Free The House on Malcolm Street by Leisha Kelly Page B

life.”
    Eliza only found three ripe tomatoes, but there were more stubbornly coming on through bristle grass as high as my knees. “Mr. Walsh doesn’t garden much?” I asked, though such an inquiry was really pointless.
    “Goodness, girl,” Marigold half scolded. “You may as well call him Josiah. Or just plain Joe. He’ll wonder at you calling him Mister much longer after you’ve been proper introduced. But he doesn’t take to gardening natural, and he hasn’t got the time anyway. You’d be surprised how much I’ve put him to fixin’ on this old house of mine, besides his railroad job. He does enough already that I wouldn’t want to ask him for more.”
    I would’ve asked, I thought instantly. Just a few hours a week in a garden never hurt anyone and did a world of good. But it was none of my business to say anything about it. I finished cutting the tops of half the turnip row, and Marigold was happy that it filled my big bowl to brimming. I lifted her cane from the grass and steadied it for her while she got to her feet. Then we all went in the house with the greens, the little tomatoes, and Marigold’s bowl of cut apples.
    It was a dandy lunch, plain as it was, and almost seemed festive, with a scoop of turnip greens next to a big serving of fried apples and a plump cherry tomato for color. A biscuit left from breakfast was all we needed to round the whole thing out. Though it was an odd lunch to Eliza, she ate everything, even the turnip greens. “I sure do love fried apples,” she said happily. “And I love it here where there’s plenty of dinner.”
    Not again. I would have to speak to her later about such talk. Aunt Marigold would get the idea that she’d been without a decent meal her whole life. Or at least since John died. It was too late to give the impression that I’d been able to manage very well, but to keep bringing up our lack only made things painfully worse. At least for me. But maybe it helped Eliza somehow, as if voicing our struggle helped her to drive the reality of it forever into the past.
    To my surprise, Marigold began singing as we cleaned up. I recognized the hymn immediately as one I had sung often enough in church with John. Eliza joined in happily. I didn’t feel like singing, especially not such a song as that, but I didn’t want to seem like a wet hen among such happy larks, so I did my best to sing along at least a little.
    It made me feel like a miserable hypocrite. The words were all light and praise, not at all the way I’d been thinking toward the Almighty. Maybe I should’ve felt deeply grateful, for Marigold’s hospitality and Eliza’s cheery good health. Perhaps I did, at least a little. But in a good moment when I might have felt warm and comforted, the darkness still filled my eyes and I feared I’d never see the sun.

6
Leah
    The afternoon was filled with apples. First we sat on the back porch and cut and peeled a bucket’s worth. And then Marigold and Eliza went in the house to make pies while I got back to picking. Alone with my thoughts and a fruit tree, my mind jumped to Father again. He’d grown potatoes and sweet corn in addition to his orchard fruits, and people loved his produce but not his demeanor. I’d overheard more than one customer cautioning another about the half-drunk, stony-faced farmer you had to be careful not to rub the wrong way. I’d also heard a few whispers about his awkward tomboy daughter. I’d been glad to marry, to move away and start a new life away from the wagging heads of that community.
    I picked until I could see apples with my eyes shut. Marigold had said I could stop whenever I wanted to, but she’d also said she’d like to get them all picked and put in away from the squirrels, so I did all I could. There was no way I could get the top branches, even with the ladder, and the tree branches were too thin there to hold me. There were scads remaining, but we’d have to wait till they dropped and use what we