The Road Taken (3 page)

Chapter Three

Celia was a pragmatist. She had always been one, since she was a little girl and saw her brothers getting everything she wanted and couldn’t have by virtue of the simple fact that they were male. It had been made clear to her and her sister that if they wanted anything they would have to marry it, and that the career of marriage would be hard work, which they would have to be very good at. So when Celia was eighteen she married Joseph Kisler, the baker. She wasn’t in love, but he was a good-looking man, and a generous one, who would give her the material comforts she needed. She wasn’t sure if she had dreams of a more exciting life; perhaps she’d had them once, but by the time she was married and had her son, Alfred, Celia realized she would probably never go farther from her town than on the train trip to Providence or the ferry to Boston, and that these trips would have to provide her with conversation for a long time.

When her husband died of a heart attack, Celia was surprised, shocked even, to find herself so suddenly bereaved; but what surprised her even more was how quickly she got over her grief. It took her two weeks, although she wore mourning for a year. She realized that reminding everyone that she was a widow would make her seem more mature, because now she had to manage the bakery, a woman in commerce.

She had seen her husband keeping his ledgers and accounts, and she knew he ordered and paid for supplies, but no one had taught her how to run a business, just as no one had taught her the business part of running a home. She discovered she was levelheaded, and she learned these male duties quite quickly, realizing the alternative was disaster. When Joseph had been the baker and the bookkeeper no one could steal from him, but now Celia mistrusted everyone, even the new baker, who everyone said was honest as the day was long. What would they care if they were proven wrong?

She was twenty-three years old, a widow in black with a child to support. Little Alfred was her joy, her blood, and she knew he was the only person she had ever really loved because he
knew
she was important. To him, she was. The vulnerability of children goes a long way toward making their parents love them. Celia taught him good manners, respect, and confidence, and after a while she was thankful she’d had only one child, because providing for more would have been too much for her to handle all alone.

She knew that eventually she would have to remarry if she could, because a part of her wanted a normal family life and more children, with a father to support them; but for now she enjoyed meeting the people who came into the shop, giving them free cookies so they would think she was generous, chatting animatedly with the women and commiserating with them on their domestic troubles. Sometimes she thought she knew more news and gossip than was ever in the local newspaper.

Her brothers worked in the rubber factory, which made belting, packing, covered wire, and footwear. Now, for the first time, despite her constant anxiety, Celia felt that she had come to a better kind of life than her brothers had after all, because the bakery was clean and pleasant and quiet and smelled good, she didn’t have to do repetitive physical work since the baker actually made the bread and cakes, and she was making her own money, just as they were. Of course, it was hard to support a child and herself and pay a woman to look after that child, much more difficult than it had been for her husband when she had taken care of their home as unpaid labor. But she was her own master now, and it had its moments.

When Celia came out of mourning there was another expense: pretty clothes. Celia loved clothes, and she was aware that she had never been beautiful, so how she put herself together was extremely important to her. She began to realize there was another reason she was so attentive to her appearance; she missed and wanted the company of an admiring man. That meant only one thing: remarriage. She didn’t want to give up her new and hard-earned freedom, but, pragmatic as always, she knew that if she didn’t find another husband before she and Alfred were too old, she would be alone forever, working forever, worrying forever about expenses and about people cheating her, long after being a businesswoman was not fun anymore.

There were certain things to do if she expected to attract another man to marry. She attended church regularly, in case there was a God-fearing bachelor she had overlooked, she went to every town social event, and she went to the funeral of everyone in Bristol she had ever met, particularly if it was the funeral of a wife.

She had known William Smith for several years because she bought her meat at his butcher shop, and when she heard that his sickly wife had died on the very same day she herself had attended to his son’s lovely birthday cake, Celia thought it might be an omen. He was an older man, which she liked, he was healthy and good-looking enough, and he had young children who would need a new mother. The fact that the oldest of these children, his daughter Maude, was fifteen while Celia herself was only twenty-five, didn’t bother her. People were old and died at fifty; twenty-five was middle-aged. His girls would need a trusted older friend, which she would be. In all the time she had been listening to gossip at the bakery, Celia had never heard a breath of scandal about William Smith—despite his wife’s frail health he had never been known to look at another woman. That was good. He would be a faithful husband.

Celia not only went to Adelaide Smith’s funeral, but she wrote William a sympathetic note. It was on expensive stationery she really couldn’t afford, but she didn’t want him to think she needed his money. Her letter was formal and old-fashioned, the way she had been taught to write before she left high school. “I hope you do not feel offended that I take the liberty of saying that I know how you must feel,” Celia wrote, in her painfully neat penmanship, “as I myself am recently bereaved. But it must be so much worse for you because you have three heartbroken children to comfort, while I myself have only one. Life goes on, yes, that is true. Believe it. If you need anything please do not hesitate to ask me. Your friend and neighbor, Celia Kisler.”

Not long afterward he came by the bakery at closing time and asked her if she would like to take a stroll with him.

He opened up on these walks, seeming glad to have another adult to speak to who was not a relative. He talked of his worries about his children, how hard it was to be both father and mother to them. He said he felt awkward with his daughters, and that they needed a woman’s touch in their lives. Their aunts were not enough, he knew, and besides, their aunts had families of their own to take care of. Celia, of course, agreed. William also told her, several times, how beautiful his wife, Adelaide, had been, and how much he missed her.

Beautiful? Celia thought. That pasty-faced creature? He really must have been in love.

She looked at this masculine man, of respectable old Yankee stock, with his own business, and thought what a good catch he would be. He was lonely; she listened to him, and complimented him, and sometimes gave him the sort of domestic advice only a woman could give. She made herself as attractive and feminine as possible, scented, softly murmuring, but also practical. She often gave him cakes or cookies to take home to his children, a sign of caring, and a treat. She invited him and his children to Sunday dinners and arranged outings. She wanted him to see her and Alfred as a part of his family. William Smith needed her, and Celia was aware that the need he felt would, in time, convince him that he had to have her. He couldn’t keep living with just the memory of a woman; he deserved a real one. Eventually, he proposed.

When they were married everyone said they were both lucky: Celia because she didn’t have to work anymore and he would take care of her, and William because she would take care of him and his orphan children. Whether or not the newlyweds were in love didn’t matter. They loved each other enough.

The truth was they did love each other enough: Celia no more or less than she had ever loved anyone, except for Alfred, and William more than he had expected.

Celia set to work getting her new household in order. She had a hired girl who worked several hours a day cleaning and doing the wash, while she herself attended to the meals. Soon she had two more children of her own. William was generous and she had as many new clothes as she wanted. Although Alfred was only ten by now, Celia was already dreaming of sending him to college some day. She put aside some of her household money privately every month for this, even though she had persuaded William to do the same. He was saving for Hugh’s college, so he would save for Alfred’s too. That was the way it had to be, they both agreed. Brothers. Education, betterment, the American dream.

But what odd brothers, she thought. Alfred was everything a young man should be, a serious, manly young man, old for his years, while Hugh was like a puppy. Hugh always played with his sisters as his first choice over other friends; his few neighborhood friends were pathetic little creatures, and she had seen him often playing with several girls, as if he were one of them. What a poor little sissy he was, Celia thought. His father should have paid more attention to him. But now that Hugh had Alfred, she hoped her son would be a good influence on him, if not right away, then eventually. Hugh obviously adored Alfred, as well he should, and he seemed eager to learn from him, although Hugh never seemed to learn enough. Not that I care, Celia thought. It’s for William.

That year Celia asked William to give Alfred his name, so that all the children could feel more alike. William was glad to, and Alfred Kisler became Alfred Smith. Hugh was delighted, more so, Celia noticed, than Alfred was, even though Alfred didn’t remember his real father.

Maude finally became engaged, at twenty. “I hope it’s not going to be a pattern in this family, marrying late in life,” Celia said. Maude had been so popular with the young men in town, so pursued and flattered and courted, that she claimed she couldn’t make up her mind. But Celia felt it was more because Maude was so tied to her family, and that all three of the older children were too dependent on each other in that curious way.

Celia and William gave Maude a beautiful church wedding, and afterward a garden party reception at home. Rose was the maid of honor, and four of Maude’s girlfriends from school were bridesmaids. Daisy was an adorable, toddling, absentminded flower girl, but Harriette was still too young to be a part of the ceremony. Hugh, the ham, had begged to be the ring bearer with the satin pillow, even though in Celia’s opinion he was too old for that, and she was glad when the groom decided the best man was going to hand over the ring. Hugh and Alfred were made ushers.

The groom, lanky, red-haired Walter Miller, worked at the local bank. He was not at all the one Celia would have expected Maude to choose, neither the wealthiest nor the most handsome of her numerous suitors, but Maude was obviously in love with him.

“Walter is the funniest man I know,” Maude said. “He makes me laugh all the time.”

You’ll need a sense of humor to survive marriage, Celia thought unexpectedly, surprised she had thought it. But she didn’t say it; she just smiled. At the dinner after the wedding Celia looked at her own family at the long table—the sisters and brothers all blended now, Hugh and Alfred side by side, Rose feeding little Daisy, baby Harriette in her mother’s arms, William the proud patriarch—and felt secure.

Maude and Walter went to Niagara Falls for their honeymoon, and when they returned they moved into a small apartment near the family while they saved up for a house of their own. Celia helped Maude decorate on a budget, something Celia was good at and enjoyed.

While Maude was looking forward to having children, Celia didn’t want any more and told her doctor so. A device called a pessary was available at the pharmacy as a womb support for women who had given birth to so many children that their uterus was prolapsed or distended, a commonly diagnosed condition in these days of large families, and Celia’s doctor told her quietly that since it covered the entrance to the womb it also worked as a contraceptive. He also told her that it was unsanitary and would probably give her an infection. She got one anyway. She would have been as happy to use abstinence as the way to prevent babies, but she knew William would never agree, and she didn’t want to jeopardize their good relationship.

It occurred to her, almost as an afterthought, that during all the fevered wedding plans she had never sat Maude down for a womanly heart-to-heart talk about sex in marriage; but now that she was married, of course Maude had already learned everything she had to know. Sex was an instinct, wasn’t it? People bumbled through. It was more fun for the man than for the woman, but each carnal encounter (as Celia thought of it, wincing), was so brief Celia sometimes wondered how much fun it was even for the man. Yet, William, although certainly not young anymore, still wanted to do it several times a week, so she knew he really enjoyed it. She herself didn’t particularly like it, but she liked that her husband was so virile. Virility, masculinity, power, were important to her.

There was war in Europe now. Everyone was concerned, some people wanting the United States to strike against the Huns and others wanting to stay out of it. President Woodrow Wilson was doing his best to keep the country at peace and maintain an impartial neutrality. But when a U.S. ship, the Lusitania, had been sunk by a German submarine that past spring of 1915, feelings ran high and there was a storm of public protest. Celia kept up with all of it through the newspaper that William brought home each evening. She knew there was a possibility that their country would send troops abroad, as they had done previously in Latin America, but she was sure there would never be fighting on American soil.

The family had bought a motor car, a Ford, with a gasoline engine, and Celia made William teach her how to drive. She drove it to the grocery store, even though she could as easily have walked, choosing one or another of the children to sit beside her in the other seat, waving hello to everyone she knew on the street. Alfred begged more than any of the others to have a turn; he could have sat in that car all day long if she’d let him, and he wanted William to teach him how to drive, even though he was only ten. Of course, what Alfred wanted, Hugh did too, and William told them both quite sternly, hiding his laughter, that they’d have to wait until their feet reached the pedals.