Water Street

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  With love

  to

  James Patrick Giff,

  Immortality

  I am so grateful to Wendy Lamb for her unfailing support and belief in my books;

  to George Nicholson, my agent, for all the years of advice and friendship;

  to Kathy Winsor Bohlman for her expertise in more areas than I can count;

  to my three children: Jim, who shares the world of books and ideas with me; Alice, who reads and warms my heart with her praise; and Bill, who has spent so many hours on my manuscripts, thoughtfully reviewing, and adding immeasurably to my work. I am blessed by their love.

  And always, gratitude to my husband, Jim, who makes life as sweet as it is.

  BEFORE

  Thomas had made himself a notebook with cardboard covers and sewed in the pages, but if the book wasn't handy, he used anything, paper bags from the market, or even the edges of the newspaper.

  He wrote stories about anything he saw, and he saw a lot. He walked through the streets of Brooklyn along the water, or leaned against the store windows on Livingston Street watching people hurrying along, making up stories about this one or that one.

  Sometimes he thought about how it had started, this writing of his, and his mind jumped to the woman's collar and the cuff of her sleeve with a wrist barely visible.

  Strange, he couldn't picture her face, and he didn't know her name anymore, but he knew what she'd been doing, teaching him letters, teaching him words, leaning forward, and he remembered something she had said: “With just the sweep of a pen, Thomas, you can change the world, all of it.”

  He hadn't known what she was talking about then; he'd thought it was impossible. But he'd known it for a long time now, ever since he'd begun to write, really write. He could decide whatever world he wanted on paper, and that was the world it would be.

  But now he turned the corner to see the bridge towers that were going up; someday there'd be a span crossing the East River, reaching from one tower to the other. In front was Water Street.

  Grand name for a street.

  Halfway down was a brownstone building with a sign: TOP FLOOR VACANT. You could probably see the towers from up there. You could look down and see everything. There must be dozens of stories right in that street.

  Pop was ready to move again, Thomas could see that. They'd lived in four, no, five different places in the past few years. Thomas hurried back along the way he'd come. If Pop was around, he'd tell him about the place. And even if he didn't come in until the middle of the night, Thomas would wait up for him.

  Water Street.

  CHAPTER ONE

  {BIRD}

  Bird clattered down the stairs in back of Mama, past Mrs. Daley's on the first floor, and Sullivan the baker at the window in front. Outside she and Mama held hands, swinging them back and forth as they hurried along Water Street.

  “Hot.” Bird squinted up at the sun that beat down, huge and orange.

  “Even this early,” Mama agreed.

  For a quick moment, they stopped to look at the tower standing by itself at the edge of the East River. One day it would be part of a great bridge.

  What would it be like to stand on top, arms out, seeing the world the way a bird would? she wondered.

  Bird, her nickname.

  She pulled her heavy hair off her neck. “Mrs. Daley says they'll never be able to finish that bridge. She says it will collapse under its own weight and tumble right into the river.”

  They said it together, laughing: “Mrs. Daley says more than her prayers.”

  “Still,” Bird said, “half of Brooklyn says the same thing.”

  “Not I,” Mama said, “and not your da. We know anything is possible, otherwise we'd still be in the Old Country scrabbling for a bit of food.”

  Bird glanced at Mama, the freckles on her nose, her hair with a few strands of gray coming out of her bun ten minutes after she'd looped it up: Mama's strong face, which Da always said was just like Bird's. She couldn't see that. When she looked in the mirror, she saw the freckles, the gray eyes, and the straight nose, but altogether it didn't add up to Mama's face.

  She was glad to reach the house on the corner, the number 112 painted over the door, and the vestibule out of the sun.

  They climbed the stairs, the light dim as they stopped to catch their breath on each landing. “Let me.” Bird took the blue cloth medicine bag that hung over Mama's shoulder. “It seems your patients are always on the top floor.”

  “Ah, isn't it so,” Mama said, holding her side. “And the babies always coming in the dead cold of winter, or on steamy days like this.”

  Bird could feel the tick of excitement. Mama's words to her were deep inside her head: “Only days until your thirteenth birthday. You're old enough to come with me for a birthing.” Bird's feet tapped it out on the steps: a baby, a baby.

  She'd been helping Mama for a long time, chopping her healing herbs and drying them, helping to wash old Mrs. Cunningham, bringing tonic to Mr. Harris. But this! A baby coming! She couldn't have been more excited.

  On the fifth floor, the door was half-open. Two children played under a window; an old man rocked in the one chair, a toddler on his lap pulling at his beard. “The daughter's inside,” he said.

  In the bedroom, the daughter lay in a nest of blankets, her head turned away, her hair in long dark strands over the covers. She made a deep sound in her throat, then turned toward them, and Bird could see how glad she was that Mama was there.

  Who wouldn't be glad to see Mama, who knew all about healing, about birthing? Mama, who always made things turn out right.

  Mama patted the woman's arm. “I know, Mrs. Taylor.” She nodded at Bird. “Now here's what you'll do. You'll sit on the other side of the bed there. Hold her hand, and cool her forehead with a damp cloth.”

  Easy enough, Bird thought.

  “And I'll have the work of it,” the woman said before another pain caught her, blanching the color from her cheeks.

  “You've done it all before.” Mama leaned over to open her bag. “After three girls, there's nothing to the fourth, is there now?”

  Mama made a tent of the blankets so she could help with the birth, and Bird went into the other room to fill a pan with water and wring out a rag. She stepped over the children as she went, bending down to touch the tops of their heads.

  Back in the bedroom she ran the rag over the woman's neck and face. She held her hand during the pains for as long as she could stand it, then pulled her own hand away in between each one. Bird's hands were larger than Mama's already, but still she felt as if her fingers were being crushed in the woman's grip.

  At first the woman talked a little, telling them that her husband wanted a boy, that he wouldn't forgive her if it was another girl, but after a while it was only her breathing Bird heard in that stif
ling room, and sometimes that sound in her throat, but Mama's voice was sure and soft, telling her it wouldn't be long.

  Bird sat there thinking about the miracle of it, to be like Mama, to be able to do this. She wanted nothing more than that, to go up and down the streets of Brooklyn, with all that Mama knew in her head, the herbs to cure in a bag looped over her arm, the babies to birth. Bird watched Mama wipe her own forehead with her sleeve, then put her hands on the woman, pressing down and murmuring, “Take another breath, and as you let it out, push with me, push.”

  It went on and on, and the room was filled with that July heat, with air that never moved. Such a long day, and the sounds the woman made were much louder now, so loud that the two children came to the door, staring in, until Mama realized they were there. She reached with her foot to push the door and gently closed them out.

  And then the smell of blood was in the room, and the baby slid into Mama's hands, wet and glistening. “A girl.” She handed her to Bird.

  Too bad about the foolish husband, Bird thought, looking down at the baby, who was pale, and tiny, and crying weakly. “Beautiful,” she breathed, then washed her with water from the pan and wrapped her in the receiving blanket Mama took from her bag.

  Bird could feel the wetness in her eyes from the wonder of it, and the woman sighed and asked, “What's your name?”

  “Bridget Mallon.” The name sounded strange; no one called her anything but Bird.

  “Bridget,” the woman said. “Then that will be her middle name. Mary Bridget.”

  Bird felt a rush of tears. “For me? How can I ever—” She rocked the baby gently. This was just the beginning, her first baby, and there'd never be another like her. It was almost as if that baby were looking straight at her, and that she knew it, too. Mary Bridget. A person with a name.

  Mama went into the other room to wash her hands, then came back to clean the woman.

  Bird hated to give the baby up, but Mama raised her eyebrows, so she kissed the baby's cheek and put her into the woman's arms.

  “How disappointed he'll be,” the woman said.

  “He's lucky,” Bird said fiercely, then rinsed the woman's face one last time.

  As they left the apartment, the old man pressed a few coins into Mama's hand. Bird knew at least one of those coins would make its way into the saving-for-the-farm box in the kitchen drawer. That box had been filling slowly for all the years she could remember.

  She felt as if she hardly touched each step as she went down the stairs. At the landing she reached out to Mama. She didn't have a way with words, and it was hard to say what she felt, but Mama knew.

  “I remember my first.” She put her hands on Bird's shoulders. “You are like me, Birdie. You'll be a healer like I am. Better.” She touched Bird's face. “I couldn't ask for more.”

  Could it be? Bird wondered. Would she ever know enough?

  As they came outside, the church bells were chiming. Six o'clock, the day almost over!

  And then she saw a horse and cart in front of their house; it was laden with boxes, and rickety furniture, and chair legs up in the air.

  “Finally new tenants for the apartment upstairs,” Bird said. “I hope there's a girl.”

  “Like himself, that husband, but he wanted a boy,” Mama said, and they both smiled. Hands locked, they went up the flight of stairs. Bird's older sister, Annie, would be home from the box factory and sure to have a pot of coffee on the back of the stove for them, and a soda bread coming out of the oven. Maybe Hughie would be home, too, bent over the table reading his newspaper.

  Bird wished for a glimpse of the new tenants, but they were nowhere in sight, and the door of the empty apartment upstairs was closed.

  “Soon enough,” Mama said, reading her mind again.

  Nothing was ever soon enough for her. But then she remembered Mama's words: “I couldn't ask for more.”

  She said them over in her mind, words she'd never forget.

  If only she could have held on to that day, held on to that moment forever, grasped it in her fists so it wouldn't escape.

  If only.

  CHAPTER TWO

  {THOMAS}

  Thomas thought about telling Pop it wasn't a good idea to leave the horse and cart out on the street like that. Anyone could take their stuff. And what about bringing the cart back to the livery stable over on Hudson Street? Hadn't Sweeney said he wanted them there before dark?

  But Pop had one thing on his mind, and that was to find the nearest pub. He was too thirsty to listen to anything else.

  Thomas took the bucket, still sloshing with water, from under the seat and held it up. The horse was as thirsty as Pop and gulped it all down, showing a thick pink tongue.

  The baker on the first floor was moving back and forth in his shop as his assistant scurried around with trays of bread. It reminded Thomas that he hadn't eaten since breakfast.

  He followed Pop down Water Street then, across Fulton, past two or three pubs, until Pop finally stopped. “This one, I think.” Pop squeezed his arm. “It looks like the pub in Granard, doesn't it?”

  He'd forgotten again. Thomas had never been in Granard, where Pop had been born, never been in Ireland.

  “Yes.” Pop nodded. “A good place to quench that thirst of mine.”

  Thomas looked up: gold letters splashed across the window, GALLAGHER'S BAR AND GRILL, a green door and a pair of gaslights in front. It was larger than the one around the corner from the apartment they'd had in Greenpoint, and a lot like Carmody's, two blocks down from their last place in Flatbush. It was certainly large enough for dog fights or bare-knuckle boxing in the back room.

  Pop looked at him uneasily. “I won't be long, Thomas.”

  “It's all right.” Thomas waved his notebook, but before he could say anything else, Pop had pulled open the door and was standing at the bar.

  Thomas watched him for a few minutes. Pop was good-looking, muscular, and his hair was almost gold even though it was getting a little thin on top. Thomas must have taken after his mother, whoever she was.

  He walked toward the back through an alley that was narrow enough for him to touch the buildings on each side. It opened onto a small garden.

  A surprise. Even though it was weedy, and a few smashed bottles were mixed in with the bushes, it had color: bunches of stalky yellow shoots, a rosebush, and a tree that spread its branches all the way to the fence.

  He sank down to lean against the trunk of the tree, and listened to the piano playing inside. The music sounded like “Murphy's Little Back Room,” but all the player piano songs seemed alike to him.

  He opened his book to a new page and wrote about the garden, leaving out the weeds and the broken bottles with their sharp necks.

  He added a stone wall he had seen somewhere over in Manhattan once, and the window on Gallagher's back wall became the window of a house. He squinted as he wrote. He added paper shades that were pulled halfway up, so you could see inside.

  All the house needed were people.

  He could feel that in his chest. A family.

  He'd seen a mother and a daughter at the end of the street before, holding hands as they walked. They looked alike, lots of curly hair, even though the mother's was caught up in back of her head. They looked as if they were glad to be together, as if they were on their way home to a cold ham dinner or maybe slices of leftover roast. Home to a family.

  He wouldn't let the pencil move anymore. He had gotten too close to where he didn't want to be.

  And then in spite of himself he began again, turning the page. He wrote about remembering how it felt to walk on the bare floor in the middle of the night. Where was Pop? His winter underwear wasn't enough in that freezing apartment. He wrote about going into the kitchen and leaning his head against the back door, hoping the woman with the lacy sleeves would come. He turned the page to write about sinking down on the floor, too afraid to call, and falling asleep when he saw the light coming in the window.

  But th
at was a real world, and he didn't have to put it down on paper. He ripped the page out of the book, tore it into shreds, and threw them behind the tree, where they settled into the weeds.

  It was getting dark now, dark enough to see the fireflies flitting around in that garden, and the piano was still for a moment.

  He stood up to look in Gallagher's window, and saw men in the room behind the bar. They stood around two boys, maybe sixteen or seventeen, who had climbed into a makeshift ring.

  He leaned on the sill; it didn't look like any of the matches he'd seen where the boxers wore long tight pants and shirts and tied their scarves on the ropes, boxers who shook hands before they danced around each other, jabbing their fists into the air.

  These two were angry, enraged at each other. The one closest to him had dark hair that flopped over his forehead, and he glanced toward the window as he shrugged out of his jacket and let it fall to the floor in back of him.

  The boy looked at Thomas just one second too long. The other boy, bigger, stronger, threw himself on top of the first boy, and they crashed together onto the floor, rolling over into one of the men in the corner.

  Someone else kicked out at them, and then they were up, and instead of just the two fighting, half the men in the room were at it.

  Thomas watched the one with the dark hair; he was graceful and strong. If he hadn't been so angry, he might have placed his punches better.

  Now chairs were thrown, and someone's face was cut. Thomas looked for Pop, but he didn't see him, and the door of the back room was closed, so he couldn't see the bar in front. He hoped Pop was still sitting there on one of the stools, out of it.

  He ran through the alley, scraping his arm on the cement wall, and out in front to see Pop coming down the two steps under the gaslights, holding on to the railing.

  He went toward Pop, heart pounding, relieved that he hadn't been hurt in that fight. Pop put his hand on his shoulder. “I'm sorry I took so long, Thomasy. It's just the heat; I had to have something to cool me off.”