Mary shakes her head as she rises to put the kettle on. Emma is up now also, clearing dishes and scraping plates. Mrs. Klingelhoffer drifts away from the table; they won’t see her again this evening. “Nothing that interesting ever happens in my office,” Emma says as she spoons tea into the pot and pours the boiling water in. “It’s all just gossip and speculation.” She sits the pot on a trivet in front of Charley and sees him grinning at her. Her face reddens as she glances down and smiles too. “Yes, I’ll admit that sometimes it’s appealing to listen in. Saturdays are always the most interesting.”
“Juicy,” Charley nods. “Friday nights get everyone in trouble.”
“That reminds me,” Mary says to Emma. “Make sure you have your bag packed on Friday. I’ll bring it with me on Saturday, and we’ll just leave from your office to go down to the station. We should easily make the one o’clock train.” She sees Charley looking at her quizzically. “Emma must have forgotten to mention that we’re going up to New York this weekend to visit Mary. We always try to fit in a visit between Thanksgiving and Christmas.”
It takes Charley just a second to realize she is referring to her other daughter. Emma pours tea for them as she says, “I forgot to tell you that I won’t be here to go to church on Sunday. But that doesn’t give you permission not to go. I just know you’ll use it as an excuse to spend the whole day on the house. Oh, and you said the roof is finished?” It’s not hard to grasp that there’s been a change of subject, so Charley leaves it alone until he’s saying goodnight, when he says to Mary, “What time should I be here Saturday morning?” At her raised eyebrow, he explains, “You need someone to carry your bags to the station.”
On Saturday, he’s at the door on Washington Street at the appointed time to pick up a valise in each hand and tuck a box under his arm. Mary walks beside him carrying a hatbox and another small bag. It’s an easy walk to the Post Office and from there to the B&P rail station on the Mall, but having the extra hands allows Mary to pack just a bit extra.
This is the first time they’ve ever truly been alone together, but there’s no sense of awkwardness.
“Emma explained to you about her sister?”
“Just that she’s in a home. Not why.”
Mary nods. “It’s hard for Emma, I know. She’s always been exceptionally fond of her father, and she was the apple of his eye.” She takes a breath, as though steeling herself for an impact. “When she was very young, Mary started having seizures. Not the falling-on-the-ground kind, just where she would go into a trance. She couldn’t help it of course, and we never knew when it was going to happen or how long it would last. But it enraged Christian. He thought she was malingering. He got it into his head that she was trying to make him look bad, as a doctor. He thought that he could…” She finds that she has trouble saying this out loud, and realizes it is the first time she ever has. “…that he could beat it out of her.” She has to make sure her voice is steady before she goes on, so she doesn’t terrify Charley with a threat of tears. “She had no idea why he beat her. To her, it just came out of nowhere, so she didn’t know what to do to avoid it. Imagine,” she says, almost to herself, “imagine one minute you’re eating supper and the next you’re being lashed with a horse whip.” She exhales in a long sad sigh. “After a time, she just retreated out of herself. She’s in New York because I needed someone who could do better with her than I could, and my cousin up there knew of the home. She’s done better over the years, to where sometimes we have a lovely visit. Other times, well, no. The damage was too much for time to heal.” They walk together in silence for a bit. “Anyway, I wanted you to know, in case.”
“In case of what?”
“In case it makes a difference.” This actually pulls Charley up short, and he can’t even think of words to say. “I didn’t imagine it would, but I just don’t want you to think we’re keeping secrets from you.”
Charley shakes his head as they start walking again. “Ma’am, if you want to get rid of me, you’re going to have to try a lot harder than that.”
They see Emma standing outside the post office at her normal exit, and she raises her hand to them. Charley lifts a valise toward her in return. In their last moment alone, Mary says, “Charles Joseph Beck, I say a prayer of thanks every night that you walked into our lives. I don’t want to imagine what it would be like if you walked back out again.”
cd
It is just after the turn of the year that Charley shares his plight with the one person who might actually be able to help him.
“You can see my dilemma, George. I need to make a firm offer so that her relatives or those busybodies at her office don’t jump to some damn fool conclusion that I’m not actually planning to marry her. I won’t have her held up to ridicule. But I’ve sure got no stomach for moving into her mother’s house, no matter whether it’s just a month or even a week. I’m glad to have her come in with us, once we’re settled, but not the other way. It would be a grim way to start out. Inauspicious.”
A sympathetic man, George can understand Charley’s position. He pulls out his annotated pocket calendar, held together with an elastic band and stuffed to overflowing with calling cards, jotted names and addresses, thumbnail sketches, and more. Not for the first time, he considers what it would mean to him if he ever had to replace this most irreplaceable object. On a scrap of paper, he does his own set of calculations, scribbling down the variables as he consults the calendar. He considers the ongoing jobs he has, the probability of others starting up, the size of his work crews, historical D.C. weather trends for winter and spring, and the list of primary items left to be done. He squints at the reckoning for a moment and makes a few significant noises. “July.”
Charley’s eyebrows shoot up in alarm. “July?”
“Yup. That allows a good buffer for any mishaps that might creep in. You can feel confident in a July date.”
“July,” Charley echoes faintly. May is so often a beautiful month in the area—tulips, azaleas, rhododendrons, tomato starts—though sometimes on the rainy side. June is typically drier and still cool enough, the most dependable of the spring months. But July? July can reliably be counted on to make the hellish descent into the insufferable heat and humidity of a Washington City summer, from which the area does not escape until well into September and sometimes not until October. “Early July?” he offers hopefully.
“Mid-July to be completely certain.”
If the house manages to be done in the spring, he can hardly ask Emma to wait until the fall for a wedding. And if George feels certain that July gets them a finished product, then it will be better for them to suffer through a city summer in their own home rather than in someone else’s. “July it is, then.”
After Mass that Sunday, Charley and Emma join the other parishioners bundled against the January chill and visit for a bit with friends outside the church. While Charley exchanges news with some of the men, Emma chats with Mrs. Schultz, who holds her little Marta, the Clark family with their flock of children, and Lillie Dietz, a friend of Emma’s from childhood. He watches her, noticing how different she seems now than when he first knew her. Her normal expression has softened and become more open, and she engages easily in the conversation. She laughs as two of the youngest Clark boys play hide and seek among the ladies’ skirts. Marta reaches out to her, and Emma takes her from Mrs. Schultz to have a private, happy exchange of the cooing that always passes between an adult and a baby. When he considers for a moment the flush that he suddenly feels, he discovers that he is proud of her.
As they walk together back to Washington Street, Charley says, “George feels certain that the house will be finished no later than July.”
She smiles, mostly to herself. “I suppose a year isn’t really a long time to build a house.”
He laughs. “No, not when you’re at the bottom of the list.” After a moment, he clears his throat. “So