Dear Reader:
Before Nellie became who she was, she had to survive who made her.
Chapter Three opens with Clara — not a rescue this time, but a prayer. Trudy, her sister, is pregnant and abandoned, and Clara is writing into the diary the way she always does: carrying what she cannot fix, asking God for peace she isn’t sure is coming. It is 1936. The mills are grinding. The money is tight. And Trudy is Trudy — which is to say, a force of nature with no safe place to land.
This chapter belongs to two women who could not be more different, and to the girl caught between them.
We meet Trudy in full here — her wildness, her charm, her terrifying darkness. The townspeople whispered about her moods, but back then there was no word for what she carried. What Nellie knew was simpler and more frightening: that her mother’s face could twist into something almost unrecognizable, that the air in a room changed when Trudy’s mood turned, that survival meant learning to read the weather of another person before you even opened your eyes in the morning.
Nellie learned fast. She hid pennies in dirty socks. She stomped on bill collectors’ toes at age five. She lay under an oak tree outside a grand house and quietly, privately, refused to believe that this was all there was.
And then — Neil.
Neil arrives in this chapter like a change in the season. He is shorter than Nellie, lighter than everything she has ever known, and constitutionally incapable of carrying a single care on his shoulders. He pulls up after her mill shift in a car with the windows down and the radio blaring and sings his heart out the whole way, and Nellie looks over at him and thinks: is this it? Is this how life is supposed to feel?
It is a question she has never had reason to ask before.
Chapter Three is about what we are made of before anyone notices us becoming it — the hunger, the defiance, the secret dreams under the oak tree. And it is about the moment someone comes along who makes you wonder, for the first time, whether joy might actually be something you’re allowed to have.
Diary Entry - 17 January 1936
Willimantic, Connecticut
Dearest Heavenly Father, I pray o Lord of Lords, please watch over my sister Trudy, as she has found herself in the grievous of sins father, she is pregnant, out of wedlock. By, she swears, her employer, who is married. Please Lord, watch over her, guide her, O Lord. I don’t know how to help, as I fear she has just ruined her life. Who will take care of her and this child? Her employer is denying her and has refused to let her back in the house so now she has lost her employment. I won’t be able to send money to mother this month. I wear this burden Lord, I see the future and it seems so hard to bear Lord. I know you bore your burdens with ease, please grant me ease, grant me peace. Watch over Trudy and this poor child, please guide me in my path always, in Brigid’s sacred memory. Your humble servant, Clara.
The two sisters could not be more unalike– Clara, with her determined stoicism, and Trudy’s chaos and unpredictability. Whereas Clara maintained an orderly, if not ultra strict schedule, Trudy had a wild energy about her, a kind of volatile charm that could light up a room one moment and send shivers down your spine the next. Some days she was brimming with enthusiasm, chattering away with a manic intensity that bordered on unsettling; other times, she would fall into deep, dark silences, unable to get out of bed, muttering curses at anyone who dared disturb her. The townspeople whispered about her moods, but back then, they didn’t have a word for it.
For her daughter, Nellie, all she knew was that her mother could be terrifying when woken up, her face twisting into something almost demonic, as if Nellie had committed an unforgivable sin by pulling her from sleep.
Nellie’s childhood was shaped by hardship, grit, and resilience. She was born into Trudy’s life of struggle, starting in a quonset hut in Taftville, and later moving to a cramped apartment on Main Street in Willimantic, just across from the bar where her mother Trudy spent more time nursing drinks and chasing men than cleaning houses.
Nellie learned quickly how to navigate a world where survival meant being and acting tough, where you stood your ground even if you were just a child. The memory of her mother cowering under the kitchen table when a bill collector pounded at the door was seared into her mind. It was Nellie who faced him, a skinny, defiant girl no older than five, stomping on the man’s toes before slamming the door in his face.
That was the kind of toughness that life, and later Aunt Clara, had drilled into her from the start: take no bull, and never, ever, let them see you cry. By the time she was eleven and finally went to live with Clara, Nellie already knew the sting of hunger, the weight of shame, and the power of defiance. She had worked for as long as she could remember, scrubbing floors alongside her mother or helping Clara at the Mills.
With her mother, and later Aunt Clara, the battle between the bottle and groceries was one that Nellie often lost. She’d scour her mom’s pockets, and later Aunt Clara’s coat, for pennies or a nickel perhaps forgotten or left behind, just to add to her own private collection. She knew when to listen for her mom’s breaths to quiet enough for her to start sneaking through looking for spare change.
At first she take her spare penny to the corner candy store for a quick treat, but then, she thought, if I save five pennies I can get a soda pop float. And that’s when she started to squirrel away any spare change she had. Always hiding it in the dirtiest sock underneath the pad they called her mattress. She determined early that the battle against hunger and want was a battle she would always remain prepared to fight.
One late afternoon, Trudy dragged Nellie across the street to the bar she frequented. It wasn’t the first time she’d done this, and Nellie knew it wouldn’t be the last. Her mother’s grip was tight, her pace quick and uneven, as if she were pulled along by some invisible force. When they arrived, the place reeked of smoke and stale beer, and Trudy ordered a drink before slumping into a chair, already lost in the haze of her own thoughts. Nellie glanced around the room, grateful that her mother had a few pennies and wouldn’t be hocking her around to sit on the lap of some smelly stranger.
“Go find somethin’ to do,” she said, waving a hand dismissively in Nellie’s direction. “And leave your Auntie Clara alone, she’s had enough of you, you hear me?”
Nellie didn’t need to be told twice. She darted out the door and ran down the street, her feet pounding against the dirt path until she reached the outskirts of a fancy neighborhood. There, she threw herself under the shade of a big oak tree, her chest heaving as she caught her breath. Across the way stood one of the grand houses where she and Trudy had worked as cleaners before.
Nellie remembered dusting the delicate porcelain vases in the sitting room, the ones painted with flowers and gold trim. Trudy had barked at her to be careful, to hold each piece like it was worth more than her life. It had always made Nellie nervous, the way her mother’s moods could shift so quickly—one minute strict and commanding, the next distracted or bitter.
A breeze rustled the leaves above her, and Nellie lay there, staring at the house, imagining herself inside, living a different life. She pictured herself gliding across the polished floors, touching the fine things without fear of breaking them. It was a dream she cherished secretly, though she knew better than to speak of it to Trudy. Her mother hated the rich folk, blamed them for everything that had gone wrong in her life. “Don’t get ideas in your head, girl,” Trudy would say, whenever Nellie showed even the slightest curiosity about the nicer things in town. “Them people wouldn’t give you the time of day.”
Another time, when Trudy was in one of her darker moods, Nellie had come home late from the mill to find her mother still in bed, surrounded by empty bottles. “Where the hell have you been?” Trudy had snapped, her voice slurred and dangerous.
“Working,” Nellie replied, trying to keep her tone even. “Where else would I be?”
Trudy shot up, her eyes wild and bloodshot. “Don’t you get smart with me!” she shouted, throwing a glass toward the doorframe. It shattered, sending shards flying. “You think you’re better than me, don’t you? Just because you’re pretty? Well, looks fade, sweetheart, and you’ll end up just like me.”
Nellie flinched at the sound of breaking glass but stood her ground. “I’m not like you,” she said quietly. “I’m going to get out of here.”
The words hung in the air like a challenge, and for a moment, Trudy stared at her daughter, as if seeing her for the first time. Then her expression hardened. “You’ll be back,” she muttered, sinking back into her threadbare blanket. “You’ll see.”
It wasn’t long after that incident when Nellie began to avoid coming home altogether, preferring the company of Aunt Clara and the stability, however meager, that her aunt’s small attic tenement provided. As if by somehow climbing each of the stairs put more and more distance between her and her mother. But Trudy was a force that could not be fully escaped, and every time Nellie saw her mother around town, whether stumbling out of the bar or arguing with a shopkeeper over a few cents, she was reminded of the woman’s hold over her. It was a hold that Nellie was determined to break, even if it meant never looking back.
In stark contrast, Neil grew up in a house where children could afford to be children. His parents, while not rich, were comfortable enough to own the large row house where all of Neil’s much older, now grown up siblings lived. There was always laughter around a full dinner table, and the backyard was filled with the clamor of shared meals and family gatherings. The car he drove—an old but reliable model—wasn’t flashy, but it was a symbol of freedom, something he had worked hard to save for with his paper route money.
Neil’s life, while not as glamorous as some, was marked by opportunities, ease, laughter, and love —from his first car to the security of a large and growing family who all had found the means to make the American dream come true. Neil could afford to take risks and indulge his passions, like singing and learning to dance from his older sister. For him, life was something to be enjoyed, not endured, and his happiness radiated from him like an unstoppable force.
When Nellie met Neil, it was as if she’d been pulled into an entirely different world. His easy laugh and eternal optimism stood in stark contrast to the grimy struggle that had defined her existence. Neil’s laughter was effortless, his smile generous, and he never seemed to carry a single care on his shoulders.
To Nellie, he was a marvel of light and laughter—someone who could make even the most mundane moments feel like mad fun. Though he stood almost a foot shorter than her, his spirit loomed large, and the way he spun his partners on the dance floor made him seem like the most debonair man on the planet. His carefree nature and unshakable belief in the goodness of life were intoxicating.
And it wasn’t just that Neil had a car or a family that seemed well off; it was the ease with which he wielded his generosity—swinging by to pick her up after her shift at the Mills – even though her tenement apartment was all of five blocks away and he lived over an hour away.
He’d pull up, laughing at her work clothes, and drive her away for an impromptu drive with the windows down, as if they had all the time in the world. For a girl who had only ever known struggle, it was an irresistible invitation to taste a life where joy came first. The wind would wipe away the grime of the day from the mills, the music would be blaring from the radio, and Neil would be singing his heart out – she’d look over and think, “is this it? Is this how life is supposed to feel? Is it really this good?”
For a girl who had only known fleeting glimpses of peace, but never a full belly, for someone who had only known pinching every penny, this feeling felt foreign, and fun, and just plain easy. And so yes, to Nellie, after all she had been through, easy nights with Neil seemed like a whole lot of fun.