Love Calling

by Janet Lee Barton

  Sam watched the passing landscape, not sure if he was happy to have this fairly wealthy neighborhood as his beat or if he’d have been happier to have the one that included the orphanage. What could really happen here that he’d be needed for? Oh, his supervisor had told him he’d be surprised when he’d asked him the question.

  “There are all kinds of crimes, Tucker. Some just aren’t as out in the open as others. You’ll be busy, I assure you.”

  Sam certainly hoped so. He wanted to make a difference in this city. The trolley slowed to a stop a few blocks away from the address Mrs. Robertson had given him, and he got off and headed up to the corner and then took a left on the side street. Maybe he should have worn his uniform, but he didn’t officially start working the beat until Monday, and he enjoyed wearing regular clothes as often as he could.

  He was proud to be a policeman under Commissioner Roosevelt, but there was still much work to do among the force to gain the trust of the people they were to protect. For much too long the corruption in the department had tainted what it was supposed to stand for. It’d been, and would continue to be, a challenge for years to come, but Sam hoped that one day the department would earn the trust it had tried to demand for so long.

  Sam glanced down at the paper in his hand and found he was standing right outside the Holloway town house. A nicely kept three-story brownstone, it was far removed from the homes he usually visited—and very much removed from where he’d grown up. Now he stood straight and tall, trying to regain the confidence he’d felt only an hour ago.

  He sent up a prayer. Lord, I really need to connect with some old friends now. You know how lonely I’ve been since Ann’s death. The few friends I’ve made since leaving the orphanage are married and have started their families, and I feel out of place most of the time. Please let Mrs. Robertson be right and let the girls be glad to see me.

  He reached out his hand to ring the bell and then quickly lowered it. Like I’m not going to feel out of place here? Sam shook off the discouraging thought. He’d be seeing the inside of these homes in the future. His first time might as well be in a home where old friends might welcome him. He rang the bell.

  The door was quickly answered by a portly man he assumed to be a butler. “Good afternoon, sir, what may I do for you?”

  Sam cleared his throat. “I was wondering if Miss Melrose and the Misses Chapman are available for a call?”

  “Might I ask who is calling, sir?”

  “You may tell them it’s Samuel Tucker.”

  The door opened wider. “Please come in and wait while I see if they are receiving visitors.”

  “Thank you.” Sam resisted the urge to chuckle. How things had changed for the girls. At the orphanage, someone would have called out, “Esther, Emma, Grace. . .Sam is here to see you!”

  But there was no yelling in this home, and he wondered if there ever had been. Yet he was not disappointed when Esther and her cousins hurried out of the room he presumed to be the parlor and rushed up to him. A man followed behind them, and he wondered if he might be Esther’s fiancé.

  “Sam Tucker! Is it really you?” Esther asked.

  She was as pretty as Sam remembered, but the one that caught his eye was Emma. She was no longer the child she’d been when he left the orphanage—nor for that matter was Grace. Now, it was Grace who was around the age he had been when he left, and Emma. . .had turned into a beauty. Her dark hair a cloud around her face, and her eyes the color of the sky on a cloudless day.

  “It is. And I do recognize you, Esther. You’re as pretty as ever.”

  “Thank you, Sam.” She turned to the man who’d moved closer to her. “Andrew, this is an old friend from the orphanage, Sam Tucker. Sam, this is my fiancé, Dr. Andrew Radcliff.”

  Sam grinned and held out his hand. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Radcliff. You are a fortunate man.”

  “Pleased to meet you, too, Mr. Tucker. I am blessed for sure.” Andrew smiled down at Esther and then nodded at Emma and Grace. “I can tell from the girls’ welcome it’s been awhile since they’ve seen you.”

  “It has, to my regret. And I’m not sure I would have recognized Emma and Grace if they weren’t here with Esther.”

  Grace giggled, and Emma smiled and said, “It’s good to see you haven’t changed a bit, Sam. Always something nice to say—at least to us.”

  “Please join us in the parlor. I’m afraid we all just up and left my aunt presiding over tea.”

  “Which is about to get cold, I might add.” An older woman Sam presumed to be Mrs. Holloway had come out of the parlor and made her way toward them. “Please, do join us, Mr. Tucker. I’ve heard your name mentioned by the girls. From the looks of it, they’ve all missed you.”

  “As I have them,” Sam admitted.

  “This is Mrs. Holloway, Sam,” Emma said. “She’s taken us all in and we love her very much.”

  “Pleased to meet you, ma’am.” Sam thought she might be in her fifties, but she was aging so gracefully it was hard to tell how old she might be.

  “Thank you. I’m pleased to meet you as well. And any friend of my girls is welcome here.”

  “That’s good to know.” Now that he’d connected with them again, he was going to make sure he stayed in contact.

  “In fact, I was just about to tell the girls that I’d had a telephone call from Mrs. Robertson this afternoon telling me that you might be stopping by. I’m glad you did.”

  “Thank you, ma’am. Mrs. Robertson told me you wouldn’t mind my stopping by.”

  “Not at all,” Mrs. Holloway said.

  “Come on, Sam. We have a lot to catch up on,” Grace said, putting a hand through his arm. He looked at Emma, and she slid her own hand through his other arm.

  Mrs. Holloway led the way, with Sam, Emma, and Grace behind her and Esther and her fiancé following behind.

  ❧

  Emma couldn’t believe Sam Tucker had shown up after all this time. She’d looked up to him when he’d still been at the orphanage. He’d always kept the other boys in line. But then he left and never came back to see them, and she’d been a bit heartbroken over it.

  He was even handsomer than she remembered, his dark auburn hair neat and trim and combed to the side, his brown eyes reminding her of the fudge they used to talk Mrs. Robertson into letting them make every once in a while. She’d heard he’d gotten married. Was he still?

  “Please take a seat, Mr. Tucker,” Mrs. Holloway said.

  He looked around and took a seat on one end of a couch.

  “Would you prefer tea or coffee? We have both.”

  “I’d like coffee, please.”

  She poured him a cup and handed it to Emma.

  “If I remember right, you like your coffee black, no cream, no sugar?” Emma asked.

  “You remember well.” He accepted the cup from her before she took a seat on the other end of the sofa.

  Once everyone was settled with their refreshment, Esther turned to Sam. “We heard you’d gotten married, is that true?”

  Sam’s smiling demeanor suddenly changed, and Emma saw the sorrow in his eyes.

  “I did get married. But. . .” He stopped and cleared his throat. “My wife was killed in an accident only months after our wedding.”

  A collective gasp was heard. Tears sprung to Emma’s eyes. “Oh Sam, I’m so sorry. I. . .” She didn’t know quite what to say next.

  “Please accept our condolences, Mr. Tucker,” Mrs. Holloway said. “Losing a mate is tragic, no matter how long one has been married, but especially hard, I would think, when you’ve just begun your life together.”

  Sam nodded. “Thank you, ma’am, Emma, and all of you. It hasn’t been easy. Ann was a wonderful woman, and I miss her dearly. It’s been over a year now, but it still feels like yesterday at times.”

  “How did—?”

  “Grace!” Emma scolded. “I don’t believe you asked that.”

  “It’s all right, Emma. I can talk about it now. She was
killed trying to cross Broadway. Witnesses said an omnibus came around a corner at breakneck speed, so fast that it turned over and pinned Ann and another person underneath.” Sam paused before continuing. “I was told she died right away.”

  Emma fought back tears. How tragic. And to think they’d only been married such a short time. Her heart broke for him.

  “I’m sorry, Sam,” Grace said. “I shouldn’t have made you think about it again.”

  Sam smiled and shook his head. “Don’t worry, Grace. I would have told you all in time, and I think about it often anyway. But, I didn’t come here to make you all sad. I just wanted to catch up with what has been going on in your lives. I can see they’ve changed quite a bit.”

  “Oh yes, thanks to Mrs. Holloway, our lives have changed more than we ever thought possible,” Emma said.

  “It started when Mrs. Holloway offered to be my benefactor and send me to the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy,” Esther said.

  “I remember you wanted to make medicine so that people didn’t have to die like all of your parents did,” Sam said.

  Emma was struck by how good his memory was. He seemed to remember a lot about them, but then she remembered a lot about him, too. He’d always been one of her favorites, and deep down she remembered having a few girlish daydreams about marrying him one day. Not that she’d ever tell anyone.

  “I did,” Esther continued. “And Mrs. Holloway made that dream come true. Then, when I came home to start my apprenticeship, she realized that Emma would have to leave the orphanage when she turned eighteen and that would leave Grace alone. We know Mrs. Robertson would have taken good care of her, but the thought of Grace being by herself broke both mine and Emma’s hearts.”

  “And I had no idea what I was going to do,” Emma said. “I didn’t really want to go to school like Esther, but I had to find a job and a place to live.”

  “Then Mrs. Holloway answered everyone’s prayers by asking us to come live with her,” Grace finished.

  “That is what Mrs. Robertson told me. What a wonderful thing to do, Mrs. Holloway,” Sam said.

  “I’m the one who has been blessed by having them here with me, Mr. Tucker. I only wish I’d done it much earlier in their lives.”

  “And now you see why we love her so much,” Emma said.

  Sam nodded. “I do. And Esther, how do you like being a pharmacist?”

  “I love it, Sam.”

  “It seems to be the perfect match to Dr. Radcliff’s profession.”

  Everyone laughed, and Sam looked at Emma. “What did I say?”

  “It’s not you. We’re just remembering how it was when they first met. Andrew did not think a woman should be entering what he considered a man’s field.”

  “Oh, I see,” Sam said.

  Emma couldn’t help but wonder if he felt the same way about where a woman’s place was as the two men exchanged glances. “But he’s come around and even defends her choice now.”

  Andrew grinned and shrugged. “Esther and her cousins helped me see the error of my ways. Many of us hold on to the long-held ideas in our families, but I’m thankful to have parents who can admit when they’ve been wrong, too.”

  Emma knew Sam had always been one to speak his mind, and she waited to see if he’d say anything about how blessed Andrew had been to have his parents at all.

  But Sam only nodded and took a sip of coffee before turning to Grace. “I assume you are busy with high school. You go to the one a few blocks from here?”

  “I do. I’ve made friends already.”

  “And Emma, Mrs. Robertson said you work for the New York Telephone Company. How do you like it?”

  “I like it very much.”

  “That’s good.”

  “What about you, Sam? We have no idea what field of work you decided to go into.” Emma felt it was time to find out more about him.

  “I guess it’s time to confess. I’m a policeman. In fact, this is my new beat.”

  Few things he could have said would have surprised Emma more. “A policeman? Sam, why in the world would you want to be a policeman? We all know how corrupt that department has been.”

  “Has been is right, Emma. But under Commissioner Roosevelt, it started getting cleaned up—and hopefully, that will continue under the new and future superintendents. There’s still much to do of course. But those of us who want to see the department be what it should be are willing to work toward making it become one the people of this city can trust.”

  Emma didn’t know what to say. They’d all decried the department when they lived at the orphanage—and Sam’s voice was one of the loudest. Her sister and cousin seemed as much at a loss for words as she was.

  Finally, it was Mrs. Holloway who spoke. “There has been much change to the department under Commissioner Roosevelt. I’m hopeful that the changes he’s implemented will continue under others, and I admire your willingness to help the commissioner improve the department, Mr. Tucker.”

  Sam looked relieved that the silence had been broken, and Emma felt bad that she’d contributed to his discomfort. She hadn’t meant to.

  “Thank you, ma’am. I believe I know why the girls are a bit taken aback.”

  Even in their rudeness, Sam managed to take up for them. He’d always been that way.

  “The policemen who patrolled the area around the orphanage were mean men, and we always got blamed for about anything that went wrong. And I didn’t have anything good to say about the department either. I can see why they would think it might be the last place I’d be employed.”

  “The very last place,” Esther said.

  Sam nodded. “I know. But when I left the orphanage, I wanted to do more than work the docks, and I didn’t have any training in much of anything, other than selling papers. I got a job delivering groceries, but I wanted more. Then I found out there were going to be big changes in the police department and decided I wanted to be part of them.”

  Emma’s heart was heavy. All the policemen she’d come into contact with had been bad. In fact, she’d never known a good cop in her life. The corruption in the department ran deep, and she doubted it would ever be eradicated. Oh, she’d heard things were getting cleaned up, but they always said that when someone new was in charge. Only now she prayed it was true—for Sam’s sake.

  “I wish you the best, Sam,” Esther spoke up. “I know the department is fortunate to have you. And please, forgive us for not being more enthused. I’m ashamed of myself. After all, I chose to go into a field few women are even interested in. And I know what it’s like to have people against what you feel called to do. You have my total support.”

  “Thank you, Esther. I appreciate that more than I can say.”

  “I’m glad our neighborhood is part of your beat. That means we’ll see you more often,” Grace said.

  “It’s always good to know the policemen patrolling one’s neighborhood, Mr. Tucker. I’m pleased it will be you,” Mrs. Holloway said. “You’ve barely begun to catch up with each other. Why don’t you stay and have dinner with us?”

  “Oh yes, Sam!” Grace said. “Please do.”

  “That is a wonderful idea, Mrs. Holloway. Thank you for suggesting it. Do stay, Sam. I’d like you to get to know Andrew better,” Esther said.

  “If you’re all sure, I’d love to,” Sam said.

  If he noticed that Emma hadn’t added her support, he didn’t say so—which made her feel even worse. She hated that he was a cop. It made her feel sick in the pit of her stomach. But Sam was Sam, after all. She forced the words out. “Please do join us, Sam.”

  three

  Emma watched Sam leave later that evening and felt horrible for treating him the way she had. He’d suffered so much in losing his wife, and then he’d obviously needed to seek out people he considered friends. Many of the ones who’d been in the orphanage at the same time he had, those who would be the same age, no longer lived in the area.

  But as he’d explained during dinner, he’d c
ome to realize that the only family he had were those he’d been raised with and his wife’s parents. And she’d let him down. Oh, Emma could hope he hadn’t noticed that she’d had little to say to him, but deep down she knew he had. She’d caught him looking her way several times during dinner.

  And if she thought Grace and Esther hadn’t noticed, she was wrong. They waited only until Sam had gone, Andrew had gone to the hospital to check on a patient, and Mrs. Holloway had headed upstairs, to let her know how they felt.

  “Emma, you were downright rude to Sam,” Esther chided. “I understand your concern for him, but don’t look down on him because he wants to help this city—no matter how much you think it is a lost cause.”

  “You probably made him feel unwelcome,” Grace said. “And I want him to come back. He’s always been like a big brother to me, and I’ve missed him!”

  “You certainly didn’t throw your support his way at the very first. You were as surprised as I was at his decision.”

  “But we did come around,” Esther said. “You didn’t say much of anything to him the rest of the evening.”

  “Mrs. Holloway and you two made it very clear he’s welcome here anytime. Sam will be back,” Emma said. She certainly hoped she wouldn’t be the cause of him staying away.

  “You don’t know that,” Grace said.

  “I’m sorry! I just couldn’t help it. I didn’t know what to say, feeling the way I do. And we haven’t seen Sam for several years. How do you know he hasn’t. . .” She couldn’t even form the words.

  “Changed so much he’ll be like all the other policemen we’ve known?” Esther seemed to know exactly was Emma was thinking.

  “Well, we don’t know.”

  “Oh Emma, really now? This is Sam we are talking about. He’s a good man. He was always the one who took up for anyone he thought was being treated unfairly. He’s not going to change that much.”