An original chapter that did not exist in the first story. This chapter focuses on Rayne's mother and maternal relatives. I hope you enjoy it.


1915 – 1923

An Informative Chapter

Facing the daunting challenges of motherhood and the lingering emotional trauma of rape among other things at just nineteen years of age would make anyone not want to get out of bed in the morning. Eliza felt glued to her mattress on the morning of July 19th, and she just stared at the far-reaching pale golden rays of the rising sun as it shined through her bedroom window. Eliza was disturbed from her apathy by Rayne's crying. Last night's drama over Rayne's first bath at home made Eliza jump at the sound of her baby's cries, but Rayne was crying out of hunger instead of pain this time. Desperately wishing to stay in bed, Eliza couldn't ignore her baby, and she rose from her bed and picked Rayne up out of her cradle.

Seeing Rayne's face warmed Eliza's heart, her motherly love helping her to forget her tiredness somewhat. Unbuttoning her blouse and getting Rayne to latch onto her left breast, Eliza watched as her daughter nursed, gently stroking Rayne's eyebrow and forehead with her thumb as she suckled. "You still have a good appetite," Eliza whispered softly as her baby nursed, relief singing in her heart. Rayne was still in good health, and when Eliza was changing her daughter into a lacy smock, she was pleased to see no burn wounds on Rayne's fair skin from last night's bath. Dandling Rayne on her knee after dressing her, Eliza kissed her on her forehead and nuzzled her soft sweet smelling red hair.

"Let's seize the day together, sweetheart." Eliza said as she held Rayne out in front of her. It looked like it was going to be a beautiful day today. Central Park was less than fifteen minutes away from the Garment District. Time to use that baby stroller Harold and Theresa had bought for Eliza.

Sarah and the Humphrey's could come with Eliza and Rayne to the park and make it a family outing. They could have a picnic at Central Park together. Sit on the grass in the shade of a tree on Sheep Meadow eating sandwiches and drinking lemonade while people-watching or observing the waterfowl at the Pond; stroll by Bethesda Terrace, over Bow Bridge, and through the Ramble. That would be wonderful, and it was. Things started to look up for Eliza and Rayne from then on.

Sarah stayed at the apartment for about two weeks after her granddaughter's birth to help Eliza get into the swing of motherhood. On the day Sarah left to return home to Longhouse Bend, Theresa and Harold shared exciting news. The young couple were expecting their first child together, but Theresa did not discover her pregnancy recently. She learned she was pregnant in the days leading up to Rayne's birth, which meant that Theresa was nearly a month along when she and her husband revealed the good news to Sarah and Eliza; Theresa had kept her pregnancy a secret so as not to take the attention away from her sister and baby niece. Theresa was embraced by her excited mother and younger sister, and Sarah left the Big Apple feeling blessed and mirthful.

Eliza and Rayne stayed with the Humphrey's for six months. Theresa observed how her sister cared for Rayne, taking mental notes on how to hold, dress, nurse, change, bathe, and soothe a baby in preparation of her own little one's arrival. Even though the Humphrey's had a part-time maid who came in to clean their apartment, Eliza took it upon herself to cook and clean for Theresa and Harold whenever Rayne was napping to repay them for all that they had done for her. As much as Eliza enjoyed living with her sister and brother-in-law, who in turn were fond of her and Rayne's company, she knew she and her daughter couldn't live at that apartment forever, especially since another baby would be living there in less than nine months time. Eliza wanted independence and to live off the sweat of her own brow.

As promised, Harold helped his sister-in-law with achieving her independence. He got Eliza a secretarial job at his father's clothes factory after the position opened up, and Harold found her an apartment in the predominantly Irish neighborhood of Inwood. Inwood was in Manhattan, but it was a two hour walk from the Garment District where Eliza had to report to work, but this commute was easily remedied by the presence of a nearby subway; there were of course New York's taxi cabs, but they charged 50 cents a mile, and Eliza was keen on saving every penny she had. The landlady who ran the apartment Eliza was going to sign a lease with, Mrs. Quinn, looked every inch like a conservative Irish matron: a stern-face adorned with black pince-nez glasses, graying hair that was tied up into a neat old-fashioned bun, and a high-necked collar dress whose long skirt covered her ankles. Mrs. Quinn's eyes narrowed in suspicion at Eliza and Rayne when she learned that Harold, who had accompanied Eliza to the apartment building, was her sister's husband instead of her own, but the old woman's expression softened when Harold lied saying that Eliza was a widow, that her husband had died in a construction accident before Rayne was born.

Eliza held up her ring finger to display the fake wedding band, and Mrs. Quinn bought the lie. The landlady's demeanor towards Eliza and her baby changed for the better too, and Mrs. Quinn was markedly nicer to them during and after the lease was signed. God, if Mrs. Quinn knew that her new tenant was an unwed single mother whose baby girl had been born out of wedlock, she probably would've thrown both them and Harold out on the street loudly proclaiming that she only leased to "good, moral Christians", not to "whores and their bastards". The apartment was small and modest and the rent was within Eliza's paygrade, but the place was unfurnished save for a gas stove and radiators. With the ever-generous Harold's financial help, Eliza purchased simple furniture and furnishings from second-hand stores: a dinner table, a side-table, and a small round table, seven chairs (one being a rocking chair), a couch, an ice box, a bed, three rugs, an old phonograph and some records, two wastebaskets, and a typewriter that Eliza would use to type up everything from private letters to even grocery lists for the sake of neatness due to her lackluster penmanship.

Eliza took the family cradle with her and Harold bought a crib for his firstborn. Eliza and Rayne moved into their new home after New Year's Day 1916. Their departure from the Humphrey's apartment was bittersweet, but it was for the best. Mother and daughter settled into their new home and embarked on their new lives alone together. Decorations were sparse in the apartment save for a portrait of Pope Benedict XV, a lithograph of the Madonna and Christ Child, and a framed needlepoint sampler Eliza had made when she was a girl depicting her childhood home, but she was determined to ornament her home further over time be it adding more photographs, embroidering the tablecloth, or filling a vase with flowers come spring and summer.

Theresa's baby arrived before Eliza could purchase a bouquet on April 18, 1916 at St. Monica's (thankfully, Nurse Angelica was no longer working there, having moved out of state with her family according to Nurse Bridget). Much to the Baker-Malloye Family's delight, Theresa had a little boy she and Harold named Benjamin Joseph Humphrey, his middle name given to him in honor of his great-grandfather. Welcoming their first two grandchildren, a girl and a boy each, nine months apart from each other, overjoyed James and Sarah Malloye, and the rest of the family reveled in their good fortune. Just like Eliza did with Theresa and Harold, the Humphrey's asked Eliza to be their son's godmother, an offer that she happily accepted. Little Benny was baptized at the same church where his cousin/godsister Rayne's baptism had taken place less than a year ago when he was about two weeks old.

Benjamin was barely three months old when his mother became pregnant again for the second time that summer. James and Sarah Malloye's fertility had been passed down to another generation, and the couple looked forward to welcoming yet another grandchild in such a short amount of time. "Maybe you'll get a girl-cousin this time, Raynee." Eliza told her then almost one year old daughter when she heard that Theresa was expecting again. "Would you like that? Would you like that?"

Rayne's smile grew bigger as she listened to her mother's voice as it rose playfully, and her giggles of delight made Eliza grin from ear to ear. The family's joy over the impending birth of their newest relative dimmed the following year on April 6, 1917. On that date, the worst fear for both Eliza and America came true when Congress declared war on the German Empire three months after the interception of the Zimmerman Telegram by British intelligence, a document that detailed Germany's scheme to persuade Mexico into joining the Central Powers with the promise of helping them reclaim their former territories in the American Southwest. Torpedoing a British ship that happened to be carrying American passengers was one thing, threatening to invade the United States was another. The idea of their homeland being attacked by foreign invaders was enough to galvanize James Jr and Charles Malloye, who had been largely indifferent towards the Great War until then, into enlisting in the army.

Sarah wept when she saw her two oldest boys in khakis after they had completed basic training, and she wept even more when she and her family saw Jimmy and Charlie off at New York City Harbor as they boarded a ship bound for war-torn Europe in the summer of 1917. James Sr kept it together better than his wife, but his stoicism wavered when he embraced his sons; James held onto them tightly, savoring the feeling of his children's bodies close to his, not knowing if this would be the last time he would hug Jimmy and Charlie and see them alive. Joseph and Ellen wrapped their trembling arms around their grandsons, and Joseph gifted Jimmy and Charlie with the same pocket Bible he himself had carried into battle during the Civil War over half a century ago. Theresa and Eliza were in tears of course as they bid their brothers farewell. Twelve year old Thomas put on a brave face, but he too wept into Jimmy and Charlie's chests when he hugged them good-bye.

"Big ship, isn't she?" Jimmy said to his two year old niece Rayne, who was amazed by the size of the gray metal giant that loomed over the docks. Rayne, who was being held in her oldest uncle's arms, craned her neck up to look over the huge seafaring vessel. "Her name is the USS Mary Todd Lincoln. Big name for a big ship, huh, Raynee?"

"Big..." Rayne nodded, copying the word her uncle had repeated twice in her cute, innocent sounding voice. One year old Benjamin was just as fascinated with the Mary Todd Lincoln as his cousin was, and he too was craning his neck to look over the ship as his father held him. Cradled in Theresa's arms was Benny's baby sister, Catherine Ellen-Monica Humphrey, who came into the world in the spring on May 20, 1917. Rayne got a girl-cousin after all. Theresa gave her daughter two middle names in honor of her maternal grandmother and after the hospital where Catherine and her big brother and their cousin had all been born at.

Rayne waved farewell to her uncles alongside her relatives as the USS Mary Todd Lincoln departed for Europe. Later that evening, Rayne noticed how depressed her mother looked while they were eating dessert at the dinner table. Although too young to understand the reason behind her mother's sadness, Rayne could grasp that her mother was upset about something, and her two year old mind thought that the best way to make her mother happy again was to offer Eliza some of her chocolate pudding. "Mama?" chirped Rayne as she offered her mother a spoonful of pudding.

Eliza looked up and saw what her daughter was doing. Sad as she was, the corners of Eliza's lips rose, and she moved in to take up on Rayne's offer. But a two-year old's hand is not the steadiest, especially when holding a spoon weighed down with a thick, custardy dessert. Rayne tried to put the spoon to her mother's mouth, only for her to somehow end up smooshing the pudding onto Eliza's nose. "Ah!" Eliza yelped when she felt the thick stuff stick to the tip of her nose.

Seeing Rayne sitting stock-still in her highchair wide-eyed hammered in the adorable hilarity of the situation, and Eliza could not help but laugh out loud. Little Rayne relaxed as her mother laughed, and she laughed with her. "Here," began Eliza as scooped up a dollop of chocolate pudding from her own bowl with her fingertip, "let me put some on your nose, you little stinker." Rayne giggled and tried to turn her face away from Eliza's finger, but her nose got smeared with pudding anyway, eliciting louder peals of joy from the toddler. The apartment resonated with the laughter of mother and daughter, a sound that helped to dispel the melancholy that had pervaded it earlier.

Jimmy and Charlie wrote home as often as they could from their army camp in France. Their initial letters were positive at first as the brothers' described the warm reception they received from the French, how pretty the girls were over there, and how picturesque France's countryside was. But as 1917 wore on and gave way into 1918, the Malloye Brothers' letters became grimmer as they experienced combat and saw the devastation that Europe had been going through over the past four years. Burned-out ruins of towns and villages, gigantic craters created from relentless shelling, woodlands stripped bare of leaves and shrubbery, cat-sized rats scampering up and down waterlogged trenches, twisted lines of barbed wire that separated the opposing sides from No Man's Land, the rotting corpses of both men and beasts, and God knows how many crosses bearing the names of soldiers who had lost their lives for a miserable patch of desolate muddy ground be they British, French, or German. Correspondence from France to America between Jimmy and Charlie and their family ceased as the two brothers partook in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive headed by Generals Ferdinand Foch and John J. Pershing during the fall of 1918.

After what finally what felt like an eternity of waiting, the Baker-Malloye's heard from the brothers again near the end of October. Jimmy and Charlie were both okay though the former had been wounded in battle. Charles wrote how his older brother was recovering at a field hospital and that Jimmy had become smitten with his nurse, a young lady who happened to be a fellow New York native who hailed from the state's Finger Lakes region. And finally, at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, armistice was declared. Germany had surrendered, the Great War was over, peace at last.

Three year old Rayne and her mother traveled to Wall Street from Inwood to partake in the celebrations held there after Armistice was declared. The young girl delighted in all the waving flags, the confetti, and the smiling, cheering crowds of people who packed the streets. Eliza was so relieved that her brothers would be coming home and that the Great War had not been fated to continue through her daughter's childhood nor that of her nephew and niece. Rayne, Benjamin, and Catherine would all grow up without the dark cloud of war hanging over their heads. They would never fear a war spilling out onto their homeland nor fear an invasion from belligerent foreign powers.

And Rayne had grown exceptionally well in the past three years since her birth from a delicate and cute infant into a rambunctious and sweet-natured toddler. Her pain tolerance had grown too, and Rayne could tolerate baths where she was stomach deep in water for about ten minutes tops without needing to step out. Learning to cope with the burden of her water allergy also made Rayne less sensitive to other injuries like cuts and scrapes, and she rarely cried when hurt whereas her cousins would howl and scream if they received the same injuries. As if Rayne's condition wasn't already strange enough, her mother noticed just how fast Rayne's wounds would heal without leaving a mark on her skin regardless even if she had scraped her knees bloody on concrete. If only Rayne's two uncles could heal just as quickly without any scarring.

Though James Jr and Charles were both lucky to come home in one piece, they seemed to have left pieces of their formerly positive and outgoing personalities back in France. The brothers had become quiet, withdrawn and morose after their time in Europe, spending most of their days working on the farm without uttering a word, or staring off into space when Jimmy and Charlie were inside their family's farmhouse. Sarah wrote to her daughters in the city how James and Charles had been having nightmares when they slept, and that Sarah had come running into Charlie's room one night after he fell out of bed in his sleep. The poor man was dripping with sweat, breathing heavily, his eyes as wide as saucers, eyes that frantically searched his bedroom for whatever had terrorized him in his dreams. "He keeps coming after me... He won't leave me alone...," Charles had whimpered, but he refused to talk about the relentless pursuer from his nightmare, without a doubt a German soldier that Charlie and his big brother had killed in France.

Loud noises also made Jimmy and Charlie flinch; they couldn't stand fireworks, and both brothers retreated into their parents' basement on New Year's Eve 1918 and Independence Day 1919 to avoid hearing the explosive celebratory sounds. Haunted as Jimmy and Charlie were by their wartime experiences, they did persevere through their challenges and worked hard to adapt back into civilian life. James Jr stayed on his family's farm, which he would one day inherit after the passing of his grandfather and father. Charles, who had no interest in farmwork, moved to the Big Apple to work as a bricklayer in the city's booming construction business. Thomas was the only other Malloye child besides Jimmy who was still living at home with his parents by 1919, turning fourteen that year and attending high school.

Rayne, Benny, and Cathy were happy to have one of their uncles move into their hometown, and their parents would bring them to see Charles at his worksite, or everyone would go out together to Central Park or Coney Island when the weather was nice. The children saw more of their oldest uncle, Jimmy, after he was reunited with the nurse who had cared for him and captured his heart back in France. That nurse, a one Ms. Mary Paget, had moved to New York City to further her nursing career. Two coincidences brought Jimmy and Mary back together: (1) Mary had a cousin who lived in Longhouse Bend, and (2) Mary was visiting that cousin in town for the first time when she ran into Jimmy on Main Street in early 1919. A courtship soon sprung up between the ex-soldier and former army nurse, and James made sure to visit Mary in the city as often as he could by train or whenever he could have the family car all to himself.

James and Mary started tagging along with Charles and their sisters, brother-in-law, and nieces and nephew during their outings in the city. But going outside in the city nowadays had become a bit of hassle since people were advised to wear white gauze facemasks whenever they went out to keep them from catching the Spanish flu. The disease affected everyone indiscriminately regardless of age, sex, or color, and the whole world was on edge as the Spanish flu swept through towns and cities like a hurricane wind. The Malloye children living in NYC found solace from the stresses of citywide pandemic protocols on Father's Day weekend 1919. Theresa, Harold, Benjamin, Catherine, Eliza, Rayne, Charles, and Mary all came down to Longhouse Bend from New York City to celebrate the holiday with James Malloye Sr.

The weather was lovely that weekend, and the whole family went out for a pleasant walk in the woods. There was no need for masks there amidst Mother Nature, and the city-slickers enjoyed being able to breathe in fresh air without restriction. It was during that walk that Eliza noticed how her younger brother Charles seemed to be preoccupied by something troubling.

"Charlie, are you okay?" Eliza asked her brother as they walked side by side down the forested path with their parents, grandparents, Uncle Chalmer, the Humphrey's, their children and Rayne, and James and Mary ahead of them. Charles didn't immediately answer his sister's question, but his face became troubled, making Eliza feel guilty for stirring up something mightily unpleasant. "Is it about the war?" she asked sympathetically.

Charles shook his head. "No, not this time."

"Then what is it? Something's really bothering you."

Charlie furrowed his brow as if he were mentally debating whether to divulge his troubles or not to Eliza. He chose to divulge.

"About three months back, I went out with some buddies of mine from work to a theater to see a vaudeville show. A dance troupe performed in one of the acts, and one of the dancers did a solo performance. She was amazing; didn't think anyone could move like she did. She's good-looking too, looks a lot like Lilian Gish."

"Really? Did you meet this dancer?" an intrigued Eliza asked to which Charles nodded. "How?"

"She came up to my friends and I as we were leaving the theater asking if any of us had a lighter or a match she could borrow to light her cigarette with since she had lost her lighter. It just so happened that I bought a matchbook from one of the theater vendors that night, and I lit her cigarette for her. We introduced ourselves, her name is Ruth, Ruth Lehman; we started talking, and I ended up walking Ruth home that night."

"Ruth. That's a nice name. What happened next?"

"She happened to have off the next day, and we made plans to meet at a soda fountain near the theater and we have been seeing each other since then."

Eliza gaped at her brother.

"You've been seeing someone for the past three months and you haven't told any of us about her? Why?"

Charles looked down at his feet as if in shame. "Well, as you've just heard, Lizzie, Ruth's a dancer and she smokes in public. Not only that, but Ruth's got a temper, and she speaks her mind no matter how hurtful her words are. Mom would never approve of her."

"Why do you keep seeing her then?"

Charles shrugged. "I don't know, Lizzie. Ruth is not like any woman I've ever met before. I'm attracted to her, and she likes me back. But now..." Charlie trailed off and his shameful expression deepened.

"But now what?"

"But now...," Charles struggled to finish his sentence. "But now Ruth is in trouble..."

"Trouble? What kind of trouble?"

"I got her into it." Charles added quickly, his face reddening. Horror filled Eliza's face as she realized what her brother meant. He'd gotten Ruth pregnant out of wedlock. Impregnated a woman he had only known for three months, a woman whom Eliza and Charles's parents would doubtlessly view as a strumpet.

This wasn't good. Meanwhile, Rayne and her young cousins were happily oblivious to the calamity that had befallen their Uncle Charlie. A nearly four year old Rayne had run ahead of her grandparents up the forest path when she tripped over a tree root and skinned her hands and knees on the dirt path.

"Rayne! Honey!" Sarah called out to her granddaughter in a fright. Mary ran to Rayne's side when she heard Sarah's cry and helped the little girl up.

"Are you okay?" A concerned Mary asked to which Rayne nodded casually as if nothing had happened. There were no tears in her eyes, no tremor in her lips. Mary was perplexed by her sweetheart's niece's reaction to her fall. She checked Rayne's hands and knees only to find dirt and bruising but no blood or even broken skin.

Mary looked up from Rayne's face to her wounded limbs and to James Jr and his relatives as they rushed over to check on Rayne. "She's not hurt at all except for some bruising. Other than that, she's fine...," Mary said in disbelief, mostly to herself, as Eliza crouched down to check on her daughter.

"Does it sting, honey?"

Rayne shook her head again saying "Uh, uh."

"Good." Eliza nodded in return, and she brushed away the dirt and minuscule pieces of rock that were embedded in Rayne's skin. Mary, wanting to make herself useful, picked up Rayne's hat, which had fallen off her head when she fell, and gave it back to the girl.

"Here's your hat, little lady."

"Thank you." Rayne said quietly as Mary placed her hat back on her head. Rayne reached her fingers up to the rim of her hat to adjust it, and she smiled absentmindedly after fixing her hat just right. Rayne's lips were parted wide enough for Mary to see her baby teeth, and she saw how pointed Rayne's canines were. They reminded Mary of the fangs of a cat.

Before Mary could comment on Rayne's teeth, Eliza picked her daughter up and walked back down to Charles with Rayne in her arms. The walk resumed from there, and Mary returned to James Jr's side. She mentioned Rayne's remarkable healing speed and how sharp her teeth looked, but the girl's Uncle Jimmy only shrugged.

"I've been told that Rayne heals pretty quick from any cut or scrape she gets. She's also got this water allergy thing that has baffled her doctors since the day she was born. Water burns Rayne the moment her skin gets wet."

"My word!" Mary gasped. "How does she cope? How does she get clean?"

Mary absorbed whatever details James shared with her about his niece's strange condition, and Mary would ask Eliza more about Rayne later that night. The next day, June 15th, Father's Day, was spent quietly and pleasantly, and all the city children departed for NYC after supper that evening. Later the following week, Charles, with Eliza's help, wrote to their parents telling them about Ruth and that she was in trouble. As one could imagine, James Sr and Sarah were less than thrilled to hear that their son had got a young lady pregnant out of wedlock, but they received some consolation from the fact that Charles was going to marry Ruth at a Catholic church instead of getting an unchristian quickie marriage at a courthouse or city hall. The wedding was a small and quick one, and it was held at a Catholic church in the Bronx about a week after Charles told his parents about Ruth.

The guest list was sparse: Charles's family and a few of Ruth's vaudevillian friends attended the wedding; no one from the bride's family, whom she had been estranged from for many years, travelled from Ruth's hometown of Akron, Ohio to see her get hitched. While James Sr and Sarah behaved civilly towards their daughter-in-law on her and Charles's wedding day, their disdain for her was obvious. Ruth in turn made no bones about how she did not give a damn how her in-laws felt about her by giving her husband of only a few minutes a playful smack on the rear in full view of his family as they walked down the aisle and out of the church. While the adult Baker-Malloye's were horrified or at least embarrassed by Ruth's behavior, Ruth's friends whooped and snickered, and Charles's young nieces and nephew giggled from the pews. Charles and Ruth moved into a modest bungalow in the Bronx's Woodlawn Heights neighborhood soon after they were married.

Rayne liked her Aunt Ruth, whom she found to be pretty, neat, and adventurous, and she especially liked the two new cousins Ruth gave Rayne nine months after marrying Charles on March 28, 1920. Yes, Ruth was pregnant with twins, a boy and a girl each. The twins were born small but healthy, and their parents named them George Robert Malloye and Ada Rose Malloye. At the time their twins were born, Charles was twenty-two and Ruth twenty-one, and they had been married for nine months after knowing each other for just a third of that time beforehand. The young new parents had a long, hard road ahead of them, but at least they had help from the Malloye's and their Bronxite neighbors, the latter who often observed how a stressed-out Ruth seemed to smoke a whole pack of cigarettes on her front porch every day.

Charles and Ruth found some distraction from the stresses of parenthood by traveling to Longhouse Bend that summer a few months after George and Ada's birth to attend the wedding of James Malloye Jr and Mary Paget. Courting Mary for little over half a year convinced Jimmy that she was the one for him, and he popped the question to her at her folks' place at the Finger Lakes the year before. Mary said yes, and the couple were wed at St. Mark's Catholic Church in Longhouse Bend, the church that Jimmy and his family had been attending for decades. Jimmy wore his army uniform like Charles did at his wedding, though Jimmy's ceremony had far more guests than his little brother's did, namely the bride's family were in attendance. The wedding was beautiful, and Eliza was happy that she and her daughter could mingle with the townsfolk without fear of judgement on her older brother's special day.

Mary moved in with her husband into his childhood home after they were married. Yearning for independence, James Jr convinced his father to sublet him some farmland from the existing Baker-Malloye property for Jimmy to farm on and build a house of his own. Ground for the new house was broken the following spring in 1921, and construction was completed by the time Mary gave birth to her and Jimmy's first child together, a little girl they named Pauline Marie Malloye, on May 15, 1922. Pauline was born at her parents' newly finished house with both her grandmothers and a local doctor and midwife in attendance.

Ellen had wanted to be there when her newest great-grandchild was born, but being nearly eighty years old, getting around on her own two feet was proving to be too much for Ellen as well as for her husband Joseph. Sarah was soon overburdened with having to take care of both her aging parents and mentally handicapped brother in addition to doing housework at the same time. Desperate for help, the Malloye's hired a black woman named Annie to work for them as a part-time maid. She worked three days a week on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays and the occasional Saturday to cook, clean, and help take care of Joseph, Ellen, and Chalmer. Annie was quiet, respectful, and hardworking, and she quickly proved herself to be an indispensable though largely invisible member of the family.

Two new faces had arrived in the Baker-Malloye's lives in the first half of 1922, and another face would enter Eliza's life in New York City during the fall of that year. Eliza had been working at her sister's father-in-law's clothes factory for seven years when a new machinist was hired to look after the factory's mechanical looms and other machinery. The new hire was a Staten Islander named Arthur Lansing. Eliza had first seen Arthur when he came into the factory office for his job interview, and the two exchanged greetings, pleasant smiles, and farewells when Arthur entered and left the office. Since his hiring, Eliza had felt Arthur's eyes on her whenever they happened to meet outside on the street during their breaks or if they happened to cross paths in the hallways inside the building.

Mr. Lansing was cute, looked to be around Eliza's age, was square-faced, black-haired, and brown-eyed, and his fingers and coveralls were always smudged with grease. Arthur smelled of machine oil too, just as Eliza's sister-in-law Ruth always smelled of cigarette smoke, but Arthur's scent was far more pleasant in comparison. For about a month and a half, Eliza and Arthur only exchanged greetings or nods of recognition, but that changed in around late September and early October. Arthur began flirting with the pretty blue-eyed, redheaded secretary whenever they chanced to meet: learning her name and she his, complimenting Eliza on her appearance, telling her that she looked nice; offering to walk with her and the other secretaries around the block when the weather was nice on their shared work break; commenting about the weather or asking Eliza how her day was going in an attempt to start a conversation with her. Harmless as Arthur's attempts to ingratiate himself to Eliza were, Eliza politely rebuffed his wooing.

Eight years had passed since her rape, and Eliza was still leery of unfamiliar men no matter how nice or gentlemanly they were to her. The Monster had pretended to be a chivalrous gentleman on the night he ravished Eliza to lure her into his vile clutches, and Eliza's trust in men had not fully recovered since then. While Eliza kept her barriers up, one of her coworkers, Marjorie, took pity on the lovesick machinist.

"You should give Arthur a chance, Liz." Marjorie had suggested to Eliza as they walked around the city block their workplace stood on one Indian summer's day in October. "Just talk to him. See what happens. He reminds me of Charlie Chaplin and looks like a nice man, too."

Eliza could feel her resistance waning, but its long fingers still retained a good grip on her anxious heart. Anxious or not, Eliza decided to take a leap of faith when she and Marjorie completed their first lap around the factory.

"Mr. Lansing?" Eliza called out. Arthur, who was leaning against the brick factory wall watching the street traffic, straightened up when he heard his name being called and saw who it was.

"Yes, ma'am?"

Eliza wrung her hands together.

"Would you like to accompany us on our walk?"

Both of Arthur's eyebrows rose, as did the corners of his mouth. He walked over to the two women. "I would be honored to, Ms. Malloye." Arthur took his place between Eliza and Marjorie, holding out his arms so that the women could hook theirs through his. "And please, call me Arthur."

It was a pleasant walk, and Eliza and Arthur started walking together or meeting in the factory stairwells during their break periods. The two talked and learned more about each other. Arthur was born in 1894, making him two years older than Eliza, and he came from a big Catholic family himself, having six older brothers and one younger sister who Arthur claimed was more pampered than a Vanderbilt and was doted on by everyone in their family. Eliza told him about her family, how they were also Catholic and that she was the third of five. She was even upfront about Rayne, and Arthur took the fact that the object of his affections was a "widowed" mother in stride.

Slowly but surely, Arthur won over Eliza with his amiability and kindness, and Eliza was still smiling from her time with the machinist when she picked Rayne up from school after work. Rayne had started kindergarten at the Our Lady of the Heart Catholic School in 1920, and she had just begun her second grade year when her mother first met Arthur. Eliza did not bring up Arthur right away to her family until he finally asked her out on a movie date to see the new hit film Douglas Fairbanks in Robin Hood later that fall. Rayne was excited for her mother when she heard the good news, and she got to meet Eliza's prospective beau for the first time outside their Inwood apartment building when the night of Eliza's date arrived (Mrs. Quinn forbade unmarried couples from meeting inside her building without a chaperone). Arthur greeted mother and daughter outside their home, and he shook Rayne's hand when Eliza introduced them to each other.

Arthur escorted Eliza and Rayne to the Humphrey's apartment where Rayne was going to be babysat by her Aunt Theresa and play with her cousins Benny and Cathy until her mother came to pick her up at the end of her date. Unbeknownst to Arthur and Eliza, Charles was shadowing them on their date to the movie theater. The Baker-Malloye's, as happy as they were for Eliza, were also wary of Arthur, and they enlisted Charles to keep an eye on his sister and her date. The family need not to have taken this precaution. Arthur was a true gentleman to Eliza.

The couple had dinner at a diner before going to the movie theater. Robin Hood's swashbuckling on the silver screen delighted Arthur and Eliza, and they clapped alongside the rest of the moviegoers after Douglas Fairbanks in Robin Hood ended with the eponymous hero being reunited with his fair Maid Marian and the defeat of the tyrannical Prince John. Arthur and Eliza walked back to the Humphrey's apartment together hand-in-hand talking about the movie, identifying their favorite and least favorite scenes, wondering aloud how long an orchestra had to practice playing a movie score just right for a live viewing, and if movies would ever have sound. And of course, the two planned a second date. Arthur stayed with Eliza and Rayne, who was being carried in her mother's arms due to her being tired, until he saw them safely back to their apartment.

For the first time in a long time, Eliza dreamed of the opposite sex that night with Arthur filling her dreams and building up her excitement for their next date. Eliza made sure to thank Marjorie when they were at work for encouraging her to give Arthur a chance. Meanwhile, Charles gave his family a glowing review of Arthur, helping them all to relax. The second date with Arthur was just as pleasant, and it took two more dates for him and Eliza to officially become a couple. Arthur and Eliza took Rayne with them on their fifth date, their destination being the American Museum of Natural History so that seven year old Rayne, a budding lepidopterist, could see the museum's butterfly exhibits.

Arthur remembered Rayne's love of butterflies by Christmastime 1922, and he gifted her with a rose red cloche hat that had a butterfly embroidered on it in white thread on Christmas morning. Rayne adored the hat, its rosy color complimenting her crimson hair, the white butterfly standing out sharply amidst the red like a bright star. The young girl proceeded to zip around the packed house showing off her new hat to her relatives. Rayne received compliments from everyone, and Eliza, who was in the kitchen helping her mother, older sister, grandmother, and sisters-in-law prepare breakfast for everybody, was touched to see the butterfly embroidery on her daughter's new hat. Arthur's thoughtfulness won him more accolades from the Baker-Malloye's, and Eliza had a feeling that he was the one.

It was still too early in the relationship to come to that conclusion, but Eliza could not deny what she was feeling. Perhaps one day a real wedding band would adorn her finger in place of the fake one. Not only that, but Rayne would finally have a father figure in her life, and Eliza would have a husband to support her and become her lifelong companion. Eliza fostered these dreams as she and her family tucked into breakfast. Arthur felt Eliza's eyes on him at some point during the meal, and he smiled at her when their eyes met, and Eliza smiled back him.

The holiday season came and went as did 1922. The first few months of 1923 were gilded with the news that Jimmy and Mary were expecting their second child together. Not only that, but Thomas was in the final months of his senior year of high school, and he would be graduating that spring. The Baker-Malloye's had a lot to look forward to that year in 1923. But before Eliza could celebrate her youngest brother's milestone or welcome her new nephew or niece, she was going to have to face the demons from her past, demons that Rayne would unintentionally summon...


Changes: All the cousins have full names now.

1. Name(s): Bentley (Origins) - Benjamin (Rebirth).

Penelope (Origins) - Pauline (Rebirth) - More siblings to follow.

Francine-Mary (Origins) - Mary Paget (Rebirth)

Karen (Origins) - Ruth Lehman (Rebirth)

2. I hope to expand more on Jimmy and Charlie's wartime experiences in future stories.

3. Arthur is a new character who did not exist in the original story.