JOHN AND ROSE
Chapter Fifty-Two
August 21, 1931
Cedar Rapids, Iowa
John walked in the door, tired
after a long day at work. Anders Cedar Rapids was more stable than it had been
just after the stock market crash almost two years earlier, but it was still on
shaky ground. He had to work hard every day to make sure that it remained
solvent, that the workers got paid, and that the products manufactured there
were shipped out to the markets that could actually make use of them.
Now there was the additional
headache of making sure that the foreman he had fired did not try to return and
sabotage the company to get back at John both for firing him and for ruining
the Klan’s plans two nights before. He had seen no sign of him, and in fact it
was rumored that he had left town, taking his family with him. With a certainty,
few if any of the routed Klan members wanted their identities known, but he was
still concerned. It wouldn’t be smart to forget the attack or the threats that
had preceded it.
He walked into the kitchen,
surprised to find Rose there. She had left early that morning, saying something
about a long day of filming ahead of her, so he hadn’t expected her to come
home until late.
He wondered where Jane was—she
usually came running to greet him—but then got his answer when he saw her
standing on a chair on the other side of her mother, her face, dress, and arms
covered with flour. Rose was making bread, punching the risen mass of dough so
hard he wondered if it was someone’s head she was envisioning.
She stopped when she saw him,
then divided the dough into two balls and dropped them carelessly into a pair
of greased loaf pans. Jane noticed him at that moment and climbed down from the
chair, squealing and running up to him, flour puffing everywhere.
"Daddy! You’re home!"
She threw her arms around his legs, leaving his dark trousers covered with
flour.
"Stop it, Jane!" Rose
snapped, turning to her daughter. "You’re making a mess."
"But Mommy…"
"It’s all right, Rose,"
John told her, picking the little girl up, unmindful of the flour that quickly
covered his suit jacket.
"That’s one more thing to
clean." Rose glared at them for a moment, then went back to her bread.
"I’ll clean it myself, Rose.
Jane always comes to greet me this way."
"She’s old enough to learn
not to make such messes."
John stared at her, wondering
what had gotten her so upset. Jane got into things and made messes on a regular
basis, but he had never seen Rose get so upset about it before. She scolded
sometimes, but he hadn’t seen her this angry over something so small before.
Before he could ask her what was
wrong, though, she wiped her hands on her apron and turned to him. "How
was your day? Does my mother make a good employee?" she asked, her voice
sickly sweet.
"What?" John set Jane
down and walked over to where Peter was playing on a blanket on the floor,
picking the baby up.
"You heard what I said. Is
my mother a good employee?" she asked, a definite edge to her voice this
time.
He looked at her cautiously.
"So far," he replied. "Of course, she’s only just being trained
now, but all she has to do is package baked products, so it shouldn’t be that
difficult."
"I see." Rose came over
and took Peter from him, bouncing him against her shoulder as he began to
whimper. "So she actually has some useful skills."
"She’s been taking care of
our home and children for the past two years while we worked to earn a living.
Of course she has useful skills—"
"So, is that why you hired
her?"
John closed his eyes for a
moment, sighing inwardly. Rose hadn’t said a word about Ruth since yesterday,
but apparently she had been brooding about it the whole time.
"She needed some way to make
a living. You know that."
"She wouldn’t be in this
position if she’d spoken out about what she heard."
"She wouldn’t be in this
position if you hadn’t, for God knows what reason, taken what happened to Sam
personally. I know something happened in the past that you’ve never resolved,
but I’ll be damned if I know what it is or why you’re making an issue of it
now."
"Don’t swear, John. Not in
front of the children." Rose set Peter back down on the blanket, then
turned to face her husband. "The reason I feel as I do is no one’s concern
but my own, but suffice it to say that it is important, and I will not stand to
see it happen again."
"I don’t even know what
you’re talking about."
Rose whirled around and walked
over to the oven, ignoring the fact that the bread wasn’t ready to go in yet,
shoved it inside, and slammed the door. Peter started fussing again, frightened
by the slamming door and the tension in the room.
Rose picked her son up and
cuddled him, glaring at John. "Why did you offer her a job?"
"What did you expect me to
do? Allow her to just be put out on the streets with nothing?"
"After what she did…"
"What did she do that was so
wrong? Tell me that! She failed to mention the words she’d overheard from
angry, possibly drunken men. We overlooked the threats we’d received at our
businesses! Nadia ignored a threatening letter she received! This is the fault
of no one but those who felt the need to lynch an innocent man! Any one of us
could have spoken up, but we chose not to! You’re as guilty as anyone!"
Rose’s eyes blazed angrily.
"It isn’t my fault, and you know it! You might as well blame Jane or Peter
for what happened. My mother heard them talking about what they were planning
and told no one! None of the rest of us had any specific knowledge of what was
going on—except her! And she kept silent!"
"But if any of us had paid
attention to those threats, we might have kept Sam and Nadia from going into
town, might have prevented the whole thing from ever happening! But we didn’t,
and no one person can take the blame!"
Rose stiffened. "It wasn’t
the first time she kept her mouth shut when she should have said
something."
"Whatever it was she kept
quiet about, it was a long time ago. It’s over."
"Yes, it’s over, but it
might not be over if she had simply spoken out! But she didn’t! And the same
thing goes for what happened to Sam and Nadia. They could have died, John! They
could have been killed by those men in their stupid white hoods. Thank God they
weren’t! It’s only the greatest of good luck that Nadia—our daughter,
John—is still alive and well."
"I doubt they would have
killed her. They know how much influence we have—"
"Maybe not, but they might
have done something else, and you know it! And if we hadn’t arrived when we
did, Sam would have been killed, and I would have lost a very good actor!"
"Is that what you’re so
upset about?" John stared at her incredulously. "You might have lost
an actor?"
"No! That isn’t it at all!
It’s only an example. Stop twisting my words!"
"I’m not twisting your
words, Rose! You’re the one who said it."
"Shut up! Just…shut up! I
have seen enough of life and enough of the world to know that what happened two
nights ago was wrong, and that it could have been prevented! But no one tried!
No said anything—least of all the person who could have stopped this travesty
from ever occurring! She knew—and she said nothing!"
"Had you been in her place,
would you have said anything?"
"Yes!"
"But you had received
threats at Dawson Studios because of your decision to hire Negro actors, and
yet it never occurred to you that anyone would threaten Sam and Nadia."
"It isn’t the same thing,
and you know it!" Rose’s voice was rising.
"But you know how the world
works! White women and Negro men do not date, and Nadia and Sam went against
that!"
"So you’re saying it was
their fault, then, for ignoring one of society’s stupid rules?"
"No! That’s not what I’m
saying! Now who’s twisting words?"
Rose set Peter down on the floor
next to a frightened Jane, who clung to her little brother, trying to hide from
her angry parents. "It all comes back to you! You gave my mother a job—in
a time where millions are out of work—even after what she did—or rather, what
she failed to do."
John moved closer to her, his
voice growing very quiet. "Rose, she’s family. No matter how you feel
about her, I will not see a family member starving on the street if there’s
something I can do to prevent it. She’s your mother. Whatever is in your past,
you should remember that and try to forgive her."
"I did forgive her, John—and
she did it again. I gave her a second chance, and she lost it. I won’t give her
a third."
"You don’t have to. It’s up
to you. I would never treat my mother that way, God rest her soul. And I won’t
leave your mother out in the cold. I have loyalty to my family, even if you
don’t."
Rose’s face went white. She
stared at him, one trembling hand going to her mouth. "How can you say
that? How can you say that? I love my family. But there are some things
that cannot be forgiven."
"Your mother forgave you for
disappearing after the sinking of the Titanic and allowing her to think you
dead all those years—but you can’t forgive her for an error in judgment."
"An error in judgment that
could have killed people! No one was harmed by what I did, but what Mother
did—long ago, it contributed to someone’s death. And now, it almost cost us
Nadia and Sam."
Rose turned away, tears spilling
from her eyes. "There are some things, John, that cannot be
forgiven."