a/n: hello everyone! i hope you're all doing really well. before i write anything more, i want to write a special thank you to SmileBomb, who recently sent me some incredible artwork for this story. i loved it so much that i've made one of the pieces the cover for this story. it's gorgeous. i am very, very grateful to SmileBomb not only for supporting this story but taking the time to make artwork - that blows my mind! this is my dedication and thank you right back to you SmileBomb if you see this!
please enjoy this chapter and have a wonderful weekend. more notes at the end...until then, stay safe! i apologise for the slowness of my updates, work is crazy busy and on top of that i'm trying to write the next installment of another series i do called home with you hehe. - zed.
seven
Dawn bled yellow-pink between the trees to reach me and Don Fadda. He sipped coffee and I burrowed into my coat. We sat on the bench in the garden, admiring the finches which dipped and whirled around the birdhouse. He sipped coffee.
Some moments earlier, we had bumped into one another in the shuffling half-sleep of our usually separate mornings. He had been at the bottom of the staircase and I had stood atop its landing, listening to the shish-shish sound of Satchel brushing his teeth behind the bathroom door.
Don Fadda had fastened the tattered belt of his dressing-gown and sniffed before he had frankly asked if I would join him for coffee sweetened with sugar and cream to soothe his sweet-tooth. Rabbi was in his bedroom, laying out clothes for himself and Satchel. I had tapped his door and told him where he would find me. If he thought it was odd that Don Fadda wished to sit with me, he said nothing.
So there I sat with Don Fadda, counting finches that bobbed and sang from the branches overhead.
It was crisp; the leaves had crinkled and snapped beneath our shoes, coming out here. There was a strangeness to the mornings in Missouri, bleeding hot colours at dawn, then draining into greyish tones soon afterward, as if the clouds soaked up those warm shades and blotted out what might have been.
Don Fadda reminded me of my father, that morning. His dressing-gown showed tufts of white-coloured hair on his chest, wiry and sprouting in great patches. His hair was unbrushed. He tipped his mug to his lips and watched the finches. What else was there to be done for the day but to watch those birds flit and dip and rise again?
He asked, "Do you think, Ava, that you will return home one day?"
I glanced at him. "I'm not sure, sir. I don't think there's much left for me there."
"Sometimes I wonder if I would even recognise it," he said. "Home. When I was a little boy, my father owned farmland. Yellow fields, big enough for a boy to run around and play from morning 'til night. Comes inside only when Mama calls for dinner. Not a lot of other children out there. I was almost always alone. But I was happy. I think about it, you know. I think, if I went tomorrow, would the house still be there? Would I remember its rooms?"
"Never had a room of my own when I was a little girl," I told him. "Shared one with my older brother, for a long time. Shared with my mother when we lived in Dublin. Shared with entire families."
"Your brother is here with you?"
"No, sir. He died back home, in Ireland. Had trouble with his lungs all his life. Never knew an easy breath in his sixteen years."
He hummed. "It was the lungs for my sister too," he said. "She made it to fourteen. After that it was just me. I wonder about her like I do the rooms. What would she look like now? Would she recognise me? I am old to her now. I am changed. Life changed me."
There would soon be snow in Missouri, Rabbi had told me. Beads of ice clung to strands of grass, showing that he was right. The cold nipped at the skin of my cheeks. Already the yellow-pink faded, swallowed by the clouds which crept out from behind the rooftops of the neighbours' houses.
I had already known a Missouri winter from within the flat that I had rented with its furred patches of mould growing on broken radiators and blue pores sprouting along the seal of the window. The glass panes had rattled against the wind and a scratching cough had stewed in my throat from the first chilled breath of November.
But Rabbi had set about checking the radiator in my bedroom. He had promised me a heater of my own, should the radiator ever fail me while he was out. It stirred a different kind of warmth within me that he cared enough to cart his toolbox to every corner of my bedroom, checking pipes, tapping bulbs, until he assured himself nothing was amiss.
"In my twenties, I came into some money," Don Fadda began anew. "Papa died. Mama also. Farm sold. Broke my heart. But I could not pass my life in those yellow fields any longer. So with this money I move to the bigger city, to the bigger fish. Buy another house on a hill. Had two boys before we came to America. Changed again. More life to change me."
The hard beads wobbled and sank into the soil. It would snow, Rabbi told me. But it was not snowing yet.
"One son stays in Italy; fights for the homeland. In his letters, he is always talking about the homeland. Bleeds for the homeland in the war, my boy. Bleeds for business, for family. In a few weeks, he will come here." Don Fadda finished his coffee and cradled the mug in his hands. "Rabbi knows. Not Josto. I will tell him, when the time comes. There'll be another bird in his nest."
Don Fadda hoisted himself from the bench. I stood with him. The finches warbled. Their song followed us back to the house.
In the kitchen, Rabbi and Satchel sat together. There was a third bowl of porridge for me. Beside it was a glass of freshly-squeezed orange juice. Satchel stirred his porridge, but Rabbi left his own untouched. He gripped the spoon in his hand as if he had been waiting, biding his hunger.
Don Fadda patted at his shoulder as he passed, but paused beside Satchel. "Do you like popcorn?" he asked.
Satchel remained silent. His doe-eyed stare roamed to Rabbi, who nodded at him.
Satchel said, "Yes, sir."
"Good. Antoon will take you and the other children to the pictures this week. All the popcorn that you want. Then we take you to park, day after. See your papa."
Rabbi said nothing, but I could tell that it bothered him for Satchel to be out of sight, even for an evening at the pictures. Satchel seemed unsure of the idea himself, but thanked Don Fadda all the same. His parents had taught him beautiful manners, and he took up his spoon again only once Don Fadda had left us alone in the kitchen.
His spoon clinked and scraped at the bowl. I joined them in this breakfast ritual, swallowing mouthfuls of clumpy porridge, still warm.
With all three of us sat together, Rabbi finally snipped the thread of tension which held him together and began to eat.
x
In his bedroom, Josto paced about in the white vest that I had ironed for him. His trousers hung around his hips, unlaced, for he could not quite choose between the buckles that decorated his collection of belts.
Gold matched those beloved cufflinks he wore at either wrist, gifted to him by his father last Christmas, but he suspected that Dessie much preferred him in the silver-plated buckle that she had gotten him for his birthday. Before I had even offered him an opinion, which is what he had asked for, Josto snatched the gold-plated buckle and snaked the belt through the loops of his trousers.
That afternoon, he would dine with Dessie in the front-room of the house. Its rugs had been rolled and placed aside, its furniture scooted further for the little table and chairs, candles dotted around for romance and napkins folded like hearts upon the table. Satchel had helped me and learned the Irish words for all the objects that he touched, except for champagne flute, which was a word unknown to me in my own language, something that had amused him greatly.
Perhaps the truth of it was that I had been too poor in my lifetime to know the taste of champagne itself, let alone the taste of its flute translated for my tongue.
x
Dessie stormed through that house like a conqueror in a foreign land, wishing to make it his own. She peeled off her scarf. It snapped like a cobra mid-strike, coiled then around the stand beside the door. Calamita slimed behind her, offering rich cigarettes and wine and anything else that she might have wanted. Nothing pleased her.
Soon Calamita excused himself to rustle Josto into the room, because the Fadda heir had disappeared into the depths of his home. I was sure he thought he could slip out from the baby-soft hands of his future wife.
Dessie lifted the glasses and tilted them against the cold block of grey light which came through the windows, flitting her eyes back and forth for even a hint of smudging. Only the glasses had been polished and wiped with fresh cloth. I had done it myself, followed by each spoon and fork and knife that was set on that table.
She whirled, tornado-like, to face me.
"I brought cheesecake," she said. "I made it myself. I thought Josto might like it. Do you think he'll like it?"
"I'm sure he will," I said.
She cut her red-painted lips against her teeth. "You know," she said, "around these parts, we tend to say ma'am."
"I apologise, ma'am."
"Well, now. What an accent!" Her laugh rang out more sharply than if she had tapped one of those forks thrice against a flute. "Sounds just like my chauffeur. Will, is his name. I tell him all the time – you gotta speak like an American now!"
She studied the napkins. Her shoulders shrugged.
"And you know something else? A good friend of mine took on the trouble of an Irish girl for a housekeeper some time ago too. Said it sounded like the girl was always chewing on gum or something, how she just…mashed up her words and spat them right back out again! Paid for elocution lessons, in the end. Have you ever thought about taking those? Could clear that right up for you."
Here was what burned all the more: Satchel had been in the hall and heard it, because he had been passing from the kitchen to the bedroom on the third floor with his bookbag in his arms. He was poised on the staircase. Dessie hardly noticed him, taking flight once more to right cushions and straighten curtains and do all the things that I had already done for her.
Satchel's bookbag slumped against his stomach, forgotten. He was looking at me. Shame sizzled in my throat; it pooled like molten lava at the corner of my eyes and threatened to spill out in tears, for how Satchel watched me in his quiet manner, before slinking upstairs to his hiding-spot on the third floor.
Dessie continued talking in a light, blasé tone. She continued because she thought that what she had said earlier was kindness. She even patted my arm once Josto finally arrived.
I scuttled off to the kitchen, where Calamita waited like a spider sitting in its silvery web. He had the cheesecake that Dessie had brought. He placed it on the countertop, then sidled around that island counter, his hand dragging behind him, palm flat against the marbled surface, slipping off at its edge, as if unattached to him.
"Irish girl," he whispered in a low sing-song tone. "Should we take that drive I promised you, soon?"
No answer came. I would not humour him.
He clicked his tongue against his teeth, smiling as if something amusing had happened anyway, before he sloped off into the hall, humming to himself. I plated the cheesecake. Its bottom was soggier than the cheesecakes that I had made, which brought a small pinprick of pleasure to soothe the sting of what Dessie had said.
I brought out the cheesecake at dessert, placing it alongside Josto. He was half-listening to Dessie, who was reciting a joke she had heard a dinner-party across town. The punchline landed like a duck shot mid-flight in a hunting session. Her lips trembled. She had been hoping that he would laugh.
Josto snapped his fingers at me and pointed at the cheesecake, his moustache pinching his mouth even further into a frown.
"Ava, whoa, whoa, hold on – what the Hell is this?"
Dessie shot forward as if she thought I might steal the credit for her cheesecake. "I made it for you, darling."
"I hate cheesecake," he said. "Always have."
Silence hung heavier than the drapes layered in front of the windows, soaking up all the light.
"Oh," Dessie said. "You never said."
Josto pushed out his chair, yanking his napkin from his lap and tossing it onto the table. He steadied his belt, his hands resting against that gold-plated buckle for a moment too long, like it offered him some kind of strength.
Flimsy excuses came from him. He had to head out. He had business downtown. His father was counting on him. He was only thinking about their future.
Calamita unfurled from whatever lair he had made his own in the house, trailing Josto out of the house, while Dessie remained alone in the dark room. She told me to clear off the table, nudging the plates toward me. She carved off chunks of cheesecake with the wrong spoon, out of spite.
Before I could finish taking the flutes and napkins, she spoke. "What do you think it'll take?"
The napkins had been crumbled; now their corners opened like petals budding on a flower.
"What do you mean, ma'am?"
"For him to love me," she answered simply. "He likes red lipstick. So I wear it all the time. He told me once that he hates floral perfume. So I went right home and tossed out every bottle on my shelf. And then one day –…"
For a few seconds, Dessie said nothing more. I prompted her with a gentle: "Ma'am?"
Her eyes fuzzed, unseeing. "And then one day," she started again, "I lean in to peck his cheek and catch a whiff of it; a whiff of floral perfume. Well, it sure couldn't be mine, could it? So I keep wondering what it'll take. At least now I know he doesn't like cheesecake."
The room was quiet, like a funeral home. The floorboards yawned in wooden creaks. The grandfather clock chimed from the hall. She scooped up a pale-yellow piece of cheesecake and swallowed it. In the pale-yellow light, too, of that living-room, her cheeks gleamed with tears.
I went into the kitchen and found fresh tissues for her, which I brought to her side without one word about it. She sniffled. The room was still quiet, too quiet, and I had this strange premonition of Dessie sitting in a house identical to the Fadda house in the future, but it was much darker and she sat in an armchair, waiting for her husband, who returned with the scent of floral perfume still clinging to his collar.
It was lonely. She touched her engagement-ring for comfort without knowing that I had touched it first, in a shop downtown. It was a truth that I could have let slip had I wished to hurt her for mocking my accent like she did. Only there was enough spite in the world, enough to worry about that it seemed minor in comparison; bigger fish, I thought.
"Gosh," Dessie breathed out in a croak. "I need to powder my face. What a sight! Poor Will ought to be bored stiff waiting for me out in the car. But then Daddy does pay him well for it. Would you run out and tell him I'll be right there?"
The chair scraped against the ground. She bustled out. I watched a teetering mouthful of cheesecake crumble off from the last slice that had been left behind.
Out of the blue, it occurred to me that Dessie had left to use the bathroom down the hall. which was the bathroom for guests. It had untouched bars of soap and bottles of lotion and lush hand-towels.
She had used it because no-one had told her she was more than a guest. She would wash her hands, one of which was adorned with an engagement ring from the eldest son of this family. She would pat dry those hands, perhaps pumping a helping of that lavender-scented lotion. All the while, the mirror bolted to the wall would show the reflection of a guest, unwanted in this house, unwelcomed to the point that the only person who ever greeted her was the Irish housekeeper.
What a sight.
x
Dessie had been brought to the house in a forest-green car. It had remained at the bottom of the garden, as much a stranger wading through foreign land as Dessie herself. Will, her driver, leaned against the car with a cigarette tipping between his lips, like he passed the hours by pushing its burning end dangerously close to the red-stained tip of his nose, before letting it drop flat.
Gravel snapped and growled beneath my shoes. The grass had been far more wet than anticipated. The cold licked at my calves, seeping up through the soles and into the marrow, where it settled in the edges of me like the elbows and knees, until even the bare frame of me shivered and waned.
"Will?" The call of his name from my chattering lips turned his head. "Dessie says she'll be right out."
"What?"
There was not much between us, only two feet, so that I stood closer to the porch. I called again, "Dessie says she'll be right out."
Will tapped at his ear and leaned forward, straining himself. I wondered if he was half-deaf, because my father had had trouble with one of his eardrums too. And what good would it do me if I shouted myself hoarse at him? The soles of my shoes soaked all the more, squelching beneath me as I walked closer to him.
I would dry them out on the radiator that night, I told myself. I would ring out my pantyhose and stretch them across the ribbed surface of the radiator like the shed skin of a moulting snake. I would sink into the warm confines of a gown and sock my feet for good measure. Rabbi would soon have a heater for me. He had checked every corner of my room for a hint of cold.
For the third time I repeated myself.
Will shrugged and said, "Yeah. I heard you the first time."
"Then why'd you bother askin' me again?"
His own accent was thick, a Northern accent far removed from mine. He spoke casually, too, cigarette bobbing on each word like a bubble float at the end of a fishing line.
"Because I saw a pretty girl and wanted a closer look, is all."
A scoff fled my lips in a billowing puff of air. He smiled, knowing full well that it had been cheesy. It did not embarrass him at all. On the contrary, he flicked away his cigarette and faced me. It landed noiselessly against the snow, its flaming end soon flickering out. He smoothed out his coat.
"Dessie sent you all the way out here to tell me that, did she?"
"She did." I pulled the cardigan tighter around me. "Never thought she'd take an Irishman for a chauffeur."
"Chauffeur," he snorted. "Driver, is all I am. And Dessie didn't. Her father did. Big difference, that. He figures the Irish-Americans in Missouri will vote for him, seein' as he takes Irish immigrants when most places wouldn't even spit on us. Seems the Faddas take Irish too. Old Don lookin' for a driver at all?"
"Not one who bothers his housekeeper."
His laugh was rich, his grin wide and pleasant. "Is that what I'm doin', aye? Botherin' you? Now there's a first."
"First time botherin' a girl? I doubt that."
"First time managin' to do it before I ever introduced myself proper to her. Name's Will Kavanagh."
Out from his fur-rimmed cuff appeared his hand, snow-bitten in shades of red. I shook twice.
"Ava McCarthy."
"Ava." He mused a moment, toying with me, seeming to reflect on that. "Sounds good with Kavanagh, that. Ava Kavanagh. Fancy a change?"
One could throw a stone in Ireland and hit a man like Will Kavanagh; rogues, we called them, cheeky and easy-going, hopping from one round of banter to another. If he sought to fluster me by poking fun and flirting, it was a lost cause.
I liked shyness and gentleness. I liked quiet intelligence simmering beneath the rim of a round hat. I liked peeking glances taken over the lip of a coat collar, a coat whose spine had been ripped and sewn anew. I liked a rattling toolbox and hands that could mend all that was broken.
So Will Kavanagh could not erode me and render me his plaything. I was firm, like the bulky trunk of the tree in the back garden where the birdhouse was. I neither shook nor wavered for him. I only stared him down, unflinching.
"Never seen you 'round the usual places downtown for the Irish," he said. "You should visit Collins' Bar. Nice old place on the south side of the city."
The gravel crunched again. Rabbi had returned in a car. Through the windshield, I spotted Antoon and Matteo with him, returning from some unnamed task. All three wore expressions of suspicion, looking at Will, because that was the natural state shown to strangers at the Fadda residence.
Perhaps one of them recalled that Dessie was here for Josto, which explained the new car and cooled their qualms about Will. For what it was worth, Will himself seemed unruffled by the arrival of Rabbi and the others. He simply rested against the car and crossed his arms.
"Good music on Fridays," he continued. "Collins' Bar has, I mean. Can find all the Irish of Kansas City in there then."
Rabbi approached. "Ava," he said. "Dessie still here?"
It was a bland question, one that he could already answer for himself. I suspected that his hackles rose like that of a dog, even if he knew the reason for Kavanagh being here like he was. Rabbi trusted no-one outside that third floor of the house. He saw only threats and rugs to be pulled out from under him. He saw the world like a sparrow picking at a measle of seed left scattered on the ground, swivelling around his flighty coal-black eyes for the starlings and crows bound to swoop in and take what little he had. I would chase off those starlings, those crows.
"She is," I told him. "Will Kavanagh is the man charged with takin' her home."
Will stuck out his hand for Rabbi. The men shook only once.
"Will mentioned an Irish bar in town," I said. "Rabbi has Irish blood in him."
"Has he, now? Well, I can see why the Faddas would take such a pretty Irishwoman for a housekeeper," Will said. His gaze settled on Rabbi. "But what do you offer them?"
Rabbi offered a calm and smooth answer: "I'm good with a gun."
It seemed he was in no need of me to chase off starlings and crows, after all.
Along came Dessie who had taken her time. She hurried out from the house, purse jostling against her coat. She had powdered her face enough to coat the splotchy redness of her cheeks from crying, though it left a pallor not unlike what a mortician might sweep across the death-mask of a body.
She cried out goodbyes to an empty porch, for Antoon and Matteo had already entered the house, and Josto had left, and Mrs Fadda had made excuses not to meet her, so that only a handful of Irish strangers stood around to wave her off.
I thought of what Dessie had asked me. What will it take to make Josto love me?
And though I was sure that the simple answer of nothing gnawed away at her, I knew that she would powder at that answer like she had powdered her face, blotting at what would still seep through. She would try, a hundred times over, to chase off a different kind of threat than starlings and crows; hers wore floral-scented perfume and left red-coloured lipstick on his collar, the kind that he liked so long as it was not hers.
x
Rabbi placed his hand on my lower-back as we walked to the house. Upstairs we went together, climbing ever higher, crying excelsior at each twist and turn on the staircase. Inside his bedroom, he turned on the heater and asked Satchel to finish off the sums that they had been working on the night beforehand.
Rabbi had borrowed a chair from my bedroom so that Satchel could sit with us at the little table in the bedroom, where all three of us would sit through the rest of the afternoon and into night. It was at that point of night that Rabbi would rise and draw the curtains, and Satchel would prepare himself for sleep, until it was only Rabbi and I left to talk quietly in our own tongue about the day.
Rabbi moved the table aside, turning the chairs to the windows, how we liked. I was bold. I draped my legs on his thighs, angling myself on the chair so that I could stretch out and rest. I had taken off the pantyhose, hung them out like snakes atop one side of the radiator while my shoes dried on the other. He rested the comforting weight of his arms on my legs to listen out for birds.
I told him about Dessie and my accent and all the other things that had happened.
"Don't need to change a thing about yourself, Ava," he said.
It was a touching sentiment. "So you won't be signin' me up for these lessons she talked about?"
"No. Like how you talk. Reckon Dessie could use some lessons in manners herself."
Even in his quiet moments, I understood that Rabbi was listening from the tilt of his head or his lips shaping into a short-lived smile.
Josto had not listened to Dessie. She had told him about her friends and he had jumbled up their names, forgotten who had gotten married that year and who had had babies until even Dessie had fallen silent, looking at the table, conjuring up some other topic of conversation.
I never thought that I could feel anything for Dessie but loathing. Yet I imagined her then, while Rabbi checked that my shoes were dry, and I found myself wishing that I had comforted her.
Only I was the housekeeper. I plated, I served, I washed.
But still I wished and wished.
I turned my mind to other things. I remembered dancing with him in this room, and wanting it again.
"We should visit that bar Kavanagh talked about."
Rabbi rested back against the seat, having returned my shoes to the radiator. "Still damp," he said. "Should find you a better pair. You could catch your death in cold like that."
I tipped my head back and chuckled. "Are you dodgin' the question?"
"Not well enough if you're askin' that."
I smiled at his wit and the touch of his hands resting on my ankles. "Isn't that what young folk like us do in these big cities, Rabbi? Go out dancin' and livin', don't they?"
He eyed me. "Do plenty of livin'," he said.
"And what about dancin'?"
"Would make a fool of myself out there dancin'."
"No more a fool than me. But it'd be us, together. And it's all Irish there. No chance of Italians showin' up."
His shoulders loosened a little. "Only have an hour spare," he mumbled finally. "Two hours, tops. With the boy gone out to the pictures. Won't be drinkin', not a drop. Need a clear head."
I drew my legs from his lap. "Really? You'll go with me?"
"You heard me, Ava."
Bolting forward, I wrapped my arms around him, hugging tight. He was stiff as a board, at first, until finally he sagged. I remembered a long night in Dublin with my mother, in one of her black moods. She had been talking about men after one of our neighbours' husbands had run off on her. She had said that all I could hope for from my man is that he rarely raise his voice and raise his fist even less. I should hope, too that he did not suffer from a need for alcohol, and if he had another woman, that could be forgiven, on a good day, though she never did say what should be done on bad days.
Rabbi had no perfume clinging to him, no lipstick on his collar. He steered clear of alcohol too, never raised his voice, had a gun tucked into his waistband but never liked to use it. He would not run off. He would check the radiator, he would find me a heater for my bedroom. He was good. He had to be.
"It's a good day, Rabbi," I said. "You know that?"
There was a distant call from the hallway. It was Calamita, summoning Rabbi. I felt that strain in him, stringing itself between his tendons, forcing his hand out to grip his hat and place it on his head. I brought his coat to him, held out the arms and kissed his cheek. He told me to shuffle Satchel into my bedroom and pull the latch. He went out as quietly as he could.
My eyes had grown wet, but I could not quite say what it was that had brought me to tears.
x
Collins' Bar breathed out rolling hot clouds of steam once its door was opened; it was small, cosy, so crowded that it felt like parting the red sea to find two small stools for us. Rabbi ordered us both drinks even if we left them on our small round table made of knotty wood, untouched.
Antoon had made good on his promise of taking the children out to the pictures. It would be something of a show for the Cannons, treating Satchel like that, taking him into a theatre where he would otherwise be thrown out for his skin. Don Fadda had connections. He could take a whole theatre for himself for a night if he wanted it. I also thought Don Fadda had done it out of kindness. It was not right that Satchel spend his nights cooped-up in a room with me and Rabbi for company.
I wanted to think that Don Fadda had done it out of kindness. Yet I thought of Mr Cannon across town and wondered if he would see it that way too.
The night carried into the loud clapping for the musicians who sat in the alcove nearby and readied themselves. It had already been hard to hear over the chatter, but the sudden burst of folk-song drowned out what little else could be discerned. Yet the songs were familiar, the accents mine, the maps on the wall of my own country and the paintings too, showing landscapes that ran long like green snaking rivers.
Some danced. Others tipped pints to their mouths and wiped the foam with their lips. The room filled with the dancing – and it was wild dancing, kicking legs, spinning, and my Grandmother had always said that Irish jigs were meant not only for musicians, but musicians and crowd together.
I pulled Rabbi to his feet. He rose rigidly, like a corpse propped upright from its coffin, but soon he fell into the movements, and we spun around like sparrows, breathless, driven around and around by the flight and fall of everyone else who danced alongside us. I panted at each whirl, laughed each time that he lost his footing and laughed harder each time that I lost mine.
When one song had ended and another strummed its first notes, I leaned in and kissed him more passionately than I had ever done before, so his arms had to encircle me and anchor us both in place. Sweat dampened our skin, curled the strands along my temple, made me feel freed and untamed.
Even Rabbi, reserved though he normally was, seemed alight in some strange way. His coat had been left on the stool. One strap of his suspenders had fallen slightly and he seemed unwilling to fix it like he usually would, rolling up his sleeves against the blistering heat that enveloped us within the bar, so full of bodies, so full of noise. He was even more handsome to me then than he had ever been before. His hair was in its parting, but one or two strands fell further, framing his eyes.
Into his ear I shouted: "Thank you, Rabbi. For dancin' with me. For bein' here with me."
His own voice rang 'round and 'round the spiral of my ear to reach me: "We'll leave this town soon, darlin'. I got plans for us. I'm gonna make it happen. You watch."
He had never called me darling before. I wanted to hear it again and again. It was also the first time that he had said it without hints or vagueness and it floated up overhead the pair of us, lost in the whirling colours that followed our dancing.
Once our dancing had ended, I realised that I had no powder for the redness of my face, but he seemed not to mind placing a chaste kiss to my cheek when stepping out into the night.
x
I slipped into the house a few minutes ahead of Rabbi, hoping that we might not be spotted together. I darted upstairs, giddy like a little girl, slowing only at the landing. Then I checked on Satchel. He slept soundly with one of his books slumped at his side in the bed. I put it away for him, smoothing the blankets around him. I glanced at the two chairs near the windows, and smiled.
x
In the morning, I would pack sandwiches for Satchel and I would wish him well, for he was off to see his father in the park. I would hum the songs that we had heard in Collins' Bar while I dusted and swept and cleaned the stubborn spots on the countertop. I would still be rubbing out those stains when Maxia screamed, and the house fell silent afterward, as if it could never again know sound.
I found her in the hall, the front-door still wide open, and Rabbi stood out there on the porch. He reached out to Maxia. She slapped his hands away. He looked up at me and said, "Ava, Don Fadda was shot."
I thought about yellow fields and finches.
x