The Promise Read Free

Dayton’s innovators. Their families owned and managed the paper mills, the factories, and the foundries. They were the producers of fine stationery, computing scales, and sewing machines. At the milliner’s, these women lifted their chins and looked past me. At the dressmaker’s, they turned away, lips pressed tight. Although my father had been a designer of bridges, I had not been part of this circle of women for years. I had moved from Dayton when I was eighteen and returned only a year ago. I had not married; I was a pianist and practiced for hours on end. On those occasions when I did join the circles of women for tea or for discussions about literature, I had little to add when conversation turned to domestic matters and to the rearing of children. Now I had given the women of Dayton cause to rise up against me. In mid-January, the first note arrived in my mailbox at the hotel.
    Dear Miss Wainwright,
    There has been a change in plans. I regret to inform you that I must cancel your performance at our dinner party. There is one more thing. I regret to inform you that my child no longer requires piano lessons.
    Cordially,
    Mrs Olive Parker
    More notes followed, each one nearly verbatim to the first. The women were not cordial and they showed little regret. No one smiled at me or had a kind word. No one asked for my version of the truth. Instead, behind my back, they whispered, and I did not have to be with them to hear what they said.
    ‘This is what happens when a woman goes to college.’
    ‘And never marries.’
    ‘And works for a living.’
    ‘And lives in a hotel.’
    January became February. The clouds were gray and low, and the snow was ankle deep. My income dwindled with each canceled performance and lesson, the undercurrent of gossip shattering my life. The family, even distant cousins, all sided with Edward’s wife. I stopped attending services at First Presbyterian, and invitations to family occasions ceased. In my sitting room, I turned on every incandescent lamp and tried to read my favorite novels, but the stories that once enthralled now unnerved me. Alone and with time on my hands, I imagined the whispers, rushing and lapping.
    ‘Did you hear?’
    ‘No. What?’
    ‘Catherine Wainwright has been throwing herself at Edward Davis for years. Since Alma first became ill.’
    ‘But she was living in Pennsylvania when that happened to poor Alma. In Pittsburgh, wasn’t it?’
    ‘Philadelphia, I believe. Edward Davis traveled there for business, but that wasn’t enough, not for Catherine Wainwright. He’s the reason she moved back to Dayton.’
    Dearest, I wrote to Edward, bills collecting on my desk. Together we can weather this. But I must see you.
    I dined alone at the hotel dining room. There, crystal chandeliers cast flickering spectrums of blue, yellow, and red onto my white linen tablecloth. Only a few of the residents – elderly widowers and bachelors – acknowledged me with smiles and brief greetings. I was just as restrained: two of the men had slipped notes under my door, their suggestions shocking me. The waiters in their black wool suits and long white aprons ignored me. I was the last to be served, and my meals arrived cold. It seems there has been an oversight, the hotel manager wrote at the bottom of my hotel bill. We have yet to receive payment for the past month.
    I refused to take my meals in my sitting room. I refused to hide. My friendship with Edward was not ugly and vile. We were companions; we enjoyed one another’s company. Divorce was out of the question; I had silenced Edward every time he considered it. His wife had suffered a paralyzing stroke minutes after the birth of their second child, and she could not be abandoned.
    Now, our secret exposed, I was shunned and forced to dole out my savings, draining the last of my inheritance from my father. I paid bits and pieces of the bills that came from the hotel, the dressmaker, and the milliner. I took walks as though the