The Daughter's Walk (49 page)

I rolled the Reverend's words over in my mind as I took the streetcar home. I'd accepted Ida's version of my mother, but I hadn't seen her for myself for nearly twenty years. As an opening perhaps I'd take to my mother my packet with the newspaper clippings, the signatures, those few sketches I'd made. Maybe seeing the old articles would encourage her to write the story down in secret if she hadn't already; maybe it would let her see how important the walk had been for me and for her and for other women too.

Or maybe the articles would open old wounds, as Ida suggested, where flesh had already grown over and was best left alone.

We'd lived on Fairview over a year when I learned of an opening for a clerk at a finance company, the Merchants Rating & Adjustment firm located in the realty building near Riverside and Main. I applied, and though I was a little disconcerted by the work they did—collecting from people who could not pay their debts—it paid so much better than the serving job, and physically, it wouldn't drain me. At least I hoped it wouldn't.

“You won't be asked to make collections,” Mr. Oehler, the manager told me. “That task is reserved for men. It's not the sort of thing a woman could handle. But I need a clerk, a good stenographer, and you've had classes at Blair Business College, I see.”

“Some years ago, but yes.”

“And what have you been doing since then?”

I cleared my throat.
If I tell him I've been destitute, will that disqualify me?
“Working in the furrier industry,” I said. “Assisting businesswomen from New York who moved here. I kept their accounts for many years.”

“That's good. You have business experience. You've never been sent to collections?” I shook my head. “No foreclosures in your past?”

“Not in my past, no,” I said.

“And right now you're …?”

“A waitress at the Davenport.” He frowned. “To supplement my other work,” I explained. “I like to pay cash for everything.”

“That's good. You have a family?”

“I'm not married.”

“Well, I know that. I wouldn't interview a married woman. Married women belong in the home. I meant, will anyone be distressed if you're asked to work late?”

“I live with two friends,” I said. “If I'm needed to work late, I can arrange that.” It was good to consider that I had others who might “be distressed” over me.

“Very well. I think you'll find our industry quite intriguing, Miss Doré. We're good for this country. We help people be accountable and thus become good citizens. Their lives have less pressure when they pay their bills on time. It's good they learn that.”

“ ‘Nothing strengthens the judgment and quickens the conscience like individual responsibility,' ” I quoted.

“That's good,” he said. “Very good.”

“A suffragette said it years ago.” He might as well know that I could be outspoken.

“Are you one of that ilk?” he asked.

I had not yet registered to vote. “I believe individuals ought to have the right to pursue their dreams and live with the consequences of their decisions, whether men or women.”
I sound like my mother
. “If that makes me of that ilk, then I guess I am.”

He grinned. “My wife says the same thing.” He wagged his finger at me. “She'll be pleased to know I'll be kept in line during the day.”

And so our lives went forward one step after the other.

Louise became neither better nor any worse but continued her daily devotional ritual, finding new insights every day. The three of us shared the household tasks, took occasional weekend camping trips to
Coeur d'Alene Lake, and sometimes rode the train back to Coulee City to visit the town and tell our old friends hello. We attended the big rodeo in the fall, sang Christmas carols in December, and watched with interest the smaller fur auction in January just to see how things had changed.

Steady work gave me confidence, and I found I liked the duties, keeping track of numbers and accounts, taking dictation, and having my suggested wording be well-received by my employer. I looked forward to the evenings, reading and listening to the new radio Olea had purchased. I thought about contacting my other family. I really did. But I couldn't find the steps to take me to their door.

America entered the war then, in the summer of 1917, and we each involved ourselves in the women's clubs raising money for refugees in Europe. Olea attended suffrage ratification meetings and told me that four women were arrested in front of the White House for picketing in support of the suffrage vote—Washington women had the vote, but only fourteen other states had adopted it. The three of us went to see
The Butcher Boy
with Buster Keaton. In all the shopping, traipsing around Spokane, and riding the streetcar, I never once caught a glimpse of my mother or sisters or brothers.

“I wish there was a way to get a little more money so we could purchase a rental,” I told Olea. I put my colored stamps into the book, having solicited neighbors and office mates to share their canceled stamps with me.

“What would you do with it? We're comfortable,” Olea said.

“Enough is as good as a feast,” I said.

“Well, yes it is,” Olea agreed.

“I wish we could own this house we live in so no one could evict us. I wish we could buy a few other properties where rent would make the
payments. We could keep the rents low, for young couples with families, but those would be good investments. You have to keep making money grow,” I said.

“You never rest, Clara,” Olea said, but she smiled.

“I'm still young,” I told her. “I'd like to travel. We never did get the trip all of us hoped to make.”

“No, we didn't.”

“Even Louise last week told me that the scriptural phrase ‘commit thy works unto the L
ORD
' is yet another command that turns out to be a promise as well, that one day we'll all commit.”

“The rest of that Proverb is ‘and thy thoughts shall be established.' ”

“I guess if we're to take another trip one day or have funds to help out others, we'll have to commit,” I said. I put the stamp folder into my packet with the articles and the sketch of the Dale Creek trestle I'd made those years before. I looked over the signatures again. “It really is amazing that we got these signatures,” I said. “The Governor of Idaho. President-elect McKinley. Mama got Mr. Depew to sign it too. He said he'd buy the first book, which, of course, we never wrote.” I proclaimed, as Mr. Depew had: “ ‘The first step toward getting anywhere is to decide you're not going to stay where you are.' He told us that when my mother and I sat in his office looking at his glass cases of collections and begging for train fare.”

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 friends? It was time to find out.