The Daughters of Erietown

by Connie Schultz

  Ellie lowered her head and stared at the ragged remains of her fingernails. She webbed her hands over her stomach and bowed her head, silently mouthing, “I’m sorry.”

  “Look, Pint, we agreed that the only way we could get married was to elope. If your grandfather knew you were pregnant, I’d already have a shovel in my head.”

  “Don’t even say such a thing.”

  “It’s true and you know it. He hates me already. This would make him want to kill me.”

  “He’s going to find out about it eventually,” Ellie said. “When we come home.”

  Brick shot her a look and grabbed her hand. “We can’t go home, Ellie.”

  She whipped around to face him. “What? What do you mean we can’t go home? Where else are we going to go?”

  “We’ve got to get a fresh start, Ellie. We’ve got to get out of Clayton Valley. We’ve got to go somewhere where everybody doesn’t already know us. For the sake of our kid, El.”

  “We got started by falling in love,” Ellie said, relieved to be feeling something other than fear. “We made love because we were in love, because we felt something too strong for each other to fight it.”

  Brick shook his head, his eyes locked on the road. “Okay, Ellie. Whatever you say.”

  “Pull over.”

  “Knock it off, Ellie.”

  “I said pull over. I mean it. I want to get out.”

  “Pull over five miles out of Erie, Pennsylvania. Really. And then what? Don’t be ridiculous, Ellie.”

  “If you’re saying you don’t love me, then I’m not marrying you, Brick. It’s that simple. Pull over.”

  “I’m not stopping.”

  “Drive as long as you want, but I’m not marrying you.”

  “Pint.”

  “No. This is already too hard, Brick. I don’t want either of us to start out feeling stuck with each other.”

  Brick slowed and pulled over on the side of the road. “Pint,” he said, turning to look at her. He reached for her shoulder, but she pulled away and pressed against the door. “Ellie, listen to me. I’m nervous, is all. Things have happened really fast, and I’m trying to do the right thing here.”

  “The right thing? You mean, not what you wanted.”

  Brick shook his head. “Well, c’mon, Pint, this isn’t exactly how we had planned things.”

  “We both had plans, Brick.”

  He nodded. “I know. And you would have been a great nurse.” He reached for her hand, and this time she squeezed his.

  “Do you really think so?”

  “I do. You make everyone feel better. You make me feel like I can do anything. We just need a chance, is all. A fresh start. That’s why we can’t go back.”

  She squeezed his hand harder. “Then where are we going to go, Brick?”

  He hesitated. “Well, we’re going to get married, and then we’re going to move into a house in Erietown. On Route 20, but it’s in the city so it’s called Erie Street. You’re going to have a baby, and I’m going to work at the power plant.”

  “Are you telling me you already got a job?”

  “My sister Katie’s husband, Jack, got it for me. In maintenance. Not like a custodian maintenance. It means I’ll learn how to fix everything in that plant. I’ll be on probation for the first three months, but after that I’m in the union.” He cupped her chin in his hand and turned her face toward his. “Union wages, Ellie. No farm life for us. We can rent a house. It’ll be empty in three months, and Jack knows the landlord. He’s gonna lend me the deposit and first month’s rent. I start work next Wednesday.”

  Ellie looked at him like she had never seen him before. “What about graduation?”

  Brick turned to face the windshield. “Coach will make sure Principal Stanley gives me my diploma anyway. I won’t take finals, so my grades will be shit, but at least I’ll have proof I graduated.”

  Ellie let go of his hand and looked down at her lap. “Well,” she said, folding her hands. “That’s great, Brick. Anyone knows you need a diploma to get a good job.”

  Brick sighed. “I’m sorry, El. It’s not fair what they’re doing to you. Don’t you think I know that?” She nodded, silently staring at her lap. “You don’t need to work. I’m going to take care of you.”

  “It’s not just about that, Brick. I worked hard in school. I got way better grades than—”

  “Go ahead and finish the sentence. Better grades than me, you mean.”

  Ellie shook her head. “I just don’t understand why you’re allowed to pick up your diploma and I can’t even clean out my own locker.”

  “What difference does it make now?”

  “It matters to me, Brick. I didn’t expect to be able to go to graduation, but I’ve done all the work. I thought I’d be able to take the final tests and still get my diploma. How come I’m the only one being punished?”

  “You think you’re the only one—” The look on her face stopped him. “Pint,” he said, grabbing her hand, “only one of us can be pregnant. That’s God’s plan, too, right?”

  She lowered her head and nodded. “Yes, and I did that all by myself. I’m the Virgin Mary Eleanor Grace, carrying the Christ Child.”

  Brick tapped the tip of her nose. “Does this mean we have to name him Jesus?”

  Ellie laughed. “I can’t believe you just said that.”

  Brick looked at her and grinned. “Do you have any idea how great it is to see you smile?”

  Her posture softened. “Why didn’t you tell me any of this?” she said. “Why didn’t you let me know all your plans?”

  Brick sighed. “Our plans. And it was supposed to be a surprise. A nice surprise. I wanted you to know I had taken care of everything, that I’m a man who takes care of his family.” He reached over and touched her cheek. “That’s what a man does when he loves his wife.”

  Ellie slid toward him and buried her face in his shirt. “I’m so sorry, Brick. I’m so sorry this has happened to you.”

  He wrapped his arm around her, pulled her in tight. “I’m not. I’m not sorry one bit. Who knows what would have happened if I’d gone off to college? Like you said, you’re the one with the grades. I could have flunked out the first month, for all we know.”

  “Brick, I didn’t mean—”

  He shook his head. “No, it’s okay. This way I’m in charge of my own future. We’re going to move to Erietown and stay there just until I save up enough money for us to move to Cleveland.”

  “Cleveland?” she said, smiling. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We’ve got a lot of years together. And wherever you go, I go, too.”

  He kissed the top of her head. “That’s how it’s gotta be, Ellie. I gotta be in charge here. And you gotta trust me.”

  “I do, Brick,” she said, lifting her face for a kiss. “I do.”

  He kissed the tip of her nose. “We’d better get going,” he said, unwrapping his arm. “We’re supposed to be in Cumberland to meet Pastor Woodruff’s friend by four o’clock.”

  She slid across the seat to the passenger side as he eased back onto the road. She cupped her cheeks with her hands and frowned. Her face had to be a wreck by now. She reached back for her vanity case and set it on her lap. She turned on the flashlight and lifted the lid, then gasped.

  Brick looked over and laughed at the reflection of Ellie’s shocked face as she held up her grandmother’s hand mirror. “Yeah, you might want to clean up a little,” he said. “You look like a raccoon after all that crying.”

  Ellie curled her fingers around the ivory handle and pressed the mirror against her chest.

  “That’s not it,” Ellie said. “She knows.”

  “What?”

  “My grandma. She already knows.”

  Ellie pulled the bedspread taut and plumped the pillows before pro
pping them against the headboard. She walked to the foot of the bed and put her hands on her hips, surveying her work. “Much better.”

  Brick sat in the room’s one chair wedged in the corner, his leg dangling over one of the arms as he read the Baltimore Sun. He peered over the top of the newspaper and smiled at her. “Ellie, it’s a hotel. They have maids who do that.”

  “Not if we never let them in. Not if we keep that Do Not Disturb sign on the door.”

  Brick’s smile faded. “I’m sorry, Pint. I’m sorry we had to wait until now to be in a bed. I’m sorry we didn’t start out like this.”

  Ellie pulled the newspaper out of his hands and tossed it on the floor as she plopped onto his lap. “Don’t, Brick,” she said, wrapping her arms around his neck. “Don’t think it, don’t say it ever again. These have been the two best nights of my life, and I’ve already forgotten what we left behind. I am so happy to be Mrs. Brick McGinty. That’s all that matters now.”

  He clasped her face in his hands and pulled her in for a long, deep kiss. “I love you, Ellie. I can’t believe how much I love you.”

  Two hours and forty-seven minutes later, they had the first fight of their marriage. Ellie would come to remember it that way, to the minute, stewing on it over the years. She saw it as a warning sign that she would never be enough for Brick McGinty.

  Ellie was sitting on the closed lid of the toilet watching Brick shave, the foam on his face disappearing one stripe at a time as he pulled the razor down his cheeks. “Brick, we have one night left here.”

  He held the razor under the running water and pressed it against his upper lip. “Now, tell me something I don’t know,” he said, staring straight into the mirror.

  “What I mean is what are we going to do after tomorrow? Where are we going to live? The people who live in the house you rented for us won’t be moving out for another three months. We need a place to stay.”

  They had already agreed there was no point in either of them calling home. Ellie was too ashamed to face her grandparents, to hear the disappointment in their voices. Brick’s mother didn’t even yet know why he was gone, and there was no way he was going to expose Ellie to his father’s fits of rage.

  “You should at least call your mother,” Ellie said. “Think of what she’s going through, worrying about where you are.”

  Brick rinsed off his razor and turned off the spigot. “This is something I have to tell my mom in person,” he said, reaching for the hand towel in Ellie’s lap and dragging it over his face. “Something I have to say to her face-to-face, and not when he’s around.”

  What Brick didn’t say was that he was sure his mother already knew. He’d asked Coach to tell her.

  He’d never seen Coach so angry as that afternoon when he’d told him about Ellie. Didn’t speak to him for the entire game and walked out of the locker room before the boys had even showered. By the next morning, though, he seemed resigned to Brick’s plight.

  “The missus says you’re doing the right thing, and that we have to respect that,” Coach said to him behind the closed door of his office. “I’m not saying we’re not disappointed for you, Brick, but Ellie didn’t get this way by herself. You’ve got to be a man now.”

  Brick fiddled with his ball cap as he spoke. “If my mom calls while we’re gone, would you please tell her where we are? And why, Coach. Could you please tell her why?”

  Coach sighed. “You let me know what night you’re leaving, and I’ll stop by and see her the next morning. I’ll pick up your dog, too, and keep him until you return.” Brick looked up, surprised that Coach had remembered. Coach was the only person besides his mother who knew about how Bull had once tried to kill Patch after he’d damaged the pup’s eye.

  “Coach, I don’t expect—”

  “Save it, son. You’re going to need that dog, and your father will be out for revenge once he hears about that scholarship you’re throwing away.”

  Brick scoffed. “He would have done everything he could to ruin my chance at that if he knew about it.”

  “I don’t doubt that,” Coach said, “but he still would have enjoyed bragging about his college boy once you were gone. I’m sorry, Brick, but there’s no sugarcoating this one. Your father is going to take this personally, you running off and getting married, and he’ll be looking for a way to make you pay.”

  Brick stood up and shook Coach’s hand. “Thank you, Coach. I’ll bring Patch over the night we leave. He’s old, but he means everything to me. And thanks for talking to my mom.”

  Some things Brick hoped Coach had kept to himself when he visited his mother. The money he’d loaned them for gas, and to pay for three nights in the hotel. “Every man should give his wife a honeymoon,” he told Brick as he stuffed the bills in Brick’s coat pocket the night he dropped Patch off.

  It would hurt his mother to know her son had turned to Coach instead of her, even if she didn’t have the money to help.

  “Brick,” Ellie said, snapping him back to the tiny hotel bathroom. “Brick, what are we going to do?”

  Brick threw the towel on the floor and turned to face her. “ ‘What are we going to do, Brick?’ ‘Save me, Brick.’ ‘Help me, Brick.’ ” He leaned toward her and she stood up, grabbing the plastic shower curtain behind her for balance. “ ‘It’s all up to you, Brick,’ ” he said. “ ‘Fix everything, Brick.’ ”

  Ellie was now grabbing the curtain with both hands, cowering with her eyes closed. Bracing herself, he realized, for him to hit her.

  “Ellie,” he said, reaching for her. He pulled her close and wrapped his arms around her. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered.

  She felt his grip soften as he kissed the top of her head. “I’m sorry, Pint,” he said. “I don’t know what came over me. I’m just getting used to everything, I guess.” She pressed her hands against his chest, gently this time, and he stepped back far enough for them to look into each other’s eyes.

  “Promise,” she said. “Promise you’ll never touch me like that. Like your father did to you, and to your mother.”

  Brick’s eyes filled with tears. “I promise,” he said, grabbing her hands. “I promise to be better than my father. I will never raise my hand to you.”

  He pulled her onto his lap, and she rested her head on his shoulder. “I want to call Aunt Nessa,” she said. “She will let us stay with her, I know it. And she likes you. She told me so last Christmas.”

  “She liked me before you were pregnant. Big difference. She’s the one who talked you into applying to nursing school.”

  “She’s not like that. She won’t ask a lot of questions. She’ll be on our side.”

  Brick got up from the bed and walked to the window, jingling his coins. “Do I have a choice, Ellie?”

  “Do we have a choice, you mean? From now on it’s we, not I. Us, not me. That’s what it means to be married. It will only be for a few weeks. Just long enough for those people to get their butts out of our house.”

  Brick turned to look at her and smiled. “Such a dirty mouth on my wife.”

  Ellie stood up and looped her pocketbook over her wrist. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “To the lobby,” she said. “I’ll be back in five.”

  She walked across the open-air balcony, grateful for the cold air as she ran down the two flights of stairs and into the lobby. She walked to the telephone booth she’d noticed the night they arrived. She pulled the door shut and sat on the bench before reaching for the receiver. She gave the operator the number and felt instantly calmer at the sound of Aunt Nessa’s voice.

  “Yes, yes, of course, Operator,” Nessa said. “I’ll accept the call. Put her through this instant, please. Ellie? Ellie, are you there?”

  “Hi, Aunt Nessa.”

  “Ellie! Where are you? Your grandmothe
r is worried sick about you.”

  “I’m in Cumberland, Maryland, Aunt Nessa. At a Holiday Inn.” She cleared her throat. “Brick and I got married, Aunt Nessa. I’m three months—”

  “Shh. No need to broadcast your whole life to a bunch of snoopy strangers. I know all about it. How can I help?”

  Of course, Grandma had told her sister, who was also her best friend. Ellie started to cry. “Aunt Nessa, I don’t want you to think bad things about Brick. He wanted to marry me the minute he found out that I was—”

  “Ellie, honey, I don’t need the recipe, just tell me what’s cooking. When are you coming home?”

  Ellie sniffed and cleared her throat. “Well, that’s the problem. We’re leaving tomorrow, and Brick has rented a house for us in Erietown, but we can’t move in for three months. And we can’t go home, Aunt Nessa. Who knows what Grandpa would do, and Brick’s father is such an awful man that I don’t even know how bad that might—”

  “Ellie, you and Brick pack up your things tomorrow morning and get yourselves to my house. This is your home for as long as you need it.”

  Ellie closed her eyes and whispered, “Thank you, Aunt Nessa. We’ll help with groceries, and I’ll clean every day that we’re there. Make a list of chores you need Brick to do, too. He’ll work on them in the evenings and on weekends when he’s not working at the plant.”

  Ellie heard her aunt sigh. “So, Brick’s got a job.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Which plant, honey?”

  “The power plant, Aunt Nessa. He got himself a job at Erie Electric. A union job. It’s only a couple miles from your house, right on the lake, by Lake Shore Park.”

  “I know where it is, Ellie.” She paused, and Ellie could hear her slow, deep breath. “So,” Aunt Nessa said more cheerfully. “A few changes in your lives.”

  “Big ones, Aunt Nessa.”

  “Well, buck up and enjoy the last day of that honeymoon of yours. The back bedroom will be waiting for you two when you get here.”

  “Oh, thank you, Aunt Nessa. Thank you so much.”