough town picnic. It’s a picture-perfect day. The children are just out of school for the year, and summer has begun; summer, with all its promise and possibility. Everyone has gathered on the green in the center of town: a colorful patchwork of blankets and quilts laid out across the grass, scattered with baskets full of sandwiches, fried chicken, jars of lemonade and sweet tea. Over in the corner, the brass band is setting up to play on the bandstand, as they will do each Saturday night until September. The whole town comes out to picnic, listen to the music, and dance until midnight. Bootleg rum gets passed around, along with Chester Miller’s hard cider and bottles of beer snuck down from Canada.

I watch Will, and my heart aches a little. He is organizing all the children in a three-legged race, putting them in pairs, binding their legs together, and he has them all giggling. He’s making silly faces, pretending he’s forgotten how to tie a knot, pretending he’s going to tie his own two legs together. The children love him. “Hello, darling wife!” he shouts. I wave back. The children coo and plead for his attention; “Dr. Monroe, Dr. Monroe,” they call, pulling at the untucked tail of his shirt, and he pretends to trip and fall. Children pile on top of him in fits of laughter.

I turn away and nearly run into Jane Parsons, whom I play bridge with each Thursday. “I was looking for Anna, but I see she’s in good hands,” Jane says, nodding at the pile of children tickling Will, her daughter Anna on top. “He’s simply marvelous with them.” And I’m sure I catch the question in her eyes: When will you give him a child?

“Yes, he is,” I agree. “Excuse me, I must check on the raffle.”

I walk away, carefully pulling out the little pin I have hidden in the folds of my dress, just below the waistband. I hold the head between two fingers like a magician palming a coin and make a fist, pricking myself once, twice, three times.

I have been married for a little over a year. I was thirty-six, an old maid, when we married, and Will was thirty-nine.

“Some flowers bloom late,” Myrtle says with a wink, “but the late ones, they always smell the sweetest.”

I am the oldest of four girls, and our mother died young. It fell on me to make a good home for my sisters and father, and I did not mind one bit. I took to the role quite well, donning Mother’s apron to cook dinners each night, mending clothes, getting them to school on time. I have always loved to be busy. After my sisters—first Bernice, then Mary, and finally our willful baby sister, Constance—got married and went off to start families of their own, it was only Father I was caring for. He was perfectly capable, but his responsibility as the town doctor made it hard for him to find the time to keep house, cook meals. And I didn’t mind. I helped him in his office, too, keeping track of his appointments, organizing his books. I have always been good at math; working columns of numbers calms my mind.

Father introduced me to Will. They’d met at a medical symposium in Boston. Will soon became a regular visitor at our home, talking medicine with Father and playing cards with me. We’d play hearts for hours in our little parlor, sipping coffee and eating spice cake or molasses cookies. Every week I’d bake something new for him. He had his own medical practice in Lanesborough. He’d never married. Too busy, he’d said. Will’s own father had died, leaving him a great sum of money made in the railroads, and Will had a lovely house, a new car, crisply tailored clothes. My father encouraged our courtship, was overjoyed when we got engaged. I suggested a small, simple wedding, but Father and Will would hear none of it and enlisted my sisters’ help in planning an enormous, elaborate affair. My father gave me away and said it was the proudest moment of his life and that he only wished my mother were there to share in our joy. Sadly, he died in his sleep soon after. His heart. I blamed myself for his death, which is silly, I know, but I couldn’t help thinking that if I had still been there, things might have turned out differently. I still have the scar on the inside of my left thigh from the night he died; usually, I am more careful—but that night, I drew the blade too deep. It was one of my father’s razor blades, taken from his medicine cabinet. I have it still, tucked in a little tin at the bottom of my sewing basket.

My own heart is thumping hard, beating against the little egg inside the lacy front of my brassiere, as I slip the pin back into my dress and walk over to the table set up in front of the Methodist Church where the quilt made by several of the ladies—myself included—is being raffled. It’s the latest fund-raiser for the Ladies Auxiliary. The money we raise will go to help the needy in our community. I stare at the squares of the nine-patch quilt: Its vivid summer colors seem too bright, too cheerful. “How are ticket sales?” I ask Catherine Delaney, our secretary.

“Excellent,” she tells me.

I’ve already bought a dozen, but I buy a dozen more, checking my palm as I reach into my patent leather clutch purse to retrieve the money. No blood, just three little red dots. Three is a magic number. Ruth Edsell approaches with her daughter Hannah, who must be around sixteen now. She’s the perfect image of her mother. Ruth is a dressmaker and tailor, and Hannah has learned the trade from her. They’re both members of the ladies’ sewing circle I attend on Mondays; I keep busy here in my new life in Lanesborough. There are always fund-raisers and food drives, finding speakers for our monthly lecture series—last month we had an expert talk about growing roses.

“Lovely to see you, Mrs. Monroe,” Hannah says. Such a polite girl. Rosy cheeked, always smiling. She and her mother are so alike, so close. They walk the same way, hold their heads at the same angle, even their smiles match.

“You ladies have outdone yourselves with this quilt,” Ruth says. “It’s positively divine!”

I turn, see that the three-legged race has begun, and Will is wildly cheering the children on. When it’s over, he gives them each a sweet as a prize and pats them on the head, job well done, then bounds over to me as though I’m the biggest prize of all. He takes my hand, kissing each of my knuckles, then leads me over to where we’ve set up our picnic blanket. We settle in, and I open the wicker basket, pull out the plates and cups and all the food I’ve prepared: little sandwiches, pickled beet salad (Will’s favorite), cold lemonade in mason jars, lemon chiffon pie. He leans over and kisses me. “You have outdone yourself, darling wife,” he says. His face is sweaty, his shirt grass-stained. He runs his hand over his oiled hair, brushing it back into place. I watch the way his eyes wander back to the children, and my stomach goes hard and cold.

We’ve talked about it, of course. Our child. We’ve stayed up late into the night discussing names, playfully arguing over silly ones.

“I think we should call her Brunhilda,” Will suggested.

“Barnabus Rex, if it’s a boy,” I said.

“That’s a perfectly respectable name,” Will said. “I had an Uncle Barnabus.”

“You did not!”

“You’re right. Sadly, no Uncle Barnabus.”

We’ve talked about which of us our child would look like, what color we would paint the nursery, who they might grow up to be (a doctor like Daddy, a seamstress and cook like Mommy, the president of the United States, perhaps). We’d lie awake in bed at night imagining our child; this human being that he and I would make together, would love so perfectly.

But there is no child yet, and I am beginning to wonder if something is wrong with me. I haven’t confessed this fear to Will, but I think he sees it in my eyes. I am thirty-seven years old. Soon it will be too late. I have secretly tried things, desperate things, recommended by my sisters and other well-meaning women: bitter tinctures, lying with hips elevated for hours after intercourse. And the sparrow egg tucked against my breast, of course.

Mrs. Tuttle, who plays the organ at church, told me of the folk remedy. She said that a woman who wishes to be with child should steal a tiny egg from a sparrow’s nest and keep it tucked against her body for three days, then bury it in the ground. I spent weeks following sparrows, searching for a nest. How silly I felt climbing the tree, stealing that egg, carefully wrapping it in a silk handkerchief, carrying it around tucked into my clothes! I have not told Will about the egg.

Tomorrow, I shall bury it in our yard.

Will finishes his sandwich, leans back on the picnic blanket, and looks up at the clouds.

“I see a bear,” he says. “I think his name is Oscar.”

“Oh yes, I see him, too. Definitely an Oscar. It looks like he’s walking to that castle.”

“Castle? It looks more like a boat.”

“Perhaps it is,” I say. “Perhaps he’s a pirate bear? Oscar, King of the Pirate Bears! He’ll sail over to that island in the west, bury all his bear treasure.”

We laugh. Will takes my hand, kisses my nose. I feel giddy and light. I tell myself that our love is enough. That it is selfish to want more.

“I have a surprise for you, darling wife,” he says, grinning in his boyish way. “Have you heard of the Brandenburg Springs?”

“No,” I say.

“Well, people have been traveling to them for years. There are four underground springs that bubble up to fill a pool. The minerals are supposed to be quite healing. I have patients who swear that a soak in the springs will cure anything from gout to consumption. They say it’s very restorative. And,” he adds, raising one eyebrow in a wonderfully devilish way, “there are spooky stories about the place.”

Will knows I love an odd, spooky story. He speaks in a low, creepy voice. “Some say the springs are cursed. Haunted, even. Some people go and never return.”

“Oh?” I say, suppressing a little shiver, imagining what it might be like to disappear forever.

“Absolute bunk, of course,” he says. “The truth is, the most beautiful hotel in Vermont has opened there. It’s supposed to be very grand, indeed.” He reaches into his pants pocket and pulls out a folded brochure, which he opens and holds out to me.

There is a picture of a lovely white hotel with two green hills beyond it. It looks quite large, three and a half stories, with an enormous porch around the whole bottom floor and little balconies in front. Sumptuous gardens surround a large fountain.

“Oh! It looks lovely,” I say. “Positively swanky!” I lean in and read the words beneath the picture:

We invite you to the Brandenburg Springs Hotel and Resort—Vermont’s newest elite destination for the most discerning clientele tucked away in the idyllic Green Mountains. Come take the waters and experience the legendary restorative healing powers of our natural springs! Vermont’s own Fountain of Youth and Vitality! Our luxury hotel features 35 private rooms, each piped with water from the famous Brandenburg Springs. Dining room with world-class chef, sunroom, tennis courts, immaculate gardens. Open May through November. Do not delay! Book your room today!

“It looks like something from a storybook,” I say.

Behind us, the children laugh and race in circles. Catherine is announcing “Last call!” for the raffle tickets. “Last chance, folks! You do not want to miss out on this opportunity!” The band has started to play “Bye Bye Blackbird.” The air is sweet with the scent of apple blossoms and freshly cut grass.

“What would you say to going next weekend?” Will asks, voice slightly raised so I can hear him above the music. “Are you keen?”

“Of course! But what’s the occasion?”

“Does there need to be an occasion to take my wife for a romantic weekend out in the country?”

“I don’t suppose there does,” I tell him, kissing his cheek. He smells of hair tonic and shaving cream. “It sounds like an absolute dream,” I say, lying back on the blanket, my fingers brushing the fabric of my dress just above where the egg lies, waiting.