"Who are you mad at, Helen?"
Helen looked into Jess' deep blue eyes. She had first looked into them across a bar as she served him a beer. She'd looked deep into them on the dance floor, over meals and while in his arms. Jess was one of the few decent men she knew. Who else would ask that question and actually expect an answer? Who would talk to her like a respectable, full-fledged human being? Who else would borrow a white shirt with a too tight collar and stop by to take her to church?
They had never discussed things like their childhood but she was pretty sure he had been brought up rough like her. If there were anyone she knew who'd get an answer to such a question, it'd be Jess. But even when they'd gone together, they hadn't talked about things like that. Neither asked and neither volunteered. No, she wouldn't tell him who she was mad at, not now, not ever. So, she made up some quick flippant answer about the 6th commandment and let it drop.
The day was quiet with everyone off to church. She finished up her bookkeeping, the orders for the next month and payroll, and still no customers had wandered in the door. After pouring another cup of coffee, she sat twirling her pencil, green eyes unfocused and thought "Who am I mad at?"
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The first answer that came to mind was Daddy. She thought of herself as the apple of his eye. There were 4 kids, 2 girls and 2 boys, she was the second after her brother Nick. As far back as she could remember, when Daddy came home after work, she'd run into his arms and he'd swing her around well past when she was too heavy for it. She did stop sitting on his lap by the time she was 6 or 7, when he'd said she was getting heavy and Ma said she was getting too old. Try as she might, Helen couldn't remember a harsh word he directed at her, for all he yelled at and took a switch to her 2 brothers. She and her sister Gladys were spared anything but a gentle scolding from Daddy when they sassed Ma or shirked their chores.
The house was small but comfortable. Daddy worked at the general store in Dubuque, Iowa and made a modest living that kept them in food and clothes. Ma had a small vegetable garden in the yard and planted a few flowers by the front door. Helen and Gladys got enough schooling at the free school to read and write, but then her Ma kept them home to help around the house instead. Ma said too much schooling went to a girl's head and made them turn out full of themselves and troublesome. The boys were to keep on at school though, so they could follow in their Daddy's footsteps. Helen didn't complain about that. There weren't that many chores in the little house so she and Gladys had plenty of time to play with their friends.
When Helen was 12, she came home late in the afternoon to find her parents having a serious conversation. She didn't really listen, but her Daddy was telling Ma something about duty and pay and duty again. That evening, Daddy told the kids that he was going to join the war to help preserve the Union. He was sure it would be over quick and he'd come back to them soon.
"But," he explained, "while I'm away I need each of you children to behave and help your Ma. Army pay won't be as much as I made at the store. Nick, I'll need you to be the man of the house. You'll leave school until I come back. I got you a job doing odd jobs down at the store and you'll need to do any heavy lifting here at the house. Helen, I need you to do more to help your Ma. You're going to have to expand the garden, maybe sell any extra produce. Watch over your little brother and sister. I know I'm asking both of you to grow up a little faster than if I were here, but I know you're strong and, well, you're 14 and 12, so it's about time anyway."
Gladys cried while the boys tried to look stoic. Daddy had called her "strong", so Helen also tried to hold back the tears. She was determined to make Daddy proud.
Next day, Daddy was handsome dressed in a blue uniform and all the kids and Ma went with him to the parade to see him off to war. Of course, Helen had heard about the war between the states. But she didn't really understand why there was fighting. She especially didn't understand why her Daddy needed to leave her to go off and fight in it. Her friends' fathers were staying home. He didn't really explain it to them. Just said not to worry, that his pay would be sent back every month and the he'd be back as soon as the war was over.
Yeah, even now when she knew all about the war, she didn't understand why he thought he had to be part of it. The Union meant nothing to her then, nothing to her now. She didn't understand why he had to go and get dysentery in some place they had never heard of. She didn't understand why he had to die of it less than 2 months after he'd marched off in his uniform, never even having fought in a battle. To this day, she was mad at him for leaving her for so-called duty, for being weak enough to die of diarrhea while so far from her and all that she thought he loved.
She was still mad at him that love for her wasn't more important that this so-called duty, this Union that went ahead and stayed whole even after he died his useless death. To this day, when she'd hear men in the saloon talk of the war, she'd find somewhere else she had to be. She saw men broken by their memories. She saw men whose wildness had been set free by the war who kept thieving and killing to keep hold of the excitement. She saw men who had lost everything in the war and were still trying to find a way to make a home and family with nothing. She met women and children whose lives had been destroyed by the war when their men had been killed, maimed, broken or set adrift by the war, leaving them scrambling for existence.
Sure, she was happy that the slaves were not slaves any more. She'd met plenty of black cowboys since the war ended and they were just the same as the other cowboys. Some generous, some cheap, some good, some looking for trouble. She could imagine what it'd be like for the black women she met to be property all their lives and know that their children would be as well. Seemed a hopeless kind of existence. It had been all too close to that for her. But still, they got their freedom now even though her Daddy hadn't fired a single shot. His death hadn't helped them at all.
No, Helen owed nothing to Union, war or her Daddy. They'd done nothing for her in the end and she was mad at them all. She smiled a little smile. Even mad at him, she remembered what it had felt like to love him and be loved. She sometimes wondered how her life would have been if he hadn't felt the call to duty. But she had closed off that part of her heart. That smile was a wistful one.
End Chapter 1. Assuming I can figure out how to add chapters, more will be coming regularly. If you hang in there with me, there will be plenty of Jess in later chapters.