The House on Malcolm Street (20 page)

“Okay,” she said rather timidly. “But I don’t remember which classroom I belong to.”

“I’ll take you right there, and if you need any help after I’m gone, just ask one of the teachers.”

“Will there be lots of kids?”

“I don’t know how many, but it’ll be more than you’re used to, and that can be a lot of fun.”

I rinsed the soap from her wavy locks and helped her dry off and climb into her bedclothes.

“I love you, Mommy,” she said softly as I gently brushed her hair.

“I love you too.”

She was already humming on the way to our bed. I worried a little about leaving her alone in our room. “Honey, when you’re settled, Mommy needs to go and bathe before tomorrow.”

“I know.”

“Will it bother you for me not to be right here close?”

“No. ’Cause you won’t take long and you’re getting ready for Jesus.”

She went back to humming, leaving me to wrestle with the strangeness of her words. I knew she was referring to me being in church in the morning, but I certainly didn’t feel “ready for Jesus,” nor did I have any confidence that I could get that way in one night. The Almighty and I were at a standstill. Neither of us had done any repenting over the bitterness I’d felt since John’s death. And neither of us were likely to.

The incongruity of where that left me had me uncomfortable indeed as I gathered my hairbrush and bedclothes.
What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I trust the way my mother did? She struggled. She endured things. She even lost a son once, when I was too young to remember. But she continued to worship God and find strength in him. Why can’t I be more like that?

Shamefully, I knew the answer almost as soon as I’d posed the question in my mind. I wasn’t praying, I wasn’t worshipping nor honoring God in my every circumstance because in my heart, in some wicked little seat of being that I so often hid even from myself, I didn’t want to. Standing in the way for me was one big question with a million tiny parts: why? Why did John have to die? And my baby? And my mother? Why does anybody have to die before they’re old and gray? Why does there have to be so much pain in this world?

I wanted the answers. And I wanted to hold out until I got them before I bowed my knee again. In my foolish stubbornness, I wanted to insist that God be the first to move in our impasse. Let him explain himself. Then I’d respond with the worship and prayer he wanted.

Oh wretched man that I am!
Somewhere I’d heard those words, I couldn’t remember where. But whoever had said them could not possibly have been more wretched than I. After all, their words had seemed to be a cry to God, just the sort of thing my stubborn heart kept refusing. My precious daughter was right. We had much to be thankful for here. We could still have been homeless and alone on filthy city streets, but instead we were comfortable, welcomed, and even mentored in faith by John’s dear aunt.

All our most immediate needs had been provided. But that didn’t erase the hurt of the past or the uncertainty for the future. Marigold might up and marry or suddenly die, and then we’d be left homeless like before.

I want answers
, I thought in my heart again.
But not just the why of what has happened. I also want to see my way clear to the future. I want to know where to go from here, and have some assurance that everything will be all right for my little girl. Why should that be too much to ask of a God who knows everything?

I went to the bedside and leaned to kiss Eliza. She was already rolling side to side and just like always when she was in the middle of that part of her humming routine, she barely acknowledged me. She’d have to stop first, curl up, and snuggle the blanket to her cheek before she’d open her eyes and return my kiss.

Smoothing her still-damp hair away from her face, I waited, tears coming to my eyes. She did this because her daddy wasn’t here. I knew that as well as I could know anything. Despite her smiles, her sunny disposition, and even her words of strength and faith by day, she missed her daddy so much at night that she’d invented her own bizarre sort of substitute ritual, as if anything could take the place of his gentle arms.

I kissed her again, thinking of my own mother’s soothing kiss and wishing she were here beside me.
Oh, Mother! If you were with us, you would pray for my dear little Ellie and help her find peace. You could comfort her so much better than I can.

The tears spilled to my cheeks, and I knew how selfish I was being. My hardness toward God did not affect me alone. It kept me from being the mother Eliza wanted and knew that she needed. In so many ways, she was much wiser than I.

Oh, God, help me. If I can’t love you for
you,
then please help me to find worship again for my daughter’s sake, because she needs me to be strong in faith.

I knew such a prayer was wrong somehow, that I was still off-kilter in my approach to the Lord, but it felt like a small beginning anyway. A little step on my part instead of more bullheaded insistence on my own demands.
Help me,
I repeated in my mind.
Help me. Because we need you.

Eliza’s rocking motion stilled and her breathing evened out. The humming subsided, and I thought for a moment she was already asleep. I petted her hair and forehead again gently and was about to kiss her and go on to my bath when she opened her eyes and smiled at me.

“I think God is happy that we’re going to church tomorrow,” she whispered. “It’s been a real long time.”

It hadn’t been long at all since we’d set foot inside a church building. Just the morning that we left St. Louis, we’d taken advantage of a church’s advertised fellowship breakfast in order to get a free meal. But we hadn’t attended an actual worship service in a much longer time.

Eliza kissed me good night, snuggled with her blanket, and closed her eyes again. I hurried with my bath and back to our generous bedroom, but in that short amount of time, Eliza was already asleep.

15
Leah

In the night’s stillness, I sat at the dressing table and carefully combed my hair, wishing I had hairpins and rollers to put it up the way I used to. Fortunately I’d let it grow long enough that I could pull it all back if need be, to look presentable for church in the morning.

I wasn’t tired, but I didn’t want to putter around and wake Eliza or even make any noises that would let Josiah know I was still awake when he came upstairs. Better to have the light off and the room perfectly still.

I wondered now if Josiah went to church with Aunt Marigold. I’d assumed all week that he surely did, and not heard anything to indicate otherwise, but Marigold’s words made me wonder. He hadn’t seemed to have any trouble with praying aloud or reading the Scriptures. Did he have his own struggle with faith?

I suddenly wished I knew more about him. Marigold had never said which of her many sisters might be his mother, and I couldn’t remember him being in any of the pictures she’d talked about in that album she’d showed us.

Where had he grown up? Had he and John been able to get together very often, besides the one summer here? Probably not, from what Marigold had said. And John had told me once too that his family’s gatherings were rather few and far between. At least he’d had some, I’d thought at the time. My mother had few relatives, and most of my father’s family wanted nothing to do with us. I’d only ever met one actual cousin of mine, a man much older than I who was only passively interested that there was any kinship between us.

I was still combing my hair, slowly and carefully, when I heard Josiah’s footsteps on the stairs. If only I’d been a little quicker, I might have had the lamp off before he reached the upstairs hallway, but there was no use in hurrying now. I expected him to go on past our doorway just like every night, to his own room. But the footsteps ended before he’d had time to get past my door.

He’d stopped. I knew it even with the door closed. Whatever for? Surely he’d go on quickly enough, but instead, there came a rap at my door and I jumped.

Would he go if I didn’t answer? Maybe not since the light was still on. He would know I wasn’t in bed yet or I would’ve turned it off. What could he want? I didn’t want him waking Eliza by rapping again, so I moved to the door as quickly and quietly as I could and slowly opened it.

He must have stepped back a foot or two into the dim hallway. He couldn’t have reached the door from where he stood. It was a little hard to discern the look on his face.

“Yes?” I asked him, my heart suddenly pounding. I knew that he noticed my nightgown and robe.

“I hope I didn’t disturb you.”

“I was still awake,” I answered simply as I stood with most of the door between us.

“Is your daughter asleep?”

“Yes.”

“Aunt Mari told me we should talk. I didn’t agree until a little while ago. And then I told myself that if you’d already gone to bed, I’d forget the whole thing.”

“I’d have been in bed if you’d waited just another minute or two,” I answered apprehensively. “Or if I’d combed my hair a little more quickly – ”

“Then you wouldn’t be bothered?” He looked somehow younger, and far less sure of himself than usual.

“No, that’s not what I meant. What seems like a chance thing can have a purpose to it.”

“Then you’re willing to talk to me?”

“I suppose.” My stomach was a nervous jitter, but I wasn’t sure I had any good reason to refuse. It wasn’t late, not by any means, and I ought to trust Marigold’s opinion on this after she’d been so good to us. “Is she waiting for us?”

He ducked his head for a moment. “Um. No. She’s still awake downstairs and will be for quite a while if either of us wants to speak to her again. She said she’d be praying. But she’d rather I talk to you alone. Don’t worry. I promise I’m a gentleman.”

I didn’t know what to say. I opened the door a little wider but couldn’t quite bring myself to go out.

“Would you like to step downstairs?” he asked. “If you don’t mind that, I thought we might be more comfortable there.”

More comfortable? Most definitely. Nearer to Marigold, for one thing.

He turned slightly, toward the stairway, and I made sure my robe was secured around me before I stepped into the hall. “I understand you and John were wonderful playmates.”

He smiled. “We had some times, all right. I would have liked every summer to be like that. But his mother wouldn’t leave him here again. At least not for so long.”

“Why not?”

“He must have told her a little too much about some of the things we did. John’s mama thought I was definitely a bad influence.”

I could imagine family strife over that sort of opinion. “Didn’t her sister object to that?” I asked, thinking that Josiah’s mother and John’s must surely have been sisters.

But I didn’t get the response I expected. “Oh, Marigold thought they ought to give me more of a chance, true enough. But I probably would have led John into more trouble. His mother was probably right.”

He started down the stairs, and I stood for a moment, puzzled. Had he ignored my question or misunderstood it? Slowly I followed him, trying to turn things around in my mind. Finally I decided on an inquiry that might not seem too obtrusive yet would answer at least some things for me. “Which one was your mother? I mean, what was her name?”

“Maxine,” he said without looking at me. “Littleton Walsh.”

Maxine? Not a flower name? I was stunned. If that were true, he might not be related to Marigold after all. At least not in a very immediate way.

At the bottom of the stairs, he turned and waited for me. “Where would you like to sit?”

His hair was a bit disheveled as though he might have run his fingers through it haphazardly and left it standing on edge. His shirt was not buttoned to the collar, and he was looking at me far too intently again. Why had Marigold wondered if he were himself tonight? What might he be if he wasn’t?

I felt a little weak-kneed as I tried to remember if I’d ever heard Marigold call Josiah her nephew. I’d been thinking of him that way all along, but now I couldn’t recall her ever referring to him except by name. Yet he’d called her “Aunt Mari” right from the start.

There was a lovely little woven chair beside a table in the lower hall, set against the hollow curve of the stairwell. Josiah didn’t make any move to go to any other room, so I sank into that chair, not sure what else to do.

“Well, if you’re comfortable here . . .” He seated himself on the bottom steps just to my right and leaned back against the lowest of the oak banister columns. “Probably strange for you, I know, being interrupted so near to bedtime. But I figured this might be the time, while my courage is up. Tomorrow or the day after, who knows? I might not be able to get a word out.”

I looked at him, wondering what he could possibly be getting at. Maybe it would be appropriate to ask a few questions, especially since Marigold had thought we should talk. “Who exactly are you?” I said a little too abruptly, my mouth getting ahead of the tact I’d hoped to utilize.

He laughed. “When you decide to talk, you get straight to the point.”

I waited warily. Would he even answer my question? He did, and in more detail than I needed.

“Who am I? Well . . . Josiah Walsh. You know that much. So I suppose you’d like me to tell you that I’m just the poor hooligan who lived down the street and I’m only related to Marigold McSweeney through her late husband. And that’s at least thrice removed on my mother’s side. And I only started calling Marigold ‘aunt’ because John did and it stuck and we liked the habit. I’m not really John’s cousin, except by our druthers back then, I guess, and I’m not even blood kin to Mari, though she says she wishes I were her son and I wish it too.”

I stared down at the hardwood floor, completely uncertain how to respond.

“Got more questions?”

I shook my head. “Not yet.”

“Like I said. Tonight I’ve got my courage up. Tomorrow, who could tell? I might not speak a word all day.”

“I can’t quite picture that.”

“Well, nothing of any significance anyway. Light talk’s the easiest kind.”

I continued to stare down at the floor, not wanting to meet his eyes, not sure exactly what any of this was about.