The night before their flight, Ellie and Georgiana spent the night with Vanessa in New Jersey, their first visit since they’d helped her move into the town house back in February.
The next morning, as the plane lifted off the runway at Newark Airport, Vanessa found it somewhat unbelievable that they were really on their way to Montana. With the last eight months of her life consumed with the dissolution of her marriage, selling her home, finding a new home for herself and her daughters, and trying to bring some semblance of normality to their lives, the trip to Montana had seemed like an abstraction. Something that might someday happen.
Vanessa read during the first segment of the flight out of Newark while her sisters dozed. They ate lunch during their two-hour layover in Salt Lake City.
Vanessa found herself nodding off before the flight out of Salt Lake City had even left the ground and was as soundly asleep as one could be on an airplane when Georgiana shook her arm. “Nessa,” she said. “You’ve got to wake up and look out the window.”
Vanessa dutifully leaned across Georgiana. “Oh, my God,” she said as she stared down at the most incredible landscape she’d ever seen. She’d driven through the Alleghenies in West Virginia and flown over the Appalachians on the way to Chicago, but those mountains didn’t even begin to compare with the endless landscape of towering, snowcapped peaks she was looking at now. These mountains were beyond steep, beyond rugged. They were daunting beyond belief with a beauty so awesome and timeless that the incredible panorama they formed brought reverent tears to Vanessa’s eyes.
The plane wasn’t full, so she found a window of her own. For the first time since she’d reluctantly agreed to this trip, she actually felt glad. And there hadn’t been much gladness in her life since Scott left. Mostly she’d experienced fear and sorrow and anger and a sense of loss that she suspected would be with her to some degree for the rest of her days—even if she fell in love with another man and created a new life for herself.
Maybe Montana’s spectacular beauty would provide a bit of sustenance for her empty, tired spirit.
Thirteen
AS she walked down the ramp at the Helena airport, Georgiana felt both excitement and apprehension. Apprehensive that Henrietta Polanski might not be their Hattie. And while the photographer in her had been thrilled by what she’d seen out of the airplane window, she worried that she wasn’t skillful and talented enough to capture Montana’s awesome beauty.
As they headed for baggage claim, Ellie tugged on Georgiana’s sleeve. “Look,” she whispered, and nodded in the direction of a lean, underforty guy wearing a cowboy hat, cowboy boots, faded jeans, and a worn leather vest. “Have you ever seen anything so gorgeous?”
By the time they had retrieved their luggage and rented a vehicle, Ellie was all but swooning. There were cowboys—or at least men dressed Western attire—all over the place. Old cowboys. Young cowboys. In-between cowboys. When a well-worn saddle came around the luggage carousel, a guy who could double for the Marlboro Man grabbed it and hoisted it onto his shoulder.
“I’ll bet not one of them is gay,” Ellie observed in a reverent voice.
“Probably not,” Georgiana observed, “but that most likely means they probably already have a woman in their life.”
As Vanessa drove their rented van through Helena’s generic downtown, Georgiana was a bit disappointed. She had expected hitching posts, wooden sidewalks, and a saloon or two. But the mountains that encircled the city were impressive. “I hope we have enough time to find Hattie and take in all the scenery,” she said.
After they checked into their hotel they drove around a bit, checking out the impressive state capitol with its copper-covered dome, and determining which of the buildings in the capitol complex housed the Montana Historical Society.
Like dutiful tourists, they ate barbecue in a restaurant made of fake logs. When they asked their waitress how to spend the rest of the evening, she directed them to the Lewis and Clark Casino.
As Georgiana looked around the garish casino, she wondered what the two explorers would have thought of having their legendary names affixed to such an establishment.
Ellie decided she would just “wander around a bit,” which Georgiana interpreted as “check out the guys.” She and Vanessa decided to head for the slot machines.
“Do you ever get lonely for a man’s company,” Georgiana asked her older sister as they wound their way through the crowded casino.
“Right now, I’m still licking my wounds,” Vanessa admitted. “Besides, if someone as young and glamorous as Ellie can’t find a man, I don’t like my chances of finding a sweet, considerate, industrious man who isn’t thirty years my senior.”
“Yeah, but at least a guy’s sperm count isn’t a major issue for you like it is for Ellie.”
Vanessa laughed and linked arms with Georgiana. “Well, I am still of childbearing age, but probably I’m never going to have another kid. I would be an excellent aunt, though, should either one of my sisters ever produce a child. What about you and Freddy? Think you two will ever get married and have a kid or two? Or not get married and have a kid or two?”
“Not anytime soon. Maybe never. I can’t see myself getting frantic about having a baby like Ellie is, but maybe the alarm on my biological clock will start ringing one of the these days. Who knows?”
“‘To each according to his needs,’” Vanessa said. “Or in your case, her needs.”
“Who said that?”
“Karl Marx.”
“What did he know about having babies?”
“I have no idea.”
Georgiana regarded Vanessa. She had changed since Scott left. Not only was she leaner and tanner, she was quieter and more introspective. “I’m glad we’re taking this trip together,” Georgiana said, and squeezed her sister’s arm. “The three of us haven’t seen much of each other lately.”
“That’s the whole point. Our mother is trying to manipulate us from afar.”
“Well, I’m glad she is,” Georgiana said as she pointed to two empty seats in front of quarter slot machines.
They hurried to the seats and agreed they would limit themselves to twenty dollars each. Georgiana immediately won a hundred-dollar jackpot. Vanessa used up her twenty dollars within minutes and watched Georgiana play until her winnings were gone. Then they went in search of Ellie.
Ellie was sitting at the bar with a nice-looking man in jeans and boots. When she saw them coming, she immediately slipped off the stool and headed in their direction.
“Are we interrupting something?” Vanessa asked.
Ellie rolled her eyes. “He thinks that gays go straight to hell and women should not work outside the home.”
After a nightcap in the hotel bar, they turned in for the night. Georgiana couldn’t sleep. On one hand, she found herself imagining a sweet, poignant scene in which the Wentworth sisters meet Hattie for the first time. But what if they came all this way only to discover that the woman named Henrietta Polanski hadn’t had a baby sixty-two years ago and could not possibly be their father’s mother?
Georgiana watched a group of schoolchildren petting and even talking to a huge stuffed buffalo that greeted those who climbed the steps to the second-floor reading room at the Montana Historical Society. She was growing increasingly nervous as she and her sisters waited to meet Janet Jordan, the archivist who’d told her that a woman named Henrietta Polanski had once been incarcerated at the state prison in Deer Lodge.
Georgiana stole a sideways glance at her sisters. Vanessa was watching the children. Ellie was listening to cell phone messages.
Ellie was wearing her notion of Western attire—a black-velvet, Western-cut jacket with a longish denim skirt and some New York designer’s version of cowboy boots in cherry-red leather.
Shortly an attractive woman in a navy pants suit and carrying a manila folder started up the steps. She paused at the top of the staircase and smiled when she spotted the three women. “You must be the Wentworth si
sters.”
As she seated herself at the table, she asked, “Which of you is Georgiana?”
Georgiana nodded and, taking note of the Ph.D. following the woman’s name on her name tag, introduced her sisters and thanked Dr. Jordan for agreeing to help them.
“Don’t get your hopes too high,” the archivist warned as she placed the folder on the table. “As I told Georgiana on the phone, most state prison records are destroyed. The ones we do receive are culled of material that has no historic significance. But we have hung on to the questionnaires that prisoners were asked to fill out when they arrived at the Deer Lodge prison because they offer an overview of the prison population through the years and have proven useful to numerous researchers.”
Georgiana watched while Dr. Jordan opened the manila folder and carefully removed three sheets of fragile, yellowing paper. “This is the questionnaire that Henrietta Polanski filled out,” the archivist said.
Vanessa moved from the other side of the table so the three of them could examine the pages together.
Georgiana saw that Henrietta had not given her middle or maiden name and had skipped more questions than she answered. She gave her age as sixteen and claimed to be in good health, and—in spite of her young age—to be a widow.
“She was awfully young to be in prison,” Georgiana observed.
“Yes,” Dr. Jordan acknowledged, “but not unheard of back then or now.”
Henrietta’s place of birth was Coal Town, which Dr. Jordan explained was a small mining community in the south-central part of the state. Henrietta Polanski also listed Coal Town as her place of residence prior to her arrest and incarceration.
As for her skills, Henrietta had checked sewing, cooking, ironing, and gardening. She did not check typing, dictation, operating a switchboard, dairy farming, and operating farm equipment.
Georgiana was disappointed to see that Henrietta had left blank the line for the name and address of her next of kin.
“Do you know why Henrietta was in prison,” Georgiana asked, “and how long she was there?”
Dr. Jordan shook her head. “I was unable to discover why she was incarcerated, but I did find some of the prison’s monthly censuses and know that Mrs. Polanski was incarcerated at the Deer Lodge prison for at least one year. Unfortunately, though, we’re missing several years’ worth of the censuses, and she could have been there longer. What I would suggest is that you visit Deer Lodge, which is only about an hour’s drive from Helena—a bit longer if you take the scenic route—and see if you can track down anyone who worked in the prison while Henrietta Polanski was there. They might remember a prisoner who had a baby if indeed this woman is the person you are looking for. I’ve been working with a resident of the town—a man named Franklin Webster—who is writing a history of Deer Lodge. I told him about you ladies and your search for your grandmother, and he said he’d be glad to lend a hand. Also you might want to visit Henrietta Polanski’s hometown in John Coulter County. It’s a longer drive than to Deer Lodge but still doable as a day trip from Helena.
“If the criminal act that led to her incarceration was committed in John Coulter County,” Dr. Jordan continued, “she would have been tried in Hayes, which is the county seat. You should be able to find the records of her trial at the county courthouse along with her birth certificate—and her marriage license, too, if she got married in the county. And most likely you also can read about the trial in the archives of the local newspaper.”
Dr. Jordan paused and folded her hands in front of her. “I realize that the three of you have undertaken this search for sentimental reasons. But if this woman does turn out to be the mother of your father, before you go any further in your investigation, you need to realize that the details of her life might be distressing to you. Whatever her crime was, it would not have been a minor one if she was incarcerated at a state penitentiary. Sometimes it’s best just to let sleeping dogs lie.”
Fourteen
WHILE Ellie inspected the large statue of a bison skull mounted in front of the historical society building, Georgiana used her cell phone to call Franklin Webster in Deer Lodge, and Vanessa used hers to call the high school librarian in Coal Town.
“Mr. Webster says that he’s been looking for an excuse to play hooky this afternoon,” Georgiana said. Then she sighed. “I hope you guys won’t be mad at me if this turns out to be a wild-goose chase.”
“Don’t be silly,” Vanessa said, linking arms with her baby sister. “Hattie is just an excuse to take a trip, and no one’s going to be mad at you if we don’t find her. Isn’t that right, Ellie?”
“Sure,” Ellie said with a shrug, “but it’s going to be hard to write something publishable about a wild-goose chase.”
In less than an hour they’d reached Interstate 90, which took them into Deer Lodge, a town of three thousand according to the directory on the back of the map. They stopped for lunch at a roadside restaurant on the outskirts of town and got directions to the old prison from their waitress.
The town had an Old West look to it with many vintage buildings still in use along its broad main street. The former prison looked like a medieval fortress complete with stone walls and turreted towers. A tall, thin man in his sixties wearing faded jeans and worn cowboy boots stepped forward as they approached the front gate.
“You must be the sisters from New York,” he said with a glance at Ellie’s outfit. “I’m Frank Webster.”
Georgiana introduced herself and her sisters. “I can’t tell you how much we appreciate your taking the time to help us.”
“Well, anyone who’s interested in the history of Deer Lodge is a friend of mine,” Frank Webster told them.
He explained that he’d lived in Deer Lodge all his life. His day job was running an abstract company but his passion was local history.
He took them on a tour of the prison, which was now a museum, showing them the stark cellblock and the underground hole where prisoners were kept in solitary confinement. He explained that the facility had held both men and women prisoners until it was closed in 1977. Prior to 1963, the women were housed in a building that eventually became a maximum-security facility for male prisoners.
Ellie asked him to describe the life of a female prisoner.
“They worked,” he said with a shrug. “They ran the prison laundry, scrubbed floors, washed windows, baked bread, cooked, sewed and mended, and maintained a vegetable garden.”
Vanessa took in the twelve-foot-high walls that had once separated prisoners from the rest of the world. Had their father been born inside these walls? And even if he had been, what relevance did that information have to her life or those of her sisters? It would be an interesting tidbit to drop into a conversation, she supposed. My father was born in a Montana prison. But as the archivist in Helena pointed out, Henrietta Polanski’s crime must have been serious for her to have been incarcerated here. Probably her prison record and the nature of her crime were things she allowed to be buried and forgotten with the passing years.
“I’ve checked around to see if anyone knows of a former prison guard from that era who still lives around here,” Frank told them, “but I had no luck. That was a good many years ago, and probably most of them moved on after the Deer Lodge prison closed. But there is someone here in town you need to talk to.”
From the prison, they followed Frank to a nursing home on the outskirts of town to meet one of the community’s oldest citizens. Mildred Fisher was the daughter of a family physician who had looked after the citizens of Deer Lodge from 1924 until his death in 1970, Frank explained as they walked down the wide hallway. Several residents in wheelchairs watched them walk by. An elderly man wearing a pair of overalls winked at Georgiana. She smiled and winked back.
They found Mildred Fisher in the parlor. Also in a wheelchair, she was sitting with several other residents in front of a large-screen TV tuned to a soap opera. Her face lit up when she saw Frank, and she reached for his hand.
Vane
ssa had never seen a person with so many wrinkles. Mildred had wrinkles on top of wrinkles. Even her sags had wrinkles. What little hair she had left hovered over her scalp like a white cloud, and she suffered from a palsy that caused a continuous bobbing of her head.
“Mildred is my best girlfriend,” Frank told the sisters. “She has lived in Deer Lodge her entire life, has an amazing memory, and has been gracious enough to allow me to pick her brain.”
Frank wheeled Mildred into a small sitting room with numerous overgrown philodendron vines that crawled across tabletops, over bookcases, and along window ledges, giving the room A Little Shop of Horrors look. The four visitors drew chairs in a semicircle around Mildred’s wheelchair.
“These ladies have come all the way from New York City,” Frank explained. When Mildred cupped a hand around an ear, he raised his voice. “New York City. These three ladies are from New York City and would like to ask you some questions.”
Mildred scrutinized her visitors with a pair of faded blue eyes and began speaking in a quavering old-lady voice. “I used to have a postcard with a picture of the Empire State Building.”
Georgiana scooted her chair closer to the woman. “The Empire State Building is my very favorite building in the whole world,” she told the old woman, carefully enunciating each word in a voice that was just short of shouting. “I’ll send you another postcard with its picture on it just as soon as I get back to New York City.”
Mildred regarded Georgiana for a minute, then reached out and touched her hair. “Shirley Temple had hair like that.”
“Yes, I believe that she did,” Georgiana said. “Did you like Shirley Temple?”
“Oh, indeed I did. Little Miss Marker was my favorite of all her movies. She was left as an IOU at a gambling hall. Did you ever see it?”
“No, I didn’t. But I’ve seen photographs of Shirley Temple.” Georgiana moved her chair closer to the old woman. “Mr. Webster tells us that your father was the town doctor.”
Family Secrets Page 11
