“The only thing that’s indecent is the fact that someone would spy on us!”
“Emma,” he said quietly, “I’m asking you if it’s true.”
My fear of God outweighed my fear of Papa. I couldn’t lie. “Yes, Papa. It’s true.”
He was quiet for a long time. I knew that he was praying for wisdom, carefully choosing his words. When he finally spoke, his voice was hushed. “You’ve abused my trust, Emma. You must have known, from all that I’ve taught you, that it was wrong to allow a young man to . . . to take liberties. And that it was also wrong to become involved with an unbeliever.”
“Patrick isn’t an unbeliever!”
“I was told that the young man you were seen with was Irish-Catholic.”
“You’ve met him, Papa. He helped us the day you were attacked. He came here to see how you were the next day. You’ve talked to Patrick, Papa. You know he isn’t a heathen.”
“I’m grateful for what he did that day. I’m appalled, however, by what the two of you did last night. Your behavior would be shameful even if it was with one of our own people.”
“Our people?”
“Yes. Our fellow German-Protestants.”
“These aren’t my people! I’m not German, I’m American! You and Mama have recreated the old country right here. You live in your own little world on this side of the river and you’re comfortable in it. But it’s not my world, Papa. I’m American. And the man I marry will also be American!”
Papa’s face went very white. “It is God’s will that you honor your parents by asking for their blessing on your marriage. It is never God’s will that you become unequally yoked with a man of a different faith, whether he is German, Irish, or American. I only hope that the shame of what you did won’t ruin your chances of marrying a respectable Christian man.”
“All we did was kiss!”
“That’s all? A kiss is something holy and God-given, Emma. A symbol of union. It should be reserved for a serious relationship, where there is a commitment that will eventually lead to marriage. It’s shameful when it’s done in dark alleyways and squandered on mere physical attraction.”
I stopped arguing with Papa, not because I agreed with him but because I saw that it was useless. He proceeded to spell out my punishment like the voice of God, inscribing the law on tablets of stone. “From now on you are forbidden to work at the canteen, forbidden to attend dances, forbidden to go into town unchaperoned, and forbidden to date any young man unless he attends our church and comes to the house first to escort you.”
I would be a prisoner, cut off from happiness and fun—and Patrick. “What may I do?” I muttered miserably.
“When you graduate from school in a few weeks, you may choose either courtship and marriage, or a job as a domestic helper with a respectable German family. Under no circumstances are you to be seen with Patrick. Do you understand, Emma?”
“Yes, Papa. I understand.”
He hadn’t forbidden me to go to Squaw Island.
The following Saturday I went—hoping, knowing, that I would meet Patrick. Papa had said I wasn’t to be seen with him, but no one would see us there.
Patrick was waiting for me on the dock. We both knew by the bottomless joy we felt that we were in love. I fell into his arms, hugging him with all my strength. He gasped in pain. It wasn’t until I stepped back and held his face in my hands that I noticed all the cuts and bruises. “Patrick, what happened?”
“Some Irish blokes saw us together at the dance. They tried to convince me not to see you anymore, so we had a bit of a scuffle.”
“A scuffle! You look as though you’ve been through the war! Are you all right?”
“I am now. Come on, let’s sit on the cabin steps, where we can’t be spied upon.”
“I thought only Papa and his congregation were that narrow-minded,” I said as I gently kissed Patrick’s bruised knuckles.
“No, we’ll have to fight centuries of Protestant hatred on my side of the river. There were about six of them who sat me down to spell things out. ‘How can you be forgetting what her people did to ours all those years?’ they asked. ‘Emma isn’t an Irish-Protestant landlord,’ I told them. ‘What about all the martyrs who died for our faith, Paddy? When it was illegal to hold Mass . . . when priests hid in caves? And now you want to marry one of them?’”
I froze, my lips still pressed to his hand. “You said what?”
“I told them I wanted to marry you. It’s true, I do . . . that is, if you’ll have me. Careful!” he cried when my arms flew around him again. “That’s how I got my ribs all smashed up—when I told them I was in love with you and nothing anyone said or did could keep us apart.”
My father had called it a physical attraction—and it was that. Patrick and I were like two sides of a wound trying to knit themselves together again to heal and be whole. But it was so much more than a physical attraction. We talked without ever saying a word. We both saw life so much more clearly when we were together, as if each was the spectacles the other needed to correct his vision. We could have lived happily on our island ignoring the rest of the world if we both hadn’t yearned to see it so badly. Patrick’s passion for life burned as brightly as mine, and he was as dissatisfied with the thought of living an ordinary life as I was.
Hand in hand, we walked down to the marsh to see the white birds we had watched all spring. We found them guarding their nest. As we sank down into our thicket to watch, Patrick drew me into his arms.
“We can be married as soon as I turn twenty-one in October,” he said. “If people can’t accept us here, we’ll become vagabonds, roaming from city to city until we’ve seen every city in the world.”
“I’ll play the piano when we run out of money,” I said, laughing.
“And I’ll work at odd jobs until we can earn train fare to the next town. We’ll live like outlaws.”
“I’d rob a bank for the chance to spend my life with you.”
“Where shall we go first, Emma? I’ve always wanted to see the Pacific Ocean.”
“Do they have orange trees out there? I’ve always wanted to see oranges growing on trees.”
“When fall comes,” Patrick said, “and the white birds fly away, we’ll fly away with them.”
* * *
Two days after I finished school I started work. Papa had found a job for me with a German farm family with seven children. They lived up the river near the Metzgers. I agreed to work there, provided that I didn’t have to live there. Patrick and I continued to meet on the island that summer, falling ever more deeply in love. He recited volumes of beautiful poetry to me as we sat beneath the trees—some by Irish poets, some that he had written himself. We counted the days until his twenty-first birthday on October ninth.
One scorching day near the end of August, I was surprised to find Papa waiting outside with the carriage to take me home when I finished work. “I’m so glad to see you, Papa,” I said as I climbed up beside him. “I wasn’t looking forward to the long walk home in this heat. I spent all morning in a steaming kitchen and all afternoon manhandling sweaty children. I feel like a wilted flower.” I leaned against the carriage seat and peeled my dress away from my sticky skin, longing for a bath. The horses trotted down the road.
Papa didn’t slow the wagon when we got to the parsonage. We rode past it. “Where are you going, Papa?”
“Be quiet, Emma.” The ice in his voice sent a chill down my spine, in spite of the heat. When we crossed the river, I almost asked him to stop the wagon, afraid that I might be sick. Papa was never this cold, this still, unless he was very angry. And if he was angry with me, then it could only be because of Patrick.
He drove to where Patrick worked and stopped the wagon. We waited in agonized silence beneath a relentless sun until Patrick emerged through the doors. Papa climbed down from the wagon seat and slowly walked toward him. “May I have a word with you, please . . . about my daughter?”
Patrick looked startled, t
hen wary. By the time they walked back to where Papa had parked the wagon, I saw by the fire in Patrick’s eyes and on his flushed cheeks that he was angry too. I could barely climb down beside them on my quivering legs.
“I’ve been told that you’ve been meeting my daughter on Squaw Island, unchaperoned. Is this true?”
Patrick held his chin high, unashamed. “Yes, sir. It’s true.”
I saw Papa’s chest heave. “Then I’m going to ask you straight out—have you dishonored her? Whether or not you think Emma was willing, have you . . . have you had your way with her?”
“No, sir. Our relationship has been chaste. I will swear to that on a Bible, if you would like me to. I love Emma. I want to marry her.”
“You want to marry her? How is that possible? According to your religion, a marriage isn’t recognized in the sight of God unless it takes place in a Catholic church, before a Catholic priest—am I right?”
Patrick flushed. “Yes, Reverend, that’s right.”
Papa whirled to face me, catching me off guard. “Emma, can you honestly embrace all the theological differences that exist between our two faiths? Can you pray to Catholic saints or to Mary, instead of to our Lord and Savior? Can you confess to a priest each week, knowing that only God can forgive our sins?”
I was afraid to answer. I felt as though I wasn’t arguing with Papa, but with God. And He was on Papa’s side. “The fact that I love Patrick doesn’t change what I believe.”
“No? Will you stand in a Catholic church then and lie, saying that you believe what they teach, just so they’ll let you get married there?” He turned to Patrick again. “Or maybe you’re willing to give up your religion rather than make Emma give up hers?”
“Papa, we worship the same God,” I said when Patrick didn’t answer. “We’ll find a way to make our two faiths work.”
“How? What makes you think you will succeed where thousands of mixed marriages before yours have failed? And what will happen when you have children? The Catholic church will not recognize your marriage, Emma, unless you sign a paper agreeing to raise your children as Catholics—isn’t that correct?” he asked Patrick.
He looked flustered, trapped. “Yes . . . that’s true, but—”
“Will you agree to that, Emma? Will you let my grandchildren be raised as Roman Catholics?” He made it sound as though I’d be raising them to be pagans.
“We haven’t talked about that yet . . .” I began, but Papa continued his tirade, relentlessly piling up the obstacles as if measuring them on a scale, showing us that they outweighed our love.
“The Bible says that in a marriage, two people become one flesh. You want to begin a marriage with a breach already existing between you? A breach that will only get wider when you have children? Unless one of you sacrifices his faith, how will you bridge that gap? Patrick, are you willing to walk away from your family and your faith for Emma? Or what about you, Emma? You know that our faith is our family’s most precious possession. Your mother and I gave up our work, our families, and our homeland because of our beliefs. Can you throw all that away so carelessly?”
“I’m not throwing it away, Papa. I still believe. . . .”
“Do you believe the Bible is God’s Word? Do you believe we should live our lives and base our decisions by that Word?”
“Yes, sir. We both do,” Patrick said.
Papa shrewdly added the final weight to tip the balance in his favor. “The Bible says, ‘Honor thy father and thy mother that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.’Will you explain to me, please, how you can honor your parents and please God if you get married?”
Patrick and I were both speechless. Papa looked from one of us to the other, then said to Patrick, “I must ask you to stop seeing my daughter.”
“I can’t do that, sir. I love her. We want to be married.”
“The only way I will ever bestow my blessing on your marriage is if you convert to Emma’s faith. Do not come near my daughter again unless you are willing to do that.”
* * *
I loved Patrick, but I also loved Papa. The thought of choosing between the two of them made me physically ill. Days passed, as summer changed to fall, when I could barely haul myself out of bed. Papa wouldn’t allow me out of his sight when I wasn’t working. I didn’t see or hear from Patrick.
What was he thinking? Had Papa convinced him to forget me? Or was he saying good-bye to his family so he could convert to my faith and marry me? As September turned into October, I realized that Patrick’s birthday on the ninth would provide the answer. That was the day we had planned to be married. If I hadn’t heard from him by then, I would probably never hear from him again.
Either way, I had known for a long time now that I could never marry Markus Bauer. I answered Markus’s next letter with a short note, telling him not to write to me anymore, telling him that I had fallen in love with someone else.
The day before Patrick’s birthday, the cold, dismal weather matched my mood. I walked home from work in a downpour, the road muddy beneath my feet. Sodden brown leaves drooped from the tree branches, dripping more rain. When I passed the Metzgers’ farm and saw their boat tossing on the waves, I paused for a moment to gaze out at Squaw Island. If I’d had any tears left, I would have wept.
I started down the road again and saw a small boy walking toward me. He didn’t belong to any of the families that lived on this side of the river. He halted in the middle of the road and waited until I reached him.
“Is your name Emma?” he asked.
My heart leaped. “Yes.”
“This is for you.” He handed me a piece of paper, then turned and took off at a trot, going back the way he had come. The note was from Patrick. He wanted me to meet him inside the movie theater that night.
I knocked on the door of Papa’s study after dinner, then sat in the chair facing him when he asked me inside. “I’ve obeyed you all these months, Papa. I haven’t seen Patrick. Could you find it in your heart to lift my punishment a bit? I’d like to go into town tonight. I’d like to visit with Sophie and her new baby.”
The grim look on his face as he studied me brought tears to my eyes. Papa no longer trusted me. And with good reason. Even now I was trying to deceive him. “I will permit you to go under two conditions,” he said. I waited, hoping that one of them wasn’t that he would drive me there. “The first is that Eva must go with you. And the second is that you stay away from any public places until this Spanish influenza epidemic runs its course.”
“Yes, Papa.”
We visited my sister Sophie for about an hour, then I dragged Eva to the movies with me against her will. I left her watching the main feature, saying that I was going to buy popcorn. Patrick was waiting for me in the lobby. He was tense, like a clock that had been wound too tightly. I wanted to hold him in my arms and feel his arms around me, but we didn’t dare embrace in such a public place. Patrick led me into a dim hallway outside the restrooms and kissed me for all the weeks we had been apart.
“I haven’t changed my mind, Emma,” he breathed. “I love you more than ever, and I still want to marry you. Have you changed yours?”
“No,” I whispered. “Never!”
“When we’re apart I feel like I’m dying. I don’t know how I’ll ever leave you in the morning to go to work after we’re married.”
“I know! I love you so much!”
“Then let’s be married by a justice of the peace. Maybe if both of our families see that we’re willing to sacrifice for each other, they will accept us in time. That’s my hope. But even if they don’t, I want to be with you. Do you agree?”
I hesitated for a moment as I faced the terrifying thought of being disowned by my parents. Papa had talked about the breach between our two faiths, but Patrick was willing to step into that abyss for me. I knew how much his faith meant to him, how very much he would be sacrificing when he married outside his church. I drew a deep breath and stepped over the
edge with him.
“Yes, I agree. When?”
Joy and relief paralyzed him. It was a moment before he could speak. “I’ll leave for the city tomorrow. I’ll find a job and a place for us to live and come back for you next Friday. Will that give you enough time to get ready?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll walk out to your farm a week from tonight. I’ll be waiting in the backyard for you. I love you, Emma.”
“I love you too,” I whispered.
Three days later, Eva fell critically ill with the influenza virus. She had caught it at the movie theater. I begged God to punish me, not Eva. I was the one who had disobeyed my parents. I was the one who deserved to die. I pleaded with God, promising to obey Papa, to give up Patrick, even vowing to marry Markus Bauer. I would do anything, if only Eva lived.
But Eva died.
Then I learned that Markus had also died. After Mama and Papa left with Uncle Gus to grieve with the Bauers, I sat alone on the front porch in the dark, numb with despair and guilt. Like a fatal crack in the dam, one lie had led to this devastating flood of sorrow. My life, my parents’ lives, would never be the same.
As I gazed out at the swath of darkness that was the Squaw River, I saw a man walking up the road toward our house. I recognized him by the slant of his shoulders and by his determined stride as he headed into the wind.
Patrick.
I rose from the porch and walked across the yard to meet him like a woman in a dream. He took one look at my face and said, “Emma, what’s wrong?”
“I can’t go with you. I can’t leave Mama and Papa. Eva is dead.”
“What? How-”
“It was my fault. I made her go to the movie so I could meet you, and she caught the flu and died. We buried her today.”
“No . . . Emma, no!” He tried to draw me into his arms, but I pulled away.
“There’s more. I wrote to Markus Bauer and told him I was in love with you, and now he’s dead, too, over in France. We just heard the news a little while ago.” Patrick sagged as if I’d punched him in the stomach. I spoke the words that I knew we were both thinking. “It’s God’s punishment on us, Patrick.”