The Life She Wanted: A Novel(58)

In the tenement building where Millie lived, three families shared the same bathroom. The stairs were rickety, and the windows didn’t latch properly. Millie and her children slept in one bed. Her husband slept on a cot in the kitchen.

Millie toyed with her soup. Her mouth turned down at the corners.

“We won’t qualify.” She shook her head.

“You’ve worked for William Corning for months; he’ll be happy to write you a letter.”

“I might not be able to work there much longer. Last month I thought I was pregnant. I wasn’t, but it will happen soon enough. Then I’ll have to quit and stay home with the baby.”

“I don’t understand.” Pandora frowned.

“While my husband was injured, we didn’t . . . do that sort of thing,” Millie said, embarrassed. “Now Roy’s back is better, and he wants it every night. I’m bound to get pregnant, and he doesn’t have a job.”

Pandora was shocked. Millie had worked so hard to get where she was. She couldn’t lose it all now.

“You have to explain it to him,” Pandora urged. “He wouldn’t want you to lose your job.”

“He’s a man; he has needs.”

Pandora recalled the box with the Dutch cap that Virginia showed her last September.

“I have an idea,” Pandora said. “Let’s finish our lunch, and I’ll take you someplace that may solve the problem.”

They ate apple pie with ice cream for dessert, and then Pandora drove to Greenwich Village. She parked in front of a drab building with curtained windows. Two women in plain dresses hovered on the steps, and another woman carrying a small child walked through the door.

“Where are we?” Millie asked when Pandora squeezed the little car into a parking space.

“It’s a birth control clinic,” Pandora answered. “You’ll be outfitted with a Dutch cap, and then you won’t have to worry about getting pregnant.”

Pandora had read about birth control clinics in the newspaper. Margaret Sanger opened the first clinic a decade earlier and went to jail for providing a woman with a diaphragm. It was considered a crime to distribute anything that was considered “obscene.” Since then, the law had been repealed, and birth control clinics were springing up around New York. There was one in Brooklyn, and a few on the Lower East Side and Greenwich Village.

Millie’s eyes widened, and she gaped out the window.

“I can’t do that! What would Roy say?”

“He’ll be happy,” Pandora offered. “You already have three children, and he doesn’t want you to lose your job.”

“What if he can feel it? If it takes away his pleasure, he might look somewhere else.”

“How will you feed your children if you’re both out of work?” Pandora urged. “And apartments like this won’t become available often. Imagine how happy Thomas will be if he can play baseball anytime he likes.”

“Thomas would do anything to practice baseball,” Millie said longingly.

“And you can keep putting away money for Daisy’s college,” Pandora persisted. “At Christmas, she told me she wants to be a lawyer.”

Pandora had taken Millie’s children out to lunch before Christmas. Daisy was a bright ten-year-old who loved to read. Thomas was seven with Millie’s brown hair and freckles, and the youngest, George, was a fair-headed four-year-old with unlimited energy.

“All right, I’ll do it,” Millie agreed reluctantly. “I can’t tell Roy, though. He’ll think it’s unnatural.”

The waiting room held just a few hard-backed chairs and a chipped coffee table on a worn rug. A bowl of Mounds bars sat next to a vase of flowers. The other women waiting to be seen were as nervous as Millie. One seemed young enough to be in high school but had three children with her: two boys and a girl who couldn’t have been more than ten months.

Millie filled out some forms, and a nurse took her back to the doctor’s office. Pandora offered to accompany her, but Millie wanted to go by herself. When Millie emerged, she clutched a paper bag.

Pandora waited until they were outside before she said anything.

“You see, it took no time at all,” Pandora said cheerfully. “Send me Mr. Corning’s letter, and I’ll forward it to the developer.”

“I don’t know how to thank you,” Millie replied. “If it wasn’t for you, I’d still be putting in fourteen-hour days at the factory.”

They were about to get in the car when a man hurried down the steps of a brownstone. Pandora recognized the trilby hat and navy overcoat. It was Harley. She was about to call out to him when another man hurried down the steps. Pandora only saw his face for a few moments, but she recalled those long eyelashes and fair hair. Porter Merrill.

Harley had promised to be faithful. What was he doing meeting Porter at a brownstone in the middle of the day?

“Are you all right?” Millie’s voice came from far away. “You’re very pale.”

It took all Pandora’s strength to look away. Her mouth wobbled and her hands were shaking.

“I’m perfectly fine,” she said, reaching for the car door to steady herself.

Pandora took Millie to her office and drove back to Hyde Park. She couldn’t help thinking about Porter. How Virginia always commented on his good looks, the way Harley changed the conversation when Pandora mentioned him. The pains began as she turned off the exit. At first it came as a dragging feeling in her back, and she thought she had sat too long in the car. By the time she pulled into Summerhill’s driveway, the pains had moved to her abdomen.