Up the Hill to Home. Jennifer Bort Yacovissi

morning, June 6, 1906: A lovely morning. Lillie was not feeling very well. I remained home from the office and sent for the doctor, Dr. Waters. He is one of the finest men I have ever met. He talked and joked with Lillie, and when I asked him if he thought that milk made her bilious, he laughed and said, Did you ever hear of a bilious calf? This amused Lillie very much. While the doctor was talking with her, Father Mackin came in to give mamma communion and when he had finished with her, he came downstairs, and as the doctor had left, he sat down to have a chat with my little girl. And there in the hall, as she lay on the couch, windows and doors open to let in the lovely June breeze laden with honeysuckle and roses, Lillie made her first confession to Father Mackin of St. Paul’s church. She is ten years, eleven months old, and Father Mackin was so lovely to her that he quite won her heart. She is a sweet, lovely child, pure and untouched by the world, and always good and obedient to all.

      Monday, June 11, 1906: Lillie is better and has returned to school. Last week was quite an eventful week for Lillie. She moved out of my room into her own little room, and I slept with her for two nights until she got used to it. She was rather timid, but she loves her little room so much and keeps everything lovely.

      Saturday, July 28, 1906: It was a lovely evening. There were fifty children, and they all had a lovely time. We had the little donkey pinned up on a sheet on the west side of the house, and they had great times over that, then the peanuts were hidden in the bushes and the flower beds, and the children had a grand scramble for them.

      Tuesday, November 20, 1906: Began exray treatment for my hand.

      Tuesday, November 27, 1906: Second treatment.

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      Friday, March 1, 1907: A cloudy, cold, raw day. Lillie went to confession to Father Rosensteel for the first time. This was her second confession. She is just as lovely and sweet and pure as ever. We have our own little chats every night and she tells me all of her day’s fun and troubles.

      Saturday, July 27, 1907: A beautiful day and night. We had the party, thirty-eight children and about twenty grown people. Ice cream was furnished by Freund and was very nice. We had nine large cakes, a half-bushel peanuts and seven pounds of candy.

      Sunday, September 15, 1907: A perfectly beautiful day. Cardinal Gibbons came to Forest Glen to confirm the children of that church and the children from the church of the Nativity at Brightwood. We had fifteen girls and seven boys, there were about fifty in all. Father Rosensteel, Father Mackin from St. Paul’s Church, and Father Dougherty assisted the Cardinal. The children looked very nice in their white dresses and veils, and Lillie looked particularly sweet and innocent, which she is. After the services, the Cardinal stood on the porch of Father Rosensteel’s house to welcome those that cared to see him. It was a beautiful picture, the Cardinal in his beautiful scarlet robes, the children dotted here and there on the lawn, in their white dresses and veils, people standing around in groups, the lovely lawn, the beautiful flowers, the birds singing and everything in harmony for the occasion. Lillie chose Cecelia as her confirmation name, Lillie May Cecelia Beck.

      Sunday, September 22, 1907: Father Bischoff said Mass for the first time in our church. It rained all day.

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      Wednesday, March 11, 1908: Lillie is well and happy, is twelve years, seven months old and eleven days, and the dread time has arrived. It seems so soon, as she is still a baby in knowledge. Mrs. Hazzard, Ethel and Frank came over today to see us. Ethel and Frank went up to the school to see Lillie. She was as happy as a bird.

      Evening, Passion Sunday,

      16 April 1933

      Ferd, in his outrage at being dismissed from Lillie’s bath, is at the staircase before he hears the baby crying. He circles back to pick Tommy up in time to avert the eruption of a full-body wail. With the bathroom occupied, Ferd has no choice but to leave the full diaper, unrinsed, in Emma’s chamber pot.

      Downstairs in the parlor, the children have been firmly instructed to find something quiet to do. The older ones are reading, listening to the big radio, and completing schoolwork. Francie is having Dorothy read out loud, and is helping her to sound out unfamiliar words, while Jeanie naps curled up on the sofa with her ragdoll Sally, comforted by the lingering scent of her mother. Ferd interrupts Margaret’s reading, another weepy romance novel, and deposits Tommy with her.

      In the kitchen, Charley is just putting the leftovers in the icebox to be available for Sunday supper, which is always an informal event. He inherits today’s meal cleanup when Emma disappears upstairs. Ferd takes over the last of it, freeing Charley finally to pull up his chair at the kitchen table with the Post, Herald, and Star. He chuckles over some pointless little senatorial scandal as Ferd finally joins him at the table, sitting heavily.

      Charley looks up from his paper. He doesn’t need to witness the episode to know what’s happened: the four of them have lived together in the same house for sixteen years, and the addition of a new child every eighteen months has done nothing to dampen the hostilities. Early on, Charley knows, Ferd gives it his best, but Emma, a self-contained force of nature, is implacable from first to last. Charley is a neutral party, incapable by nature of being drawn in and fully unwilling to take sides. But it pains him to see the toll that it takes on Ferd, who almost always comes out on the short side of any skirmish, and on Lillie, the prize for whom the war is being fought.

      He is fully re-engaged with his paper when Emma comes back in. Wordless, she sets about putting the kettle on, slicing bread, and putting the toaster on the stove. While she’s in the pantry, Ferd pushes up from the table and walks out of the room.

      He is sitting on the sofa, narrating a picture book to Jeanie, who is still groggy and snuggled in his lap, when Emma appears in the doorway carrying the tea tray. “Take this upstairs.”

      Ferd looks at her for a long moment, then kisses Jeanie on the top of her head as he picks her up and sits her down on the other side of Francie in order to take the tray. He passes the secretary but then steps back, considering. He sets the tray on top of the memory box and smoothly lifts it all up, spilling nothing on his way back to the bedroom. Lillie lies against a bank of pillows that keeps her almost entirely upright, and her eyes open as he steps in. Ferd sets the box next to her on the bed and arranges the tray over her lap. He watches from the dressing stool as she drinks the hot tea, using its heat to warm her hands and soothe her throat. She dips the toast into her tea to soften it before taking bites.

      She puts her head back against the pillows for a moment and smiles softly at him. “Thank you,” she says, a myriad of meanings encompassed in two simple words.

      When she is finished with the tea, he moves the tray and sits down against the headboard next to her. She settles into his shoulder, then lifts her head to look at him. “Have you had any dinner?”

      “I’m not hungry.”

      She leans back into him again, closing her eyes. “Don’t you worry about me, dearest. I’ll be bright as a new penny in the morning.”

      He sits back farther, feeling the warmth of her against him. He leans down to kiss the top of her head and linger for a moment, breathing in her natural fragrance. Unconsciously, he strokes her arm, and listens as her raspy breathing settles into the rhythm of sleep.

      As an hour passes, and then another, Ferd drifts in and out of sleep himself, waking at changes in her breathing, which seem to him to become more labored as the time passes. But she remains asleep and he does not disturb her.

      He is startled from a light doze by a spasm next to him. Her arm has flailed involuntarily as her own gasp for air pushes her completely awake. He snaps up in bed and put his hand up to support the back of her head, which she has tipped back to help open her airway. After four agonized gasps, she is able to calm her breathing into long deep pulls for air, each of which is exhaled with an audible rattle. She looks at him with something approaching alarm. “I think I do need the doctor.”

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      Leo Cavanaugh, whose extended family sits down to Sunday dinner at seven o’clock, is just pushing back from the table when the telephone rings. It takes