Escapade (9781301744510) (20 page)

All Mama ever wanted was just once to hear
you call her "mother." All your lousy money and you couldn't even
give her that.

Zeke flung one arm across his eyes. He could
shut out the patterns of moonlight spilling through the curtains,
but he couldn't shut out those accusing words or the memories they
spawned.

He could still see that day so clearly, he
might well have been a kid again, all of seven years old. He had
been fighting as usual. Some bigger boys had been picking on Buck
Tooth Willy again, ever an object of ridicule because of his
prominent front teeth.

Zeke had been stupid to challenge the older
boys. He was big for his age, but they were so much bigger, members
of that dreaded street gang, the Plug Uglies. But something in him
had never borne much tolerance for bullies, so he rushed to Billy's
rescue, fists flying. Billy had escaped, but the two youths had
damn near busted Zeke's head open.

They had left him on his knees in the street,
blood spurting from his nose. That's how Sadie Marceone had found
him. That was the first time he ever looked up into her plump,
careworn features. Even then the lines had crisscrossed a face
forever old, yet her eyes, remarkable blackcurrant eyes, had been
forever young.

She had fussed over him, clucking her tongue
in that motherly fashion she had, and then scooped him out of the
gutter, taking him back to the settlement house where she did
volunteer work.

While the other ladies doled out soup to the
vagrant poor of the city, Sadie took him back into the kitchens,
cleaned up his nose and applied ointment to his cuts.

Looking back on it now, Zeke was surprised
that he had let her, half-wild savage that he had been, subsisting
mostly off the leavings of garbage cans like some stray dog.
Perhaps it had been because Sadie was the first woman he remembered
ever being kind to him. Most ladies had eyed him askance, as though
they thought he meant to steal their purses, or, worse yet, chased
him with the business end of a broom for bringing his dirty person
too near their own pampered darlings.

As she tended his hurts, her work-roughened
hands had been gentle, her broad smile warmer than the fire blazing
in the coal stove.

"That was a fine thing you did standing up to
those bullies," she said. "I saw how you rushed to help that other
boy."

"I didn't neither," he growled. "I just like
to fight."

"I think you're a brave boy all the same.
Your mama must be real proud of you."

"Not my mother!"

"Nonsense. All mothers are proud of their
sons." She patted his cheek, but he jerked away from her.

"That shows all you know, lady. My mother
thought I was garbage. When I was a baby, she dumped me in the
trash bin behind the orphanage."

Sadie's eyes went real bright at that. She
looked away for a minute, dragging the cuff of her sleeve across
her face. She sniffed like a person catching a cold, and when she
turned back, her smile was even more gentle.

"What's your name, child?"

"John Doe!" he said. That's what he told most
everyone since running away from the orphanage. The matron there,
being of a Biblical turn between bouts of drinking, had named him
Ezekiel. But Zeke only shared his real name with his most trusted
companions. And at that juncture, he had hardly known what to make
of Sadie Marceone, let alone trust her.

If she smiled at the clumsiness of his lie,
she managed to hide it from him. "John. That's a good strong name,"
was all she said.

When she had done patching his hurts, she
gave him something to eat. But the extent of his trust had been
stretched to the limit for that day. He snatched away the chunk of
bread and meat and bolted with it, out of the soup kitchen,
disappearing down one of the alleyways as he already knew so well
how to do.

But after that, he had taken to hanging about
the settlement house on the days when he knew she would be there.
Sometimes he only drew near long enough to wrench the food from her
outstretched hands. Other times he lingered long enough to talk,
even let her brush the hair back from his eyes, although he always
groused, "Quit that, lady." Pretending to be so tough, all the
while he had been secretly pleased by the small gesture.

It couldn't have been more than a few weeks
that passed in this fashion before she confessed to him, "Johnnie,
I went to visit that orphanage you told me about."

He glared up at her, his whole body trembling
with the pain of imagined betrayal. "You snitched on me. You told
them where I am."

"No, Johnnie, of course I didn't. I only
needed to find out some things about you." A troubled look came
into her eyes, which quickly cleared as she beamed down at him.
"You see, I want to adopt you, Johnnie. I want to bring you home
with me, to be my own boy."

He did not believe her at first. But she
meant it. Things seemed to happen quickly after that. His memory
contained only fragmented images of standing up before a judge and
being told his name was now John Marceone.

Far clearer was the day he had been taken
home to the cozy warmth of an apartment, garbed in the first new
clothes he had ever owned—knickers and a sailor middy. The cloth
was cheap, but the stitching impeccable, set in bySadie's own
clever hands. He had barely had time to take in his new
surroundings when he was confronted by three girls in calico
dresses, all with long, dark braids. They rose like stair steps,
the youngest about his own size and age, the eldest, Caddie, at
that time seeming to tower over him. All three regarded him with
solemn, critical eyes.

"Girls." Sadie placed her hand on his
shoulder. "This is Johnnie. He's come to live with us, the brother
I promised you."

Caddie softened enough to give him a shy
smile, while Agnes, the little one, let out a delighted whoop and
planted a kiss on Zeke's cheek. She didn't even seem to mind when
he scrubbed it away. But Tessa, the one nearest his own age,
glowered with resentment, muttering low enough so that Sadie
couldn't hear, "We don't need any boys around here."

If the little girl with the dark, scornful
eyes had been a boy, Zeke would have socked her for making it so
plain that he didn't belong here anymore than he had ever belonged
anywhere else in his short life. Instead he assured himself it
didn't matter. He didn't want to live in a houseful of silly girls
either. First chance he found, he would get the hell out of
there.

His moment came after supper when Sadie
shooed the girls off to clear the table. Settled into her rocker,
she appeared absorbed with darning a pair of Tessa's stockings.
Zeke backed toward the door.

Without glancing up from her work, Sadie said
softly, "You can run away again if you want to, Johnnie. But I hope
you won't."

Somehow her giving him permission to flee
dulled his desire to do so. He squared up to her, saying, "Well, I
might hang out here—for a day or two. But I don't want any more
mushing over me, see? And don't expect me to start calling you
Mama."

Her eyes were sad, but filled with
understanding. "You don't have to, Johnnie. But if the day ever
comes when you want to, that'd be just fine with me."

Even after all these years, those patient
words still echoed through Zeke's mind, more bitter than any
reproach that Tessa could have heaped upon him. He tried to shake
off all these troubling memories and snap himself back to the
reality of tossing upon the sofa in Rory's tiny parlor.

But with Rory asleep in the next room, there
was little distraction, only the lonely ticking of the clock upon
the mantel. Remembrance of Sadie's wistful expression continued to
haunt him.

What had she seen in him anyway that had
impelled her to such a rash step, taking in a half-wild street kid
to be her son? It wasn't as though she were some wealthy woman
given to philanthropic impulses. A poor widow, she had labored long
and hard, plying her needle, already burdened with the care of
three young daughters. She still had found time to do charity work,
at the settlement house and for her church.

Had he been just another of her charities?
She had never made Zeke feel that way. More like the son she had
always wanted, but never had. But in the end, he had proved a
disappointment to her.

True, with time, he had mellowed somewhat
from the young savage he had been, learned to wash once a day, not
to get into fights more than twice, to bow his head when grace was
said, even if he was too stubborn to pray along. But the one thing
he had never learned was how to show her his love. Long after he
had come to think of her in his heart as his mother, he had
continued to call her Lady. After all, tough fellows didn't show
their feelings, didn't do anything as embarrassing as go around
bleating "Mama."

And when he was finally old enough to know
better, it had been too late. With a heavy sigh, Zeke struggled
against the sofa pillows, levering himself into a sitting position.
He would never get to sleep this way. The stillness in the flat
seemed to reproach him like the silence of Sadie's grave.

It was so close in here, he could feel the
sweat gathering beneath his arms. Maybe he had made a mistake
staying here tonight. Sadie had never wanted anything to do with
his mansion on Fifth Avenue. Her ghost rarely haunted him
there.

But Rory's place was too reminiscent of that
old apartment, the home Sadie had carved for her family in that
concrete wasteland that was Little Italy. Zeke had had difficulty,
after so many nights huddled in some alley, in sleeping there too.
His temperature had always seemed to run a shade hotter than
Sadie's and the girls.

Flinging off the covers, Zeke finally got to
his feet. Surely Rory would have no objection if he opened a
window. He approached one of the side ones and tugged at the sash.
It stuck. Didn't they always? He was obliged to put a little
shoulder into it before the window creaked upward. But the welcome
rush of cool air was worth the struggle.

Just outside loomed the familiar metal rungs
of a fire escape, making it possible to descend or mount up to the
roof. A smile tugged at Zeke along with a memory, one of his few
pleasant ones. On those really hot nights, Sadie had always let him
sleep up on the roof. It was a good place for privacy, to get away
from the chattering of Caddie and Agnes, Tessa's endless
scolding.

Only him and all those stars to count.
Somehow up there it had been easier to relax, to stop being so
tough, to harbor a few tender dreams hidden away beneath the moon's
shadows. Zeke leaned up against the window frame, a rare mood of
nostalgia sweeping over him. A sudden impulse seized him, or was it
the night itself that beckoned? He didn't know, but he eased
himself through the window onto the fire escape. He peered down
through the grating to the street below. It was only two stories
down, but Zeke felt a familiar churning in the pit of his stomach.
He had always had a fear of heights, ever since he was a kid and
two of the Plug Uglies had dangled him by his heels from on top of
the old cotton warehouse. It had been one of the few times in his
life anyone had ever gotten him to cry uncle.

After all this time, Zeke knew the fear to be
irrational, but there seemed to be no ridding himself of it. He
coped now as he had always done as a boy. Taking a deep breath, he
forced himself to look up, never down. Clambering along the metal
rungs, he finally reached the flat surface of the roof.

He had been afraid he would find the
experience not at all as he remembered, changed somehow, but it
wasn't. The night was like velvet, the sky still as vast as he
recalled, the stars just as far away and mysterious. Keeping a
prudent distance from the edge, Zeke sat down, drawing up his
knees. Of course it had not been that long ago that he had done
this, only two years. But he hadn't noticed much of anything then,
the last time he had been with Sadie. A hot July night, he helped
her up above to seek some relief, but no air was stirring, not even
on the rooftop. And still Sadie shivered. She was already sick
then. If only he hadn't been so stupid, he would have noticed that.
But he had been too caught up describing to her the wonders of his
castle on Fifth Avenue.

"I'll get you away from this wretched
tenement at last, lady. The kitchen is going to be bigger than your
whole apartment. You'll love it."

Sadie only gave a sad shake of her head. "I
don't belong in such a place, Johnnie. I wouldn't know how to go
on."

"You'd learn. My friend, Mrs. Van Hallsburg,
has undertaken to teach me to be a gent. I'll get her to help you
become a grand lady."

Zeke flinched now at the recollection of his
own crudity, his incredible ignorance. As if there had been
anything that Mrs. Van H. or any woman could have taught Sadie. The
mention of the wealthy widow had only served to spoil that night
with his mother, his last, if he had only known it.

On parting, Sadie's eyes had been shaded with
trouble. She had always looked that way, ever since he had first
told her of his acquaintance with Mrs. Van Hallsburg.

"I wish you would stay away from her,
Johnnie. She's not a good woman. She comes from bad blood—all those
Markhams. Cold, uncaring people."

Zeke had been surprised that such a remark
would come from Sadie, who ever saw only the good in people.

"But you don't know the Markhams or Mrs. Van
H.," he had protested.

"I know enough," she began and then stopped.
He had the feeling she had meant to say more, but she complained
suddenly of dizziness, begging him to take her inside.

Although he had been disturbed, Zeke had
managed to dismiss Sadie's warning. After all, she had only ever
seen Mrs. Van H. once. He had pointed the elegant widow out to her
during a Sunday drive through Central Park.