Disclaimer: This is a non-commercial work of fanfiction. Anything recognizable from Newsies belongs to Disney and not to me.
Chapter 7: Family
Davey debated all afternoon whether or not to take Sadie up on her offer. As eager as he was to seize any opportunity to keep up with his studies, he really didn't like being indebted to anyone, and he would most certainly be beholden to Sadie if he added this to the small but growing list of favors that he felt he owed her for.
In the end, however, his scholastically-minded disposition won out, and later that evening, he found himself wearily climbing the stairs to the landlord's office on the third floor.
He would have never thought that after selling his last paper earlier that day he would find himself unexpectedly fleeing from the warden of a juvenile detention center, then turning right around to take in a few numbers of a vaudeville show, all before endeavoring to return to his academic studies later that night. But he supposed that it was just a day in the life of a newsie moonlighting as a schoolboy. It was a rather ludicrous situation, and if Davey wasn't already so staggered by the day's events, he probably would have laughed at himself.
He'd certainly learned a lot more about Jack in the last several hours. The newsie leader's formerly unwavering cockiness had slipped several times, first when Les had unintentionally pressed the issue of having folks, and secondly when Snyder had unexpectedly shown up and had given chase. Despite his initial bewilderment, Davey had seen a palpable fear in Jack's eyes, and that look of raw, real terror had been enough to get him to start running, even though as far as he was concerned he'd had no one chasing him.
Jack's eventual explanation, delivered between gasping breaths on the catwalk of Irving Hall, had been cut short by the arrival of Ms. Medda, and though some questions had lingered in Davey's mind, he hadn't felt comfortable enough to press the issue, not when he really didn't know Jack well at all, and not when the newsie leader was clearly adverse to talking more than he needed to about Snyder and The Refuge.
The vaudeville performance had ended up providing a sufficient distraction, and by the time it was over, Jack had disappeared. A cursory effort to locate him had proved futile, and, realizing the lateness of the hour, Davey had elected to take Les home, reasoning that they would see Jack the next day at the circulation gate with the rest of the newsies and could catch up with him then.
They'd hurried back to the tenement, arriving just as their parents were finishing up their dinner. Thankfully, Les had been too tired and hungry to recount the events that had delayed their return, and Davey had been left to explain everything himself. He'd skirted around some of the more worrisome details, knowing that they would concern his parents unnecessarily, and had tried instead to focus on relaying the positive aspects of their first day as newsboys: that they'd made some friendly acquaintances on the job, sold all of their papers, and had a pocket full of coins to show for their efforts.
(If this approach was, in fact, a slightly softened version of what Jack called "improving the truth," Davey had chosen not to dwell on it).
Having satisfied his parents, he'd explained that Sadie had offered to catch him up on what he'd missed in class that day and had asked for their permission to meet her at the landlord's office. Mayer and Esther, grateful for this unexpected kindness, had readily excused him from dinner, and Davey had hastily grabbed his schoolbook and slate and had made his way upstairs…
…which was where he now found himself, in front of the freshly-painted door of the landlord's office.
Raising his fist, he paused for just a moment to collect himself, then knocked.
Sadie had just situated herself at her father's large desk when a knock sounded on the office door. She got up to open it and was slightly surprised to see her downstairs neighbor standing in the doorway with his schoolbook in hand despite the relative lateness of the hour.
"Davey!" She opened the door wide, beckoning him inside. "I wasn't sure if you were coming or not. How was the rest of your first day on the job?"
"Busy," Davey answered, stepping hesitantly into the office. "I'm sorry if I kept you waiting."
"We only just started ourselves," she assured him. Lilly had suffered several seizures that evening at dinner, so everything had been pushed back a little.
Motioning for Davey to take a seat at the desk, Sadie added, "Papa had to go back to the apartment to help Mama with something, but I'm sure that you'll meet him eventually. In the meantime, this is my sister, Abigail." She gestured to the younger girl who was curled up in an armchair in the corner of the office, engrossed in a book. "
Abby," Sadie called, catching her sister's attention, "this is Davey Jacobs, our neighbor on the second floor. He's Les' brother."
"Hello," Abby said shortly.
Davey returned the greeting, but before he could say anything more, Abby quickly returned to her book.
"Sorry," Sadie apologized. "She gets rather absorbed in her reading."
"I'm the same way," Davey assured her. He took a seat at the place that Sadie indicated, setting his school book down on the desk. "So, is it just the two of you?" he asked.
"Actually, there are four of us." Sadie pulled another chair up to the table, joining him. "Our oldest sister, Judith, lives in Boston with her husband and their two sons. Judith was the responsible one, so now that she's gone, you can imagine how we younger ones comport ourselves in her absence." A little smile tugged at her lips before she continued, "Lilly is the second oldest. She's a little different than the rest of us. We aren't really sure why, but about a year after she was born, she started having seizures. The doctors weren't able to find a cause or a cure, and she's had them ever since."
Sadie paused, trying to decide how much to elaborate before adding, "Lilly doesn't really leave the house, and needs to have someone with her all the time. She doesn't talk much, and it's difficult to know how much she comprehends...but I'm positive that somewhere inside she understands more than we know. Lilly is the best listener, and the one who draws our family together.
"And then there's Abigail, our voracious reader," Sadie continued as her sister looked up from her book upon hearing her name. "Abby's the focused one, Mama's favorite, and the baby of the family."
"I am not a baby!" Abby objected, wrinkling her nose in disgust. "I'm nearly ten."
"You'll always be the baby," Sadie declared loftily, "no matter how old you are." Her sister glared at her, and she smirked teasingly in reply.
Davey seemed to be taking it all in.
"So, if Judith's the responsible one, Lilly's the one who brings the family together, and Abby's the focused one, what does that make you?" he asked, sounding a little curious.
"The third oldest, rather impulsive, and an incorrigible flirt!" Abby cut in loudly before Sadie could reply.
"Abby!" Sadie exclaimed, staring at her sister in shock. "Why would you say that? Do you even know what 'incorrigible' means?"
"You just called me a baby," her sister scowled, not to be deterred. "Fair's fair. And I'm only repeating what I heard Mama tell Mrs. Hart."
"Maybe I should have added 'eavesdropper' to your description," Sadie muttered, slightly vexed.
Abby gave her a smug look but said nothing, pointedly returning to her book.
The fault-finding words had stung, and Sadie found herself wishing that there had been something positive that her sister (and mother) could have added to offset a rather unflattering evaluation, but there was nothing that she could do about it now.
"I suppose I'll have to leave it up to you to determine whether or not my sister's kind assessment of me is true," she said to Davey, trying to keep her tone lighthearted.
"Whether or not it's true, I'm sure it's not the whole story," came his slow but deliberate answer.
She glanced at him in surprise, and saw that he was regarding her with a thoughtful look on his face, quietly inviting her to vindicate herself if she wanted to.
Unfortunately, when she opened her mouth, what came out instead was a flippant remark.
"Are you sure about that, now?" It would be easier to just laugh off the subject and move on - she actually didn't know how she would have characterized herself to Davey had she'd been given the chance to answer, and the damage was already done.
To her surprise, he didn't play along with her deflection.
"Well, I'd add 'industrious' to the list, for one," he said. "Anyone who can help her father out with the family business and still have a side job has to be at least a little bit conscientious. And you seem to make friends easily, so there's that." He shrugged. "I'm sure there's more, but I'm not really much of an authority on the subject."
It was the first time that Sadie had heard him push back (albeit mildly) on something she'd said, and this sudden assertiveness gave her pause. With her off-handed remarks and teasing words, she was usually the one rendering Davey speechless, but somehow, in his reflective, thoughtful way, he'd managed to return the favor…and she found that she had no idea what to say to him in reply.
After a moment, the boy in question broke the silence.
"Anyway, speaking of subjects…" He cleared his throat a bit awkwardly.
"Oh, of course!"
Sadie recovered, opening her school book to the day's lesson and quickly becoming absorbed in trying to explain their schoolmaster's lecture to Davey. It was a bit challenging; she hadn't realized earlier in class that she would be giving an impromptu tutoring session later that day (and thus hadn't bothered to pay particularly close attention), but she struggled gamely through it.
The irony wasn't lost on her; of course, it would be she, the least academically-inclined of all, who would end up instructing possibly the brightest and most bookish student in her class. She could already tell that she was going to have to pay much more careful attention at school if these meetings with Davey were going to become a regular occurrence, and slightly regretted the offer that she'd made of helping him keep up with his studies.
But, she was a person of her word, so she wouldn't renege on her proposition. Perhaps she wasn't the best suited for the job, but trying to retain the information taught in class well enough to teach it could be a good challenge for her. And if there was one thing that could be said for Sadie Becker, it was that she rarely backed down from a good challenge.
Candlelight had always been soothing to Esther Jacobs. There was something about the flickering glow that softened things, muting colors and fading lines in a way that seemed to slow life down, bringing into focus only that which was most salient and crucial while everything else faded away to black.
This distillation helped her direct her thoughts, which had become rather scattered as of late. Between caring for her husband and trying to figure out how she was going to run their household on an even more meager budget than before, it hadn't been easy to find quiet or peace, but now, with her entire family finally settled in for the night, a sense of relief stole over her as she sat quietly at the table beside her flickering candle.
David had returned from his tutoring session about an hour ago, slipping quietly into the apartment so as not to wake the already-sleeping Les, and had eagerly devoured the meal that Esther had kept warm for him (he didn't eat nearly enough, as far as she was concerned). In between bites, he'd elaborated (at her request) on his earlier explanation of how his first day on the job had gone.
True to form, he'd stuck to the facts of the matter, not once mentioning how he'd felt about any of it until Esther had pressed him, knowing that David rarely shared his emotions unless he was prompted to.
It was only then that she'd seen his face fall. He'd admitted quietly that he didn't think he was cut out for the job, and shared his misgivings over the pressure to doctor up headlines in order to sell more papers.
David had always been reflective, and it didn't surprise Esther that the anecdotic liberties necessitated by the newsboy profession would jar his more thoughtful sensibilities. Les, from what little he'd shared, seemed to have no qualms about employing whatever means necessary to sell his papers, but David was clearly struggling to find some kind of compromise between his moral convictions and his responsibility to provide for their family.
It was a burden that should have never been placed upon his shoulders, and Esther found herself regretting that she and her husband had gotten so used to depending on David that they often forgot that he was just a boy on the cusp of manhood and not a third adult in their household. Her oldest son's quiet and responsible disposition had made it easy to depend on him time and time again, and with all of the moving they'd done, he'd learned to be adaptable, but sometimes Esther wondered if the rest of the family had come to take his resiliency for granted.
Originally, she and Mayer had planned to have other children closer to David's age, but Esther had miscarried several times in the years following David's birth, and the pain of those losses had left her devastated and her son without a sibling and playmate. Then, unexpectedly, Les had been born, squalling and sickly at first, then later bright and precocious, and the conscientious eight-year-old David had willingly assumed his post as the (occasionally overprotective) guardian of the newest member of the family.
Esther wondered sometimes if there was much left of David between the roles he filled of dependable older son and responsible older brother. She'd seen a brief spark of joy when he'd gone back to school, his inherent love of learning stirring up an exuberance that he rarely displayed. But David's time at school had been cut short, and that spark had died with it. Seeing the conflicted resignation on his face when he'd talked to her about dropping out of school to become a newsboy had been one of the most painful moments of the whole ordeal for Esther, second only to hearing about Mayer's accident.
Under the circumstances, however, there was little that she could do about it.
In the moment, she'd simply settled for patting her son on the arm and speaking to him in a few sincere, carefully chosen words, telling him that she was proud of him, and that his sacrifices had not gone unnoticed. Then, seeing the lateness of the hour and sensing his growing fatigue, she'd sent him off to bed, telling him gently but firmly that it was time he got some sleep.
Off-handedly, before he'd retired for the night, he'd mentioned the trolley strike. It had been in the news for several weeks, but he'd read more about it in the day's copy of The World that he'd been selling. It was a rather passing remark, and Esther hadn't pressed him to elaborate, not wanting to delay his rest, but she'd sensed that underneath his calm exterior, David's mind was feverishly working.
Thankfully, the long day had taken its toll, and he had quickly fallen asleep beside his brother, leaving Esther alone with her thoughts and her flickering candle.
The gentle light was soothing, but her heart was very heavy, and she found herself driven to pray as she often did when she was regretting the past, fearing the future, and struggling with the things she could not change in the present.
She prayed that her husband's leg would heal quickly and that he would be back to work soon.
She prayed that Les would be safe out on the streets and that he would have wisdom in knowing how to sell his papers without resorting to falsehood.
She prayed for herself, that she would be granted the fortitude necessary to hold the family together during this trying season.
But most of all, she prayed for David, that he wouldn't break under the strain of the unexpected responsibility that willingly shouldered for all of them, and that somehow he would find relief from the burden caused by his new profession. It seemed counterintuitive to pray for an abatement of the very livelihood that ensured her family's survival, but something compelled Esther to do it, and as she did, she was filled with an inexplicable sense of peace.
Perhaps deliverance for David would take on an unexpected form...but in one way or another, she knew that it would come.
And when it did, she hoped that he would somehow be able to find his joy again.
A/N: Well, there you have it, folks: just a few more hours in the life of Davey Jacobs. Writing this story has made me realize how compressed the timeline of the musical is - there's a lot that happens in a relatively short span, and when you try to add in missing scenes and additional characters, well, you end up needing several chapters to even get to the strike. Thanks for hanging in there with this! :) I'd love to hear what you thought.
