Crossing the Tracks (9781416997054) (18 page)

“Ask me what I'm doing,” he whispers.

My breath lifts and lowers me. “What are you doing, Leroy?”

“Dusting your ear.”

Mrs. Nesbitt is on the porch swing. “I hear Marie,
from a hundred miles away,” she says as I come up the walk. “I sure miss her.”

My heart is in my throat. I look her in the eye. “Mrs. Nesbitt?”

“Yes?”

The words pop right out. “I want you and Dr. Nesbitt to be my guardians.”

I hear a sharp inhale. Mrs. Nesbitt stiffens and stares right past me over the chipped porch rail.

I take a breath. “And I do not want to live in Kansas City. I want to live in Wellsford with you.”

Mrs. Nesbitt fumbles her hankie under her glasses. “Oh, these damn things.”

I reach to help her, then pull back. “I'm sorry. I don't have… I'm…”

She motions for me to sit beside her, closes her eyes, gathers herself. She looks silvery and fragile. “Years ago, when my husband died, I thought I had suffered the big loss of my life.” She works the damp hankie in her fingers. “I was sure I was protected from a repeat of that impossible pain. My turn was over.”

The swing trembles. We stretch the beginnings of our spider's new home.

“But it wasn't.” Her voice is soft and bitter. “In one irrational moment, in an unspeakable war”—she turns to me—“Morris was dead.”

I barely breathe. I know she is working over a gash in her heart.

“We're the same, Iris. First your mother to tuberculosis, and then your father. Another senseless act—waging war with a train and the other ghosts he lived with.” She shudders.

There's more in her, so I wait, just like she would.

“I'm old.”

“Ma'am?”

“Kansas City is young and vibrant. So is Celeste. She'll be around a long while.”

“You're old and vibrant.”

She folds her gnarled hands and turns to me, a deep tenderness in her voice. “Lord knows Avery and I have
discussed this, Iris. I've resisted because… don't you see? If you live with us you will lose me, too.”

Dear Celeste,

How are you? I am fine.

I am going to give the Bootery to you. I sure hope you like it.

Dumb.

Dear Miss Celeste Simmons,

After consulting the attorney regarding my father's Last Will and Testament, I constitute, devise, and bequeath the Bootery to you.

You may also have any of his appurtenances and trappings, except his slippers. As the sole proprietor of the store, perhaps slippers would be a lofty accouterment to incorporate into your inventory.

Dumb, with spelling problems.

Dear Celeste,

I'm very sorry you are all alone and lonely, but remember, you are also young and vibrant. You will come out just fine even though I am not living with you.

Dear Celeste,

After searching my soul, I have decided to stay at the Nesbitts' and raise chickens. I hope you understand.…

I sit at Mama's little secretary desk. Balls of crumpled stationery dot the floor. It's hard to concentrate. Instead of clucks and the wind whining through the window casements, I hear the drips and murmurs of Atchison. A different house, a different song.

Henry taps up behind me.

“The most horrid letter is still better than the telephone or telling her to her face. The sooner she gets this, the better,” I say, turning around to Mrs. Nesbitt. “I truly think she could do a good job with that store. Dr. Nesbitt thinks so too. She's got the personality. Daddy was really successful, and he had that same type of personality. I don't think she's going to mourn and moan for long, unless…” I lower my voice. “Unless she figures out a way to cash in on sympathy customers.”

Mrs. Nesbitt sniffs.

“That was awful,” I say. “I'm sorry. I…”

“I thought it the moment she climbed up the train steps with a twisted ankle. She's tougher than I'd first thought. Determined.”

“It would be awful tripping around on a sprained ankle
pretending you are okay… always hurting and pretending you are okay.”

“We all do it,” Mrs. Nesbitt says.

August 25, 1926

Dear Celeste,

I have several things to say.

First, I am not moving to Kansas City. The Nesbitts have agreed to be my guardians and I am going to live with them in Wellsford.

Secondly, I have gone over my father's Last Will and Testament, and even though it was not signed, I want you to have the Bootery. Shoppers will like your handsome display windows and your enthusiasm.

The attorney will send you a letter about some money to help you get on your feet for the next six months. Carl, the manager of the Atchison store, has agreed to talk with you about business issues if you want his help.

I will rent out the house in Atchison for now, until I decide if I am going to sell it.
You can have any of Daddy's belongings you want, except his slippers and agate marbles and pen.

Best regards,

Iris

P.S. Mrs. Nesbitt says she thinks you will be a fine career woman, an example to modern young girls who wish to manage a business of their own. She says the Bootery will be the most successful retail establishment on Petticoat Lane!!!

There's only one shady spot in the letter: the part about Carl. But I know he'd help her if I asked him to. Carl has been great at managing Baldwin's Shoes since he came out of the back room. Proof, he says, that customers truly do trust somebody—even with stained fingernails—who knows shoes from the inside out.

Leroy leans on the back fender of Dr. Nesbitt's car.
He has removed the legs from Mama's secretary desk and wedged it, wrapped in a quilt, onto the backseat, leaving a small spot for me to sit on the way back to Wellsford. We lashed the drawers and the sliding compartments shut.
Mama's old papers and even a few books are still inside.

“So what's next?” he asks. He looks ready to lift the whole house with me in it.

“Let me think… dead weight being your specialty and all.” He smiles, but I know down deep he hates for me to go. He called me a “complex animal” like it was a regal compliment. He also said that his mother said she remembered my mama was just beautiful.

I check my list, then point toward the house. “I need you to get the recipe card off the kitchen table, and Daddy's marbles and slippers.”

We step onto the front porch. Leroy points up. “Did you want me to load that cobweb too?”

“Nope. The spider stays. But I do need you to get Mama's hair.”

“Pardon me?”

“Unless it's too heavy. It's in my room wrapped in a dresser scarf.”

I grip the side of Mama's secretary desk. Panic sprouts
in me. “I need to go to the cemetery before we leave!”

Dr. Nesbitt slows the car, pulls to the shoulder.

“I'm sorry. I just… I can't…” The engine hums. The desk vibrates beside me. I search out the car window, my stomach full of crows. “Which direction is it? Where? It's… can anybody remember?”

Dr. and Mrs. Nesbitt exchange a look. He nods, cranks the steering wheel, and heads south out of town. I tuck in
corners of the desk quilt that have blown loose and stare through the front windshield.

They wait in the car while I run through the wrought iron gate to the mound of dirt over Daddy's grave—pebbles and clods covered with a pile of dead funeral flowers. There are ants and roly-poly bugs in it. So many busy creatures unearthed just to make room for him.

Mama's headstone is low and settled. It says:
ANNA JANE KOHLER BALDWIN,
1885–1916.

I look from plot to plot. “It's me. I just wanted to say that I'm so sad to leave Atchison. But I have to.” I glance back at the Ford waiting for me in the golden afternoon. “The house will be okay. I'm taking care of it.” I turn to Daddy's side. “I gave Celeste the store, like you wanted. And Mama… we haven't spoken in a long time. Thank you for the desk. I have more of you yet to dust.”

I look up at the clear sky and then at the headstones all around, mossy perches for ground squirrels and sparrows. I straddle the graves—a foot on each. I shift my weight side to side. The three of us together again.

My tears water the dirt. I'm not exactly like Mrs. Nesbitt, I think. Mama and Daddy and I didn't have the connection she describes with her husband and Morris, but… I am a moment they loved each other. I know that now.

I feel full and unexpectedly powerful. I wish I had something—not dead flowers and ribbons, but a real and lasting thing to leave for them. I step away, then turn back and take off my shoes. There is something permanent I can leave: my footprints—one in Daddy's dirt and the
other a swirl in the fine dust over Mama.

The Nesbitts watch me walk to the car barefoot. “There's no hurry,” Mrs. Nesbitt says out the window.

“I'm ready.”

The sunflowers watch us turn around. Sun sparks off the weather-polished iron gate like a lightning strike. A choir of locusts tunes up.

We're all together too. Heading back north.

Homeward bound.

“I remember something else Mama did.”

Mrs. Nesbitt turns from the front seat of the car.

“She named me.”

“Why of course. Is ‘Iris' a family name?”

“No. Daddy wanted Louise, but she liked Iris.” I turn my palms up. “And she won. So I'm Iris Louise Baldwin, not the other way around.”

“So ‘Iris' is a victory for your mother!” Mrs. Nesbitt looks genuinely pleased. “What does it mean?”

“I'll look it up right now.” I read the slim
Naming Flowers
book I brought from our bookcase at home.
“‘Iris, the Greek goddess of the rainbow, carries messages from the gods and goddesses to favored mortals on Earth.
' That's why I get along so well with my wallpaper!
‘Widowers planted iris on the graves of their departed wives.'
” I look up. “My father never did that.”

“Which? Sorrowing or planting?” Dr. Nesbitt asks.

“Neither,” I say flatly.

“My first name, Julia, means ‘youthful,'” Mrs. Nesbitt says.

“That fits.”

Dr. Nesbitt squares his shoulders and smiles at me in the rearview mirror. “Well, as one of you already knows, Avery means ‘
elf-ruler
.'” He turns. “Doesn't it, Mother?”

Mrs. Nesbitt bows, turns to me. “I made that up when Avery and his brother were in their make-believe phase. Morris was
hero of the heath
!”

“Mother was cagey even then, Iris. Of course, being your guardian now, maybe elf-ruler fits!”

Mrs. Nesbitt unrolls her window and yells at the cows munching on what she calls Mother Earth's frayed summer dress: “
I
am Julia,
ever-youthful
, Elizabeth Thornhill Nesbitt.”

Dr. Nesbitt honks. “Avery,
elf-ruler.
Thomas Nesbitt.” He honks again.

The car rattles down the road. I inform the wind and gnats and hay, “
I
am Iris Louise,
not-the-other-way-around.
Baldwin. Iris Louise Baldwin.”

Dr. Nesbitt honks two long honks and finally the cows
turn, nameless spectators at Mama's rowdy one-car victory parade.

Dot rolls her cold little eyes. “Oh, good, you're back.”
She has a fistful of clothespins.

“So your Pa's dead.” She lolls her head. “I guess you're the only Baldwin still left to croak.” She looks heavenward. “Oh, I forgot, you ain't gonna croak 'cause you're still a baby.” Dot sucks her thumb. “Please, Dr. Nesbitt, Grandmommy Nesbitt, I'm Iris the helpless infant. Please take me in.” She slurps and wags her hips.

In less than two weeks time she's worse. A chill runs through me imagining that innocent baby. It should be scared to be born, the way I am scared of the horrid thought that has been born in me and won't go away.…