Chapter Two #2
We lost the house shortly after we lost Daddy.
Sure, it wasn’t anything fancy, but with Daddy alive it had felt bright and safe.
Happy, with its tidy shutters and the sunny bedrooms that Mama had filled with color.
But the gentleman from the bank had arrived at our door and told Mamma she couldn’t keep it.
Or the carriage, either, the big rig that Daddy had been so proud to order from Sears Roebuck so he could take all four of us out for rides on Sundays after church.
We had to put it all up for auction—the kitchen table where he’d taught me to give thanks for our blessings, the upholstered sofa where he’d taught me to read, the books he’d been so eager to share with me and my brother, even the small piano he’d bought secondhand from the church and loved to play in the evenings, his jolly voice sounding to me like the most beautiful thing in the world.
We went to live with Mamma’s cousins just outside of Tarentum—Mamma, me, and my little brother.
“Just until we get back on our feet,” Mamma kept saying.
To whom she was speaking, I wasn’t entirely certain.
And she did try; she didn’t sit idle. Mamma took in sewing and other people’s wash—she worked with the needle and the lye until her hands were chapped and blistered.
But it wasn’t enough, and the hospitality of our relations soon reached its limit.
So that’s when Mamma, Kit, and I got this room in the boardinghouse.
“My talents with the needle are wasted in Tarentum,” she declared.
Mamma had gotten it in her head that this bigger city could give her more sewing work, that she’d even get to style some fashionable dresses for some of the wealthy ladies here.
From Pittsburgh it’s just a quick hop to Philadelphia, a still grander city with even fancier seamstress work.
“Once we’ve saved enough, we’ll set up a shop, make elegant dresses for the finest ladies.
” That’s what she told me. And I smiled obligingly, aching for it to be the truth.
But she’s talking about that plan less and less now. This boardinghouse does have a way of sucking the spirit from a human. Even I at my young age can sense that. “What is to become of us?” That’s her more common refrain these days. Some nights she cries so hard that I worry she might die, too.
That’s why I learned to sleep with my one pillow over my head—so I don’t have to hear Mamma’s wails.
I throw my arm over Kit, and I pull him close, as much for warmth as for comfort, and I try my best not to think of all the things I miss about our old life back in Tarentum.
Daddy. Our home. Our small school. I miss Mamma, too, even though her body’s right next to mine in the narrow bed.
But I’ve learned not to talk about Daddy, or any of it.
I’ve taught myself not to cry. Not to ask questions.
Instead I’ve learned how to make myself disappear.
Like in the fairy tales Daddy and I would read, only now there’s no good fairy appearing to help us, and on some days, it feels like there’s no keeping the wolf away.
I’ve realized that my best hope is to just disappear so that the wolf won’t see me.
Because as bad as Mr. Jonas may be, with his grabbing paws and his whiskey breath, I have the suspicion that there are wolves far worse out there in the world.
Speaking of wolves, I could eat like one.
We are hungry most of the time these days, Kit and I.
With Daddy, the food was never fancy, but it was always enough.
On a day like today, Christmas, Mamma would have made a roast or maybe a ham.
Some potatoes with cream, fixed how Daddy and I liked them best. And I know there would have been a gift or two for me and Kit.
But on this Christmas Day, Mamma was still slumped in bed when I left for the rent collection, while Kit made mountains out of some empty tin cans before a dying fire. I don’t know what we will eat.
Which is why I’ve made my way to stand in the alley behind Haudenshield’s. Sure enough, just as I suspected, the butcher has tossed out several bags of stripped bones. I lean toward the quarry, relieved. I’ll throw them in a pot and make us a Christmas soup.
“Oh!” I say, startling when I see the small figure moving at my feet.
Looks like I’m not the only one who had the idea to come look for scraps.
There’s a little tawny cat, fur all rumpled and patchy.
No collar or tag. A stray tabby, from the looks of it, and a survivor.
She looks up at me and lets out a petulant mewl, telling me to back off her findings.
I feel a pinch in my heart. Yes, she’s a survivor all right; it’s easy for me to recognize what I know so well.
I summon my softest voice. “We can share, can’t we?
” I lean down to her. To my delight, after a beat, she steps closer and curls herself right up against my leg.
The warmth of her little body reminds me of how cold I am.
I pull her, trembling, into my chest. “You must be near frozen, too, little one. This ain’t no place for a fine little lady like you to be out.
” In reality she’s not fine at all; she’s got the look of a weary scrapper down on her luck, but I figure if I speak pretty to her, she might like it.
She doesn’t look like the type who garners many compliments.
I glance around the alleyway. It’s getting dark, and it’ll only get chillier. “How about we make some soup, huh? Don’t tell me you got other plans for Christmas—lots of other invitations to go calling? Nah, you can come with me. Kit will love you.”
Her little heartbeat next to mine thumps as thin as a bird’s.
I notice how she shivers. She’s cold, like me.
In fact I’ve been outside here without a coat for long enough now that I can feel the chill from my toes to my top.
“And how long have you been out here?” She responds with another mewl.
I decide this means she’s accepting my invitation.
I tuck her under my arm and pick up the bag of scrap bones to make my way toward home.
“I think you need a bath.” She stinks to high hell, but I don’t really mind.
As we walk up the alleyway back to the boardinghouse, I nuzzle her ear and I whisper, “You can be my present.” Because not only is it Christmas Day. It’s also my thirteenth birthday.