On Sunday Victoria took the bus across the Ben Franklin Bridge to get out of Philadelphia for a spell. She didn't much care for Camden's seedy, industrial nature, but felt the need to be anywhere but Philadelphia. She dressed too warmly for the spring day -- a long, gray dress she thought typical for women her age, a heavy black coat, hat, veil, and white gloves. Ladies didn't go in public, she felt, without wearing gloves and a hat. Even on this warm May day in 1935.
She got off the bus at Main Street. Perhaps she could do some shopping? She'd like to buy a scarf for Agnes, perhaps another one for her other daughter-in-law, too. She didn't know why, but she wanted to do something for Agnes. The scene last night at their house had been unbearable to Victoria. She could barely speak with her son when he called in the morning. He had lied to Agnes right in front of Victoria and she could barely stand it. She couldn't understand why he'd lie like that. Was he concealing something from his wife? She dreaded trouble in her son's marriage, and the effect that would have on her granddaughter -- her only granddaughter, Grace Victoria, named for her and for the midwife who'd delivered her just three years ago.
She wanted to think; she couldn't concentrate on shopping, once she'd found scarves for Agnes and Brigitta. She sat on a bench in a park nestled between a cheese market and a confectionary. Market Street lay parallel to the Delaware River, and the park looked out onto the river with Philadelphia just beyond. The sky's gray clouds threatened rain and the dark gray above Philadelphia's industrial skyline depressed Victoria even more. She looked across the river to her city, where she'd lived since coming here as a bride back in '02. Two years before Neil had been born and four years before Norman. Her two sons, both in troubled marriages. Had she and Cornelius done something wrong?
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