Water Street (8 page)

Holding up her skirt, she pounded up the steps, and at
last she reached the hall. She stood against the wall, swallowing. Then she went up to the apartment, hoping that Hughie was there, asleep on his cot against the kitchen wall.

But inside, everything was still. She stood at the kitchen door listening. How strange it was not to hear someone talking, how strange that everyone was gone and she was completely alone.

Annie had made a brack for breakfast. The smell of the bread filled the kitchen. Ordinarily Bird would have cut the tiniest edge for herself, but now she couldn't even look at it. There was an acid taste in her mouth.

She went into the bedroom she and Annie shared.

She could almost see Hughie's face in front of her, the stubble of whiskers on his chin, the dark hairs of his eyebrows, the Mallon eyes. She swallowed. “What's going to happen to you?” she said aloud, as if he were right there.

She yanked off her shoes and peeled down her stockings. She'd probably tracked mud down the hall, but she didn't go back to wipe it up. She threw herself into bed with the covers up to her nose, and listened to the creaks of the floor.

Turning back and forth during the night, she dreamed of Hughie, blood coming from his nose, and the new bridge falling, falling.

She heard the door open as one by one they came in: Annie sliding into bed next to her, Hughie in the kitchen, and then at last Mama.

Thomas helped Pop into his bedroom, giving him a little push so that Pop fell across the bed, asleep. He undid Pop's shirt collar, and his shoes, and stood there, waiting to be sure he wasn't going to open his eyes again.

Then he went to the apartment door and looked down. Bird was coming up the stairs. He knew she'd been in the basement. He could see by her face she hadn't found Hughie. Of course she hadn't. Where was he?

Thomas took a look back at Pop's bedroom and waited until Bird had closed the door. He went down the stairs and let himself out. It had stopped raining but there was a cold wind coming through the streets; everything looked closed, doors shut, curtains pulled over windows. Almost winter. Thomas put his chin down to feel the warmth of his jacket collar.

He'd start at Gallagher's.

A cop was on the corner of Fulton, and he waited until the officer turned down one of the side streets. Had he been one of the ones banging out that trouble earlier? If the policeman had seen Thomas, he would have been sure to ask what he was doing outside at that hour of the night. And what could Thomas have told him? That he was used to going after his father, and this wasn't much different. The cop would have sent him home with a smack of his night-stick across Thomas's arm.

Gallagher's seemed quiet, the lamps flickering into the empty street, and only a few men were on the bar stools inside. He went around the back; light was spilling out from the window into the garden. Hughie was sitting against the tree trunk just as Thomas had the day he and Pop moved to Water Street.

Thomas wasn't sure what to say. He didn't know if Hughie would be angry that he was looking for him. But Hughie moved over a little to give him room.

Thomas wanted to say how cold it was there, the dampness of the earth coming through his clothes, but instead he sat there quietly watching Hughie run his hand over the bark of the tree and then the wet grass.

“Strange,” Hughie said. “In Ireland my mother and father had it all, fields, and water running over rocks in the stream. They had a goat, and a pig, and hens. Wouldn't that be paradise if you could have it?” He shook his head. “If only the potatoes hadn't failed.”

Pop had told him about that, the vegetables sold to pay the rent, and a field of wasted potatoes, black and oozing, so they were all starving.

“And over in New Jersey there are farms to be had and food to be grown, but not enough money in my pocket to get where I belong.” He stared at Thomas. “What am I telling you this for? Don't say a word about my babbling to Bird, will you?”

“I won't,” Thomas said. “Of course I won't.”

They sat there for a while; then Hughie shook his head, so Thomas asked, “Did you lose?”

Hughie reached into his pocket and pulled out a thin roll of dollar bills. “I won this time, but not by much.” He patted the money. “There's something I'll do with this someday, but it'll take forever.”

Thomas nodded uncertainly. “Did you hear—”

“The nightsticks? Someone told me about them, but I was busy.” Hughie held up his fists. “Somehow we didn't get caught.”

There was an expression in Hughie's eyes that reminded Thomas of something, but he couldn't think of what it was. “Do you think you might want to go home now?” he asked.

“You're watching out for me,” Hughie said, “is that it? A string bean like you?”

And because Hughie was so much like Bird, Thomas nodded. “That's it. Your father was worried. Bird even went down the cellar looking.”

Hughie put his head back. “No one in the world like my sister Birdie.” It almost seemed as if he smiled. “Birdie in the cellar. Glad she didn't melt away.”

“Me, too,” Thomas said.

He helped Hughie up, and they went through the streets together, watching out to be sure the cop wasn't walking
along Fulton. Thomas was glad to see the front door ahead of them; he couldn't keep his eyes open much longer.

It wasn't until he climbed into bed that he thought of that look in Hughie's eyes again. And then he remembered. Bird had had the same look the day she'd come back from helping the milkman's son.

The sun was shining the next morning. Bird didn't want to think about being in the cellar last night. And Hughie was safe in bed now. She wasn't going to worry about him today. She was going to think about school.

She pinched her cheeks for color, taking her time, waiting for Da to come home, excited because he'd told her she'd have a book to take with her to school. And something else: “Annie,” she yelled into the kitchen, “how about that blue ribbon?”

“I'm wearing it.”

“Not that one. The wide one.”

“It's brand-new,” Annie said, but Bird knew it was all right. She pulled at the ribbon, which was looped over the bedpost, and went to the mirror to tie it in her hair.

Bird threaded her fingers into the grosgrain ribbon, fanning out the bow, and heard the door open. Da was coming
in after his long night at the bridge. “Where's our Bird?” he asked.

She went into the kitchen and tapped Annie's shoulder to thank her. Annie looked—Bird tried to think of what it was. Less plain? Almost pretty? Had she seen a boy at the box factory she liked?

“You haven't left then, Bird.” Da smiled. “I rushed to catch you.”

He beckoned to her, shrugging off his greatcoat and leaving it on the bottom of Hughie's bed—Hughie's arm hanging over the side. Bird followed him into the bedroom.

“Next to all of you,” Da said, “this is the most precious thing I own.” He pulled aside the closet curtain and reached up to the shelf to take down a package that was wrapped in flowered cotton.

She watched as he unwrapped it carefully. The book!

He touched the leather cover. “I'll tell you about this—”

Mama called from the kitchen. “You'll be late if you don't hurry, Bird.”

Da shook his head. “This is more important.” He sat on the edge of the bed. “Long ago, Mama and I came here on a terrible ship. It was leaky and rode low in the water. We lived through a storm where the waves crashed over us. Mama's grandda died on that ship.”

Martin Ryan.

He sighed. “All those weeks I never believed we'd reach shore.” He tried to smile. “Sometimes in life you have to do the hardest things to get somewhere—to change your life.” He reached out to touch her cheek.

How often she had heard those ship stories when Aunt
Celia came to visit: no place to wash, lice in their hair, bugs in the lining of their clothes, clothes that never dried, sores from the salt water on their arms, their faces.

Da paused, and when he began again his voice was thick. “For most of my life I had been hungry. But I thought if I could read, I wouldn't mind it so much.”

It was hard to look at him, so she looked down at the book instead. How beautiful it was: the title,
Aesop's Fables
, splashed across the cover, the pages' edges dipped in gold.

“A little girl on the ship gave it to me,” he said. “Can you imagine? Her family had so much money they could give away a book. It took me years to read it, but I kept at it, and now I know most of it by heart.” He smiled. “My brothers, Liam and Michael, would be surprised to know that.”

Bird wanted to reach up and touch his face. She thought of him bent over the book, learning it by himself. Years. And all this time he'd never seen his family in Ireland again. He'd had only one letter, which someone had written for his brother Liam, saying that their mother had died, that Liam was back in their old house, and that no one knew where Michael was.

“I look at the three of you, and I want you to have more than we had.” He curled his hands into fists. “You have to fight to get ahead.” He sighed, and she knew he was thinking of Hughie, and that he didn't mean that kind of fighting.

“Take the book to school,” he said, “and take good care of it.”

She reached out to hug him, and he patted her shoulder.
“We're lucky to have you, Bird. Much more important than a book.”

Da and Mama had never gone to school. What must it have been like not to read—not the newspaper, not the signs in Mr. Taglio's boot shop, in Mrs. Zimmerman's dry-goods window?

They wrapped the book in the cloth again. She tore through the apartment, carrying it under her shawl as Thomas came down the stairs.

In her pocket she had a lump of sugar for the police horses lined up in the street. Thomas would have one too. She picked a different horse every day. There were five, so she managed to get all of them in by the end of the school week.

This morning she picked the gray horse with the white spots. Tall, with his head swinging—she could picture his mane flowing in the wind, and her on his back. Did Thomas's mother, Lillie, have a horse? But Bird had no time to think of her now, no time to watch the horse eat, showing his large teeth. She hurried those last few blocks, Thomas in back of her.

She went to her seat, listening to the buzz of excitement in the room. There were books on almost every desk. Sister Raymond looked pleased as she walked up and down the aisles, her rosary beads rattling against the desks when she picked up a book or bent over to read the title.

Across the aisle, Thomas's arms were crossed on his desk; he was staring out the window. She knew he couldn't see the tower without stretching up high in his seat.

He didn't have a book on his desk. Thomas, whose house
held all those books. He'd even begun to ask her to take one of them yesterday, but she had cut him off. Hadn't she heard about borrowing from Mama dozens of times?
“If we don't have something, we do without. We don't want to be beholden to anyone.”

Bird had told him that. She couldn't borrow from anyone outside her family.

What had she said that was so terrible? She had seen it in his face, but he'd only gone back upstairs to his apartment and closed the door.

Now Sister Raymond was near the front of the room, her back toward them. “Where is your book, Thomas?”

He shrugged, still looking out the window. “Forgot,” he whispered, not quite meeting her eyes.

Bird chewed on the insides of her cheeks. What was wrong with that
forgot
? In the short time she had known him, he'd never forgotten anything … what they'd had for dinner the week before last, the sick people Mama saw, Father Kinsella's sermon on Sunday.

“Remember Aunt Celia brought me that locket three weeks ago?” she'd say.

“Four.”

She'd shake her head, but then realize he was right.

He remembered everything. Maybe that was why he was such a good writer. What he remembered he'd put on paper, but it came out different, more interesting, more exciting than she'd ever been able to imagine.

Where was his book?

She had a sick feeling in her stomach. He hadn't heard
Da tell her they had a book. He hadn't wanted to have one if she didn't.

She thought of Thomas and his messiness, his spending time in their apartment. She saw how much he cared for Mama and the rest of them. And sometimes Mama called him a gallant soul.

Sister Raymond was at the next aisle.

How could Bird have a book if he didn't? She slipped Da's book back into her desk, tucking the pink flowered cloth around it. She crossed her arms over the top of the empty desk the way Thomas had, and leaned her head on them.

It was early in the morning, darker than usual because the night had been stormy and crumpled brown leaves were plastered against the window. Next to Bird in bed, Annie was breathing lightly, still asleep. Annie had stayed up late last night, making dozens of tiny gingerbread men to celebrate the beginning of winter, and even this morning Bird breathed in the sweet scent of them coming from the kitchen.