The House on Malcolm Street

by Leisha Kelly

  “Well. My wife is pleased you come. Your father’s ailing, you know. It’s good you come to see about him.”

  My stomach was tight, and I felt like my throat was all bound up with knots. But I made myself answer him smoothly. “Thank you so much for the ride.”

  “No problem. Ain’t far.”

  We rode in silence. Nearly five miles to the farm. The house looked almost the same, but older, in need of some time and attention. One of the trees in the front yard had toppled over and still lay where it fell.

  “Have a good evening now,” Mr. Rafferty said. “Tell your pappy how-do.”

  “I will. Thank you.”

  I stood in the yard as he drove away, this whole thing not even seeming real. Maybe I’d wake in a moment’s time and find Eliza cuddled beside me and the scent of Marigold’s fresh biscuits already in the air.

  Skeeter the dog limped out to meet me. He’d been young and spry not so awfully long ago, but now he looked gray and tired, the years catching up with him. He didn’t bark, just stood and nuzzled my hand with his nose.

  “Just like always, huh, Skeeter? Need a little attention?”

  I petted the dog, leaned and gave him a hug. For some reason the simple act brought tears to my eyes. Would I be able to do this much for my father? Would he let me get even half so close?

  I took a deep breath. I was here. It was real. And I would have to go inside. The breeze caught my skirt and gave it a swirl, and I kept hold of the shawl Marigold had given me, to make sure I didn’t drop it out here in the unmowed grass.

  I knocked just once and then opened the door, not wanting to make him get up if he were lying down. “Hello? Father?”

  He didn’t answer till I was fully in the room and had closed the door behind me.

  “Well. Let me look at you.”

  He was propped at the head of a bed someone must have moved downstairs for him. That and a padded rocking chair dominated what had once been Mother’s delicately furnished sitting room.

  “Mr. Rafferty said to tell you hello.” It seemed a safe way to answer him, at least for now.

  “Um-hum. Did he ask a lot of questions?”

  “None.”

  “Good. Don’t need nobody knowin’ our business.”

  I stepped a little closer. He looked a bit gray, but it was difficult to tell with the curtains closed. “Are you all right?”

  “’Course I’m not. Or I’d be out in the orchard where I belong. Still daylight.”

  I moved to the chair near him. “Can you tell me about the problem?”

  “Heart’s bad,” he grumbled with a frown. “Done told you that already in the letter.”

  Maybe it wouldn’t get any better. At least he was talking to me and not yelling. I decided to be really brave. “God loves you, Father. Just like Mama used to say. And – and I do too.”

  He seemed to have a catch in his throat all of a sudden. When he found his voice, it was a good deal quieter. “Well, if you do, seems like you’d want to fix us some supper. I ain’t et for hours. How ’bout you?”

  “Not since St. Louis. What would you like?”

  “Don’t care. Anything you can find that’s worth fixin’.”

  I thought about presenting Marigold’s scones first thing, but maybe that would be better for a snack later, or breakfast tomorrow. I really wanted to cook something, if only to give my hands something busy to do for a few minutes in the kitchen away from him. I needed to think a little, breathe a little, in the next room before speaking to him again.

  I certainly didn’t find the same problem here as at the Kurchers’. Father had an abundance of groceries of all sorts as if he’d just gone to market and brought home plenty of everything he could find. Some of it still sat in boxes and bags, waiting to be unpacked.

  The dishes were done, but besides that, it looked like nothing in the kitchen had been cleaned for a month. A dead bug lay on the floor beneath the table, and I saw the telltale sign of mice on a countertop.

  I wished he’d told me what he’d like to eat. I saw a sausage in the icebox and decided on biscuits and gravy. I knew he liked that. At least he had years ago when I was a child.

  I worked in silence, and he waited in silence. When it was finally ready, I wasn’t sure whether he was able to come to the table, so I carried two plates right to him in the sitting room.

  He took a good look at the food I’d handed him and shook his head. “Train’s got you all mixed up, girl. It ain’t breakfast time.” He lifted the fork to his mouth. “Still, I ain’t et nothing this good in a long time.”

  I smiled. I cleaned off my plate in peace. We didn’t say much more that night. He didn’t say he was glad I’d come, or ask about Eliza, even when I gave him the picture she’d drawn. I cleaned up the dishes and then started washing the countertops and table. When I looked in on him, he’d gone to sleep, so I swept and mopped the floor before taking a break again in the big rocker.

  This time he woke and turned his eyes to me. “Doctor’ll be here Monday.”

  “Does he come often?”

  “Twice a week. Used to be more, but I made him quit. Orville comes in every day. He’s my hired man. Been doing the harvest. He’s the one brought in the groceries.”

  “Good. I’m glad you’ve got help.”

  “He ain’t help. He’s working for his own benefit. Wants to buy this place. If he can keep it from falling down too bad, so much the better for him when I’m gone.”

  I was stunned to hear him speak of such things so casually, and surprised to find the words so deeply cutting to me.

  “What does the doctor say?”

  “Girl, I already told you it’s my heart!”

  “I know, but – ”

  “Ask him Monday if you gotta have every detail. I don’t wanna talk no more.”

  “All right.” I sat quietly rocking for a moment, and then got up again to clean the grime off the stovetop. In a little while I heard him snore. It was dark already. Maybe he’d sleep through the night this time. Quietly, I carried my bag upstairs, finding the dust and cobwebs thick, but otherwise the place almost as I’d last seen it.

  Father and Mother hadn’t shared a room in years, and I’d recognized the bed downstairs as the one that used to be in the room Father had claimed, that should have belonged to my brother James. Mother’s room would be on the right at the top of the stairs, and I turned to it first, perhaps trying to find some sparkle of her light in what had become such a dark and dismal place. Little had been touched there, though the bedcovers weren’t straight and the dresser top was bare of some of the trinkets I was used to seeing. The room made me sad, I’m not sure why, except that Mother had been sad here so often, and I missed her.

  I went to what had been my own room next door. It too was almost the same. I plopped my bag there on the foot of the bed, lit the lamp, and parted the curtains with a sigh. A twinkle of starlight met my gaze, and I thought of the times I’d stared out this window as a child, wishing my life could be different.

  “Leah!”

  The sudden call jolted me, it was so unexpected. Father hollering my name. What could be wrong? I ran down the stairs as fast as I could, nearly tripping at the bottom.

  “Yes? Father, what’s wrong?”

  He looked pale in the dimness. “I – I thought maybe you’d left.”

  My heart was pounding, and I didn’t know what to think of my large, frightening father suddenly seeming weak, even frightened, at the idea that he might have been left alone. “Oh no, Father. I’m staying the night. More than one night if it’s all right with you. I’d just gone to take my bag upstairs.”

  “All right then.” He settled his head onto the pillow again. “If that’s the way you want it.”

  “Is it all right if I sleep upstairs?”

  “’Course it’s all right. You don’t see no second bed down here, do you?”

  He seemed to be trying to sound as cantankerous as ever, but I could discern the softening
in his voice, in his heart. He was glad I was here, even if he’d never be able to say it. Marigold had been right about that. My presence was a comfort somehow, and I was glad.

  The next day was strange, and I wished I were in church with Eliza. Father didn’t want to talk to me. He only wanted to hear me working about the house and know that I was close by. He appreciated the food I made, and he ate it heartily, which I took to be a good sign. But he would not answer the simplest question about his ailment or much of anything else. I began to wonder why he’d asked me to come.

  Finally that night when I brought him ham and potatoes, he asked if I would mind if he sold the farm to Orville.

  “No, Father. Not if that’s what you want. It’s all right. And if he’s been a good worker, I suppose it’s his due.”

  “A good worker, I guess. But with him hoping it’ll all be his, I still say it’s to his own benefit.”

  “Has he been getting the crops to harvest for you?”

  “Three years now,” Father admitted. “Though I been able to do most things myself till this year. Still, he brings the harvest in, and he sells at a good price. Can’t complain for the yield of the crop this year, that I can say, though some farmers in the area have struggled a little.”

  “Orville must know his job well, then. Is he one of the Williams boys? I seem to remember an Orville in that family.”

  “That’s right. And he aims to marry up with that Markert girl. You remember her? They’re wanting to raise ’em a family here, I guess.”

  I took a deep breath. It was with mixed feelings that I thought of my family home being sold. But it was no more than right. Inevitable. I could hardly tell him I’d rather keep it for myself. It was too much for Eliza and me to maintain, and he didn’t want Eliza here anyway. He still hadn’t spoken of her.

  “What are you doing in Illinois, anyway?” he finally asked.

  “Upkeep at a boardinghouse,” I told him for lack of a better answer. “Cleaning and laundry and such.”

  “Well. I guess that’s honest work.”

  Did he disapprove? I thought he might, but he hadn’t come flat out and railed over it like I might have expected. He was completely calm. But still I wondered.

  Only later did I consider that he might have been trying to figure out if I were established there, or if I might be willing to consider coming home.

  That night he didn’t snore as he’d done the previous night. For some reason it made me anxious, and I eased down the stairs gently several times just to check on him. His coarse breathing reassured me, and I would go back to bed, though I lay in the darkness, near tears from missing Eliza beside me. Finally I rose to the window, thinking of the silly song Marigold had taught her. The moon was bright outside my window, and it strangely made me smile.

  On Monday, I was anxious for the doctor’s arrival from the moment I got out of bed. But Father was testier than he had been and would not even tell me what time to expect him.

  “Go find Orville!” he shouted. “Tell him I want him to scythe the grass in my front yard. I am not growin’ a hay field!”

  “Yes, sir,” I answered, though I wasn’t sure at all where to find Orville.

  I walked out to the barn, taking the time to pet Skeeter again on the way. It looked a little wind-whipped and bare of some of the rusted old implements that used to sit gathering dust in the stalls.

  But there was no hired man here. Only a barn cat, with a very mangled field mouse in its jaws. I didn’t recognize the cat, but figured it was surely a descendent of Jewels, my favorite pet as a child.

  I walked through the orchard, where most of the trees were already bare and showed the handiwork of the hired man better than anywhere else. They were neatly pruned and cared for, just as Father had implied. No reason not to expect that there’d been a decent crop. Finally I saw a tall skinny fellow in the distance, digging by hand in the potato field.

  “Hello!” I called. “Are you Orville?”

  He stopped. He stared a moment, and he started walking toward me, shovel in hand. “Late crop,” he explained when he was close enough. “I like to stagger the plantings so there’s harvest every week or so till frost.”

  “Orville Williams? I’m Leah Wiskirk Breckenridge.”

  “Oh yes. Glad to see you again. Heard you might be coming.”

  He looked terribly nervous.

  “You’ve done a fine job with the orchard.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Father would like you to see to some mowing in the front yard. Does he normally ask you to do things outside of the orchard or fields?”

  “Not every day, ma’am. Just every time he takes a notion.”

  I smiled a little. I could definitely picture that, and I hoped Father hadn’t been too hard.

  “I’ll get right to it. Thanks for coming all the way out here to tell me.”

  “It’s all right. It was nice to walk through the orchard again anyway.”

  He started walking back with me, still seeming awfully anxious. “You like the orchard real well then?” he asked.

  “I always have. Something about fruit trees that makes me smile. Unless of course, Father’s yelling at me to get out of them.”

  I don’t know why I’d told him that. It wasn’t the sort of thing you talk about with a near stranger. But this was not a normal circumstance, and I guess I didn’t care about behaving according to convention.

  “Think you might like to be moving back home, then?”

  Here was that same idea again. “I haven’t thought much about it,” I answered honestly. “But you’d rather like to claim the farm for yourself, I understand. Right?”

  He nearly dropped the shovel he’d carried. “Uh – yeah, if it don’t bother you none, that is. It suits my purpose. I know I could make a decent go a’ things here. I been doin’ it. Or close as I could come to it in the circumstance. And it’s less than three miles from the folks that’s gonna be my in-laws. That’s kinda important to Olivia right now.”

  “Olivia Markert?”

  “Yeah. Maybe you know we’re engaged.”

  “My father mentioned that.”

  “I’d pay a fair price. I understand good value.”

  “Of course. But it’s really my father’s decision.”

  He stopped and seemed to have to swallow hard to get the next words out. “Pardon me for saying, ma’am. But I ain’t real sure he’s gonna make the decision. I’ve asked him twice, and he says the place is his till he’s dead and gone ’cause he’s not gonna live nowhere else.”

  “That sounds like him.”

  “But the doctor says he could go any day.”

  My heart nearly skipped a beat at such words.

  “Beggin’ your pardon, ma’am. But I’m hurtin’ to know what I should do. I’m needin’ to make a way awful bad for my future family, but I ain’t even been paid in a month. I ain’t meanin’ to complain. I just need to know where I stand.”

  I’d had no idea that I’d have to cope with a circumstance like this. I assured him that I’d see to it he was paid fairly for his time. “Do you have a record of your hours? And your previous pay?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I been jottin’ it all down. And the previous wages oughta be in your father’s books. I don’t know where those are, but they’d have any verification you need, on my previous work.”

  “Thank you, sir. I’ll see if I can find them.”

  “He may be strapped for cash right now, ma’am, and I could understand that, with paying the doctor and everything. I’d just appreciate a paper or something, testifying to what I’m owed.”

  “All right. I don’t see a problem with that. But I will have to speak with my father.”

  He fumbled a bit with his hat. “He may not like that. He . . . uh . . . he seems to think I don’t need paid no more if I aim to make this place mine. And I’d agree, I would, ma’am, if there was an agreement to that effect. But there ain’t been none for certain, so I gots no guarantees.”r />
  I nodded. “I’ll talk to him.”

  “I’m wishin’ him well. I really am.”

  “Of course.”

  “And I ain’t meanin’ to complain.”

  “It’s all right. I understand.”

  I’d seen my father browbeat workers before, till they didn’t know from one day to the next what their wages were, or from one minute to the next if they still had a job. That this man had hung on for three years spoke well for him.

  I wondered how it might wear on him that he’d been asked to stop digging a cash crop and cut my father’s grass. Still I left him to the work and walked back to the house.

  “How long has it been since you paid Orville?” I questioned when I reached father’s bedside.

  “Why?”

  “Just wondering.”

  “I tol’ you. He’s working for hisself.”

  “Maybe. In a way, everybody does. But he’s also working for you and you have to pay his wages in a timely manner. What do you normally pay for a day?”

  “Get outta my house!” he suddenly roared at me. “You ain’t givin’ him my harvest money! You ain’t givin’ him a dime!”

  I could hear a vehicle pulling up outside, and I rushed to look out the door, hoping to see the doctor. And it was him, complete with black bag, dangling listening scope, and the same kind of hat as the doctor who’d come to treat the Kurchers.

  I hurried out to talk to him in the yard.

  “Leah?” He seemed very pleased.

  “Yes, sir. Can you tell me how he is?” I hoped the man would understand that I needed to talk to him a few minutes away from my father’s earshot. He seemed to.

  “I’m glad you’ve come. I wasn’t sure you would.”

  “But what’s the problem?”

  “I believe he has an enlarged heart. A very irregular rhythm. But he’s doing much better the last couple of weeks. Before that, I wasn’t sure he’d last this long. He’s strong. He may go on for some time. But the condition is serious. And not treatable. He’s already had more than one episode that nearly cost his life. I’ve ordered him to rest because he may not survive another one.”

  “What sort of episode?”

  “A sudden collapse. An attack of the weakened heart muscle. Both times that young hired man carried him into the house and ran to fetch me.”