Sex Wars by Marge Piercy Read Free Book Online Page B

ever had trouble in childbirth till the last. The midwife used to say I dropped babies like a mother cat birthing kittens.”
    Susan made a sour face. “You took more care with your children than that!”
    Amelia came in with some darning. She winked at Elizabeth from behind Susan’s narrow back, laying a letter on the table. “This came for thee, Susan.”
    Elizabeth grabbed it, for the address was printed Susan Bitch Anthony. Another hate letter. They both got enough of them. She tore it in two and tossed it with good aim into the wastebasket. “I just meant the birthing.” Neighbor women in Seneca Falls—even the Irishwomen down the hill among the factories and tanneries—used to come to her for remedies for whooping cough and colic. She never lost a child. She crossed her arms over her full bosom, smiling. She did not know another mother who had not lost babies or children, including her own mother, half of whose children had died. She had not minded being the one who knew best, the woman who had mastered running a household and rearing healthy bright offspring.
    Susan frowned. “Yes, you can always call on your authority as a respectable married woman, mother of a tribe.”
    “Well, she’s been a good mother to them all,” Amelia said. She didn’t interrupt often, for she had the Quaker sense that she should not speak unless the spirit moved her. She was a quiet but strong presence in the house. “She can love with clear eyes that see what each one needs.”
    Elizabeth patted Susan’s shoulder. “My dear, don’t let them get to you when they call you an old maid. You have your freedom, the way I never had for all those years of choking domesticity—years I’d never have survived without you. I simply would have exploded with frustration and rage and you’d have had to scrape pieces of my innards off the ceiling. And the truth is, Susan, you’d have made a perfect wife if you’d wanted. You had proposals.”
    Susan let that thin but warm smile of hers spread across her face. “We’ve always helped each other. You’re the brains, Mrs. Stanton. I’m but your mouthpiece.”
    That was how it had been for many years, but Elizabeth had observed now that she could travel after a decade housebound in Seneca Falls, she was the better speaker. She could sway a crowd more easily than Susan could. Time after time, they would make the same points, and people would say they agreed with Elizabeth and disagreed with Susan. She knew she came across as motherly and warm, that she had the ability to think of a little witticism in the moment. Susan, who was kind and generous to a fault, never had been able to joke on her feet or tell the anecdote that made something real to people—unless Elizabeth in writing her speech inserted stories. But Susan had the organizational talents she lacked—the ability to sit endlessly in committee meetings, to steer proposals through the maze of subcommittees, to disagree without causing rancor and continue pushing for her agenda without seeming strident. Susan had her own genius. Susan could function in an organization behind the scenes as Elizabeth never could.
    Susan rose and walked to the windows, open to the May morning and the garden. The scent of lilacs drifted in. Bees were humming in the honeysuckle outside and Elizabeth could hear mourning doves roo-coo-cooing in the big maples. “We must do something to move things forward. Our movement’s stalled like a carriage in the mud.” Susan paced as if consumed by her own energy.
    “Let’s go out to the porch.” As they strolled toward the door, Elizabeth snagged the pastry. Susan was thin as a pole, but Elizabeth enjoyed her girth. She felt her appearance was more grandmotherly and thus less threatening because she was plumpish—with curly hair and a great laugh—a useful façade for a lifelong revolutionary. She had been a flirt in her younger days, and she still carried herself with that ease, the confidence of someone