"What happened?"
"Then I asked you some questions. I'm not telling ya everything without knowing nothing about you."
"My life isn't very interesting Mr. Conlon." She said almost regretfully.
"In my many years, I've learned that everyone has a story, even teenage girls, besides you've got spunk, asking me to help you with your project. Facing the old guy upstairs is a lot braver than you think." He smiled then.
"You may be old Mr. Conlon, but you don't act like it." She smiled back.
"That's the opposite what people said when I was young, I acted too old." His look clouded for a moment before he regained his previously jovial look. "What's your favorite color kid?"
Purple, or I should really say a lilac color, I guess why?" She did not understand his abrupt changing of the subject.
"Just building a character profile, purple's a good choice, it's the color of royalty." He said gruffly.
"What's yours Spot?" She looked at him, as if to check once more that it was alright calling him that. In response to her uncertainty he grinned and said
"Green, a light bright green, the color of newborn leaves." He paused "But if you asked me another day, I might say sea-foam green."
"Why?"
"Why what"
"Sea foam green or light green?"
"You're getting ahead in the story, that's later on."
"Oh sorry." She said sheepishly.
"So picking up where you left off..."
"About your parents..."
Tommy Conlon had fallen in love, as if he hadn't been already. Her name was Sophie. She was beautiful and he spent every possible moment with her. So when he finally asked her to marry him, she couldn't wait to say yes.
They were married at St. Nicholas's Parish in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Her mother was weeping at the wedding, not out of happiness, but disappointment that her daughter had married an Irishman. They were lowly Romanians, but she had wanted to have a better life, and this boy was not the ticket she expected.
But Sophie was happy. Sophie was ecstatic. Even when her mother murmured saraci saraci saraci Sophie under her breath as she got ready. She had gotten her mother to agree, only if he had an apartment, a job, and they got married in the church.
Her sister, Alina, soothed her nerves, and straightened the dress she was wearing, a hand-me-down from one of the neighbors. The veil was made from old curtains. Her dark hair was twisted into an elegant bun by her sister's expert handiwork.
She heard the organ start, and took a deep breath.
Her nerves were forgotten when she saw Tommy standing at the altar, in a suit as worn as her dress. How could she be making a mistake, it was the man who had found the key. He had found her, almost a miracle in a city the size of New York. He had returned the key, and his eyes were warm.
He saw her coming down the aisle, and he felt a pressure in his chest, a feeling of pure joy, and smiled softly as she stumbled over her vows.
When he lifted her veil and kissed her, he knew why he fell in love. The girl with the raven hair, and the beautiful eyes was his for keeps.
They had their first child on May 1st, 1883. Which is labor day in Romania. Not a good sign for people who have worked their whole lives. They named him after the church they were married in. Well, Sophie named him Nicolai. His father called him Nick, and eventually his younger sisters would call him Nico.
Most people called him Nick. Until he decided that name didn't describe him as much as Spot did. That was a different story. Everyone from Brooklyn calls him Spot, and almost always has.
"Why do they call you Spot?" Anna wanted answers.
"It's a long story, for another day." He looked guilty and almost melancholy. "I promise, eventually I will tell you why I go by Spot." She sighed.
"What are you sisters' names?"
"I can tell you about when my youngest sister was born." He looked wistfully out the window as he began the story.
He was eight. He already had two sisters, and they already had too many mouths to feed. But his mother was expecting another child, and he prayed for a boy.
His mother was cleaning houses, scrubbing the floors, all while her belly swelled. His father was still working at the docks, perpetually stuck at the bottom. His mother took in clothes to wash and iron on the side to pay to feed all five of them, and try to save enough for a baby. He had worked illegally at the factory, but had gotten fired for dropping a basket of buttons on the floor after tripping over the bolts of fabric lying haphazardly on the floor.
He knew he had to find work. He could let his sisters starve. His sisters, he loved them to the death. He would pretend to be a tough guy, pretend they were just stupid girls in front of the neighborhood boys, but he would have killed for them. He might have, but that is farther ahead in the story.
Margaret, his Maggie, had turned four that summer. Her light brown girls bounced as she walked and her face lit up when she laughed. She was a little mother to Katerina, the youngest. Little Rina with her light hair like their father, and the inclination to sing like him. She always toddled to the door when their father returned from work.
His mother, so young, married at sixteen, had her first child at seventeen, was still as beautiful as his father had described her being on the day they met. Her soft curls, that my sisters had inherited, were always tied back, but found their way into her face as she softly sang in Romanian while stirring the watery soup they had for dinner. Her fierce eyes, her son had been the only one to inherit them, seemed to be smiling when she heard his father's boots on the stairs. Her dress was stretched over her full stomach as if the baby could come any day. She untied her apron, and rushed to greet him at the door. He stood there grinning and kissed her, still as in love with her as ever. He hugged little Maggie and swooped Rina up into his arms. Her giggling grew louder as he pretended to waltz with her. His mother took the soup off the stove, and over to the worn table and started pouring bowls for them. Everyone sat to enjoy their meager meal. As soon as he raised the spoon to his mouth, his mother gasped in pain.
"Sophie? Mo ghrá Are you all right?" His father rushed over to his wife, concerned.
"I'm fine I swe-" Her hands flew to her stomach and she grimaced.
"No you're not, is it coming?" He whispered to her.
She nodded.
"Nick, bring your sisters up to the Gallaghers' and then run down and get your aunt and grandmother." He looked pained himself. "And make haste, go lad, go!"
"Maggie, Rina, let's go up to see Maeve and Mrs. Gallagher, come on." He grabbed his sister's hand and herded them both up the rickety stairs to the Gallaghers' apartment.
The Gallaghers were the neighbors upstairs and the closest friends they had. Mrs. Lily Gallagher's brother had been friends with his father but Fitz had been killed in an accident on the docks before Maggie was born. He sort of remembered him. Mrs. Gallagher had been born in Brooklyn, but her husband had come from Ireland like Tommy. Mr. Gallagher worked at the docks, just like everybody else. He was a large hulking man, with a menacing look, but a kind soul. They had two older sons, but they were almost always working. Their youngest was Maeve, the best girl Nick had ever met, and that was saying something.
Maeve had many freckles, and just as many quick responses. She had been described as fiery by old Mrs. O'Malley from downstairs. He just knew she was interesting.
"Heya Nick." Maeve greeted as soon as he knocked on their apartment door.
"Heya Gallagher, my da said to bring the girls up here and tell your mother that she's needed downstairs." Maeve's bright green eyes widened in surprise. She quickly took Rina's hand and shuffled Maggie inside their cramped apartment.
"Mama! Mrs. Conlon needs you straight away!" She turned and yelled to her mother, and quickly turned back to him.
"Come in, come in, you can stay here."
"Nah, I can't, I gotta get to my aunt's and tell her but I'll be back lickety-split ok?" She smiled reassuringly.
"See you soon knucklehead." He grinned as he ran down the stairs, down the street and straight to his aunt Alina's apartment.
"Tanti Alina?" My mama, she said it's time and she needs you straight away and bunică should come too." His aunt with her wild, out of control hair, and kind eyes was a widow, who lived with his elderly grandmother. She had sponsored her mother and sister to come to America, after she had married a man here. But her husband has died of pneumonia, leaving her childless and alone.
She gasped and quickly threw a thin shawl over her bony shoulders at his words. "Nicolai, please wake up your bunică and help her over." She dashed out the door, hurrying to his ailing mother. He crept into the apartment and tiptoed over to the small bed where his grandmother was resting.
"Bunică? It's me Nicolai, my mother's going to have the baby, please wake up." He whispered as he lightly shook her awake.
""Copil? Copil? Nicolai trebuie sa ne, grabă grabă." She swung her legs off of the bed, slowly stood up, and grabbed a kerchief, tying it under her chin. He helped her lace up her boots and they set off into the cold day. He walked slowly, his arm in his grandmother's vice grip as he avoided the sheets of ice and glittering snowdrifts from the most recent storm that had not had the chance to soil and turn black with grit. His grandmother was silent, but visably flustered. He knew little Romanian, she knew little English, and the language and age barriers prevented conversation.
He helped his grandmother up to their apartment, the first thing he heard upon entering the building was his mother screaming. His father was out on the landing, smoking a cigarette, leaned up against the dingy wall. He winced sharply every time his wife cried out in pain. Nick ran up to haven that was the Gallaghers after dropping his grandmother off. He knocked loudly, the door flew open and Maeve dashed out, grabbed his arm and dragged him back down the stairs.
"Hey! Girlie? Where are we going? Where youse bringing me?"
"My da sent me on errand, don't worry your sisters are with my mama. Come on you don't want to be here, do ya? She smiled back at him as she continued to drag him down past the front door and into the chilly February air.
"Is that why your favorite color is bright green? Because of Maeve?"
"Hush now, stop interrupting, whatdida I tell ya?" The older man joked.
She slyly smiled, because he had revealed he had loved someone.
He sighed.
When they got back several hours later, frozen and exhausted and finally down with the made up errands, the first thing they heard was screaming. But this was a different screaming, not his mother's but a new scream, a baby's. Maeve looked at him, her eyes twinkling.
"Sounds like you have a new baby sister." He was already halfway up the stairs when he yelled back at her
"A sister? It's a boy, crazy." She rolled her eyes up at him, and skipped up the stairs. When he reached the landing, his father was still leaning up against the wall smoking, but now it was a cigar, and he was grinning. Mr. Gallagher was standing next to him.
"Maeve's right, boy." He grinned wider. "It's a girl."
"Why are you grinning so much then?" A disappointed Nick questioned.
"You'll see, she's so beautiful." Both he and Maeve pushed their way past his father into the apartment. His mother was lying on her bed, her hair tied back with a red scarf, and she was holding a bundle in her arms.
"Nicolai, come see your sister." She whispered. He tip-toed carefully over to the bed, careful not to disturb the baby's calm. My father was right, this baby is beautiful, he thought. Her head was already covered in soft black ringlets. He barely noticed Maeve's gasp when the baby opened her eyes.
They were the most wonderful shade he had ever seen. Sea foam green. It reminded him of the ocean on a bright summer day, something you don't see in February.
"Her name is Anya."
He was almost glad it wasn't a boy. Almost.
"That's why it changes!" Anna gasped.
"Two most important girls in my life." He smiled shyly. Anna grinned back, jotting down the name of his youngest sister. "You almost have the same name." Her grin turned to a soft smile, reminding him of Anya.
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