“Our family was once so big, you know,” she said. “Seven children, all grown now. One married. And a grandchild. When they were still home these chairs got filled soon enough, believe me. Children and friends and boyfriends and neighbors, all just having a grand time.” She was staring vaguely at a wooden rocker, although the girl was already halfway down the steps with her own load. “Ask anyone in these parts, they all know my children,” she said. “ ‘It’s the Emersons,’ they’d tell each other, when we’d go sailing past in the car with everybody sitting in everybody’s lap. I am Pamela Emerson, by the way.”
“I’m Elizabeth Abbott,” said the girl.
She had stopped on the grass. She waited while Mrs. Emerson dragged the rocker down the steps. Mrs. Emerson said, “Abbott? It’s funny, I can’t remember seeing you here before.”
“I haven’t been here. I come from North Carolina.”
“Oh, I have cousins in North Carolina,” said Mrs. Emerson. “Not to know personally, of course. Are you just visiting?”
“I’m going to see these people about a job.”
“A job. Goodness,” Mrs. Emerson said, “and here you are moving furniture. Do you usually go at things in such a roundabout way?”
Elizabeth smiled. The whole of her face smiled. “Always,” she said.
“I just hope you won’t arrive late, that’s why I asked. The last thing I’d do is interfere but I have daughters, working daughters, and I can’t help telling you: first impressions are all-important. Promptness. Neatness.”
She was looking at Elizabeth’s shirt-tails, but Elizabeth didn’t notice; she had moved off now with her chairs. “They don’t know to expect me, anyway,” she called back. “I saw their ad on a bulletin board in a thrift shop. I like getting jobs from bulletin boards. What they want is a mother’s helper, and I need to find out if that means housework or babysitting. Babysitting wouldn’t be good at all. I don’t like children.”
“Is that right?” Mrs. Emerson said. She was trying to remember if she had ever heard anyone else admit to such a thing. She puffed along with the rocker, taking short rapid steps to keep up. “Now, I would have thought you were still in school.”
“I am. I’m earning money for my senior year at college.”
“In September?”
“I’m taking a year off.”
“Oh, that’s terrible!” said Mrs. Emerson. They had reached the garage by now. She set down the rocker to stare at Elizabeth, who seemed undisturbed. “Interrupting like that! It’s terrible. Why, one thing may lead to another and you may never get back. I’ve known that to happen.”
“It’s true,” Elizabeth agreed.
“Couldn’t you get a scholarship? Or a loan?”
“Oh, my grades were rotten,” she said cheerfully.
“Still, though. It’s no good to have to stop something in the middle. What does your father do, dear?”
“He’s a minister.”
“Nothing wrong with that. Although a lot depends on the denomination. What denomination is he?” “Baptist.”
“Oh.”
“If this job is babysitting,” Elizabeth said, “I’ll just have to find me another bulletin board. But the friend that dropped me here said Roland Park was the likeliest neighborhood.”
She stacked her chairs inside the garage and reached for the rocker. Mrs. Emerson said, “Do you know the people’s name? The ones you’re going to see?”
“O’Donnell.”
“O’Donnell. Well, I’ve never heard of them before. If it’s people I don’t know they’re generally young. New young people buying up these old houses for a song and moving in with children. But children aren’t so bad. What is it you have against them?”
“I don’t like people you can have so much effect on,” Elizabeth said.
“What? Goodness,” said Mrs. Emerson.
They climbed back up the hill. It seemed to have grown steeper. Mrs. Emerson’s palms were sore, and two fingernails had broken, and her stockings were in shreds. “If only my boys were home,” she said. “If only I’d thought of this sometime when they were visiting. They’d have been glad to help. But I just never did, and then I asked myself, Why wait until they come? Why not do it myself, while the weather’s still warm and the sun so nice?”
She paused to catch her breath, one hand clamped to the small of her back. Elizabeth stopped too. “Would you like me to finish up for you?” she asked.
“No, no, I wouldn’t hear of it.”
“It’ll only take a minute.”
“I’m all right.”
They gathered up the next load and started back down. Mrs. Emerson’s heels kept slipping on dead leaves. This was all Richard’s fault. He couldn’t even rake properly. Slick brown leaves were scattered here and there, with moss or smooth earth beneath them instead of the grass he should have been growing. The chair she carried was knocking against her knees. Mean little tangled bramble bushes kept snatching her sweater off her shoulders. What would her husband say, if he could look down now and see how her life was turning out? She sighed raggedly, hitched the chair higher, wiped her forehead on her upper arm.
Then when they were just descending the steps to the garage, Mrs. Emerson caught her heel and fell. She landed on top of the overturned chair, scraping both knees and the palm of one hand. “Oops, there!” she said, and gave a little tinkling laugh. Tears were stinging her eyelids. She reached for Elizabeth’s hand and struggled to her feet. “Oh, how ridiculous,” she said.
“Are you all right?”
“Of course I am.” She jerked her hand away and began brushing her skirt. “I just caught my heel,” she said.
“Maybe you should rest a while.”
“No, I’m fine. Really.”
She lifted the chair again and one of its legs fell off — a white metal tube, rust specks seeping through a sloppy paint job. It clattered down the rest of the steps. She felt the tears pressing harder. “It’s broken,” she said. “Isn’t that ridiculous? It’s just not my day. And Richard gone, too.” She fixed her eyes on the chair leg, which Elizabeth had picked up and was examining. “If I had fired him tomorrow, now. Stayed in bed where I should have and kept my head under the covers and fired him tomorrow instead. Some days just anything I do is certain to bring ruin.”
“It can easily be mended,” Elizabeth said.
“What? Oh.”
“The screw must be somewhere around. I can fix it.”
“Yes, but—why did I fire him? What got into me?”
“You said—” Elizabeth began.
“Oh, that. He’s been tinkling on the roses for twenty-five years, not counting the war. Everybody knows that. It was just his flaw, something we avoided mentioning. Well, I would have, but I was uncertain how to bring it up, you see. What phraseology to use.”
“Now, was there a washer to this, I wonder?” Elizabeth said. “Or just the screw.”
“I certainly never meant to fire him for it!” said Mrs. Emerson. “I didn’t even know I was going to.”
She dropped to the steps, pulling a flowered handkerchief from her belt with shaky hands. By now the tears had spilled over, but she smiled steadily and kept a tight rein on her voice. “Well, I’m being very silly,” she said.
“Could you move your feet a minute?” said Elizabeth. She was patting the ground in search of the screw. Her face was turned slightly away; possibly she had not even noticed the tears. Mrs. Emerson straightened her back and blew her nose, silently. “All help is difficult, I suppose,” she said.
Elizabeth’s hands were square and brown, badly cared for, the nails chopped-looking and the knuckles scraped. But their competence, as they located the screw and fitted it into the chair, was comforting to watch. Mrs. Emerson blinked to clear her blurred eyes. “Emmeline was another one,” she said. “The maid. Now I’m having to make do with a girl from State Employment, a shiftless sort that chews tobacco. Half the time I can’t even count on her to come. And the house! I’m ashamed to look at it too closely. Oh, it seems I’ve just been left all alone suddenly. No one stayed with me.” She laughed. “I must be hard to get along with,” she said.