The House on Malcolm Street (26 page)

I was nervous for days that I would have to find a job very quickly or end up homeless again. But I was careful not to share my nervousness with Eliza, and she adjusted very well to her first week of school. On the very first day, we’d made new friends. Dorothy Humphrey was a delightful woman who lived catty-cornered across the street from Marigold. Her daughter, Betty, was in Eliza’s class, and almost immediately we took to walking together to the school and back. That Eliza now had a friend and playmate so close seemed a wonderful thing, but still I worried about the possibility of having to move.

Marigold attended Rabbi Abraham’s funeral, though I wasn’t sure whether the family had intended her to. She simply felt she must, which I could very well understand. I asked her afterward if she’d had an opportunity to speak with Saul, but she said he was far too busy with family and the affairs of his father’s estate for that.

“He needn’t concern himself right now with being a neighbor when he’s got so much else to think about,” she told me.

“But he’s more than that,” I protested. “More than even a very good neighbor.”

“Right now he’s being a good son.” She left it at that, and I knew it was only right that she should do so.

While Eliza was in school, I walked about town, getting acquainted with the other businesses and attempting unsuccessfully to find work at one of them. Most of them came right out and told me that if they were looking for help they’d be looking for a man. But they weren’t looking for help. None that I found. Marigold had lost two boarders who had to go elsewhere to look for work. And even though she usually had more than that, she’d told me that she might not get more till things picked up a bit in town.

Josiah kept to himself so much that I scarcely saw him. Marigold told me that he was spending a lot of time with a friend across town. I wondered if she worried that they might be drinking. I did.

Not only did dreams of trains continue to plague me but the waking sound of them going through town began to bother me more again as well. Walking through the business streets not far from the tracks, I would jump when I heard the piercing whistle and sometimes start to tremble, even when I’d known the train was coming. Such a foolish plague, but I could not be rid of it, no matter how I tried.

“No way it could possibly hurt you four blocks away,” I tried telling myself, just as I had at first. But the sound would still stop me in my tracks every time. I began to worry that Eliza would notice these things when she was with me and begin to be afraid, thinking that something was wrong. Sometimes she got very quiet, watching me. But she only asked me once what was the matter, and I managed to dodge the subject, telling her I’d noticed the first chill in the air and had grown concerned that she might need more clothes before winter.

“Don’t worry, Mommy. God will give us clothes just like he gave us an orange and Aunt Marigold.”

There was a peace in my mind about her words.
She may be right. Somehow I can believe that God will not disappoint her.

After Mr. Abraham’s family had all gone away again, Josiah took to going there when he got off work and within a week told us that he would be moving next door, as long as Marigold was willing to agree on the neighbor’s conditions. If Marigold would provide meals, except breakfasts, and see to washing for them both, with my help, then Mr. Abraham would see that Josiah’s rent money still went to her. And either of them were allowed to check on Marigold or her house and help with things when they saw the need. I thought it a rather odd arrangement, but Marigold was perfectly happy with it. She seemed to like Josiah spending so much time with Mr. Abraham, though I would have thought she might like more of that herself.

We still rarely saw Mr. Abraham. Marigold said that he was going to need some time and that was perfectly all right. Sometimes I took food next door, and sometimes Josiah came and got it. And he always came on Tuesday and Friday mornings to pick up Marigold’s biscuits for the Kurchers.

The house seemed a little strange without the sound of large feet on the hardwood stairs and hallway floor. But at least I didn’t have to worry about chance encounters with Josiah’s sullen eyes and unpredictable tongue.

Eliza missed him, but thoughts of that were soon swallowed up in her excitement over her new friends at school, especially Betty Humphrey. They became so attached that they were soon arm in arm on the way home from school nearly every day. The whole Humphrey family was very nice. Sometimes I let Eliza play at their house after school or on Saturday.

We continued to attend Marigold’s church, though I tried very hard not to make another spectacle. I spoke as little as I could get by with to anyone there, and mostly they gave me plenty of space. Marigold liked to discuss the service with me afterward, and I would listen and try to comment when I should, but I always wished she would let it all alone. Deep inside, I knew I needed to think things through more thoroughly, but I still did not want to fill my mind with it all. God’s Word still made me uncomfortable, because it always seemed that he was expecting something from me that I might never be able to give.

Nonetheless, Marigold had me be her eyes to read the Bible to her every morning, now that Josiah was scarcely available. And though she usually did it herself, sometimes she asked me to pray at meals too. I didn’t refuse. I didn’t think that I could, but it gave me an uneasy feeling, as though she’d suddenly caught me at something and I had to try to set things right.

Plenty of time had passed for my mail to have reached its destinations. I wondered about my father off and on, if he were already feeling better and how he might have reacted to my brief letter. There must have been something unusual going on for him to have made any effort to contact me. I wished I knew what it was, yet at the same time almost hoped that he would not feel the need to write back. I was still desperately looking for any work I could find to bring in a little money. And helping Marigold with the cooking and chores in her big old house still kept me busy for hours every day. I had enough to handle here without him heaping agonizing words on top of it all.

I didn’t get any more mail from Anna, but we’d been in Andersonville a little more than a month when the letter finally came that I had begun to dread. From Walter Wiskirk, my father.

Leah,

Should have told me you were moving. I could have died trying to figure out where you are. Doctor tells me heart’s gone bad, said I should ask you to come. Don’t bring the girl if you got a place to leave her. Don’t want the noise in my house.

He didn’t even sign his name. I sat on Marigold’s front step staring at the page. How could he do this? Was he dying? How could he not wish to see his granddaughter? He didn’t even say that he wanted to see me.

His attitude in the letter angered me so much that I almost wanted to march in the house, throw it in the trash basket, and forget about it. But the doctor thought I should be there? That thought was dizzying. Surely something was seriously wrong.

Marigold’s mail lay in my lap and I would have to take it in to her. But maybe I needed to sit a moment and rein in my emotions first.

I hadn’t really wanted Marigold to know about this letter, about my problems with my father and his headstrong, uncaring ways. But I couldn’t simply forget this. If I didn’t answer him in some way, I would probably be plagued with guilt, despite his less-than-inviting overture. I wasn’t sure what to do and thought it might help to talk the matter through with someone.

So I carried the mail inside, found Marigold in the kitchen, and told her everything.

“What should I do? I can’t go.”

“Why not?” She looked at me rather sharply.

“First of all, I don’t have the money. But even if I did, I couldn’t leave without Eliza.”

She looked into the pot she was stirring. “You need to at least consider it, Leah, dear. It seems he needs you.”

“More like he wrote that letter under duress. It doesn’t sound like he wants me there at all. It was the doctor’s idea.”

“Maybe the doctor pushed him to it,” she acknowledged. “But believe me, if your father is as hardheaded as you say he is, if he didn’t want you, there’d be no letter in your hand. Doctors can give advice, but they sure can’t make any bullheaded man act on it unless he’s decided that he wants to.”

I stood in silence.

“You need to pray about going. The Lord will make a way. Maybe your father’s feeling that his time is short. He wants to see you, even if he can’t admit it outright. He needs you there, or he wouldn’t be pleading.”

“Pleading? He seems to be rebuking me more than anything.”

“Maybe you read a rebuke in that letter. But believe me, between the lines, he’s pleading. I can feel it – all the sorrow, and the hope that his little girl will come home for him, at least one more time.”

I sat in a chair, stunned with her interpretation.

“Sometimes when a person gets older and the strength of his body fades, the heart has a chance to speak,” she continued. “I’ve seen men desperate for restoration, for the love of their loved ones, if they can find any way to claim it. It’s a sad thing, but it can be beautiful if families are willing to forgive and let love be.”

“But . . . he . . . he doesn’t want my love. He doesn’t want anything from me.”

“If he didn’t, he wouldn’t have written.”

It seemed so simple. In Marigold’s mind. But I didn’t know how to reconcile her words with all the hurt inside me, so I went outside to rake the leaves.

When it came time to walk Eliza home from school, I met Dorothy Humphrey on the sidewalk as usual and we walked together.

I would never have thought to mention the whole matter to anyone else, but it must have been plain on my face that something was troubling my mind. She asked me right away what was wrong.

I almost told her nothing, but maybe because of Marigold and the way the Lord kept trying to soften my heart, honest words came pouring out instead.

“I’m so confused about what to do. I’ve never had a good relationship with my father. But now he’s sick with some kind of heart ailment and he’s written to tell me that the doctor said I should come. He doesn’t want Eliza to come with me. It makes me angry. And I think I may just have to write to him and tell him I’m not able.”

Dorothy shook her head. “But it sounds serious. Maybe the doctor advised against having a young child present. Sometimes they do that, even with the child’s own mother if she’s ailing with certain things. It would be hard for Eliza to miss school and see her grandfather looking poorly anyway. You really should consider going. Couldn’t Eliza continue to stay with your aunt?”

I didn’t think I’d told Dorothy that Marigold was my aunt, but I might have mentioned “Aunt Marigold” in our casual talking, or perhaps such things were generally discussed around this small town. “I don’t know,” I told her. “She said the Lord would make a way for me to go if I wished it, but we didn’t really talk about Eliza staying. Marigold has such trouble with her legs, I hate to leave her with the responsibility, especially of seeing her off to school in the morning. Eliza’s been very good, and loves to help her, but it might still be a bit much.”

Dorothy smiled. “Marigold’s probably tougher than you give her credit for. Besides, I could help. I could just start a little earlier in the morning and come right to Marigold’s house to help if she needs me to. That way Betty and I could walk Eliza every step of the way. Maybe she could even sleep over part of the time. Betty would love that.”

I
didn’t love that. The thought of leaving my daughter and going back into Missouri without her was simply terrifying. I was glad I didn’t have the money. But I didn’t want to mention that. “Thank you so much for your kind offer. I will consider it.”

Betty and Eliza came out of the school arm in arm again, and I thought about all the things Dorothy had said. Might the doctor have asked that a young child not be brought in, as she had suggested? If that were the case, why wouldn’t my father say so? Could it be possible that he’d tried to hide from me just how serious this really was?

Eliza showed me a drawing she’d done, and I tried to shove thoughts of Father from my mind. None of it mattered anyway. Without money, there was no way I could go. It was as simple as that.

On the way home Dorothy said that she would be praying for my father and would ask her church to do so as well.

I cannot remember praying for my father
, I thought guiltily. Maybe I had when I was little, along with my mother and with her guidance, but I certainly couldn’t remember ever doing it on my own. “Thank you,” I told her, and walked on.

The next morning, Eliza and I woke very early to the thunderous sound of a rainstorm. We huddled together for a moment and I tried to keep her fairly quiet, but then I remembered there was no one in the room next door and let her bounce about and sing to the rain. She hadn’t done that since she was three. I was stunned that she remembered. But maybe she didn’t. Maybe it was just part of her nature to celebrate some of the moments of life.

“Let’s pray for Grandpa like the Humphreys,” she suddenly said.

Like always, I couldn’t tell her no about something like this. So as she sank to her knees beside the bed, I nodded and sank beside her.

I thought she might be satisfied with both of our heads bowed in silence. But that was not good enough. “You pray, Mommy. Bless Grandpa.”

I’d never seen her so insistent. Such a simple request should have been easy, but I could scarcely manage the barest minimum.

“Bless Grandpa,” I muttered, feeling suddenly sick in the pit of my stomach. Why did she have to be this way? What if he died? What if he were already dead? How would she feel then?

“Help him feel better, Mommy. Say that too.”

“Honey, you can pray for him.”

“Please, Mommy,
you
pray.”

I didn’t know why it was so important to her. Some angry, broken part of me wanted to refuse any prayer for my father.
He doesn’t deserve it
, the hurt in my heart wanted to scream.
He doesn’t care about you, about God, or anyone!