by Nancy Horan
“She wants a year to see if we can repair it. If it doesn’t work, she’ll give me a divorce.”
Mamah stared at him.
“I know. I know. It’s absurd.”
“What did you say?”
“I said yes.”
Mamah’s body started reflexively. “But we agreed when this came—”
“I know what we agreed, Mame. You know how I feel about this. But Catherine…” He shrugged and shook his head. “Her heels are dug in. She’s fighting for her life. What choice do I have but to wait it out?”
Mamah felt her head wagging, half confused, half angry. Frank put an arm around her back and pulled her face into his neck with the other hand. They stood like that for long minutes, a chasm of silence between them.
In the interminable hours following that afternoon at the Fine Arts Building, she hung suspended in the house on East Avenue, waiting for a telephone call or a note or something. But no word came.
She began to drive around, looking at building sites she knew were his, hoping to catch a glimpse of him. When she heard Frank had finally begun the big house he’d been planning in Hyde Park, she drove to it, parked her car, and waited. After four hours of watching for his yellow auto to appear, she gave up and returned to Oak Park.
On two different nights, coming home from concerts at the opera house after midnight, Edwin and Mamah drove past Frank’s Forest Avenue house. Both times his studio was brightly lit. He’s thrown himself into his work, she told herself.
AS WEEKS PASSED and no word came, Mamah grew more perplexed. She had demanded nothing of Frank when they had last spoken, and he had promised her nothing. In a begrudging way, she admired his sense of honor in abiding by his agreement with Catherine; he could walk away with some shred of integrity. But other times Mamah felt frantic from uncertainty. How can he stay away, she wondered, when I can hardly stop myself from charging through his studio door? How does he manage to keep his promise?
Sometimes her head was so fogged she couldn’t concentrate on anything. She would find her son, John, standing in front of her, patiently saying, “Mama…Mama…Mama,” tugging at her dress, trying to get her attention so he could tell her something. In those moments, when she woke up to the skinny green-eyed boy in front of her, she was seized with remorse, grabbing him into her arms.
Still, she didn’t look back and regret what she and Frank had done together. It was the truest love she’d known with a man. But what was their relationship now? More and more in the quiet hours of the day, a fear asserted itself. He has returned to Catherine.
NEARLY A YEAR EARLIER, she had agreed to give a presentation on The Taming of the Shrew at the Nineteenth Century Woman’s Club. As December approached, she wondered what had possessed her to choose that play, of all things.
That was when I was living dangerously, she thought. She had been full of herself, full of indignation about the limits society pressed on women, confident in the rightness of her relationship with Frank, almost daring the world to discover their secret. Now she was hiding in her house most of the time.
A year ago, when she chose Kate’s speech on a wife’s obedience to her husband, she had imagined a flamboyant, ironic reading, after which she would talk about the changing role of women. Now, as she read the line “Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,” she wanted to be in China, Budapest, Africa, anywhere but Oak Park, Illinois.
When the day came, she delivered the reading as she had first imagined it—with great irony—and nearly collapsed with relief when the audience laughed its approval. Strung through her like a thin wire, a streak of old courage had kept her upright long enough to get through it. Catherine had stayed away, but Frank’s mother had come. Mamah caught a glimpse of the frowning Anna Wright in the audience and wondered if she knew. Or if anyone knew, for that matter.
The harrowing reading, in the end, seemed to help her turn a corner. She returned to two classes she had begun in the fall at the University of Chicago, both taught by Robert Herrick—a literature class and a course on the writing of novels. She immersed herself in Herrick’s novels, attended classes, and wrote furiously.
The gnawing longing she’d felt for Frank was still there, but an uneasiness now matched it. How could she have been so ready to divorce her husband while Frank was so ready to give his wife one more year? She found herself thankful she hadn’t told Edwin.
On New Year’s Day, she woke to find her husband standing in his striped pajamas at the side of the bed, the thin hair around his ears ruffled like feathers. He bent to kiss her forehead. “Happy 1909, my darling.”
Mamah sat up, rubbed her eyes. “Happy New Year,” she said groggily.
He pressed into her hands a small wrapped gift. “I couldn’t resist.”
She opened it to find a gold brooch in the shape of an owl, with two rubies for its eyes.
Years earlier, he had given her a chain with a silver owl pendant on it. For my scholar, the note had read. She’d made the mistake of mustering delight, and subsequent owl gifts had followed—-a hooked rug, a carved owl clock, always with a sentimental note.
He had as much acquaintance with the contents of the books she read as she had with the workings of electric transformers. Yet he clearly felt enlarged by the idea that his wife was an intellectual. At dinner parties, he would sometimes direct the conversation toward her, graciously giving her the floor when he knew she had one of her causes to put forth. If talk turned bookish, he stared at her indulgently as she spoke, his forefinger crooked over his chin. When a guest once teased him about his silence during a discussion of an Ibsen play, Edwin had shrugged it off with characteristic modesty. “Mamah tends to Mr. Ibsen in this household. I take care of the car.”
“He adores you,” the woman seated next to her had said that evening. “You are a very fortunate woman.”
“Thank you, Ed,” Mamah said now, placing the lid back on the little box. She stretched her arms. “Is that sausage I smell?”
“’Tis. And eggs. And broiled grapefruit with brown sugar.”
“Where are the children?”
“Down in the basement with Lizzie.”
“All right. I’m up,” she said.
Mamah climbed out of bed, wrapped herself in a robe, and walked into the living room.
“Martha! Johnny! Jessica!” Edwin was hollering from the kitchen.
“Here we come,” John called from downstairs.
Mamah corraled Martha, who was toddling happily through the room, and sat her apple-cheeked daughter in the high chair. John came next, then Jessica, who sat patiently waiting for the clamor to end. Even at eight and never having known her own mother, the girl was the picture of composure, so like Jessie it was a bit unnerving.
Louise was off, as was the cook, and Lizzie was joining friends at church. Mamah relished having just the five of them together. After breakfast there would be baths, and games, and dinner to think about later. It would give shape to the day. So many days had been shapeless lately.
She didn’t believe in making resolutions on January first, and she hadn’t uttered a real prayer for a long time. But she found herself grateful to be present at the table. It will be all right, she thought.
IN THE AFTERNOON, with Martha down for a nap and John playing next door, she put her feet up to peruse the events calendar in the Oak Leaves. When she spotted the notice WRIGHT TO SPEAK ON THE ART OF THE MACHINE, she felt a tingling all over. Her eyes flew down the column, searching for the location of his talk. She stood up in agitation then. Goddamn you, Frank. I can’t even read the paper.
Already she could feel the old cloud filling up her head.
1909
CHAPTER 7
April 12, 1909
Dearest Mamah,
We have survived another winter though it’s still frozen here, and I find myself rounding out. I know I am entirely too old to be bouncing another child on my knee. But here I am (happy to boot), due in late September. I’m not looking
forward to a summer of confinement, though, as Alden is away much of the time. How did I overlook that little detail when I agreed to marry a mining engineer?
That’s where you come in. Why don’t you and the children come out for a visit? Boulder is the most beautiful spot on earth in summer. There are outings by rail into the mountains to collect wildflowers, and plenty of interesting lectures over at the Chautauqua camp. You would be entirely in your element. And we could have a grand time catching up. Say you will! I’ll make sure you have fun.
Give my love to Edwin, and ask his forgiveness in advance if I steal you away for a couple of weeks. Better still, tell him to come. Kisses all around.
Mattie
Mamah arrived in the field first. She maneuvered the Studebaker along the one road that led to the undeveloped lots just a mile north of town. She and Frank had met there twice the previous spring. The road was surprisingly dry for April.
She drove past the lampposts that had been installed last year in early summer but never lit. The poles were waiting for houses and people and lawns.
“Are you going to class?” Edwin had asked her this morning. He spoke carefully most of the time these days, uncertain what might set her off.
“No.”
“But I thought you loved it.”
She’d sighed. The thought of climbing on the elevated train and getting out to Hyde Park, then sitting through a two-hour lecture, made her weary rather than eager, as she used to feel.
“Herrick bores me,” she said. “How is your grapefruit?”
“Dandy.”
“And work?”
“Wagner Electric still stands.”
“I’m sorry, Edwin. I haven’t asked you a thing about work. I know you’ve had contract negotiations, and I haven’t—”
“It’s all right.”
Mamah looked out of the dining room window. “It’s just that…the sky has been so gray lately.”
“Not today. You need to get out in the sun. It’s glorious out there.” He pecked her on the cheek and left.
When Mattie’s note had arrived that morning, Mamah was jubilant. She searched the newspaper for train schedules, even though it would be another month before she could leave. Around two, just as she sat down at her secretary to write to Mattie, Louise tapped on the door.
“Mr. Wright is here, ma’am. With another man.”
Mamah felt the pen in her hand start to quiver. She walked out into the living room to find Frank and the stranger staring at the row of stained-glass windows along the west side of the room. A wave of anger swept over her.
“The horizontal line is the line of domesticity, of course,” Frank was saying.
Mamah cleared her throat, and both men turned toward her.
“Mrs. Cheney,” Frank said, bowing elegantly. “Forgive us for intruding upon you. This is Mr. Kuno Francke, a visiting scholar from Germany.”
Francke bent low, then kissed her hand.
“He’s come from Germany to see my work. I’ve already traipsed him through three other houses. Do you mind if I show him around your home?”
“Not at all.” Mamah shot a furious look at Frank while Mr. Francke gazed at the ceiling.
“Mrs. Cheney speaks fluent German,” Frank said.
“Is that so?” the man said in a heavy accent. “Forgive me if I butcher the English, but I’m practicing. I am trying to convince your architect that his talents are wasted in America. The avant-garde in German architecture is head and shoulders above the Modern architects here. Except for Mr. Wright, who I think leads them all. He would be far better served to practice in Germany right now.”
“Well, I can’t think of a better place for him,” Mamah said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I was just about to get dressed to go out.”
When she headed to the hallway, Frank hurried to catch her. “Meet me in the field tonight. Nine o’clock. Will you?”
She didn’t answer him as she slipped into the bedroom and closed the door.
Batter my heart, three-personed God. Stop me in my tracks. Please.
Driving toward the north prairie, she found herself praying in sonnets. She looked around, half expecting to see a flash of bright light. But the sky was black and still.
As much as she could tell in the dark, no foundations had been dug since they had last met. The field remained as it had been, marked off by a few roads, laid out in a grid pattern.
Mamah thought about her departure from home.
“Meeting tonight,” she’d called out to Edwin. She wore a simple dress that was neither plain nor fine, a “meeting” dress.
“Go! Get out of the house and enjoy yourself!” he called back.
Now she sat alone in his car in the middle of a dark field. She knew what the prairie looked like by day—patches of grasses and trees. She and Frank had dared to lie there on the ground at sunset last summer. They had felt surprisingly safe, hidden in the maize-colored savannah, the smell of steamy earth wafting over them. But tonight, in the waning moon’s light, Mamah could see only the silhouettes of bur oaks spreading their ghoulish arms against the night sky.
It was nine o’clock, and Frank had not appeared. She was considering leaving when she saw the lights of a car turn onto the road leading to the development. A cold excitement swept over her, and she took a blanket from the backseat.
What if it wasn’t Frank? What if the developer had decided to come out to the field for some reason? How could she explain herself, sitting out here in the dark? She opened the door and slid from the driver’s seat, then hid behind the car, wrapped in the blanket.
Batter my heart. Batter my heart.
The car stopped twenty feet from where she stood. She peeked around the fender again and saw Frank leap from his car and race toward hers. Mamah stepped from behind the auto.
Frank didn’t speak to her at all, only held on to her, rocking her back and forth in his arms.
THEY SAT IN THE STUDEBAKER, looking out at the fields around them. Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness. In the dim light, she could discern green shoots pushing up through the brittle shafts of old grasses.
“You look so lovely right now.”
“Shhh.”
“I mean it.”
“Don’t try to charm me.”
“I thought you understood.”
“You could have sent some word, Frank. I’ve been living inside hell.”
“I wanted to come to you. There hasn’t been a day…”
Mamah felt something surrender inside. She took his hand and brushed her fingers over its familiar shape.
“She’s not going to abide by the agreement,” he said. “She’s off in her own world. Do you know how she spends her days? Filling a scrapbook with sentimental poems about fatherhood and clippings of the children’s hair. We have not shared a bedroom for over a year, yet she won’t hear a word about divorce.”
“It’s all so sad.”
Frank was silent. When he spoke, his voice was heavy with despair. “Henry Ford was at the studio this week. Monday.” He stared out the side window. “It was a disaster.”
“Why? What happened?”
“He set up a meeting about a country house. When he showed up, I simply…I couldn’t gin up an ounce of enthusiasm.”
She watched the outline of his face.
“It’s not the only commission I’ve lost lately. I’ve hit some kind of wall. I just can’t live this life anymore. There’s this awful doom I feel, that I’ll have to spend the rest of my days spitting out houses in Oak Park until I fall over at the table.” He emitted a grim sigh, tapped a finger on the steering wheel. “Strange, isn’t it, that I have a man of Henry Ford’s stature show up at my studio—that some recognition finally comes after all these years—and it means almost nothing.”
“I understand.”
“You know what’ll be built in this field someday? Little boxes iced with stucco that some horse’s ass will call ‘prairie houses.’ Complete with ‘Frank Lloyd
Wright windows’ bought for nothing from some cheap glass company in Chicago. Do you see the irony of it?” When he looked at her, she saw something new, a wounded outrage. “I’ve been a pariah in this town since I moved here, and now I’ve got imitators! They think it’s just a matter of stripping the frills off, like the dress reformers. The sons of bitches don’t have the intelligence to steal the right ideas.”
“Clients who understand will pay for the real thing, Frank.”
“You know what’s wrong?” He moved his fingers through her hair. “I want you, Mame. Next to me. I want to go out into the world and look at things with clear eyes, the way I did when I was twenty. I feel as if I’ve hardly lived. I need time away from here—a spiritual adventure—” He was quiet, as if calculating something. “Kuno Francke isn’t the only German who’s after me. There’s a printer in Berlin named Ernst Wasmuth. He does high-quality art books, and he’s convinced we could make good money by publishing a monograph of my work. It would be a statement of what I’ve done. Hopefully it will generate commissions. I don’t know. But I’ve talked to him about going over to Germany in August.”
“Nobody is doing the work you do, Frank. A monograph is your ticket to an international reputation,” she said. “You have to go. It’s the next step for you.”
“You don’t understand. It will be enormous work getting the renderings ready. I could be gone a year.”
Inside her, sorrow was rising like a wave. She crossed her arms, pressed her fingernails into her flesh.
“Come with me, Mamah. You love Berlin—you’ve told me so. Take a holiday—women take tours all the time. Call it what you want. Just stay a couple of months so we can be together. We could give it a try and see if it works.”
“If only it were that simple.” She shook her head. “In a way, it’s easier for you that Catherine knows. I nearly told Edwin, but when you didn’t contact me, I backed away from it.” Mamah felt hot salty tears seep down her cheeks and into her mouth. “I thought you didn’t want me anymore.”
