An Imperfection in the Kitchen Floor

by Heather Greenleaf

  Corey came home with two hoagies. “You have to call them that now. We are in Philadelphia,” he said. “And, here, we call them hoagies.”

  “Got it,” I said. “Hoagies. Wawa.” The words felt silly in my mouth, but whatever they were called, Corey was right. They tasted good. After our sandwiches, Corey and I slept hard in our bed in his aunt’s home.

  ●●●

  The following Monday, Corey began his new job at his financial firm. I kissed him goodbye and was left alone to begin unpacking and settling in. I looked around. Years of dust fluttered in the morning light. The thought of our baby living here made me slightly ill. Though I felt desperately tired in these last weeks of pregnancy, I was compelled to clean the house. I started in the kitchen, wiping down all the counters and sweeping up the floor. Mouse turds turned my stomach and I made a mental note to call an exterminator as I splashed hot soapy water around with my mop. The recessed crack in the tile remained dingy and dark, a century of grime hiding inside.

  I moved to the bathroom, banishing the stains from the toilet, sink, and tub. I wiped all of the baseboards and chased cobwebs and frighteningly large spiders with my vacuum.

  I sat down, exhausted, fearing I was overdoing it. I rested my hand on my huge tummy. I fired up my laptop and entered our new Wi-Fi password. After sending a few emails and checking Facebook, I knew I couldn’t stall much longer. I made the phone call I had been dreading.

  I picked up the phone and dialed my father and stepmother in Florida. They had married shortly after my mother passed away. My stepmother had three sons, Nicholas, Joseph, and Michael. She had raised them herself, gritting through many tough times, and always called them by their full first names. Beware the person who tried to call them Nick, Joe, or Mike in her presence. Her relationship with them was almost Oedipal in its mutual devotion. There was no room for a daughter in the family; I was as unwanted as Cinderella.

  My father, perhaps always secretly yearning for sons, was enamored with her trio as well. Dad was kind to a fault, and like milk toast, was absorbed easily into their life. But, without my mother, Dad was all I had, and so I called him now, hoping he or the machine would answer. My stepmother answered, breathless, annoyed before I had even said a word.

  “Hello, Molly. Your father is out golfing, and I’m here with a repairman. I can’t talk long. I have to get him settled and then go out soon.”

  “Okay. I won’t keep you; I just wanted to give you our new address and let you know our phone is up and running.”

  “Yes, yes, let me get a pen.”

  After I relayed our new contact information, I ventured, “Only two weeks until the baby arrives. Maybe you and Dad could come up and visit once he is born? Last time I talked to Dad, he said he would talk to you about it.”

  A deep, overwrought sigh. “I wish you would discuss plans with me first. Your father always commits before knowing what is on our schedule. We are very busy with the boys.”

  I cringed. She said “the boys,” as if they were children. Nicholas was over fifty with teenage children, and Joseph and Michael were close behind in age.

  “Nicholas is coming down with our grandchildren,” my stepmother continued, “and staying the entire month of July. We are traveling back to Maryland with them so we can stay with the kids while he and Barbara take a two-week vacation.”

  “Maybe after that?” I asked. “Philadelphia is just a few hours north of Maryland.” I never seemed to beat “the boys” to the scheduling board; it was always full by the time I tried to add my name. Even now, with my baby arriving—my father’s first actual grandchild—there was a six-week waiting period to see him.

  “Maybe,” she said. “We might have to head right back home to Florida. Joseph and Ann are talking about coming down sometime in August. And we’re waiting to hear about Michael’s vacation plans. I’ll let your father know you called.” And then she hung up on me.

  When would I learn? She hadn’t asked how I was feeling, or whether or not I was ready for the baby to arrive. I was certain they wouldn’t come visit. Though she eagerly included my father when she said “our” grandchildren, I couldn’t imagine her ever claiming my child as her own. She might not even tell my father that I had called. Though Corey and I joked about her often, the sting of my unimportance in her eyes was still there, and I missed the way my father was before my mother passed and my stepmother and “the boys” came into his life.

  I had missed my mother throughout my pregnancy. When the doctors asked if there was any family pregnancy history they should know about, I had little knowledge and it was too late to ask. Though my colleagues clucked appropriately at the fuzzy black and white image, and what may or may not have been a foot on the ultrasound photo, I missed being able to show it to my mother. I wished she had been there to see my belly get rounder and my face flatten out. I wondered if the baby would take after her in any way. When shopping for baby items, I was nearly brought to tears when I passed a onesie that read Grandma’s favorite. I put it in the cart and bought it, but didn’t show Corey. It was still tucked away somewhere in one of the unpacked boxes.

  ●●●

  Overnight, my water broke. Corey rushed me to Abington Hospital. After hours of Pitocin-induced horror, and then hours of epidural ease, the baby arrived. Corey and I wept. We named him Hayden and were overwhelmed by the enormity, the utter awesomeness, of this tiny baby.

  The day we spent at the hospital was a quiet one. Hank and Jocelyn were away at a baseball tournament, and my phone conversation with my father was brief. Nurses bustled in and out to tell us what to do and when, and I was content for hours to just look at Hayden. I fiddled with his fingers, touched his cheeks, and felt relief when he latched on to my breast.

  I looked at the nurse holding our discharge papers with disbelief when she said we could take him home. My eyes were no longer full of wonder; they were full of fear. The idyllic bubble of the hospital room burst too soon, and we were shooed out into the shocking sun as if newly birthed ourselves.

  Back at the house, Corey took a week off and despite my self-doubt, the first few days were fuzzy and warm. Hayden slept most of the time. Corey seemed to take the dirty diapers, the late feedings, and the spit-ups all in stride.

  At the beginning of our relationship, Corey and I took a camping trip. We went with a few of Corey’s friends who were all fairly outdoorsy. Though I wasn’t, I wanted him—and his friends—to think I was adventurous, outgoing, and fun. After pitching the tents, the group scattered, lounging on the rocky banks of a small stream. Corey sat next to me, casually hugging his bent knees. Exhausted from the tent-pitching effort, I laid back, propping myself up on my elbows, eyes closed and face turned up to the sun.

  After a few moments, I opened my eyes and gazed over at Corey. There was a small blue and black salamander skittering over his shoulder blade toward his neck. I shrieked, startling both the salamander and Corey. The lizard froze in fear, and though Corey froze too, he was smiling. He glanced over his shoulder, just watching the shine of the lizard’s blue spots on slick black skin. He stayed perfectly still, allowing the salamander to stay as long as it pleased. I was thankful that the lizard hadn’t chosen me as a perch, as the presence of a lizard on my back would have brought me to my feet, frantically brushing it away, dancing and screaming until it was gone, exposing me as the opposite of adventurous, outgoing, and fun.

  Corey was like this with Hayden too, calm and still. But too soon, the week ended and Corey went back to work. And Hayden began to cry. All of the time.

  Through a thick veil of exhaustion and frustration, I roamed the house with a wailing baby in my arms, avoiding the unpacked boxes. The shelves held unfamiliar books. The rooms were crowded with strangers’ furniture and dark still life paintings. And the baby, the only thing surely mine, was making me feel like an utter failure. I wondered if I had always been pretending to be more competent than I actually was—someone who could camp, someone who could revamp an old ho
use, someone who was capable of caring for a newborn. The sun shone in the windows and the birds sang in the sycamores, but I couldn’t appreciate any of it. This wasn’t my house.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Tish, 1916

  The March wind whipped down our narrow street, threatening to take my felt hat with it. I secured the buttons on my wool coat and gripped my cracked leather satchel. The lifting air rustled my bag and the metal tubes of paint inside the bag clinked against themselves. My chest seemed to close with the cold but I stood there, glaring at my fate, and my father, as he and a hired man carried a parade of our possessions down the steep steps of our row home.

  Papa was a small, wiry man, and he grunted beneath the weight of my sister Ivy’s large trunk. His mustache was wet with condensation, his serious brow wrinkled with the work. I shifted my weight from foot to foot on the cobblestones, trying to keep warm. My free hand fiddled with my long, dark braid, and I gazed up into the empty Philadelphia air knowing, no dreading, that the sky would look equally dreck at our new home only fourteen miles north. I wondered what the sky looked like out West today. Was the sun coming up and dying the horizon deep pink and gold? I exhaled, sending a plume of breath into the air that matched the titanium white atmosphere.

  The front door of our townhouse stood ajar and when the wind calmed, I could hear snatches of what Mama was saying inside. “Gather your things… go outside with Tish… Stop moaning… you will be able to see William as frequently as ever…”

  Ivy grumbled something that blew away on the cold breeze.

  Mama appeared in the doorway, her tiny frame wrapped in a shawl. She continued, “The trolley can take William straight to Willow Grove each Saturday. You will be married by summer, and then you will have the rest of your lives to be together. You know your father is anxious to have the business up and running by the time the park opens.”

  Our new shop, Hess’s Delicatessen, was, for my father, the culmination of years of hard work at the Navy Yard. Papa had arrived here from Germany in his youth and constantly talked about moving out of the crowded and dirty city. It showed prosperity, Papa said, truly proved that a man had made it. When he announced this past December that he had found not only a space for his delicatessen, but a building lot for a house, Mama jumped up and hugged him like it was the best present she had ever received. Ivy stormed out of the room. Papa stood proudly in front of our Christmas tree, decorated with cranberries and popcorn, arms stretched out to display the blueprint of an efficient floor plan that appealed to his everlasting German practicality. Papa pointed out the high ceilings and large windows, saying they gave a man room to breathe, as well as raise a growing family.

  The house had all the modern conveniences, and now that it was finally ready, we would move to Willow Grove, despite the winter weather. It was a small town, interesting only because of world famous Willow Grove Park. With roller coasters roaring throughout the day and John Philip Sousa performing each night, the park attracted thousands of Philadelphians through its gates each week. And, Papa hoped, through his shop door as well. He, Mama, and, upon his insistence, I too, would be standing ready to serve them.

  While I didn’t indulge in sturm und drang like Ivy, it was no secret I did not want to move to Willow Grove or work in the delicatessen. It was Papa’s dream and I did not begrudge him it, but it was not mine. I had little choice. I was only sixteen and stuck under Papa’s strict rule.

  I stood now in the cold, swallowing my resentment, and silently promising myself that I wouldn’t be working at the shop for long. Willow Grove was simply a pawn’s sacrifice on the way to checkmate. I only needed to wait to reach the endgame. In two short years, the shop would be up and running, successful enough to hire help. I would be eighteen, they would no longer need me, and I could pack up my easel and head west.

  Papa’s sharp call to Mama startled me. “Laurel, we are all packed and ready to go!”

  Mama and Ivy descended the steps carrying small traveling cases. They were equally lovely versions of one another, one lithe and youthful, the other refined and wise. At nineteen, Ivy was well used to being lovely. Her auburn hair shone red even in the lowest light and her features were fine, almost birdlike. Mama had bestowed upon Ivy her Botticelli good looks, perhaps leaving too little remaining space to add her kind and generous nature. With Ivy’s beauty came a laziness for everything except maintaining it, and when she didn’t get what she wanted, her gorgeous indignation seemed to engulf our family.

  “But Mama,” Ivy whined.

  Papa clapped the horse’s hindquarters and said farewell to the man driving the cart. With it on its way, Papa turned and raised his hand to stop Ivy. “Enough. We will host a beautiful wedding out in the fresh country air. Our new house will have more room than here for a proper party. Now climb into the car. We should be on our way as well,” he said.

  “Oliver!” Mama called.

  My three-year old brother, a brick of a boy, shouldered his way out the row house door. Clumsy and unaware of his own body proportions, he joined us on the street. Quickly, I grabbed his arm, his bulk squirming to be free.

  “Isn’t this exciting, Ollie?” I asked, opening the touring car door and gently coaxing him, and possibly myself, toward the backseat of our Ford. Mama settled into the front seat and Papa went to the front to wind up the motor.

  Ivy huffed on the street next to me, “Aren’t you worried? How will you ever meet a suitable man out in Willow Grove?”

  Each engine crank echoed this oft-repeated conversation. Around and around. Again and again. My lack of suitors was distressing to Ivy, especially when it bolstered her own arguments against moving. I clenched my jaw against her insistence that my entire worth was wrapped up in to my ability to marry well. “If you don’t find someone,” she continued, “you’ll have to work in Papa’s shop forever. You can forget about painting anything else besides that roller coaster.”

  What did she know? The world was changing for women, and the country was opening up. More and more women were gaining independence, fighting to get the vote, putting off marriage, experiencing life for themselves, outside of the domestic realm. It was easier than ever to book a ticket on a westbound train, adventure deep into the United States comfortably and safely within a Pullman car. My life would be what I wanted it to be. I began to tell her this again, as I had countless times before, but she climbed quickly into the car. I sighed and followed. The engine caught and began bouncing. Papa climbed in also, shutting his door against the cold. Inside the Ford with rest of my family, I remained silent.

  The few times I had ventured to discuss my plans with Papa, he had forbidden them. Because I was a girl, I was to meet a man, get married, start a family. It was unsafe, and unseemly, for a woman to travel alone out West, he argued, saying I’d be robbed and left for dead before I reached the great Mississippi. Ivy knew this, so she raised an eyebrow at me, daring me to refute her in front of Papa. Without a husband, Papa would never say yes.

  Mama turned, reached over her seat, and patted my knee. “I would like to paint the roller coaster,” she said. Painting was something she and I shared. She taught me, in fact. Mama indulged my desire in ways she could by purchasing me paint and taking me to art exhibitions featuring grand sweeping landscapes by American artists.

  As Papa turned the car off our narrow cobblestone alley onto Broad Street, Ivy continued her well-rehearsed diatribe, “Will Tish have to marry some farmhand? Are there any people of means way out here?”

  “Tish will be just fine,” Mama said, turning to us again. “There are plenty of young people to meet in Willow Grove. More and more houses are being built every week, and many families come up from the city for the entire summer. Oliver! Will you please stop squirming!”

  Removing his elbow from my side, I tried to turn Oliver’s attention out the window. The view changed from row houses and leafless trees to yellowed fields and the occasional bright stone house. We trundled along the serpentine street and sudd
enly found ourselves in our tiny new village. Bumping along the plank roads, Papa began pointing out the sights.

  “Welcome to Willow Grove. Welcome home. That is the post office,” he called out, pointing right. We all dutifully looked at the building, its flag out front frozen to the pole by blown ice.

  “And the train station.” He pointed to a small station house with platforms flanking the tracks. “And here on the left is the entrance to Willow Grove Park.”

  The gates were closed during the off-season, and a heavy chain locked them tight. Through the wrought iron bars, flat expanses of land were visible, along with crystal ice flats of a large, frozen lake. Beyond that stood the skeletons of the rides—a circle of wires holding up floating airships, and crisscrossed wooden beams supporting the rising hills of the roller coaster.

  “There it is, Tish. Your roller coaster,” Ivy said, a sly smile parting her lips.

  “And the shop! Our shop!” Papa said, slowing the car. A dark, unmarked storefront stood quietly between a barber shop and a bakery. The word SOLD blazed from a placard in the front window.

  “There’s the shop, Tish,” Ivy said, her vicious grin growing larger.

  We continued through town and past stately hotels and boarding houses, their pale columns and porches blending in with the graying snow on the ground. Heading up the hill, we followed trolley tracks that rutted the street below the ice. Within blocks, we turned off the main road into the Ferguson development tract. Newly delineated cinder roads squared off the lots, each empty hills of snow, except ours.

  Papa parked in front of the house and we gazed up at it from the car window. It stood close to the road, tall on a hill, with three stories overlooking the area.

  Papa spryly jumped out, instantly invigorated by the arrival at his new purchase. He ran around and opened the Ford’s doors for Mama and Oliver. Mama’s boot-clad foot stepped into the road, and then onto our sidewalk, holding the top of her hat against the wind as she tipped her head high to take in all that was newly ours.