released me from our awkward embrace.
‘They are crows, Aunt Fish,’ I cried, as I fled the room. ‘They are crows and you are a gull for allowing them.’
I hid for an hour inside Pa’s closet, comforted a little by its smells but anxious, too, that they might be fading. When I returned to my room, a small bottle had appeared on my night table. Pryce’s Soothing Extract of Hemp, recommended for cases of nervous excitement.
All through June and July our household was run by Aunt Fish, and then she stayed on through the worst of the August heatwave because we had an electric fan and she did not, and she feared she might expire without it. Uncle Israel struggled on without her, quite weary I suppose of having to dine out every night and drink champagne and play cards with other poor bachelors.
The days hung dead and hopeless. We visited no one, we had nothing to refresh our conversations, and every exchange was hobbled by unmentionable subjects. Water, travel, Europe, mustard, Iowa, money, joy, happiness, unhappiness; these were the main taboos. But to those I added my own secret list: Irish secretaries, gowns by Mr Worth, death by drowning and ghosts.
I was employed in a series of sewing assignments, trimming handkerchiefs with black ribbon, and turning slightly worn sheets sides to middle, a pointless exercise made all the more absurd by the fact that I had ten thumbs. In the privacy of my room, when I made clothes for my dolls and stitched them with my preferred left hand, I sewed very well indeed, but in the parlor, of course, only the use of the correct hand was permitted.
‘How awkward you look, Poppy,’ Ma said. ‘But you must persevere.’
While I stitched, Ma and Aunt Fish conversed. In the morning, dinner was discussed, and the social events none of us would be attending. Just once a week my aunt would tear herself away from us to attend the opera.
‘It gives me no pleasure, Dora,’ she always said, ‘but a box cannot go to waste.’
Otherwise the evenings were spent considering next day’s luncheon and reviewing our health, two not unconnected subjects.
‘An omelette is very binding,’ Aunt Fish would bid.
‘But celery is invigorating,’ Ma would counter-bid.
My only release from this was that once a week I was allowed to visit Honey. She and Harry had a red-brick on West 74th Street with a bay window high above the street that made it lighter and more cheerful than home. The serviceable, dark plum chintz had been picked out on Ma’s advice, and I now recognize, recalling the abundance of valances and frilled portières, other signs of her hand. If society abhorred a naked door frame, who was she to argue?
Still, I loved to visit there and play Chinese checkers and try on Honey’s new hats, and she enjoyed my being there. Sometimes, without Ma around, or Harry, she could be quite gay.
But in the fall of 1912 something changed. On my weekly visit there was no gaiety. All afternoon Honey just sat in her cushioned rocker and sucked peppermints. And the next week, and the next. It was December before I found out why. A baby was coming to live with Honey and Harry.
This news made me very happy. I had often wished to have a brother or a puppy and Honey’s baby seemed to promise a good alternative.
‘Where is it coming from?’ I asked, and Honey turned scarlet.
‘A little star fell from heaven,’ Ma said, ‘and has come to rest under her heart.’
I had noticed that the area beneath and around Honey’s heart had expanded recently, but I’d attributed this to the quantity of violet creams she ate.
‘And then what?’ I asked.
‘The stork will bring it from a special baby garden,’ Aunt Fish cut in.
‘Yes,’ said Ma, abandoning her story about the star, ‘and give it to the nurse and she’ll place it in the cradle.’
I was confused. So next time I was down in the kitchen, looking for company and cookies, I asked the Irish. We had a rosy-cheeked one at that time, quite pretty.
‘I wonder where Honey’s baby will come from?’ I said, drawing on the oilcloth with my wetted finger.
The Irish put down the silver cloth.
‘How old are you, Poppy?’ she asked.
I was just fifteen.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘you know you get your monthly health …?’
Reilly slammed down a tureen in front of her.
‘Wash out your mouth and get on with your work,’ she said.
The Irish grinned at me and polished on in silence until Reilly disappeared into the pantry. Then she leaned across the table.
‘’Tis very simple,’ she whispered. ‘Mr Harry had his way with her and put a bun in her oven and now she’ll blow up and up till her time comes and then she’ll be brought to bed of it and scream and scream and drop it like a sow-pig, and then there’ll be a grand pink little baby.’
I ran to my room and tried to compose myself before luncheon. I vowed, on my next visit to West 74th Street, to tell Honey what I’d learned. She seemed so calm, languid even, I couldn’t believe she understood what a terrible fate awaited her.
‘Harry will do it,’ Ma always said. ‘Leave it to Harry.’
Leave it to Harry indeed. I might have guessed he had something to do with it.
My sister was brought to bed of a baby boy on May 28, 1913. Three weeks before, she had taken up residence in her old room, so Ma and Aunt Fish could keep watch for the stork, so I supposed. In the event, things turned out much as the Irish had said they would, with Harry being sent away and Honey screaming, and a nurse arriving who drank quantities of tea, and finally a doctor in a top hat, with something in his bag that put a stop to all the yelling.
I was allowed to see my nephew when he was two hours old, and then it devolved to me to start breaking the news to Ma that he would not be named Abe, for his dear departed grandpa.
‘How well he suits “Sherman”,’ I said. Honey had suggested this as an opening.
‘Sherman?’ Ma said. ‘Sherman? As usual you are quite mistaken, Poppy. In this family we do not name our children after … hotels.’
‘Not after the hotel, Ma,’ Harry tittered, when he was finally admitted to see his wife and child. ‘Sherman, as in General William Tecumseh Sherman.’ And he attempted to sing ‘While We Were Marching Through Georgia’, as though that explained everything.
Ma was quiet for a while.
‘It seems to me,’ she said, returning to the battlefield, ‘that if you wish to name my grandson for a public figure, it should be for our new president. Abraham Woodrow Glaser sounds very well.’
‘’Fraid not, Ma,’ Harry said. ‘Can’t tar the boy with a Democrat brush. His name will be Sherman Ulysses, and that’s my final word on it.’
Ma’s knuckles whitened round her handkerchief.
‘Tell you what though,’ he said, backtracking a little at the prospect of tears. ‘Tell you what. If the next one’s a girl, we’ll name her Dora, for you.’
From what I had seen and heard that day, I doubted there would be a next one. I planned to consult the Irish again and see whether such things could be prevented.
Meanwhile ugly little Sherman Ulysses Glaser cried and slept and cried some more, and eventually I was allowed to cradle him.
‘I’m your maiden aunt Poppy,’ I told him, and he curled his little fingers