Annie's Stories (13 page)

15

T
HE NEXT MORNING,
after Annie and Kirsten finished cleaning up the kitchen and the day’s bread was rising, Annie read Kirsten’s latest letter to her.

Kirsten began to cough, not one of those hacks that splits the air or anything. Just a wee, persistent cough. Dust, perhaps, if the delicate lass was particularly sensitive. The rug could use a beating outdoors before the cooler weather came. Annie would get to the task as soon as she could.

There was nothing else but a closing, so Annie put the letter away.

“Thank you for reading, Annie.”

“My pleasure.” Annie supposed Kirsten was uneasy about her brother coming given her situation with her former boss, so Annie said no more about it. While Kirsten searched in a sewing box for a needle to mend a stocking, Annie read her book silently.

Kirsten stiffened when she pricked her thumb with the needle.

“What is the matter?” Annie rose to help her, but the girl waved her away, placing her thumb in her mouth.

“I love my brother. He is a
gut
man, as I said.” Her tone was flat.

“Then you’ll be happy to see him, aye? He is certainly looking forward to seeing you.”

“I look forward to it, but . . .” She leaned into the back cushion of the sofa, and Annie realized the girl was experiencing some physical discomfort. She’d not been outside the house since the attack, but still she seemed so tired. The doctor had not been around to see her yet, but Kirsten insisted she was fine, and Mrs. Hawkins told him to come at his convenience. There was nothing he could do anyway. The vile act was over with.

But this cough was another concern. And the fact that Kirsten was so jittery. She didn’t seem able to sit still, as though she had hives and was trying not to scratch.

“Annie.” Kirsten glanced toward the hall. Seemingly satisfied they were alone, she lowered her voice anyway. “He worries too much about me. The package, Annie. It has not arrived?”

“It has not yet. What is the trouble?”

“Nothing.”

The sound of Mrs. Hawkins’s heels on the wooden floor came clattering down the hall toward the parlor. “Tea, girls?” As she entered the room, Annie rose to help. “Thank you, love. Just put it by the window as always.” She perched in her favorite chair. “We have had our talk, haven’t we, Kirsten?”

“
Ja
, Mrs. Hawkins.” Kirsten closed her eyes, obviously fighting back tears.

Annie grimaced. “What happened was not her fault, Mrs. Hawkins. You could not possibly understand
 
—”

“Indeed I do know this, Annie. I just wanted you to be aware that Kirsten won’t be going back to the awful factory,
and she’s agreed to obey our curfew. Rules
 
—fair ones
 
—keep a home running smoothly.”

A home. Annie considered this and believed she should have referred to the place as a house, a boardinghouse, not a home. Turning toward her employer, Annie brought the woman her tea. “Here is your cup. Just the way you like it, milk and a lump of sugar.”

“Thank you, love. I must seem like a pampered woman to you, but my life was not always pleasant.”

Kirsten glanced up, eyes wide.

“Uh, no, Mrs. Hawkins,” Annie said. “I know you have had difficult times. ’Tis just that what Kirsten has suffered
 
—there is nothing she could have . . . Well, she’s innocent, yet many would not understand, so.”

Kirsten coughed again. Annie brought her tea and joined the girl on the sofa. “I would like to open an extensive library one day, and I believe girls who have had troubles like Kirsten would find it a haven for learning and enjoyment.”

Kirsten wiggled a bit as Annie spoke.

Mrs. Hawkins held up a finger. “Ah, admirable, Annie. Books are windows to a world we might never otherwise begin to comprehend. We have a good collection at Hawkins House, and that’s an excellent place to start.”

Annie didn’t want a part of someone else’s library. She wanted to provide the whole, be the entrepreneur, the one in charge, so that she would know all would be well. She wanted to do it for Da and for herself because . . . that would be her home; this was Agnes Hawkins’s home. “I do enjoy working here, and I’m grateful you employed my services, Mrs. Hawkins. But what I’m suggesting is a bit . . . different.”

“Even so, you are welcome to any of my books, Annie. Everyone here is. I would like all my girls to think of this as their
 
—”

Kirsten began wheezing and clutching her throat.

“Are you all right?” Annie asked.

Kirsten waved her thin fingers in the air. “Fine, fine. Thank you. I rest in my room now.” She rushed out of the parlor and up the stairs.

Annie started to follow, but the Hawk stopped her. “Let her retire, love. That’s the best thing for her. In a bit you can take her some of my special parsley-and-lemon tea to ease her coughing.”

As they sat in the parlor with the window open to let in a breeze, a practice that Annie believed was healthy and Mrs. Hawkins allowed with reservation, Annie wondered aloud, “Mrs. Hawkins, do you think Jonas’s impending arrival is upsetting Kirsten?”

The woman smacked her lips. “My, no. It is possible, though, it’s entirely something else.”

“What?”

“Time will tell if she’s been left with child.”

“Oh, Mrs. Hawkins, you don’t think . . .”

“We shall not consider it yet, love.” She reached for the newspaper. “We certainly had an extremely hot summer. I do hope the new century doesn’t continue to bring us such unseasonable weather.” When Mrs. Hawkins decided a subject was closed, it was.

“Do you mind if I retire and read a bit, Mrs. Hawkins?”

“Heavens, no. The morning chores are done. Enjoy.”

Annie added the figures in her savings book again. If she had her own building apart from the immigrant-aid sector, no one would question its purpose and she wouldn’t be worrying some Pinkerton would evict her. Kirsten could live there and not be worried about her brother or whatever it was that concerned her. A small apartment above the library would not be
unreasonable. Annie wasn’t determined to leave her employment at Hawkins House, if indeed it was not shut down, but she was determined to have something of her own, something to prove she really wasn’t a sinner of the worst kind.

She needed to find a way to make money faster. If there was something she could sell . . . well, she would never part with her writing desk, and that was all she had.

Patience, please God.

Words and phrases like that sprang from the lips of every Irish person
 
—
thanks be to God
;
please, God
; and
God’s blessing on this place, this travel, this harvest
. . . . If Annie was going to become a true American, she’d need to break the habit. That’s all it was, truly. Certainly he was not listening. She would have to do this by her own ingenuity.

Annie opened her book. With its colorful illustrations,
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
was quite the marvel. Most children’s books were in black-and-white or inked in just one or two colors. She opened to the chapter titled “The Cowardly Lion” and soon came to a part that told her something more about the wee protagonist.

Annie loved how strong Dorothy was. Where such bravery came from, she wished she knew.

When she finished the short chapter, she closed the book and stored it back under her bed. She liked to ponder what she read, taking her time to slowly savor the story. If she moved
through it too quickly, the discovery would end too soon. She could read it again, but the real delight in any tale was the first time through it. Stephen Adams had wanted to chat about the book, but Annie supposed she would not have the opportunity now. Her primary obligation was to the boarders of Hawkins House, and any book discussions she might have in the future should involve them. A proper businesswoman conducted her affairs thus, focusing on her obligations.

The novel seemed to call to her from the place she’d stowed it, though. Papers bearing words were never silent, not for her. Everything she read seemed to revisit her throughout the day.

Mr. Baum had certainly thought up some interesting characters. How easily Dorothy befriended them. Even the Lion, though she had first been so angry with the beast for scaring her dog, Toto. Annie suspected that the author was going to show that the Scarecrow really did have a brain and the Tin Woodman really did have a heart. After all, the Tin Woodman was worried about stepping on bugs, for heaven’s sake. She wasn’t sure about the Lion, but that would be revealed. Dorothy did need to get back home, or at least she thought she did. She sure didn’t belong in that strange world she was in.

Annie lay down to stare up at the plaster molding in the corners of the ceiling as she contemplated how this story might mirror real life. Annie was certainly on a journey as well. In the old Irish tales, tragic endings were common, doling out warnings to listeners to apply to their own lives. But
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
was a modern tale, with a fresh twist, she’d heard, so one could assume Dorothy would find her way home happily. Annie couldn’t be sure she’d experience a happy ending herself, not if she didn’t work for it.

Annie’s eyes grew heavy as she reclined on her bed. Hundreds of people in New York alone must be reading this
book. Nearly every time she stopped in at the bookshop, she heard someone talking about it. Even the postman. The paper said the tale was very popular, calling it a . . . What did they say? A phenomenon? She rolled over to face her pillow, wondering who decided what was a phenomenon and what wasn’t. She couldn’t imagine who would be wise enough. Wizards didn’t exist in this world.

She rose from her bed and paused at her desk, looking down at her open Bible. She’d kept reading it, perhaps as a link to her father. Just like every other book she read, the words there stayed with her. Unlike most, though, this one puzzled her uncomfortably. So much did not make sense, yet what she read, especially the Psalms, seemed to keep reciting in her mind. If only God did care enough for her to direct her the way Father Weldon had wished, perhaps she would know the joy the psalmist had written about in chapter 84.

She remembered the first time she knew for certain she was in a place where not even God cared to dwell.

The girls had been led to wee cells and locked inside. Annie sat with her knees pressed up to her chin, the only way she could sit in that space, pulling her sleeves down to cover her skin. The realization of what the doctor had in mind nauseated her until that misery was temporarily replaced by the horrific sensation of rats running over her feet and out between the bars in the door. Only when she heard their squeaking from a distance away did she try to breathe again.

She should not have been there, but no one was there to hear her. She lived in no one’s heart now. Even God had abandoned her.

Yea, the sparrow hath found an house, and the swallow a nest for herself.

But nothing was that easy. Not for her.

Blessed are they that dwell in thy house: they will be still praising thee.

She dug her fingers into her hair. Surely it was not madness for these passages to spring to mind, was it?

Annie heard footsteps at the front of the house, so she made her way to the parlor. Aileen was browsing the pages of a magazine.

Her cousin glanced up. “I’m to help you with the brown Betty when you came out of your room.”

Annie walked past her as she moved toward the kitchen. She spoke over her shoulder. “Has the doctor been here?”

The sound of Aileen’s boots clattered along behind. “Oh, he has. Been here and left.”

“Mrs. Hawkins should have beckoned me. I didn’t hear a thing. Did you speak to Kirsten?”

“I did not. I did peek into her room, and she was asleep. A short time later the Hawk arrived with Doc in tow.”

Annie turned and grabbed her cousin’s arm. “Don’t let her hear you call her that.”

“I heard you say it.”

Annie didn’t remember using the name in front of Aileen. If she had, it was a mistake. Aileen didn’t pick up on the social cues everyone else observed. Annie drew in a deep breath, reminding herself the Johnny Flynn business was in the past and better left there, and now she needed to treat Aileen like any other boarder. “Thank you for minding what I told you about Kirsten.”

Aileen put her small hand on her hip. “You mean thank you for not talking to anyone. Honestly, Annie, how am I going to get to know anyone here if you don’t allow me some freedom?”

“You’ve only been here a few days, Aileen!”

Annie mumbled under her breath as she turned toward the
scullery to fetch a bag of sugar. She returned for the apples. Aileen held the basket of red fruit out for her. “Want me to peel these?”

“That would be good.”

Annie pulled a tin of lard down from a shelf and returned to the kitchen. While Aileen peeled, Annie closed her eyes. When she opened them again, Aileen hadn’t disappeared like she’d hoped. Everything about the lass, from the point of her nose to the cut of her dress, reminded Annie of being sent to the laundry, the place where God had abandoned her. She tried not to think of it because whenever she did, panic pounded at her chest. She had to constantly remind herself she was not in Ireland anymore, and that had become thorny at best now that Ireland stared back at her through that wee freckled face.

Annie pulled the wrist of her shirtwaist over the heel of her left hand and turned toward the stairs. Right now, she needed to check on Kirsten.

The girl sat drinking tea as Mrs. Hawkins looked on. They both glanced up at her.

Annie sat on the edge of the bed. “Feeling better, Kirsten?”