Rose didn’t complain, but her footsteps quickened on the slimy wooden sidewalk. In an effort not to stand out too much, the pale pink shirtwaist she wore was one of her simplest, the sleeves slim. Sylvie kept pace with her as they passed shops lining the street. A red-and-white-striped pole marked a barbershop, and a large glass globe filled with colored water indicated the drugstore. A brightly painted wooden Indian stood outside the cigar shop. Behind all of these establishments were overcrowded tenements, none of which were graced by a single tree or blade of grass.
At half past seven in the evening, peddlers still called out over children playing in the street.
Shiny red apples, come out and see!
Any rags, any bottles, any junk today?
Ripe bananas, five cents a dozen!
Just before reaching Hull House at 800 Halsted Street, Sylvie and Rose turned onto Polk Street and entered the Hull House coffeehouse, where the theater group met.
With the windows closed against the summer stench, the air inside was even more humid than it was outside. But most of the Hull House Players were used to it.
“Sylvie! Rose!” Beth Wright waved them over to where she shared a long wooden table with another woman of middling years. “I’d like to introduce you to someone before practice begins.”
The rich smell of coffee flavored the air. The woman with Beth held herself with excellent posture. Her ash-blond hair was in a perfect chignon.
“This is Jozefa Zielinski, the actress from partitioned Poland,” Beth said.
“Of course!” Sylvie greeted Miss Zielinski, feeling rather plain in her sensible brown dress compared to this European fashion plate. “So lovely to meet you at last. I’m Sylvia Townsend, but call me Sylvie. And this is my daughter, Rose.”
Miss Zielinski bestowed a warm smile on both of them. “And you must call me Jozefa.” Her English was excellent, her accent charming.
Rose offered her hand, as well. “Pleasure to meet you. And I’m not really her daughter. That’s just something she likes to say. She calls me Rose, and I don’t mind it, really, but my real name is Rozalia, and I’m Polish, just like you.”
Sylvie felt the color drain from her face.
“Who’s thirsty?” Beth cut in, her voice a little too bright. “Coffee? Water? Tea?”
As soon as she bustled away with an order, Jozefa leaned closer. “So, the two of you are not family?”
“Of course we are,” Sylvie insisted. Rose was the only child she would ever have.
With both Jozefa and Rose staring at her, Sylvie swallowed.
“It’s true she’s Polish.” Briefly, she explained the circumstances that led to Rose becoming part of her life.
“So, you just took her from her father?” Jozefa asked.
Sylvie studied the actress, trying to register the question. “Against his will? I would never do that. Before he died, he asked me to promise I’d raise her as my own, and it has been my greatest joy to do so.” She had promised to keep Rose safe. All these years later, she was still trying to keep that promise.
Beth whisked back and set a tray on the table, handing a water to Rose and coffees to Sylvie and Jozefa. The glazed earthenware mugs were the color of new buds in spring. Beth excused herself again, and Sylvie slipped her fingers through the handle and drank. A hot beverage on a hot day was far from refreshing, but she hoped it would bring clarity of mind.
Rose ran a fingertip around the rim of her water glass. “In Chicago, even small children could have gone to work in the factories or lived on the streets if they weren’t in a family or an orphanage,” she explained. “So I went with her, where she let me do light housework. I don’t remember what I did to earn my keep. I wasn’t afraid of replacing my parents when I moved in because she wasn’t married. It was just her and her father.”
This story wasn’t the way Sylvie remembered it. “That’s not all you did,” she said. “You learned to read, you went to school. You helped me in the bookshop. You were never just a servant to me. Never. We cherished you.” She thought she’d made that clear. She had treated Rose like her own daughter for more than a decade. With Meg’s family, Rose also had an aunt, uncle, and three cousins who adored her. Before Sylvie’s father died, he was as much a grandfather to Rose as he’d ever been to Meg’s children. “I may have saved you from a life of poverty, but you saved me from a poverty of soul. I have always loved you with a mother’s love.”
“How would you know?” Rose bit her lip.
Sylvie stilled. “I’m going to forget you said that.”
More young people from the neighborhood poured into the coffeehouse, swapping greetings in Italian, Dutch, Bohemian, Russian, and English. Their voices dimmed in Sylvie’s ears.
Rose frowned. “It’s just that I’m not a Townsend, I’m—”
“A Dabrowski,” Jozefa said. “Rozalia Dabrowski. Yes?”
“That’s right.” Rose locked her gaze with Jozefa’s.
Sylvie pushed her mug away. “I’m sorry, how do you know her last name?”
“She didn’t tell you?” Jozefa clucked her tongue.
“I was going to.” Rose slid Sylvie a guilty glance. “I wrote a notice and gave it to the special information bureau and the general headquarters for World’s Fair visitors from Poland. An advertisement, really, for them to put in their bulletins. It says my name and my parents’ names, our birth dates, and when my family came to Chicago. I asked for anyone who had any information about my relatives to write me at our address. I may never hear anything, but I had to try. It seems the whole world is coming to Chicago. It could be the best chance I’ll ever have of finding a real connection.”
Sylvie marveled at Rose’s resourcefulness even as she tried to deny the sting it brought her. “So you saw this notice,” she said to Jozefa.
“I never forget a name.”
Rose took a drink of her water and dabbed her mouth with a napkin. “You understand, though, don’t you, Mimi? I’m almost eighteen years old. I’d like to find my real family before it’s time to make one of my own.”
Sylvie nodded. On an intellectual level, she did understand. But on a deeper level, all she could think was that their little family of two had been real to her. And now it was falling apart.
“It’s time for practice to begin.” Rose stood, smoothing her skirt away from her belted waist. “Jozefa, I hope you’ve come to advise us.”
“I am at your service, my dear.”
Sylvie watched as the Hull House Players finished clearing some long tables out of the way, then acted out a scene from Shakespeare’s As You Like It. About a dozen actors practiced tonight, aged from fifteen to twenty-two years old. Beth stepped aside as theater director and allowed Jozefa freedom to coach. Following every piece of advice offered, Rose bloomed under the attention. Beth scribbled notes in the margins of her playbook, copper curls bouncing beside her jaw.
The coffee was tepid by the time Sylvie thought to try drinking it again. She pulled from her bag a well-worn copy of A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, the current selection for the Hull House Readers Club. Their meetings were also on Monday evenings, after the Hull House Players’ practice, to allow those who wanted, like Rose, to participate in both. Rose was the only player who didn’t live in the neighborhood. But since she’d been coming here for so long with Sylvie, they let her act with them.