“You were asleep, Addie. Please, don’t cry,” I whispered, knowing my mother would be upstairs momentarily.
“Mama!” she cried loudly. “I want Mama!”
“Oh, I know, sweetheart,” I said, crouching on my knees and hugging her.
“Mama!” she screamed even louder, swatting me away. “I want Mama!”
She’d seemed so content all day, so compliant with me when I read her a story. How had this suddenly taken such a turn? I wondered. Was it the darkness?
As I’d expected, my mother appeared at the door, rushed past me and picked up Addie, who continued to cry. But within a few moments she became quieter. She’d stopped screaming “Mama!” and had her thumb in her mouth, still sobbing, more softly now. I backed out of the room quietly, feeling foolish for having thought I would know how to comfort her. I had no idea how to help.
I sat down in the dark on my bed. In the course of twenty-four hours, everything that I thought I knew about the adoption had turned out to be wrong. The story I’d been telling myself, the secretI’d been keeping, it was all a lie. Here she was, my flesh and blood, sleeping in the room next to me, suddenly in need of a mother more than ever, but she didn’t know who I was. And I didn’t know how to be her mother. My life was a shambles—but whether she meant to or not, Aunt May seemed to be giving me a second chance.
Addie was quiet now. I heard my mother leaving her room. Before I could talk myself out of it, I walked down the stairs and into the living room.
“Mother, Father, I have something I need to say,” I announced as soon as I entered the room. “Adeline is my daughter. All you need to do is look at her to know it’s true. I became pregnant just before you moved to New York. I know it was a terrible thing to do, out of wedlock with someone I didn’t even know, but it happened.”
A look of horror came over my mother’s face, but I looked away.
“I stayed with Aunt May during my pregnancy and gave her up for adoption through the church.” No one said a word. My mother now had her head in her hands, and my father’s mouth was agape. “It was a terrible thing to do, to make an innocent child pay for my mistakes, I can see that now, but it was the decision I made. I didn’t know until a few days ago that Aunt May had adopted her, but now, deep down in my heart, I wonder if she knew or hoped that I would come back for her.”
I waited briefly for someone to say something. No one did.
“Well,” I continued, “I have decided I will take her back to New York with me when I leave tomorrow, and we’ll be together.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Olive,” my mother said. “Look where you’re living. I doubt they’re going to let a single show girl bring up a bastard child in a Catholic boardinghouse.”
I cringed at the use of such vulgar words to describe Addie, asleep now right above us.
“I’ll work something out,” I said. I thought of the club. How would I make this work? The money was decent, but I could make the money only if I was working five nights a week. How could I do that while caring for a two-year-old? I hadn’t thought it through, but I was angry now.
“Hold on a second!” My father’s voice boomed over both of ours as he stood. “Doris, you knew about this?”
“Yes, I knew. My sister told me. Now sit down, Ted.”
My father sat back down again and stared at the fireplace. It was the first time I’d ever heard my mother speak to him that way, and I’d never seen him so obedient.
“What will you work out?” my mother continued. “With what money?”
“I’m performing again.”
“Where?”
I paused and glanced at my father, but he was motionless, looking stunned, staring straight ahead. I didn’t want to tell them, but I didn’t want to lie anymore either. “The Three Hundred Club, it’s a speakeasy, it pays well.”
“Well, that’s exactly my point. How are you going to raise a little girl if you’re out all night at a club? What are you going to do? Bring the girl to your shows, keep her in a cot backstage?”
“If I have to, I will,” I said, realizing how ridiculous that sounded.
“Don’t be absurd. Admit it, Olive, you’re not fit to be a mother. You were unfit then, and you’re unfit now. You’ve made your choices,now you have to live with them.” She rubbed her temples and took a deep breath.
“Mother, that’s unfair,” I said quietly, questioning myself, questioning her. Was she right?
“We are fed up with your impulsive ways. Honestly, we’ve had it up to here.”
I didn’t know what to say. This was how they thought of me, this was how they’d always thought of me. I pictured them sitting at the dinner table at night, discussing how disappointing I had turned out to be, how I simply sought pleasure, thrills and happiness, nothing more. Putting my own interests first, before everyone else.
“We’ll raise the girl—she’ll be your cousin, and that’s all there is to it.”
