Nobody Home

In my hometown there was once, a small, wooden frame house with shutters painted white and umber shingles flecked with fulvous streaks, evidence of damage by time and weather. It was on the far right corner of the intersection of Burnside avenue and 7th street, as viewed diagonally across from my grandfather's little cottage where I spent many a happy Saturday morning (weekday afternoons as well, until my school day expanded to 3 p.m. with the start of second grade). The only person ever seen going in or out of the corner house was a petite lady with gray hair and a sunny smile for any child who wandered by. She walked with a deeply stooped gait though her visage was always upturned as if she were expecting something or someone. I would watch her secretly while atop my grandfather's workbench shielded by his vine's grape leaves, the afternoon sun behind me. Her face's expression when she thought she was alone was something I could not help but gaze upon. She seemed to be crying but without tears or sound. With my tender years, I thought she was playing a game with her face and that the change in expression was her private "fun" or her own "toy" that she manipulated up or down, on or off, when I or my childhood companions appeared or departed. She would sometimes sweep the slate and flagstones of her improvised walkway with an old corn broom while the smell of baking chocolate would often waft towards me, especially when her screen door swung open.

One morning, the "Flower Girl" strolled by. Rather, she made her way alongside the dilapidated picket fence surrounding the corner house in the erratic way that little ones do, their seemingly will-o'-the-wispish meanderings, dictates of brains besotted by furiously busy reverie. Maryanne was a little girl of Irish descent who seemed to go almost every morning to the church that was straight up the hill along the avenue. Sometimes she would carry small bouquets of wildflowers that I saw her pick from fields that were really empty lots that human activity would soon make increasingly less pastoral in the coming years. Maryanne delighted in her collections and of a Sunday she was instead given cut flowers by her mother to place near the altar before the first mass of that day. These occasions especially brightened her always sweet demeanor. On this particular day in late April, the little girl was clutching some poesies that included very tiny petals of a quite deep yellow that were attached to stiff stems of plants that were, by adult standards, simply weeds. The lady with the hunched form espied her going past and called out: "Maryanne! Maryanne! Oh, what lovely flowers you have today. How is Grandpa Kiely? Please remember me to him." "Oh, he's fine, Mrs. Beck. I'll tell him. I have to go to church now!" "Goodbye, sweetheart. Say a prayer for Mr. Beck now." "I will. Goodbye!" The closer Maryanne came to the churchyard with the church itself just beyond, the less flighty became her movements as she concentrated marvelously to complete her task with the flowers.

The days grew warmer and I spent more of them with Grandpa especially after school had ended. I played on my new bicycle having given the old tricycle that my brother and I shared to little Corey, the neighbor's child across from my house at the south end of 4th street. One day someone in the neighborhood told Corey's Mom about a cardboard box "loaded with newborn kittens" on Mr. Knapp's front porch (he lived around the corner from Mrs. Beck's place) and that any child could have one with a parent's permission and as soon as these babies were a little older. I asked and then begged my Mom to let me take one home. I changed my strategy to asking if I could try enlisting Grandpa to share ownership. She relented when picturing Grandpa's likely indulgent assent and realizing her disinclination to impose on his time. So biking and the happy fondling of the tiny calico fuzz ball that was Hector began to fill my summer days with joy and love. With playmates Charley, Luther, Richie and Johnny and the discovery of baseball, the summer was a wondrous expanse of seemingly endless doings, boundless plans and marvelous schemes of exploring or just luxuriating in the early evening in front of our t.v., or enjoying the fresh scent of the tobacco from one of Grandpa's newly opened packs of cigarettes, learning to blow bubble gum while standing in front of his shaving mirror and, of course, petting Hector's chest or between his ears.

It wasn't until almost the end of August that I first began to think about the annual trip to the discount-variety store (housed in an ancient cast-iron building and former dry goods store built when our town was still a sleepy whistle stop shortly after the Civil War) where we would soon begin our pre-school shopping for notebooks, pens, pencils, rulers and other objects that marked the approaching end of fun and freedom. It was at about that time too that I noticed something was different. Except for Hector's genus traditionally acknowledged to epitomize femininity in some primal way (the concept not yet within my ken), and because puberty was still a half dozen summers away, the subject of girls had occupied my thoughts not a whit nor was there a sense of anything missing in my "snips and snails and puppy dogs' tails" existence. Nevertheless, it now began to occur to me that I had not seen the "Flower Girl" for a long time. Before I could even articulate silently to myself a nascent curiosity about her, I heard the sounds of Grandpa's voice and that of Grandpa Kiely on the sidewalk near our house. They were too far away to hear clearly, but as I approached them I heard Grandpa Kiely thanking Grandpa and saying a word that I wasn't sure I knew the meaning of. It sounded like "tuna" but it was not that word. That much I somehow knew. There was something serious about the way that Grandpa stood there that told me that this was grownups' conversation and that I ought to keep a respectful distance until they were finished talking. I tried to look busy with a large twig, an end of which I pushed and twisted into the middle of a dusty square of grassless dirt between our sidewalk and 4th street. I wanted a very, very cold bottle of Coca Cola then and there, but I didn't have the dime that Grandpa could provide. The walk to the gasoline station, about a block and a half away was still a possibility because Sylvester, the friendly colored mechanic would very occasionally give us kids credit and temporarily "treat" us to one of the remarkably frigid little green bottles, its sticky, sweet and brown fizzy fluid somehow tasting best because it came from that particular bright red vending machine in the service station's little office. Though the late summer sun and Grandpa's conference had seemed unending in their respective intensities, my interest in the soda pop now slowly gave way to wanting to speak with Grandpa and needing him to speak with me and somehow knowing that he would soon cease to shut me out.

"Little Maryanne is sick" said Grandpa to me almost immediately after he shook Grandpa Kiely's hand and had walked with me several yards closer to our house. "I haven't seen her since before school ended. Does she have a cold Grandpa?" "No, son. She is very sick and your parents and I will visit her this afternoon in the hospital." "Can I come with you to visit her too?" "No, you must stay with Aunt Helen and we'll come for you tonight." "Is she going to die, Grandpa?" "She may die, yes. God may call her to be with Grandma and Uncle Lawrence." I was scared, but I didn't want to tell Grandpa. "Did she do something wrong, Grandpa?" He said nothing but swept me into his arms and after a long moment said "No, son. She is a good girl and God loves her very much."

The weeks passed quickly. My Mom sent get well cards to Maryanne and she came home a little before Columbus Day. I was allowed to visit her on that Friday that school closed for the holiday. She smiled that special "Maryanne" smile when she saw me. I asked her why she was wearing a scarf around her head and she showed me by taking it off. We both giggled until her Mom asked us to be quiet because Grandpa Kiely was resting in the next room. Her hairless little skull quickly seemed less funny, I think to her, as well. I asked her if I could kiss her and she looked puzzled. "What for, Robby?" Then she seemed to sense my sadness and smiled in that toothy special way. "Oh, sure, but only on my cheek." I quickly leaned over before she could change her mind and the strong whiff of wintergreen filled my nostrils as I noticed how very small she was. "Just a girl" I thought and wished I could swing my new bat one more time, though the kids were kicking footballs now down by the park. "Your mother just called Robby. Supper's almost on the table" called out her mother from the kitchen. "Goodbye Maryanne! I'll see you soon." "Can you come over tomorrow? It's Saturday." "Sure. Goodbye." Adjusting my baseball cap I waved to her and then turned, remembering to address her mother: "Goodbye Mrs. Dolan. Thank you for the cookies."

The next day it rained and Dad had some errands that included me. Shoes and a winter coat were on the agenda. I didn't visit Maryanne. The next time I was able to see her my parents came with me and they held my hand which they hadn't done since last Christmas when the ice was a big deal and my galoshes had been misplaced. It was perhaps one of the last wakes to be held in a private home in our town. The old Irish tradition in this case, most certainly did not feature the stereotypical raillery directed at the corpse replete with interactions, or imagined ones, between the quick and the dead and "the old glass".... just softly weeping people, rosary beads in more than a few hands and flowers. Hundreds of flowers were a beautiful sight. Maryanne held some of her favorite wildflowers. I learned years later that one was called Queen Anne's lace. Oh yes, she was laid out in her first holy communion dress from last May which then reminded me that that was the last time I had seen her before October eleventh. I too had made my communion then having had, the day before and immediately after Confession, with childish anxiety, sung to myself in church, somewhat more than above a whisper, the Elvis smash hit of the day "All Shook Up." Now I was more than shook up, thinking that death really only happened to certain old people and pets.

On Halloween I had my first cold of the season and Mom would not permit any Trick-or-Treating. When a mild second week in November found me hale and hardy and eager to roam the neighborhood on a Saturday, I speedily pedaled towards Mrs. Beck's house for the first time since mid-summer. She was not outside. I had never been inside her house. I wanted to say hello to her though I had never done so before except in reply to her cheerful greeting whenever one of us passed by. In fact, except for the rare times when Mom's hands were occupied holding presents and Dad was still parking the car at the start of a holiday visit to a relative's home, I had never rung anyone's bell before except my own or Grandpa's. My shyness waned as I convinced myself that this was not inappropriate. I could hear the buzzer, a low vibrating sound that didn't sound like it could be associated with the lighthearted Mrs. Beck. But then I thought of her other face. There were no sounds except for a dirty cooing pigeon bobbing his ashy-green head and waddling in my direction. It probably wandered over from our old train trestle on 9th street. I decided to ring again but stopped after a second or two when I spotted a fluttering sheer curtain two windows over from the front door. I looked in but the glare from without blinded me and I didn't want to appear too nosy. Next, I turned to see on the other side of the path a large piece of paper the color of Mom's shopping bags from the A&P that was nailed to a big flat stick that was stuck into the little garden across from a another window with a flower box on its sill. There was handwriting on the heavy paper and I found the reading simple to decipher despite my late blooming progress in literacy. "FOR SALE. CONTACT OWNER. Illinois 8-6887." I turned toward the picket fence's rusty gate and was surprised by what I saw all along the inside of the fence's left side. There, were all of Maryanne's flowers: the tiny deep yellow ones, the Queen Anne's lace ones and a couple of more that I remembered her holding tightly over her heart. Dad had explained to me what a "first hard frost" meant on the day last week that it happened: All Soul's Day. I was bewildered. The sky darkened very swiftly but a heavy shower did not come before my tears had welled up and sobbing had been stifled by the crook of my arm as I biked the very short distance to Grandpa's. I did not know nor would I have cared about a future pop song whose lyrics' chief conceit was the decision of the grieving singer to "do my crying in the rain." I just wanted to be with Grandpa.