Darragh had lost his job, doing God only knows what, about a week before we wed. He was looking for a way out of debt with my father and in need of a keeper. Naturally, he decided a 15-year-old girl was well-qualified for the position. I attribute his choice of bride to my exemplary work ethic. Our wedding night was spent in the back room of my parent’s shop, where I massaged his distended abdomen until he passed an unholy amount of flatulence, then closed my eyes while he pumped painfully between my thighs.
Wedded bliss…my non-constipated arse.
The next morning, he informed me we would be moving closer to the port where he was sure to find a new job. He did, then lost it, found another, lost it too, and finally he’s been working as a longshoreman for almost a year, unloading barges and freightliners. I learned early on that I could notrely on him for much of anything, let alone money to pay for silly things like food, fabric, or physicians. Fell’s Point is not a nice neighborhood. But I’ve made it home, building decent relationships with the other maritime wives, and becoming the best seamstress in our tenement, if not the whole of Fell’s Point. I use the money I make to keep Jakob fed and clothed and healthy. My dear husband uses the money he makes to keep the whores fed and clothed. Darragh is nothing if not giving and generous.
I don’t mind the whores so much though because I feel as though they are truly doing God’s work. Their sacrifice means I’m only forced to endure his grunting and filthy prick every now and then. Unfortunately, he does not pay them to massage his belly. No, as his wife, that privilege is reserved for me. That man is more dedicated to his prick and the consumption of cheese than he is to his own son. Or the one that’s on the way.
At night, after he’s asleep and I’ve aired out the apartment, I pray. I pray for the continued health of my babies and that of the women I have come to know. I come up with inventive curses for my father and mother. And I pray with everything I am that there is a divine purpose for my lot in life. That perhaps one day I will understand, accept, and know that it was preparing me for something. Something bigger and better than…this.
How else do you justify selling a 15-year-old girl to a man three times her age? That even though you live in the same city, you are worlds apart? That you hold that girl responsible for the sins of your own flesh and cut her off from everything and everyone she knows? That her six siblings could turn their back on her just as their parents did?
Anna is the only one who will speak to me. However, I am not permitted at her home, we must meet at a public place, like one of the parks, and only for a short time. They are ashamed of me,the life I was forced into, and I have done nothing to deserve their ire or disgust. Listening to the other women, I have come to realize that sometimes a person only needs a vagina and breath in their lungs to offend.
I shake off my dreary thoughts; they do not benefit me in any way. Jakob giggles as he bumps into my sewing machine. I tap his nose and tickle his belly before he drops to his butt to crawl around. He is my purpose. As is the one I nurture beneath my ribs. I cannot fathom carrying them in my womb, nourishing them with my body and soul, and then abandoning them to the cruelty of the world. I want to shelter them, protect them, and love them all the days of my life.
A ruckus outside our door catches my attention. I secure Jakob in the bedroom and open the front door when someone knocks hard enough to rattle our windows. I vaguely recognize the men standing in the hallway, but I am unfortunately intimately familiar with the drunken unconscious man on the floor. My lip curls as I take in his bloodied state.
I lean against the doorframe and cross my arms. “What happened this time?”
“Ma’am, I’m sorry to tell you, Darragh was, um, he was—”
“With a whore.” The man’s eyes widen in shock at my level tone.
“He was.” He removes his hat, crushing it in his hands, his gaze darting to the other men that obviously helped carry my husband home. “He got mighty drunk, roughed up one of the whores, and had the shite beat out of him. I’d suggest, ma’am, that you collect your things and leave town as soon as he awakens.” He leans in close to whisper, “Rumor has it he owes debts to more than a few shops.”
“Let me guess…cheese?”
“Aye.”
Another clears his throat and shifts on his feet. “There is a train car leaving in two days for the mines in western Pennsylvania near Pittsburgh. There was a big to-do about it at the docks, the owner was mighty pissed that the coal companies were trying to poach their workers. I think in Darragh’s case—”
“A change in scenery will do him good.”
“A few men are gonna get mighty angry when they find out he was using his money for whoring instead of tending to his ‘sickly wife’ and not paying his debts.”
“Thank you for the suggestions. And bringing him home.” I sigh, exhausted beyond the telling of it. I am just shy of 18 but feel as though I’ve aged decades in the last few years.
Staring at my bulging belly, the men are kind enough to drag Darragh all the way into the apartment and prop him up at our rickety table. I offer them each a small sweet for their trouble and a few coins when they refuse. Luckily, they refuse that too, since I’ll be needing every penny we possess to relocate.
I close the door behind them, securing the lock and leaning against it for a moment while my mind runs through everything I need to do to prepare. If it was just me, I probably would not mind one way or another who was after Darragh. I will not risk anyone harming my children.
I stand next to the table, glaring at my tanked-up husband. “I hate you.” It feels good to say the words out loud. The pleasure is fleeting as the crushing weight of responsibility starts pressing on my shoulders. Darragh belches in his sleep, his back arching slightly as he breaks wind. He settles back into the seat and begins snoring.
“Ireallyhate you.”
Trinli 3.
Magnus Mining Patch Town,
Western Pennsylvania 1902
Let it never be said that I am not adaptable. Cheese is not the same as coal. Development, production, sales, employees, customers, wages, living conditions…not the same at all.
In the two years since we arrived, I have turned an unfortunate situation into a blessing. I miss the friends I made in the tenement, but the women in the patch town are a family. We are a community of strength, support, and love. And it’s that community that keeps us going day after day, despite our husbands.
The concept of a coal patch was novel to me prior to moving, but I have become well-educated in the nuances of coal living. Every aspect of our lives is funded, provided, or graciously loaned by the Magnus Mining Company. Our home belongs to the company, and our residence is contingent on Darragh’s continued employment, as are our 110 neighbors’. His salary is paid to us in Magnus Money which can only be used at the company commissary for food and essentials. We attend the company chapel for services once a week. Our physician is an employee of the company. The small school is a one-roombuilding used to educate boys from the ages of 5 to 9 in the ways of coal mining.
Adapt. That is the key word to surviving life in a coal patch. Careful to follow the rules of the company, I wasted no time learning the lay of the land and working it to my advantage. Behind our row of houses, I dug, tilled, planted, and harvested a modest garden providing medicinal herbs, fruits and vegetables to supplement the meager offerings in the commissary. I pooled our resources, and befriended the women closest to our home and spread out from there, assigning each of them tasks that were well within their skill set; knitting, tailoring, childcare, cooking, apothecary, cleaning, and general repair. We help one another, but we also provide these services to residents of the local town beyond the patch. I have a thriving seamstress business that brings in real money.
