by Natalie Dean
Bonnie, Kasia reflected, was different here. In Pittsburgh, she’d been so driven, always striving to better herself, earning extra money to sew nice clothes to wear, practicing her English so that it was perfect, and making herself an American. No one worked harder than Bonnie, but she’d been working toward a goal that didn’t make sense to the rest of the family. Now, it made sense. She wasn’t just a poor immigrant girl here in Texas. She was the wife of a Texan who owned his own land. Kasia didn’t know anyone in Pittsburgh who owned land. Except Hayes, and even then, it was his family’s land, his family’s house, his family’s mills and mines. He would inherit it all one day. Their baby would inherit nothing but the shame of illegitimacy.
Maybe things were different here, even for babies who were born out of wedlock. Bonnie belonged here. Bonnie had bettered herself. Kasia had worked hard as a maid because, like Bonnie, she had wanted more than to be a miner’s wife. Being a maid for the Gardners had taught her things: how to set a table for an elegant party; what sort of menus suited different occasions, and how the gentry behaved in public. They weren’t talents that were any use to her, though, either in Pittsburgh or here in Texas. Her family had made fun of her for her fancy ways. That was before Mrs. Gardner sacked her, before she had gone home in disgrace, only to face even worse when Mama found out why she no longer had a job. She had been proud of the money she brought home; it wasn’t a lot, but it helped Mama with the expenses, and Kasia liked doing her part, as they all did.
She had nothing to offer anyone. She was an unmarried girl, just over age eighteen, and she’d violated all the rules for young women by giving herself to a man who was not her husband; even though they were in love and wanted to get married. But she was all her baby had. Except for Bonnie; Bonnie would never turn her back on a child who was part of her family. Her husband was nice; he had a nice smile. The other one, the one that she was supposed to marry, didn’t smile as much. He didn’t look unkind, but he hadn’t looked welcoming, either. She didn’t blame him. He was expecting Elzbieta. He didn’t want someone else. None of them, except Bonnie, would want her here.
If the Texans didn’t let her stay here, where would they send her? Mama had threatened to send her to Poland. But then she had decided that Kasia needed a husband more than Ellzbieta did. Elzbieta, who had seemed to be happy with the idea of marrying her Texan, had been tearful and silent after Mama said it would be Kasia who would go west. Elzbieta wasn’t bringing the family to shame like Kasia, Mama said firmly; Kasia needed to leave.
Elzbieta had been distant with Kasia after that; in truth, the entire family had made her feel like an outcast. Her brothers had accused her of terrible things; her sisters had talked of shame and the church and what people would say if they knew. Mama forced her to wear those awful, ill-fitting, bulky dresses to hide the baby growing inside her. No one in Pittsburgh knew except the Gardners, and they wouldn’t be sharing gossip with the community on Polish Hill.
Was Hayes thinking of her now while he was off in those European places that she had heard about and read about? He wouldn’t be going to Poland; he’d be going to the smart cities where the other wealthy Americans journeyed so that they could meet the upper classes of France, England, Italy . . . even among Europeans, Poland lacked prestige. Her family came from Europe, but not the grand, glamorous Europe where the rich people lived and had their elegant balls and soirees. They came from Poland. What was it like to be Polish in Poland, she wondered? It couldn’t be so very wonderful if people would rather leave it to go to Pittsburgh to work and die in the mines, or, if they didn’t die, to become ill with the dreadful diseases that make them cough and struggle to breathe when they were older. She had vowed that she would never marry a miner. But she had never planned on leaving Pittsburgh.
She felt like weeping again, but she’d cried so much on the ride in the wagon that she couldn’t cry anymore, at least not tonight. She had slept soundly, though, the first sound sleep she had had in months. Whatever happened, she was no longer the shame of the Yankovich family.
To her surprise, she realized that she was hungry. It had been hours since she’d eaten anything at all. She noticed that there was a tray of food on the stand by the bed. Bonnie had probably left food for her. It was plain food, slices of bread wrapped in a napkin; a jar of peaches and a spoon; a slice of salted beef, and a pitcher of water to drink. Kasia went to the table and sat on the edge of the bed to eat. She had been terribly ill during the first three months of being pregnant, but even after that, she had not had much of an appetite. It had been little Anushka who had said she needed to eat or the baby would suffer. Little Anushka, who felt sorry for her older sister.
Tears welled up in Kasia’s eyes. She would miss Anushka. The two were close; Anushka was a dreamy girl, indulged by her mother more than the others were because she was born after Papa died in the mine accident, and Mama felt sorry for her. But Anushka didn’t seem to miss what she hadn’t known; she was looked after by her older brothers as if they all were her father.
Would anyone at home listen to Anushka’s stories and share her excitement at the first snowfall of the season? Would they say she was a silly girl because she still liked to stand out in the snow and stick out her tongue so that the snowflakes would fall on it? Kasia used to join her outside, the two of them wrapped in their winter shawls, dancing in circles to catch snowflakes. What would Christmas be like this year for the Yankovich family, with Kasia far away in disgrace and Anushka at home without anyone who loved Christmas like she did?
If she had a girl, Kasia resolved, she would name her Anushka. But she had to find a husband to marry so that her baby wasn’t damned forever to eternal flames. She would ask Bonnie what to do. Bonnie would think of something.
Despite her uncertainty about what the future held, Kasia found that her appetite, listless for so long, had returned. The peaches were delicious; she finished them first and then, before she realized it, she had eaten everything on the tray. The slices of bread had been thick and hearty; the meat had been ample. They weren’t dividing up too little food to feed too many people, she realized. What was it like to live in a place where there was enough of everything? Perhaps her baby would never know what it felt like to be hungry.
Chapter 10
“We must get you some decent clothes,” Bonnie said briskly the next morning when she knocked on the guest bedroom door to find her sister dressed and awake, sitting on the bed like a schoolgirl waiting to be told what to do. She was wearing that hideous dress. Bonnie was determined to see that dress torn up for rags before the week was out. Her pretty sister was never going to wear it again after today, and even today, she wouldn’t wear it for long if Bonnie had anything to say about it.
“Mama didn’t want anyone to be able to tell,” Kasia said.
“No one wondered why you were suddenly wearing clothing that was too big for you?” Bonnie asked. “That doesn’t sound like Polish Hill. Everyone notices everything.”
“I don’t know. I didn’t talk to anyone. I stayed home. Mama told everyone I was ill.”
Which probably only made the problem worse, Bonnie thought as she led Kasia to her bedroom to try on clothes. A mystery made people speculate. Well, they could speculate all they wanted. Poor Elzbieta; she would be the one they speculated about now, wondering why she was still in Pittsburgh when she was supposed to leave to get married in Texas.
The men were gone, and Grandmother was still in bed, so it seemed like an opportune time for Kasia to leave the guest room. She couldn’t stay exiled in there forever, and she’d have to meet with Grandmother in person, but Bonnie planned to make sure that she had eaten breakfast and was dressed properly first. There was no need to show up looking like she was an ignorant immigrant girl in front of Eldora Kennesaw, who already took a dim view of people who weren’t Americans. It didn’t matter that Kasia, like Bonnie, had been born in America; they were foreigners. Not so much Bonnie, now that she was married to a Kennesaw and had
proven herself, but Kasia, with her unfamiliar name, was foreign...
“Here, you can try this. We’re of a size, and I’m guessing that we’re both round in the same ways.”
“It’s too pretty,” Kasia protested. “I can’t wear this.”
Bonnie turned away so that Kasia wouldn’t see her eyes fill with tears. Pretty Katarina, the prettiest of them all, the one who fussed over the ribbons in her hair and made sure that her shoes were shined, settling for the dowdy garments of a matron just because she’d been told she was a sinful woman. “Yes, you can,” Bonnie said firmly. “Now here, try these on. I have clothes, Z likes me to wear nice things. You’ll have to dress nicely, too. The Kennesaws are an important family in Texas and you don’t want to make them ashamed of you.”
“You love him?” Kasia asked curiously, hugging the soft fabric of the dress Bonnie had put in her arms.
“I do. Every moment I spend with him just makes me love him more.”
“Did you love him right away?”
Bonnie shook her head. “It doesn’t work like that, and we had some things that we needed to settle on.” She told her sister the story of the time she’d walked into the saloon because Z had gone there to play poker, thinking that being married meant that he would be shackled to a nagging wife. “I played poker and I won,” Bonnie finished.
Kasia burst out laughing. “Oh, Bona, what Mama would say if she knew that? I don’t think she knows anyone who would have been so bold.”
“Except for the wives who had to walk into the bars on pay day before their husbands drank all the money,” Bonnie reminded her. “Mesquite, Texas, is different from Polish Hill, Kasia. You’ll find that out. There will be a place for you here. There’s a place for everyone here. A lot of people came here after the end of the big war so that they could start over in a place where the past didn’t matter.”
“Will there be a husband for me to marry? I don’t mean Elzbieta’s Texan,” she said hastily when Bonnie hesitated. “I mean someone . . . Mama says if I’m not married, my baby will be damned. She says that’s what the priests say. I don’t want my baby to pay for my sins, Bonnie.” She didn’t tell Bonnie that, because she still loved Hayes and knew she always would, it would feel like a different kind of sin to fall in love with any other man. But she needed a husband, not a man to love. She had to save her baby’s soul.
“Shhh,” Bonnie said comfortingly. “We’ll let God sort it all out. Texas needs women and that means that Texan men aren’t quite as particular as men back East. But we can’t have you married off to someone who’s not good for you.”
“Bonnie,” Kasia protested, her blue eyes filling up with tears, “I have to find a husband. It doesn’t matter if he’s good for me or not. I don’t have to love him. I don’t want to love anyone but Hayes. But I can’t let my baby be born in shame.”
Bonnie held her sister in her arms as Kasia gave way to renewed sobs. That explained Mama’s insistence on sending her daughter away; it wasn’t just to rid the family of the shame of an unmarried daughter who was with child. It was to save the child’s soul. Mama was a staunch Roman Catholic and she believed in a God who punished. It was not necessarily the God that others believed in, but there was no changing Mama now. And in her way, she had seen Kasia’s departure as a kindness. A man would marry her and give the baby a name and save its soul. To Mama, it must have seemed a very orderly solution to a disorderly dilemma. She found herself feeling grateful for Z’s uncomplicated faith in God. He took things as they were and didn’t talk about sin and damnation. Men and women did good things and bad things and they had their reasons.
But with only a little more than a month until Kasia would give birth, there wasn’t time to find a husband even under good circumstances, which these certainly were not. She would talk it over with Z; he would have some ideas. She wished she could talk it over with Will Henry, who was able to perceive nuances that eluded Z. But that was impossible. Will Henry had eaten his breakfast in silence that morning and left the ranch before Z had finished his plate. She hadn’t disguised her concern, but Z had just shaken his head before she could speak.
“He has to get through this in his own way, Bonnie and there’s nothing we can do about it.”
“But Grandmother is afraid—"
“Grandmother knows Will Henry better than that. He’s a Texan. He’ll get through it.”
Bonnie wasn’t so sure; she felt that Grandmother and Z were each halfway right about Will Henry, but only Will Henry himself knew how far into the depths he would descend as a result of being cheated of his bride and the happiness that he’d yearned for. Will Henry was deep, and his heart had been buried for so long that it was possible it would never come out of the grave now that he had been disappointed in love, not through death, but through life itself. In some ways, she was more anxious for him than she was for her sister.
Grandmother was correct when she’d said that, once the baby arrived, Kasia would have something to occupy her thoughts, but Will Henry would not. Will Henry spent too much time thinking anyway; that was the family view. Bonnie didn’t see anything wrong with being a man of thought; for all his contemplative nature, Will Henry sat just as tall in the saddle as his brother. Thinking didn’t weaken a man. However he felt about what had happened, Will Henry had to work it out. Z was right. He had a right to resent Kasia and to be angry, but he wouldn’t take his feelings out on her.
But that wasn’t something to share with Kasia. Bonnie insisted that Kasia return to the guest room and change her clothes. “Then you’ll have breakfast.”
“And then what?”
“Then you’ll meet Grandmother.”
When Kasia emerged wearing Bonnie’s dress, she once again resembled the pretty girl that Bonnie remembered. She had taken the time to twist her hair into a chignon low on her neck, just as she had done when she was younger and fussing about her appearance. Bonnie resolved to give Kasia some of her ribbons and bows so that she could attire herself with some of her former style. Mama might think it vanity, but Kasia was a pretty young woman and there was no reason for her to suddenly look homely just because Mama saw her as a sinner.
Kasia didn’t eat much, but Bonnie reminded her that the baby needed to eat, and at least Kasia finished her toast and drank her tea. They were still at the table when Elsie appeared.
“Elsie, this is my sister, Kasia Yankovich. Kasia, this is Elsie Pearle. She and her husband Clem take care of everything and everyone on the ranch.”
Elsie’s pleasant face looked embarrassed at the praise. “Pleased to meet you, Miss Kasia,” she said.
Kasia’s eyes widened. She wasn’t “Miss Kasia” to anyone. “I’m very pleased to meet you, Mrs. Pearle,” she answered politely.
Bonnie didn’t bother correcting her sister, even though Elsie looked confused at the address. Kasia had been a servant and it was impossible for her to understand that Elsie, who had been born a slave, was both household servant and family caretaker. She would come to understand in time, just as Bonnie had.
“I’ll clean up in here, ma’am,” Elsie said. “Miss Eldora wants to meet your sister now.”
Kasia looked as if she’d rather get back on the stagecoach again but she stood up, finished her tea, and brought her plate and cup to the basin which Elsie was filling with the water that had been heating on the hearth. Her eyes implored Bonnie to join her, but Bonnie knew that Kasia had to face this meeting alone. Eldora Kennesaw demanded strength of character and Kasia would have to demonstrate that though she might not be a fit bride for a Kennesaw, she was no coward.
Following Bonnie’s direction, Kasia walked to the end of the corridor and tapped on the door.
“If you’re out there wanting to come in, then come in, girl. I can barely hear you,” was the response.
Wiping her sweaty palms on her dress—Bonnie’s dress—Kasia opened the door and entered. She saw a stern-faced woman in a chair with wheels seated by the window. The curtains were open,
and the sun was shining outside. It was nothing like November back home, and for a moment, Kasia stared, entranced at the blue sky.
“You look like you’ve never seen morning before,” the woman said in a strong voice that seemed at odds with the body sitting in the wheeled chair.
“I’ve never seen the sun shining so brightly in November,” Kasia answered honestly.
“Sit down, there’s a chair and as far gone as you are, your ankles are probably swelling up every day.”
“Only a little,” Kasia said. “I’m used to standing.”
“Where’d you learn to talk English like that?”
“We learned English in school,” Kasia answered in confusion. “We all speak English.”
“How long did you go to school?”
“Until I was twelve. Then I went to work. I can read and write.”
“You speak that foreign tongue too, don’t you?’
“We all speak Polish. We speak it at home.”
“Not here, you don’t. If you’re going to live here under my roof, you’ll speak English.”
Kasia nodded. How did Bonnie endure living with this frightening woman who told her what language she could speak? But she had said, ‘If you’re going to live here under my roof, you’ll speak English.’ Did that mean that the family wasn’t going to turn her out? If the price of having a roof over her head was to speak only English, Kasia vowed silently that she’d never speak a single word of Polish again.
