Sophie missed her younger sister a great deal. The girls were orphans,
their mother had died when Sophie was fourteen and their father three
years later, and Sophie, though just a few years older, had really
raised Anna.
The last year Sophie didn’t see Ruth and Anna frequently, for Sophie
had four children and children take time. Sophie’s husband was a union
tailor and was on strike a great deal and she couldn’t dress well or
have things as nice as the two younger girls. Not that she envied
them, only—well, there wasn’t much use feeling bad by trying to go with
them anyhow. They had their own crowd and were younger and smarter and
different. But fine girls, of course.
Sophie thought about Anna as she mended always-torn blouses and washed
always-dirty dishes. Why had Anna done such a thing? After all the time
she had spent raising her! It seemed as if Anna were only a little
girl, instead of a woman of thirty-five. But even thirty-five is young
when one has a lot to live for. Didn’t Anna have? Sophie had always
thought of her two younger sisters as rather happy and fortunate.
Surely, Anna had always seemed happy. And yet....
What had made Anna hate the world enough to want to get out of it? She
had a nice home, nicer than Sophie would ever have. There surely were
no debts. Certainly they got along well enough together, Anna and Fred.
But did they?
People thought that she and Steve got along all right too. You can keep
people from finding out things like that, if you’re careful. Hadn’t she
done it? For years and years? And she probably would keep on, until the
kids were grown up and then—oh, how could she get along any other way?
It was more than a habit.
Still, Fred didn’t drink. At least, at first, Sophie was pretty certain
he didn’t. You couldn’t be too sure. People didn’t all know about Steve.
Though Steve was working, now, Sophie shuddered and walked quietly, as
if he were asleep in the next room. For Steve got paid on Saturday,
when he “worked steady,” and on Saturday night he came in, his pay
envelope pitifully depleted, smelling horribly of cheap whisky, and
cursing. She’d pray the children wouldn’t hear and she’d get him to bed.
In the morning he’d be sick and lay there saying things he shouldn’t,
though usually he’d be up and able to work on Monday. It wasn’t that
Steve drank more than most men. It was just that he was the sort that
shouldn’t drink at all. Even the doctor said he had a delicate stomach
and couldn’t stand it. But he did drink, though not so terribly often
like some men.
But even when Steve didn’t drink, things weren’t so much better. He
had a mean disposition, the kind that can take an innocent phrase and
boomerang it into a sneer. He was never quite satisfied about things,
about his home, about his children. He hated the Government and joined
various political societies, getting into fights with the neighbourhood
leaders and hating them in turn. Steve wouldn’t read several of the
newspapers, because he “had it in for them” and their policies. He
disliked Sophie’s friends and her relatives, and quarrelled because
he had to spend the evening with them occasionally. He called Dick a
“damned white-collared little snob” and Fred was a “sick roach who
hadn’t the liver to have a will of his own.” Steve was not a pleasant
person to live with.
Thinking over her life since her marriage and the life of Anna, since
her marriage, as she knew it, little things came to Sophie which showed
her that Fred was not all that Anna tried to picture him. She saw,
now, clearly enough, that Anna had been brave, that she had tried to
conceal Fred’s failings, but that, underneath, she hated him for his
cruelty to her. Little things that Anna had said proved this. It could
be nothing else.
Why hadn’t Anna left Fred? Sophie felt that she would have left Steve
years ago, if it hadn’t been for the kids. Anna could have left—any
day. Only herself to look out for and she had been a cashier before
her marriage and could have always made a living. Still, maybe she
did think of that way—and decided against it. Sophie felt that there
was something noble, something brave, about what Anna had done. She
wished she could do it. She wished it on Saturday nights, when Steve
was drinking and on many other nights when he wasn’t. There wasn’t very
much use in living, most of the time.
And yet—the kids. They were sweet. They had mean tempers sometimes,
especially little Steve, who could be really bad. But then, again,
sometimes when they were in bed, they’d let her put her arms around
them, tight, some nights, and kiss her in return, too. They were sweet,
the kids, and worth a lot of hard things.
But Anna hadn’t any kids. Not a one. If the baby hadn’t died, maybe she
could have stood it, too. Still, what is the use of it all? You can’t
tell how kids’ll turn out, even if you spend years sewing and cooking
and cleaning for them. It’s taking a chance. And the other things ...
it’s best to get away from them.
Anna, without any one but Fred, and he mean to her and she trying to
conceal it with smiles and jokes and changing the subject ... she
had been brave. And one person can’t stand everything. And, looking
ahead and seeing nothing but years of Fred and bad treatment or of
working to try to make a living, maybe, after all, Anna had figured it
out that her way was best. Fred had said they hadn’t quarrelled. But
then, Sophie never did trust Fred too much from the first. Of course,
he’d have said that. They had probably had an awful quarrel the night
before, and rather than go through with it all again....
Well, Anna was dead. It must be good to simply quit and stop
quarrelling and working. If she had Anna’s chance to go out, without
harming any one else, without leaving any kids for maybe worse
treatment ... Sophie knew, in her heart, why Anna had committed
suicide, and though she shed many tears over her sister, understanding
things as she did, she couldn’t blame her. Maybe Anna had picked out
the right path.