Then one of them spoke. “Awfully early for you two to be out and about.”
“Bernie,” Evelyn breathed. “You scared us.” She looked to his left at Sam. “What are you doing here?”
“Bringing Vivie home,” Bernie said.
Evelyn felt a chill. Her mother had seen right through her agreement the night before. She wasn’t sleeping in the living room at all. They could have walked out the front door.
“I’m not a child,” Vivie said shrilly.
“Mama said not to let you on that train.” There was a mildly apologetic note in Sam’s voice.
“You two can’t be serious,” Evelyn said. “This is ridiculous. She’s twenty-one, for heaven’s sake!”
“Come with us,” Bernie said. “I’m tired and want to get some sleep. Be a good girl now.”
Vivie glanced at Evelyn, then tried to run past her brothers, but Bernie was quicker and caught her arm.
She fought back, hitting him in the stomach, but it was no use. Sam picked her up and carried her over his shoulder, as she kicked and yelled that she would never forgive any of them. He reached Bernie’s car, which he forced her into like a cat into a bath, while Bernie held off Evelyn, who fought to try to get to her sister.
“You get on home too,” Bernie called to Evelyn as he started the car. Evelyn stood on the sidewalk breathing heavily, her shoulders drooping.
Everyone was awake when Evelyn returned to the cottage, the residents of both houses crammed into the one. The murmured conversations ceased when she walked in, and everyone turned to stare. Fred took two steps toward her, but Evelyn could hear Vivie sobbing from upstairs, so she bypassed her family and went to her sister, knocking at the locked door and asking to be let in.
When the door didn’t open, Evelyn went to her own room, found a hairpin, and proceeded to pick the lock. Vivie didn’t even look up as Evelyn lay down on the bed beside her, where she stroked her sister’s hair.
Eventually Vivie’s weeping calmed enough for speech. “I’ll never forgive them for this,” she said hoarsely between hiccups.
“Of course you will.” Evelyn wiped her sister’s tears with her thumbs. “He’ll come here because he’ll have to see you, and once you have this whole thing tied up in a pretty little knot, you’ll be able to laugh about it.”
“No. I won’t forgive Mama.”
“I said the same thing,” Evelyn reminded her. “But, darling, look at how things worked out.” She touched her stomach instinctively. No one knew yet. Not even Fred. And she wasn’t really sure. But she’d never been this late before either.
“You think he’ll come?” Vivie’s voice was barely a whisper.
“I know he will.” She paused. “Okay, he might be annoyed you didn’t come and make you wait a week or two because he thinks if he beckons, even the Messiah himself should show. But then he’ll come.”
Vivie started to cry again.
“Oh, darling, I was joking. He’ll come. I promise. Just give him a little time. Men get so wounded when they don’t get their way. But you tell me what to say, and I’ll send a telegram so he knows you weren’t standing him up.”
Having this project settled her, and Vivie went through four drafts before handing Evelyn a paper with a message.
“Come down to breakfast?”
“No. I couldn’t eat. And I want nothing to do with them.”
Famished, Evelyn left her sister and went to face her mother’s wrath in exchange for some eggs, toast, and coffee.
Evelyn dutifully went to the Western Union office and sent George the telegram after breakfast, then returned to the cottage, where Vivie was still locked in her room. Remembering her own similar behavior, she whispered a quiet prayer that George would respond soon. While she had no doubt that her sister would wind up with as happy a resolution as she herself had, she wanted Vivie’s suffering to be brief.
When there was no reply, Vivie wrote a letter, filling pages and pages with her looping script.
Another week passed. Fred returned to New York, and Vivie moved into Evelyn’s room, her sister rubbing her back as she sobbed each night.
When they reached the day Evelyn was due to leave, she called Fred to explain she couldn’t come home yet. He agreed, albeit with a sigh, that she should stay another week to comfort Vivie. When she did return to New Rochelle, it would have to be via train, as Miriam insisted Fred take his car with him or Evelyn could not stay. She knew her daughters, and, with a car at their disposal, the two would have made a nighttime escape to New York.