Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow

Family Part Two-August 1921

The first weeks of the Harrows' marriage involved neither hotels nor days alone in a secluded lakeside cabin, but instead were lived in the guest room of the Darmody beach house and consisted of comforting Tommy and helping Jimmy. Some nights, when Clara lay alone in the guest bed listening to Jimmy talk to her husband she longed for the weeks spent at Richard's, weeks where she wore nothing to bed and didn't have to share his attention.

And nothing was resolved. Her father wouldn't even speak to her. She'd called the house and sent a note. Margaret had replied, sending best wishes and a lovely pair of silver candlesticks. Nothing, not even screaming, from her father. Even as a child Clara had particularly hated when her father punished her by ignoring her existence. Clara sighed. Silence was better than some of the alternatives, she thought. For weeks Richard and Jimmy had been searching for the butcher without luck and surveying the Klansmen. She knew what was coming. It must be done, she told herself as she bathed Tommy and burnt meals and tried to work out how households ran. Honestly, it would have been easier to take over running the entire Ritz (well, when there wasn't a strike) then trying to run one single house. But there was goodness in the difficult days, and moments of happiness in the difficult, grief soaked days.

Still, she feared what she knew was coming and the things that were only real in her darkest imaginings.

When Jimmy and Richard went to leave that August morning she could feel how far away Richard was from her even as he said goodbye and knew today was the day. Come back, she thought as he walked away. I don't care about the rest, just come back.

She was grateful for the inescapability of housework and Tommy's needs. They went swimming and played in the sand. Once more she made ham sandwiches and made Tommy drink milk and eat an apple to relieve some of her guilt over what she fed him, although she didn't refuse either of them Oreo cookies for dessert. Swimming wore him out, so he went down easily for his nap. Clara escaped to the sunroom to write while he slept. The deadline for her new Ruth Fielding novel loomed, but instead of focusing on Ruth's adventures she stared out the window and worried about what Richard and Jimmy were doing. The KKK. Clara knew they were made up of the baker, the paperboy, and the telegraph operator but she also knew they were crazy. Why else would they run around in sheets? Newly intimate with the struggle of laundry, Clara shuddered at what keeping those ridiculous outfits clean must entail. And then they were going into Chalky's territory, and...

Stop, she told herself firmly. Stop. Richard and Jimmy are more than capable. What must be done must be done. The strike must be brought to a close before the entirety of the summer was lost, before Jimmy lost all control of the city. He was going to try and save Father, save Eli once he made things right with Chalky White. And killing those horrid Klansmen could never be wrong, could it?

Clara tried to push away the image of her father and uncle being strapped to the electric chair. Or, her heart quickened, what if this all went wrong and it was Jimmy or Richard? The prosecutor's voice was back in her head, asking if every man she loved was a murderer. People like the prosecutor, life must be so easy for people like them, she thought. So black and white, so completely lacking in shading or complexities.

Jimmy and Richard were trying to save them all. That was what was important, she decided. That, and waking up with Richard's legs entwined with hers while Jimmy woke in the room down the hall from his son. That's what she held dear. That's what mattered. Everything else was just detail.

Tommy would be up soon, she thought and forced her mind to consider Ruth's most recent predicament. No more had she hit her stride than she heard Tommy's feet coming down the stairs. With a sigh, she covered her typewriter. She'd barely written a quarter of what she set out to write. Before she could do anything else, the messenger from the stationary store came with her order. Rose must be the first person she wrote using her new stationery, she'd write to her tonight, Clara decided.