Up the Hill to Home. Jennifer Bort Yacovissi

      “I know. I’ve been worried since it happened.” She is caught in a brief coughing fit, and realizes that her nose is running. Emma hands her a cloth, and they both see that it comes away dark, a sooty color. “I’ve been seeing that all day, though.” She breathes in the steam. “Well, I certainly kicked up a cloud of dust. It was almost as bad as beating the carpets!” Emma smiles back, and Lillie slides down farther in the tub. “I think this is helping a little.”

      They sit in silence except for the rasping of her breath. Emma puts the back of her hand against Lillie’s forehead; it is an automatic gesture, since the heat from the bath renders any diagnosis invalid. “The cough came on awfully fast, though.”

      Lillie’s laugh makes her cough. “Mother, in this household, it’s a true wonder that we’re all not sick in our beds every day of the year.”

      Emma smiles. “It’s that hardy German stock. It takes a lot to keep us down.”

      The water is cooling, so Emma helps her up and out of the tub and wraps her in a bath towel, just as she does when Lillie is a child. “I’ll turn down the bed for you.”

      When Lillie comes into the bedroom, pillows are stacked against the headboard; lying flat with a cough only makes it worse. The linens are turned down, and Emma draws the shades. She helps Lillie in and pulls the covers up.

      “I’m committing one of the seven deadly sins. It’s nothing but sloth to be in bed at three o’clock in the afternoon.”

      “You just need to rest up a bit. I’ll bring you some tea and the hot water bottle.”

      “Thank you. But Mother...”

      “Yes, darling?”

      “Please have Ferd bring them up.”

      Emma pauses with her hand on the doorknob, meets Lillie’s matter-of-fact gaze, and finally nods as she closes the door.

      Baby

      1894-1902

      The Becks of 741 Flint Street, Brightwood Park, quickly fall into a routine. Their day starts earlier than before the wedding, now that they take the streetcar all the way into town. Charley is in charge of packing the lunch pails, typically from supper leftovers of the night before. They ride home together also, often stopping at the market for the evening’s groceries. Early evenings typically consist of Charley’s gardening or finishing another item on the house’s to-do list while Emma makes supper. On Saturdays, when Emma works until noon, George lends Charley a small work crew so he can finish the larger remaining jobs. Once again, there is a sense of urgency in the work, as Charley continues the preparation to move Mary into the new house. Saturday evenings and Sundays after Mass are their times to socialize with friends and family.

      There are, of course, a few surprises on both sides for the newlyweds. For example, Joe’s prediction of Emma’s disrupted sleep, courtesy of Charley’s snoring, proves true. More unexpected, though, is that Charley experiences the same problem.

      One morning before breakfast, Charley stands at the window gazing out at the backyard, and starts to chuckle. “It’s a surprise we have any trees left in the mornings at all, what with all the wood-sawing we’re doing around here.”

      Emma smiles to herself, relieved that he knows the problem, until she realizes that he said we. She is stunned into horrified silence.

      When he notices her lack of response, he turns to look at her and immediately realizes his mistake; she is as red as a ripe tomato. “Oh, Em, I’m sorry. I was just teasing. I wasn’t meaning to hurt your feelings.”

      She can hear that her voice is thick. “Is it horrible?”

      “Of course not. I’m just so used to Joe always giving me a fit about snoring—well, about all sorts of things. I just forgot you don’t have a Joe.”

      “Well,” she says slowly as she finds a smile, “I guess you’re my Joe now.”

      From then on, they each know that the first asleep gets the better rest. Eventually, the tacit understanding develops that either party can give the other a tap—or a shove, as the occasion demands—to prompt a shift in position. In the end, though, Charley comes out far ahead in the bargain as he grows increasingly deaf.

      Emma is most surprised to learn that her husband reads the newspapers every day from beginning to end. Though he has little formal education, Charley sops up knowledge like soft bread through gravy and is always greedy for the next bite. It’s helpful that he has no particular political bent, since as a resident of the Federal City he has no voting rights whatever. “Politicians are like bad relatives,” he likes to say. “You get no say in who they are, and there’s no getting rid of them.” So he finds as much humor in the foibles and general idiocy of all politicians as he does in the funny papers, which he likes to save for last. Emma enjoys that he reads snippets to her while she prepares supper, or in the evenings when she mends by the gaslight. Sometimes the item he’s reading strikes his funny bone with such force that he loses his breath from laughing and can’t finish.

      For his part, Charley finds himself fascinated by Emma’s hair. With few exceptions, he had never seen a woman with her hair down, and Emma’s falls almost to her waist. That it is salted with gray is of no concern to him. Before they retire for the night, he watches her brush it out as she sits at her dressing table, fifty times on each side, until it shines. Occasionally, he asks if he can brush it for her, and that sweetly intimate act will sometimes lead to others.

      Perhaps three months after the wedding, they meet Mary at St. Patrick’s one Sunday for early Mass. She is within a week of moving in with them, now that they have met all the terms of the curmudgeonly landlord to ensure he doesn’t hold them up for money. After Mass today, they intend to settle the plans for the final move. Mary is chatting with another parishioner and turns at Charley’s call. He bows over her extended hand, the unserious greeting they have created between themselves, and Emma kisses her mother’s cheek. Mary notices her pallor and looks closely at her. “You’re not feeling well.”

      “It’s nothing. I’ve just been under the weather lately.”

      “Have you gotten sick?”

      “Only once or twice. But it passes. I’ll be fine by dinner time.”

      Mary puts her hand to her own brow and shakes her head. “Lord, child.” The church bells start to ring, summoning the parishioners in for Mass, and they all turn to walk inside. “Do you not know that you’re expecting?”

      Charley nearly stumbles, but they are across the threshold already, and all conversation ceases. Though they maintain the proper decorum during the Mass, Charley’s little finger seeks out Emma’s to give it a reassuring brush. Expecting? Who would have expected that?

      cd

      The memory box holds so many treasures, but chief among them is Emma’s diary, which Lillie reads for the first time when she is pregnant with Margaret and Emma presents it to her. Whenever it’s time to open the box again, Lillie is drawn to the diary first. Though she will settle in later to read in earnest, initially she simply skims the twelve years recorded there. She stops at entries as they catch her eye, and even though each one is long since written in her memory, there is always a sense of discovery, as though the recorded days are the glass pieces in a kaleidoscope that arrange themselves into a new image with each successive turn.

      From Emma’s Diary

      Sunday, September 1, 1895: Sunday at 3 p.m. we had the baby christened in St. Patrick’s Church by Father McGhee. It was a cool day, cloudy nearly all day, but the sun came out while baby was being christened and set a beautiful ray right across the font. We named her Lillie for the beautiful flowers of that name, and May for the lovely month of flowers, and the month dedicated to the Mother of God.

      Tuesday, October 1, 1895: Mamma left baby for the first time to go back to the office. How hard it seems. I sit here at my desk and think all day of baby and