The Price of a Son
by
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At last. Gene said rather abruptly, "Well, let's have it, Miss Dorn. You know that my curiosity is growing and searching." He reached over and set his empty glass on the table.
"You mean ... you mean what I was going to ask of you," said Meredith in a small voice. Gene nodded, his blue eyes encouraging her.
"No! I can't go through with it, Mr. Morey," she said.
"My dear, it can't be that serious. What are you afraid of? What have I done to make you afraid of me? Some people show pity for me ... but fear? I think not." A flash of anger in his eyes quickly disappeared when he looked up at her. His mood changed and again he laughed. "Yes," he said, "I'm sure that you're only sixteen at the most."
Meredith stood up, still holding the little glass of liqueur she had scarcely tasted. She walked to the window and stared out without seeing the lilies blooming in the court below. Then she placed her glass on a table, squared her shoulders and turned to face him. He sat watching her with a curious but kind expression on his face. And in this moment of her great need, Meredith seemed to see this crippled man for the first time. She recognized his kindness, his sympathy, his intelligence, his superiority. She would have laughed at these thoughts a few days ago, but now she knew that in this injured man there was something bigger than she had ever met before. It was this knowledge that helped to fortify her determination. She would trust Eugene Morey.
"Mr. Morey," she said, "Johnny told me that you want a child ... a son ... more than anything else in the world. And I feel that in order to be happy at all, I must become a great singer. This is very, very important to me. Johnny said that you would pay for a child of your own. Mr. Morey, all that stands between me and what I want is money. I need that money. With it I know that I will succeed!"
Gene Morey's face had turned a slow red. His eyes were searching the farthest corner of the room. After a silence that seemed to push against the walls around them, he said, without looking at her, "You are just a little girl. You can't know what you would be doing. Just a little girl!"
"I am not a little girl!" she exclaimed in swift anger. "But that is not the question. Do you want a child? And will you pay for that child, Mr. Morey?"
"Just a little girl," he repeated, quietly, "and a very foolish little girl."
"I am not a little girl!" Meredith exclaimed more emphatically than before. "And what's more, I never was a little girl. When I was eight years old, I was milking cows. At ten, I could bake a cake. While other children played, I washed dishes in order to earn my piano lessons. I was the only one in my family who went to college. My family believed in me, but what have I accomplished? For two years, I have been working for your firm, doing jobs I probably could have done had I never seen the inside of a college. And now my mother is gone and my father is old ... old in never having had a chance to do what he wanted to do. There is no one else, Mr. Morey. I, too, am old ... old in frustration. I have always had to fight for what I got and I shall continue to fight for what I want."
"Miss Dorn" said Gene, when she paused for breath, "you shall have what you want. I will give you the money to go to New York, or wherever it is that you want to go. But I will not let you do this ... this other thing."
"Don't be so noble!" Meredith exclaimed, in irritation. "I will not let you be better than I am! I was taught to earn my way. It was harder for a little girl to stand on a box to wash dishes when she longed to go out to play, than it will be for me to do this. I will not be an object of your charity. I can give you a child. Then I will take your money, I will be free ... free from any obligation. And I'll be ready to make a life for myself, the life that I have always wanted."
"You don't know what you're saying," said Gene Morey, scarcely above a whisper. "My dear, you don't know what it would mean to you."
"What don't I know? Do you think I don't know about life ... birth ... death? Mr. Morey, when I was eleven years old, I held a lantern while my father helped in the birth of a calf." At her words, Gene turned away and Meredith, misunderstanding, exclaimed in anger, "Now you think that I'm being crude, don't you? Mr. Morey, I didn't know that birth was considered a vulgarity until I went to high school. On the farm, birth was as natural as life itself. Only death was something to be avoided, if possible."
"We are not talking about the same thing here. You would be . . ."
"Be giving birth to a bastard?" interrupted Meredith. "Or were you possibly thinking of my virginity? I've known more than one girl to throw that away for what she thought was love, or even for just the fun of it. I would not be giving myself in such a cheap way. I would not be preventing life as they always try to do. I would be purposely bringing life into the world. Let's keep to the main issue, Mr. Morey. I want money and you want a son."
"My dear, you would be selling yourself," said Gene, somberly. "And I can't change a beautiful girl into a ... a prostitute."
"Prostitute! Prostitute!" cried Meredith. "How dare you, Mr. Morey?" Tears stung her angry eyes as she continued, "Prostitution means misuse if it means anything. And if I learned anything on the farm, it was that sex was for the sole purpose of bringing life into the world. That is not misusing sex! A prostitute is one who does everything possible to avoid having children. I would be no prostitute! I would be giving myself for the purpose of reproduction. No one would dare call me a prostitute!"
As she spoke, she looked so small and so belligerent that Gene felt like smiling, but, he said in all seriousness, "What you say is probably true, yet nevertheless, your kind of people, and they are also my kind of people, will find your position untenable. What you propose is far too serious to be acted upon without the most deliberate consideration. But, usually, one can find a solution to any problem. Give me time to think this out from all angles. And in the meantime, will you consider my offer? I give money away where I think it will do the most good. Please think it over."
"Not a chancel" said Meredith, vehemently. "Not a chance, Mr. Morey!"
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About the Book
Deep in the depression of the 1930’s, Meredith Dorn dreams of becoming a great singer but hasn’t enough money for the necessary training. Gene Morey, a polio victim, is the young owner of the firm where Meredith is employed. Johnny Forbess, a salesman, has just lost his wife in childbirth. He tells Morey of his loss and the son he now does not want. Morey, shocked, cannot believe any man would not want a son and impulsively states that he would give one hundred thousand dollars for a son of his own. Johnny tells Meredith of Morey’s surprising statement and the money he would give for a son of his own. She sees a way to fulfill all her dreams but wrestles for weeks with her conscience before finally offering herself to Morey as the mother of his child. He refuses saying that his son must be legitimate and proud of his mother. He finally develops a proposal that he believes to be morally acceptable and could solve all problems. But then ... Thus begins the memorable love story of struggles with jealousy, hate, denial, love, religious values, and the discovery of individual potential and worth.
About the Author
Jessie Hosford, a prolific writer whose publications include, LISTEN TO THE RAIN, AN AWFUL NAME TO LIVE UP TO, YOU BET YOUR BOOTS I CAN, and two volumes of poetry, died in 1990. She was born and reared in Nebraska, a locale which provided much of the background for many of her writings. She had finished her first draft of THE PRICE OF A SON before losing most of her sight to macular degeneration. Her son, Philip L. Hosford, revised and edited her original manuscript resulting in the story as found here. He is professor emeritus at New Mexico State University, living in Las Cruces, New Mexico.