A tree grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith [118]
Sissy had had three husbands. There were ten tiny headstones in a small plot in St. John’s Cemetery in Cypress Hills, belonging to Sissy. And on each stone, the date of death was the same as the date of birth. Sissy was thirty-five now, and desperate about not having children. Katie and Johnny often talked it over and Katie was afraid that Sissy would kidnap a child someday.
Sissy wanted to adopt a child, but her John wouldn’t hear of it.
“I’ll not support another man’s bastard, see?” was his way of putting it.
“Don’t you like children, Lover?” she asked wheedlingly.
“Sure I like children. But they got to be my own and not some other bum’s,” he answered, unintentionally insulting himself.
In most things, her John was like soft dough in Sissy’s hands. But in this one thing, he refused to allow himself to be kneaded her way. If there was to be a child, he kept insisting, it would have to be his and no other man’s. Sissy knew he meant it. She even had a kind of respect for his attitude. But she had to have a living baby.
By chance, Sissy found out that a beautiful sixteen-year-old girl out in Maspeth had gotten into trouble with a married man and was going to have a baby. Her parents, Sicilians lately come over from the other side, had shut up the girl in a dark room so that the neighbors could not see her shame increase. Her father kept her on a diet of bread and water. He had a theory that this would weaken her so that she and her child would die in childbirth. Lest the kind-hearted mother feed Lucia during his absence, the father left no money in the house when he went to work in the mornings. He brought a bagful of groceries each night when he returned home and watched that no food was sneaked out and set aside for the girl. After the family had eaten, he gave the girl her daily ration of half a loaf of bread and a jug of water.
Sissy was shocked when she heard this story of starvation and cruelty. She thought out a plan. Feeling as they did, she thought the family might be glad to give away the baby when it was born. She decided to have a look at the people. If they seemed normal and healthy, she’d offer to take the baby.
The mother wouldn’t let her into the house when she called. Sissy came back the next day with a badge pinned to her coat. She knocked on the door. When it was opened a crack, she pointed to the badge and sternly demanded admittance. The frightened mother, thinking Sissy was from the immigration department, let her in. The mother could not read else she would have seen that the badge said “Chicken Inspector.”
Sissy took charge. The mother-to-be was frightened and defiant and also very thin from the starvation diet. Sissy threatened the girl’s mother with arrest if she didn’t treat the girl better. With many tears and in badly broken English, the mother told of the disgrace and of the father’s plan to starve the girl and the unborn child to death. Sissy had a day-long talk with the mother and Lucia, the daughter. It was mostly in pantomime. At last Sissy made it understood that she was willing to take the child off their hands as soon as it was born. When the mother understood finally, she covered Sissy’s hand with grateful kisses. From that day, Sissy became the adored and trusted friend of the family.
After her John left for work in the morning, Sissy cleaned up her flat, cooked a potful of food for Lucia and took it over to the Italian home. She fed Lucia well on a combination Irish-German diet. She had a theory that if the child absorbed such food before birth, it wouldn’t be so much of an Italian.
Sissy took good care of Lucia. On nice days, she took her out to the park and made her sit in the sun. During the time of their unusual relationship, Sissy was a devoted friend and a gay companion to the girl. Lucia adored Sissy who was the only one in this new world who had treated her kindly. The whole family (except the father, who didn’t know of her existence) loved Sissy. The mother and other children gladly entered into a conspiracy to keep the father in ignorance. They locked Lucia