Water Street

by Patricia Reilly Giff

  He leaned forward, touching Thomas's wrist, and Thomas could feel the tremor in it. “She loved you, Thomasy.”

  Thomas stood up facing Pop, feeling something in his chest so big, so huge, loving him. “What was her name?” he asked.

  “Maura.”

  Maura.

  And when he could talk: “I would like to know what she looked like.”

  Thomas could see Pop trying to put it into words. “You could walk down the streets of Brooklyn and look at any Irish woman. Freckles and dark hair. Small features.”

  “There was another woman,” Thomas said.

  Pop shook his head. “Ah, you remember. It was her sister, Nellie. She came to help us, but went back home to Granard after a while.”

  He stood up. “I'm in need of something to warm my bones this night.”

  “This is why you drink? All this time—”

  Pop shook his head. “I always drank. Even when I was your age. It's hard to know why.”

  Thomas didn't try to stop him. He went back into his room and sat on the bed.

  He had found out what he needed to know at last, and somehow he had a family now. A brother who had died young, and sometime he'd ask Pop his name. And a mother, Maura.

  One day he might even say to someone, “I had an aunt who taught me that writing would be everything for me.”

  The apartment didn't seem so empty now, and from the register he could hear someone talking. He thought he'd go downstairs after all. He knew they'd be glad to have him stay for dinner.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  {BIRD}

  It was Saturday again, later in April, one of Da's rare days off, and he and Mama had gone to see Aunt Celia.

  “You'll be all right for supper, Bird?” Mama had asked on her way out the door. “There's cheese and leftover meat, and Annie will be home soon.”

  Bird waved them down the stairs, then curled up in the big kitchen chair to read, until she heard the outside door open, and footsteps coming up the stairs. Too early for Annie.

  She put her book down and went to the door.

  Standing before her was the girl with the blond hair and the line between her eyes. In her hand she held a chicken, pale and plucked.

  “Come in,” Bird said.

  The girl shook her head. “I am beholden to you,” she said. “And this poor chicken is nothing for what I owe you.”

  The girl reached out and took Bird's hand to wrap her fingers over the chicken's scaly yellow legs. “I won't forget.”

  Bird stood there, not moving, not able to speak as the girl started down the stairs again. Then she took a step forward and leaned over the banister. “Alive? Are they alive?”

  The girl smiled up at her. “Would I have brought you a chicken if they weren't?”

  She went down the stairs, and Bird went back into the kitchen to put the chicken on the ice. She sat at the table, remembering what Mama had said: “How would you feel if you saved them?”

  The feeling was indescribable. She couldn't read; she could barely think. By the time she heard Annie's footsteps on the stairs it was almost dark.

  Annie sank down in the chair opposite Bird, leaning over to unbutton her shoes. “Thomas is outside,” she said. “He's looking for you.”

  “Always there, that Thomas,” Bird said.

  “Take pity on him, Bird,” Annie said, grinning. “I'm going to sleep. Sleep for an hour, sleep for two …” Her voice trailed off.

  Bird went downstairs to see Thomas leaning against the gate in front of the house, his cap pulled down over his eyes.

  “You don't have to wait for me every two minutes, Thomas Neary,” she said.

  “I was going to come up for you if Annie hadn't sent you down,” he said. “I didn't want to tell her, but I saw Hughie take the ferry across to Manhattan. I know there's a fight in New York tonight. I heard it on the street this morning.”

  She had a sudden picture of Hughie fighting, sweat-covered, knuckles bleeding.

  “It's in the back of a saloon in New York, a place called McCormick's.”

  She stood looking up Water Street. People hurried along as the sky darkened. What should she do? Then they started for the ferry, knowing they were going after Hughie without either of them having to say it.

  “What about your ma?” Thomas asked.

  “She and Da are with Aunt Celia, and Annie's napping. She'll be asleep for hours unless someone wakes her. We're all right.”

  They went as quickly as they could toward the new Fulton Ferry building at the end of the street. The boat was still in the slip, almost filled with passengers. Breathless, they edged through the gate just before the guard clanged it shut.

  “I have money,” Thomas said. “Just enough.”

  “Sorry,” she said. “I never thought—” And then the ferry rumbled beneath them, crashing into the pilings with a wrenching sound as it moved onto the river. She hated that sound, remembering the man who had designed the bridge, John Roebling, whose foot had been crushed against those pilings.

  The boat lumbered along, the water churning in back of them, digging up a pale wake, as the broad prow of the boat tossed aside filthy bits of litter. She began to shiver, but not because she was cold.

  They leaned against the railing, wedged in between two men eating thick meat sandwiches. One man pointed out the huge Brooklyn tower that they were leaving behind, and then the top of the New York tower as it came closer. “Finished by June.”

  “Maybe,” the other said, waggling his huge hand back and forth. “Maybe not.”

  Bird glanced down at her own hands. Square hands, smooth hands, Thomas had written about her. Hughie's hands were large, and square, but so much stronger. Years ago he used to lift her to the window to see the ferry, or snow falling on Water Street, or a storm with lightning flashing across the sky. Years ago clapping her hands in his.

  Hands that would be cut tonight from boxing.

  When she found him, she'd beg him not to do it. She'd hold on to his hand and wouldn't let go until she brought him home. She promised herself that. She would make him listen.

  The ferry groaned into the landing on the New York side of the river and hit the pilings with a screech. Last ones on, they were first off, and they stood in the street to get their bearings.

  How different Manhattan was from Brooklyn: the buildings higher, the streets dirtier. On their side it was almost like the country, but here it was really a city. Men lay on the corners; a bottle was flung out of a window, just missing them; horses and wagons filled the streets.

  Thomas pointed the way, and Bird followed, threading her way around people, crossing the street, her sleeve up to her nose when she saw a horse carcass lying in front of them, gray and bloated.

  The sign up ahead said MCCORMICK'S FINE ALES. One of the letters was missing in FINE, so it read FIN. A poor-looking place. People were milling around outside. She tried to push past them to get in, but she was shoved back. There were so many: a man in filthy work clothes standing next to someone in a top hat and tails, women with their lips rouged, their dresses with metallic beads that glinted in the light spilling out from inside.

  She couldn't see much through the window. A mist of steam from the heat inside covered the glass, and water ran in rivulets as if it were raining.

  She listened to the shouts. Voices rose and fell as the boxing matches went one way and then another. “They're killing him,” someone said, and she remembered Officer Regan saying one time: “A punch from a fist will kill someone, and they'll lock him up for homicide.”

  She grabbed Thomas's hand and pushed hard on the back of the person in front of her. She stepped on feet, used her elbows, and people parted around her. She pulled Thomas after her as they squeezed through the door.

  One of Hughie's friends was standing just inside, one of that gang, Sons of Sligo. Her family hadn't come from County Sligo, they had nothing to do with Sligo. She could feel rage hard in her throat. She grabbed his sleeve, knowin
g she was bruising his skin under his jacket. “Where's my brother?” she yelled above the voices.

  “Who—” Then he must have realized who she was. He pulled away from her. “In back. He's been hurt.” He raised one shoulder. “The man he fought was too much for him.”

  A roar came from the circle of people standing in front, and he turned away to see what was happening.

  Thomas led the way into a small room with sawdust on the floor, where Hughie lay, surrounded by men. She pushed until she was in front of him. Blood came from his nose, thick and shapeless now, his eyes swollen almost shut, deep gashes in his knuckles, but the worst was a cut over his eyebrow.

  A man knelt over him, a bottle of whiskey in his upraised hand, pouring it over the cut.

  Her face burned. “Get away from him!” She raised her own hand. The man stepped back and the others fell away, until there was an empty circle around Hughie.

  “I have a needle and coarse thread for things like this,” someone said.

  “Don't touch him.”

  She saw Hughie angle his head. “I hate what you're doing,” she told him, even as she lifted her skirt and tore great strips from the bottom of her petticoat, thinking back to the one she had left wrapped around the baby. She knew how to bandage. She could thank Mama for that.

  She wrapped those strips around his hands, and used smaller pieces to pack his nose so the bleeding might stop, and all the time it was circling in her mind: What would she do about the cut over his eye? It was fearful, deep and jagged, but the blood wasn't pulsing, and she was thankful for that.

  “Give me the needle,” she said to the man.

  “I've done this before,” he said. “It's going to hurt him.”

  She looked at the man filthy with the smell of alcohol. “Give it to me.”

  He handed the needle to her, and she poured the whiskey over Hughie's forehead.

  “Do you hear me, Hughie?” she asked. “I'm going to stitch this. I've seen Mama do it, and it couldn't be so different from sewing a coat….” She realized she was babbling and stopped for a moment. “You'll have a scar, but it will be straight and as even as I can do it.”

  He made a motion with his hand.

  She took the needle and tried to push it through his skin. It was harder than she thought, the flesh thicker, but she tried it again, taking the first stitch, knotting the string, and cutting, and then a second one, feeling the anger seeping out of her, a little sick to her stomach, reminded of a roast that Mama would tie together before she put it in the oven.

  She lost track of the stitches she took, but then it was finished, and she knew she'd never be afraid to do it again. She looked down at Hughie's ruined face.

  They stayed there for a long time, Hughie propped against the wall, and then she and Thomas helped him up. They walked him between them, his arms heavy across their shoulders, and went to the ferry.

  Suppose Mama was home? Bird didn't want her to see Hughie. She didn't want any of them to see him. She didn't want to see Mama's tears or hear Da's terrible disappointment.

  When they reached the house, she said, “I'll take him down the cellar, but go upstairs yourself. Gallagher's must be closed, and I don't want your father to know.”

  Thomas hesitated, and then he nodded.

  She took the steps down one at a time, slowly, Hughie mumbling something about melting away. How foolish she'd been to be afraid of that cellar. She found mats and an old coat, and helped him lie down; then she leaned against the wall as he slept.

  At last he opened his eyes. “Sorry, Bird.” His voice was thick, and she saw blood in his mouth. He said something else, and she leaned closer. She thought he'd said, “Wanting what I couldn't have.”

  “To win?”

  He squinted up at her. “To put my hands in the dirt. To farm.”

  To farm?

  Across her mind flashed a picture of the night they'd brought him home from the caisson, crying, writhing in pain. She thought about his holding up two fingers, and the loss of the two dollars a day. Was that it, then? The money for the farm?

  She thought of his love for Mama's plants, of his stillness when he listened to the stories of Da's farm in Ireland. How had she not realized?

  He slept again.

  Later, she saw his eyes on her, slits in his face. She could hardly see their color.

  He pulled himself up and ran his tongue over his lips. “I'm all right now,” he said, his voice still thick. She thought he was trying to smile, but it was hard to tell. “Not a fighter, either,” he said.

  “A farmer,” she said. “I can see that.”

  “Ah, Bird,” he said, and she leaned forward to hear him. “Da's right. You're like herself.”

  There was a noise at the top of the stairs, and she heard Mama's footsteps. Mama came toward them, her hand at her throat.

  “All right, Mama,” Bird said in Thomas's voice. “All right.”

  Mama looked at Hughie's face, ran her hands over his cheeks. “You did this, Bird?”

  Bird gave a quick nod.

  Mama raised her head. “Yes, good.”

  They brought him upstairs, banging back the kitchen door so they could help him in.

  Annie came out of the bedroom. “Oh, Hughie,” she said. “How could you?”

  Bird put up her hand. “It's over now.”

  And Hughie squinted across at her, nodding.

  “Well then,” Mama said, “we'll say no more about it.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  {THOMAS}

  Today was graduation day. He awoke early and lay there listening to the sounds coming from the register. The Mallons were rushing around getting ready for the day, but in his own apartment it was still.

  Pop must have forgotten and left already, or maybe hadn't even come home last night.

  Yesterday evening, Thomas had been downstairs, Annie pressing his jacket and fussing over the dress Bird had made, telling her, “A pair of sticks wouldn't fit in these openings, much less your arms.”

  Now he went into the living room, where the sun was streaming through the cracks in the dusty draperies, and he pushed them back to see the two bridge towers, dwarfing everything around them.

  He reached up to feel the smoothness of the old velvet. Would it go well today? Everything was ready. Even his speech.

  Sister Raymond had picked him for class valedictorian, and afterward he'd told Bird, “A surprise.”

  She'd looked at him as if he had lost his mind. “Who else? In this whole class there's no one better than you in writing or speaking.”

  “No one finer,” he'd teased her, remembering the day on the stairs.

  He thought about his mother, wondering what he would have called her. Bird and Annie called their mother Mama, but Hughie always called her Ma.

  And his own mother's sister. He'd called her the woman with the lace sleeves. Had she stayed, he would have had a name for her, too.

  He went into the kitchen and put the water on to boil, whispering the speech as he did, for the hundredth time. He pictured himself on the stage, opening his mouth and forgetting all of it.

  After the tea, and an egg that he'd boiled, he went in to get dressed. He heard the sound of the door and poked his head out to see Pop coming into the living room. He looked fine standing there, his hands a little shaky, but otherwise steady on his feet.

  “It's my graduation day,” Thomas said.

  Pop nodded. “Don't I know that, Thomasy?”

  Pop put on his jacket and patted Thomas's cheek. “The day I found myself alone with you, a squalling baby, I wouldn't have thought it would be possible to get to a day like today. But just look at you. Face clean, shirt clean. You're going to be somebody someday. A man in a top hat.”

  They both laughed, and Bird called then, “Thomas Neary, are you ever going to be ready?”

  And Annie in back of her: “Do you have to raise the roof with your noise, Bird Mallon?”

  He went back into the lighthous
e bedroom, took his speech from the bed, and looked over the first few lines. He folded it into his pocket just in case, and followed Pop out the door.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  {BIRD}

  The smell of pie wafted up from Sullivan's Bakery as they started down the stairs, and outside, Willie, the baker's assistant, waved to them. The sun was shining, and blue skies and wispy clouds were reflected in the windows across the way. The block was busy with women sitting on the steps or standing on the corner talking.

  Thomas murmured to himself as he walked next to Bird. Not only was he the valedictorian, but he had also won the prize for the best eighth-grade essay. How exciting, Bird thought, how right, even though they still didn't know what the prize was.

  Bird's own essay was plain: She'd said she didn't know what was going to happen in her life, but she knew it had to have something to do with healing someday. She was satisfied with the essay, and knew Sister Raymond had been pleased with it.

  Bird hugged Mama and Da at the auditorium door; then she and Thomas hurried to the classroom one last time. How different everyone looked. How loudly they talked about who was starting work tomorrow, who would start in a week, while Sister Raymond sat at her desk looking serene. Bird felt a lurch in her chest. Of all of them, she thought, she might be the one who'd miss school the most.

  They marched into the auditorium and up on the stage just as they had practiced. Sister Raymond said a few words, then nodded to Thomas, and he went to the podium. Bird leaned forward; it was hard not to be nervous for him.

  “I'm going to talk about things that seem impossible,” he said. “Like the great bridge that has been under construction for as long as we can remember. People said it would never be finished, but all we have to do is look up, and there are the towers in place.”

  Mrs. Daley should hear this!

  Thomas spoke about a mother and father: “So many hardships, and yet they managed to come to this country, as my own father did,” he said. “I want them to be proud of me, all three of them.” He talked about a brother he'd become close to, and an older sister who cooked for him.