Twenty-NineIn the attic room, a blanket around her shoulders for warmth, Bridget wanted to forget she’d promised to write for June. She imagined June sitting with Ruby, Ruby plying her grease and powders, hounding June with questions.
Minutes passed as Bridget stared between a blank sheet of paper and her journal. June hadn’t been able to say her name. What of myself? What of my inability to speak my dreams even to paper? She opened her journal, dipped her pen.
When she finished, she’d filled three pages with writing and drawings. A factory in the larger of Papa Henry’s two barns. A place for women to earn a wage. She couldn’t employ hundreds, but she could employ some. She would be a doctor in that way too, knowing the number she helped, however small, had to be enough. She closed the j
