Through the Open Door

By Joanne C. Parsons

Boston, Massachusetts 1880...Charles Brennan, obsessed by greed, abused his power as a husband and employer, isolating his wife, Rose, and violating the household help. In an act of desperation, one of them murdered him, releasing them all from his control, but not from the guilt and shame they buried deep within.

Through the Open Door, a sequel to Kitchen Canary, meets the characters seven years later. The killer recounts the abuse inflicted by Charles Brennan and describes the final acts of cruelty that led to his murder. When the doors of freedom opened, each of the victims followed their own path.

Rose Brennan is a shrewd business women, who imports high end art and furnishings for the wealthy occupying Back Bay. She is the matriarch of the 'family,' her children and the victims of her late husband's cruelty.

Rose's son, Charles, moved to Europe in search of exotic imports for his mother's business. Margaret, sullen and irascible, cannot find her place in the world.. Virginia, the child conceived by an Irish domestic and Charles Brennan, is approaching adolescence, and wants to know about her birth story.

The Irish domestics are established with husbands and families. The Irish have a foothold in politics, with a plan to elect the first Irish Catholic mayor of Boston. Moira and Paddy McMahon's marriage, built on a foundation of secrets and lies, crumbles when Paddy finds the lure of politics greater than his love of family. Moira seeks the counsel of a new pastor, while Paddy comforts himself with whiskey, gambling and women.

Boston's wealthy are moving to the new Back Bay. Katie O'Neil's husband, Sean, is at the center of the building boom. He offers a job to Etta's son. Matthew finds the logging camp in Maine a dreary and cold place to work. He's frozen out by the white Irish, rejecting him for his race. It takes all his strength to prevail as a negro in a white world.

The freed slaves, Etta and William , continue to work for Mrs. Brennan. William, now married, observes their lives from afar, while Etta immerses herself and her sons, Matthew and Luke in the 'family.' Her sense of security is shattered when she learns Luke's actions could jeopardize her home and livlihood.

Through the Open Door describes the effects of the abuse of power on its victims as they continue their lives. Through the experiences of its characters, it pays homage to the courageous men and women who left their homelands to assure a better life for their families, and provides the reader with an understanding of the rejection, humiliation and ultimate bravery of freed negroes as they assimilated into an unwelcoming white culture.

Through the Open Door celebrates the accomplishments of the children of immigrants, and serves as a reminder that throughout the generations, joy, acceptance, heartbreak and loss are a part of every family's story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gatekeeper Press
• Release date: Aug 20, 2018
• ISBN: 9781642372380

Book preview

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters and events in this book are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons living or dead is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Through the Open Door

Published by Gatekeeper Press

2167 Stringtown Rd, Suite 109

Columbus, OH 43123-2989

www.GatekeeperPress.com

Copyright © 2018 by Joanne C. Parsons

All rights reserved. Neither this book, nor any parts within it may be sold or reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

ISBN (paperback): 9781642372373

eISBN: 9781642372380

Printed in the United States of America

Acknowledgments

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Thank you for reading Through the Open Door. I wrote it at the request of many readers who wanted to follow the lives of the characters in my first novel, Kitchen Canary.

I am blessed to have four sisters, Ginny, Francie, Connie, and Roseanne who lovingly read, critiqued, questioned, and corrected multiple drafts. I am grateful to them and my husband, Jim Berg, who proves serendipity is real.

Please leave a review of my books on Amazon.com and feel free to reach out to me with comments, or to schedule appearances and book clubs at:

www.joannecparsons.com

[e-mail]

BOOKS BY JOANNE C. PARSONS

Kitchen Canary

Through the Open Door

Predator in the House

Her Family’s Secrets

Pull of the Moon

Southie Girl – to be released in 2023

Chapter One

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It Was Me

Boston 1880

~It was 1873, not a year after I killed Charles Brennan when the whole middle part of Boston went up in flames. Fire spread through sixty-five acres, from Summer to Milk Street and then from Washington Street to the wharves. Thick, black smoke filled the sky. Went on for two days. Destroyed over seven-hundred buildings, including the ones in the new business district. The city pipes were too small to carry water through the winding streets.

I’m a negro who escaped slavery. I knew to stay in the house. Heard negroes were being beaten for looting the burning stores. Whites, too. Gunpowder explosions went on all night. Still didn’t stop the fire. People said the earth broke open. Boston became a raging inferno. Saw it from my window, huge chunks of granite, glowing hot, got thrown in the air when a building exploded. Cinders rained down and set more buildings on fire. Lost the wool and leather warehouses. Railroad stations, too. Had to wait for help from New Hampshire and Maine. Fire horses in Boston were no use, all sick with equine flu. It was November, but the air was hot from the flames.

They never figured out what started the fire. I knew. Soon as I heard the Trinity Church and the New Old South Church burned to ashes, I knew. Charles Brennan, himself, started that fire. Standing on Satan’s shoulders, he reached right through the gates of hell, railed against God, and spread them flames all over Boston.

I’m William Short. Escaped from slavery at thirteen years old. My master’s surname was Short, so I took the same. Didn’t know then I’d grow to be six feet, three inches tall. Master Short traded slaves. Daddy cooked. He was tall, too, and strong, but for one shriveled leg. Got infected from chains. My mama got traded. I don’t remember her, and don’t know where she ended up. Master Short kept us hungry and close to naked, so we couldn’t run away. My daddy got me out. Heard I was going to be traded, so he left me in the woods to be picked up by people who rescued slaves. That’s how I got to work for Mr. Brennan. Conductors from the Underground Railroad smuggled me out of Maryland to Pennsylvania, and then Boston. I was scared as can be.

Mr. Brennan took me in from the African Meeting House where the Underground Railroad hid negroes. Taught myself to cook to his taste. He owned an antiques shop on the first floor of his house at 2102 Beacon Street in Boston. A fancy neighborhood. The family lived on the second and third floors, and the help on the fourth. Mostly young, white Irish girls, ‘cept for Etta, a colored woman. Came North after the Civil War.

Mr. Brennan let me sleep on the pine wood floor in the kitchen, gave me my own blanket. Lucky to have it. The kitchen was hot. Was used to that. Slave quarters where I lived before got real hot. No windows, just spaces between boards where air came through. The floor, dirt. Boxed in a spot for myself and slept on old rags and straw. Worked from dawn ‘til sundown. Ate, usually corn soup, and slept. Did that every day on the plantation, until you got traded. Kitchen floor at Mr. Brennan’s house did me fine. I didn’t belong in the helps’ quarters upstairs with the women.

I’m thirty-three years old now. Daddy died the day he sent me off. Got caught by slave chasers and dogs. Killed him in the same woods he left me. The bad leg slowed him down. I’ve tried to make him proud. He gave his life for me. It’s the least a son can do.

I learned to read and write first, and then went on to study more about my faith. That’s what’s given me peace. Faith in the Lord. Church and family are my life. Took a wife seven years ago. I met Winnie at church. A beautiful woman. Suffers from memories of her past.

Daddy taught me to watch out for myself. From my first night working for Mr. Brennan, I laid on my blanket, listening to the sounds of the house. My hearing is good. I know how Margaret got conceived. Mr. and Mrs. Brennan’s first child, Charles, was still an infant. Mr. Brennan slept in a bedroom at the end of the hall on the second floor. Mrs. Brennan, in the room next to baby Charles’s nursery, at the other end of the hall, near the stairs.

I heard a crash and snuck out of the kitchen. Saw Mr. Brennan’s prized Bohemian green glass vase lying in pieces on the floor in the front hallway. Watched him stumble, drunk, up the stairs. He stopped outside his wife’s bedroom, then walked on. He turned back and faced her closed door, swaying and mumbling. I knew Mrs. Brennan didn’t welcome him in there. But he opened it, entered, and shut the door. My ears heard nothing. I went back and curled up on my blanket. Before long, Mrs. Brennan’s bedroom door opened and closed.

The house stayed quiet from then. Not that they talked much before. The marriage was more of a convenient arrangement than one of love. Mrs. Brennan was alone in the world, and Mr. Brennan needed a woman to give him respectability. But after that night, near silence. Margaret came along nine months later.

Mr. Brennan worked from early morning until late at night, buying and selling antiques. Then he’d go off. I suspect with whores, because when he came home, usually drunk, he had a strong smell of perfume and cigars about him. This is just me thinking, but he didn’t seem like the kind of fellow ladies take to, unless he paid. His bald head dripped sweat. He wobbled on stiff legs, tired of carrying his round body. His open mouth showed broken teeth and bright red gums.

Each night, I’d lie on my blanket until I heard the front door slam and heavy footsteps taking him to the library. Then I’d bring him his hot dinner and a decanter of whiskey.

That’s how it stayed after Margaret came. Quiet. Mostly because Mr. and Mrs. Brennan didn’t speak to each other. He came home late, ate, drank his whiskey, and slept in his own room. She nursed Margaret and cared for Charles.

The children grew older and Mrs. Brennan found a need for domestic help. Her husband made a declaration. Rose, he said, Hire the help, but know this, I’ll have no Micks living in my home. This Englishman will not lower himself to hire a bead-counting Harp to care for his children.

Can’t say it surprised me when Anne arrived from Cork, Ireland. Mrs. Brennan, she’s a tiny lady, gentle, but strong willed, with a mind of her own. Mr. Brennan complained to me when I brought his supper. He slurred his words, from all the whiskey he drank that night. A Mick, William. She brought a dirty Harp into my house. It’s her way of going against me. Her only power. A day will come. It took a few years before I understood.

As I said, my ears hear good. Happened right after Anne arrived. I picked up footsteps in the kitchen. Laid still on my blanket, opened one eye a slit. Mr. Brennan made his way up the backstairs to the helps’ quarters. I couldn’t hear nothin’, ‘cept the door to Anne’s room open and close.

I knew what he wanted. Happened on the plantation, too. White men liked light-skinned negro slave girls. Even as a boy, I knew to keep my eyes to the ground. When I sneaked a look, saw the women walk slow from the slave quarters to the main house. Few hours later, back they came, almost running. Heads down. Saw more than that…men slaves moving slow toward the main house, too. Shame all over their faces when they got back to the slave quarters.

Mrs. Brennan must have caught on, or maybe Anne told her. A lock went on Anne’s door. It was too late. Her breasts were swelling, getting ready to nurse a baby. Anne kept cleaning and minding Charles and Margaret, as if nothing was different. No one mentioned her belly, as it grew month to month. Mrs. Brennan called the midwife when the time came. Again, no one talked about the new baby until three weeks after it was born. Mrs. Brennan stayed silent when her husband announced he’d keep the child. Named her Virginia. I suspect because her mother was a virgin. He sent Anne back to Ireland. Thought she’d die of heartbreak from leaving her child behind.

I’d never heard the likes of it, the night Mr. Brennan took to beating his wife. I heard Mrs. Brennan’s voice, not the usual gentle tone, but firm. I crept from the kitchen and stood at the foot of the stairs to their bedrooms. I want a divorce. I’m taking my children. He screamed back, I’ll see you in the streets first. There were thuds and bangs. I imagined her being dragged across the floor. Scared me. I feared he’d kill her but felt paralyzed to help. The door opened, and he boomed, Walk through this door, Rose, and I’ll put you out. You’ll be a beggar, grateful for scraps to eat. I’ll see to it.

I ran back to the kitchen. Got to my blanket and shut my eyes. He came for whiskey. I laid there, shaking, thinking of poor Mrs. Brennan. He found the whiskey and left.

Moira arrived after Anne got sent back to Ireland. I’d never seen a person with hair the color of flame. She met the same fate as Anne. I heard crying a few times. Cried myself, knowing I laid still on my blanket. Where would I go? Thousands of freed negroes lived in filthy tenements in Boston, most with no jobs. More died than lived from fever and dysentery.

Mrs. Brennan stayed in her room, heeding her husband’s warning he’d put her to the streets to starve if she ventured out. She’d be no use to her children roaming the streets, penniless. She’d sneak out the front door in the middle of the night every so often. Don’t know what she did. Probably needed to breathe real air. Every few days, before dawn, she tiptoed into her children’s room. It was the only time she got to see Charles and Margaret. I never heard her open Virginia’s door. Guess she figured that child caused all the trouble. Me and Moira got to be friends. Spent time talking, depending on her mood, but never about Mr. Brennan.

With Mrs. Brennan holed up in her room, she let Moira send for her Cousin Katie from Galway. Mr. Brennan didn’t bother with Katie until Moira moved out and got married. Twisted me up inside each time I saw him climb those stairs. They were God-fearing, church going, innocents. Didn’t deserve none of what he gave out. And, yet, I laid still on my blanket.

He made Katie pregnant, she was just passed nineteen. Me and Etta, the new maid, helped her through it. Even Mrs. Brennan stepped in. It was twins. The girl came first, dead. Etta showed it to Mr. Brennan, knowing he planned to take the baby. A boy came next. Mr. Brennan was in a deep drunken sleep by then, so they snuck the infant out of the house. Katie asked her Cousin Moira to keep the child. She couldn’t handle him herself.

I used a trick from the plantation and put a trace of belladonna in Mr. Brennan’s food for the last few months before Katie’s babies were born. A little of the plant’s juice in a glass of water helped with a bellyache and brought on sleep. I was hoping a little dose would slow down his manly urges. It didn’t. Never thought he’d bother a portly, colored woman. But he turned on her after Katie’s babies came. I questioned my own manhood, listening, and doing nothin’ while he raped Etta, a married mother of two sons.

Mrs. Brennan took over the business after I killed her husband. Rich people liked her better than Mr. Brennan. She talks like them, good English. She’s polite and knows about manners. Smart, too. Made herself rich importing chandeliers and wallcoverings for the new homes in Back Bay. They all use her Italian marble to cover the floors and even walls. Back Bay got to be the place to live for the rich Protestants once it got filled in. They left Beacon Hill to the immigrants.

Mrs. Brennan bought a new home there. Got involved in the Boston scene, museums and theatre and such. My wife and I live in the helps’ quarters, which she made real nice. Me and Winnie cook, clean, and take care of the garden. Mrs. Brennan left the house on Beacon Street for her children. Charles is in college. Wants to learn more about the business. Resembles his mother. Thin, with fine features. He’s kind like her, too.

Margaret never seemed right. Got angry when her daddy died and stayed that way. Reminds me of him. Thick bones and a round face. Hardly smiles. She went off to college but came back. Spends too much time with Etta’s boys, if you ask me. Luke, especially. They were raised close, but still, a colored boy should know