A Pledge of Silence

by Flora J. Solomon

  “Barbara Ann.”

  “That’s a pretty name. Here, let me help you.” She took the bag of produce, and Margie followed her to the kitchen. “This looks wonderful! And there’s so much here! I hope you don’t mind if I share with my neighbor. She’s struggling a bit.”

  “I don’t mind. I can bring more, if she could use it.”

  “Could you? She’d be so appreciative. She’s just a girl herself, with two children. She lost her job at the Ford plant, and her husband up and left her. They ought to hang him by his toes. I do what I can, but I know some nights those young ones go to bed hungry. Come in and sit down.” She gestured toward the living room. The house was small and the furniture well worn but immaculate. Family pictures crowded the mantel and many of the occasional tables.

  “I can’t stay,” Margie demurred.

  “Please do. I get tired of talking to myself. I’m afraid I’m not very good company.”

  Margie found just the opposite to be true, and the two women spent a delightful hour chatting. Despite her recent loss, Mrs. Bender’s upbeat personality shone through. She had known Richard for as long as she could remember, she told Margie—their mothers had been best friends. A kind and good husband, he had financed the start-up of her resale shop after their son went off to elementary school. She closed the shop ten years ago; now with Richard gone, she found time hanging heavily on her hands.

  “You ran Marla’s Resale on Second and Lenox?” Margie asked.

  “Yes. You know it?”

  “I bought my first purse there, black patent leather with a gold chain. I still have it. I loved your shop. My mother donated all my outgrown dresses.”

  “We certainly appreciated our donors. Marla’s proceeds helped support our church’s soup kitchen. We fed hundreds of families during the Great Depression. Raising my son and running that shop—those were happy, busy days.”

  Mrs. Bender’s reaching out to help her neighbor, even in her own time of sorrow, touched Margie’s heart. Thoughts went to the well-stocked pantry on North Bensch Road, and the still-overflowing garden. She recalled her own pain from hunger and the distress of deprivation. The following morning, she packed a box with vegetables and a jar of peach preserves and left it on the doorstep of Mrs. Bender’s young neighbor.

  When her position at the Red Cross was eliminated, Margie found herself at loose ends. She didn’t enjoy spending long days at home but had no desire to look for work in her profession. Since the end of the war, too many former military nurses vied for too few civilian positions. Her first love, fashion design, was out of reach to women with husbands and children. She started doing alterations and simple sewing for the ladies in Little River to fill the hours. Although jobs poured in, she found most of them tedious and unfulfilling.

  One September Saturday, she was feeling especially blue. Trying to help, Wade said, “It might be a good time to have another baby.”

  She dismissed that idea right away. “No. I’m not ready for that.”

  “How about a new house then?” He handed her a colorful brochure. “It’s a new community going up just this side of Ann Arbor. They have model homes we can go through.” He bent to pick up Barbara Ann, who clung to his pant leg. “Want to go for a ride, sweetheart?”

  So they all piled into their new car, Wade driving and Margie holding Barbara Ann on her lap, leaving Little River to head toward Ann Arbor. Wade turned right at a billboard that read “Welcome to Shady Acres, the Community of the Future.”

  Hundreds of houses stood in various stages of completion. Trucks delivering lumber, roofing, windows, Bendix washing machines, and General Electric kitchen appliances congested freshly paved streets. The sound of hammering filled the air, and workmen bustled all over the site. Not a single tree had been left standing.

  “Shady Acres?” Margie scoffed. “Is that a joke?”

  Inside the sales office, a salesman pointed to a large wall map depicting the community’s layout: three thousand homes on forty-by-eighty-foot lots that lined winding streets. Glancing at Barbara Ann, he added that the master plan included several playgrounds for the kiddies, and sidewalks that would lead to the development’s own school. The community, he assured them, had been planned right down to the last brick, board, tree, and flower garden.

  Countless families milled through the houses. Although identical in size, the models differed in exterior color and roofline configuration. The cozy, if similar, floor plans featured a living room, two bedrooms, a bathroom, and a large, fully equipped kitchen—in all, eight hundred square feet of privacy and comfort. Lucky buyers could own a piece of Shady Acres for ninety dollars down and fifty-eight dollars per month.

  They were selling like hotcakes.

  Standing on the front porch of one of the models and looking out at the view, Wade asked, “What do you think?”

  “They’re cute enough, but it will feel like living in an anthill.”

  “Barbara Ann would have playmates. She could walk to school.”

  Margie nodded noncommittally.

  On the way home, she laid the sleeping baby on the seat and covered her with a sweater. Turning to Wade, she said, “Would you consider staying where we are?”

  “I thought you wanted something new.”

  “I’m having second thoughts about leaving Mama. The house is too big for her to manage all alone. I doubt if she would ever move or give up the land.”

  “The place is run-down, Margie. It needs a lot of work—new windows and a roof, for starters. And I saw a crack in the foundation when I was mowing the grass last weekend.”

  “If Mama agrees, we could sell off a few back acres and use the money to fix up the house. I’d like to convert the porch off her bedroom to a sitting room with her own bathroom, so she could have some privacy.”

  “Have you talked to her already?”

  “No, but I’ve been thinking about it.”

  She had been thinking about it because she wanted—no, needed—her mother’s help with Barbara Ann. No one suspected the anguish the child evoked when a certain expression crossed her face, or the uncomfortable chill Margie felt when their eyes met and held. She learned things went better if she kept a distance between them, a decision that brought with it sadness and guilt. She vowed to herself to carry the burden silently. That was a sort of love. Wasn’t it?

  Autumn edged toward winter, the days growing shorter. Most of the garden had died off, but the cool-weather crops—cabbages, spinach, Swiss chard, and a large patch of pumpkins—still produced. Margie continued to deliver boxes of food to Mrs. Bender’s neighbor, plus a few other families the elderly lady told her were struggling because of abandonment, joblessness, or illness.

  Some parishioners at Margie’s church heard about her mission through the grapevine and asked to be included: they too had more food growing or preserved than they could use. Reverend Markel got into the act, supplying names of even more families in need. When the supply of fresh food dwindled with the arrival of killing frosts, the pastor appealed to the congregation to donate what they could from their cellars and pantries. One of the prayer groups baked bread to help fill Margie’s boxes. She began soliciting at grocery stores and restaurants for food past its prime.

  By the time spring rolled around again, she had commandeered a storage room in the church basement for supplies and assembled a dedicated cadre of volunteers, who inventoried the donated food and regularly delivered boxes to a dozen area families. As her enterprise continued to grow, Margie found she needed a refrigerator, but she didn’t have the money to buy one. She talked to Reverend Markel about it, and he suggested she apply for grant money.

  One evening, she sat at the kitchen table, swearing under her breath, papers strewn in front of her.

  Wade laughed to see her when he came in from work. “It can’t be that bad,” he teased.

  She waggled her hands in frustration. “I think I’m in over my head. Reverend Markel suggested I apply for grants, and he gave me this
list of organizations and what I need to submit to qualify for funds. Look at this! They say I have to have a board of directors and a mission statement. What’s that?”

  “Just a sentence stating your purpose. Let me see.”

  Together they read through the requirements for obtaining money from charities, churches, businesses, and the government. “They’re all similar,” Wade pointed out. “All you need is a cover letter, the application, and a list of executives. Who do you want on your board of directors?”

  “What do they do?”

  “It’s an oversight group. They help you make executive decisions.”

  “Executive? Do I need to wear a suit?”

  “You’d look cute in a suit.”

  “I don’t see that looking cute is a requirement for anything here.”

  “You’re not being serious. Who do you want on your board?”

  As Margie worked step-by-step through the application process, her organization got a name: Abundant Harvest Food Pantry. A board of directors: Reverend Markel, Mrs. Bender, and Tom Lewis, a new attorney in town. A president: her. A budget director: also her. And a staff of volunteers. She and the board developed a mission statement: “To provide food to needy families who are dealing with difficult life circumstances.” She conducted a needs assessment and set program goals and objectives. She completed all the groundwork by late May, then wrote cover letters and executive summaries and filled out a dozen grant applications. By the first of June, she hauled a dozen packages to the post office to mail. All summer long, rejection letters dribbled back, thanking her for her submission, but they received many applications and, though her project was noble and well designed, it couldn’t be funded at the present time. Please try again next year.

  Margie resisted the urge to tear them up and filed them instead.

  Too busy to stew over the rejections, Margie lost herself in tending to the garden and administering her growing food pantry. Wade started updating the kitchen, causing Mama to fret—she had peaches to can, and she didn’t like her new electric stove. Barbara Ann grew an inch a month, it seemed, looking more and more like a little girl than a baby. At age three, she drew many admiring comments about her dark hair and skin that tanned beautifully. She pointed to words in her books, trying to read, and could even pick out tunes on the piano. Delighted by her budding musical talent, Wade bought her a violin and spent many patient hours teaching her to play it.

  One morning in late August, two letters addressed to Margie came in the mail. More rejections, she believed, so she put them aside. She forgot about them until after dinner, when she found them on the hall table. Tired and feeling a little blue, she opened the one from the Circle of Women’s Charities, which contained a check large enough to purchase a refrigerator for the food pantry. Wearing a broad grin, she trotted into the living room, waving the check in the air before passing it around for Wade and Mama to see. When she opened the second envelope, she couldn’t believe what she saw. The congregation of the Ann Arbor Methodist Church had selected Abundant Harvest Food Pantry as their preferred charity project. They would provide a monthly stipend to cover operating costs, renewable on a yearly basis. Wade picked up Barbara Ann and the four of them danced in a circle, Margie and Mama laughing, Wade whooping, and Barbara Ann clapping her hands.

  Thoughts of how to allocate the new revenue kept Margie awake that night. Storage and transportation of food had the potential to become costly, and she would need help with record keeping as the pantry added new clients. Wade had suggested she join Little River’s chamber of commerce for community contact and support.

  Margie woke up the next morning feeling woozy and attributed it to her restless night, but when early-morning nausea continued through the week, she knew it was more than temporary jitters. Standing over the sink with a cold washcloth on her face, trying to force back a bilious wave, she cursed herself for being careless for having misplaced her diaphragm. How does anyone in their right mind lose a diaphragm? She had found it in the wash the following Monday, but by then, too late.

  She laid her head on the coolness of the porcelain sink.

  Wade found her like that. “Are you sick, Margie?”

  “I think I may be pregnant.”

  He responded at first with a grin, but then a frown acknowledging her immediate discomfort. “Are you okay with it?”

  “Right now’s not a good time to ask.” She burped. “Sorry.”

  “It will be different this time. You’re healthy going into it. There’s a doctor in Ann Arbor the women at the Tribune go to. I can find out his name if you want. He’s a specialist, an obstetrician. I think you should see him just to be on the safe side.”

  Margie groaned. Even the thought of doctor visits, embarrassing exams, months of discomfort, worry, and knowing there was no turning back brought another wave of nausea. She hung her head over the toilet. When the wave passed, she said, “How am I going to run the food—” The mention of food turned her stomach over again.

  “Oh God,” she sighed.

  The next two months were the worst of it. She sailed through the rest of her pregnancy with nary a twinge of discomfort. Gary was born fat and happy, and Barbara Ann adopted him as her own live baby doll.

  CHAPTER 29

  Little River, 1960

  Margie combed her short hair with her fingers, letting it curl naturally around her face. She’d given up any hope of wearing the ratted and smoothed styles other women wore. Looking closely in the mirror, she identified two gray hairs and plucked them out. She’d seen tiny wrinkles at the corners of her eyes too, but there was nothing she could do except pretend they gave her an air of sophistication.

  She dressed in a gray suit and ivory blouse, adding a string of pearls and matching earrings. This morning she had an appointment with the school board to discuss their annual food drive to support Abundant Harvest Food Pantry. Much had changed since she’d started the food pantry ten years ago. It had moved from the church basement to a building of its own, and though they still delivered food to homebound clients, most customers came to the pantry to pick out what they needed. She had a paid staff of five and a large workforce of volunteers. Money was always critical, and she spent much of her time acquiring it through writing grants and organizing community fund-raisers.

  Wade searched the top of the dresser. “Margie? Have you seen my watch? I put it right here last night.”

  Margie helped him search. Seeing it peeking out from under his shirtsleeve, she said, “Have you checked your wrist?”

  “Am I losing my mind?”

  “You’ve just got too many things going on. We both do.”

  Gary poked his head in the bedroom door. “Mom, have you seen my shoes?”

  “Have you checked your feet?” Margie said, and she and Wade laughed. Gary walked away shaking his head.

  “I guess that wasn’t fair,” Margie said, still snickering.

  Life had turned hectic with the growth of the food pantry and Wade’s increasing responsibility at the Tribune. He often worked late, and to wind down, he played his guitar and sang at the clubs around Ann Arbor. He had a large following and had even cut a few records that got airtime on the local radio stations. It was always a pleasant surprise to suddenly hear his voice coming over the air.

  Dressed and groomed for another day, they went downstairs to the kitchen, where Mama was serving Barbara and Gary a breakfast of oatmeal and sliced strawberries.

  “You found your shoes?” she asked Gary.

  “Yeah,” he said, his head hanging low over his breakfast bowl.

  “Sit up straight,” she instructed as she poked his back. He was a good-sized kid for ten. Strong and coordinated, he excelled in gym class and recess. Now, Margie thought, if he would only get serious about math and history.

  “Barbara Ann,” Margie said, about to congratulate her daughter, again, on her performance last night at the high school’s talent contest. She’d won first place, playing the guitar and
singing “Frankie and Johnny” in her husky voice. It was a joy to watch as she bantered with the audience and stomped her feet for rhythm like Wade did, but midperformance she’d added a riff that had brought the audience to its feet.

  Wade had gushed as they got ready for bed. “I had no idea she could do that. The intricacy, the timing—it was pure genius.”

  There were times Margie noticed Wade looking at his daughter as if wondering where this beautiful genius had come from. That look on his face always brought her unease, and she wondered if he suspected anything. On the occasions of Wade’s doubt, Margie made a point to reinforce his paternity. “She inherited your talents, Wade.”

  Barbara Ann gulped the last of her milk and slung her bulging book bag over her shoulder. As she left, she said, “Don’t call me Barbara Ann. I’m not a baby. I’ll answer to Barb.”

  Margie dropped the idea of congratulating her daughter, thinking, barb, how appropriate.

  Wade scowled. “There’s no call for that. Apologize to your mother!”

  “Sorry,” Barb said with a smirk, and let the door slam behind her.

  Margie had time for a second cup of coffee, and with the family gone, she and Mama shared a few minutes together.

  Margie said, “What’s happening to my little girl?” She’d seen Barbara’s change in attitude coming on this past year: school, once a joy, was now a bore; the rolling eyes and sighs; the longer hours in her room playing the radio.

  “Fourteen-year-olds are all attitude. You were a bit of a snip yourself at that age.”

  Payback, Margie thought—but no, with her genetic makeup Barbara’s bad attitude had the potential to be more than that. As Dr. Garber had predicted, she was taking on Max’s mannerisms and the haughty, better-than-thou attitude that Margie had despised. Physically too, she was growing into his image, her body lithe, and the streak of white in the front lock of hair beginning to show.

  Margie finished her coffee and put her cup in the sink, her mind on this afternoon’s work. The tomato and pepper seedlings she had started several weeks ago in the greenhouse were ready to be transplanted. “You look pale this morning, Mama. Why don’t you leave the planting to me? I’ll be home around noon.”