I still had several years left of school, and this seemed far away to me, even if exciting, as Papa’s adventures tended to be. “I…I guess that sounds nice. But what about Battle Creek?”
“We’ll always keep our place in Battle Creek. That’s where it all started, and that’s where the Post Company headquarters will stay. But as I’ve said: there’s a big world out there. And I don’t need that Kellogg breathing down my neck, stealing my victories and claiming my credit.” Daddy shook his head once. “Wait until you see what I have in store, Budgie. I’ve bought us a fine piece of property, covered in big old trees, with a creek and plenty of land for horses and pastures. We’ll build a great house there. We can plan it and furnish it together—however you want it. We’ll make it as big as we can, so you’ll have room to grow. Start a family of your own someday. But not anytime soon, you hear?”
“Really?” I blinked, my mind spinning faster than our feet were dancing.
“Come over tomorrow and I’ll show you the designs. All right?”
“All right,” I said with a nod, my thoughts awhirl with the lively string music all around us. It wasn’t until after I had agreed that I realized Papa had not once mentioned Mother’s place in our new home.
* * *
Papa had finally given in to his friend Henry Ford and purchased one of those new driving inventions, an automobile, and so he arranged to send his chauffeur to pick me up at school and bring me the short distance to his brownstone on Vermont Avenue the next day, but the morning came so clear and unseasonably warm that by lunchtime I decided I’d like to walk.
I arrived to a quiet house. The servants were probably eating their midday meal, and Papa, not expecting me for another half hour, was likely out lunching with some influential senator or curious newspaperman. President Roosevelt had only just begun his first term, but Papa’s name was already being offered as the candidate to succeed him in the Oval Office. I couldn’t help but laugh at all of the attention, even as Papa good-naturedly dismissed such talk. He was eager to serve his workers and continue to invent foods and drinks that made Americans healthy and happy—he’d never once courted attention in the political arena. Still, it was fun to hear my daddy spoken of with the admiration I knew he deserved.
The house was dim and cool as I entered, the fires in the large fireplaces having sputtered to ash. I walked from the front foyer through the dark-paneled dining room and into the drawing room, where I saw papers strewn all over the velvet davenport sofa and oriental carpets. Papa was always writing down new ideas, penning editorials, concocting potential new recipes or inventions. But as I looked at these papers, I saw with irritation that they weren’t in Papa’s handwriting. “Leila,” I grumbled, recognizing her spidery script. In fact, the remnants of her Pears soap and cloying cherry perfume lingered in the room, even now. The woman had come to Washington with her servile smiles and overeager laughter to carry on her work as Papa’s secretary. And while I was grateful that I no longer had to see much of her now that I was living at the boarding school, I knew that she still spent plenty of time in Papa’s presence. Couldn’t she have cleaned up her mess rather than leaving this sprawl of papers all over his drawing room? Papa extolled nothing more than tidiness; he would not be happy to return to this. As I bent over to pick up the papers, I saw it, right at the top of one of them:
PETITION FOR DISSOLUTION OF MARRIAGE
The blood chilled in my veins. I blinked, staring in stunned silence at the words. The document was a long one, and I read on:
Claimant on the Suit: Charles William Post
There at the end was his familiar signature. Papa had signed the papers, and beside that there was another space, still blank. For Mother’s name.
Dissolution of marriage. Divorce. I’d heard the word before, though never spoken aloud by anyone close to me. Papa was going to sue Mother for a divorce? Would she agree? Perhaps she already had? No one had said a word to me. I could barely breathe, and my hand instinctively braced against the punishing boning of my stays, where my breath struggled in and out.
Divorce. Such a thing was unthinkable. The end of their marriage. The end of our family.
True, I had never known my parents to act lovingly toward each other. I’d never seen a gentle embrace pass between them, could not remember having heard one of them speak a tender word to the other. And yet, the idea of a divorce was incredible. Papa and Mother were staunch adherents of the Christian faith. How could he consider such a thing? I lowered myself to the sofa with a ragged exhale as the document slipped from my fingers, floating to the carpet.