Ella of All-of-a-Kind Family by Sydney Taylor

Author:Sydney Taylor [Taylor, Sydney]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-82930-6
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2013-05-29T04:00:00+00:00

8

Decision

Outwardly the rest of the momentous week flowed along as usual. Ella’s relationship with the family, her singing lessons, her job seemed untouched. But underneath her composed manner, the need for coming to a decision kept gnawing away.

At home there was no further discussion about the contract. Ella was grateful for that. She sensed that Mama and Papa must have cautioned the sisters not to make mention of it. Only Charlotte, at dinner one night, said as if she were thinking out loud, “You know, Ella has a somewhere-else look on her face.”

By Saturday Ella had made up her mind. She would sign the contract.

That night, she and Jules strolled to their favorite bench in the park. The air was touched with the fragrance of early spring. The night tiptoed around them, the dark trees like fingers raised for silence. Afraid of breaking the feeling of oneness between them, Ella shrank from bringing up the subject. But finally she could not stifle the words; they came tumbling out.

Jules listened, saying not a word. When she had finished, his head was lowered, his hands dug deep in his pockets. He seemed enveloped in a blanket of gloom. She wanted to reach out to touch him, but couldn’t. All she could do was sit by numbly and wait.

He cleared his throat, as if it hurt him to talk. But when he spoke, his voice was calm, almost gentle. “Ella, I can’t—I have no right to ask you not to do this. I have no right to impose my wishes—my hopes and dreams—on you.” He laughed a bit ruefully. “If I did, some fine day, years from now, when I’m old and bald and fat, and we’d be sitting together, you’d look at me and think, And this is what I gave up a career for? I couldn’t stand that. Besides, what have I got to offer you instead? Nothing. Just me.

“I’ll have to work very hard this fall, what with a job and school at night. Not that I mind. No matter how tough the going will be. Because I realize it’ll be working toward a future. Kind of selfish of me to imagine that my future, my career would be sufficient so that it would become yours too—our future. I keep forgetting that times are changing. Women are beginning to want to do more—to be more. Only”—he hesitated—“if you really loved me,” his voice cracked, the pain now plainly visible in his face, “I don’t think you’d even consider this contract. I’d figured that you’d want to help me, to encourage me, so I wouldn’t have to go it all alone. It never occurred to me that you’d want to be off somewhere in Kalamazoo or someplace, pursuing a career of your own.”

That’s the male for you, Ella found herself thinking, resenting a woman’s wanting a career outside of housewife and mother. It was selfish, as Jules himself had said.

Jules caught hold of her hand. “I’m sorry, Ella. I shouldn’t have said that.

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