Her life had come to this: leaving her children—Vivian, age 15 and Dale, age 12—with their father Ralph, his mother Ida and Ralph’s new wife Eunice. She had rather have been run over by a locomotive, and well, she had, a locomotive named Leach Hoose, whom she had married foolishly and only a few months later divorced for the sake of her children. This also, she reminded herself as she left them on the front porch of their father’s house, was for the sake of her children. But she had a hard time believing or accepting. So far in the thirty-four years of her life, this was the hardest thing she ever did.
And she knew so little of her ex-husband’s new, older wife.
Eunice, Leta surmised, was a simple woman. Vivian noted once that she didn’t know how to sew, embroider, knit or even crochet, prompting Leta to inquire, “Then what does she do all day?”
While Vivian simply shrugged her shoulders, Dale innocently offered, “eats chocolates.”
Leta learned later that she was in charge of her husband Ralph’s wardrobe—washing and ironing his clothes, polishing his shoes and making sure he was presentable at work and to the world.
“Well, that’s something,” Leta told her sister Nellie, who rolled her eyes.
Eunice also provided comfort to her husband. She made sure the kitchen was stocked with his favorite foods and beverages and brought them to him when he asked. While he performed such chores as mowing the lawn or raking leaves, she was on hand with a glass of lemonade when he wanted it.
Had Leta known Eunice was sickly, she would have pursued other options. That after a year of living with her father, Vivian would become nurse to a weak and needy stepmother would have been supremely unacceptable at this time.
However, this was not the time to think about Eunice in any other way than would she be good to her daughter and son. And if she wasn’t good, Leta would know and make necessary adjustments. At least she knew their grandmother, who also lived with her son and daughter-in-law, and ruled the home with a Spartan attitude, would make sure her children were well-fed, clean and had all their basic needs met.
The young woman and boy she was dropping off at the father’s home were still looking at her, imploring her with their hearts to change her mind, to take them with her to wherever she needed to go. But she couldn’t do that to them. Leaving them here in a home they didn’t know, with family that was basically strangers, was against her will. But once again in her life, she was in a position where her limited options required a sacrifice. This time, that sacrifice was her children.
“I will see you soon, my darlings,” she said, mustering all of the cheer she could at this solemn event. “And if you need me, I will be staying with Uncle Aaron and Aunt Florence. Your cousin June has already asked when you will be coming for a visit, and I promised her it would be soon. I promise you, too.”
She told them to be strong, to stand tall, and looking them right in the eyes stated clearly, “Mother loves you.”
Then she took her handkerchief, one Vivian had laced and embroidered for her, and dabbed Dale’s overflowing eyes, smiled, and turned away down the stairs, leaving them to watch her walk away.
Even as she headed down the street to the bus, she realized that this was a mistake. No child should ever watch her mother walk away. Instead, she should have sent them into the house first.
Another mistake. Another regret. The story of her life.
She didn’t know how long they watched her walk away, and she didn’t want to know. Her heart was too heavy. And while surrounded by her internal darkness, she walked and walked and walked, past the point where the sun and her exertion warmed her to perspiration, past the point where her feet ached and past the point where she became weak with thirst. When she came back to her present, as much as a woman in her tormented mental state could, she found herself at a secret drinking establishment she knew near the neighborhood where it all happened—near the house she, her late husband Albert, Vivian and Dale lived in so happily.
As if by reflex, she tapped the proper code on the door and waited for the doorman. She needed something to wash that vision of her children standing dejectedly on the porch from her mind, if only for a little while. She didn’t hear him slide the panel away, nor open the door when he recognized her.
“Mrs. Mohr?” he repeated. “Are you coming in?”
She started. She had not been called Mrs. Mohr in a very long time, and she nearly didn’t recognize the name as her own, even though she rarely considered herself anyone but, even when she was Mrs. Ora Freeman and Mrs. Leech Hoose. While she went by their names, her identity remained Mrs. Albert Mohr.
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