The Address(45)

Inside, an uneven wooden stairway led to a fourth-floor landing with two doors. Daisy opened the one on the street side of the building, and Sara followed. They stood in a kitchen with a dirty sink, full of dishes, and an old stove. A teapot patterned with buttercups was the one thing of beauty in what could only be called a hovel. A table for two beside the stove seemed laughably small, considering the number of children gathered in the parlor just beyond. Raw, uneven floorboards ran lengthwise to two windows, where curtains embroidered with matching buttercups hung. Sara felt an immediate kinship to Daisy’s mother, who had tried to make the best of it.

Daisy spoke briefly with a boy of around fourteen with black hair and blue eyes, his mouth set in a grim line, before disappearing into a dark room off the parlor. Sara looked around at the rest of the brood scattered about the room. They seemed to range from two to eight and, despite the squalor, appeared clean and well fed.

There were no words Sara could say to these children that would help, so she stayed quiet and sat in a wobbly cane chair in the corner. They remained mute, the younger ones sniffling every so often. Daisy walked out of the bedroom accompanied by a doctor with an unkempt beard and rheumy eyes. He barely acknowledged the group assembled and stomped to the door, letting himself out.

“How is she?” asked one of the younger boys.

Daisy didn’t answer. Sara followed Daisy into the darkened room.

“The doctor said it was her lungs.” Daisy pointed to the figure on the bed, covered over by a quilt. “She’s gone.”

Sara drew in a sharp breath. She hadn’t expected this, wasn’t sure what she should do or say. “I’m so sorry. Is your father about?”

Daisy shook her head. “He left a few years ago. No one knows where he ran off to. Mother kept us going with her sewing, and my wages help, of course.” Sara recognized shock behind poor Daisy’s matter-of-factness. All those siblings to take care of.

“Will you be able to keep the flat, to keep the children here?”

Daisy glanced about, as if seeing the room for the first time. “I don’t know how we’ll pay for it. My mother wanted me to be part of a better life, and that’s what I’ve done. But I can’t afford it.”

The regret and pain in her voice moved Sara. “My mother did the same thing. Sent me away so I could rise up above my station. Your journey’s just beginning. Your mother must’ve been very proud of you.”

The boy with the black hair entered the room. “She dead, then?”

Daisy didn’t respond. The answer was obvious.

“We won’t be able to manage, not without her wages,” the boy said.

Discussing such pedestrian matters over the body of their mother might have seemed inappropriate, but Sara knew the very survival of the family was at stake.

Daisy straightened the quilt on the bed as if she were tucking in a child. “We’ll manage. Always have.”

“I’ll get another job.”

Daisy shook her head. “You’re a lowly stable boy, Seamus. What else are you going to do? Be valet to a gentleman? Nothing you find will match Mum’s sewing.”

“Then you can stay home and sew. How about that for an idea?” He jutted out his chin.

“Makes more sense for you to do that instead.”

“I don’t do women’s work. Don’t be daft.” His words had a sharp edge to them, as if he’d funneled his grief into fury. “I won’t stay home. It’s not right. I’m the man.”

Sara hated seeing them at each other like this. “There must be a way to manage.”

Seamus pointed a finger at her. “Who’s this, then?”

“She’s in charge of me, my supervisor,” said Daisy. “Leave her be.”

He left in a frenzy of curses. Tears rolled down Daisy’s cheeks, her gaze never leaving her mother’s body on the bed. “Seamus was her favorite. He’ll settle down after a while.”

Such hardship. “I’ll speak with Mr. Douglas, see if we can arrange your schedule so you can come downtown twice a week instead of once. Perhaps we can add to your responsibilities, and raise your wage.”

Daisy looked up at her, her mouth beginning to wobble. “Would you do that for me?”

“Of course.”

Sara left Daisy and her brothers and sisters to mourn, after telling Daisy to take the time she needed to make arrangements. Back on the street, in the midst of the noise and grime, her words to the girl sounded silly, trite. There were no guarantees. It struck her that the staff of the Dakota had become their own kind of family over the past couple of months, including Sara in the role of wise older sister and Daisy as the brash young thing, in part because of the far-flung locale but also because there were no longtimers who rued “the way things used to be.” They’d all jumped on board the train at the same time. And, while at the Langham she’d have stayed removed from the staff’s personal lives, Daisy’s well-being truly mattered to her.

Sara would try to help. It was the least she could do.



Sara looked up from the payroll numbers she’d been staring at for the past five minutes. Mr. Douglas showed up every Tuesday like clockwork to go over the books, taking her place behind the desk and making her wait as he double-checked the figures, the only sound in the room the thin whistle of his breathing. She had to be prepared, but this morning the interruptions seemed endless. The porters had tracked pine needles everywhere while wrestling the denuded Christmas trees out of the tenants’ apartments, Mr. Bates on the seventh floor had lodged an official complaint about the barber’s political rants, and Mrs. Westcott had insisted the chef serve a Washington pie for tea, even if it wasn’t on the day’s menu.