A tree grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith [37]
Johnny hardly looked at the baby. Still clutching the avocados, he knelt by Katie’s bed and sobbed out his fear and worry. Katie cried with him. During the night, she had wanted him with her. Now she wished she could have had that baby secretly and gone away somewhere and when it was over come back and tell him that everything was fine. She had had the pain; it had been like being boiled alive in scalding oil and not being able to die to get free of it. She had had the pain. Dear God! Wasn’t that enough? Why did he have to suffer? He wasn’t put together for suffering but she was. She had borne a child but two hours ago. She was so weak that she couldn’t lift her head an inch from the pillow, yet it was she who comforted him and told him not to worry, that she would take care of him.
Johnny began to feel better. He told her that after all it was nothing; that he had learned that a lot of husbands had been “through the mill.”
“I’ve been through the mill, now, too,” he said. “And now I’m a man.”
He made a big fuss over the baby then. At his suggestion, Katie agreed to name her Francie, after the girl, Francie Melaney, who had never married his brother, Andy. They thought it would help to mend her broken heart if she were made godmother. The child would have the name she would have carried had Andy lived: Francie Nolan.
He fixed the avocados with sweet oil and pickled vinegar and brought the salad in to Katie. She was disappointed at the flat taste. Johnny said you had to get used to it, like olives. For his sake and because she was touched by his thinking of her, Katie ate the salad. Evy was urged to try some. She did and said that she’d sooner have tomatoes.
While Johnny was in the kitchen drinking coffee, a boy came from the school with a note from the principal which said that Johnny was fired because of neglect. He was told to come around and get what money was due him. The note ended by telling Johnny not to ask for a recommendation. Johnny’s face got pale as he read it. He gave the kid a nickel for bringing the note and a message saying he would be around. He destroyed the note and said nothing about it to Katie.
Johnny saw the principal and tried to explain. The principal told Johnny that since he knew the baby was coming, he should have been more careful of his job. As a kindly afterthought, he told the boy that he wouldn’t have to pay the damage caused by the burst pipes; the Board of Education would see to that. Johnny thanked him. The principal paid him from his own pocket after Johnny had signed a voucher turning over the coming paycheck to the principal. All in all, the principal did the best he could according to the way he saw things.
Johnny paid the midwife and gave the landlord the next month’s rent. He got a little frightened when he realized that now there was a baby and that Katie wouldn’t be strong enough to do much for quite some time, and that they were out of a job. He consoled himself finally with the thought that the rent was paid and that they were safe for thirty days. Surely something would turn up in that time.
In the afternoon, he walked over to tell Mary Rommely about the new baby. On the way there, he stopped at the rubber factory and asked for Sissy’s foreman. He asked the man to tell her about the baby and would she stop over after work? The foreman said he would, winked, poked Johnny in the ribs and said, “Good for you, Mac.” Johnny grinned and gave him ten cents with instructions:
“Buy a good cigar and smoke it on me.”
“I’ll do that, Mac,” promised the foreman. He pumped Johnny’s hand and again promised to tell Sissy.
Mary Rommely wept when she heard the news. “The poor child! The poor little one,” she lamented. “Born into this world of sorrow; born for suffering and hardship. Ai, there’ll be a little happiness, but more of hard work. Ai, ai.”
Johnny was all for telling Thomas Rommely but Mary begged him not to just yet. Thomas hated Johnny Nolan because he was Irish. He hated the Germans, he hated