Water Street

by Patricia Reilly Giff

  The girl turned. “There.”

  The tiniest baby lay in the middle of the bed, her hair soft and fine across her head, her eyes closed, her lashes dark on her cheeks, the rash across her face. She was so still.

  Bird stepped back from the bed, taking deep breaths, and even in that terrible moment, she remembered seeing Mama doing that once. She had wanted Mama to hurry, almost saying it aloud. Hurry, Mama, open your bag, do something, Mama.

  Was it possible Mama hadn't known what to do either?

  The boy was nearest to her. She put her hand on his forehead, and felt the heat of it. The only thing she remembered from all the times with Mama, from all the lines she had written in the cure book, was: Feed a cold, starve a fever. Or was it the other way—starve a cold, feed a fever?

  Think, she told herself, and remembered having the grippe one winter. Mama had washed her face, her arms, her legs with cold water, water that had made her shiver but had felt so good.

  Bring the fever down. Yes.

  She pulled the covers off the bed, seeing their thin legs.

  “What are you doing?” the girl said. “They'll freeze.”

  She could see Thomas outside, sitting there. Waiting for her.

  In Mama's voice she asked for clean rags and a pan of cold water, and while she waited, she stood next to the bed, her hands clenched, and she didn't dare reach out to the baby.

  The girl brought everything, water sloshing onto the floor.

  “Go now for the doctor,” Bird said. She wanted to do that herself, wanted to rush out of the room and down the street. Please let the doctor be there. She wanted to pound at his door and bring him there, and then go home, where she didn't have to think about people with terrible fevers, and a baby that looked as if she wasn't alive, her hands like stars on her small chest. Please.

  Head down, the girl glared at her.

  “Do it now.” Bird felt as if she couldn't breathe.

  “But the money,” the girl said.

  Money. What did she care about money?

  A sound came from the bed, but she didn't know which one of them had moaned, or sighed, or even mumbled something.

  She tore the rag in two and dropped both halves into the water. “You don't have to pay me. Use it for the doctor.”

  “We have no money. There's no money here in the house,” the girl said. “Not a cent.”

  Bird began with the boy first, his forehead, his cheeks, his neck, and in an instant, the rag was warm from his skin. She dropped it back into the pan and squeezed out the other one. She reached for his arm, pushing back the sleeve to see the rash like the patterns on the map in their classroom.

  She looked back over her shoulder. “Go now.”

  “I wasn't going to give you money.” The girl's eyes slid away from Bird's. “We'd bring a chicken to your mother when we could. My father works at the poultry market, and sometimes they give him one or two to take home.”

  She talked fast, breathlessly, but Bird didn't have time to listen. “I don't care about money and chickens.” Her voice was hard. “Get the doctor.”

  Bird looked back at the boy, and after a few moments she heard the outside door close.

  On the far side of the bed, the mother moaned, so she leaned across and dabbed water on her face and neck, then her arms. As she did she thought, What about the baby?

  She didn't want to touch the baby. Didn't want to know if she was dead. But still she reached down, her arms underneath that small body, and pulled it up against her. The baby was burning with fever.

  But alive. Alive!

  Bird wiped her with the rag but it wasn't enough. She needed something larger, something to wrap the infant's whole body, but there was nothing in that room. She stood up with the baby in her arms, overturning the pan of water, and went into the kitchen.

  With one hand, she reached under the waistband of her skirt and loosened the string of her petticoat. It dropped to her feet and she stepped out of it.

  She went to the sink, so grateful that they had running water, and soaked the petticoat, then sank down on the floor to wrap it around and around the baby, to bundle her in that wet cloth. As she did, she felt the baby shudder, saw her face contort, and knew without ever having seen it before that she was convulsing.

  Did babies die of convulsions? She didn't know enough, would never know enough.

  She put her thumbs into that little mouth, over the small tongue so the baby wouldn't swallow it.

  The doctor! The doctor would never come. She would sit there forever, feeling the baby's toothless mouth biting down on her thumbs.

  She would never leave that spot, never, never—

  But he did come at last, smelling of the outside and of apples from his pipe.

  She scrambled up and he took the baby from her, looking down at Bird's face, but she slid away from him and out the door onto the dark street.

  And like a shadow, Thomas was there. He took her arm, and they went home together. She heard him saying, “All right, Birdie. All right.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  {THOMAS}

  What had happened in there? What had it been like for Bird? Thomas didn't ask, didn't say a word, but followed her up the stairs.

  Mrs. Mallon must have heard them coming, because she was standing in the doorway. “Where have you been, Birdie? Thomas? I've been worried!”

  He moved around them and started up to his apartment.

  “Don't go, Thomas.” Bird shrugged out of her coat, leaving it outside the door, and held her hands out so she didn't touch anything.

  Mrs. Mallon's hand went to her mouth. “What is it, child?”

  “Do you die of convulsions? Do you die of scarlet fever?”

  Thomas remembered having scarlet fever, and the woman with the lace on her sleeves bending over him.

  Mrs. Mallon was shaking her head. “What are you talking about, convulsions? Scarlet fever?” She went to the sink and turned on the faucet. “Where have you been?” She looked over her shoulder at Thomas.

  “A girl came,” he said. “Her family was all sick.”

  He watched her wash Bird's face gently, rubbing the brown soap over her hands and wrists. Then Bird dried her hands on a towel and sank down opposite him.

  “There was a mother. A boy in bed. A baby—” She broke off, then began again, telling her mother all of it.

  She could hardly get the words out, Thomas saw that, but her voice was stronger when she looked up at her mother. “I don't know enough, and maybe I didn't do the right thing. They could be dead because of me, all of them.”

  It seemed that she talked forever. “I don't even know the baby's name. I don't know any of their names.”

  And all the while, he thought of what he had written in his book about her. He'd always known he'd show it to her someday. What was the use of writing if someone didn't read what you had to say? But he'd pictured saving it until he was sure she'd want to see it.

  Mrs. Mallon was running her rough hands over Bird's hair. “Don't you think that happens to all of us?” she said. “Oh, Birdie, there's another part to all this. Sometimes it works.”

  “But sometimes it doesn't,” Bird said, her voice so low he could hardly hear it.

  “That's true. But when you can help, the feeling inside is so great, is so wonderful, that it makes the hard times all worthwhile.” He could see the flash of tears in Mrs. Mallon's eyes. “Just think, Bird. How would you feel if you saved them?”

  Bird looked down at her hands, shaking her head, then went over it again, what she had done, the covers pulled back, the water, the petticoat.

  Mrs. Mallon listened, her head tilted. “Terrible to look at, a convulsion,” she said.

  Thomas sat there a little longer, then went upstairs quietly to find one of his writing books. He wished his handwriting had been a little better, but still he knew she'd be able to read it.

  He took out the picture of Lillie and left it on the table.

  Pop was r
ustling around in the kitchen. “I'll be back soon,” Thomas said. “We'll have a little soup or something.”

  He went downstairs and opened the door without knocking. They were still at the table, teacups in front of them, and he saw there was one poured for him.

  He put the book in front of her and waited as she opened it slowly.

  He knew what she'd be reading first as she started from the beginning, reading what he'd had to say when he was younger, and then growing older, stories at first about tiny mice who lived in families in back of the wall, and stories about school, and apartments in Greenpoint and Canarsie and Flatbush, elves in Ireland that he'd pictured as Pop had told him about them, and the woman with lace on her sleeves.

  She kept turning pages, and then halfway through, she whispered, “Water Street.”

  Thomas knew she was reading now about a boy who listened at a register, thinking about a family, and a lighthouse, and then she turned the next page and took a breath.

  It was the story he really wanted her to see: a story about a girl who thought less of herself than everyone else did, who worried about everyone, even when she didn't want to, even when it made her irritable. A girl who was afraid, and who hardly knew it yet, but was on her way to being a healer like her mother, because there'd never be anything else for her, and how lucky they were just to know her.

  “Oh, Thomas,” she said.

  He felt it in his chest, so glad he had let her read it.

  Mrs. Mallon looked across at him. “I'm making dinner.”

  He shook his head. “Tonight I'll eat with Pop.”

  He took the book from Bird and started for the stairs. She came after him, but before she could say anything, he waved and hurried inside.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  {BIRD}

  They'd stayed up late the night before, much later than usual, Bird reading a piece of Sister Raymond's book to everyone. They'd all overslept in the morning. She and Annie darted around each other getting dressed, no time for oatmeal or bread warmed over the stove.

  Mama was out first, and then Annie, who leaned back to tell her, “Just take the newspapers out for me, leave them in the areaway with the ashes.”

  Bird grabbed her schoolbooks under one arm, the papers in an unruly pile under the other. Two days' worth, the Standard Union, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle.

  She stood on the steps to feel the spring breeze that tossed up dust in the street like tiny cyclones. She went into the areaway and dropped the papers next to the ash cans.

  Immediately a wind took the papers, blowing them down the alley. Halfheartedly she went after them. And as she stooped over, she saw the picture on the front page.

  Lillie in her gown and the pearls around her neck.

  But not Lillie Neary.

  Not Thomas's mother at all, but a famous actress, Lillie Langtry. She'd even heard that name before.

  Bird closed her eyes, crumpling the picture in her hand. She couldn't leave it there to blow around, for Thomas to find. She tore it out of the newspaper and folded it into her notebook before she closed the gate and went down the street, hurrying to get to school before the bell chimed.

  Thomas was crossing the street behind her. They hadn't had time to call him for breakfast, and he must have had bread and jelly by himself upstairs. Crumbs littered his shirt, and a tiny spot of jelly dotted his collar. No Lillie. No mother to clean him up. Dear Thomas, poor Thomas.

  She'd remembered sugar for the horses, and she stopped to feed one quickly, her hand flat, feeling the softness of the horse's mouth. Thomas held out sugar for another one, and two girls from their class passed on the other side of the street, smirking because Thomas and Bird were there together.

  The day passed, and she forgot how tired she was. They solved science problems and arithmetic examples. In back of her, Mary Dwyer gave her two cherry lozenges, and she left one next to the inkwell for Thomas.

  When the day was almost over, Sister Raymond reminded them how important good penmanship was. In her large, even handwriting she wrote an exercise on the blackboard for them to copy.

  Bird dipped her pen into her inkwell and opened her notebook. Staring up at her was the picture, the famous English actress with her name splashed across the bottom: Lillie Langtry.

  Before she could grab the paper, it fluttered off her desk and lay on the floor between her and Thomas. She reached down quickly, but his hand was there first. He scooped up the paper and put it in his pocket.

  The minutes dragged. Bird wrote the exercise in her book, the letters shaky, until Sister Raymond stood up from her desk. “Time to go home.”

  Thomas didn't look at her. He walked out the door without stopping for his jacket.

  She put on her own coat feeling sick to her stomach, folded Thomas's coat over her arm, and hurried home.

  Upstairs the door was closed, and she left his coat on the newel post. Instead of going inside she sank down on the step. Should she go up there? What could she say to make things better?

  She wanted to put her head down on her knees and close her eyes. She felt the way she had years ago when she'd tumbled down the stairs and had the wind knocked out of her: a pain in her chest and stomach so strong it was hard to breathe.

  She thought of him walking home with her after the scarlet fever family. “All right, Birdie. All right.” And the story he had written in his book about her becoming a healer. A wonderful story, even though it wouldn't happen. It gave her a feeling of such warmth to know how he felt about her. She remembered cold nights walking to the yard together to bring Da his dinner, and the book. Oh, the book.

  She turned her head thinking she might cry, but it was too much for tears.

  She heard the front door open, and Mr. Neary's footsteps. He was singing loudly as he came up with slow stumbling steps.

  And then she did cry, great gulps of tears.

  He stopped. “What's the matter, girlie?” He fished for her name. “Eldrida, is it?”

  “I've done a terrible thing to Thomas.”

  “Don't worry about Thomas,” he said. “Thomas is all right.”

  How could he say that? Without thinking, she stood, blocking his way upstairs. “Thomas is not all right.” She was two steps above him, almost face to face. “And you,” she said. “You've done worse than I.”

  His face changed, and she saw him put his hand up to his mouth.

  “You're a terrible father,” she said, and realized she was shouting, even as she wondered how she dared say what she was saying. But it was true, she told herself. True.

  She leaned closer to him. “There's no one finer in the whole world than Thomas Neary.”

  “Do you think I don't know that?” he said.

  She heard something and turned. The door to the apartment upstairs was open, and Thomas was standing there. “I'm sorry, Thomas,” she said. “I'm so sorry.”

  Mr. Neary scuttled past and went up the last flight as Thomas came down slowly. She saw how tall he was now, a head over her, his face bonier. She saw how he would look in a few years when he was grown. “I'm all right, Bird,” he said as they sat down on the bottom step. “It's just what I wanted to believe.”

  “Oh, Thomas, I know. If only I hadn't put the newspapers out,” she said. “If only I hadn't seen the picture.”

  He grinned at her. “No one finer in the world,” he said.

  She ducked her head, not knowing what to say. But then she smiled up at him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  {THOMAS}

  Pop sat at the table in the living room, a bowl of soup in front of him. His hands were too shaky to lift the spoon, so Thomas held up the bowl to sip.

  “So what was all that about, Thomasy? Did you have a fight with that lovely girl?” He stopped for another sip. “I think she was angry at me.”

  “It was about my mother,” Thomas said.

  “The soup tastes fine, Thomasy. There's nothing like it when you're under the weather.”

  Thomas pu
t the bowl down. “I want to know,” he said.

  “About the soup?”

  He reached out, grabbing Pop's wrist. “I'm almost a man,” he said. “No matter what it is. No matter how terrible she was.”

  Pop reached for the soup bowl, raising it to his lips, a few drops spattering on his waistcoat. “What are you thinking then? What do you mean, terrible?”

  Pop's eyes were bleary, Thomas thought, but he wasn't so bad that he didn't know exactly what was going on. “I'll leave you if you don't tell me. I'll walk out this door and down the stairs, and I'll never come back.” He could hear the thickness in his throat and in his words. He had no money, and the thought of never seeing Bird again was impossible, but he said it again, and knew he meant it. “I need to know. I will leave unless you tell me.”

  The cup clattered on the table. “You will be sorry to know, Thomasy.”

  Was that true? And then he thought that knowing would be better than thinking about it every day, not sure if she had left him because she didn't care about him.

  “You were not the first.” Pop ran his hands across the dusty table, leaving clean lines.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You had a brother, just a year old. A boy with soft dark hair.” He sighed. “And you an infant.” Pop's lips were trembling. “But there was fever in the sixties, and the boy died, wasting away, and she blamed herself. She was sick, I think, and she left thinking you'd be sick next, and it would be her fault. So she took herself away. She couldn't bear seeing you with a fever like that, seeing you die.”

  Thomas looked up. “She could be alive then. She could be somewhere.”

  Pop shook his head. “She is not alive.” His hand went to his mouth. “I couldn't even look for her. I had you to take care of.”

  Thomas felt as if he could hardly breathe. He waited.

  “They found her in the water at the base of the Hudson Pier. She had drowned.”

  “Killed herself?” Thomas asked, his voice not sounding like his own.

  “We don't know that. She had fever.” Pop was quiet. “I never guessed you thought she was terrible. I thought maybe you didn't think of her at all.”