Finding Dorothy

by Elizabeth Letts

  CHAPTER

  25

  CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

  1898

  As the train rattled into Chicago, air filled with coal smoke hung yellow on the horizon, and the stench of the stockyards seeped through the windows. Still, when she passed the murky effluents of the Chicago River, Maud saw the late afternoon sunlight winking on the tall buildings and caught a glimpse of the crisp blue of Chicago’s Great Lake, and realized she couldn’t wait to get back to Humboldt Boulevard. As she exited the train station, the crowd surged around her, and she spilled out, along with the press of humanity, into the city where she now belonged.

  There was something else, too. Something that brought an extra bit of lightness to her step. Maud had realized while she was away that she was most likely with child. Deep in her heart, she imagined that she was nurturing a baby girl—a child to carry on her mother’s legacy.

  By the time she made it all the way back to Humboldt Boulevard it was past the boys’ bedtime, so she pushed the front door open quietly and tiptoed inside. To her surprise, she found Frank sitting in an armchair in the parlor, his long legs propped over one arm, a pad of paper balanced on his knees, the stump of his pipe clenched between his teeth, and a pencil in his hand. When he noticed her, he jumped out of his chair, knocking aside the pad of paper and sending it skidding across the floor.

  “You’re home, dear heart! I didn’t even hear you come in! Maudie darling, we’ve missed you. Was your trip all right?” He embraced her warmly.

  “It’s so good to be home,” she said, resting her head against his chest. “How are the boys?”

  “Oh, tip-top. We managed perfectly fine. Everyone made it through without a scratch.”

  “Without a scratch?” Maud said, smiling. “Well, that is rather a low bar.”

  Maud bent over to pick the pad up off the floor and saw that there were pages filled with his backhand scrawl. Frank reached out hastily, almost snatching it from her. He flipped the pad closed, as if he didn’t want her to see what was written there.

  “What is it, Frank?” she asked, now curious.

  Frank tucked the pencil behind his ear and grinned in reply. “It’s just the strangest thing. An idea for a story grabbed hold of me while you were gone. I’m writing it down as fast as I can.”

  “What’s it about?” Maud said, taking off her coat.

  Frank held out the pad so that she was able to read the title.

  “It’s called ‘The Emerald City’? Really, Frank?” Maud still blushed at the memory of their ride on the Ferris Wheel. “Is it about us?”

  “It’s about the most beautiful place you can imagine. A land of Aahs.”

  Maud smiled. “You mean the story about the boys’ block city?”

  “Better!” Frank said. “An enchanted kingdom. A land I’ve called Oz. O-Z. Oz.”

  Maud put her arms around her husband’s shoulders. “Oz may be beautiful, but I can’t imagine anyplace more beautiful than right here in our very own home.” She placed her hand over her lower belly and looked up at him through her lashes. “And soon we’ll be adding to our blessings.”

  “Are we truly expecting another one?” Frank said joyfully.

  Maud nodded shyly. “I think so, but it’s early yet.”

  “Oh, Maudie,” he said, drawing her close and kissing her long and deep. “This is such happy news! Another child! Perhaps a girl for our dotage.”

  Maud blushed with pleasure. “Perhaps.”

  * * *

  —

  IN THE FOLLOWING DAYS, Frank continued his frenzy of writing. She had never seen him so deeply absorbed, so absent. Day after day, Frank sat in the rocking chair in the front parlor, pencil in hand, a pad of lined paper in his lap, scribbling. And most days, he came home from work with pages to add to the pile. He wrote on any scrap of paper he could find: backs of envelopes, bills of sale, the blank flip sides of printed lists from Pitkin & Brooks with the inventory of china neatly printed on the front. At first, Maud tiptoed around him, careful not to disturb him, but soon she realized that he was so absorbed in his work that no amount of surrounding hubbub made the slightest dent in his concentration.

  One afternoon, when Maud had been out delivering her finished sewing pieces, she heard what sounded like a riot going on in the parlor. Peering through the doorway, she saw Frank Jr. and Robin, diving and dodging, engaged in a lively game of catch, Harry pounding out “Chopsticks” on the piano, and little Kenneth entranced in running a small metal fire truck back and forth across one of Frank’s long black shoes.

  “Children!” Maud said, clapping her hands to get their attention. “Your father is trying to concentrate. And no playing ball in the house. You’re going to break something!” All four boys froze at the sound of their mother’s voice, and even their calico cat looked up languidly from its warm perch in Frank’s lap, but Frank himself didn’t seem to notice her presence. He held his pencil in midair, eyes focused out the window. With his other hand, he absentmindedly stroked the cat. A moment later, he scribbled a few more words, and then blinking, as if he suddenly remembered where he was, he looked up at Maud.

  “Oh hello there, dear. Back so soon?”

  “Oh, Frank, I’ve been gone all afternoon. How’s the writing going?”

  “Splendidly!” he said. “I’ll be done with this story before you know it!”

  “But what’s it about?” Maud asked, wonderingly.

  “Well, it’s about a girl and her companions, and they’re on the move. It’s hard to explain, Maud, but it’s all in there.”

  “What’s all in there?”

  “Why—everything!” he said, grasping her hands and gazing into her eyes. “Our whole life and everything we’ve ever endured and imagined, all wrapped up and turned into make-believe, and—oh, I can’t explain it. But I promise you, by the time I’m done, it will all be in there.”

  In spite of Frank’s unbridled enthusiasm, Maud watched the mounting pile of scraps of paper, of penciled jottings, with a growing sense of concern. At Frank’s age, forty-two, it was a leap of faith, Maud knew, for him to try to return to the creative life. But, honestly, what would the book publishers think when her husband, a china salesman, showed up at their office, his briefcase filled with a manuscript scribbled on torn envelopes and the backs of shopping lists? Frank had been—well, not beaten down exactly, but certainly chastened by the ups and downs of their life together. And now, here they were—both of them—nurturing a small hope for something that had seemed too late to hope for. Just as she wanted to guard the small life blooming within her, Maud felt protective of her husband’s kind heart.

  * * *

  —

  MAUD LAY ON THE BED, staring at the ceiling. By turns she cried, then fell back to sleep. When Frank tried to console her, she turned her back to him; when he fetched the doctor, she told the man to go away. Maud had weathered it all—the hard days and the good ones, saying goodbye to Magdalena, the loss of her mother—but this loss, unimportant on the surface, just the barest promise of a new life, was the one she could not bear. Maud longed for her mother to come through the door, longed for the comfort of her snowy-white hair, her placid face. Matilda would have something to offer: a salve, a tincture, a soup, or a few words—something natural, something soothing. But now, the matriarch was gone and the flicker of hope for a girl to carry on her tradition had now been lost. Maud lay on her bed, her limbs heavy. The sunlight filtering through the curtains seemed insipid. Somewhere, in the back of her mind, she knew that she was no longer sick in body, just brokenhearted in spirit, but she could not bring herself to leave her bed. Frank brought her trays of food, looked after the children, and worried over her, but Maud did not yet have the heart to rejoin the land of the living.

  After about ten days, Frank came upstairs and sat down on the bed. For a long time, he stayed there without movin
g or speaking. Maud didn’t even turn to face him. He placed his warm, big hand gently on her shoulder.

  “Maud, darling. Dearest Maudie. Can’t you come back to us?”

  Maud lay with her back to Frank, staring at the patterned wallpaper, and said nothing.

  He kneaded her shoulder gently with his broad, strong thumb.

  “There is something I want to say to you, Maud.”

  Maud didn’t even look at him; she just made a soft sound to indicate that she was listening.

  “I know I’m not perfect, but I’ve tried to be a good husband to you.”

  Maud continued to stare into space. Her body felt heavy, weighted down.

  “I know you love the boys, but I wish I could have given you a daughter,” Frank said.

  Maud rolled over and looked at him. “A daughter was not yours to give.”

  “You Gage women, you are something else altogether, a force of nature. I feel so lucky that you came into my life. And I wanted to give you a daughter of your own, to carry on that legacy.”

  Maud pushed herself up and leaned against his shoulder. “Frank, you’ve given me everything I could hope for. And I had no right to pine for a daughter when I was given four beautiful, healthy sons—it’s just that Mother…”

  Frank waited as Maud struggled to find the right words.

  “Mother was certain that her spirit would live on in a girl child…and now it feels like the end of the line.”

  Frank reached out and squeezed her hand.

  “You remember how your mother always encouraged me to write? ‘Write those stories down, Frank Baum!’ You remember how she always used to say that?”

  Maud nodded, barely, keeping her eyes fixed on a crack in the plaster shaped like a flower that ran along a seam of the ceiling.

  “Well, I’ve named the girl in my story Dorothy.”

  Maud rolled over and stared at him. “Our Dorothy?”

  “It’s a story about hope. It’s a story about knowing that there is always someplace out there that is better. Dorothy is a Gage girl, like you, like your mother, like Magdalena. Brave, tenacious, tough.”

  Tears leaked out of Maud’s eyes and rolled down her cheeks. She made no move to brush them away.

  “I’m sorry I never gave you a daughter, Maud. This is the best I could do.”

  Maud looked into her husband’s gray eyes, noting the crow’s-feet that now encircled them, the graying temples. She leaned forward until their foreheads touched.

  “Our Dorothy is not made of flesh and blood,” he said. “She’s fashioned from words and paper, pencil and script. But she has one quality that no flesh-and-blood child has. She’ll never grow up. She’ll never grow old. She’ll always be with us.”

  Maud buried her face in her husband’s shoulder as he stroked her hair.

  He whispered in her ear: “I did the best I could.”

  * * *

  —

  IT WAS LATE ON a Friday afternoon in October when Maud finished up in the kitchen and came out to the parlor to find Frank slumped back in his armchair, staring into space.

  “Darling Frank, what is it?”

  He held up the short stub of pencil in his hand.

  “I’ve done it,” he said.

  “Done what?”

  “I’ve finished.”

  Suddenly he jumped up and flung his pencil into the air. It hit the tin ceiling and ricocheted off the lamp before coming to rest at Maud’s feet.

  “By golly,” Frank said. “I’ve done it. I’ve just written the words ‘The End’!”

  He was grinning like a small boy.

  “Now,” he said, “all I need to do is find a publisher, and what was just imaginary ramblings will sit proudly on our shelf. And if you want my opinion, I think we’re sitting on a future best seller.”

  That night, Frank went to bed early and fell into a deep and satisfied slumber, as if finishing his story had taken a weight from his mind. But Maud had trouble sleeping. Her own loss still ached deep within her. She’d do anything to spare her husband a similar pain.

  The next day, Maud stood at the parlor’s threshold, looking around anxiously to make sure no one was about. But she was being silly. Frank was at work, and the boys were at school. It was only her guilty conscience that made her fretful. Resolutely, she walked across the room toward the shelf where the ungainly heap of pads and stray papers known as “the book” was piled up in a haphazard manner. She flipped one of the pads open to a random page and began to read.

  Even with eyes protected by the green spectacles Dorothy and her friends were at first dazzled by the brilliancy of the wonderful City. The streets were lined with beautiful houses all built of green marble and studded everywhere with sparkling emeralds.

  Green-tinted spectacles? Sparkling emeralds? Vividly, she remembered the jeweled lights of the White City carpeting the ground beneath them as they swung aloft on the Ferris Wheel. Gathering up the rest of the pile, she settled herself on the sofa, bracing herself to start at the beginning and read straight through. She wasn’t eager to find out what other parts of their lives she might recognize in the story, but she felt it was her duty. If what he had written wasn’t good enough, she would let him down gently, save him from the struggle to find a publisher, and keep him from being embarrassed. She despised snooping on him and this wasn’t her habit, but surely, this once, she could do it for his own good.

  As she turned to the first page, she thought again of the view of the White City through green spectacles, and suddenly another memory came back to her from that night. After the Ferris Wheel ride, as they’d strolled along the promenade, what was it that Frank had said to her? She remembered now.

  If you could just try to have faith in me.

  The words came to her so clearly it was as if he were standing near her and spoke them aloud.

  She looked at the pile of papers in her lap with shame and then placed it gently back on the shelf, unread.

  * * *

  —

  FRANK SPENT THE NEXT COUPLE of weeks carefully recopying the jumbled manuscript, until at last he had a neat stack of pages. He tied it up with string and placed it in his briefcase. “Well, this is it. I start knocking on publishers’ doors today!”

  As the days passed, each time he pushed the door open in the evening, she studied his face, wondering what the day had brought. Every evening he said, “Not yet, dear heart. Not yet.” Until one day, about two weeks later, he burst through the door carrying a bouquet of roses and swept Maud up into a warm embrace.

  “I’ve done it!” Frank crowed. “I’ve found a publisher!”

  “Oh, Frank! That’s wonderful news!”

  “We just have to invest a small sum of money,” he said. “About two hundred dollars. To pay for the illustrations and printing, of course. You needn’t worry—” Frank interrupted himself, his words tumbling over each other in excitement. “We don’t have to come up with all of it. We can take out a small loan and ask the illustrator to pitch in half the money. We’ll earn it back before you know it, and probably make money to boot! Oh, and Maud!” he said, embracing her and twirling her around until they dizzily collapsed in a heap on the sofa. “It’s going to be a real, true book. With a cover, and pages, and my name on the spine!”

  “You have to pay them?” Maud said. “But why? Shouldn’t they pay you for all the work you’ve done?”

  “Oh, not to worry, darling. They will! They will! Royalties on every copy we sell. The investment is just to help the publisher defray the cost of the printing. It’s just a small company…” He stopped, and a flicker of worry crossed his face. “Tell me, darling? Do you think it’s too much?”

  In truth, when he’d said two hundred dollars, Maud had felt as if all the air had been sucked out of the room. The only money she’d set aside was intende
d for the boys’ Christmas presents. But every argument she could marshal and every doubt she would normally have expressed died on her lips. It was her turn to believe in him. To take him and his story on faith.

  * * *

  —

  AS CHRISTMAS 1899 APPROACHED, the last holiday of the century, Maud took an envelope out of the top drawer of her dresser and looked at its meager contents with dismay. Since emptying out her emergency fund to help Frank pay for the book, she had managed to pull together only three dollars and fifty-seven cents. Hardly enough to allow for a Christmas goose! Certainly not enough to purchase a single gift. Frank had told Maud repeatedly that initial orders for The Wonderful Wizard of Oz had been strong for the Christmas season. He was feeling hopeful. But that was his nature. And hope would not buy Christmas presents.

  When she saw little Kenneth, forehead puckered in concentration, carefully writing out a list for Santa in his childish blocky print, she finally had to say something. Tentatively, she asked, “Frank, what if you went to the publisher and asked for a little something to tide us over? If the orders are so good, surely they could spare a bit to help us through Christmas…? I remember my mother’s publishers sometimes did that.”

  “But, Maud, I can’t ask. They won’t give me money before the book’s even gone on sale. Once they’ve sold some copies, they’ll pay me.”

  “But the money we spent…” Maud said softly. “I haven’t been able to save much since. I just don’t want to disappoint the boys…”

  Frank looked so pained that Maud was sorry she had mentioned it. If they had no money for presents, they’d just have to find other ways to make the season festive. They’d done without plenty of times before.