Author's note: It gets lighter from here!
The way Helen felt about Ma was more complicated but mad was part of it. So was regret, grudging admiration and love.
Now that she was grown, Helen realized how hard it must have been for Ma to lose Daddy. They had always seemed in love with each other. They had known one another their whole lives. Ma used to tell them that she had never looked at another boy. She had always known that she would marry Daddy and the day of their wedding had been the happiest of her life.
Ma had clearly been sad as he had marched off to war and torn apart by news of his death. She had cried for days and bitterly complained that they didn't even send his body back to be buried. The army told her where they had buried him, but to all of them, it seemed impossibly far away. Ma arranged for a marker to be put in the local graveyard and had a service held in his honor. So many of their friends and family arrived to the service that was simple but heartwarming.
During the year that followed his death, Ma had tried to be strong and support the 4 children. She and Daddy had moved from back east to Dubuque before Nathan was born, so she didn't even have her family or Daddy's to support her. She wrote to inform them all, but they offered no assistance.
Helen couldn't even fault Ma for marrying Dan. It was clear that they were falling behind in the bills. The bank had even threatened to take the house if she kept getting behind on the mortgage. Helen didn't understand much about their finances at the time, but the fact that they had no meat for weeks on end, and often no milk for the 2 little kids was a clear sign that Ma wasn't making ends meet. Marrying Dan was the only way out for her and she simply mis-judged the man's character. Knowing what she knew now about human nature, Helen could understand how that could happen.
But Helen couldn't understand how her Ma could abandon her when Dan started bothering her. There was no way Ma didn't know what was happening under her own roof. But she didn't try to stop it. Didn't even talk to Helen to help her understand what was happening and maybe how to avoid it. Ma should have been there for Helen. Should have helped Helen to defend Gladys. For this, Helen would always have anger in her heart for Ma.
It was something of a surprise that, when Ma came to Waynesville for Gladys' wedding, Helen found that she was happy to see her. She could still talk to Ma, joke with her, reminisce about the old days. They caught up on the gossip about the neighbors and Helen hugged her as if Dan hadn't happened. They didn't speak of it. They didn't speak of how Helen was making a living and how she had supported Gladys all these years. Ma didn't even ask about Brian. Maybe Gladys had written it in one of her letters. Water under the bridge, Helen thought with a touch of bitterness.
Her brothers had come out all right. The baby brother, Virgil, was just about to finish school and had already been promised a position with the local paper. He wanted to be a journalist or writer like Walt Whitman. Nick had grown tall and strong. He had finished his education and married the neighbor girl he had always had eyes for. Sallie didn't come for the wedding because she was expecting their first child.
Nick knew Helen owned the saloon. He had come in one evening before the wedding. Helen had braced herself for disapproval when she saw him walk in the batwing doors. She steeled her backbone and lift her head, refusing to be cowed for living the life that she'd come to prosper in. Instead, once Nick had spotted her, he walked straight over and gave her a familiar hug.
"This is great!" Nick exclaimed, "I've always wanted to visit a saloon in the Wild West and here you work in one! Are those guns those guys are wearing loaded? Are those real cowboys? Do you suppose I could beat those guys at poker?"
Helen laughed, relief flooding her. "I don't work here," she explained, "I own the place. Keep your voice down about the other customers, though. Westerners can be a bit touchy and those guns are loaded. Though, usually, they'd just punch you." Helen was delighted to finally be able to share something of her life with someone she loved.
"Well, what should I drink to fit in? Do I lean on the bar or sit at a table?" Nick kept up with the non-stop questions and enthusiasm. "Tomorrow, I'm bringing Virgil – with the right warnings, of course – he'll love this place!"
On the other hand, when in the days before the wedding the family had gathered in the home of Gladys' fiancée, Dan had managed to sidle up to Helen to say in a sly whisper "I hear you work in the saloon. I always knew you were a whore. Glad I got a first crack at preparing you for your future," Helen had found the strength to turn to him and kick him wordlessly in the balls. While he writhed on the floor, Ma had moved slowly to his side in what was obviously duty without compassion and Helen had walked deliberately in the other direction. He stayed away from her after that.