September 1893
Charlie had found the best place to hide was behind the bank on 38th street. The alley there didn't usually smell too bad, and there weren't a lot of other kids around to mess with him. He sat on the cold, hard ground, and watched people come in and out of shops, carts rumbling by. Businessmen in too-tight suits with shiny gold pocket watches stepped around him. Little kids hanging from their parents' hands stared with wide mouths and wide eyes, craning their little necks to look at him like an animal in a zoo.
Up the block, Charlie spotted a young woman pushing a stroller. Perfect. He tried to make eye contact as she walked by. "Ma'am?" he said. "Please, ma'am, do ya got any change?"
She gave him a thin smile, but kept walking.
.
Emily had her head on her hand, staring out the window next to her desk. She loved when the trees were in-between, the last whispers of summer fighting to hang on as fall took over. Some of the leaves were already yellow and brittle, but most were still soft and alive, yellow and red at the tips and green near the tree. How long until recess?
Someone poked her in the shoulder. "Oh!" she exclaimed, and turned towards the boy next to her. He pointed at Miss Sullivan who was glaring right at her.
"Young lady, you will answer me when I am speaking to you."
"I-I'm sorry." Emily said, and she sat up a little straighter. "What was the question, ma'am?"
Only two weeks into school and she was already in trouble all the time.
While the big kids read and the little ones traced letters, Miss Sullivan had Emily's group come to the front for math. She sat up and really tried to listen, even though she hated math and the golden trees outside were begging to be climbed. The new teacher mumbled and the numbers got all criss-crossed on her slate.
She glanced at the girl next to her. Where did the 25 come from?
"Now, Michael, do I add or subtract next?" Miss Sullivan asked.
Michael must have answered because the teacher nodded, but Emily had missed it somehow. She always felt a step behind. No matter how much she looked between the board and her slate and Miss Sullivan's mumbling mouth, nothing was making sense. Maybe school was supposed to be harder now that she was older.
.
The dinner line at the poor house was unusually long tonight, and Charlie felt small and squished between dozens of unwashed bodies. The lady in front of him had four kids and about as many teeth. One of the kids in front of him was about his age, but he just glared when Charlie tried to wave at him. He couldn't see over the crowd what he had tonight, but he hoped it wasn't cornbread. After the baker's donation last week, he was so dang tired of cornbread.
Every table was filled with people quietly eating, and Charlie struggled to find a seat with his plate in one hand and in crutch in the other. He was sore from standing so long, and from sitting on the ground half the day. He was only eight, almost nine, but he felt 80.
He found an empty spot near a family: A man and three little girls. The youngest one, maybe four or five, wore her hair in a yellow ribbon and waved shyly at Charlie as he eased himself onto the hard wooden bench. He smiled back. She reminded him of Emily, but he didn't know why. And he didn't know why was he still thinking of her when they'd both left the hospital over two months ago.
.
She'd gotten to go home the day before he did, and they both bounced in their beds with excitement. Her mother had been able to come up for the last couple days, sitting near Emily's bed to talk with her and bring her water. Charlie was thankful he'd never questioned why his folks hadn't come to see him.
"I haven't seen my sisters in two weeks." She'd told Charlie for the hundredth time. "We've never been apart for that long, never ever."
Charlie smiled. He was happy for her, really, that she had a place to go home to. "I'm just excited to be outside." He said. "Wasted the best part of the summer in bed." He wondered if he could teach himself to swim again with his bum leg. The orphanage he'd lived in when he was little had taken all the children to a swimming hole a couple times a summer.
"You should give me your address, so we can write each other letters." Emily said. "I'll miss you."
Charlie didn't know how to tell her he didn't really have an address.
That since his mom died and his dad bailed he'd lived in three different orphanages since he was a toddler. The one he lived in up until the summer-Saint Richard's Home for Boys-was crowded, filthy, and full of big boys who would push him down the stairs even before he got sick.
"I'm...I'm moving soon." He said. He looked down at his blanket.
"Oh." Emily said. "Well, I'll give you mine and you can write me when you get settled."
She'd torn a corner of paper from a leather-bound journal her mother had brought her, and written the address for her big country house.
Charlie pulled it from his pocket and laid it next to his plate, even though he'd memorized as soon as she gave it to him. The ink had faded, and the paper was soft and wrinkled, creased firmly down the middle. He'd have a real home, someday, to write her from.
xxx
The more I work with these two (and figure out how to fictionalize/time travel slices of my own life) the more fascinated I am by their dynamics...lots of room to play with period-typical ableism, classism, sexism. Em has enough hearing she doesn't know why she's struggling (I can hear a lot of individual sounds, but without my hearing aids I only comprehend about 40-50% of speech), but Charlie's disability is very visible. Hope you're enjoying it 3
