He made them sound like small things, but a roof over their heads and food on the table—what mattered more than that? “It’s not just the two of us,” she said.
“Do you think I’d’ve given Chester the high hat if I didn’t have a good reason?” He was losing patience, but trying not to show it. He had almost mentioned Hammond last night, just to prove to her that he was on the verge of something special, but he was so anxious that he feared saying Hammond’s name aloud could jinx the whole operation. He’d told Rosemary that he had a plan, and that would have to be enough for now.
“We need—”
“What we need is to move out of this dump,” he said. “The four of us squeezed in here, and Mrs. Fichetti always minding our business.”
She shushed him, her expression cross, and pointed toward the floor, then toward the open window. She spoke slowly, expecting to be overheard: “Oh, she’s lovely. You’re just in a contrary mood.”
Martin gritted his teeth. He couldn’t speak honestly in his own home without the old biddy who owned the place giving them hell. Which meant it wasn’t his home. It was just a place he lived, a place his wife liked no better than he did—less, actually, because she spent so much more time here dealing with its summer stifle and winter chill, its smells of someone else’s cooking.
From the girls’ room came Kate’s voice, high and insistent. She wanted something, or someone, and if she persisted she was sure to wake her sister.
“Would you mind?” Rosemary said. “She’s not going to want me. Having you home in the evening is a treat for her.”
“I told Francis I’d—”
“For her sake,” Rosemary said. “And for mine. She’ll keep this up all night.”
Martin sighed heavily, shucked off his jacket, and draped it over the back of a chair. In the girls’ bedroom, a pale strip of light traced the edges of the blackout shade. The longest day of the year was coming, and the sun hadn’t yet set.
“You’ve got to hush, monkey,” he said. “You’ll wake the baba.”
“I can’t sleep.” She was rolling from side to side on the mattress. Her wispy blond hair was matted to her forehead. Martin had pulled down the upper window sash but the air in the room did not stir. With one pudgy fist, the girl rubbed her eyes, back and forth like rolling a ball. She would soon be fully awake, and he would have to either bring her into the light of the kitchen to keep her from waking the baby, or else call Rosemary in to get her back to sleep. Neither option would please Rosemary.
The telephone rang in the living room, and with the first pulse of the bell Kate winced and scrunched her eyes. It rang a second time and he asked himself how long it would take Rosemary to pick it up—the apartment wasn’t that big. Did she expect that Martin would— The phone was snatched up on the third ring. Martin rubbed Kate’s back, but she batted his hand. Too hot. Already the fabric of her nightshirt was damp and clingy. He could hear the murmur of Rosemary’s voice, then a sudden rise in volume. She was speaking too loud for this hour, especially with Kate teetering on the edge of sleep.
“I want Mama,” she said. “I want Mama to sit with me.”
“Mama said you wanted Dada,” he said. “That’s nice, isn’t it?”
The girl scrunched her eyes again. A sour-lemons face. A Mama-not-Dada face.
“Now let’s go back to sleepy town,” Martin said. “When the sun goes down, we go to sleepy town.” He spoke with a lilt, hoping to sneak a lullaby past her.
“No songs,” she said. “A story.”
“It’s too late for a story, monkey. All the little monkeys are in bed, fast asleep.”
“Story,” she said. “A Ireland story. Like Mama tells.”
“What kind does Mama tell?”
“The kind with fairies.”
“Oh yes, fairies. Of course.”
“And leepercons. But no pookas. Pookas are mean. And scary.”
“Agreed. No pookas.”
“Mama says Dada is from Ireland. And Mama says you sailed on a big boat.”
“I did.”
“You came to ’Merica—that’s where we live.”
“All true.”
“And you and Mama fell in love.”
“We did. We fell in love.”
“And you had a baby—and the baby was me!” Kate’s expression was beatific, like an advertisement for baby food or enriched bread. She was the happy ending to the story, the point of it all. She did not know how much consternation had come with her arrival, and he hoped that she never would.
“That’s a very good story. I think that’s the best story there is.” He hoped this would be his cue to say good night, but Kate wasn’t done with him.
“Now you tell a Ireland story. A different one.”
“Katie, it’s late and Dada—”
“Stor-eeeee!”
“Katie,” he said, a bit too sharply. “Dada is more of a song man than a story man.”
“Mama tells stories. Good stories.”
“And that’s what makes Mama special, and music is what makes Dada special. Aren’t you lucky to have two such special parents?”
Kate looked unconvinced. She looked disappointed. Not for the last time, Martin thought. But she had also gotten a few more minutes before bedtime, and that was something.
“Now you have to promise Dada that if I sing you a song you will go right back to sleep. No more of this stay-awake nonsense.” Framing it as a deal made him feel like he wasn’t indulging her—a common complaint of Rosemary’s. So this wasn’t spoiling. He and his daughter were entering into a pact. He was teaching her the value of keeping her word.
Kate lay on her back, her head on the pillow. Martin sat on the edge of the bed and smoothed the sheet around her. He swept the wet strands of hair back from her forehead. He didn’t spend much time with the girls, and when he did, he was prone to impatience on a bad day and befuddlement on a good one. Most nights, Martin wasn’t home until long after the girls were in bed—Rosemary included. When pressed, he had been able to dredge up a half-remembered story from his own childhood, but these required a great deal of on-the-spot invention. Halting improvisations on the theme of leprechauns, fairy folk, pookas, and the other citizens of the invisible, ideal Ireland. He had been twelve, too old for stories, when his mother died, and after her death his father had told a different sort of story anyway—when he was in the mood for stories at all. Gone were the twilight creatures who raided cottages in search of porridge or stockings to mend or the odd infant or two. And gone were the big-boy tales of Cúchulain and Ossian and Finn McCool—the heroes of Old Ireland who had inspired the creation of the New Ireland. Instead, when it was time to send the boys to sleep, Martin’s father had cracked the spines of Virgil and Homer and Herodotus. It was no wonder Michael had turned out so serious-minded—the boy had never had a proper bedtime story in his whole life. That was his father’s fault, but it was also Martin’s. He could have taken it upon himself to read to his little brother, to soothe the boy who would grow up without any memory of his mother. But he hadn’t—not once.
And now here was his own little one. She had closed her eyes but hadn’t put to rest the smile of victory, of anticipation.