This is the second installment of “Goliath” by Sharon Chou. Read part one first here.
When the bell rings the next morning, Ida gropes the nightstand for her hairbrush without opening her eyes. Only scratched wood meets her fingers. She bolts upright.
Her nightstand is empty. Her nightstand where she had set down The Sketch Book last night is empty. Ida searches the floor. Nothing. She fumbles under the bed, which produces only her hairbrush.
“You’re sure you haven’t seen it?” Ida presses Lucy as she winds her hair into a knot. “Was it there when you woke up this morning?”
Lucy shrugs helplessly, knocking loose the pin Ida had been placing. “I wasn’t paying it any mind, sorry,” she says. “You’re certain you placed it there last night?”
“I’m certain. Someone must have taken it.” It is the most expensive gift Ida has ever received, and Grandmama will be horribly disappointed if she loses it.
Lucy frowns. “Who would do such a thing?”
In the next bed, Sarah shifts in her sleep.
She blinks blearily when Ida shakes her awake. “Give it back,” Ida snaps.
“What?” she says hoarsely.
“My book!” Ida says. “I want it back, now.”
Sarah scoffs. “What would I want with that old thing?”
“You were angry with me last night—-”
Sarah’s mouth drops. “You truly believe I would steal from you?”
Ida falters.
“Have you searched the common room?”
Ida’s cheeks burn. “No.” She hadn’t left it in the common room. She had brought it upstairs. Hadn’t she?
“You should do that before you accuse people of thievery,” Sarah huffs. “Now, I’m going to the outhouse, unless you’d like to interrogate me there as well.” She shoves back the blanket and storms out before Ida can respond.
The book is not in the common room. Ida twists her apron in her hands all morning as she watches her looms. Where could it be?
Mail covers the dining table when they file in for breakfast. Thoughts of the book and finding Sarah to ask for forgiveness fly out offrom her head. News from home. The best part of her week. She flips through the envelopes with eager fingers, searching for Ma’s scrawl. There! She tears it open and shakes out the letter. Picking up a bowl of porridge, she starts reading.
The bowl shatters on the floor.
Ida drops to her knees immediately, fingers scrabbling against wood. She babbles apologies. It will come out of her paycheck and they cannot afford this especially with Grandmama so si—
She rocks back on her heels, stunned.
Grandmama is dead.
When Ida comes back to her senses, Sarah is kneeling in front of her, hands on her shoulders. “What’s happened? What’s wrong?” she’s asking.
Ida gapes at her. She had known that Grandmama would pass one day, but not now. Never now.
Sarah’s eyes snag on the letter. She grabs it, eyes scanning.
“Oh Ida,” she breathes. Her face is full of sympathy, but it’s the understanding that knocks the breath out of her.
Sarah wraps her arms around Ida. Ida shakes and shakes and shakes and does not cry. There will be no more pudding. There will be no more weaving by the fire. There will be no more suppers at a crowded table.
Grandmama passed days ago, and she hadn’t even known.
*****
“Of course you may travel home for a funeral,” Mr. Randall simpers. “It goes without saying you will not be paid.” He drums his fingers against his mahogany desk. “Although with so many Irish knocking on our doors, your bed may not be empty when you return.”
Something terrible swells in Ida like a scream.
She won’t even get to say goodbye.
She thinks of the last time she saw Grandmama, the day she marched bravely out the door for Lowell. When Grandmama pulled back from their embrace, she cradled Ida’s face in her warm, dry palms and just looked at her. Her usually bright eyes dimmed with an emotion Ida wasn’t able to decipher. She wonders if Grandmama suspected it would be the last time. If she knew her time was up. If she knew Lowell would not be as quick a solution as they hoped.
If only Grandmama had told her, she never would have left.
“That is ridiculous!” Sarah protests from behind her. She steps forward, eyes blazing. “We are people, not living machines—”
Ida catches her elbow with numb fingers. “Sarah, stop. Don’t—” say something you’ll regret. Don’t say something that will get you sent away. Ida can’t take another loss.
Sarah shakes her off but seems to hear what she doesn’t say. They turn to go.
“Wait,” Mr. Randall orders. He squints at Ida. “Rid yourself of that homespun. You are a Lowell operative and you must look the part. I expect your clothing to be in regulation by the end of the week.”
She barely manages a nod. In the hallway, she sinks against the wall and pushes her palms into her eyes so hard the darkness bursts into color. She does not cry.
*****
That night, Ida stares into the darkness and remembers.
Grandmama always let her cram herself underneath the loom to hide when her parents’ words sharpened around finances. Her shoulders never failed to lower at Grandmama’s humming and the steady clacking of the beams. How could words on a page take away her grandmother? How could she be gone when she was still humming, right there in her memories?
A small hand pats her back. “Ida?” Lucy whispers. “Are you still awake?”
Ida rolls onto her back in response. Lucy worms her way under Ida’s arm, sharp elbows jabbing into Ida’s side until she settles in. Heat radiates from all the places she’s mashed against her. Lucy smells like freshly tilled dirt, like a farm girl during sowing season. Ida likes to think it’s a scent that’ll never wash off of them.
Ida feels Lucy’s chest expand with a deep breath. “I’m sorry you can’t go home, but maybe it’s for the best,” Lucy says in a rush.
Ida’s breath stutters.
Lucy plows on. “After Da died, they tried to fix him up best they could before the wake, but—” She turns her face into Ida’s chest. Her hot breath pools against her ribcage. “That wasn’t my da,” she whispers. “But sometimes I think of him, and that’s all I see.”
Ida imagines seeing Grandmama in a casket.
All her warmth drains away.
*****
Ida doesn’t get out of bed when the bell rings. Maybe she’ll never get out of bed again.
It takes both Sarah and Lucy to wrestle her into her work dress and pin up her hair. By the time they make it to the mill, the gates are locked. They walk through the counting house, where a sneering man takes down their names. The lost time will be deducted from this week’s paycheck. Ida can’t bring herself to care.
Her body moves without her direction. Place. Shove. Bang! Suck. Drop. Snatch. Place. Shove. Bang! Suck. Drop. Snatch. Place. Shove. Bang!
She stares at a shuttle in her hand. Maybe she’s been staring at it forever. She looks up. One of her looms has stopped. How unnatural, for such a rabid beast to still.
Lucy sets down a basket of fresh bobbins beside her. She takes the shuttle out of Ida’s hands. Suck. Drop. Snatch. She looks at Ida with wide, worried eyes.
Ida tries to smile in thanks. Lucy’s mouth turns down.
Mr. Randall writes her up for underproduction. She wonders whether the Irish girl who replaces her will be a Fardowner or Corkonian.
No matter how much she cried, Grandmama would still lie under the cold earth, and she would still be in Lowell. So she doesn’t cry.
Her stiff new dresses chafe, rough against her skin in a way homespun never was. When she runs a thumb under her sleeve, she feels nothing.
*****
Another letter arrives. They have sold the loom to buy a granite headstone. They had not wanted to upset Grandmama before she passed, but merchants have started peddling machine-woven cloth in Andover, and it is cheaper than homespun. What Ida is doing at Lowell is the future, and they are so very proud of her.
The loom was Grandmama’s pride and joy. She promised to pass it onto Ida.
There’s nothing left of her in the house now. There’s nowhere left to hide.
A sob wrenches out of her. Ida’s hand flies to her mouth, but another guttural cry escapes.
Grandmama is gone. She’s truly gone.
She weeps into Sarah’s shoulder while she strokes her hair, rocking slightly. “This was always going to happen eventually,” Sarah says gently. “You knew that.”
Ida cries harder.
*****
Sarah sighs when she finishes tightening the fresh bandage. She sits back on the mattress. “You cannot do this forever, you know,” she says. “One of these days, you’ll lose a hand. Or worse.” Ida knows there can be no distraction on the factory floor. The machines will pounce on any weakness. The shallow cuts peppering her hands sting at the thought.
But if she thinks about anything for too long, the scream pushing up her throat is going to escape. Sarah looks at Ida and softens.
She says, “I understand, Ida. You think I don’t understand?” She releases Ida, sets her eyes on the boardinghouse. “When my parents passed, and I realized the world I knew was gone, and I could never, ever go back… It was almost too much to bear.”
Pressure builds behind Ida’s eyes. She nods.
Sarah says, “You must take time to mourn that life, I know. But Ida, if you keep on like this, you’ll be fired, and then what?”
Ida tugs on a thread of the fraying blanket, watching it unwind.
Sarah presses, “The old world is gone, but the new one is still here.” Sarah’s fingers sink into her shoulders. Her dark eyes trap Ida in place. “We are stuck with it, and we must do the best with what we have, but you must stop hiding.” Sarah shakes her a little. “It does not have to be so terrible, but we must fight for that. We can win, I know it.”
They stare at each other. The pressure builds and builds and builds, like the moment before a lightning strike. The hair on the back of Ida’s neck stands up.
Ida looks away.
*****
Sarah shifts on her feet, uncertainty foreign on her features. “Ida, I need your help.”
Ida doesn’t move from where she is curled on the bed. She has not shifted position since the morning bell, studying the stained wallpaper and imagining the sound of wheat rustling outside. The room is vacant, everyone else having better places to be on a Sunday.
“I am taking a male caller,” Sarah blurts.
Ida lifts her head slowly, savoring the unfamiliar delight on her tongue after so long. “You have a suitor?”
Sarah flushes. “His name is William. He works at the Hamilton Mill. I have never— I do not know how to—” She swallows hard.
Grandmama had been the one to show her how to use embellishments, modelling how a dab of crushed berry and a brush of ash were sufficient to brighten up a complexion. Marvelous, she would say at Ida’s clumsy efforts. My little duchess.
Ida feels her bones creak as she pushes herself up.
“You’re playing a trick on me,” Sarah accuses when Ida strikes the match. The flush spreads to her ears.
Ida blows it out. “I am not, I promise.” She fans the smoke with her hand. “Just close your eyes.” Reluctantly, Sarah does. When the ash cools, Ida carefully draws the match across her lids and her brows. She steps back as Sarah opens her eyes, a rusty smile pulling at her lips.
Sarah blinks at herself in the mirror. Her eyes light up. “You can barely tell there are embellishments,” she breathes. “It is as if I was born this fair.”
Her smile wanes. “I was never taught.” Ida imagines her mother passed before she was old enough to learn such things.
Ida fiddles with the match. “Grandmama taught me.”
Sarah’s fingers still her wrist. “Tell me about her,” Sarah says.
The words trickle, then stutter, then flood out of Ida’s mouth. She talks until she goes hoarse. How Grandmama liked to play whist. How she laughed. How she always scolded them for tearing their dresses on brambleberry thorns but still baked them bramble pie after. For a little while, Grandmama feels real again, not just a figment of Ida’s fading memory.
Sarah presses close, her body a reassuring brace. “I cannot recall much about my mother,” she says softly, “but she smelled of thyme, and as long as she was there, I was never afraid.” She wipes her eyes, smudging Ida’s work. “I wish they could have met.”
Ida’s chest warms. “I think they would have taken to each other.”
Ida dreams that night of bright laughter and the tartness of bramble pie and the peppery scent of crushed thyme. When the bell rings the next morning, she rises.
*****
Ida plucks grass and listens to the waste-pickers sing in Gaelic. It is a Saturday, and people are bustling outside the boardinghouse. The monotony of the long row of brick is broken by the occasional open window. Ida winces when her scalp prickles. Lucy apologizes and plaits slower.
Sarah appears from the crowd. She casts a long shadow over them, face tight. “Ida, I need to speak with you. Why don’t you go wash up, Lucy?”
Lucy scampers away.
“Is this about William?” Ida teases, drawing out the name. He has been sitting with Sarah in the parlor every Sunday after church.
Sarah grimaces.
Ida pats the grass beside her. “Come, sit and tell me about the trouble.”
“Nothing has happened with William. It is you I owe an apology,” Sarah says. She reaches into her dress pocket. Hesitates. “I do not know what came over me. I meant to return it much sooner, but then—” She pulls out a blue leather book, with well-worn corners.
Ida stops listening.
A jagged scratch cleaves the right corner.
She lunges.
Sarah’s teeth knock together with an audible clack when she hits the ground. Ida claws at her. She yells so loud something tears. The words tangle together. I knew it how dare you why won’t you just leave me alone—
Firm hands haul Ida off. She struggles against the iron grip.
“What is the meaning of this?” Mrs. Kemp thunders. Her plump cheeks are ruddy, and her glasses are askew. Ida takes in the wide-eyed circle of girls around them and Aseneth restraining her. Mrs. Kemp must have come running at the commotion.
Sarah, still sprawled on the ground, raises a trembling hand to feel the scratches on her cheek. Her eyes are wide and hurt.
She’d ruined it. She’d taken Grandmama’s gift and ruined it.
Ida heaves a breath. “I hate you,” she hisses at Sarah.
Sarah flinches.
Then, her face hardens. Glaring, she opens her mouth.
“That is enough,” Mrs. Kemp barks. “In my office, now.”
They each receive a disciplinary citation. “You agreed to uphold a strict code of moral conduct when you arrived at Lowell,” Mrs. Kemp says. She shakes her head. “Stealing, fighting… I am disappointed in both of you.”
Ida seethes in her chair, arms crossed. She does not regret a thing. Sarah had no right.
Mrs. Kemp sighs, removing her glasses and folding them. “From what Lucy tells me, you are both good girls. You are also close friends. I do not understand—”
“We’re not friends,” Ida snaps venomously.
Ida pretends that saying it doesn’t sting.
*****
Sarah is at the gates before Ida opens her eyes and retires to the room after Ida falls asleep every night. No one awaits Ida and Lucy at the factory door once their shift ends. The one time Sarah walked into the room and spotted Ida, she turned on her heel.
It takes a week of icy silence for Ida’s anger to drain and another week for Ida to start missing her. She pretends to believe the obvious lies Lucy stutters through about attending special services at the Unitarian church. Lucy can make her own choices. If she wants to continue spending time with Sarah, she cannot blame her.
After one such lie, Ida catches whispering as she descends the stairs.
“Are you attending the association meeting tonight?” someone asks, hushed.
Ida stops.
“I do not have time to go into town today,” someone else replies. “I do not see why we cannot continue to convene in the boardinghouse.”
“It was much too risky. Besides, they are meeting right by the Unitarian church now, it is not far. Please, I do not wish to go alone—” The voices fade.
Ida stays where she is, frozen. Sarah has not merely been spending time with Lucy. Sarah has been taking Lucy to association meetings.
Her fists clench. This is what Sarah does. She takes it too far, every single time.
Lucy is only twelve, far too young to be involved. Who knows what Sarah has been filling her head with now that Ida is not there. Well, someone must look out for her.
She turns and marches back up the stairs. When the familiar oak door opens at her knocking, she plasters on a false smile. “Mrs. Kemp, apologies for bothering you, but I thought you should know…”
Lucy crawls into bed that evening with swollen, sullen eyes. She waves off Ida’s questions. “Nothing is wrong,” she insists. “I’m just tired. The service was so dull I nearly nodded off.” Lucy averts her eyes. “I’m probably not going back.”
The frown on her face does not smooth out even in sleep.
Ida reminds herself she has nothing to be sorry for.
