The Daughter's Walk - Jane Kirkpatrick [129]
Olea winced. “I’m so sorry you had to ask for help like that. If we had been there—”
“I didn’t mean that, really. It’s all forgiven, truly.”
She nodded. She too wished more than once she’d done something other than what she had.
“What sorts of collections did Mr. Depew have?” Louise asked, rescuing us from further painful reminiscence.
“Let me think. Something that belonged to President Lincoln, a coffee cup, I think. A pen from General Grant. Oh, and a letter supposedly written by Shakespeare to his publisher.”
“Depew was a senator for a while, you know. He must like singular memorabilia,” Olea said.
“Apparently,” I agreed.
I looked at the signatures. I looked at Olea.
“Do you suppose,” I said, my throat dry, “do you suppose he might be interested in purchasing famous signatures? From a remarkable walk?” I waved the list. “Like these?”
Olea grinned. “It wouldn’t hurt to commit to trying.”
I might still be able to hang on to my ring.
Mr. Depew paid us well for the signatures. He planned to have them framed and hang them in his office with a tiny brass plate saying they came from “The Women Trekkers of 1896: Spokane to New York City.”
“You can do what you want now with the money,” Louise said when I told them. “You don’t have to work at Merchants.”
“I like my employment,” I said. “It’s honest work, and I do it well.”
“Then you can take a trip, go to Montreal as Franklin’s always asking you to do,” Olea said.
“The money belongs to all of us,” I said. “I’ll give some away. Louise, you get a shopping trip. And Olea?”
“Until we have universal suffrage, there’s still work to do.”
“We’ll make a contribution to suffrage ratification and to the refugee fund too. And I’ll find a way to give some to my mother.” I wasn’t sure how. “Maybe through the carpenters’ union. I’ll ask Marion Doré to make sure she gets it. She need never know.”
And one day, when I heard the Voice say, This is the way, I’d take a step toward reconciliation, a word Reverend Emma Wells said meant “to regain.” Perhaps my mother had nothing to regain in seeing me again, but I did.
I invested the remaining money in what had nurtured me as a child: land.
I bought a house on Cleveland, a block from Fairview, with a nice backyard (and a close-by privy) and inside plumbing too, and we three moved into it. I believe that house helped us weather the terrible flu epidemic that swept across the country in 1918. None of us got sick; we were healthy enough to help our neighbors who suffered.
When the house next to ours became available, I purchased it as well. “I’ll rent it out to young families,” I told Olea, “and keep the rent low.” The upkeep and management of renters occupied me on Saturdays, and Olea enjoyed the work of repairing porch steps and painting fences while Louise bought material she turned into slipcovers and drapes. The real estate agent came to dinner often with new properties to invest in, and so I did, buying and selling, accepting an occasional loss but mostly modest gain.
In the new decade, with hemlines and hairstyles much shorter, we planned a trip—we added Franklin and Sharon—traveling to Paris and Sorrento and later to Norway, where Louise and Olea visited relatives. Franklin, Sharon, and I took a boat ride on one of the sparkling lakes near the women’s family home, and we returned refreshed from seeing other lives and ways. We even bought a settee and rocker from France and had it shipped back to Spokane. Olea said her sister would be proud that we found such a bargain.
Small goals accomplished with and for family were worthy, I decided.
Then one June day in 1924, I read the Spokane paper as I usually did and found a story that told me I had steps to take. The Voice I couldn’t hear but felt said, This is the way, walk ye in it. Walking. I’d spent my life walking toward goals and then away from them. Unlike my numbers and columns, this journey I couldn’t control. I swallowed. Would she acknowledge my existence, allow me back into their lives without requiring I set aside my