A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

by Betty Smith

  "Say something," demanded Francie. "Why don't you say something?"

  "What can I say?"

  "Say that I'm young--that I'll get over it. Go ahead and say it. Go ahead and lie."

  "I know that's what people say--you'll get over it. I'd say it, too. But I know it's not true. Oh, you'll be happy again, never fear. But you won't forget. Every time you fall in love it will be because something in the man reminds you of him."

  "Mother...."

  Mother! Katie remembered. She had called her own mother "Mama" until the day she had told her that she was going to marry Johnny. She had said, "Mother, I'm going to marry..." She had never said "Mama" after that. She had finished growing up when she stopped calling her mother "Mama." Now Francie...

  "Mother, he asked me to be with him for the night. Should I have gone?"

  Katie's mind darted around looking for words.

  "Don't make up a lie, Mother. Tell me the truth."

  Katie couldn't find the right words.

  "I promise you that I'll never go with a man without being married first--if I ever marry. And if I feel that I must--without being married, I'll tell you first. That's a solemn promise. So you can tell me the truth without worrying that I'll go wrong if I know it."

  "There are two truths," said Katie finally. "As a mother, I say it would have been a terrible thing for a girl to sleep with a stranger--a man she had known less than forty-eight hours. Horrible things might have happened to you. Your whole life might have been ruined. As your mother, I tell you the truth.

  "But as a woman..." she hesitated. "I will tell you the truth as a woman. It would have been a very beautiful thing. Because there is only once that you love that way."

  Francie thought, "I should have gone with him then. I'll never love anyone as much again. I wanted to go and I didn't go and now I don't want him that way anymore because she owns him now. But I wanted to and I didn't and now it's too late." She put her head down on the table and wept.

  After a while, Katie said, "I got a letter, too."

  Her letter had come several days ago but she had been waiting for the right time to mention it. She decided that this was a good time.

  "I got a letter," she repeated.

  "Who...who wrote?" sobbed Francie.

  "Mr. McShane."

  Francie sobbed louder.

  "Aren't you interested?"

  Francie tried to stop crying. "All right. What does he say?" she asked listlessly.

  "Nothing. Except he's coming to see us next week." She waited. Francie showed no further sign of interest. "How would you like Mr. McShane for a father?"

  Francie's head jerked up. "Mother! A man writes that he's coming to the house. Right away you think things. What makes you think you know everything all the time?"

  "I don't know. I don't know anything, really. I just feel. And when the feeling is strong enough, then I just say I know. But I don't. Well, how would you like him as a father?"

  "After the botch I've made of my own life," said Francie bitterly (and Katie didn't smile), "I'm the last person to hand out advice."

  "I'm not asking for your advice. Only I'd know better what to do if I knew how my children felt about him."

  Francie suspected that her mother's talking about McShane was a trick to divert her thoughts and she was angry because the trick had almost worked.

  "I don't know, Mother. I don't know anything. And I don't want to talk about anything any more. Please go away. Please go away and let me alone."

  Katie went back to bed.

  Well, a person can cry only so long. Then he has to do something else with his time. It was five o'clock. Francie decided it was no use going to bed; she'd have to get up again at seven. She discovered that she was very hungry. She had had nothing to eat since noon the day before, except a sandwich between the day and night shift. She made a pot of fresh coffee, some toast, and scrambled a couple of eggs. She was astonished at how good everything tasted. But while she was eating, her eyes went to the letter and the tears came again. She put the letter in the sink and set a match to it. Then she turned on the faucet and watched the black ashes go down the drain. She resumed her breakfast.

  Afterwards she got her box of writing paper from the cupboard and sat down to write a letter. She wrote:

  Dear Ben: you said I was to write if ever I needed you. So I'm writing....

  She tore the sheet in half.

  "No! I don't want to need anybody. I want someone to need me...I want someone to need me."

  She wept again, but not so hard this time.

  54

  IT WAS THE FIRST TIME FRANCIE HAD SEEN MCSHANE WITHOUT HIS uniform. She decided that he looked very impressive in his expensively tailored double-breasted gray suit. Of course he wasn't as good-looking as Papa had been; he was taller and more massive. But he was handsome in his own way, decided Francie, even though his hair was gray. But gosh, he was awful old for mother. True, mother wasn't so young, either. She was going on thirty-five. Still that was much younger than fifty. Anyhow, no woman need be ashamed to have McShane for a husband. While he looked exactly what he was, a shrewd politician, his voice was gentle when he spoke.

  They were having coffee and cake. With a pang, Francie noticed that McShane was sitting in her father's place at the table. Katie had just finished telling him all that had happened since Johnny died. McShane seemed amazed at the progress they had made. He looked at Francie.

  "So this slip of a girl got herself to college last summer!"

  "And she's going again this summer," announced Katie proudly.

  "There's wonderful for you!"

  "And she works in the bargain and earns twenty dollars a week now."

  "All that and good health, too?" he asked in honest amazement.

  "The boy is halfway through high school."

  "No!"

  "And he works at this and that afternoons and evenings. Sometimes he earns as much as five dollars a week outside of school."

  "A fine lad. One of the finest of lads. And look at the health of him--would you now."

  Francie wondered why he commented so much on the health which they themselves always took for granted. Then she remembered about his own children; how most of them had been born but to sicken and die before they grew up. No wonder he thought healthiness such a remarkable thing.

  "And the baby?" he inquired.

  "Go get her, Francie," said Katie.

  The baby was in her crib in the front room. It was supposed to be Francie's room but all had agreed that the baby needed to sleep where there was air. Francie picked up the sleeping child. She opened her eyes and instantly was ready for anything.

  "Bye-bye, Fran-nee? Park? Park?" she asked.

  "No, sweet. Just an introduction to a man."

  "Man?" said Laurie doubtfully.

  "Yes. A great big man."

  "Big man!" repeated the child happily.

  Francie brought her out to the kitchen. The baby was truly a beautiful thing to see. She had a fresh dewy look in her pink flannel nightgown. Her hair was a mass of soft black curls. Her widely set apart dark eyes were luminous and there was a dusky rose color in her cheeks.

  "Ah, the baby, the baby," crooned McShane. " 'Tis a rose she is. A wild rose."

  "If Papa were here," thought Francie, "he'd start to sing, 'My Wild Irish Rose.'" She heard her mother sigh and wondered whether she, too, was thinking....

  McShane took the baby. The child sat on his knees, stiffened her back away from him and stared at him doubtfully. Katie hoped she wouldn't cry.

  "Laurie!" she said. "Mr. McShane. Say 'Mr. McShane.'"

  The child lowered her head, looked up through her lashes, smiled knowingly and shook her head, "no."

  "No may-mane," she stated. "Man!" she shouted triumphantly. "Big man!" She smiled at McShane and said wheedlingly, "Take Laurie bye-bye? Park? Park?" Then she rested her cheek against his coat and closed her eyes.

  "Aroon, aroon," McShane crooned.

&nb
sp; The child slept in his arms.

  "Mrs. Nolan, you're wonderin' why I came tonight. Let your wonderin' be over. I came to ask a personal question." Francie and Neeley got up to leave. "No. Don't be leavin,' chilthern. The question would be concernin' you as well as your mother." They sat down again. He cleared his throat. "Mrs. Nolan, time has passed since your husband--God rest his soul...."

  "Yes. Two and a half years. God rest his soul."

  "God rest his soul," echoed Francie and Neeley.

  "And my wife--'tis a year since she's been gone, God rest her soul."

  "God rest her soul," echoed the Nolans.

  "I have been waitin' many years and now the time has come when 'tis no longer disrespect to the dead to speak out.

  "Katherine Nolan, I'm askin' to keep company with you. Object, a weddin' in the fall."

  Katie looked quickly at Francie and frowned. What was the matter with Mother anyhow? Francie wasn't even thinking of laughing.

  "I am in a position to take care of you and the three chilthern. With my pension and salary and income from real estate in Woodhaven and Richmond Hill, I have over ten thousand dollars a year. I have insurance, too. I offer to put the boy and girl through college and I promise to be a faithful husband in the future as I was in the past."

  "Have you thought this over, Mr. McShane?"

  "I don't need to be thinkin'. Sure didn't I make up me mind five years ago when I saw you first at the Mahoney Outin'? 'Twas then I asked the girl if it was her mother you were."

  "I am a scrubwoman without education." She stated it as a fact, not an apology.

  "Education! And sure, who was it taught me to read and write? Nobody but meself."

  "But a man like you--in public life--needs a wife who knows social business--who can entertain his influential business friends. I'm not that kind of a woman."

  "My office is where I do my business entertainin'. My home is where I live. Now I'm not meanin' you wouldn't be a credit to me--you'd be a credit to a better man: But I'm needin' no woman to help me out in my business. I can handle that meself, thank you. Need I be sayin' I love you..." he hesitated before calling her by her first name "...Katherine? And is it time you want to think it over?"

  "No. I don't need time to think it over. I will marry you, Mr. McShane.

  "Not for your income. Although I'm not overlooking that. Ten thousand a year's a lot of money. But so is one thousand to people like us. We've had little money and are well trained in doing without it. It's not for sending the children to college. Your help will make it so easy. But without help at all, I knew we'd manage some way. It's not for your grand public position although it'll be fine to have a husband to be proud of.

  "I will marry you because you are a good man and I'd like to have you for my husband."

  It was true. Katie had made up her mind to marry him--if he asked her--simply because life was incomplete without a man to love her. It had nothing to do with her love for Johnny. She'd always love him. Her feeling for McShane was quieter. She admired and respected him and she knew she'd be a good wife to him.

  "Thank you, Katherine. Sure it's little enough I'm givin' in exchange for a pretty young wife and three healthy chilthern," he said in sincere humility.

  He turned to Francie. "As the eldest, do you be approvin'?"

  Francie looked at her mother who seemed to be waiting for her to speak. She looked at her brother. He nodded.

  "I think my brother and I would like to have you for a...." Tears came into her eyes as she thought of her father and she couldn't say that next word.

  "Now, now," said McShane soothingly, "I'll not have you worryin'." He turned to Katie.

  "I'm not askin' that the two oldest call me 'father.' They had a father and he as fine a lad as God ever made--the way he was always singin'."

  Francie felt her throat tightening.

  "And I won't be askin' that they take my name--Nolan bein' the fine name it is.

  "But this little one I'm holdin'--the one who never looked on a father's face: Would you be lettin' her call me father, and lettin' me legally adopt her and give her the name that you and I will be carryin' together?"

  Katie looked at Francie and Neeley. How would they take it--their sister called McShane instead of Nolan? Francie nodded approval. Neeley nodded approval.

  "We will give you the child," said Katie.

  "We can't call you 'Father,'" said Neeley suddenly. "But we'll call you 'Dad,' maybe."

  "I'm thankin' you," said McShane simply. He relaxed and smiled at them. "Now I'm wonderin' if I could smoke me pipe?"

  "Why, you could have smoked anytime without asking," said Katie in surprise.

  "I didn't want to be takin' privileges before I was entitled to them," he explained.

  Francie took the sleeping baby from him in order to let him smoke.

  "Help me put her to bed, Neeley."

  "Why?" Neeley was thoroughly enjoying himself and didn't want to leave.

  "To fix the blankets in the crib. Somebody's got to do it while I hold her." Didn't Neeley know anything? Didn't he know that maybe McShane and mother wanted to be alone for a minute, at least?

  In the darkness of the front room, Francie whispered to her brother, "What do you think of it?"

  "It's sure a good break for Mama. Of course he isn't Papa...."

  "No. No one will ever be...Papa. But aside from that, he's a nice man, though."

  "Laurie's going to have a mighty easy life all right."

  "Annie Laurie McShane! She'll never have the hard times we had, will she?"

  "No. And she'll never have the fun we had, either."

  "Gosh! We did have fun, didn't we, Neeley?"

  "Yeah!"

  "Poor Laurie," said Francie pityingly.

  Book Five

  55

  FRANCIE JUMPED AS SOMEONE TAPPED HER ON THE SHOULDER. THEN she relaxed and smiled. Of course! It was one o'clock in the morning, she was through, and her "relief" had come to take over the machine.

  "Let me send just one more," begged Francie.

  "The way some people like their job!" smiled the "relief."

  Francie typed her last message slowly and lovingly. She was glad it was a birth announcement rather than a notification of a death. The message was her farewell. She hadn't told anyone she was leaving. She was afraid she'd break down and cry if she went around saying good-bye. Like her mother, she was afraid of being openly sentimental.

  Instead of going directly to her locker, she stopped in the big recreation room where some girls were making the most of their fifteen-minute rest period. They were grouped around a girl at the piano and were singing, "Hello, Central, Give Me No Man's Land."

  As Francie walked in, the pianist drifted into another song inspired by Francie's new gray fall suit and her gray suede pumps. The girls sang: "There's a Quaker Down in Quaker Town." A girl put her arm around Francie and drew her into the circle. Francie sang with them.

  Down in her heart I know, she's not so slow...

  "Francie, where'd you ever get the idea for an all-gray outfit?"

  "Oh, I don't know--some actress I saw when I was a kid. Don't remember her name but the show was The Minister's Sweetheart."

  "It's cute!"

  She has that "meet me later" look...

  My little Quaker down in Quaker town.

  Do-o-o-own To-o-o-o-own, harmonized the girls in a grand finale.

  Next they sang "You'll Find Old Dixieland in France." Francie went over to stand at the great window from which she could see the East River twenty stories below. It was the last time she'd see the river from that window. The last time of anything has the poignancy of death itself. This that I see now, she thought, to see no more this way. Oh, the last time how clearly you see everything; as though a magnifying light had been turned on it. And you grieve because you hadn't held it tighter when you had it every day.

  What had Granma Mary Rommely said? "To look at everything always as though you were seeing it eit
her for the first or last time: Thus is your time on earth filled with glory."

  Granma Mary Rommely!

  She had lingered on for months in her last illness. But a time had come when Steve came just before dawn to tell them.

  "I'll miss her," he said. "She was a great lady."

  "You mean a great woman," said Katie.

  Why, puzzled Francie, had Uncle Willie chosen that time to leave his family? She watched a boat glide under the Bridge before she resumed her thoughts. Was it that one less Rommely woman to be accountable to made him feel more free? Had her death given him the idea that there was such a thing as escape? Or was it (as Evy claimed) that he was able in his meanness to take advantage of the confusion created by Granma's funeral to run away from his family? Whatever it was, Willie was gone.

  Willie Flittman!

  He had practiced desperately until he got so that he could play all the instruments at once. Then as a one-man band he competed with others at a movie house on amateur night. He won the first prize of ten dollars.

  He never came home with the prize money and his instruments, and no one in the family had seen him since.

  They heard about him now and then. It seemed that he was roaming the streets of Brooklyn as a one-man band and living on the pennies he collected. Evy said he'd be home again when the snow started to fly but Francie, for one, doubted it.

  Evy got a job in the factory where he had worked. She earned thirty dollars a week and got along fine, except at night, when, like all Rommely women, she found it hard to get along without a man.

  Francie, standing at the window overlooking the river, recalled how always there had been something dreamlike about Uncle Willie. But then, so many things seemed like dreams to her. That man in the hallway that day: Surely that had been a dream! The way McShane had been waiting for Mother all those years--a dream. Papa dead. For a long time that had been a dream but now Papa was like someone who had never been. The way Laurie seemed to come out of a dream--born the living child of a father five months dead. Brooklyn was a dream. All the things that happened there just couldn't happen. It was all dream stuff. Or was it all real and true and was it that she, Francie, was the dreamer?

  Well, she'd find out when she got out to Michigan. If there was that same dream feeling about Michigan, then Francie would know that she was the one dreaming.