AT HOPE & MAIN: THE STEEL DOOR

She'd only lived in the USA for a few years when they decided to marry. They first met on the job; she was a maid and he, a butler, for a fine family. They'd gotten to know each other and now, a few years later, here they were, looking at apartments to live in as husband and wife. When the real estate agent took them to this place, Gretchen just knew this was it. The vibes were just right.

She and Hans still had some difficulty communicating with the rest of the English-speaking world, but they were not much different than most of the immigrant population.

Time passed, and it was not too long after their marriage that the children came along. It was then that Gretchen began to long for the old country. The steel door they entered and exited through, daily, somehow became her enemy.

With the new responsibilities of motherhood, she began to feel trapped, and the steel door further validated her caged status. It was an object in which she could focus all her anger. Looking at it reminded her of how she longed for the days of her childhood, running through fields of wildflowers or playing hide and seek in the forest with her sisters. This new world contained none of those reminders of freedom. The only remote connection was the city park with paved streets and iron ornaments, caging in things that should ultimately grow wild.

She and Hans had trouble making ends meet just like everyone else. After all, there was a Depression going on. Gretchen was grateful that Hans had a job at the Navy Yard. She worked in the home doing sewing alterations, they managed.

When the children became toddlers, she began to detest that steel door; it separated her from the outside world and also gave her anxiety every time one of the children would be overcome with curiosity, open the door, and run out. She feared one of them might get their hand slammed in it. Her eyes were on them like magnets, but like any mother knows, the minute you turn your back a half second, it's almost mandatory for them to practice the forbidden activity. The buildup of a combination of things that had gone wrong in her life all focused themselves on living in the life-choking apartment that she and Hans had seen as such a prospect only less than a decade ago. It bothered her that she was so unhappy, but this was not what she had expected her life to turn out like. Living way up on the 11th floor offered no encouraging view, no hope for new horizons.

She'd been sleeping restfully after putting in a full day with her two rambunctious toddlers, trying to extract a few ten or fifteen minute blocks of time in which to do her work, so that she'd have the money to pay one of the utilities that month, when the thud of that steel door awakened her. It was Hans coming home after being away all weekend, partying the grocery money away.

Things went from bad to worse when she'd found out that the neighbor, a few doors down, had committed suicide by hanging himself in the apartment. She'd been pretty good friends with his wife, Olivia, but after he lost his job, that was it.

No one else on the floor spoke English well enough for Gretchen to understand, and none of them spoke her native tongue. The conversations between Gretchen and Hans seemed to have stopped since the children had arrived. He had his life at the Navy Yard and she had hers at home. She often felt alienated now.

She was pregnant with the third child and sleeping rather soundly when an awful ruckus out in the hall had awakened her. There was a lot of screaming and shouting and when she realized just how close it was, terror struck. The fear for her children's safety had her pinned, and with every slam against the wall, every cry of despair, she had to control herself from screaming. (The only release her mind and body would allow at this time.) She could tell by the different voices she heard out in the hallway that the whole family next door was involved. From picking up pieces of broken English, it seemed they were trying to take the son away from the mother for some reason. "Why him and not the other children?" thought Gretchen.

She'd heard a gun go off and the echo was so loud that she was released from the temporary paralyzation of her body. She mustered all the ability it took to move her body and somehow regained control. Quickly she ran into the children's bedroom and found them still fast asleep. Thankfully there was a hallway inside the apartment that separated their bedroom from the outside hallway.

She could hear the boy wailing as they took him from his mother. Her voice could no longer be heard. There was a commotion as they exited the apartment and it sounded as if people were being thrown against the plaster wall. Someone must have been thrown onto Gretchen's steel door as they continued on down the hall to ultimately exit down the stairs. As she heard that strong and heavy thud, she fiercely thanked God for that steel door between her and the outside world. Until now, she never realized just how much safety it provided.