Ellis Island Read Free Page B

climbed up the spindly silver birch tree by the road before John reached me, panting comically as if he couldn’t keep up. He was afraid of that tree because the branches were too small to hold him. I was light enough that I knew they would hold my weight. I had always wanted to climb that tree, but John had never let me up it on my own, in case I fell.
    “Come down, Ellie—the branch will break and you’ll fall.”
    “You’re just jealous because I can see the world from here and you’re stuck there on the ground.”
    “It’s dangerous, Ellie—I mean it, come down.”
    I was a little anxious, because I realized John knew better than me. Yet at the same time I felt in charge of the world, protected by my distance from the ground. I could say and do anything I pleased; nobody could reach me. In any case, his fear made me more defiant. “Won’t never come down, John Hogan—won’t never, ever . . . You’ll have to come up and get me!” I felt dizzy from the running and my high position.
    Miss Kennedy, the priest’s housekeeper, came down the road on her bicycle. She was quite pretty and younger than my mother, but I didn’t like her. She sat near the front in Mass and acted very holy. But once, when I was bored, I studied her face after communion and saw her watch every person coming back up the aisle as if she were measuring them for a coffin. She was creepy and I was a little scared of her. But from my vantage point in the sky, she looked like a small beetle.
    “Hey—Miss Kennedy!” I shouted.
    She pretended she didn’t hear me, so I shouted again.
    “Hey—Kennedy!”
    John looked up at me, daggers. I knew I was in trouble, but I didn’t care. “Good afternoon, Miss Kennedy,” he said like an altar boy, touching a nonexistent cap as she passed the tree. Then: “You’ve done it now—come down from that tree at once, Ellie Flaherty, or I’ll whip you!”
    I was laughing so hard he had to come up and get me in the end. The tree bent, but it stayed with us and didn’t break.

Chapter Three
    When John dropped me home that evening, my father opened the door to us and I knew there was something wrong. He gave John a cursory greeting and closed the door in his face.
    My father was a vague figure in my life. I knew the map of my mother’s dour face, the sour smell of her breath in the mornings, her apologetic way of moving about the house, the cold, dry touch of her skin as I accidentally brushed against her in the night. But I was not so familiar with my father. He slept in our house, but I viewed him as everybody else did—an important man to be feared. As known, and yet as strange, to me as our local priest.
    He walked into the dining room and I followed him. The good mahogany table was set for tea, yet there was the smell of polish in the air. The teapot and milk jug looked awkward with each other; this was not our usual time to eat. My father was never here at this time. Everything was wrong. Through the kitchen door I could see my mother keeping herself busy laying out bread and ham, which we would not eat. My mother’s face was set, too determined on her duties.
    “Were you wearing a pair of . . .” My father’s long face looked particularly stern, his jaw set, the words sputtering out of him as if each was a poison pellet and he was unable to spit out the final one. “Were you wearing a pair of . . .”
    I didn’t finish the sentence for him. I knew enough not to do that. And I was puzzled.
    “What were you wearing this afternoon?”
    I felt relieved. Perhaps I wasn’t in trouble after all. “Maidy put me in a pair of John’s trousers so I wouldn’t dirty my uniform.” He closed his eyes and his features contorted as if he were in pain. It was as much emotion as I had ever seen on my father’s face. My stomach tumbled although I wasn’t sure why. I said, “ Sir. ”
    Father went out into the hallway and opened the tall cupboard where he kept his umbrella, and took out a wooden