The House of Eve

It is Eleanor and William’s one-year anniversary, and she is pregnant again. They have to celebrate their anniversary at an affair where Rose is being honored. William gives Eleanor a watch. Since he is in his residency, he is unable to go to Eleanor’s prenatal appointments. Eleanor still feels like she does not belong in William’s family, remembering Greta’s insults. However, she thinks the baby will make things better. Rose convinced her to quit her job at the library once she got pregnant again, but she refused to give up school.

Ruby tries homemade attempts to abort her baby, but nothing works. Shimmy visits and sees her sick from one of the homemade abortifacients, and she reluctantly tells him about the pregnancy. He asks how she could have “let this happen” (160), and she reminds him that he is just as responsible for getting her pregnant. He thinks about how angry his mother will be, and Ruby thinks about how she turned out like her mother. She realizes how easy it is for men to walk away from an unplanned pregnancy. When she tells Shimmy that he does not need to be in the baby’s life, he assures her that he will be present. But for the time being, he has to stay in town because his father is in the hospital, and he has to help his mother at home. Ruby starts painting because the only place she feels she has control is in Ruby’s Red World.

Grandma Nene reminds Ruby that she will be the first in the family to go to college. When she reiterates that Ruby can share anything with her, the girl cannot bring herself to reveal the baby. Shimmy calls Ruby and when they go to Greenwald’s candy store, he proposes to her. The two have sex. Ruby does not believe that fairy-tale endings happen to people like her, but the two start dreaming about Jewish baby names. Suddenly, they hear someone come in.

Every morning, Eleanor goes to her prayer closet and prays in her choir robe like she learned at the Baptist church. At the library, Mrs. Porter offers Eleanor the chance to become an archivist. Eleanor is hesitant, but knows the job will help pass the long hours while William works on his residency; her mother always taught her that it is important for a woman to have her own interests.

Shimmy’s mother, Mrs. Shapiro, walks into Greenwald’s candy store and calls Ruby a “whore.” Shimmy tells his mother that he is in love with Ruby and that she is having his baby. He vows to marry Ruby, but Mrs. Shapiro calls him a fool. She says the baby will dishonor the family, so they should not tell anybody. Ruby feels humiliated and leaves, vomiting when she smells the dumpster out back. Men start catcalling her, and she runs to her mother’s house. She remembers how her mother looked when she announced her and Leap’s baby. Ruby considers how her baby and her mother’s baby could grow up together. However, Inez tells her to go to Aunt Marie’s house and leave her key. Ruby knows she never wants her baby to feel like she does.

Eleanor loves archiving, and works from home on days when she does not go to the Howard campus. Nadine visits Eleanor, and since Eleanor woke up late, she has to shower without praying. She hopes her baby will get Greta to back off. Nadine drops Eleanor off at Howard University Hospital for her 18-week check-up. The doctor checks for the baby’s heartbeat and then leaves the room. Later, William comes in with the doctor. The baby does not have a heartbeat. Eleanor blames herself because she skipped her prayer.

It is hot outside, but most pools do not allow Black people, and sometimes when they do, white people put bleach or nails in the pool to dissuade Black people from coming back. Mrs. Shapiro comes to Aunt Marie’s door. Mrs. Shapiro says that in her community, they send girls away to have their babies out of wedlock. She found a home for Ruby, and will pay for the stay if Ruby agrees; the home will find adoptive parents for the baby. Mrs. Shapiro says she is on the board for We Rise, and that she will ensure Ruby gets a scholarship if she agrees to her plan. Ruby realizes that even though Shimmy promised to support her, she has been dealing with her pregnancy alone. Aunt Marie thinks she should take the scholarship.

Eleanor refuses to take the morphine intended to ease the pain of her delivery because she wants to suffer. When the baby is born, the nurse wraps them up and takes them away. All Eleanor saw was the baby’s purple foot. She tries to call for the nurse to see her baby, but her voice is not strong enough. She takes pills that knock her out and when she wakes up, she is shaking and frantic to see her baby. Eleanor goes into the hall, and a nurse diagnoses her with shock; she is taken to her room and given medication to sleep. She later wakes up and sees an emotional William, and believes their marriage must be a disappointment to him. When the doctor comes in, he says the baby was a girl and that since this was Eleanor’s third miscarriage, getting pregnant again could prove fatal. William is confused because he only knows of two miscarriages, and Eleanor reveals that she had a miscarriage in high school. She apologizes for not disclosing everything, and he says they must focus on the future.

A nun named Mother Margaret comes into Eleanor’s room when she is alone and tells her of her maternity home for unwed mothers, the House of Magdalene. She explains that a handful of the mothers are Black women from good families. She gives her a business card and explains that nobody but Eleanor and William would need to know about their potential adoption of one of the mothers’ babies. Mother Margaret then prays the Hail Mary.

Ruby wants to talk to Shimmy, but his mother assures her that he will not return to town for a while—and that he would want Ruby to go to a home for unwed mothers. Mrs. Shapiro refuses to give Shimmy’s phone number, and Ruby agrees to go to the home. When Ruby tells Aunt Marie that she will go, Aunt Marie has someone develop a formal contract. Ruby tries to think of the baby as an egg, and again realizes how easy it is for boys to escape the consequences of pregnancy. Mrs. Shapiro will explain Ruby’s absence from We Rise as being due to her partaking in a scholarship, and she will have Ruby’s schoolwork sent to her.

At 19 weeks of pregnancy, Mrs. Shapiro picks up Ruby to take her to the House of Magdalene, and Shimmy is in the car. When they get to the home, Mrs. Shapiro goes in, and Ruby and Shimmy stay behind in the car. Shimmy wants Ruby to run away with him. He says love is all they need, but she knows running away is not a simple matter for her.