Chicago

Chicago is both a destination and a measure of distance in Maribeth Robertson’s search for independence: first the farthest place she can imagine reaching, and later the city where she hopes to go to college. Its pull marks the difference between the life imposed on her and the future she is determined to choose, though people who care for her begin to imagine that future closer to home.

An imagined point of escape

When Maribeth decides she cannot remain at the convent, the choice is more than a change of address. She has seven hundred dollars left after paying the nuns a hundred, and nearly six months before the baby is due. She wants a job, friends, noise, fresh air, and the chance to live like a person rather than wait in an institution for the baby to be born and taken away. The convent’s oppressive sanctity makes departure feel necessary; she tells the Mother Superior she is going to visit an aunt, but knows she is leaving regardless.

At dawn the next day, carrying her money and a small bag, Maribeth walks out feeling free and strong. She cannot go home, so she buys an open-ended bus ticket to Chicago, traveling through Omaha and reserving the option of refunding the unused portion anywhere along the way. Chicago is the farthest point she can picture. She does not yet have a plan to settle there; she needs somewhere to stay until the birth, and the ticket gives her a direction without fixing her to it.

As her hometown recedes, she feels excitement rather than regret. Before leaving the bus station, she has sent postcards to her mother and sister, promising to provide an address once she has one. She imagines finding work wherever she arrives, considering housecleaning, library work, babysitting, or waitressing. Three and a half months pregnant, she expects she will eventually need to explain why she is alone, but for now the money her father gave her for the convent offers a little time to establish herself. Chicago represents possibility, not security: she is free to go, but still has to make a life.

The road becomes a place to stop

The journey itself unsettles the idea that Chicago must be the immediate answer. During a stop in a picturesque college town, Maribeth eats a cheeseburger and drinks a milkshake in a lively restaurant. The waitress serves her with a smile; laughter rises from nearby tables, and the modest bill makes the place seem welcoming. Though the bus is continuing directly to Chicago, Maribeth hesitates to leave. A window sign advertises work for waitresses and busboys, and she turns back to ask about the job.

That moment changes the journey’s direction in practical terms. The town she had encountered only as a stop offers something the distant city has not yet supplied: a possible workplace and a chance to remain among people. Chicago stays important, but it is no longer the only imaginable setting for the next stage of her life. The episode gives her search for independence a concrete form: not merely fleeing her hometown, but noticing an opportunity and daring to ask for it.

Education as a longer horizon

Chicago returns as a future goal through Maribeth’s conversations with Tommy Whittaker. While he helps correct her algebra, he admires her schoolwork: she earns A+ marks on two quizzes and writes a history paper on the Civil War that he considers exceptional. After they finish studying, they talk about their ambitions and the baby’s future. Maribeth wants the child to have the best education possible and parents who will help it move forward rather than repeat the limits created by earlier generations’ fears and ignorance.

Her hopes for the child are tied to a fight for her own education. Maribeth believes she could do much more with her life if she could attend college, but her parents regard that ambition as frivolous and unnecessary. She expects her pregnancy to make returning to school harder: her father, she fears, will reduce her to the family’s judgment of her as a girl who became pregnant outside marriage, and she will not be allowed to forget it. In this context, Chicago signifies more than geographical escape. It is the place she associates with higher education and a life beyond the job she currently holds.

A possible future nearer home

The Whittakers’ support makes the destination less settled. After meeting Maribeth, Tommy’s parents hear that she wants to return home, finish school, and then move to Chicago for college. Rather than assume she must leave the area, John Whittaker suggests she might attend college in their own town, where a good school is available. Liz Whittaker offers to help with an application and considers whether Maribeth’s work could earn her school credit or qualify her to take equivalency examinations.

That offer gives Maribeth another way to approach her goal. Liz proposes that Maribeth might make up work quickly enough to return home as a senior and graduate in June. Maribeth wants to see her mother and sister and finish school, but knows she could not remain with her family for long after giving up the baby. She imagines returning for six months, then moving on, getting a job, and perhaps eventually winning a college scholarship; she is willing to study at night. Education remains the destination, even if Chicago’s status as the only route begins to weaken.

When Maribeth and Tommy discuss the eventual separation, he asks why she must go to Chicago instead of attending college where he lives. She says she will apply, leaving the outcome open; Tommy answers that, given her grades, the college will beg her to come. Chicago thus remains a serious ambition rather than a settled departure. Across these conversations, its meaning expands from faraway refuge into a symbol of the independent, educated life Maribeth intends to claim, while the possibility of support closer to home complicates how she might reach it.