Page 28 of The Women of Oak Ridge

AUNT MAE WAS UP EARL Tuesday morning. She greeted me with a smile when I entered the kitchen and acted as though nothing out of the ordinary had occurred the previous day.

I thought it best to play along. Despite a powerful need to know what happened to her roommate thirty-five years ago, I didn’t want to spoil things with a repeat of yesterday.

“I thought we could go to the hardware store and pick up some tomato plants,” she said, scraping fluffy scrambled eggs onto my plate once I was seated at the table. “Maybe a couple squash plants, too.”

I grinned, thrilled she seemed her usual self.

“That sounds great. Mom tried gardening when the girls and I were little, but none of us has your green thumb. After the excitement of planting a garden wore off, we usually forgot to water it. It’s amazing how much a garden doesn’t grow without water. ”

She set a plate of yummy-looking biscuits in the center of the table, along with fresh butter and homemade strawberry jam, then took a seat across from me.

After the blessing, she said, “Mama taught me all about growing vegetables and how to can them. Pa’s meager salary at the coal mine barely covered rent and things like flour, coffee, and sugar, so we relied on what we could grow and what Pa could shoot when he went hunting.

When we did purchase necessities, we had to shop at the store owned by the coal mining company.

They charged exorbitant prices, so Pa mostly had to use credit.

The problem is, once you were in debt to the store, you had no choice but to do business with them.

It was robbery, pure and simple, but there wasn’t anything anyone could do about it. ”

“How long did Grandpa work at the mines?”

Her brow tugged. “He started mining coal when he was thirteen. His pa before him mined coal, too. That’s what most men did in that part of Kentucky. And like many miners, my pa and his pa died from black lung.”

The sobering reality of coal mining.

“I wish he and great grandpa could have had an easier life,” I said.

She sighed and set her fork down. “I did too. The reason I came to Oak Ridge was because the salaries offered here were higher than what I could get in Kentucky. I sent money home every chance I could so Pa could quit the mines.”

I reached across the table to place my hand over hers. “I’m sure your parents appreciated everything you did to help them.”

“Pa passed away soon after the war ended. That’s when Mama and Harris came to live with me.”

“In this house?” I asked, trying to envision my father as a teenager in Oak Ridge.

“No,” she said, “I hadn’t bought this place yet. I lived in a dormitory, but when Mama agreed to move, I rented a small house in town. Harris wasn’t too happy about leaving his friends. As soon as he graduated from high school, he moved to the big city.”

“You never wanted to move away? Go someplace more exciting?” I wriggled my eyebrows.

Aunt Mae didn’t smile. “I couldn’t leave Oak Ridge. I had to stay.”

Once again her choice of words intrigued me, but I let it go.

We finished breakfast, with me volunteering to clean up while she changed clothes for our outing. Within the hour, we were seated in the Z28. Once we arrived at the hardware store, Aunt Mae took hold of a small, wheeled shopping buggy and off we went.

I followed her around like a little kid. I couldn’t recall ever being inside a hardware store and found it new and interesting. She chuckled each time I stopped and asked about this item or that. Who knew replacement toilet seats came in so many different styles and colors.

“I see we need to get your nose out of those psychology books more often,” Aunt Mae teased.

I stood before a rack of colorful gardening gloves, trying to decide which pair to purchase, when Jonas and his father appeared at the end of the aisle. A warm flutter tightened my belly. Jonas wore his police uniform, looking official but devastatingly handsome.

“Well, fancy meeting you ladies here,” Elliot said. I noticed he walked with a cane, but his limp wasn’t too bad. “Getting ready to do some gardening, I see.” He indicated the small pots of plants and bag of potting soil in the buggy.

“Yes,” Aunt Mae and I said at the same time.

“Nothing like homegrown tomatoes,” she added.

Aunt Mae asked Elliot how he was doing. While he updated her on his accident and healing process, Jonas stepped closer to me.

“I’m looking forward to our dinner tonight.” His lowered voice was only for my ears.

I smiled. “Me too.”

“Do you like Mexican food? There’s a new place out on the turnpike that’s pretty good.”

“I love it.”

Elliot’s voice drew our attention. “I hear you were understandably impressed with K-25 when Jonas took you out to see it the other day.” His curious gaze was on me.

“It’s amazing,” I said. “I’ve seen pictures of the building in books, but they don’t do it justice. There’s no way to truly comprehend how enormous it is until you see it in person.”

He chuckled. “Just think what all of us country folks thought when we first saw it back in the forties.” He turned to Aunt Mae. “I guess you’d know all about that, seein’ as you worked there for years.”

She nodded but didn’t add to the conversation.

“I worked at the K-25 security checkpoint some,” Elliot continued, unaffected by Aunt Mae’s silence.

“That post was easier than manning the main gates in and out of town. People were always trying to smuggle things in or enter without an ID or proper pass. It could get tedious. At K-25, there was just one rule: you didn’t get in or out unless you had your badge. ”

“Was there much crime in Oak Ridge back then?” I asked. While I was thinking about the disappearance of Aunt Mae’s roommate, I was also curious how crimes were handled in a city that didn’t exist on any map.

Elliot seemed to ponder the question before answering.

“There was the usual. Petty theft. Domestic disturbances. Teenagers causin’ trouble.

Seems like I recall a murder that took place sometime in ’44, but that was closer to Union County.

One of the fellas accused worked in Oak Ridge, so the MPs got involved. ”

I was about to ask a question regarding the storage of old records when Aunt Mae abruptly began to walk away.

“It was nice to see you, Elliot, Jonas,” she said over her shoulder, already several steps away, “but Laurel and I need to get home if we’re to have these plants in the garden before sundown.” She didn’t wait for their reply and hurried around the corner.

Her rudeness left me embarrassed, but neither man seemed offended. “It was good to see you again, Mr. Tyson.”

“Call me Elliot.” He glanced between Jonas and me. “You two kids have fun tonight.”

Jonas shot me a grin. “I’m sure we will.”

I bid them goodbye and hurried to join Aunt Mae at the checkout.

A college-age young man carried her purchases to the car for us, and we were soon back at the house.

After a quick lunch, we went to work in the garden.

By the time we put away our hats, gloves, and tools, we were hot and sticky but satisfied with the fruits of our labor.

“You get cleaned up first,” she said from her place seated at the table in the kitchen, sipping from a tall glass of cold lemonade that matched my own. She studied me before adding, “Jonas is a fine young man. Comes from a good family. I’m sure your parents would approve of you seeing him.”

“We’re just friends.” I gave a small shrug.

“Even if I were interested in dating someone, which I’m not, it wouldn’t work out with Jonas.

He lives here, and I live in Boston. Besides, getting my doctorate is my priority right now.

It could take several years, plus an internship.

That’s way too long to try to maintain a relationship over the telephone. ”

She considered my declaration for a time before she spoke, a hint of sadness in her eyes. “Getting your doctorate is a fine goal, Laurel, but don’t let it cause you to miss out on an opportunity to love and be loved. You don’t want to end up alone, like me.”

I sat in the chair opposite her. “Were you never in love with anyone?”

She stared off into space. “I don’t know that I was in love, but there was a young man here in Oak Ridge when I first came to the Reservation. We both worked at K-25.”

“What was his name?”

A soft smile played on her lips. “Garlyn. Garlyn Young. He was an engineer with the Army. We became friends.” The smile faded as quickly as it had come. “But that was a long time ago. You run on now and get bathed. I think I’ll lie down for a while.”

While I readied for my date with Jonas, I wondered what had happened between Garlyn and Aunt Mae.

Bit by tiny bit, I was piecing together what her life in Oak Ridge was like during the war.

Her work at K-25. Her desire to send money back home to her family.

Then there was her roommate Sissy, and the mystery surrounding her.

Yet each time I thought Aunt Mae might open up about her time on the Reservation, she’d grow tense and refuse to talk about it.

As though she wanted to forget the past in order to avoid having to deal with it.

My Psychology 101 teacher persona kicked in.

We called what Aunt Mae was doing a defense mechanism , a key concept of psychoanalysis.

People often use repression, usually unconsciously, to protect themselves from anxiety-producing thoughts and feelings related to internal conflicts and outer stressors.

In Aunt Mae’s case, I had a growing suspicion something took place during the war that left her emotionally wounded or irreversibly frightened.

Maybe both. But until she was willing to trust me enough to share her story, whatever it was would likely remain locked away in her psyche, just like the secret work she did for the Manhattan Project.

At six o’clock, I heard Jonas’s Bronco pull into the driveway.