“Or what?” Betty asked.
“Or we can get rid of it. There are real doctors who will do it.”
“That’s illegal!”
Nannie turned away and said nothing. For the first time in her life, Betty thought Nannie a coward, or worse.
“That’s your answer if I don’t want you to have it? Some mother you’d be.”
“Your grandparents aren’t going to allow you to have a baby and live here. And they aren’t going to support you in a life somewhere else. What kind of life would you have unless you’re married to a Jewish man? We’ll make it like this never happened.”
Betty hadn’t felt the tears until that moment. They streamed down her face in anguish that transformed into resolve.
Betty pushed Tillie aside—in every way. She unlocked her bedroom door, sprang from the room, and ran downstairs.
Zaide was sitting in the kitchen, not looking up at Betty. “You have until the end of the week. Tillie will take the train with you to New York on Saturday. Until then, you will stay at home and recover from your bout with exhaustion and pretend everything is the same. Everyone will think you’re going off to Barnard.”
“I’m calling Georgia.” Betty wasn’t asking permission. The boldness surprised her more so than her grandfather.
“No need to tell your friends about your predicament. The fewer people who know, the better.”
But the girls already knew, thank goodness. They were the only ones who would help her.
That evening, with her bedroom door open, Betty lay in bed, recovering from actual exhaustion and shock. Georgia rustled through childhood keepsakes at the back of the cedar closet in the corner of the room.
“Found it,” she said.
Betty’s child-size tackle box would transform into the perfect makeshift treasure chest. It had once served as a symbol of tomboyish fun and her bond with Zaide. On the banks of the Black River he’d taught her to bait a hook, to jiggle a lure, and to cast a fishing line. He’d taught her silence and patience and how to reel in a big one.
As Betty unlatched and opened the metal lid, she was accosted not by nostalgia but by indifference. The box still held a few hooks and lures, but they might as well have been bottle caps or broken pencils.
“I can’t believe they want you to give away your baby, but I guess that’s what girls do.” Georgia rolled the Miss South Haven sash into as tight a coil as possible and placed it inside, wedging it into the main compartment, then shutting the lid.
“Not this girl,” Betty said.
“They’re putting you on a train.”
“Not if Abe comes here first.”
“And how are you going to make that happen?”
“I’m not,” Betty said. “You are. Just go to Western Union and send a telegram that says I’m unwell. Then Abe will come.”
“I can’t, Betty. You know that. Your grandparents know everyone. And whoever they don’t know, knows them. The telegraph operators read the telegrams in order to type them. Someone will tell just to get on your Nannie’s good side.”
“But if you send it, at least he’ll know something is wrong.”
“You shouldn’t have to do this.”
“Of course I shouldn’t have to. They should let me go to him.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“You shouldn’t have to chase Abe down to be with him. Or beg.”
“Wouldn’t you do anything to be with Mr.—I mean—Sam?”
“Anything? No.”
“Then it’s not love.”
“I’m not going to fight with you, Betty, but I want what’s best for you and it’s not him. And it has nothing to do with not being Jewish or even that he got you into trouble. It’s because he didn’t come back. If Abe shows up because he thinks you’re sick, is that really what you want? And then you’ll tell him about the baby? Do you want him if he’s only ‘doing the right thing’?”
“Yes, I do!” Betty huffed. The person she had been—unfettered, joyous, hopeful, most likely to succeed, Miss South Haven—flashed before her eyes. She lay on her stomach, buried her face in her pillow that smelled like Cheer, and screamed all of her dreams away, except the one about her baby.
Finally she sat up, her throat raw, her voice quiet. Georgia was watching her, waiting. “I know you don’t want to,” Betty said, “but will you do it anyway?”
“Do what?” Nannie asked from the doorway.
Georgia clamped her lips. Betty stammered. “I asked Georgia to send my regards to Marv. Apparently, people are concerned about my well-being.”
“And I’m not nuts about him, but I’ll do it, because Betty is my best friend.”
The next morning Betty waited for Georgia. She didn’t show up. Betty sat by the window in her bedroom, avoiding her parents until she couldn’t wait any longer. She trudged downstairs and telephoned the resort, hoping her grandfather didn’t answer the phone. As Betty relayed her nonchalant message to Anita at the front desk, Georgia knocked on the front door and Joe let her in.
The girls walked upstairs in silence. This time Betty shut her door.
“I think your grandmother followed me,” Georgia said. “She was at the Western Union office when I arrived and interrogated me about the telegram I was there to send, so I left. You’re going to have to find another way.”
Betty took meals in her room when she could stomach them. Her parents and grandparents wanted to send her away and then steal her baby. She couldn’t bear to be in their presence; it was hard enough to be in the same
