A tree grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith [122]
Yesterday he had come in while they were eating supper. He looked at them as though he were going to say something. Instead of speaking, however, he closed his eyes for a second and then went into the bedroom. He had no regular hours for anything. He came and went at odd hours of the day and night. When he was home, he spent the time lying on his bed fully clothed with his eyes shut.
Katie went about white and quiet. There was a foreboding about her as though she were carrying tragedy within herself. Her face was thin and there were hollows under her cheeks but her body was fuller.
She had taken on an extra job in this week before Christmas. She got up earlier and worked faster at her flat cleaning and was finished in early afternoon. She rushed down to Gorling’s, the department store at the Polish end of Grand Street, where she worked from four to seven, serving coffee and sandwiches to the salesgirls who were not allowed to take the time to go out for supper on account of the Christmas rush. Her family desperately needed that seventy-five cents that she earned each day.
It was nearly seven o’clock. Neeley had come home from his paper route and Francie was back from the library. There was no fire in the flat. They had to wait until Mama came home with some money with which to buy a bundle of wood. The children wore their coats and zitful caps as it was very cold in the flat. Francie saw that Mama had wash on the line and she pulled it in. The garments had frozen into grotesque shapes and didn’t want to come in through the window.
“Here, let me at ’em,” said Neeley referring to a frozen suit of underwear. The legs of the long drawers had frozen in a spread-out position and Neeley’s struggles did no good.
“I’ll break the damn thing’s legs,” said Francie. She whacked it fiercely and it crackled and collapsed. She pulled it in viciously. She looked like Katie at that moment.
“Francie?”
“Huh?”
“You…you cursed.”
“I know it.”
“God heard you.”
“Oh, shoot!”
“Yes, He did. He sees and He hears everything.”
“Neeley, do you believe that He looks right in this little old room?”
“You betcha He does.”
“Don’t you believe it, Neeley. He’s too busy watching all the little sparrows fall and worrying about whether the little buds will burst into flowers to have time to investigate us.”
“Don’t talk like that, Francie.”
“I will so. If He went around looking into people’s windows like you say, He’d see how things were here; He’d see that it was cold and that there was no food in the house; He’d see that Mama isn’t strong enough to work so hard. And He’d see how Papa was and He’d do something about Papa. Yes, He would!”
“Francie…” the boy looked around the room uneasily. Francie saw that he was uneasy.
“I’m getting too big to tease him,” she thought. Aloud she said, “All right, Neeley.” They talked about other things until Katie came home.
Katie came in with a rush. She had a bundle of wood blocks which she had bought for two cents, a can of condensed milk and three bananas in a bag. She stuffed paper and the wood into the range and had a fire going in no time.
“Well, children, I guess we’ll have to have oatmeal for supper tonight.”
“Again?” groaned Francie.
“It won’t be so bad,” said Mama. “We have condensed milk and I brought bananas to slice on top.”
“Mama,” ordered Neeley, “don’t mix my condensed milk with the oatmeal. Let it stay on top.”
“Slice the bananas and cook them with the oatmeal,” suggested Francie.
“I want to eat my banana whole,” protested Neeley.
Mama settled the argument. “I’ll give you each a banana and you eat it the way you want.”
When the oatmeal was cooked, Katie filled two soup plates full, set them on the table, punched two holes in the can of milk