I’m interested in mothers. I’m interested in the ways children’s lives develop. I’m interested in the strange and unexpected life of Dorothy Sayers. I’m interested in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s daughter who became a nun and worked in cancer hospice. I’m interested in the way secrets and lies impact some people and not others. I’m interested in the many ways there are to walk through this life, and how our choices and very beings affect each other more than we know. I wrote this strange little piece as a research exercise and as the beginning of exploration into two women I’d like to learn and write more about: Dorothy Sayers and Rose Hawthorne Lathrop. I received feedback that this is too short a piece for the number of diverging stories, but I’m keeping it as it is, for what it is: a beginning.
Everyone and His Mother
(idiom) Used hyperbolically to express a large number or a majority of people.
By the time John Anthony Sayers was five years old, his maternal grandparents had died. There was no longer any reason for his mother to keep his birth a secret, but she did. Detective novelist Dorothy Sayers never confessed to the world that she had a son while unwed, or ever, even after she had married and might have adopted him. Adopt him! That would make the most sense now, and she promised to do it. She even said she had done it. At ten years old, John Anthony converted to using Aunt Dorothy’s new, married surname–Fleming–but he never lived with her or called her mother, and it turns out his new last name was never actually on the books.
On the Books: (idiom) something officially recorded or recognized, originated from the practice of keeping written records in legal and bureaucratic contexts.
Secrets about parents and children can explode, I suppose. There was the hidden lovechild of Charles Dickens and his end-of-life paramour, the actress Nelly Ternan. The child only learned of his true parentage as an adult, and then his life fell completely apart. He severed social ties, grew emotionally depressed, and became financially erratic. Who can blame him? I can’t remember, but I’m pretty sure John Anthony (not-)Fleming turned out okay.
Turned Out: (idiom) arriving at an event (“tricked out” as in finery, or a mask), originating from its opposite, being evicted for failure to pay rent
One hundred years earlier, Rose Hawthorne Lathrop was the daughter of the man who penned The Scarlet Letter–no secret about that. Nathaniel raised her, but he based his novel’s infamous, fictional child Pearl on Rose’s older sister, Una. Rose had only one child, a son who died at age five. Her marriage lasted a few years longer, but as it turned out, could never recover. She, perhaps, never recovered (who could?), but instead donned a new identity: Sister Mary Alphonsa in the Dominican order.
Turned Into: (idiom) To change into something or someone; become transformed into something or someone: The day turned into night. In the story, straw turns into gold. Or, To direct one's way or course into a specific direction: The hiker turned onto a different path.
When a mother bears a child, does she actually change at core into a different substance? Keep him, give him away, or lose him, it seems certain her destination will be different now. Dorothy Sayers once penned a confession in a letter to the cousin who raised her child, but it’s not the one I’m looking for. She admits she never liked children in particular, except in the way she liked adults–some yes, some no, but certainly not on the mere basis of being children. She goes on in the next breath to talk about her son’s schooling and how she hopes he doesn’t turn out to be unsmart, dull.
Look After: (idiom) 1. To act as a protector or caretaker for someone or something, especially in a limited or temporary capacity. 2. To assume responsibility for some task or activity. 3. To ensure someone is provided for fairly or generously, especially from a financial perspective.
I don’t know if Rose Hawthorne Lathrop wanted more children than the one, but it doesn’t take much reading between the lines to know that she wanted her one son more than probably anything, even though it turned out he couldn’t stay. Shortly before she left her husband and joined the convent at the age of forty-five, two years younger than I am now, she had a dream about a young boy–maybe her son, maybe not–leading her through the doors of a cathedral. She changed her name to Sister, then to Mother. The patients Rose looked after in hospice care were terminal. They could never be restored from their sickness, and Mother Mary Alphonsa walked them up to the threshold of death again and again and again.
Truth Be Told: (idiom) I must admit; to be honest; in actuality.
It turns out, the lovechild of Dickens and Ternan has never been confirmed, but truth is stranger than fiction: after Nelly’s death years later, it was one of her later children by marriage to another man, unconnected to Dickens at all, who learned of his mother’s past relationship with the famous author. The results for him were the same as I have reported–seclusion, depression, instability. It’s true that John Anthony (not-quite-Sayers, not-Fleming) walked through life in a surprisingly stable way, but I have a confession to make: Rose Hawthorne Lathrop never had that dream about holding her child’s warm hand at the entrance to the church. I made it up, but the truth of the matter remains. She followed her son to the door of death with each cancer-bitten hand she held, each damp forehead she warmed, each life she saw transmuted from one substance to another.
A note to readers: I had originally planned to publish two weekly posts: one Reading Lesson or Poetry Any Place reading midweek, and one creative nonfiction piece on Saturdays. Turns out that’s pretty ambitious for the life I lead! I’m going to scale back to one piece per week, probably posted on Saturday mornings, and we’ll see how that goes. I plan to alternate each week between poetry readings/lessons and CNF essays. I’ll feel less hectic, and you’ll get better content. Thank you for your patience as I figure out the way Substack can work best for me—and for you! And thank you for being here.
- Rebecca
Yes, please keep writing with these people.
I saved this in my inbox until I had time to write a real response. I really like this investigation of mothers and children--wanted, not wanted ones and everything in between. Seems like a great start to me. (As the mother of sons, I'm particularly interested in that dynamic--and some of my fiction interrogates the potentially fraught relationship: from the healthy to the inappropriate to the absolutely taboo.) On another note, I'm happy to find an "Una"--one of Hawthorne's daughters. A friend of mine has a new niece. My friend is Cuban and said she couldn't understand naming a child "One," ha.