“Your daddy earned his success because he never let anything—or anybody—get in his way. You are his daughter. And you’re absolutely right.”
I drew in a quick pull of air, noticing the way my chest seized.
“I’ll tell the board about your ideas,” my uncle went on. “But it sure is a shame that you can’t tell them yourself. It’ll be your smarts, after all, that will keep us afloat.”
There was work to be done closer to home, too, right there in the city where I’d chosen to raise our girls. I’d tossed out to Edna the idea of supporting a hospital, and now I found my chance to do something even better—becoming a volunteer at the Red Cross in Midtown. I went there every week and helped pack up surgical supplies, balance the ledgers with the donations that poured in, and roll gauze. Any free time that I had while sitting with the girls in the evenings beside the radio or in the mornings as I had my hair brushed and set, I’d knit socks, gloves, and caps for our soldiers overseas.
That spring found me working harder than I ever had in my life, and I was happier than I’d been in years, as well. Perhaps my sense of satisfaction came from Uncle Cal’s gentle but sure words of support. Perhaps it was kindled by the smiles of the Red Cross nurses I came to know, the women who served with quiet but capable expertise. Perhaps it was from the lively spirits of the two strong young girls I was raising.
In those busy but meaningful days, I began to understand, truly, the fierce and formidable power of women. Though we could not enlist and take up arms, I felt that I, and the many women around me, could have a direct hand in supporting this war abroad and keeping this country free at home. Though I could not vote for the president, though I could not even sit on the board of the company that bore my family’s name, I began to hope that, by the time my girls were older, these facts might change.
* * *
—
Late May found Eddie, the girls, and me back in Greenwich for a quick weekend trip. They were giving an early summer dance that night at the club, and so Eddie and I set out for the evening, leaving the girls at home with Pearcie for their supper and bedtime.
A waiter approached our dinner table a few hours into the party. “Mr. Close? Mrs. Close?”
“Yes?” Eddie lowered his glass of gin, seeming to note, as I did, the man’s tense expression.
“We’ve had an urgent telephone call from The Boulders. Your auto is being brought round to the front. It seems…a fire…”
Eddie and I bolted out of our seats. “The girls,” I groaned.
“To the car,” Eddie said, the tails of his coat flapping as his long-legged stride made directly for the nearest clubhouse door.
Our car raced along the dark country road, our chauffeur slowing only once we arrived back home to see The Boulders roiling in orange flames and smoke. “Dear God,” Eddie gasped. I didn’t wait for the driver or my husband to open my door, but grabbed my long skirts in my fists and charged directly into the melee.
The firemen had already arrived. I nearly collapsed in relief when I saw where Adelaide and Eleanor stood on the lawn, their little bodies huddled against Pearcie, shivering in their white nightgowns. Woofie sat dutifully between the girls, and he barked as I charged toward them. “Girls!” I pulled them into my arms, feeling the trembling of their soft bodies.
“Mother!” They had been crying. I pulled back to examine them from top to bottom; they were unharmed—but terrified.
Beyond them, the scene was chaos: the usually pristine lawn was littered with debris, a small mob of inquisitive neighbors watching as the shouting firemen scaled the three stories of our flame-licked house. Eddie was talking to someone, a neighbor whose face I recognized but whose name I couldn’t recall. I blinked, my eyes watering from smoke and shock as I tried to make sense of the mess around us. “Mrs. Close.” The chief of the firemen came toward me where I stood with the girls.
“What happened?” I asked the man, turning from the mayhem to look into his bloodshot eyes.
“Everyone is out and safe.”
“All the staff? The entire servants’ quarters?”
“All accounted for, ma’am.”
“Thank goodness,” I said, offering a weak nod. “And thank you.” I breathed in a gulp of the ashy night air and then immediately regretted it as a cough racked my frame. Once I’d cleared my throat, I simply stared, my focus blurred by my watering eyes, by the scrim of warm smoke that hung all around us, by the dazed, helpless feeling that filled me. “But the house…” I didn’t need to complete the sentence. The house was destroyed. Especially my daddy’s end, which looked like it was taking the worst of the flames.