The House on Malcolm Street

by Leisha Kelly

  Such uncertainty made me more than a little uncomfortable, as well as her admission that Josiah needed prayers. She was asking the wrong person for that. I’d made a couple of feeble attempts at prayer for my daughter’s sake but felt like that had accomplished nothing other than making me feel foolish and inadequate. I wasn’t sure it would ever do me any good to try again. Why would God care to listen? He wouldn’t hear anything the least bit worthy from me anyway.

  I wanted to know more of what Josiah’s problem could be and what was troubling Marigold. But she’d been pretty clear that she didn’t think she could say. Still I wished I could press her for details. I didn’t like not knowing any better than this what was going on around me.

  Marigold turned back to her dough and began a hymn instead of whistling again. But she stopped almost as soon as she’d gotten started. “You know the Scriptures very plainly say that God answers our prayers,” she said. “I’ve got no cause to worry. The Lord’s got everything in his very capable hands.”

  I continued rinsing the greens at Marigold’s sink. Eliza rocked back and forth on her heels beside the table, arranging and rearranging the apples in the wooden bowl Marigold had given her.

  “The love of God is the most wondrous thing in all creation,” Marigold talked on. “I just wish I could get Josiah to see it more completely. Do you know what I mean? I think he struggles so much with it, without even realizing.”

  Her words shocked me. Didn’t she and her nephew share a common faith?

  “I wish he’d learn to rest in the Almighty and not try to reason so much in his own strength. Every one of us is weak. We have to learn to trust in the strength and compassion of God.” She glanced in my direction. “Perhaps your presence can be a little difficult for him in that way. People say there’s no loss so difficult as that of your own child. And second to that, a spouse. But in spite of all that, you seem to be managing so well, resting in faith, as though you’ve already allowed the healing balm of the Almighty to heal your heart and enable your hands.”

  The bowl of greens slipped from my grasp and hit the bottom of Marigold’s sink basin with a clatter.

  “Maybe I’m saying too much,” she continued as though she hadn’t even noticed my racket. “Lord love him, Josiah hasn’t learned to handle grieving, and any reminder makes things worse. I thought the train wreck this week might weigh at him terribly. And apparently it has, even more than I realized. I wish to goodness I’d known about yesterday’s funeral ahead of time so I could have prayed a special strength for him.”

  I picked up the scattered leaves, re-rinsed them, and plopped them back with the others in the large bowl. She honestly thought I was doing well? Resting in faith?

  “I’ll pray for Mr. Josiah,” Eliza suddenly spoke up. “I didn’t know he was sad today, or I’d a’ already prayed.”

  “That’s very sweet of you, child,” Marigold told her. “But he’ll be all right, I’m just sure of that, ’cause I’m trusting him in the Almighty’s hands.”

  “You’ll pray for him too, won’t you, Mama?” Eliza asked innocently.

  But my hands shook. The question stabbed my heart, my conscience, and brought tears to my eyes before I could stop them. How could I tell her no? She so much wanted our faith to be one and the same. But I couldn’t find it in my heart to trust God when my prayers had failed so miserably before. I didn’t think I could pray for “Mr. Josiah.” It would be a farce coming from my bitter heart. And I couldn’t lie to my child and tell her that I would. So how could I possibly answer?

  “Of course she will,” Aunt Marigold answered to fill the silence. I could see a sudden change in her expression as she turned to me. “Let me finish with the greens, dear. You’ve found so many. Sit and read a passage from Scripture for me. We missed that this morning.”

  Still trembling, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to read, but I dried my hands and walked obediently to the chair beside the shelf. I opened the Bible slowly, turning to the marker in Psalms where our reading had left off. But she directed me instead to the book of John. I fumbled with the pages, uncertain which way to look, but stumbled on the right book completely by accident.

  “Chapter 14, verse 27,” she said as she skillfully cut the last of her dough and laid it on the pan. She wasn’t looking at me, but I got the feeling she was watching me just the same.

  “Peace I leave with you,” I began, barely able to make my voice cooperate. “My peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you . . .”

  “That’s Jesus talking,” Marigold said softly.

  I stared down at the page but from the corner of my eye saw her motion for me to go on. “Let not your heart be troubled,” I tried. “Neither let it be afraid . . .”

  I couldn’t continue. My eyes were too cloudy. I didn’t even see Eliza approach me, but she was suddenly at my side, wrapping me in her tender little arms.

  “I’m so sorry, Leah,” Marigold said. “Please forgive me. You’ve been so strong, I just didn’t think. I shouldn’t have brought up that train wreck again. What an awful thing to put your mind to, considering your John.”

  “No,” I managed to tell her as I pulled a hanky from my pocket and wiped my eyes. “I’m all right, and it’s not your fault at all.”

  “Dear Lord in heaven,” she went on as if she hadn’t heard me. “You’d think I’d learn to contain my tongue. Right in front of your little girl too.”

  “I – I don’t fault you for anything said,” I told her again.

  So much had been going through my mind that, surprisingly, I really hadn’t dwelt on that train wreck. But now that she’d persisted to bring it up again, I could feel my heart patter. No wonder Josiah had come home out of sorts yesterday if he’d just been to that funeral. What might it have been like to see what he’d seen, and stand helpless at the site of a train’s awful destruction?

  A horrid picture of a bloodied leg leapt into my mind, as it had so many times before. As far as I knew it was just something from a dream, but it always seemed so real. I felt choked, suddenly thinking of my John on the railroad track, helping some poor old man . . .

  Eliza hugged me tighter, and I worried that my tears must have frightened or saddened her. I kissed her forehead, trying to put the awful pictures out of my mind.

  “Don’t worry ’bout Mr. Josiah, Mama,” she whispered. “Don’t be sad.”

  I hugged her tight, feeling miserable that she thought my tears were for someone else’s sake and Marigold thought I was only shaken by her mention of the train wreck again. There was so much more to my inadequacy than that. I was living a lie in front of them, and I truly should confess the truth of my struggle with the Almighty, but my chest and throat felt too tight to choke out a word. I took a deep breath, trying to muster the courage to try, but then a train whistle sounded from across town like a taunt from the devil himself, and my heart raced inside me as badly as it did in the midst of my awful dreams.

  The train whistles in Andersonville had not been bothering me greatly. I could usually shove them to the back of my mind. So this time was just an attack. Satan’s effort to keep me agitated and make Marigold think I was a broken-up mess after all. I closed my eyes, willing away the tears, and then heard the front door slowly open and close. Josiah must have come back.

  Eliza didn’t seem to notice. I wanted to pretend I hadn’t either and lower my head into her hair so he wouldn’t see my face when he stepped in. But despite my own intentions to the contrary, I lifted my eyes to meet him as he came into the kitchen from the front of the house.

  “Aunt Mari, I – ”

  He stopped in mid-sentence, looking at Ellie and me, and just stood in silence for a minute.

  “Oh, Josiah, I’m so glad – ” Marigold began to speak, but he didn’t let her finish.

  “I – uh – stopped to see Mel a while. Thought I’d better get back.” He finished quickly and turned and walked away. I could hear his footfalls in the hallway and then on the stair
s. What might he have said if he hadn’t found us here all teary-eyed like we ourselves had visited a funeral?

  “Thank the good Lord he’s back already,” Marigold whispered to me. “But I wish he hadn’t gone upstairs. I would have liked to talk to him a minute.”

  I should’ve immediately offered to hurry and ask him to come back. But he’d already gone and I was afraid to follow and knock again on his bedroom door. He’d always seemed too forward, too standoffish, or too strangely intense for me to want to be anywhere near him. So I kept still, hoping she wouldn’t ask me to go.

  “At least he’s in the house,” she consoled herself. “Still himself too, as far as I can tell. We can call him down for supper in a little while. Thank the Lord for the victory.”

  She started to whistle again, just a quiet note or two, but quickly caught herself and began to sing the same hymn she’d sung before. She had her pan in the oven in two shakes and was pulling a cook pot from a cupboard beside the stove.

  “Please let me help you,” I told her.

  Reluctantly she agreed, giving me a hug and telling me she was sorry again, though I told her she had no reason to be. I still thought I should try to explain my sudden burst of tears, but the effort now would probably only serve to bring on a fresh cascade. So I busied my hands, knowing that was the quickest way to convince Marigold and perhaps even myself that I was on an even keel again.

  We fried ham and made mashed potatoes to go with the yard greens, and Marigold told me she’d finally gotten around to making us the scones she’d mentioned the first night we arrived here. I dearly hoped Mr. Josiah would smell the fixings and venture down on his own, but when we were nearly finished and he hadn’t shown himself, Marigold asked me to go and call him down.

  I went to the stairs with a nervous tremble, though there was no reason to be afraid. He wasn’t any sort of vile man. He simply made me uncomfortable in an indefinable way. I wouldn’t have to enter his room. How nice it would be if I didn’t even have to go up the stairs, but it would be unseemly for me to stand at the bottom and yell. My voice might not carry that far anyway.

  Slowly I climbed, thinking again of the account of the train wreck he’d told us. Did it play itself over and over in his head the way my strange dreams did in mine?

  Maybe just seeing me here reminded Josiah constantly of train wrecks because of the way John had died. How horrible that would be when he had to go and work on a train nearly every day! I couldn’t imagine how he’d been able to return to his job the day after the wreck he’d seen. I couldn’t have done it. Not for a moment. Why hadn’t I wondered about this before? I must have been woefully self-centered not to consider what an awful week this must have been for him. It was no wonder he’d been testy and out of sorts. And no wonder Marigold had expressed her concerns when he was gone.

  “Mr. Walsh?” My voice seemed to echo in the large, nearly bare upper hallway. I hoped he would hear me already and open his door, but there was no recognition at all.

  “Mr. Walsh?” I said again as I reached his oak door and gently rapped.

  After a moment I thought I heard the creak of his bed. His voice reached through the door, sounding groggy and strangely tense. “What?”

  “Your – your aunt wishes you to come down for supper.”

  I nearly turned and headed back down the stairs, confident that my message had been delivered. But the door suddenly opened and Josiah stood in front of me in his bare chest and feet, looking somehow forlorn. What had Marigold meant when she’d said he wasn’t troubled so much by who we were as by who we weren’t? I thought of the picture I’d seen on his dresser and wondered even more than before who the woman could be.

  “I can eat later if you’d rather go ahead without me,” he said, much to my surprise. He was looking at me far too intently, studying me, for anything at all he might find.

  “It doesn’t matter what I’d rather,” I answered, perhaps a little too abruptly. “Your aunt would like you to come down.”

  “I’m sorry if I upset your little girl this morning,” he said then with a strange mix of emotion in his eyes.

  “You – you didn’t,” I stammered. “She just wasn’t sure why you suddenly seemed upset with her.”

  “I wasn’t. Not really.”

  I started to turn to the stairs, but before I got a chance he reached and touched my arm and then pulled his hand away again. “Wait. Just a minute.”

  Something in my stomach pulled tight, and the tension spread to my toes.

  He sounded as though he felt the tension too. “Is everything all right?”

  “Yes. We’re fine.” Why would he ask? But then I remembered the tears he’d seen when he came back in. Was he genuinely concerned?

  “You’d tell me you were fine regardless of whether it was true, wouldn’t you?”

  There it was again. Josiah Walsh and his probing questions. Despite the sadness in his eyes, his forwardness irritated me. “I have no reason to lie.”

  “But you hide yourself. And apparently you don’t consider that to be the same thing.”

  I stared for a moment and then whirled around to the stairs.

  “I’m sorry,” he said as I walked away. “I didn’t mean that the way it must have sounded. I’m very sorry. Really.”

  For some reason my eyes welled up again, making me suddenly very angry. How dare he do this? How dare he stop me and question me and make me teary all over again?

  I quickened my pace.

  “Leah?” he called behind me. “I just worried – that you and your daughter – that your tears at the table might be my fault.”

  “No, Mr. Walsh,” I said quickly. “They were not.” The softness of his tone confused me. It was on the tip of my tongue, spiteful and bitter, to tell him that my world did not revolve around him, but I kept back the words because of the emotion in him and the worry Marigold had held earlier. I must remember, I must, that this troublesome man was in the midst of a trying time. For a moment I thought I heard another train whistle across town and almost shuddered.

  “Would you rather I let you and Eliza eat first before I come down?” he offered again.

  Maybe he wasn’t quite himself as Marigold had thought. But he hadn’t been drinking, if that was what she’d wondered. I’d smelled enough of my father’s liquor that I was sure I would know. I stopped at the top of the stairs and tried to make my voice sound patient and kind.

  “I told you before. It doesn’t matter what I’d rather. Your aunt asked for you. She would’ve liked you to stay downstairs to begin with. She was quite worried while you were gone.”

  “Thank you,” he answered. “For talking to me.”

  I turned just a little, wondering if there might be a hint of sarcasm to his words, but I didn’t see it if there were any. He went back to his room instead of following, saying that he would get his shirt and shoes and be right down.

  I went on down the stairs, wondering all the more about him and the things Marigold had said. Why had it worried her so much for him to be gone in the middle of the day? He’d only visited a friend. And if he was so unhappy with my presence here, who might he be longing for instead? The woman in the picture? Or some other woman, any woman not related to him, so he could pursue the pert sort of conversation he’d been attempting the night we’d met?

  We were all quiet at dinner, though I knew Marigold still wanted to talk to Josiah. Because of that, I hurried through the meal and cleanup so they could be alone.

  “Are we really going to church with Aunt Marigold tomorrow?” Eliza asked me as I helped her with her bath later.

  “Yes. We really should,” I acknowledged. “It’s the right thing to do, since she’s been so nice to us.”

  “And God too,” she affirmed. “He’s been nice to us ’cause he gave us this good place to live.”

  “You’re right,” I had to admit. “We should be grateful.”

  But I didn’t want to think about church until I was faced with it. For
tunately, she changed the subject.

  “Do I have to go to school on Monday? I like to stay here and cook and wash with you and Aunt Marigold.”

  “I understand that. But you’ll learn so much at school. You’ll like it. And it won’t take all day anyway. You can help us when you get home.”

  “What if I get lost?” she asked with real concern. “I only been there once.”

  “Oh, honey, I’ll walk you there in the mornings and be there when school lets out in the afternoon to walk home with you.”

  “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?