The Daughter's Walk - Jane Kirkpatrick [76]
Through the Ramsdell Hotel window, I watched as the eastern sun slanted against the shingled roof of the North Pierhead Lighthouse on the Manistee River. If Olea and Louise had come with me, they’d have said the hotel could have been transported from London, with its carved stonework and Victorian design.
I made up the bed and imagined my mother working in this hotel before she went to work for the Doré family. I didn’t know if she ever had, but it was possible. I could see her mending torn sheets or adding lace to the edges with her fine stitching skills, maybe laughing with other domestics, speaking Norwegian when they were alone and good English when addressing the American guests coming to broker lumber in this town. My mother was fifteen. What passion must have roiled inside her and how frightened she must have been to discover herself with child. Her own mother would have been devastated, having prepared for her a more sophisticated life only to have shame scrape away the luster of a hopeful future.
What might my mother’s life have been like if she had not allowed this man to take advantage of her? Was she letting Ole take advantage of her now, silencing her?
For a moment I thought my search was foolish, not well thought out, with more potentially negative outcomes than positive ones. John Doré might have moved, left the name of his company behind. He might refuse to see me. It was a fluke I’d even learned his name, spoken in anger. And yet I wanted to see where I’d come from, to imagine what he might have given me that made me so different from my brothers and sisters, made me more Doré than Estby.
I finished with the curling iron, dressed, then slipped out of the suite, my gloved hand running smoothly over the glass doorknob. I walked down toward the shoreline where the Manistee River ran into the lake. The lighthouse sat on the north side of the river, and as I stood on the opposite shore, I thought of my mother waiting for me across the Dale Creek trestle. I always seemed to be on the opposite shore waiting for someone to call me to them. I listened for an inner voice, heard nothing, so moved forward on my own.
John Doré’s office nestled among trees, which struck me as fitting. Only one small window opened toward the street. Modest and quiet. I smoothed my skirt, pulled at threads, adjusted the collar of my linen jacket. For this occasion I’d worn my finest suit trimmed with female mink—light and soft pelts perfect for a spring morning in Michigan. Dignified, that’s the impression I wanted to leave with this man. Dignified and sufficient unto myself. Well, almost all of myself. I wore those hair extensions.
I stood for a time as the cab pulled away. I’d rehearsed various phrases. “I’m your daughter.” Much too direct, and yet that’s the line that came to my head first, followed by, “Why did you abandon my mother?” But I also wanted to see what my mother might have seen in him. Was he a vain man and she’d overlooked it? Was he a charlatan who fooled her into thinking that he loved her? Was he even aware of her circumstance? Would he deny any involvement at all? My throat felt sore.
I planned to ask about the timber holdings, make it sound like I was interested in investing in a business rather than in history that could transform my future.
I opened a door made of clear cedar, not a knothole in sight.
“May I help you?” A young woman’s voice came from behind a high desk. When she stood, I could see her head and bodice, but the wide plank counter still dwarfed her.
“I called earlier, to make an appointment to speak with Mr. John Doré,” I said.
She looked at her appointment book. “Gubner. I have it written here. You called for a Mr. Gubner.”
I’d borrowed Louise’s name, thinking not to put Mr. Doré off by seeing the name Clara Doré.
“I must not have been clear,” I said. “The appointment is for me.”
“Oh well.” She looked over her glasses