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Chapter Text

When her parents had brought her to America, Sarah Rogers had been Sarah Doherty, a sandy-haired little slip of a girl who minded her parents and practiced her letters and was polite to all of her elders. The passage was hard but she was young enough to think it an adventure; no one was so cruel to disabuse her of that notion, not when she turned her constant sunny smile on them.

Her family settled, mostly by accident, in Borough Park. Her father was a tradesman; her mother got a job in a factory in Manhattan. And Sarah Doherty grew up. She was happy enough to still believe that life was an adventure.

***

In 1911, Sarah had nightmares about fire and locked doors, bodies crumpled on the sidewalk under the windows they'd jumped from, and her father spent a week staring for long hours at the empty walls of their little tenement apartment. The women of the neighborhood made sure she and her father were fed, but Sarah could still hear the whispers in the hallways and on the street about what a tragedy it was.

Her father heard the whispers as well. He took a second job working at the docks and saved his pay. He had never been an outgoing man, content with his own small family, but the loss of his wife cast a shadow over Sarah's father. There was no thought that he would remarry. Instead, after seven days of grieving, he focused on a single goal: No daughter of his would ever work in a factory, not if he got his way.

He sent her to the Training School for Nurses attached to Bellevue Hospital. Sarah hadn't thought about being a nurse, had never even considered it. But, she discovered, she had a talent for it, had soft hands and a gentle manner that soothed patients even in a delirium of pain. Sarah kept her graduation pin in pride of place on her bureau and found a job immediately. She rarely smiled but she wore her nurse's whites to and from work, cap carefully afixed, long skirt tidy, posture straight.

Her mother had been a member of the Women's Trade Union League. Sarah joined the American Nurses Association.

She had thought that it was not a bad life, even if it was a little boring.

And then she had met handsome Joseph Rogers.

***

It was 1915 and he was as fresh off the boat as they came, all freckles and brogue as he peeked at her from his seat across the aisle at Mass. He'd been impertinent. But charming.

Sarah relearned to smile all the time. Here was a new adventure.

***

In 1925, every week the widow Sarah Rogers makes the same early morning journey to Mass and to Confession before her shift begins. Every week she tries to give an honest accounting of herself and her sins. Every week she takes her place in the confessional, smooths her skirt and then makes the Sign of the Cross. “Forgive me, Father, it has been seven days since my last confession.”

This week, Sarah pauses, gathers her breath. She'd spent the pre-dawn hours of the morning doing a mental accounting of her sins for the week.

Eight times I felt despair. Twice I looked with lust upon a man who is not my husband, though I do not have a husband since my own died and sometimes the nights are very lonely.

Sarah does not feel bad about that one, though she is sorry for it. But she’s still young enough. And Joseph had been such a good husband. She misses him and how they were together.

Three times I spoke ill of President Calvin Coolidge. Four times I took the Name of the Lord in vain. Three times I was impatient with Steven; I spend so much time praying for him, that he’ll outgrow his illnesses but I was tired and I took it out on him.

Instead of this litany, Sarah sighs. “Father, I don’t know what to do. There’s a girl who came to the hospital yesterday and she was so hurt, Father. She’d been beaten.” And more than that, Sarah suspects. She's been a nurse long enough to know what she saw. But the girl had refused to say a word about it, had refused to name her attacker either. Sarah has her suspicions, knows the toughs around the neighborhood and their habits.

“Did you do all you could to offer her comfort and healing?” Father O’Donnelly always speaks softly. His voice is both gentle and rough, from the other side of the screen.

Sarah’s glad to hear it. She prefers Father O’Donnelly to Father Patrick - that man has a way about him that makes her keep a close eye on the children of the parish in his presence. Her Steven will never serve as an altar boy with him, not if she has anything to do with it.

“I did, Father. But my heart is still uneasy. I feel like there has to be more I could have done for her.” Sarah pauses. “I can’t stop worrying about her, wondering if she’s all right.”

Father O’Donnelly hmmms. “Some would argue that you have done your part and that to impose more care would be to interfere with another man’s family.”

She’s quite certain some would argue that. But Sarah can’t make herself believe it, can’t really think that God would want Sarah to ignore someone vulnerable, someone at risk. Where would the mercy be in that? Why call her to the nursing profession in the first place if she were meant to ignore the injury of those who all but lived on her doorstep?

Sarah isn't entirely sure God is as merciful as her mother taught her, not anymore, not with the pain that she sees every day. Not with her father dead of missing her mother. Not with her Joseph taken by sickness after he'd survived all the horrors of the Great War. Not with her Steven so frail. And now she’s faced with this girl, a bundle of hurt and fright - without anyone to protect her. Or maybe God really is merciful and he put that girl in Sarah's path for a reason.

That’s pride there, the idea that she’s good enough to be moved by God's hand. She ought to confess it.

"Men argue that, Father. Men who don't want their neighbors to know why their wives are covered in bruises and their children flinch away." Her thin fingers worry at the hem of her dress. "Is it sacrilege to say that, Father?"

O’Donnelly is quiet for a moment, only the sound of Sarah's own breathing disturbing the confessional before he spoke again. "I often pray and beg for God to grant me a more keen understanding of these modern times. What many have considered the natural order of society has shifted - and I cannot in good conscience object to the burdens of any of God's beloved children being lifted.”

Sarah believes him. She’s seen his willingness to work with anyone from the neighborhood who needs it. Some of the other priests won't even work with the Italians, much less the blacks. O'Donnelly is her favorite for more reasons than one.

“I want to help her, Father. Or at least tell her she needn’t be all alone and afraid.” Sarah knows others in the congregation pity her - a young widow, both parents dead, with a small child who needs so much care - but for everything that has happened to her, she’s not alone. Her life has been full of love. She still has no shortage of it in her heart.

“Carry that message to her, offer what comfort you find that you are able. Let her know that God loves her and that she is welcome here.” O’Donnelly still sounds pensive, like he know he’s giving leeway he might regret.

Sarah bows her head and continues her Confession.

***

She and Joseph had moved north once they married, nearly under the bridge to Manhattan, because Joseph did work in a factory. She didn't worry too much; he was as much a union man as her father was. Sarah wouldn’t have married anyone who wasn’t.

They had made plans with each other; when she got pregnant, they promised, she’d stop working at the hospital and they’d look for a bigger apartment so their kid wouldn’t have to sleep in the shared bathtub down the hall. Joseph had settled one big hand in the dip of Sarah’s slight waist, rubbed at her hip bone with his thumb. They’d have a house full of kids, he'd sworn, all with her blonde hair and sweet disposition.

Sarah hadn’t been entirely sure about a whole house full but trying for it was fun with her handsome husband. She had squirmed closer and tugged at his shoulders under he moved his body over hers. They’d had to muffle their voices so the neighbors wouldn’t complain about the noise.

No one was surprised when she fell pregnant, even if it took a little longer than she'd expected. The shock came with the cramps, with the blood when there shouldn't have been any, with hollowness in her heart that told her there was no longer a life growing inside her.

When it happened again and then a third time, Sarah had no more room for shock. She thought of her father, staring at the walls after her mother died. She thought he was stronger than she ever knew; she couldn't even get out of bed, could only turn her face away from the window.

***

Her name is Colleen. And she still won’t tell Sarah who knocked her out in that alley, who left her unconscious and vulnerable until a shopkeeper had hauled his trash and found her. Colleen is 17 years old, with curls bobbed up to her ears. She works as a typist and rolls her stockings below her knees when she gets off work. She likes to go dancing at night. She tells Sarah these things with her head held high when Sarah finds her on the street and asks if they can chat.

But she ducks into a doorway and flinches when Sarah checks the bruise high on her cheek.

Colleen hunches a little and watches people and cars and dogs on the street pass before she confesses in a terrified whisper, as though Sarah is a priest, as though Sarah can absolve her: She’s in the family way, and her father - Sarah knows her father - will beat her just as surely as her nameless young man had, drunk and near blind on bathtub gin.

This is not the kind of help that Father O’Donnelly would approve of, Sarah is certain. But he’d told her to offer what comfort she can. And Sarah is a nurse. She has almost everything she’ll need at home already, part of the first aid kit she always keeps stocked in case Steven takes sick. It happens all too often.

***

Joseph had gone to war because he'd believed it was the right thing to do. He'd followed the news and Sarah had felt the inevitable creeping closer with every sunken ship. She'd clung to him at night, pulled him to her with kisses flavored by desperation.

He'd promised to come home. They still had a house to fill with babies.

***

In 1918 Sarah went to Mass every day she could, as long as the doors of the church were open. She went back to work when the first flu patients started flooding the hospitals. She lit candles for everyone she could name when they died until she lost count of the candles she had lit.

But none of it mattered because Joseph kept his promise, came home to her. He came with a blank stare and a tendency to bruise her hips because he held on so tightly. It was his turn to cling and she didn't mind, felt the bruises on her skin as she went about her work and knew that he was safe.

They kept her pregnancy to themselves until she started to show and there was no way of hiding it. They thought it was a sign of good things to come. Joseph stood strong and straight again, startled less easily. Sarah went to Mass every other day and almost glowed. She quit work again, rather than risk the child they'd hoped so much for.

They hadn't paid enough attention when Joseph started to cough.

***

Steven is playing in the alley well before Colleen comes over. Sarah knows he won't come upstairs until he's called. He's a good lad, obedient like she had been as a child. It gives her the chance to make sure everything is clean, as clean as boiling water and bleach - Sarah has taken the new advertisements for Clorox to heart - can make it. No patient of hers is going to leave with an infection.

Preparations keep her busy until Colleen is actually on the stairs. And then there is no time for her hands to be anything other than steady. Sarah does what needs doing, patient and calm the same way she is at work.

It isn’t until Colleen leaves, a little pale but with tears of gratitude in her eyes, that Sarah lets herself fall apart a little bit. She drags a chair over to the kitchen cabinets, climbs on it so she can reach the back of the tallest one.

That’s where she’s stashed the last of Joseph’s whiskey, fine amber beauty in a bottle. He’d overindulged but seldom, was a happy, amorous drunk when he did. She’d never objected, had sat on his lap and sipped from his glass, returned every kiss. He'd tasted of smoke and salt water, even when after he'd come back from Europe too quiet and pale.

Now she splashes a measure and then some more into a glass with hands that have finally started to shake. Sarah knocks back the whiskey and coughs until her own tears flow easily. She tells herself she is crying for Colleen, for what little she was able to offer. But she knows she is finally crying for everything she has ever lost, just for a few moments, just until she can breathe again.

Sarah will offer what comfort she can.

Chapter Text

Winifred's mother put her to bed almost every night with stories about how her father had needed to spell their last name to the bored immigration clerk at Castle Garden three whole times. Eckstein meant cornerstone, her mother told her, and that was what family was, the cornerstone of life.

Her family had carried the name with them from Russia, far from the comfortable cold and established history of their community, to a new country, to America. They'd fled in hopes of freedom, of peace - but also in hopes of jobs, in hopes of fair wages for honest work.

They'd found themselves on the Lower East Side, and in some ways it was like they had never left home. Conditions were poor. They spoke Russian to each other and with their neighbors. The wages were not quite as fair as they'd have liked, but they were given to suffer, Winifred's mother had said. With every child born, the tenement apartment grew more and more crowded - by the time Winifred was born, there were ten Ecksteins in three small rooms. But her mother told her to be grateful even for that.

Gratitude was not entirely in Winifred's nature. She was thankful enough, but she didn't understand why her sisters worked such long hours, doing piecework in the front room. She wanted to go to school. She wanted to have a dress that was as nice as the ones her family made. She wanted a little space that was all hers instead of a pile of half-made clothes to use for a bed.

Perhaps it was because she was the youngest but Winifred absorbed the political talk of the elders around her and she wanted more, even if she didn't know exactly what that entailed.

***

Like all the other Eckstein children, Winifred learned to be useful. Her parents taught her Russian and Yiddish and she learned English from everyone else. She had a head for numbers, so her father let her check his sums as he calculated and figured, kept the books for his little garment business. She started to argue with the elders at the synagogue they attended; her scholarship was not entirely appreciated. She tagged along with her father to his landsmanschaften meetings to much the same reception.

It hardly deterred her.

She joined the International Ladies Garment Workers Union. She took over the books from her father entirely. She stopped going to synagogue, though she kept up with the ladies auxiliary.

And in 1912, George Barnes caught her eye.

***

They were too young to get married. But they'd carried on, with dancing every weekend. Winifred's father had finally insisted George join them at dinner on a regular basis, if they were going to be courting. He didn't care for it - George wasn't Jewish and he wasn't Russian. And if that weren't already enough, he was Irish. Her father knew better than to deny Winifred what she was set on but there was still a way things must be done.

George had gone pale at the invitation, but he'd nodded, squared his shoulders. He'd looked her father in the eye and told the older man that he'd eat with them every night if it meant getting to spend time with Winnie. He didn't have any family or much means but he'd do anything for her.

She had winced at the love name but reached for his hand anyway.

Her mother had started to quietly make plans.

***

In 1925, Winifred Barnes has two children. She sends James Buchanan out to play and keeps Ruth in her arms. She won't call James Buchanan home until she knows if George is going to come straight home after work or... later.

He won't spend all night at the speakeasy he doesn't think she knows about, not if he knows anything. But she'd rather he not be drunk in front of their boy either. George has been too angry lately, too unpredictable. Winifred can stand a bit of the manhandling herself; she'll not let him have a chance to lay hands on her children.

And she can't fault him too much; he drinks and plays cards in secret with the boys from work but he brings her the bulk of his paycheck every week, kisses her and loves on her until she's red from beard burn all down her neck. He'd come back from the trenches of Europe with more hardness, less patience. The sweetness she'd been so in love with had been wounded by nightmares and the persistent pain of a poorly healed shoulder. Winifred remains determined to coax both the joint and her husband's lighter nature back to health.

She convinced her parents to let her marry an Irish boy when she was 20 years old; Winifred has confidence in her persuasive abilities.

Even so, it's not dark out and James Buchanan is better off where he is for the moment. He's a good little boy, sturdy and friendly, already interested in helping with the baby as much as possible. And Winifred has business to attend to.

Winifred bundles Ruth up and tucks her into a box on the fire escape. The fresh air and sunlight will be good for her and Winifred needs her hands. She sets a pot of water on the stove to boil and considers her supplies.

She's got Lysol on hand for those that come to her seeking help with general odor, though it's not her favorite for douches. She'd rather they use Coca Cola than come back to her with burns and open sores. There are jars of marjoram, thyme, parsley, and lavender for tea in her cabinets; Winifred checks the levels and freshness of each herb. She'll need more parsley soon. Her stock of what she really wants is completely out though. She'll need to go to the flower market as soon as George leaves for work in the morning, if she can manage it. She adds the seeds of Queen Anne's Lace to her list.

That leaves her supply of sponges and the bottle of vinegar. The silk thread she ties around each bit of sponge comes from her own mother; she'll visit on Saturday to ask for more.

A soft knock at the door catches her attention. It's the kind of knock she knows best to listen out for - tentative and uncertain but just desperate enough not to leave without trying to catch her attention. She makes sure Ruth is still safe in her box before cracking the door open. "Can I help you?"

"Um, I heard you might have some tea for sale?" The girl at the door is short and pudgy, all moon face and spectacles. She's got good skin, kinky hair, the kind of nose that identifies strong character.

Winifred lets her in.

***

The first thing Winifred's mother did after George proposed was kick Winifred's father out of the apartment for a little while. Woman talk, she told him with a significant look, and it was enough to have him reaching for his coat and his hat. Winifred was tempted to follow him out the door because she had a feeling things were going to be embarrassing. But she was curious, so she curled up on a pile of uncut fabric, braced herself to listen.

Her mother wanted to talk to her about sex. She kept things vague enough that Winifred didn't have to think about her father at all, but it was still a little excruciating. Especially since she and George had been, well, necking and petting a little bit already when they had any time to themselves. That just didn't happen very often; there was no way Winifred was going to go to the boarding house he lived in, after all. She might have been a little fast but not enough to let him put it in and if they'd been alone in his bedroom she didn't think she'd have said no to that. He wouldn’t have made her; he wasn’t like some of the other boys on the block that she knew about, the ones who wouldn’t take no for an answer, the ones who lined up in alleys. But she knew she was the curious sort and she was curious what it would feel like.

She told her mother nothing though, just blushed and squirmed and nodded once she forgot to be ashamed that they were talking about things usually done in the dark.

And when her mother told her how contraceptives worked, Winifred found herself fascinated for more reasons than the obvious one. Her mother had scoffed at the way the Christians and the Catholics thought it was sinful. And what her daughter's husband didn't know wouldn't hurt him, she’d said.

Winifred had no argument with that. She loved George but she had to admit he wasn't necessarily the smartest man in their neighborhood. It didn't matter; she was smart enough for both of them.

***

The newly celebrated Mister and Missus George Barnes spent their wedding night in a hotel room paid for by the bride’s parents. They couldn’t afford a honeymoon but George had promised she would love the new apartment he’d found for them. One night, then, in a strange place, before they began their real lives as a married couple. She’d not been entirely excited at the prospect of spending the night in a strange place but she’d humored her parents, tried to be grateful for the gift.

By morning, Winifred was more than glad of the anonymity of the hotel; she’d have been angry to know their neighbors were privy to what should have been private, to know that every person she met on the stair had been part of that moment with them.

They’d gone far enough in the days before the wedding that Winifred had thought going all the way wouldn’t matter. She’d felt at George’s big cock - and she’d blushed more at the word than at the feel of it under her hand - through his trousers one night until he’d squirmed and cursed and finally had to catch at her wrist before he shamed himself.

Winifred hadn’t been scared, not after her talk with her mother. But she was surprised by how powerful it felt to her, when George let her touch him. How much power she felt over him. She had liked it and figured that was enough to make her a grown woman with experience.

But she’d liked it even more when there were no woolens between them, when she got to put her hands on all of his skin, to learn the strength of him in a whole new way. It was good that she hadn’t gone to bed with him before, she thought - she’d have never wanted to do anything else.

The first time had been fast. Then George, blushing until his fair skin was fair on fire, had mumbled something, tried to explain what he’d been told during his premarital medical exam. He’d shaken his head finally and asked if he could just show her.

His head between her thighs was always going to be one of her favorite memories, she just knew it.

***

It’s late when George finally comes home; James Buchanan and Ruth are both already sleeping in the corner of the parlor. Winifred has watched the candle she prefers to the electric lights burn down for almost an hour. She should have spent the time doing something, anything else - idle hands make the devil’s work, she’s heard other people tell their children. But tonight she is tired.

She can hear George stumble, his feet heavy on the stairs. He isn’t quite loud enough to wake the neighbors, or she would go and help him make the climb. It will be, she thinks, an easy night. She’ll have to help him to bed but he should sleep without argument.

He still won’t ever force her to do anything, no matter how much he’s had to drink. And she trusts that he isn’t taking up with any of the girls from the speakeasy. It’s just that sometimes she doesn’t like his whiskey breath, the way his big hands seem too large on her when he lacks the coordination he had so much of when they were just courting.

It’s just that sometimes she worries she won’t be able to persuade him better, won’t be able to take care of him the way she’d promised to on their wedding day.

The little box in the top dresser drawer where she keeps the finest of her underthings has more cash in it after a busy afternoon. That’s a comfort of a sort. Her family will sleep well tonight. And in the morning, she’ll rub George’s shoulder with the liniment she traded with a boxer’s girlfriend for, she and her huddled together in the rain behind the gym last week. He’ll kiss her before he goes off to work and she’ll be glad of it then.

Winifred blows the candle out and gets up to meet her husband at the door. She will always do what needs doing.