Annie's Stories (2 page)

2

S
TEPHEN
A
DAMS
often wondered about the people who wrote the letters he delivered. They came from distant lands like Ireland, Germany, Russia, and every once in a while from as far away as Australia. Stephen had never been anywhere but New York. Born and raised. So were his father and mother. As far as he could tell, his ancestors had all been born in the city, back to the original Dutch planters perhaps. But he didn’t really know. No one did. The only thing he knew for sure was that none of that old immigrant money had been passed on in his family, and he was the only one left. His parents
 
—God rest their souls
 
—along with his brother, who had died last year in a construction accident, were buried in Cypress Hills over in Brooklyn. Oh, he had some cousins here and there, but none had stayed in touch, and if they had, Stephen would have to keep making excuses for his father’s death. He was glad not to have to do that.

These folks on his route? Many of them had no family in America, and they’d pressed on, making do, striving for better. Their stories were inspiring. Stephen could press on too.

“Howdy, Mr. Adams!” Matty, one of the kids he often saw on his route, greeted him.

“Hi there, fella. Have breakfast today?”

The kid shrugged and kicked some pebbles with his too-small shoes. “I’m not hungry. Ma gave me a bit a coffee in my milk.”

“Today?”

“Not today.”

Stephen reached into his mailbag and pulled out the apple he’d brought for his lunch. “Take this then, for later, when you get hungry.”

The boy beamed. “Thanks!”

Stephen continued down the street, whistling one of his favorite Irish ballads and thinking about the folks he would likely see today.

Hawkins House was one of his favorite stops on his mail route because Annie Gallagher was the housekeeper there. He made sure to stomp heavily on the front stoop. As he’d hoped, the front latch opened. He held out some letters. “Morning, Miss Gallagher. Got a letter from home for you and a postcard for Mrs. Hawkins. Seems her nephew and his wife have been to Coney Island again.”

“You must be mistaken.” Her face turned pasty. “Not a letter for me.”

He held it up. “Miss Annie Gallagher. It’s from County Mayo, Father Joseph Weldon.”

“Father Weldon wrote to me? He writes often to Mrs. Hawkins
 
—he’s her brother
 
—but this is the first I’ve received.”

He reached into his bag. “I almost forgot. Got a new boarder, don’t you? A Miss Wagner?”

“We do.”

He waved a long envelope in front of his face. “Seems there is plenty of news, judging from how thick this is.” He handed the letter to Annie. Their hands brushed for just a moment.

Her face reddened and she pulled at her sleeves. She looked down, seeming to study Kirsten Wagner’s fat letter, which made the other one look malnourished.

He hesitated, whistling “The Stone outside Dan Murphy’s
Door,” a tune he’d learned at the Irish dance where he’d hoped to see her. Some of the girls there had said she attended on occasion.

She cocked her head to her shoulder. “An Irish tune, and you a true Yankee?”

He stopped, wondering if he’d offended her. He did not want to scare her off. He’d try something else. “Say, I heard the kids over on Bowery acting out a story
 
—
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
. They were pretty good. A lion, a scarecrow, a man made of tin. Have you heard of it?”

She smiled, her teeth like pearls. “I have, though I’ve not seen a copy myself. I must look for it next time I stop at Bourne’s since so many people recommend it.”

Good. He’d at least engaged her a bit. “I shall do the same.” Now he didn’t know what else to say. “Well, I suppose I’ll be going now.”

“Thank you, Mr. Adams.”

“My pleasure. Always good to see you, Miss Gallagher.” He spun on his heels. “Enjoy!”

Annie closed the solid wood door carefully and leaned against it a moment, holding the letters to her chest. Since she’d arrived, the only news she’d had was what Father Weldon wrote to Mrs. Hawkins about. She glanced down at the writing that spelled her name and then looked up to see Mrs. Hawkins moving toward her.

“I thought I heard you talking to the postman. What has he brought?”

Annie and their boarder Grace McCaffery lovingly referred to the woman as the Hawk because of her keen senses. And here she was to ask questions just as Annie pondered what receiving the letter meant.

Annie put on a pleasant posture. “Seems your people have been frolicking at Coney Island again.” Annie waved the postcard at her.

“Oh, bother. My Harold’s sister’s boy and his wife. They spend more time gallivanting than being gainfully employed. Give me that foolish thing.” Mrs. Hawkins snatched the card from Annie’s fingers and examined the drawing of a carousel. “The writing is too small for my eyes. What does it say, love?” She handed it back to Annie.

“It says, ‘Wish you were here. Love, James and Caroline.’”

She shook her head. “What else has the postman brought?”

“A rather large letter for Kirsten Wagner.”

The woman took both letters from her hands before Annie realized it. “You received a letter from Joseph. I do hope it’s not bad news.”

“I . . . uh . . . I don’t know, Mrs. Hawkins.”

The woman patted her arm. “There, there, love. You are a long way from that horrible place, and you have wonderful memories of your father to cherish. Focus on those. You are here now as you should be.” Mrs. Hawkins began straightening her framed botanical prints that lined the walls of the hall.

Annie smiled, trying to muster the confidence her employer had. She glanced back down at the letter. Perhaps her uncle Neil had died and Father Weldon felt it was his responsibility to let her know. She lifted the thicker piece of mail, pondering whether or not to leave it on the entry table. Annie had been away on errands when Kirsten first arrived at Hawkins House a few days ago. She didn’t know what instructions she had been given. “If I leave Kirsten’s letter on the mail tray, will she know to retrieve it?”

Mrs. Hawkins pointed toward the silver tray lying on the entry table. Her prized Paul Revere piece, she called it. “I will make sure she knows it’s there, love.”

Annie retreated to the quiet of her room in the back of the house. The tenants lived upstairs, but she and Mrs. Hawkins had separate rooms at the end of the downstairs hallway near the kitchen, and her room was her sanctuary.

She stared at the envelope with the postage stamp bearing an image of the British monarch. She opened it and slowly unfolded the letter.

Oh, my. Annie would not have wished that on the girl, despite what she’d done to Annie. Aileen had gotten married far younger than most, and to suffer this while no more than a teenager?

Fr. Joseph Weldon

Annie refolded the letter, rubbing her temples with her thumbs. So they had already sent Aileen to America. Aileen, one year younger than Annie, was in Annie’s estimation a mollycoddled, intolerable child. Obviously Donald’s family had not been prosperous enough to take Aileen in. Pity, but Aileen O’Shannon here? After what she had done by pointing a finger at Annie when Annie had been innocent? Uncle Neil had believed his only daughter over the niece he barely
knew when Aileen had accused her of carrying on with Johnny Flynn
 
—a complete mistruth that had prompted Neil to send Annie to the nuns. Oh, how Annie had hoped to put that whole chapter in the past.

Annie opened the letter again and reread it. She had not missed anything. There wasn’t much there. Angry tears burned at the corners of her eyes. The O’Shannons were no more family than the robins pecking at the wee herb garden out back. If they even had hearts, Annie had no place in them.

The sound of paper crinkling under her fists surprised her, but she gave in to it and wadded the letter into a tight ball. Grabbing the bed warmer on the floor, she opened the lid, tossed the paper in, and drew a match from the tin box bolted on the wall near her door. Her first efforts to strike the match failed, and tears streamed down her face with her frustration. When she finally coaxed a flame, she lit the paper on fire and watched as it sank into a hot ball and then wafted into black ashes.

When her father had fallen ill, they happened to be near Neil’s farm. Annie had thought there might be some mercy in the man she’d never met. She’d been surprised to discover the O’Shannons had not known she had been born alive. Neil had thought both his sister and her baby had passed away. Annie would later understand why her father had kept the truth from Neil, who had turned out to be a self-serving and pernicious man. Back then, though, Annie had been stunned to discover that Neil and Cora were about to shut Annie and her father out into the cold until Annie’s father offered them what little money he had left. Once Da passed on, Neil had said he had no obligation toward Annie. Why, now, should he expect Annie to feel any duty toward his daughter, especially after the lie her cousin had told?

Annie squeezed her eyes shut. It must be bad over there for
the O’Shannons to resort to this. But truly Annie didn’t know if she could forgive Aileen, that wee impetuous lass.

Mrs. Hawkins questioned her over dinner. “Tell me about that letter, love. Was it about your relatives?”

“It was. My cousin’s husband has died.”

“Oh, I am so sorry, love.” Tears sprang to her eyes and she fingered her silverware. “And her so young. I do hope she has something to remember him by.” The woman continued to stroke the handle of a table knife, one of the belongings she’d kept from her marriage after her husband, Harold, passed on.

Annie nodded and rose to pour more tea.

“Was there anything else in the letter?”

“I am afraid so.”

“What is it, love?”

“My cousin Aileen. Father Weldon says to tell you to expect her on board the
Teutonic
.”

“She’s coming to live with us? How wonderful for you.”

Mrs. Hawkins did not understand that this was awful news. Aileen was coming and Annie would be expected to “take charge” of her. However selfish it might be, Annie had planned for her position at Hawkins House to precipitate a new life, away from folks like the O’Shannons.

Mrs. Hawkins folded her chubby hands on top of the table. “I know what concerns you about this, love.”

“You do?”

“Indeed. Aileen reminds you of where your uncle put you, but trust me, nothing of that sort will happen to either one of you girls.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Hawkins.” The woman
had
been kind. Annie reminded herself that Mrs. Hawkins had been forced to take her in because of her brother’s bidding, and therefore
could not truly care about her, at least not as much as her father had. He’d said home was in the hearts of those who loved you. Annie had to build her place to belong from scratch, without anyone’s help. And now she would have to ensure that her cousin’s arrival did not thwart her plans.

Before bed she consulted her account book from the Emigrant Savings Bank, where she deposited the pay Mrs. Hawkins gave her. After four months of saving most of her income, she had $81.54. She tapped a pencil to her lips.

“You are good with the books,” her da had said.

She had kept track of all their expenses, and Da had told her when times were rich and when they were lean. He’d said his family left him an estate that he sold before meeting her mother. The earnings had kept Annie and her da on the road, doing what he loved
 
—meeting and greeting folks and entertaining them. By the time Da died, however, he told her there was not much left.

“There’s not been time to work properly,” he’d complained.

She’d asked him if the estate funds were depleted, but she never got an answer, as sick as he was. That had to be the truth, though. No couriers came by, no farmers carrying cheques like they’d done in the past. Da had registered his whereabouts on their travels so that their money would find them. They had never been dirt-poor like so many others, not until he got sick.

She sighed as she thought about it. His inheritance had run dry just as he took his last breath. A man like Marty Gallagher deserved much more. His legacy should be remembered with a memorial or a statue . . . No, something more fitting to a storyteller. A house filled with stories. A magnificent library with a brass plate over the door naming the building after him.

She’d received her own education from a diverse group of
hedge-school masters
 
—those traveling scholars who taught on their own terms rather than conform to the government’s state schools. While the name dated back to a time when the men’s religious affiliation caused them to resort to teaching outdoors under hedges and taking their wages in barter
 
—the way her father essentially had done
 
—Annie and her father were pleased the masters still traveled about and had welcomed her. And her education hadn’t been inadequate, despite what many Irish folks thought about a woman’s limitations. Those roving instructors trained her to read and calculate numbers, and she was pretty good at it. Her da had taught her to love stories and learn from history. Stories had filled Annie’s head and delighted her soul for as long as she could remember. Her love of books and learning had never left her. What might seem impossible in Ireland surely was possible here. Why couldn’t a woman in America establish such a place as a memorial library, so?