Edith Shay, Chapter 2

Katherine Lunden always dreamed of travel and cities beyond her small home in the big woods of Wisconsin. On a "dare" of sorts, she sets out to prove just what she can do with the abandoned suitcase of one Edith Shay of 1919 Fillmore Lane, Richmond, VA. At each stage of her journey, she learns more about her true self, those she loves, and just what kinds of possibilities the world might hold.

Transcript

Hello,

This is Eliphai of Sylvanosity.

Thank you for joining me for a chapter from Edith Shay.

As we open this chapter,

I'll remind those who didn't have the chance to listen to the first chapter that the main character,

Catherine London,

Has,

On a bit of a dare,

If you could call it that,

Decided to spend the little money she has to her name,

To return a suitcase left abandoned in a train station where she found herself in 1869.

This chapter,

The second chapter,

Is called Lessons.

It was a conductor who stamped me out of my stupor as he strolled down the aisle chanting,

Chicago,

Next stop,

Next stop,

Chicago.

It was the first one to the door when the train lurched to a stop.

The station was filled with so many people I thought I'd step right into the farming exhibits at the Juno County Fair.

The smells and sounds told me different.

The must-see stench of burnt coal mixed with sweat came into full contact with the camouflages of perfume,

Wax,

And flowers.

I could see wilted floral displays crowded onto shelves in a tiny room of rough-hewn planks.

Flowers cut to the quick and sold indoors.

The thought had never entered my mind,

But people seemed to enjoy stopping to take in the smell of the blossoms.

A man picked out a bouquet of daisies as I stood there watching.

The station was not a fair.

The people weren't smiling and searching their surroundings.

They kept their eyes focused on their paths.

Their arms crossed over whatever they carried.

The printed advertisements pasted onto the walls didn't draw their attention.

They passed stores filled with books without a glance.

No one nodded to a passerby with a smile of recognition.

A voice carried over the hum of shuffling feet,

Flowing skirts,

And mumbling chatter,

And pulled my eyes into short focus.

Hot off the press!

Get your evening edition!

Hot ink!

I could feel it against my hands as I fought through elbows,

Trench coats,

And feather-plumed hats to reach the young boy clearing a path with a wooden box strapped over his shoulder,

Filled with newspapers.

For five cents I had the Chicago I'd always known.

Chicago by Paper is a city of words and pictures,

Carefully laid out by the typesetter.

I could read them in any order or ignore them if I wanted to.

I read three pages on a bench in a park before the real city,

Pushed the words aside,

Dashing them apart with the distant clanging steeple bell.

The jingle,

Clipping combination of carriages cut into the distant sound of speech as they passed couples on the street.

Above all these things was a hint of the familiar,

The smell of water drifting in from the darkness beyond.

The gas lamps lined the streets,

Hovering to meet the dry stench of cattle,

Their waste,

Dirt,

And sweat.

I'd set my mind on the idea that I would go to the nearest telegraph office and wire my parents to beg for their help,

Until I recalled something my brother Thomas had once said when I was reading out of the Chicago paper.

We were fishing off the bridge over the Wobash River when he shook his pole over my paper to get my attention.

You're unlearning a thing from those papers,

Riney.

You mark my words.

You'll step out into the big city of Chicago and it'll eat you up raw.

You remember Gary Simmons?

He was all set on being a newspaper man in Chicago.

He came back jumpier than a barn cat from all the pressures in the big city.

Any time he heard a tea kettle blow,

He near about jumped right out of his britches,

Because he'd rented himself a room by the train station and didn't get a wink of sleep with all the whistles and blowing.

I'd promised Thomas then and there I would show him just what I could do in Chicago.

Remembering that oath turned me full around to thinking about how I could make my way in the city.

When I stood up from that bench,

I was determined to prove Thomas wrong.

My plan was to make enough money to have myself one of those apartments they rent out in the paper.

I'd talk to Mrs.

Beaufield about them.

They were tiny houses all built into one building.

She lived in one when her husband Edward was the foreman of the shipping crew in the Madison branch of the Union Pacific.

I would rent one of my own and invite my parents down to see a real city.

My first thought was to find a place to stay.

I wandered through shadowy streets avoiding the saloons I passed,

Until I came upon a lighted window where there were no men gambling or shouting about their glories of drink.

The sign painted on the glass read The Rest Stop Hotel.

Inside a man stood behind a high wooden counter pouring over an open ledger book.

He looked up when I walked in,

But he glanced over my shoulder when I stepped up to the counter as if he expected someone to be following me.

"'May I have a room for the night?

' I asked,

As his brow wrinkled in confusion.

"'What's that?

' he asked.

"'Isn't there anyone with you,

Miss?

' "'No,

Sir.

' "'I don't rent those kind of rooms.

' "'Excuse me,

Sir?

' "'You should be ashamed of yourself,

Girl.

You can't be more than fifteen.

' "'I'm sixteen,

And I just want a place to sleep for the night.

' "'I can't be giving my paying guests any ideas.

You should find yourself a church that will take you in.

' "'I've never been in this city before.

' "'I don't know where the churches are.

' "'Merry,

Sue!

' he shouted over his shoulder toward an open door.

A woman emerged from the door wiping her hands on her apron.

"'Yes,

Virgil?

' "'This girl wants a room for the night.

' Mary Sue reacted as someone had poured cold water down her back.

"'Not in our hotel.

' "'I know of that,

' Virgil snapped.

"'Don't be telling me my business.

I asked you out here to see if you had any work in the back.

' "'Have those sheets that needed to be mended?

' My fingers were numb from working a needle through torn cotton by the time I was shown to a room behind the main staircase.

Filled with odds and ends of the general upkeep of our hotel,

Mary Sue handed me a blanket and pointed to the barren floor between a mop bucket and a pile of used pillows.

"'You can be there for tonight,

But you'd best be gone by morning before the guests get up and see you lurking in the halls.

' Lying on that floor,

The smell of dust almost choking me,

I longed for home.

I could see our place as it looked from the road.

Pine trees fenced in the house with overlapping boughs that reached up to support the clouds.

We lived in a two-story plank house nestled deep in the woods north of Mouston,

Wisconsin.

Built with money from years of railroad work,

The house with the pale pine board walls and the rippled store-bought glass in the windows held the pride of two generations of the London family.

We kept the house so clean you'd have to go to the barn to find any dust.

Footsteps sounded crisp and clean on the wooden floors.

They weren't covered with any fancy polish,

But I loved the low echo of my father's footsteps as he walked from the front door to the back and blew out the lanterns on each porch.

I could hear it from my bedroom upstairs,

Warm under the quilts Grandma Margaret had made.

Thomas was usually snoring from the other side of the room.

He could fall asleep as he undressed.

Most nights he'd fall asleep with one sock on and the other still clutched in his hand.

The next night I found myself washing dishes for a party of fifteen and a boarding-house near the pier.

It was plain to see that in order to have a place to stay for the night and a meal I had to enter a hotel from the back door and ask if there was any work to be done.

When the assigned duties were completed there was usually a place to bed down tucked away from the view of the guests.

After sixteen years in the same bed,

Listening to Thomas with his dragging little snore,

I felt so tiny and alone in the strange bed.

After a few days I wanted nothing more than to be in a familiar bed with sounds I knew chirping in the night.

I longed for pine needles scraping the window in a small breeze,

Or the creak of the back door as Grandpa Jacob sneaked out to the outhouse.

But I couldn't run home like a lost child.

I had to face Chicago and beat it.

To do that I had to find steady work and a permanent place to stay.

By luck or provenance I passed a restaurant looking for hired help one morning.

It was called the Sunshine Cafe,

But from the looks on the faces inside no one was serving any sunlight.

Men crowded the tables,

Their shoulders stoops,

Their faces bent down to their plates.

Most of them didn't even look at their neighbours as they shovelled food into their mouths.

The black dust that covered them from their hair to their boots told me they probably worked in a coal refinery a few blocks off that filled the sky above it with ebony clouds.

I saw an old man coughing over his soup,

A grey handkerchief to his mouth,

And for a second he was my Grandpa Vince.

My heart sank in my chest as I grieved from my grandpa and that old man,

But only for an instant.

The restaurant owner came bustling out of the kitchen with three plates clutched on each hand,

Shouting,

If you're here for the waitress job,

Get your backside into the kitchen.

I rushed into the kitchen before I had time to think.

The cook was thinner than a dress on a sewing form,

And she worked in silence as she pulled me into the pantry and trussed up my hair.

The apron she gave me went past the hem of my dress.

She pulled it out in front to hide the fact that my chest was near to as flat as her stomach.

To finish her transformation she rubbed my cheeks with paprika.

I laughed at the thought and she shook her finger in my face,

Hush,

Child,

This is what will make the difference between you making money and making babies for one of those hooten pigs you'll be waiting on.

Keep your ankles out of their sight.

Keep your personal goods to yourself,

And let them think you haven't got the slightest idea about cooking.

She stepped out of the pantry.

Besides,

With the way you stink,

I'd have to give you a little something to cut the arch.

Don't want them running out of here without eating first.

I never learned the cook's name,

And though I should have,

I never got the chance to thank her.

I dropped a plate of mashed potatoes covered with hot gravy into a man's lap,

Because he told me I looked fresh and pinched me on the bottom.

I lost all control of my hands.

The owner sent me out the front door with a nickel to my name.

I soon discovered the list of services a young woman could perform without training was quite short.

I could be a maid,

If I knew how to clean properly,

A cook,

If I could figure out how to keep from burning the food,

A waitress,

If I learned to control my reactions to pinching customers,

A schoolteacher,

If I had a teaching certificate,

Or even an inkling of how a schoolhouse was rung it,

A nanny,

If I could find someone who was willing to take me in without knowing my family and their roots,

A millner,

If I had known the first thing about haves.

There was one skill I had that I didn't need to copy from others,

And that was sewing.

With this asset in my favour,

I set out to find a seamstress in need of an assistant.

I saw an advertisement and a discarded Sunday paper for blankets,

Embroidered with hotel logos.

Any shop that was seeking orders for hotel linens in Chicago would be sold.

Or so I thought,

I followed the address in the advertisement to a small shop three blocks off Ashland Avenue,

On Kilpatrick.

It was Odell's Royal Stitchery by name,

But there was nothing uncommon about it.

Despite the bright green letters painted across the pine placard over the front of the building,

It didn't distinguish itself from the storefronts that surrounded it.

The brick walls were just as coal-soaked,

The multi-paned windows had just as many tiny cracks,

And the door held all the same marks of customers coming and going,

With packages in hand,

And places to go.

I stepped inside with the paper held under my arm,

And Edith's suitcase in my hand.

The front room was marked by the stenciled pattern of the window frames,

As the mid-afternoon sun drenched the floor with light.

A woman stood at the counter,

Sharpening needles.

A leather thimble covered her index finger as she worked.

Good afternoon,

I said to her from the door,

She looked up,

The smile on her face that pushed out her hollow cheeks,

Melting when she focused on me.

Can I help you?

I was looking for work.

Did you sew that?

She pointed to my dress with the needle she was sharpening.

I felt like her question shrunk my dress right on my body.

Yes,

I admitted.

Ashland will never hire you.

She bowed to her work before adding,

Check down the streets with fatness.

They can always use someone to hem trousers.

A woman emerged from the back room.

The thick brilliance of her black hair drew all my attention.

What is it that I won't be doing?

Her voice was a deep,

Chippering,

Accented sound.

I learned later that it was a lifetime in Ireland that put the Twitter into her voice.

This girl here wants a job.

The woman at the counter nodded in my direction.

Ashland moved around the counter to have a full view of me and granted me the same of her.

Her dress was made of a dark blue taffeta with a high shine.

I'll put that suitcase down so I can have a look at you.

She seemed to struggle with her lips to give them to form the sound she wanted to hear.

I complied and she examined me with her lips pursed and her eyebrows pushed down over her pale blue eyes.

It's the dress she doesn't like,

Lass.

Everybody here doesn't like anything in blue,

So this is the sign of a weak character.

Ashland stepped closer and whispered,

Shows that she hasn't been in Ireland.

We treasure our blue.

Only the good families have blue in their territory.

You can sew,

Can you?

Ashland bent down toward the hem of my dress.

Her voice had a rhythm all its own.

The way it flowed out of her mouth made it sound as if she was trying hard not to sing.

Can I have a look?

I nodded and she picked up the fabric in her hand.

She ran her fingers over the seam and pulled out the thread.

Learned sewing from your mother,

Did you?

Yes,

Ma'am.

She saw all your clothes.

With a plastined glance at the suitcase she stood up straight.

I do.

Well,

Edith,

How much are you willing to learn?

Ashland tilted her head to look at me along the slope of her thin,

Pointed nose.

Edith?

That's what it says on your case there.

Would you prefer mache?

You don't look the formal type.

I felt a bit guilty for stealing the name from the real Edith,

But it felt so good somehow.

Like a new beginning.

No,

Edith is fine and I'd like to learn as much as I can.

Good.

Because with your talent I wouldn't trust you to mend my sheets.

She walked around the counter where they're back facing me.

You start Monday at six AM.

A minute late and I'll give the job to the next fresh lass to walk through that door.

Thank you,

Ma'am.

I nodded to her back as she walked around the counter.

Thank you.

I'll be here on time,

I blurted,

As I stepped backward out the door.

That you better if you want to learn how to sew,

Ashland said with a smile.

A job only solved half my problem.

I still needed a place to stay and the job didn't start for three days.

I was forced to return to the back doors of hotels.

I was refused at four different places before I knocked on the service instruments of the Greymoor on State Street.

You and the Sam Hills pounding back here.

A young man in a grey waistcoat with silver buttons leaned out the back door.

He looked me over with a fur in his brow.

And what do you want?

I was wondering if you had any work for a room.

He laughed and I knew I'd stumbled over another invisible rule.

Here,

He shouted,

Young lady,

This isn't a bed and breakfast.

You're at a fifty room hotel asking for a handout.

I had no idea that there was any connection between the number of rooms and the options for room and board.

So I was unable to respond.

He stepped into the alley and let the door close behind him.

Look,

If you need a place to stay you can apply for the overnight cook position.

They'll give you a room and you just answer room service calls.

Room service was another foreign concept that slipped by me,

But the room was an answer to my problem so I agreed.

Any suggestions on how I can get this job?

First off,

I'd leave the suitcase behind or they'll think you're a runaway.

What?

I asked looking down to the ashay's travel-worn suitcase with my own satchel tucked inside.

It looks like you've come a thousand miles with no one to look after you.

That was close to the truth,

But I was beginning to see his point.

If they suspected me as a runaway,

They'd never hire me,

For fear my parents would come looking for their daughter and cause trouble when they found me.

Where can I leave it?

I'll sneak it in for you.

Thank you.

I gave it away without question.

Can you read?

Yes.

How's your cooking?

I'm quite.

Doesn't matter.

If you can fill out the application form and you don't complain about the job requirements,

You'll get it.

I'll introduce you to Mrs.

Hessmueller.

She's in charge of the kitchen staff.

Mrs.

Hessmueller had as much spit and hissing in her personality as there was in saying her name.

I quickly assumed that the extra-wide doors of the Greymoor were designed for her huge body.

All the weight that wrinkled over her joints stretched her patience to the breaking point,

A blank look with enough to send her into a rage.

Her similarities to the newspaper caricature of Stephen Douglas turned out to weigh in my favour.

I had to keep a tight-lipped smile all the while she was explaining the position to hold back my laughter,

And she thought I was pleased with the job description.

I want you here and now,

She sucked air in through the gap in her teeth to punctuate her sentence.

This is not a walk in the park.

Any guest at any hour can order any dish.

You are to be out of your bed and into this kitchen before the service bell tolls three times.

No order should take more than half an hour to prepare.

If a guest complains you had to wait more than that for an order,

You'll be on the straight.

Understand?

I nodded,

And she stepped through the side door of the kitchen into a dim hallway.

This is your room.

" She opened the door,

And I followed her to have a look.

Visions of a horse stall filled my head as I stared into the cramped space stuffed with a cast-iron bed and a wash stamp.

I think it was the haze sticking out of the mattress that made me imagine a barn.

My mother's voice drowned out Mrs.

Hasmeiler's description of the room's generous features.

Beggars can't be choosers.

I took the job and started that night.

One of the dinner cooks gave me a tour of the hotel,

With particular attention paid.

To the kitchen and its contents.

When she showed me the pantry she stuck her finger into the top of the candles to see if they'd melted in the heat of the day.

She made me think of Grandma Margaret,

Who was always worried about melted wax getting on the sewing she kept stored under the candles.

Through the cook's entire tour of the upper floors of the hotel I was back in Wisconsin thinking of Grandma embroidering flower petals.

I didn't return to Chicago until the door snapped shut behind her.

I went straight to my room to try writing a letter to my family.

The young man in the grey waistcoat knocked at my door only minutes after I'd closed it.

Here's your suitcase.

I took it from him and slid it under the bed.

Well,

Good luck.

He turned to leave.

Wait.

I'd like to thank you for all your help.

Don't bother.

You seem like a pretty nice girl.

He nodded as he backed out into the hallway.

Have a good night and don't let them grangers make any advances on you.

I took of his advice with a smile.

I went straight to bed.

To my surprise the bed was comfortable,

But I rarely slept in it.

There was a grange convention in a hotel for the weekend,

And I was out of bed what seemed like a thousand times to prepare the cravings of every hotel guest.

When I took the job I never thought I would have any trouble knowing how to cook the things the guest asked for,

But when a man ordered hopney grits I knew I was standing in a hole I would have to work myself out of.

Luckily the man who ordered it was kind enough to explain they were a grain,

Much like oats boiled and served with butter,

Plenty of pepper,

And bacon grease.

By Sunday evening the tick of the clock gave me an itch under my skin.

Boiled down to the bone by the whole ordeal,

I was out of bed as soon as I heard a guest step into the hallway above my bed,

Where the bell cord hung.

The bell hadn't told more than twice by the time I was at the top of the stairs with the pencil and paper in my hand.

With the order taken I had to prepare whatever their stomachs desired.

It could be steak or chicken.

Some men even wanted an entire meal at two o'clock in the morning.

To complete this job I had to sleep in my clothes and stuck the fire hourly.

I tried to put in enough wood to keep it going for several hours one Friday night,

But it got so hot I nearly started the towel on fire when I opened the oven.

From the moment the dinner cooks hung their aprons on the hooks by the door of the evening,

Till sunrise,

I was running an endless race against time.

I tried to sleep during the day,

But the commotion in the kitchen was enough to make me think I was sleeping in a train depot.

On Monday I met the early morning cook on my way out the door.

I was at the doorstep of the royal stitchery with bags under my eyes and Ia Che's suitcase in my hand at six a.

M.

By the toll of the clock in the church a block away.

Aslan was smiling as she opened the door,

But as she saw my story state she said,

Heavens!

What on earth have you been doing?

I have a cooking job at the Greymoor,

I explained,

Stepping inside.

Then what are you doing here?

I needed a job at the Greymoor for a place to stay.

She shook her head in confusion.

You mean your family doesn't live here in Chicago?

No ma'am.

You aren't a runaway are you?

She leaned her head back to examine me over her nose.

Don't lie to me now.

No.

I stuttered,

Mostly because I didn't quite know the answer to her question.

Had I run away?

I suppose I had.

I hadn't exactly left home with my parents' blessing.

Were they looking for me?

I closed my eyes and held my breath.

I didn't want to think about it.

I promised myself I'd write to my parents as soon as I had a spare minute,

So they wouldn't have to worry about me any more.

Aslan ran her eyes over me to test my answer then said,

I won't have none of my employees working themselves to the bone for a few quid.

You can take the room above the shop if you clean up after others,

Leave and open in the moorlands,

Send the gray moor business to its grave where it belongs.

Thank you ma'am,

I thank the Lord for giving me such a generous woman for my first real boss.

In just two meetings Aslan made me feel as if I could really make my way in Chicago.

Put your suitcase to the wall over there and have a seat next to Eddie.

Watch what she does and learn.

Aslan disappeared into the back room.

One of the women across the room whispered to the other.

This is the first time I've seen Mrs.

Odell here at the crack of dawn.

Don't say another word,

Ellie said in her breath.

She was sitting at one of two long wooden tables behind the service counter sewing a hidden hem into a set of curtains.

I took a seat next to her.

I tried to watch in earnest,

But the room attracted my attention more than the fabric and thread.

The only lake came from the front window,

And it didn't reach into the corners of the odd long room of plank walls.

The walls in my own house would have been destined to fade to the same shade of dull grey.

I finally understood why my mother was so insistent on painting the walls with pitch every two years.

Two women who shared the other table on the same bench,

Their shoulders only a few inches apart as they leaned over another set of curtains from the same fabric.

That's Louise and Opal Dyer.

They're married brothers,

Ellie said without looking up.

Their own?

No fool,

Ellie scowled.

Louise was courted by a man,

And his brother decided to quote Opal.

They got married on the same day.

I think they lived in the same house,

If they could.

Oh,

Was all I could manage to say.

I wasn't really that stupid.

I just was too nervous to think straight.

From the Dyer sisters my eyes wandered along the wall,

Papered with yellowing advertisements from the Tribune.

Through the doorway next to the counter I could see into the back room where Aslan sat stiffly in a chair.

Her hands pressed into folds of fabric on a tiny table,

Crowded with some black iron contraption.

I saw her knee rise up under her skirts and the room filled with a low growl.

What's that?

The machine started sucking up the cloth,

Spitting it back out on the other side of the table.

That's a sewing machine.

Really?

I leaned closer.

I'd seen them advertised in newspapers,

But I'd never been this close to an actual machine.

Ellie shook her head.

You'd better keep your eyes on this hem or Aslan will sew it to your forehead.

Ellie made Aslan sound fierce,

But she was exactly the type of woman I wanted to be.

Everything she said was declarative.

She never lowered her head.

Her eyes looked straight ahead when she walked.

People smiled when she passed them.

Her clothes were more elegant than those I'd seen in advertisements.

There was never less than seven full yards of fabric surrounding her in crisp waves as she walked.

Bows,

Ribbons,

Ruffles decorated each new dress.

When she tired of one,

She'd sell it and make another.

She sewed them all on the whirring machine designed by a Mr.

Singer.

As the hours passed,

I found myself staring at her while she worked at the whirring machine.

She had her back toward me,

Elbows out,

Guiding the fabric.

It took me a while,

But then I realized I was seeing my mother when I looked at Mrs.

Odell.

Even more than her face,

I recalled the pear shape of my mother's shoulders jutting up and down as she kneaded bread.

I would watch her from the table,

Her hands floating from bowl to flour sack,

Creating small clouds above the counter.

They would jump out for soda and cinnamon,

But her elbows never moved.

Nothing had to be in its place.

Flour hadn't left,

Then soda then cinnamon,

Then butter then milk.

A word rarely left her lips when she cooked.

She had what she wanted where she wanted it.

Heaven forbid it should be moved.

If her hand shot out for cinnamon and she didn't find it,

She'd bend her shoulders back and turn on her heels.

Her eyes would search slowly as if she hadn't moved in a while,

It didn't quite know what they were doing.

If they didn't settle on the object,

She'd yell,

Where on God's green earth has my cinnamon been carried off to?

If someone didn't tell her in a matter of minutes,

Supper was served cold.

Everyone would be seated at the table.

Father's hands were folded for grace,

His bright red bristly eyebrows pulled together to hide the frustration in his eyes.

Mother sat with her back to the stove as they watched steam rise off the food.

No one talked.

Thomas twisted a napkin around his hands to keep from grabbing a slice of hot bread from the edge of the stove,

Just above his shoulder.

Grandma kept her eyes trained on Father in a way that asked,

How can you let a woman run you like that?

Grandma kept straight in her chair with her eyes fixed on my mother.

She didn't approve of a woman who kept food from her family.

When she was sure the heaviness of waiting was thick upon her tongues.

Mother served food to Father.

The truth of the matter was Mrs.

O'Dell was nothing like my mother or me.

She had never had to enter her hotel kitchen to work for a night's rest.

Her home was a house all to itself in the new community of Lake Forest,

Just outside Chicago.

Her husband,

An Irishman from Dublin,

Drove her to work each morning in their two-horse buggy.

When I saw him the first Tuesday morning I was frozen in place like a mannequin in the window of a department store.

He wore an ash-grey top hat and a deep blue ascot,

But it wasn't his appearance that made me like him so.

He stood beside the carriage and held his hand up to help his wife down.

He didn't grab her by the waist and hoist her like a sack of potatoes the way my father used to do with me.

Aslan put her hand in his,

And they smiled each other and laughed.

She probably told him a joke.

As he opened the door for her he said,

Right then,

Aslan,

See you when the chickens go to roost.

They kissed her on the cheek,

Have a fine day,

Aslan.

Aslan said,

Aye,

You too.

He tipped his hat as he passed in front of a woman walking by.

A man who called his wife by her first name,

Even in front of strangers.

My father called my mother just that—mother.

It was as if he thought of her more as a mother to his children than a wife.

Father told me once that he called her Miss Cavanaugh when they were courting.

It wouldn't have been proper to call her Candace.

Sometimes it seemed like being proper meant slipping so far inside yourself you disappeared.

A Candace became mother.

Losing my own name and becoming just a title would have made me feel so lonely.

Mr.

Odell knew when to be proper.

He dressed so finely,

Helped his wife from the carriage,

And tipped his hat to strangers.

But he called his wife by her first name to show how close he felt to her.

Indeed,

Mr.

Odell was the type of man I wanted to marry.

So kind and well respected,

When he walked into the shop the patrons stepped aside to let him pass,

And inquired about his business as a lawyer in loud voices filled with respect.

Aslan said he was only a junior partner in a firm with fourteen names on the door.

But his superiors promised that his day in court would come.

He certainly had the skill and grace to argue any case.

Beyond showing me,

With the patience of her patron Saint Cecilia,

How to sew,

Aslan gave me the first piece of Chicago that matched my dreams.

The room above the shop fit my idea of a Chicago room right down to the view of the towering building on State Street.

The bed was wide enough for two,

And the mattress was filled with cotton.

I had a wardrobe to myself.

A nightstand stood by my bed with a glass pitcher and bowl instead of tin ones.

I could take thirteen steps from the end of the bed to the door.

It was mine.

That night,

After I closed the shop,

I danced a little jig just to prove I had the room to do it in.

I was so happy I collapsed onto the bed with laughter.

From there I could see out the window.

Across the way was a cobbler's shop,

And his family had their room above it.

I could see the soft glow of a lamp through the curtains in one of the windows.

It made me think of the lantern my father carried on his way home from the logging camp.

Every night back home I went to the window next to the front door and kept watch for Grandpa Jacob and Father.

As loggers they worked until sundown.

I couldn't see a thing outside the window unless I pressed my face up against the cold,

Rippled glass and cut my hands around my eyes to keep out the light from the kitchen.

In the moonlight the road was filled with shadows,

And I couldn't tell a person from a tree until the lantern lights appeared on the hill north of our house.

They looked like two balls of fire hovering over the road.

Grandpa and Father walked home with David Gale,

The town fiddler.

They parted ways on Mahoney Road.

Mr.

Gale would flash his lantern to say hello to me,

Because he knew I watched from the window.

Then his lantern light would disappear into the trees.

After leaving Mr.

Gale,

Grandpa and Father walked on.

As they got closer to the house I could see their walking feet and the swaying light from the lantern.

I was the first to tell Mother when they needed patchwork done on their boots.

Grandpa hung the lantern outside the door and blew it out to avoid attracting bugs.

Thomas lived for the nights when Grandpa Jacob forgot to snuff out the lamp.

He'd sit on the front stoop and wait for miles to flutter up to the light.

Then he'd pull up the glass and blow them right into the wick.

He'd get all giggly when he saw the veins of their fragile wings lit up in flames.

I thought it was a terrible thing for him to do.

But I'd be a liar if I didn't admit I was fascinated.

At how,

For a single moment,

Their burning wings looked like stained glass,

Partitioned by lead.

Thomas' laughter usually gave him away.

Mother would step out onto the porch with the slop bucket and send him out to the barn without a lantern,

Which was punishment enough,

Because Thomas was afraid of the dark.

I waited for him at the back door to watch him run to the house from the barn,

And laughed when he came charging back toward the house,

His legs pumping harder than a mechanical logging mule.

Thinking of my father,

I could smell the pine sap that clung to his skin.

I wanted to be with him and Mother and Thomas,

Grandpa and Grandma.

I wanted them there with me,

Walking the streets,

Buying store-made candy,

Or watching the city boys pitch pennies on the boardwalk.

Yet I knew they wouldn't be happy here.

But at least they could be happy for me,

If I told them how well I was doing on my own.

I decided it was high time to write them a letter.

All I could find in the shop to write with was a sheet of the brown paper we wrapped completed garments in and a lead marking pen.

But they were good enough for the task.

I sat down at the table and wrote letter after letter until I got it just right.

August 19,

1869 Dear Mother and Father,

I write with the deepest apologies for any fear or grief I may have caused you in my absence.

I love and miss you all.

Give my best to Grandpa and Grandma and Thomas.

There are no words to express my regret for hurting you.

I can only hope that my accomplishments here in Chicago will please you enough to overlook the foolish act that got me here.

I am working for a respectable woman named Aslan O'Dell,

Who runs her own seamstress shop.

Her family served the King of England as tailors in the years before the Revolution.

She came here with her husband when Ireland was struck with a great blight that killed all the crops.

Mother Mrs.

O'Dell could stitch circles around us.

She makes dresses that would top Mrs.

Beaufield's finest any day.

She even has one of the sewing machines the minister's wife was always bragging on.

She finished a dress shirt in less than an hour just yesterday.

Father,

I can't tell you how true your warning has been for me.

I never imagined there were so many people on this earth.

Something tells me I could go for years without seeing the same face a second time.

I love you both and I anxiously await your response to this letter.

Love,

Catherine.

This concludes the second chapter of Edith Shay by A.

Le Fay.

It was read by A.

Le Fay of Simonosity.

And I hope you enjoyed this chapter.

And you know,

It may have been a whim that brought Catherine to Chicago carrying the suitcase of Edith Shay of 1919 Fillmore Lane.

But it was a lifelong dream of hers to travel to Chicago.

I bet she never imagined she would live there.

Or that she would have the skills to be able to prove her brother Thomas wrong.

You know,

Sometimes we fear we can't meet our own dreams or make them come true.

But like Catherine,

I think everyone has the capacity to make their dreams come true.

It may not go as smoothly as they thought.

It may lead to a lot of challenges and some missteps.

But if we envision our dream,

Hold that vision in our minds and work towards each step,

We can make it happen.

And right now you may be considering other dreams,

The dreams that carry you away for the night.

Dreams that allow us to sift through the thoughts of the day,

Carry our emotions to new heights,

Or maybe imagine fantastic possibilities.

Wherever the dreams may take you tonight,

I pray they take you somewhere interesting.

And I thank you for listening in.

This has been A.

Le Fay of Sylvanosily.

May your dreams come true.

Reviews

Captivating story. I'm going to check if this book is published to read more .... or will you read it to us?

Thank you loved it!!!!
-Eryb