Free Together Apart by Dianne Gray

visited the resting room the Wednesday after it opened, Joey and Megan in tow. "Had to see for myself that this is a safe and wholesome place," she'd whispered. Her stay was brief because she didn't want to keep Papa waiting, though Eliza did manage to send her off with several issues of the gazette. I had no idea that Mama had read them until the day she surprised me with a second visit. She'd come into town not with Papa but with the Zellers. Most surprising, she had left all the children at home. Mama discussed with Eliza the price she should charge for her cross-stitched gingham aprons, then asked if I could spare a few minutes from my work for a private word in my room. Madeline Moore's watchful portrait eyes seemed to follow us as we passed down the main hall and started up the stairs.
    Once we were sitting on the edge of my bed, Mama turned to me and said, "I've been reading those gazettes, and what's in them is fine and good, for grown women, city women, but you're little more than a girl, Hannah. Promise me that this is as far away from me as you're planning to go, at least until you're old enough to know your own mind."
    "You needn't worry, Mama. I'm perfectly content here at Eliza's."
    "You've never been content, Hannah. You've been moving away from me, moving toward some faraway place ever since you began to crawl. And worrying is what mothers do. You'll know what I mean when you have children of your own. Now, I've got to have your promise, Hannah."
    "I promise this is as far as I'll go, Mama." I hadn't given a moment's thought to moving on, but, once made, the promise felt like a too-small and scratchy wool coat.
    My promise tucked up her sleeve like a handkerchief, Mama was full of chatter. Papa had finished planting the corn, her snap beans were coming up, Lila had broken one of her best teacups. It was the first time in my memory that I'd had Mama all to myself for more than just a few minutes, and I paid extra attention to the strands of gray that laced her dark hair, the garden scent of her, the warmth that filled the space between us, so I could imagine her into my room whenever I was lonely for her.
    After a bit, Mama ran out of homey news and shifted her talk back to me. "What kind of a life do you imagine for yourself, when you're grown, that is?"
    If she had asked me this question before the blizzard, I might have answered that my dream was to set off walking and not stop until I'd called out my name from a mountain peak, danced circles in a dense forest, and wet my feet in an ocean. That dream being dead and buried, I gave Mama the safe answer—that I hoped to marry a fine young man. I ached to tell her that Isaac Bradshaw might be that young man. Ached to ask her if she thought Papa would ever approve. But I knew I couldn't and Papa wouldn't.
    Papa had also begun coming to Eliza's. He'd pull his wagon into the drive, drop off Mama or Hester or Lila and the goods meant for the market. When he returned, I'd bring him a glass of ice water, and if there was a strawberry pie or chiffon cake or other delicacy among that day's freewill donations, I'd offer my share to Papa. His stomach seeming to be in greater need of feeding than his pride, he never turned me down. Thinking that perhaps he was softening toward me, I'd once slipped a dollar from my wages in with the money Mama had earned from the market, but Papa, with his quick mind for numbers, saw that the item-by-item receipt didn't add up. He thrust the dollar back at me and then drove off. One step forward, two back. I hadn't tried that particular trick again, but I was still saving my money, hoping for that day in the future when Papa was ready to accept my wage, ready to forgive.
    I'd spent only twenty cents of my savings on myself—for two months' dues in the Working Girls Social Club. Though the club met Wednesday evenings in the resting room, I chose to pay my way like the others. There were nine of us, all farm girls working for families