JULY 1944
ON THE DAY that Mr. Mendel took the children to the baseball game, Penny boarded a bus to Trenton, New Jersey. She had made up her mind to go at the very last minute, and she would arrive at Hazel’s home unannounced. Penny knew that she was taking a risk – Hazel might not even be home. But as badly as Penny wanted to see her real mother and find out how she felt about her, it would also be a relief if Hazel wasn’t home. Penny could simply turn around and take the bus back to Brooklyn.
As she traveled southwest across the state of New Jersey, through the cities of Elizabeth and Rahweh, stopping in New Brunswick, Monmouth, and Princeton, Penny tried to calculate how old Hazel would be now. If she had been seventeen when Penny was born, and Penny was now twenty-five, Hazel would be forty-two. It didn’t seem possible. Penny knew from reading Hazel’s Christmas cards every year that she and her husband Barry had two sons. How old were they? Younger than Penny, of course, but they would no longer be the little boys that Penny always pictured in her mind.
She watched people getting on and off the bus at each station, watched the tearful reunions and partings. More than half of the passengers were servicemen. She thought of Eddie and Roy and the welcome they would receive when they finally came home again.
At last she arrived in Trenton, every nerve in her body jittering. Penny hired a taxicab to go from the train station to Hazel’s house. Long before Penny was ready to face her mother, the cab halted in front of a neat brick bungalow, one in a long row of identical homes. Her fingers felt clumsy as she paid the fare. She climbed out of the car and slowly walked up the sidewalk to her mother’s house. Her real mother’s house.
The July day was hot and Penny’s dress drenched with sweat from the cramped bus ride. Her hair was curling out of control, her dress sticking to her. She should have used the ladies’ room at the bus station to comb her hair and refresh her lipstick. She was not going to make a very good first impression after all these years.
As Penny walked up the steps to the front door, she spotted a mother’s flag with two stars on it hanging in the bay window. Could Hazel’s sons – Penny’s half-brothers – be old enough to be serving in the military? It didn’t seem possible.
She knew someone must be home because the outer door was open and she could hear a radio playing inside the house through the screen door. Penny felt limp with fear. She wanted to turn back, but the taxi had driven away. It was too late to change her mind.
She drew a deep breath and rang the doorbell. A moment later, Hazel stood in the doorway. She didn’t look much different from the photograph their parents kept on their bookshelf, taken when Hazel was twenty years old. She wore an apron over her housedress, and her curly brown hair stuck out from beneath a kerchief. But even in work clothes, Hazel looked pretty.
“Hi, Hazel. It’s me . . . your sister, Penny.”
Her eyes went wide with surprise. “Penny! My goodness! . . . Oh my! . . . Is-is it really you?” She flung open the screen door and enveloped Penny in her arms. They stood that way for a long moment, locked in an embrace.
Hazel finally released Penny and held her at arms’ length, studying her from head to toe. “I’m so happy to see you. My goodness! How did you . . . what are you doing here?”
“I had the day off from work, so I decided to visit you.”
“Come in, come in. I was just washing the dishes and listening to the radio.” She led Penny by the hand through the tiny living room and dining area and into the kitchen, where a Frank Sinatra tune played on the radio. “You should have warned me you were coming . . . my house is a mess and so am I. Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”
“I-I don’t know . . . I just made up my mind at the last minute.”
An ironing board stood in one corner of the kitchen with a basketful of clothes waiting beneath it. The half-finished dishes were piled around the sink. Hazel had an electric fan blowing, but it didn’t do much to cool the room. She pulled the kerchief from her head and untied her apron.
“Sorry about the mess.”
“I don’t care about the house,” Penny said. “I came to see you.” She couldn’t stop smiling. Hazel had greeted her so warmly. The sight of Penny hadn’t repulsed her or reminded her of the rape. Mr. Mendel had been right – her mother’s reaction had surprised her.
“Let’s sit out back,” Hazel said. “I think it’s a little cooler on the porch. Would you like something cold to drink? I have iced tea.”
“Sure. That sounds good.”
But Hazel made no move to fetch the tea. Instead, she reached out to stroke Penny’s hair in a tender gesture. “You’re so pretty! Gosh, I can’t stop staring at you! I feel tongue-tied. . . . I can’t wait for you to tell me all about yourself.”
“Sure.” Penny could barely reply through her tears. Hazel finally pulled her gaze away and took two glasses from the cupboard and a pitcher of tea from the refrigerator. She cracked open an aluminum tray of ice cubes and dropped some into each glass. Penny saw Hazel’s hands shaking.
“Mother says you sell tickets at the bus station?”
Penny cleared the lump from her throat. “I used to. Last fall, my boss asked me if I wanted to learn how to drive a city bus and so I did. I have my own bus route now. The pay is real good, and I get to meet all kinds of interesting people.”
“My baby . . . sister,” Hazel murmured, hesitating slightly between the two words. “Good for you, Penny!”
She led the way through the back door to a small covered porch and two wicker rocking chairs. Penny felt sweat trickling down the back of her neck, but whether it was from the warm July day or her nerves, she couldn’t tell. Maybe both.
“I admire you for taking on a job like that,” Hazel said as she sat down beside Penny. “I kept to a more traditional job as a secretary, but I guess you’re like one of those Rosie the Riveters they’re always talking about in the magazines, tackling a man’s job so they can go fight the war.”
“Yeah, I guess . . . Tell me about your life, Hazel. I can’t even remember the last time I saw you. I wasn’t even old enough for school yet.”
“There’s not much to tell. I’m an ordinary housewife. Barry is in sales; his company has a government contract, so he travels a lot. He won’t be home until next week – ” Hazel stopped, and Penny could see her struggling to control her emotions. “Sorry . . . I’m sorry . . . it’s just that seeing you again is so . . . I always dreamed we would be together one day, but I never thought . . . and here you are, so pretty . . .” She smiled through the tears that rolled down her face.
Penny no longer wanted to pretend that Hazel was her sister. “I know the truth,” she said. “About you and me.” As soon as the words were out, Penny wanted to take them back. What if Hazel got angry or upset?
But Hazel sprang from her chair and bent over Penny, pulling her into her arms, hugging her tightly. “My baby . . . my dear little girl . . . At last, at last! Oh, Penny! Can you ever forgive me?”
“What for? There’s nothing to forgive. I don’t blame you for what happened.”
Hazel pulled back to face her. “I didn’t abandon you, Penny, honest I didn’t. I never wanted to give you up at all! I’ve thought about you every day for the past twenty-five years.”
“I wish I had known sooner,” Penny murmured. “I just found out about us.” At last they released each other and Hazel sank down on her chair again, wiping her eyes and blowing her nose on a handkerchief.
“You have to understand that I was only seventeen when you were born. Our parents were furious, of course. They sent me to a home for unwed mothers until you were born, then they moved to where they live now so that none of the old neighbors would find out. I lived there with them and raised you until you were two and a half.”
“You did?”
Hazel nodded. “I changed all of your diapers and bathed you and read stories to you and rocked you to sleep at night. I watched you take your first steps. Then Father and Mother decided that I should go to secretarial school. They saw how close we were becoming and that you thought of me as your mother, and they were afraid that I wouldn’t let you go. And believe me, I didn’t want to let you go.”
She paused to take a deep breath and wipe her tears. “I thought about running away with you, but I had signed all the adoption papers.
You were officially their daughter and always would be. They made me give you up, Penny. Single girls don’t have babies. They told me that you and I would always live in shame if I kept you.” She reached to take Penny’s hand as if pleading with her. “I loved you and wanted the very best for you, and so they convinced me that giving you up was the best thing to do. You could grow up with two parents and have a normal life. No one would ever know the truth. They wanted me to have a normal life, too, without the scandal of a baby. I didn’t care, but they said the truth would hurt you – and I would rather die than let that happen.”
“Why didn’t you come to see me? You never visited us.”
“They didn’t want me to. They knew how close we were, how attached you were to me, and I think they were afraid I would tell you the truth. Those months after I left, I was so lonesome for you. I just wanted to hold you again and see you smile and hear you laugh. . . . They sent me pictures once in a while when I begged them to. But they insisted that this was the best thing for everyone. They said you were happy and that I shouldn’t rock the boat. You were happy, weren’t you?”
Penny nodded. She had been, for the most part. “They weren’t like other parents, but I did have a good life. They always told me that I wasn’t like other girls, but I never knew why. They said I had to be more careful, and they were very protective of me, afraid to let me do anything. But everyone thought I was their daughter – and so did I until I needed my birth certificate. That’s how I found out I was adopted.”
“If I could do it all over again, I would never give you up.”
“Why didn’t you write to me?”
“I did! I sent letters and birthday cards and birthday presents every year. And Christmas presents. And each time you got a year older I would cry because I missed watching you grow up. Didn’t you get my presents?”
“They may have given them to me, but they never said they were from you.” Penny swallowed her anger at the injustice. “Why did they do this to us?”
“They thought it was for the best.”
“Well, they were wrong! I wish I could stay here and live with you.”
“I wish you could, too. But I have a husband and two sons now. They don’t know about you, Penny.”
“Oh . . . I don’t blame you for being ashamed of me.”
Hazel gripped Penny’s hands in hers and squeezed. “Never! Never in a million years am I ashamed of you. But I never told my husband that I had you, and I don’t know how he’ll react. I need to talk to him first. I can’t just spring it on him. But, oh! It will be so good to have you back in my life, Penny!”
“I thought you might hate me because I would remind you of . . . of what my real father did to you.”
Hazel looked away for the first time, and Penny immediately regretted mentioning her father. She wished she could take back her words. When Hazel finally looked at her again, she seemed embarrassed. “I’m so sorry, Penny. But what I told them about your father isn’t true. I lied because I couldn’t face my own guilt. I loved your real father. Or at least I thought I did at the time.”
“So you weren’t raped?”
Hazel shook her head. “Lies have a way of multiplying and making matters worse. I made up that story about being raped because I was ashamed to admit the truth. They didn’t know about my boyfriend – and they were so strict! I was ashamed that I had let Mark have his way, so when I realized that I was pregnant I made up a story about being raped. I’m so sorry.”
Penny leaned back in her chair, stunned. The lie had affected Penny all of her life. It was the reason her parents had treated her the way they did, the reason they’d been so protective, the reason they could never quite love her. But at last she was free from the lie. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “At least I know the truth now.”
“Don’t hate Mother and Father. It wasn’t their fault. I was rebellious and made a mess of things, and they did the best they could to fix my mistakes.”
“Who’s my real father? You said his name is Mark?”
Hazel gave a sad little smile. “He was a boy from high school. I thought I loved him and that he loved me. It’s funny how your opinion of love changes when you’re finally old enough to understand what love is all about. He disappeared from my life when he found out I was pregnant, but I don’t really blame him. He came from a good family and was hoping for an appointment to West Point after we graduated.
He’s probably a general in the war by now. He always was very smart.
But we were both young, and we let ourselves get carried away.”
“So he knew about me?”
“He knew I was pregnant but not what happened to us. After I graduated from secretarial school I got a good job in an office and met my husband, Barry. I’m sorry for the mistakes I made, but I was never sorry that I had you. You have Mark’s smile, you know – that dimple in just one cheek that’s only there when you smile.”
“Could we find my father? I want to know what happened to him.”
“Let it go, Penny. After all this time, why turn his life upside down? He probably has a family, too.”
“I would still like to know his name and find out more about him. I promise I won’t show up on his doorstep or write to him or anything.”
“I’ll have to think about it.” Hazel picked up her glass of iced tea and took a sip, then set the sweating glass down again. “You’re so pretty, Penny. I can’t stop looking at you.”
Tears filled Penny’s eyes. For the first time in her life, someone was looking at her with eyes of love, the way she had always wished her mother would.
And that was enough, for now. It was more than enough.