“What?Mom,” Emily began, aghast.“Why did—”
“She didn’t want to tell anyone,” Bess said.“Not even Harry.She was afraid she’d be sent away, just like these poor women you knew.She was terrified of what was happening to her.Absolutely terrified.She knew it was wrong, wrong enough that she should tell someone.So she told me.We got her through it, it went away eventually.But my God…”
Emily was nearly speechless.She knew Eleanor had had a hard time, was depressed.But Emily had just figured all new mothers were exhausted, that was just how it was.
“You hear these things whispered about, you know,” Bess said.
Emily didn’t know.Not really.
“Among women, mothers.In church group, at the school bake sales.Sometimes someone will mention something, hint at how they felt after they had their babies.It’s so common, but no one talks about it for exactly this reason, Emily.Because it doesn’t take much for a woman to be called insane, or hysterical.And all it takes is the wrong doctor, one who thinks sending her away will solve the problem.”She was clearly still haunted by Eleanor’s experience.Emily felt hollow.She should have had some inkling her sister was struggling so badly.
Bess reached forward and held her shoulders.
“But this thing you’ve done, Emily, you’ve gone and you’ve listened to these women.You’veheardthem.And now you’re going to shout about it with everything you’ve got, because they can’t shout for themselves.I’m so wonderfully proud of you.”
“But you were so against it at the start.You were so—”
“Frightened, yes!And now you understand why, don’t you?”
The tears slipped down Emily’s cheeks.“But will people read a story about convicts and lunatics and prostitutes?Will they even care?”
“Of course they will care.Because your friend Annie, and even these other women…they’re all of us, in a way, and we’re all them.If your article can get this horrid place shut down, or at least change some of the laws, well…maybe other women won’t have to feel so afraid to ask for help when they need it.”She swiped at a tear and smiled.“I just can’tbelieve…well…those poor girls.I just keep thinking, they’re each someone’s daughter, aren’t they?Just like Eleanor.Being starved and abused and all the rest of it.Someone’s baby girl.”
Emily nodded.“Though many of their parents are responsible for them ending up there in the first place.Dad told you how easy it was to convince that judge a prison sentence was proportionate punishment for my obstinance.He’d practically decided before we even got there.”
Bess sighed.“Girls never are valued as highly as boys.Even by some parents.That’s the ugly truth of it.I hope things will be different one day.And I’m sorry the change hasn’t come quick enough for you, my dear.”
“Dad told me back in the spring that things would have been easier for me if I’d been a boy.”
“Well,” Bess said, “that may be true.But we need girls—women—like you, to carve these paths, don’t we?Because the men sure aren’t going to do it for us.”
Emily’s eyes stung.“ ‘Carving the paths,’ ” she echoed.“Sometimes it feels like I’m out in the woods alone, Mom.In the dark, with nothing but a damn butter knife to clear the way.It’s very…isolating.Not wanting what Eleanor wants, or what other girls my age want.Having dreams that are a man’s dreams.”
She thought then of Bernie, and true understanding settled on her.How singularly isolating it would be to feel as though you were born in the wrong body.That you were, in fact, a man.The heartache of it nearly took her breath away.
Bess watched her, thoughtful.“Of course it feels that way.But whatcourage, Emily, to take that on.And remember,” she added, “there are women on the path ahead of you, who set out with even fewer tools, in even darker woods.Women like Doris, or your idol, Nellie Bly.Keep your eyes on them when you feel alone.Call out to them.They’ll wait for you, give you a hand when you need it, show you their scars and the hurdles to watch out for, guide you over the ground they’ve already worked so hard to clear.”
She brushed back a wild strand of Emily’s hair.
“The brambles might close in again from time to time, or grow over the path.But it’s still there, beneath.Stay on it, my dear.Push the thorns back, even if you bleed.And be sure to look over your shoulder, from time to time, to see who’s on the path behind you, or who might have fallen along the way.Reach down, and help her back up again.Because she’s followingyounow, my dear.She’s followingyou.”
Emily let out a sob and embraced her mother again.“Thank you, Mom.”
They clung to one another in the silence of the room, the grey winter light beaming in on them.Finally, Emily pulled away, and Bess ran her thumbs over Emily’s cheeks, brushing away the tears as she had so many times before.The tenderness of Bess’s words sank into Emily’s skin like a healing balm.
“Now, then,” Bess said, her own eyes glistening.“That typewriter is your scythe.Go clear the path.”
Three days later, Emily rose from the desk she’d hardly left for ten days, other than to eat and sleep and use the bathroom.She exhaled, deliberately long and heavy.She felt as though she’d just been cleansed of something toxic.
She was consumed by competing feelings of relief and anxiety about the stack of papers in her hand, her final draft of the Mercer article.Or at least, her final draft before the copyeditors got their hands on it.But she had a feeling Doris wouldn’t cut much, that she would run it long-form, to make sure the whole story was told, the full truth finally known and acknowledged in print.
Doris had told her to come into the office when it was ready, but first, Emily wanted her father’s professional opinion.She also felt that with all the emotional turmoil she had put her parents through by taking on this story in the first place, they deserved to be the first to see it.
She walked into the dining room, then into the kitchen, finally spotting her parents out on the back patio, wrapped in thick winter coats inthe two slatted lawn chairs beneath the awning, protected, somewhat, from the soft snow that fell outside in the late-evening darkness.She smiled, watching them both from the kitchen window, the light illuminating their backs.They were in muffled conversation, and smoke curled, then dissipated in the air beside her father as he nursed his after-dinner cigarillo.
She walked to the back door and stepped outside.They both turned at the sound.
“If you’re finished for the day, your dinner’s still in the oven keeping warm, dear,” Bess said.“You must be hungry.It’s nearly eight o’clock.”
