What would she say when she saw Jagr?I’m sorrywouldn’t quite cover it. She hadn’t meant to hurt him as she had. She’d miscalculated the strength of his drugs. She thought of all she’d have to do for him, all he’d make her do. Maybe it’d be no different from the life she’d led with him before—always having to apologize for the ways she’d failed his expectations, always getting out in front of these apologies by trying to please him in the first place.
As she followed the foreman, she considered how she’d describe this moment to Madame de Fleur. What details would she remember? The stubble on the back of the foreman’s neck. The cracks along the walls shaped like veins, as though the factory were a living, breathing thing. She wanted to ask her if those on the Other Side always knew the ending. She wanted to ask if those on the Other Side were ever wrong. Did they long for anything other than what they desired in life? How could they be so certain without their bodies to guide them? Could they love without a body? Were they freer that way?
The foreman led her down a narrow corridor, past the room where she could see the machine operators taking a break. Their lunchroom had windows and electrical lights, a water jug, an icebox to keep their lunches cool. Finally, he led her into yet another room with green carpet, a large oak table.
At the far end of the table sat, not Jagr, but Bertie Tuttle.
Relief washed over Opal with such intensity, she felt as high as she did on laudanum. She might very well float out of her shoes.
The foreman shut the door behind him. Bertie motioned for Opal to sit. On the wall hung a portrait of Bertie’s father. He resembled something of a walrus with his mustache and his hair parted in the middle.
“Your cure worked,” Bertie said. She had read milk was the key to a healthy pregnancy. She sipped some now from a pint bottle.
“Thank the spirits,” Opal said.
“I’m not thanking anyone. Not yet anyway.” Bertie emptied her pint, then looked like she might vomit. She bent forward and pulled a newspaper from the handbag at her feet. “And now I need something else from you,” she said.
“Morning sickness?” Opal asked.
Bertie shook her head.
“Beardwax,” she huffed. “It’s my father’s factory. Once the baby arrives, Charles won’t need to sell. I can finance him. He can do whatever he wants.” She explained that Charles believed there wasn’t enough money in soap anymore, not enoughvalue. Too many competitors. Too little profit for too domestic a product. He had bigger dreams—electronic appliances, plastics, pharmaceuticals—and that was the problem, his ambitions. She’d told him she was pregnant. She begged him to keep the news private until she was further along, and still, he moved forward with the sale of the factory, despite the promise of the baby. “I don’t think he believes me,” she said.
“That you’re pregnant?”
“That it will take. That it won’t be like…” She paused and seemed to look directly at that portrait of her father. “Like the last few times.”
“I’m sorry,” said Opal.
“I don’t want your pity,” she snapped, then softened. “It all feels so silly, to be sad for something I never even had. I don’t even know thatsadnessis the right word.”
Opal understood what she meant.
“I know he has a mistress,” Bertie said. “A desperate working girl from what I hear,” she added, “as though it isn’t humiliating enough.”
The girl is not at fault, Opal wanted to say, but did not. Because she knew Amanda Mahooney, who was desperate, but not in the way Bertie assumed.
Just last week, Amanda had sat with Opal in the lunchroom when the other girls had left. Her fingers were slender, but her nails were bitten to the stubs. “He says he loves me, but… He says…”
“Heartache?” Opal asked, trying to understand.
“I’ve gotten myself into some trouble,” Amanda said. She looked downward, scrutinizing the table, and Opal realized what she’d come for. A cure for her shame.
“You don’t have to explain.”
“You probably think I’m a terrible person.” She chewed her lip as though she’d wanted to eat herself up, bit by bit, devour herself completely.
“Brave to admit what you want. That’s a difficult thing to do, wouldn’t you say?”
Amanda nodded gratefully. “Will it hurt?” she asked.
“It will,” Opal said. “At first. But then you’ll feel much better.”
“Because I won’t be in pain?”
“Because you won’t be afraid.”
A few days later, when the other Earthshine workers stood in the coatroom, dressing to go home, Amanda’s coat hung abandoned on the hook.
