Chapter 35
The weekly premarital counselling sessions lead them through April and into May.
Jack works extra hours at the Bowery, grinning when Medda tells him that her and Daisy are taking Katherine to shop for her wedding dress and thanking the woman profusely. His smile dims, however, when she asks some more probing questions about how he's feeling. (She always does this, asks about how he's feeling, as if Jack's supposed to know himself.)
"I jus', I dunno what I's doin'." Jack shrugs, wiping the excess paint off his brush on the edge of the paint can, watching it drip back to join the swirl of blue in the bottom. "I dunno how to make her happy."
"Y'know what you could do?" Medda calls from where she's organising sheet music in the orchestra pit.
"Hm?"
"Stop takin' overtime hours at work. You's workin' yourself into the ground."
Jack blanches. "But the house-"
"Is somethin' that you can already afford." She looks up at him and Jack wonders how somebody shorter than him, even when he's not stood on a stage, can make him feel so small. "Stop takin' those overtime hours, Jack. An' for pity's sake, eat somethin'."
He grumbles incoherently, turning back to the set piece. She's right, he knows, and that's what makes it so irritating. He knows that he's being stupid, working himself into the ground. It's just… he wants to do this right. Do right by Katherine.
As if she's heard him – and who knows, maybe he said it out loud, maybe Medda is just a mind-reader – Medda arches a brow and chastises him further. "She loves you. She chose you. Quit gripin'."
And yes, Jack reflects, Medda must be onto something, because Katherine wouldn't be putting up with all of his complaining if she didn't love him a heckuvah lot. All the premarital counselling sessions finish in much the same way, after all, with Katherine thanking the reverend and then listening to Jack complain about the whole thing as he walks her home. It usually goes something like this:
"Do you have a complaint every week, Jack?"
"No. I jus' don't like him. He's judgy."
"He's a minister, he's not judging us."
"He's definitely judgin' us."
That is, until the final session. Week six. For the first time in the entire endeavour, Jack actually goes into this session feeling positive. And if he's feeling that way because this is the last session, well, does it really matter? In fact, he's feeling very optimistic, right up until…
"As to your, ahem, physical relationship."
Bates says the words as if they taste like vomit. Even as euphemistic as they are, they sound strange spilling from the lips of this man, with his tightly buttoned collar and thick-lensed glasses. Jack has to stifle a snort, something that earns a rather vicious kick under the table from Katherine. Honestly, Jack has no idea how he ever thought she was a high society lady.
"It is important, Mr. Kelly," the reverend turns to him, his eyes swollen beyond their true size through the magnifying section of the bifocal spectacles, "for you not to be… rough with your wife."
And until now, it's been faintly ridiculous, funny, even. But that? The implication that he's such a beast that he'd hurt Katherine, his Katherine, because he didn't give a damn to control himself?
"What kinda man d'you think I am?" He snarls, hands curling into fists beneath the table.
"Jack." Katherine warns, her voice low, placing a soothing hand on his arm. After the first session, she knows better than to try and touch his leg under the table where he can't see her hand coming. Her touch stills him, but she can feel the tension thrumming in his muscles even through the thick, soft material of his suit jacket and shirt.
"All I mean, Mr. Kelly, is that the primary purpose of marriage is for procreation."
Katherine resists the urge to grimace at the reverend's words. She certainly hopes that isn't what Jack is expecting, at least, because although they've talked about kids, that's years down the road. She has her career to think about, after all.
"I want you to be aware, given your lack of church background, that it is not something to be indulged in on a whim." Bates turns his gaze on Katherine, then. "The same for you, Miss Pulitzer. You must remember that it is a wife's role to submit to her husband and that it is your role to…" the reverend's eyes flick towards Jack, his lip curling, "…please him in this way."
Jack has two kinds of silence, Katherine's learned. The first kind is the kind that she most often sees, the comfortable kind where he's let his guard down enough to not focus on smart quips and to just be. The second kind is the kind she sees for the remainder of the session – the gritted teeth silence that only happens when he's being quiet because if he speaks he'd probably yell at somebody.
"My love," she asks as they walk away from the church, hurrying to keep up with Jack's long strides, "why are you angry?"
"He thinks jus' because I'm poor that I dunno how to treat a lady." Jack snaps, stopping and turning round, aiming a kick at the little wall that runs beside the path for good measure.
His voice is too loud for the graveyard that they're in, a pool of quiet in the centre of the city, where noise never seems to permeate. As a child, it had reminded Katherine of an oasis, this cemetery, cool and green in amidst the city's dust and smog. She can only count her blessings that they're in a part of it that's tucked away enough that they probably won't be overheard.
Jack snarls, oblivious. "Don't be rough wi' your wife – what does he think I am, some sorta monster?"
He's not, that's the thing, he's not a monster. Other people, they see Jack like he is now, angry and lashing out, but don't take the time to peel back the layers. Katherine can understand how he might seem intimidating – this tall, strong, strike leader who can throw punches as easy as breathing – but she can't understand how anybody could be afraid of him. Which is why she has no qualms about wandering over and taking hold of his hands.
"Jack, he probably says that to every husband-"
"Yeah, well, he shouldn't hafta." Jack snaps, but it's softer now that she's closer. He won't look at her. "Hurtin' ladies, hurtin' kids – it ain't right."
And, well. It hadn't occurred to her that Jack's idea of rough and hers might be slightly different. Reverend Bates had been, of course, referring to him not making… unreasonable demands of her. And by the way that he'd snorted, a you think I'm the one who's going to be making demands in this relationship? snort, Jack had surely heard that part of the message loud and clear. But for Jack, rough extends beyond that in a way that she knows she'll never understand. When rough means taking a whip to somebody, or beating them to a pulp, it's more of an insult.
"Hey." She cups his face, forcing him to look at her. "I never thought you'd hurt me. Not in a million years."
"Yeah, well." Jack breathes out through his nose, heavy and laboured, like a horse recovering from a race. "You best ignore what he said to you in there an' all."
"What, you don't want me to submit to you?" Katherine arches a brow, amused. Tucking her arm through his, she guides them to continue down the path.
Jack scoffs. "D'you really think I'd be marryin' you 'f I wanted somebody submissive?"
"Rude." Katherine says, with not a hint of offence. "I could be submissive."
Jack looks at her, disbelieving, and she stares him right back down. He rolls his eyes. "Well, I don't want you to be. I likes you jus' the way you are, thank you very much." Then, hesitant, not quite meeting her eyes, he continues. "An' what he said about it bein' 'bout my… needs, you knows that's wrong, right?"
Was it? Was it wrong, what the reverend had said? Because everybody seems to think that way. Even Daisy had acknowledged that Jack would have… needs. And she's hardly an expert on marriage, as much as she might talk about her sister. No, Jack's being kind. As always.
"I… I want you to be happy."
"No, no, Ace." Jack says, almost panicked, removing his arm from hers and instead wrapping it around her waist to put her closer to him as they walk. "I's happy jus' to be marryin' you. I want you, hell but I want you," he breaks off, half-laughing, humourless, "but this ain't about me, okay? Anythin' that you ain't comfortable with-"
"I understand." Katherine cuts him off. Then, when he just keeps looking at her – because damnit if he doesn't seem to have some sort of sixth sense for when she's swallowing down words that she wants to say – she continues. "You know – you know that I don't want children right away, don't you?" She doesn't want to do this, doesn't want to have this conversation, but they've got to, they have to -
"Well, o' course, Katherine." Jack half laughs again, like it's obvious. She ploughs on.
"Because, I'm not being that – I'm not just going to give up everything –"
"Ace. Breathe." He says, stepping up into her space and pulling her into a hug, turning his head to press a kiss to the shell of her ear and tell her, low-voiced and firm: "I love you. Not some imaginary girl who's gonna drop her job at the papes to start poppin' out kids. Sure, I wants 'em one day, but, I's meanin' like, five, ten years down the line. I ain't – I don' wanta force nothin' on you that you ain't ready for. If we has to tag-team stayin' at home wi' 'em while the other goes out to work, then so be it. Who knows? Who cares? This ain't about that. 'S about me an' you. Yeah?"
Katherine nods into his chest. "Okay." Not daring to look up at him, she steels herself to continue. "How – how do we –"
"Oh." She can tell that Jack is reddening just from his voice. He coughs uncomfortably. Does she really have to be asking him questions like this when she's pressed quite so close to him? "Well, uh. I dunno much. There's these sheaths as yous can get from the barbers or the drugstore. I can, uh, I can get us some o' those."
"Okay." She nods, still not looking at him, instead propping her chin on his shoulder and staring determinedly at the gravestones. At this particular moment, Katherine would rather like to be beneath one of them. "I tried to read up on it, but there isn't much. My friends at the suffrage magazine suggested getting something called a pessary from the drugstore, but it's difficult to find out anything." She huffs out a breath. "Damn Anthony Comstock."
Jack chuckles, a triumph in itself, then pulls away a little, looking down at her, smiling and fond, and she wonders why she was ever even worried. Her contacts in the suffrage movement had taken it so seriously, when she'd written to them, which she's of course grateful for, but they had also been disappointed in her. Reconsider, they'd told her, you're independent. Don't give that up. Like marrying Jack was some sort of loss. Like it ever could be.
"I agree with you on that." Jack grins. "Ol' Anthony took all the fun outta the papes."
Smacking the back of his head for his cheekiness, she pulls him along to carry on walking. "What's this big mysterious plan for this afternoon, then?"
He looks a little shy, when he tells her, a flush rising in his cheeks. "I's found a house."
"You've what?"
"I's booked us a viewin'." Jack smiles down at her, scratching at the back of his neck with his free hand. "'S not – 's sorta a project, it ain't lookin' how it's s'posed to, yet, but 's all jus' things the bloke called cosmetic. I reckons I can fix it up on the weekends, get it sorted 'fore we moves in."
Cosmetic. Right. That's a little harder for her to believe, now, as Jack speaks quietly to the estate agent, who hands over the keys and tells them to leave them under the plantpot beside the front doorstep if they get finished before he returns in an hour. It's rather unlike any sort of exchange Katherine's seen when accompanying family members shopping for houses before, but, then again, the houses that she's looked at haven't been quite this dilapidated. As Jack converses with the other man, she tries to school her features back into a little of the excitement she had been feeling until she'd seen the house.
It doesn't have much curb appeal, Katherine has to admit. It's a tall and thin red brick structure in the middle of a terrace. The paint on the window frames is peeling and slightly mouldy, and there is moss growing between the bricks.
It's small, inside, a hallway with stairs, a little living room just big enough for a couch and an armchair, a kitchen with a stove that looks like it hasn't been used in forty years. The window above the kitchen sink looks out onto a desolate little backyard surrounded by a high brick wall, weeds sprouting from the gaps between the paving slabs. Upstairs is a bedroom barely big enough to fit a double bed, and a boxroom that's even smaller. A second, rickety spiral staircase that looks like it's been cobbled together from Hudson River driftwood leads up into an unfurnished, half-converted attic space that rises up into the eaves.
Katherine hasn't registered quite how much she's giving up to be with Jack until now. The beams that support the eaves are strung together with cobwebs so thick that she's half convinced that it's them that are supporting the roof, not the beams themselves.
"You hate it, don' you?" Jack says, quiet from beside her.
He rather wants to kick himself. Why had he ever thought that this was a good idea? He should have just bought the place and done it up before he brought her here. More fool him for wanting her input. What must she think of him? Can't even afford a place that's got a fucking bathroom installed.
"No, no, I don't hate it!" She says, her voice too squeaky to be entirely truthful.
"'S okay if you do." Jack looks down at the floorboards, toeing out a pattern in the layer of dust that covers them. "I know it ain't the nicest place."
The thing is, it's only now she's here that he knows that. The house had seemed nice, when he'd first come to see it, on his own. He'd been excited about the roof, only five years since it's been redone and not a leak to be found anywhere. And the stove's old, sure, but it works just fine, so they don't even need to replace the kitchen. It's warm too, proper thick insulation in the walls, the kind that must be heaven to live in through the winter. And within budget. It's taken ninety-hour work weeks and a lot of commissions for a lot of people like Pulitzer with more money than sense, but he's done it, he's scraped together a deposit made of blood, sweat, and tears. And it's still not enough. Not enough to have somewhere that doesn't need a bathroom installing and lights fitting to the walls and the eaves insulating and plastering. And he hadn't even noticed.
Why would he? This is heaven. It has five whole rooms, plus a hallway. For two people. That's way more rooms than two people need. It's warm, and dry, and has somewhere to make meals. But then Katherine walks in.
He's used to her overshadowing everything else in the room. That's just her. She walks in and he can hardly look at anything else. She glows. But when she does, she lights up the things that were hidden before. The cobwebs and dust. Stains on the walls, holes in the plaster of the ceilings. Pipes leading nowhere, no baths or taps connected to them. How had he ever thought that he could give her anything like what she deserves?
"It's okay." Katherine says slowly, looking around. Jack wants to clap his hands over her eyes, stop her from looking, no, more than that, stop her from seeing. "Like you said, it's all just cosmetic."
"Right." Jack nods, the word heavy in his throat. Katherine doesn't miss it, the way that he swallows, nervous, the hand that comes up to rub at the back of his neck. "The owners, they's got plumbin' goin' up to the boxroom an' electricals up to here. They jus' ran outta money 'fore they could finish it. All the complicated stuff's done. I reckon 'f I ropes the boys in we can sort it ourselves, without payin' nobody."
He's really thought about this. Katherine doesn't know why she's surprised. Jack rarely brings things to her, things as big as these, at least, without having thought them through. He might seem impulsive – and he is, sometimes, if it's minor and seems like a good idea at the time, that's often reason enough for him to jump at an opportunity – but things like this, they're more calculated. She often forgets that he thinks a lot more deeply about things than she gives him credit for.
"You really think so?" He's thought about it, sure, but that doesn't mean she's convinced. Her idea of complicated and his idea of complicated are probably quite different, after all.
"You can do a lot just wi' elbow grease, Kath." Jack shrugs, looking down at her. She's biting her lip as if that will keep all the words inside that she wants to say.
"'S okay 'f you wanta change your mind, love." He says, hating himself with every word. Why can't he just be a selfish bastard like everybody else? She said yes, that's binding, isn't it? But here he is, offering her an out once again. Jack thinks he might die if she leaves. He knows he will if she goes ahead with this only to resent him for it. "'S different imaginin' a life wi' somebody than actually livin' it."
Katherine turns to him, gaping. He's so clever, but sometimes he's a complete idiot. She might not be sure about the house, but she's sure about him. "Jack Kelly, don't you ever talk like that."
"Ace-" He sighs, looking pained.
"No. I chose you." She says, solid as rock, stepping in front of him and taking his face in her hands. The stubble on his face prickles against her palms. "And I would choose you over and over and over again. So don't you dare." When he nods, meeting her eyes, she leans up to press a kiss to his lips, determined and firm, relishing the way that the beginnings of his facial hair rasp against her skin. "You should put an offer in."
"Yeah?" The smile is small, but it lingers in the corners of his mouth.
She turns away from him, examining the room, her head cocked to one side. "I think… maybe if I cleaned it up a little. Some nice furniture. This could make a pretty nice master bedroom. What do you think?"
"Yeah." He nods, the smile spreading wider, and catches hold of her hand, pulling her towards the stairs. "An', right, c'mere-" he breaks off to descend the spiral staircase backwards, despite her protests, keeping his hands on her waist to steady her the whole time, even though it's completely unnecessary; then leading her through to the little bedroom, "- in here, yeah, I's thinkin' a guest room? So's you can have Constance to stay, an' Edith. An' one day, when you's ready, a nursery."
"Okay." Katherine bites her bottom lip, suppressing a grin.
"Yeah?" Jack looks as happy as she's ever seen him. Grabbing her hands, he leads her through to the boxroom, trembling with excitement. "So then over here, we's got plumbin', so bathroom, right, an' then downstairs," he tugs her down the stairs, taking them two at a time, "there's nothin' wrong wi' the kitchen, 's just needin' a bit o' paint an' it'll be good as new. An' then the backyard-" he points out the window, "-we can have window boxes, an' bird feeders, an' I reckon we can pull up some o' the slates an' put, like, soil in, grow some vegetables, y'know? Or flowers, if you wants – then, then you could sits an' write outside, on fine days."
And Katherine doesn't know if she's going crazy, but she can sort of see it, when Jack says things like that. He always tells her that she sees connections that he'd never spot, but sometimes she wonders what it'd be like to look at the world through his eyes, where everything is colour and light and potential. For somebody who has been so broken down, so beaten and bruised, his optimism is incredible. He sees the hope in things, where she can't see anything at all. Maybe that's why he humoured her with her coverage of the strike all those months ago. Maybe Jack just saw the hope in her.
…
Author's note: Sheaths was a common historical word for condoms, which is both interesting and cringe. Anthony Comstock enacted the Comstock Act in the 1870s which forbade the publication of any information concerning contraception, amongst other things. He also was instrumental in setting up the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, which literally just went around arresting people for doing things that they thought were inappropriate. This made it really difficult to find out anything about birth control in New York at this time. Later sources, such as Margaret H. Sanger's 1917 pamphlet 'Family Limitation', were extremely informative and a big proponent of the pessary (however, I would never want to use one – they sound really damn uncomfortable). Sanger also was pretty ground-breaking in her mention of the female orgasm and condemnation of marital rape. Basically, I went down a major rabbit hole about historical contraception and it was unbelievably fun.
