The thick, dingy, yellowish-grey air weighed heavily on the tenements. Once they had been filled with the life and laughter of brown-skinned families trying to make it day to day and have a few small luxuries along the way, like the newest phone or a good steak dinner grilled on the porch. Those times felt long gone, although she knew in the grand scheme of things it wasn’t that long since she had lived those memories.
Lots of memories were in her head. That was the safest place for them. Keeping them locked up tight, only whispered at night like fairy tales, is what had kept her safe all these long years. She wasn’t a “good woman,” but she sure was good at pretending to be one. She’d had decades of practice.
She never thought she’d be one of those women, not even a pretend one. As a child she had naively thought she would stand up and raise her voice, be heard and have it count. She had been wrong. If it had just been her it would have been a different story, but when it happened the kids were little. Women who stood up and raised their voices disappeared, their families forever under surveillance and quickly punished for any form of deviance. Many women never came back and those that did were different, changed. No matter how it rankled, her family’s safety mattered more to her than screaming into the void of impending doom.
So, she learned to be a “good woman,” wearing approved modest clothing, long skirts, and a bonnet that fully contained her properly braided hair, not speaking in public past what was necessary, keeping her eyes down and demure. Boy, did that gnaw at her gut for years, but what was she going to do? Risk her family? Luckily, she was white, had healthy white children, and had already been a Christian (a “Sunday rollover Christian,” but the Overseers didn’t care about reality only the status quo). In no time at all it seemed she managed to play the role and get everyone to mandatory church on Sundays, making sure the children learned and followed all the rules.
Since the factory required twelve-hour shifts, six days a week, she barely saw her husband which meant she took care of the household mostly on her own. Since they were of the lowest class it was required that she work as well. Few jobs were allowed to hire women now, and women were not allowed to work farther than walking distance from their homes so finding work was hard and the pay was abysmal. She ended up working at the local garden when the kids were in school. The money was necessary to exist, but the veggies she was able to sneak home were what made it a good job.
That was her life except for the last month of each pregnancy and the first month of each baby’s life. Since the eldest two were born before the change that meant she got exactly eight months where she was allowed some kind of rest (although she still has the kids to care for and the household to run). It would have been easier with fewer mouths to feed, but the government wanted citizens and the church condemned any forms of birth control. Women were supposed to be fruitful and multiply. It was God’s wish. She was lucky though, she knew more women than she wanted to count who had died from pregnancy or birthing complications. At least she was a good breeder, shot them out like clockwork, and never ran out of milk even when calories were in short supply. It’s not like they could afford any healthcare if anything went wrong.
As it was, since they were poor, as soon as the children turned eight schooling ended and they were expected to work as well. That helped slightly, growling stomachs weren’t keeping people awake, but children’s labor was worth even less than a woman’s. Nothing would ever make up for the loss of her third son to an industrial accident when he was eleven or the maiming of her daughter’s leg though. At least that one was pretty enough and from good breeding stock so a man with a bit more clout picked her as his wife. He had enough social standing that her disability wouldn’t mean she would starve to death for lack of work, thank God!
She coughed hard for several minutes and once she caught her breath, sat up in the bed, her frail body almost lost in the old patched comforters. Since there was no money for heat those comforters had probably saved lives by now, although the fact they had to sleep multiple people to a bed undoubtedly helped as well. She sighed, lost in her thoughts as usual. Old brains do do that. She picked up her crochet in her knobby bent fingers, wincing at the pain, and started work. Disabled or not, sick or not, old or young, everyone had to carry their weight. Her crocheted hats and booties kept her family warm and earned just enough to keep her from starving as long as the rest of the family shared a bit of food with her. Once again, she was lucky. Her family had never let her go hungry unless they all were. Some women just got tossed into the street to starve to death when they couldn’t carry their own weight through labor or breeding.
She was just finishing a row when one of her younger granddaughters trudged into the room, fighting to muster a demure, happy smile like a proper girl should. Little Beatrice was just barely eight and only starting to adjust to the rigors of work. It was clear she was about to fall down from exhaustion. The children got the jobs the adults didn’t want to or could not do for size reasons. Poor thing was covered in dirt which almost made her blond hair look brown like her eyes (her only flaw was they weren’t blue). Beatrice was one of her favorites, reminding the old woman of herself when she was a girl. The child could use a bath, but it would be a cold rinse in a pail or a scrubbing with a damp rag instead because that was what could be afforded.
After moving some of the dirt around with an already dirt-stained, damp rag and scarfing down the meager allotment of gruel that was her dinner, Beatrice crawled into the bed and curled up against her grandmother. In a tiny, tired, secretive whisper in her grandmother’s ear, she asked with her beaten-in manners, “Grammy, could you please tell me about when you were a girl?”
Willing her stomach not to growl (since she had insisted she wasn’t hungry so that Beatrice would be willing to eat without sharing), she sighed and glanced around the shabby room nervously, even though she knew there was no one else around to hear. “Of course, my sweetness. Remember, these stories are just for your ears. Just you, me, and God, right?” After she felt the girl’s head nod against her bony shoulder she smiled softly, her old, clouded eyes softening with the memories, and she began.
“Once upon a time when I was a girl I didn’t have to work all day. I could go for rides on my bike wherever I wanted to go. And I could wear pants, like the men, so there were no skirts to get tangled up in things. There were no bonnets either and only braids if you wanted them. I could climb trees and go swimming with all the kids, boys and girls. There were people who had skin as dark as night or brown like the mud when it rains, not just white. Women could go on buses without permission, and it was ok to not get married if you didn’t want to. In fact, children couldn’t get married even if they wanted to! Imagine that! You had to be 18 and agree to it to get married. And now, MaryAnn is 18 and already has three kids!” She lowered her voice even more, to the barest of whispers in her granddaughter’s ear, “Back then, you could even choose to not have children if you didn’t want them!”
She felt the girl shudder against her at that thought and was unsure if these were happy fairy tales for the child or uncomfortable and scary ones. Beatrice might be like her, but she had been indoctrinated well. The girl was so lucky she was healthy, pretty, and well-behaved. She’d make a good breeder, easily fulfilling her job of giving the government many healthy white babies. It was probably better that these stories felt like nightmares to the child. She wondered if it was selfish of her to share these memories at all, even in whispers in the darkness.
Stroking Beatrice’s back softly to calm the child’s fears, she continued, “When I was a girl…”
