The House on Malcolm Street (17 page)

The sun was growing warm on my back as though it had forgotten that fall was supposed to bring chillier days. From my vantage point on the ladder I could still see Leah with her back bent in the weeds. Her chestnut locks waved slightly in the wind, just like Rosemary’s had on the cool spring day when she’d planted the garden that was supposed to be our “winter larder.” Eliza bent beside her, plucking something off the ground. Her hair nearly matched her mother’s, and I breathed a little heavier. With their faces hidden from me I could almost imagine it to be Rosemary there with a perky child just as she’d always planned. She would raise gardeners, she’d told me more than once, to work at her side and grow far more than their share of flowers, fresh fruits, and vegetables. Enough to bless the world.

I dropped the putty stick and decided I’d put enough into these cracks anyway. Maybe there were other windows that would need putty before winter. I should check them all, since this was an old house and it’d probably been years since anyone had thought about this sort of thing.

On my way down the ladder, my eyes wandered toward the garden again. Leah was pulling weeds in one corner as if she had hope that there might still be something growing there. A quick burst of breeze tugged at her skirt, and she caught it with one hand and kept right on working. Then Eliza was on all fours; something tiny on the ground must have suddenly caught her attention. And I noticed that I’d simply stopped, halfway down, purposeless, watching them.

What a numskull I was becoming. I’d get far more done if I could just keep my mind on the task at hand. It made no sense for me to be reminded of Rosemary. Leah was nothing like her. Her hair was longer, and darker. She might be a little smaller. She was certainly more abrupt and far less amiable. There were women and little girls all over this world. I might encounter them anywhere. There was no reason for these two to arrest my attention on a fine work day like this.

But they had my attention, like it or not. I couldn’t seem to shake them from my mind. Leah, aloof and untrusting, yet a capable worker indoors and out. And little Eliza with her shining, inquisitive eyes and nightly incessant humming. Maybe there was a reason Leah hadn’t found work and stayed in St. Louis. Maybe circumstances prevented her being able to stay with the loved ones she wrote letters to. But even if she’d had a hundred job offers and a thousand other places to stay, them being here was still just between Leah and Marigold. It was really none of my business.

It was time for me to move on soon. Maybe already past due. My lingering here wasn’t so much about Aunt Mari needing me, though it was easy to tell myself that. It was really more about not trusting myself to start over somewhere else.

But I didn’t belong here with a child in the house. She might get used to me. She might decide she liked me. And I would look in her eyes and wish to God she was mine, that my own baby had lived, that I had some family to my name.

Father, why did you bring them here? I know Mari wanted them to come, but do you have to listen to her so well? It’s better for me to be alone, puttering about fixing on an old woman’s place. It’s easier to think only of her and the Kurchers and her other old friends, and feel like I’m accomplishing at least a little piece of good in this world. But Leah being here – she makes me think of my lack too much.

I could feel the tension rise in me just seeing the mother and daughter talking to one another in the weedy garden. And then Leah turned her head and caught me looking at her. I turned away quickly, moving the ladder to reach the next set of windows and acting as though my glance had been nothing more than incidental.

Father, help me. It’s just too hard. Her loss. And mine. We’ve too much in common. Whether she even knows that, I never want to discuss it. I don’t want to talk to her at all because my mind won’t be able to push it all aside. And yet how can I be here and not talk to them? Aunt Mari will think I’ve become an even worse lout than I ever was before.

Suddenly I had a nearly overwhelming desire to drop the putty can, leave the ladder where it leaned, and hurry downtown to see if Miller’s Eatery was open. The place had been a tavern before the prohibition, and I knew Jake Miller had found ways to keep it stocked for those willing to pay under the table. A couple of drinks – that would drive Leah and her daughter from my mind, and though liquor had never been able to banish Rosemary from my thinking, at least it had seemed to temporarily dull the pain along with any other sensation the day might bring.

I didn’t have to work today. I wouldn’t have to work tomorrow. And it wasn’t even ten in the morning. This would be the perfect time to get slammed-down drunk and stay that way for nearly two days. If I hadn’t changed. If I hadn’t promised the Lord, and Mari, and Rosemary’s memory, that I wouldn’t do that anymore.

I picked up the putty stick from the grass and threw it against the house. It had been months, seven to be exact, since I’d had a drink or wanted one. What was wrong with me now?

Taking the putty and a fresh stick with me, I went to the next set of windows and checked them for any loose cracks around the molding. These were in pretty good shape so I moved to the next ones. Two of the windows outside the master bedroom were in need of a little putty, as well as the one that looked out from my bed to the side yard. No wonder I’d been able to hear it rattle in a stiff wind at night.

I kept my hands busy and my eyes to the house so they’d wander neither to the garden nor out across town looking for traffic in front of Miller’s.
Help me, Father. Something’s wrong with me or I would not be so weak!

“Did you find more squirrel holes?”

The tender voice broke into my desperate prayer, and I didn’t have to look down to know that little Eliza stood at the base of my ladder again, ready with more questions.

“No,” I said simply, hoping that was all she’d bother me with.

“What’re ya doin’ then?” she persisted.

“Fillin’ cracks.” I knew my voice was cold, hard. So I cut short my answer, hoping she’d go away before I upset her.

“What is that stuff?”

“Sealing putty.”

“Does it seal the glass in?”

“Yes.” I gritted my teeth and plunked the stick into the can.

“And the squirrels out?”

“Squirrels don’t come through windows. Even loose ones.”

I climbed down the ladder, turned my back on her, and started back to Mr. Abraham’s shed. I could hear her following, but I had no patience for it. “Stay with your mother.”

“Are you busy thinking?” she asked.

That sounded like a thought her mother or Mari might have planted in her head, and I didn’t want to give it credence. “Just busy. Stay with your mother.”

Silence behind me. Finally. And though I’d been rude, I was glad she was leaving me alone. I was ready for a break. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to walk downtown. For one drink. Just a soda pop, of course. Nothing alcoholic. Just a change of scene, a short walk . . .

I knew the reasoning. I well recognized the convoluted logic being laid down in my brain. I’d told myself the very same thing so many times before.
I’ll just take a walk. Go pick up a soda pop.
And then of course, my intentions got all twisted and I’d end up stumbling home drunk.

I was closer to falling away from a sound path than I’d been in seven months, and I didn’t even know why. At least I could recognize myself being on the verge. But would it be so bad? If Josiah Walsh, professing Christian and Marigold McSweeney’s special project, were to go and get a stiff drink just one more time?

13
Josiah

In Mr. Abraham’s shed, I leaned against the wall, glad for the shadowy dimness behind the door.
Lord, what is wrong with me? I can’t do this.

I closed a lid on the putty can and just stood for a moment, trying to put my head together. Why was I so off track? What was the problem? Why would I want to run and hide myself in the darkness that had buried and almost killed me before?

Was it Leah? John’s wife in front of me every day, reminding me that life was unfair? Truly I didn’t need a reminder. Dreams of Rosemary and the life we could have had were not faded and probably never would be.

But putting the two together was just too much to face. Mari’s boarders had all been strangers before, and I liked it that way. Other men, either drifters or struggling gents trying to find a way to settle down, and either way they were no problem to me. Easy to work with or ignore completely as it suited me, and it hadn’t seemed to make any difference.

But this situation was different. And very dear to Mari’s heart. I needed to leave here and not stand in her way.

Eliza was with her mother in the garden again as I strode across the yard on my way back to the house. They were probably looking at me. I got that kind of feeling but wouldn’t turn my head to find out for sure. Mari was in the kitchen working on pies again, the room already smelling like a little slice of the heaven I’d known here so often.

“I need to read now,” I told her, heading for the Bible on the shelf behind the table.

Marigold barely lifted her eyes. “Oh, well, that’s fine, dear. Why don’t you call Leah and ’Liza Rose so they can listen in?”

“No. Just us this time, Mari. I don’t want them here.”

She looked long at me, and I plopped in one chair with my back to the wall and stuck my feet up on another.

“What’s wrong?”

I ignored the question, spreading the Bible open in front of me. “Where were we? Psalm 142?”

She dropped what she was doing, wiped her hands, and limped to the table. “Josiah Mark. Tell me what it is troubling you.”

“I think we did leave off at 142,” I talked on. “I cried unto the Lord with my voice; with my voice unto the Lord did I make my supplication . . .”

“Josiah, if there’s a greater need for talk – ”

“I poured out my complaint before him; I shewed before him my trouble . . .”

The words seemed to swim on the page in front of me and inside of me. Why did they have to speak to the sort of thing I was feeling?

“Josiah – ”

“When my spirit was overwhelmed . . .”

I had to stop, and just stared down at the page.

“What’s wrong?” Mari sat beside me and reached her hand to my arm.

I could barely get the words out. “I want a drink.”

“You’ve been working outside,” she said quietly. “I can get you some water or make a cold lemonade.”

“That’s not what I mean.” I knew she already understood that, even as I said the words. And I knew she wouldn’t condemn me, but I felt condemned anyway.

“It’s the grieving this week,” she said softly. “Seeing that awful wreck. Such a thing can’t help but trouble your mind. But you can’t get a drink around here anymore, can you?”

“Oh, Mari. I know right where to go if I wanted it badly enough.”

“Did you drink? Last night?”

It plagued me considerably that she would think so. I was here, in front of her, confessing my temptation. If I’d already given in to it, there wouldn’t be much point. “I turned Harvey down last night. That’s easy enough. I don’t want to drink in company. I just want a quiet corner and a bottle all to myself . . .”

“Have you been struggling with this for very long?”

“No! Today!” I knew my tone took her aback, and I tried to temper the fire I couldn’t quite understand. “I can’t do this. I can’t be your godly assistant reaching out to save all the needy and fatherless! I don’t mind taking food to the Kurchers. It makes me feel good inside, seeing ’em smile and knowing they’ll eat a little better because I could carry your love and concern in their direction. It don’t touch me any deeper than that. But right here. With John’s wife – I come home and find her in the kitchen with you. I go to bed hearing that child humming late into the night. I wake up seeing them and I think of Rosemary. I don’t know why it bothers me, but . . .”

She gave my hand a pat, and I stopped.

“Why did you come inside, Josiah?”

It took me a moment to answer. “I was afraid . . . that I’d head on over to Jake’s and I wouldn’t be able to stop myself. I thought maybe, if I came in and read . . .”

“The good Lord would help you?”

I nodded. “Or you would.” I stared at the ceiling, hating the weakness in myself that had me leaning on an old woman. “Aunt Mari, I shouldn’t be here.”

“Why not?”

“You’ve done enough straightening me out. It’s not right putting more on you. If Leah Breckenridge is needy like you said, then you oughta be able to concentrate on her.”

“You don’t think I’ve got room for both of you?”

“Yeah. Maybe. But you wanted my help and I can’t give it.”

“Who says you can’t?”

“I do! This crazy hunger for a drink again says it! I remember running around the yard and up and down those stairs with John when I was a kid, and I can’t help but think that you and Leah and her child are carrying an awful burden, an awful emptiness without him. But I’m no help. I just think of Rosemary and my own pitiful loss. I don’t even want to see it, Mari, but it’s in front of my face whether I like it or not. The world stinks! Sometimes God doesn’t even seem fair, and I’m supposed to be strong and reasonable anyway. But I can’t.”

She sighed. “So what will you do?”

I couldn’t answer for a minute, and my eyes were drawn back to the psalm in front of me. “Just complain, I guess.”

“I cried unto Thee, Oh Lord . . . thou art my refuge and my portion in the land of the living . . .”
The words on the page drew my soul and somehow quieted me. “I don’t know what to do, Aunt Mari. I haven’t thought of drinking for months. I don’t want it anymore. But I know how weak I am. And I don’t want to cause you trouble.”

She suddenly leaned and hugged me. “You won’t cause me trouble. And you’re stronger than you think you are or you wouldn’t be sitting here.”

“I probably upset that little girl.”

“How?”

“I was pretty short with her. Flat-out rude, I guess. But it’s too hard, talking to her.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I guess ’cause she’s a kid. Without a dad. And I’m – ” I looked at Mari. She was waiting, and I turned my eyes to the floor. “I’m not a father. I just wanted to be.”