“It’s not. But everybody’s got to do something. And business was the only thing I could think of. I want to run my father’s company one day.”
“I’ve been to this dance a lot, Dan,” Leona said, “and I haven’t seen you here before.”
“I know. This is my first time. I usually go to the dances in Bangor and Brewer, but for some reason I decided to come here tonight; and now I’m glad I did.”
Leona smiled. That night was the start of a renewed friendship between her and Dan. Indeed, it wasn’t long before they became romantically involved. They dated regularly, going to the movies and dances together. Dan shared Leona’s fondness for outdoor activities as well and the two often went on picnics together. Usually they walked to the stream, to the spot where Jill taught Leona how to swim. Leona always packed the basket to the brim with food and drinks for Dan. After lunch they fished or swam in the warm water, occasionally going skinny-dipping. The two lovers would frolic in that scenic, yet isolated paradise, at times staying there nearly all afternoon long and occasionally into the night, especially when there was a full moon to illuminate the river and its bank.
Finally, in Leona’s mind she had found the right one. And so, she assumed, had Dan, because they often talked of marriage and of raising a family. Leona was so deliriously happy that one day she couldn’t keep her true feeling for Dan hidden any longer. She wasn’t ready to tell her family yet, but she had to talk to someone, and Ann, being her closest friend, was the first choice. While the rest of her family was away for the day, Leona invited Ann over for a visit.
“I have something to tell you. Can you come over?” she asked her friend on the Haleys’ new phone.
—2—
“Hi, Ann,” she said when her friend walked through the door.
Leona was baking cookies in the kitchen, and after checking on them, she and Ann went into the living room to talk.
“I wanted to talk to you about Dan,” Leona said.
“How are you and Dan doing?” Ann asked. “Are you still hot for each other?”
“Ann! Don’t be so crude,” Leona replied, acting outraged.
“Well, are you?” her friend asked.
“You might say that,” Leona replied. “We’re thinking of getting married next summer.”
“Wow! That’s great!” Ann said.
“You don’t think it’s too fast?” Leona asked.
“Hell no! Steve Harris asked me to marry him a week ago, and I said yes,” Ann said excitedly, while holding out her left hand to display a small engagement ring.
“I don’t believe it; we’re both gonna get married. Maybe we can have a dual ceremony,” Leona suggested.
“That would be the cat’s meow,” Ann replied; then she got serious. “Have you done it yet?”
“No!” Leona said emphatically.
“What are you waiting for? Steve and I did it over two months ago.”
“Well, we’re not you and Steve. Dan and I want to wait until after we get married. We don’t want to take a chance that I might become pregnant.”
“But you can do it without getting pregnant, silly,” Ann said.
“I know, but if we start doing it now, sooner or later we might lose control and not be so careful. And, with my luck, I’d end up with child. We don’t want to have kids for at least three more years. Dan wants to finish college first. He doesn’t think he can go to college and be a good father at the same time; and I want to wait a while longer too. As much as I like them, twenty is too young to be tied down with kids; ask Lillian about that. Besides, you know how people are. If I got pregnant before being married, that would be the talk of the town.”
—3—
Leona and Dan were together constantly after the University let out in May; and on one extremely hot and humid day in late June the two walked down to their favorite swimming hole again, picnic basket in hand. It was Dan’s birthday and Leona had fixed him a special picnic lunch. They spread their picnic blanket under a tall oak tree next to the riverbank. Dan brought white wine, cheese and crackers to top off the day’s celebration. He placed the bottle of wine in the Kenduskeag Stream to keep it cool.
When they finished their mid-afternoon lunch, the young lovers seemed to talk forever while enjoying the wine and cheese. It was nearly six o’clock when Dan suggested going skinny-dipping. After looking around to make sure no one was there, Leona agreed. As they frolicked in the calm, shallow water, Dan was becoming increasingly bolder toward Leona. At first she resisted his charms, but eventually the wine she had tasted earlier began to take control of her thinking. Although neither one would have done so if the wine had not aroused their sexuality and clouded their judgment, they began to make love. Soon, Leona felt as if she was in heaven, and, in her mind, she had found the right one.
It was after 7:00 when the lovers decided to call it a day and head for home. For the next month, Leona was on pins and needles thinking about what happened, and from then on she was determined to be really cautious in her relationship with Dan.
“As I said before,” Leona told Ann, “having a baby now is the last thing I need.”
Chapter 54
The End of Dreams?
With the coming of August 1930, Leona learned that she was with child and reluctantly told Dan.
“We only did it once, and you’re pregnant? What are we gonna do now?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Leona said.
“Well, there’s only one thing we can do; we have to get married.”
“What about your school?” she asked.
“Don’t worry about that; my parents have money,” Dan said. “It’ll be a little harder for me to study with a kid running around, but I’ll handle it.”
Although it now seemed like Leona’s troubles were over, they were really just beginning. She learned that Dan’s Irish Catholic parents were not only rich, but extremely highbrow. They thought that Leona wasn’t good enough for their son, especially with her being a Protestant and having Indian blood. Although Daniel O’Leary loved Leona, he didn’t love her enough to give up his promised inheritance, so he broke up with the distraught girl, offering to pay for an abortion. Her response was not what he expected.
“You can keep your precious money, Dan. I have no intention of getting an abortion; I’m not gonna compound one mistake by making another. I’m not sure if I want to keep the baby or not, but if I don’t there are plenty of couples who can’t have children and are desperate to adopt one. I’m sure my baby will be raised in a good family if I decide to give it up.”
“How can you be sure, Leona?” Dan asked.
“I guess in the end you can’t be one-hundred-percent certain about anything. I sure was wrong about you. But there are two things I do know: I’m not gonna abort my baby, no matter what. And if I don’t keep it I’ll try my best to make sure that the people who adopt my child are nice and will raise it just the way my parents raised me.”
—1—
When Leona told her father that she was pregnant and that the baby’s father would not marry her, he became enraged.
“How could you be so careless, Leona?” Murdock yelled. “I thought you were smarter than that!”
“I just made a dumb mistake, Papa. I didn’t kill anyone!”
“Don’t you realize that people will be talking about you now?” he asked.
“Of course I do. But you and Mama and lots of other people made the same mistake I made. Only, you were able to get married. I can’t help it if I wasn’t as lucky as you two.”
“That’s enough, young lady!” Murdock screamed. “Now, go to your room!”
Leona ran to her room crying. She had never seen her father act the way he did that night. After sending Leona to her room, Murdock proceeded to empty a bottle of whiskey. Although by no means an alcoholic, he took up drinking for the first time wh
en his wife died, and as a result had never learned to properly handle liquor. Fortunately he went on a drinking binge only once or twice a year, usually on the anniversary of his marriage to Margaret or on the anniversary of her death, when the pain in his heart became too much to bear. This time however it wasn’t pain as much as it was undue frustration and disappointment that caused Murdock to drink. Regardless, that night he went to bed drunk and he spent most of it tossing and turning, as did Leona.
Bright and early the next morning Murdock sat at the kitchen table for an hour drinking coffee and trying to sober up. When he was finally sober and able to concentrate, he hashed through Leona’s predicament in his head. After a while he got over being mad at her and when she came into the kitchen he apologized.
“Leona, I’m sorry I yelled at you last night. I think I was more mad at myself than at you.”
“What do you mean, Papa?”
“I promised your mother on her deathbed that I would take good care of you kids and I felt like I let her down.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong, Papa. I’m not a kid anymore. I made the mistake, not you. You can’t be responsible for my actions.”
“I suppose not,” he said. “Oh, I don’t know; maybe we’re both being too hard on ourselves. You were right though: things like that happen. Love is so powerful it makes people do things they normally wouldn’t do, so I guess no one is really to blame for what happened.”
“Then, you really aren’t mad at me anymore?”
“No, sweetheart. I thought long and hard about what you said. You’re right. You just made a stupid mistake, that’s all. You were right about something else too: Nobody talks about it, but almost every married couple I know had to get married sooner than they planned. You’re not the first one to be in this situation and you won’t be the last.”
“I know, Papa. I just wish Dan had enough courage to marry me. I really did love him. And I know he loved me too.”
“I know, dear. And most decent men would have married you in a heartbeat. You just happened to be one of the unlucky ones who fell in love with someone without an ounce of integrity, someone who loved money more than he loved you. But I guess that’s water under the bridge.”
“Why did this have to happen to me, Papa?”
“I don’t know, sweetheart, any more than I know why your mother had to die when she did. But there’s one thing I do know for sure: Dan’s missing out on a good woman and he’ll regret it for the rest of his life.”
“Thanks, Papa.”
“Your welcome, sweetheart. There’s one other thing I know too.”
“What’s that?”
“When I was sitting here this morning thinking about what happened, something occurred to me. I realized that you wouldn’t have gotten pregnant if it wasn’t God’s will.”
“You really think so, Papa?”
“Of course, sweetheart. I’ve been taught all my life that God is almighty and nothing happens unless he wants it to. So he must’ah wanted you to have a child. Why, I don’t know? But he must have a good reason.”
“Huh?” Leona said as she pondered his words.
“Now, you have something very important to consider,” Murdock said. “Are you gonna keep the baby or give it up for adoption?”
“I’m not sure, Papa. I know if I keep it, people will talk.”
“They’ll do that anyway, Leona,” he reasoned.
“Yes, but having a baby around will be a constant reminder to them.”
“Don’t worry about what others think, honey. Just keep a stiff upper lip and do what you think is right for you and for your baby. Whatever your decision, I’ll stand by you.”
“What do you think I should do, Papa?”
“That’s your decision, Leona. No one can and no one should make it for you.”
—2—
Murdock continued to make amends to his daughter by helping her in any way he could throughout her pregnancy, but he figured the best way to help Leona was to get her away from the ridicule she would likely endure from the people she knew in Glenburn. In order to make her pregnancy easier during the most stressful time, and to make sure she received the best care, Murdock suggested she spend the last months of it at a home for unwed mothers in Bangor; she agreed.
The place Leona chose to have her baby was on Essex Street, not far from her sister Lillian’s Stillwater Avenue home and a half-mile from where she was born on Palm Street, a quarter-mile westward along Stillwater Avenue and a similar distance northward on Essex. Her two-month stay at The Home Private Hospital was a pleasant one for Leona. She was waited on hand and foot, and was given the best medical treatment thanks to its owner Mrs. Ford, a registered nurse, and her assistants. While there, Leona met other girls and women who shared her predicament. As a way to figuratively shrug off their unwanted experience they often talked about the men who seduced them and caused them to be in this uncomfortable situation.
“Most men are jerks,” Beverly Simpson said. “All they care about is you-know-what. It’s enough to turn a girl into a lesbian.”
Immediately thinking of one of the middle-aged nurses who worked there, Leona joked: “I wonder if that’s what happened to Miss Jordan.”
After the laughter died down, Betsy Simms set it off again by saying: “I think I’d rather be like Miss Jordan than that nympho, Mrs. Jones.”
Mrs. Jones was a head nurse at the Home Private Hospital and was a frequent target of the women’s jokes.
“I think there are advantages to both lifestyles,” sultry Janet Sawyer said, hoping to engender more laughter.
Unfortunately for her the joke backfired when Leona again joined in the amusing banter.
“I’m sure you do, Janet. After all, you know what they say: practice makes perfect.”
Even Janet laughed hysterically at that one, as she and the others did at all the jokes that made the rounds at the Home Private Hospital. And although Leona’s predicament was not the way she would have planned it, she, along with the others at the hospital, made the best of it.
—3—
On Wednesday, February 25th, 1931, Leona gave birth to a healthy baby girl. She named her newborn Marceline Iris Haley after Marceline Day, her favorite movie star, who she thought to be one of the most beautiful women she had ever seen. Leona had seen her many times at the matinees in Bangor, the last time being only four months earlier in the movie Paradise Island. The new mother was much more inventive in choosing the baby’s middle name. By chance, Iris was short for Irish—the nationality of her former boyfriend and only true love—and, not by chance, it was also her mother Margaret’s favorite flower, the one she planted in the middle of her beautiful garden.
At first Leona planned to give her baby up for adoption, but she changed her mind at the last minute thanks to a persistent nurse named Miss Christiansen, who desperately wanted her to keep it. After Leona made the decision to keep her baby, the nurse said:
“Oh, I’m so glad. You know, Leona, not many people know this, but not that long ago I was in the same boat as you. I know you’ll never regret keeping your little girl, not for ah minute. And there’s something else I want you to know.”
“What’s that, Nurse Christiansen?” Leona asked.
“I know your dad. He’s a wonderful man.”
“How do you…?”
“It’s time to go home now, Leona,” Mrs. Ford interrupted as she walked into Leona’s room.
“Your father’s here. He’s waiting in the lobby.”
“Well, speak of the devil. It’s just like Murdy to show up all unexpected like,” the nurse said.
“Nurse Christiansen,” Mrs. Ford said, “there’s a new patient checking in. Will you please take her to her room and then show her around?”
“Sure thing, Mrs. Ford. Well, Leona, take care. I hope you enjoyed your stay here. Be
sure to say hello to Murdy for me,” the nurse said. And then she turned and walked out the door.
“Nurse, jus’ta….” Leona called out too late.
“Oh well, I’ll ask Papa how they met.”
—4—
Murdock was able to take Leona home a week after the delivery. On the ride back to West Glenburn she had a question for him.
“Papa, one of the nurses at the hospital says she knows you; Nurse Christiansen. Where do you know her from?”
“That’s a long story, sweetheart, and when we get home I’ll tell you all about it. For now, let’s just say that a long time ago I did her a favor and now she’s done one for me.”
Although at first Murdock was mildly ashamed of what happened to his daughter, with time he realized that Leona’s plight was no different than Margaret’s. The only difference was that Margaret had someone who loved her as much as she loved him. Still, Leona worried that her father might feel uncomfortable having her baby daughter in his house. Fortunately for her it didn’t take long for Murdock to be smitten by “little Marcy,” and after that occurred the baby and her doting grandfather were all but inseparable. Indeed, Leona’s father helped take care of the baby as if she was his own. Even so, being an unwed mother was hard on Leona because it was looked upon by most with disdain. Some people treated unwed mothers as if they were dirt, and unfortunately some of the residents of Glenburn were particularly spiteful to her, even though most of them didn’t really know Leona. Still, whenever they passed the Haley house they would yell insults at her. So whenever she wanted to go outside to get some fresh air, she would sit and rock her baby girl on the back porch or play with her in the back yard where they could not be seen.
Leona almost felt trapped in her own home, especially with no one around to talk to during the day. She no longer had her Aunt Mae to visit or talk with, because three months earlier she and her family had finally moved to California, after wanting to do so for years. Occasionally Wally was home, but the 16-year-old was now in high school and when he wasn’t he chummed around with neighborhood friend Earl Terrill, and his cousins Woodrow and Lloyd. Wally had also made new friends in Bangor, so the teenager was always on the go. That meant, with her father and sister working during the day, Leona was often left alone in the house to contend with whatever snide remarks were hurled her way.
Journey With the Comet Page 53
