The House on Malcolm Street

by Leisha Kelly

  Leah didn’t seem like someone who would strive to get into someone’s good graces for the hope of material gain, but she had endeared herself rather quickly. Made herself indispensable, more like. What was I to think? She didn’t carry herself like the frail, distraught, helpless creature that Aunt Mari had initially described. On the contrary, she seemed quite capable. So much that I wasn’t sure why she’d needed to come.

  Now here was her daughter, with bright eyes and childish innocence, searching through the nail can again. What was I to do?

  “Here you go,” she said cheerily, handing me three nails to get started with. “I’m trying to find another one the same size.”

  “Let me.” I set down the board and hammer and dumped the little can into my open hand. In moments I found what I was looking for, fished it out, and then plunked all the rest back in the can again.

  “Jeepers,” Eliza exclaimed. “You have really big hands.”

  “Compared to yours, I guess.” How could I get her to leave me alone? “Thanks,” I muttered to her. “You’ve been good help. But maybe your mother has something for you to do in the kitchen now.”

  “She said it was fine for me to be outside on a nice day. She’s coming outside in a while too, to work in the garden.”

  What could Leah hope to accomplish in that sadly neglected corner of the yard? “You ought to go help her,” I said, hoping to sound dismissive. “You could learn something there too, and it’s your mother you ought to be learning from, not some odd fella up a ladder.”

  “But I like watching you. I never seen nobody fix a squirrel hole before.”

  Somehow I couldn’t argue with her and ended up mumbling under my breath. “Exciting, I guess. In a town this small.”

  I went back up the ladder with the nails in my mouth and the board and hammer in hand. “Can I come up and hold stuff for you?” she suddenly asked.

  I grabbed the nails. “Absolutely not! Wouldn’t want your mother to come outside and find you two stories off the ground.”

  “I could go ask if it’s okay.”

  “No,” I said quickly. “Forget it. She might get the idea that the notion came from my head.”

  I pounded in the first nail.

  “Aunt Marigold says you’ll be friendlier when you’ve knowed us longer.”

  “Really?” I looked down at the girl. “She told you that? I guess she thinks I’m being unfriendly.”

  “I don’t think you’re unfriendly,” she assured me. “Just busy on the inside same as on the outside.”

  “Where’d you hear that sort of thing?”

  “From my daddy, I think. He said when grown-ups get that way, they don’t have time for the things kids want to do. Then they need prayers, for God to hush them up and give them rest.”

  I smiled. “Your father was a wise man.”

  “I know. He’s a angel now, helping my baby brother grow up in heaven.”

  Her words expressed an absolute certainty, without a shred of doubt tainting her assertion. Faith like a child indeed. This girl could probably picture the two of them together, doing all the normal father and son things, just like earthly life, only so very much better.

  I also believed that my family was in heaven. I could imagine Rosemary with her beloved grandmother, both of them joyful and satisfied. But I still wondered whether our unborn child, such a tiny person, could ever really have the sense of purpose, the feeling of fulfillment, of someone who had lived to grow up and experience life.

  I pounded in the second nail, remembering some of the verses of the psalm I’d read earlier in the week:

  “Thou hast covered me from my mother’s womb . . . Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when yet there was none of them. How precious are thy thoughts unto me, O God.”

  The words had not sunk into me as I’d read them that morning. Were they really saying that God had each of us in his mind and heart before we were born? My eyes misted wondering the sort of precious thoughts God had held for my dear little unborn son or daughter.

  I dropped a nail and nearly lost the other one sputtering a frustrated complaint at myself. Incredibly quickly, Eliza found the nail in the grass for me and called with real excitement. “Can I bring it up to you?”

  “No! Stay there!” I nailed the third corner and then started down the ladder to retrieve the last nail. Eliza was looking at me far too seriously, and I was glad she didn’t ask for my thoughts the way Marigold sometimes did.

  Just in time, I heard the back door. That would surely be Leah coming out. Good. It gave me the perfect excuse to send this child away. “Go see if your mother needs help,” I commanded. “Hurry, so she doesn’t have to come looking for you.”

  She still didn’t want to go. I could see that plainly. But she obeyed. Glad to be alone, I returned to the top of the ladder, very quickly absorbed again.

  You’re a fool to get emotional in front of a six-year-old, I thought to myself. She’s liable to tell her mother, who’ll think I’m an imbecile.

  But then I scolded myself further for caring a hoot what Leah Breckenridge thought anyway. She’d been maddening since her first night here, when she’d refused to give me even the courtesy of an introduction. I’d only been trying to help, and she’d treated me as though I were a supreme nuisance.

  I pounded the last nail and gave the board a tug, satisfied that it wouldn’t budge for the most hardheaded squirrel. But then I noticed that a trim board along an upper-story window had pulled loose an inch or two. Might as well fix that while I was out here. I only had to move the ladder a foot or so to the left, and it didn’t take long to have the piece hammered back into place. But then I wondered if rain might be able to seep around those window cracks where it had come loose. Maybe I ought to have some sort of sealing putty to smear around it just in case.

  I didn’t want to ask Aunt Marigold what she thought because she would tell me to do whatever I thought best. That was her usual response to most of the repair efforts around here, and maybe that was the best she could do. Mr. Abraham, on the other hand, was very knowledgeable about all sorts of home repair. He’d know the kind of putty I needed and where to get it. So I left the ladder and walked over to his yard, hoping he’d already be outside.

  He wasn’t, and I realized that I’d completely forgotten Marigold sending me over to his house with a pie last night. His father was visiting, an incredibly old man. Hopefully, it would not be a terrible time to disturb them. Hesitantly, I knocked at the back door.

  “Ah, Josiah,” Mr. Abraham greeted me quickly. “Good morning. What can I do for you?”

  I apologized for disturbing him, explained the problem with the window, and asked for his advice. “Does Schuller’s Hardware have what I need? I wasn’t completely sure what to ask for.”

  “They’d have it, but no need going across town,” he said. “I’ve told you before. My tools are yours, any time you need them. I’ve got what you need for decent window putty right here. The box of whiting powder is in the drawer of my worktable. Mix some of that with a squirt of linseed oil from the can on the top shelf to the left. All you need is a stiff paste. But not too stiff, so it doesn’t dry before you’re finished working with it.”

  “But you don’t have to supply – ”

  “I’ve got the stuff. Why not?”

  “Can I pay for your ingredients then?”

  “Oh no.” He smiled. “Ask your aunt to make me another pie someday. What a blessing. That’s all I want right now.”

  He was the blessing. Most definitely. Mr. Abraham had been the best neighbor a person could ever ask for. It made me glad to know that even when I was away at work, he was here if Aunt Marigold needed anything. She had a big old farm bell she could ring in case of emergency. I’d made her test it and we could easily hear it at Mr. Abraham’s house even with the doors and windows closed. But even without the bell, I knew he would check o
n her.

  Sometimes I wondered why he was so kind. But when it came right down to it, there was really no mystery at all. Saul Abraham loved Marigold McSweeney, it was as simple as that, and was always willing to help when it came to Mari or her property. I wasn’t sure how long he’d loved her, but it was plain that he did. I could tell it in the way he looked at her and spoke of her.

  I wasn’t sure if either of them had done much thinking about their feelings for each other. And I’d wondered if they’d ever be open enough about their feelings to marry each other. It would make the newspaper in this town if it ever happened. And it’d be time for me to move on.

  I went to Mr. Abraham’s shed, found the whiting powder and linseed oil, and mixed them like he told me in an old tin can. Then I walked back to the ladder in Mari’s yard, still considering the notion of her marrying again, so long after losing her husband who’d brought her here. I’d never seen a gray-haired bride, but it was a dandy thought in some ways. I liked the sparkle in her eye when she spoke of her neighbor. I liked the idea that love could be found in the later years, and that, whether they ever married or not, friendship meant the widowed didn’t have to grow old alone.

  Leah and Eliza were in the garden. I couldn’t tell what they were doing and told myself that I didn’t care. With the can of putty and the mixing stick, I was back up the ladder in a jiffy, smearing the whitish gunk into the biggest cracks around the window.

  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.