FROZEN STIFF
Lucy woke with a splitting headache in the dim grey light of morning. The rain had started in the afternoon of the day before, emptying the streets of the Lower East Side earlier than usual on a Sunday. All night, the wind had howled, and rain pummeled the red brick tenement like some heathen monster. Even now, the wind rattled the window. Lucy groaned and rolled out of bed. The room was still shadowed, but Lucy had the uncomfortable sense that it was late. She would be in for a rare scolding if she weren’t at the bakery before time to open. In the five years she'd been working for them, ever since leaving school at 16, Lucy had learned Mrs. Brunelli had a sharp tongue on the best of mornings. A cold and gloomy day like this brought out the worst in her.
Crossing the room to the only window in the apartment, Lucy glanced outside, and then looked again. “You better see this, Mama,” she said.
An eerie white landscape obliterated the city street below. Sometime in the night the pounding rain had turned to snow, and now it carpeted everything, burying carts and rubbish bins, sidewalks and alleyways. Snow clung to the telegraph and electrical wires crisscrossing the avenue so that they sagged in a glistening web of ice. Across the street, Mr. Gigli’s awning over the market had buckled under a foot of snow and the tattered cloth snapped in the wind.
Lucy’s mother joined her at the window. “You’ll never get to work in this," she declared. “You better stay home today.”
“I have to go in,” Lucy said. “Mrs. Brunelli's niece is coming over from Italy soon, and she'll sack me at the first excuse.”
“But you said Mr. Brunelli likes your work.”
“He does.” Lucy’s voice was muffled as she pulled her dress over her head and did up the buttons. “But he never argues with Mrs. Brunelli.”
Mama shook her head and headed toward the kitchen, muttering under her breath that Mrs. Brunelli ought to listen to her husband instead poking her nose where it wasn’t needed. Lucy’s little sisters sat up, blinking, and Lucy left them to dress themselves. She pounded on the boy’s room door as she passed.
“We’re up,” Tommy called.
“It’s almost 8 o'clock,” Mama said as she lit the fire in the coal stove.
Lucy shook her head. She never slept this late. It must be the storm that had shut out the sounds of a city waking up. She hurried through the front room where Uncle Mario and Aunt Elena slept, out to the dark hall to use the toilet they shared with the three other flats on the fourth floor. They were lucky to live in a newer building with indoor toilets on each floor so they didn’t have to go outside. Even so, the closet was frigid, and Lucy didn’t dawdle.
When she came back, her older brothers were already eating. Aunt Elena was helping Mama, and Uncle Mario sat at the table with a cup of coffee and the early edition of the New York Herald. “First dandelion, my foot,” he said, without looking up. “Walt Whitman ought to look out the window before he writes such nonsense.”
Lucy leaned over his shoulder to read the poem and then laughed. “He’s got that wrong for sure.” She brushed her hair quickly, braided it, and twisted it into a bun. “Don’t make anything for me,” she told Mama. “I’m already late.”
”You can’t go out in this weather,” Aunt Elena protested. “Mario was nearly blown away getting the paper.”
“I told her that,” Mama said, without turning around, “but you think anyone listens to me?”
Lucy buttered a couple of slices of bread and cut a chunk of salami from the sausage hanging over the dry sink. She poured herself a cup of coffee to wash it down.
Tommy came into the kitchen buttoning his shirt. “I don’t have time for breakfast either.” He shrugged into his jacket and reached for his cap.
“There won’t be any school today.” Mama took the cap and handed him a slice of bread.
“I’ll help Lucy at the bakery,” he said. “And everybody’s gonna want their sidewalks and stoops shoveled.” At twelve, Tommy was the youngest of Lucy’s brothers and nearly nine years her junior, but he was a good worker, and Lucy would be glad of his help.
“They’re sure to need workers to clear the tracks on the El.” Mario stood up, leaving the paper on the table, and raised an eyebrow at the older boys. “You coming? No telling how many they’ll take on. We better get there early.”
Mama tightened her lips but didn’t argue. Lucy knew she counted on all their wages to keep the family fed. Mama gave Tommy his cap and kissed each of them on the forehead. “Be careful,” she warned as she handed out packets of bread and salami for later.
They clattered downstairs. When Mario pulled the front door open, a pile of snow spilled into the hallway. Lucy swept it back outside and then followed the others out into the blizzard.
The wind caught her full force and took her breath away. She clutched her scarf closer to keep it from blowing off and waded through the knee-high snow on the stoop down to the sidewalk.
“You ought to take the El this morning,” Mario shouted to Lucy over the wind.
She shook her head. “I haven’t heard a train pass all morning,” she yelled back. “Look at that bunch.” She tilted her head toward the end of the block. At least two dozen people crowded the platform. Wrapped in snow-covered woolen coats and cloaks, she might have mistaken them for bundles, except for their shuffling about to keep warm. “Never mind,” she told Mario. “It will be faster to walk. It’s not all that far.”
At the corner, Mario and the older boys turned north toward the station, and Tommy and Lucy turned south toward Mr. Brunelli’s bakery. Arm in arm, Lucy and Tommy pushed into the blowing snow. The street was strangely empty; no horses or streetcars, no fruit stands or handcarts. Even the sidewalks, normally bustling with crowds of early morning workers, seemed like a landscape on a frozen desert. No trains passed on the track overhead. Black shapes of men, indistinct in heavy overcoats shrouded in a blanket of snow, loomed like ghosts and passed. The wind tore away the sound of their voices and stung their checks with particles of ice. Garbage blown by the wind rattled against storefronts, shuttered tight.
As Lucy and Tommy rounded the next block, a huge telegraph pole snapped, crashing to the street and carrying a half dozen ice-laden wires with it. Lucy heard the downed wires crackling with electricity and said a silent prayer, thankful the wires had missed them.
Plunging through drifts waist-high at times, they trudged onward. Lucy couldn’t feel her ears anymore, in spite of the woolen shawl, and her feet ached in the cold. She would have been glad to stop in one of the shops along the way to warm up a bit, but nothing was open. The twenty minute walk took over two hours, so it was late morning by the time Lucy saw the sign for Mr. Brunelli’s bakery. Worried she had lost her job for sure, she hurried toward the brick building. Brunelli’s bakery used the basement and one side of the first floor shop front in the five-story building owned by Mr. Schwartz, who had a hardware shop in the other half. This morning, snow had drifted so high it covered the front stoop completely and hid the alleyway access to the back. That was surprising. The Brunellis’ son, Joe, usually cleared the snow right away.
With Tommy in her wake, Lucy floundered through the snow bank, guessing where each step was, and slipping to her knees when she missed her footing. The shop window was dark. Puzzled by the Brunellis’ absence, Lucy tried the knob. To her surprise, the door was unlocked. She pushed it open and stumbled inside.
The relief from the cold was instantaneous. For a few seconds, she and Tommy sagged against each other. Tommy’s eyebrows were caked in ice. Lucy imagined her own were just as bad. Now they were out of the wind, Lucy’s sense of foreboding grew. Where was everyone? “Hello?” she called tentatively.
The bakery should have been warm with the rich smell of new bread by this hour, but there was no sign of life. The gaslight was off, and wouldn’t come on when she turned the valve and tried to light it.
“Mr. Brunelli?” Lucy called, as she peeled off her coat and shawl and shook off the heavy snow. “Mrs. Brunelli?”
No one answered. Lucy felt her way in the dark to the bakery counter, and found the kerosene lantern she knew they kept there. She lit the lamp, and then brushed the snow off Tommy. “You better warm up before you try any shoveling,” she told him. “Take off your coat and come downstairs to help me check the oven.”
The basement had the same deserted feeling as the rest of the shop. “Mr. Brunelli?” she called into the gloom beyond the lantern’s glow.
Her voice echoed in the emptiness. The oven, though never completely cold, had no fire built. Mr. Brunelli usually was up at 3 am to get it ready, but this morning he had not.
Lucy’s stomach churned uneasily. It would take several hours to prepare the oven and the bread dough. The bakery couldn’t open without bread to sell, and Joe had standing orders to deliver to local grocers every morning.
Tommy stood on the bottom step. “Where is everyone?” he whispered fearfully.
“I don’t know.” Lucy felt just as worried as Tommy sounded, but it wouldn’t do to let on. She set the lantern on the nearest table and strode across to the coal bin. “I’m getting paid to help run the bakery, so that’s what I’m going to do. Give me a hand here with the oven.”
Once the fire was lit, Lucy told Tommy to start shoveling, while she went looking for the Brunellis. Carrying the kerosene lamp, she opened the door at the back of the bakery leading into the central hallway. From here she could reach the Brunellis’ apartment, Mr. Schwartz's hardware store, and his apartment, which he shared with his aging mother. There were two more apartments at the back of the house, and a back door. There were no windows in the hall and no gaslights, so it was always dark and stuffy. Lucy had only been back here a couple of times before, when Mr. Brunelli sent her to fetch his wife to meet the deliveryman. On one occasion, Joe had cornered her by the stairwell, and teased for a kiss.
She had ducked her chin at the last minute so his bristly face scratched her ear. Just then, Mrs. Brunelli had come out of the apartment, scowling furiously. She took one look at the scene and shooed her son off with a broom.
“I’m only teasing, Ma,” Joe had laughed and winked at Lucy. “No harm in that, right?”
But now there was no sign of Joe or anyone else in the hall. Could they all be sick in bed? It seemed unlikely.
Lucy knocked tentatively on the Brunellis’ door, and when there was no answer, she pounded harder. Still no one answered. She turned the knob and went in.
The door opened to a kitchen as dark and cold as the rest of the building. “Mr. Brunelli? Mrs. Brunelli?” she called. She heard a moan from one of the back rooms behind the kitchen and hurried toward the sound.
The room was a shambles, as if the raging wind from outside had had a go in here first. Clothes were strewn about the floor. The water jug and basin were cracked, and a large puddle made the carpet a marsh. A lump stirred under the thin quilt on the bed. From this lump a tuneless moan went on and on.
“Mrs. Brunelli? What happened?” Lucy pulled back the quilt.
The woman looked at Lucy with bloodshot eyes. Her long hair hung over her shoulder, fraying out of the braid. Her moan grew in pitch and tenor.
Lucy set down the lamp and knelt beside the bed. “Are you fevered, Mrs. Brunelli?” She felt the older woman’s forehead. Her skin was damp with sweat and unnaturally warm, but Lucy couldn’t tell if she were feverish. She had been swathed in quilts after all.
Mrs. Brunelli shook her head back and forth in a slow rocking. Her moan turned to muttering, but Lucy couldn’t make out most of the words. She caught only, “No,” repeated many times, and “gone, no good.”
“Where’s Mr. Brunelli? Where’s Joe?”
The questions made Mrs. Brunelli fling out her hand, clutching Lucy’s arm so hard it bruised. “Out...out,” she screeched.
Lucy freed herself and backed away. The woman must be delirious! Maybe Mr. Brunelli or his son had gone out early for some medicine. Or maybe Mr. Brunelli and his son had had a fight. Lucy knew they yelled at each other often enough, and the room certainly looked like there had been a ruckus. But that wouldn’t explain why they had left Mrs. Brunelli sick in bed.
There didn’t seem to be anything she could do for Mrs. Brunelli, and a quick search of the rest of the apartment confirmed no one else was home. She left the Brunelli apartment and stood a moment in the hallway. Mr. Schwartz or one of the other neighbors must have heard something. She was about to knock on Mr. Schwartz’s apartment door, when she heard a clatter on the central staircase in the hall. Two children in button–up boots and wools scarves came down.
The older one stepped forward. “Are you the bakery girl?” she asked. “Mama sent us for some rolls. There’s nothing left to eat upstairs.”
“I’m sorry,” Lucy said. “There’s nothing in the bakery either.”
The little girl’s smile collapsed. She took hold of her sister’s hand and silently turned back toward the stairs.
“Wait,” Lucy said, with a pang of guilt. If she had been here on time, there would be something ready. She told the children to come back in a couple of hours, then straightened her shoulders and returned to the bakery. She ought to be seeing to the work of the bakery before anything else.
She found Tommy sitting on the ledge by the window.
“Golly, Lucy, the milk wagon is out in the street. The horse just stopped in his tracks. The driver unhitched the horse and led him away, but I don’t know how far they got. It’s like the snow swallowed them up.”
Lucy peered out the window. Snow fell in thick sheets and blew in swirling waves, like some kind of monster lumbering through the city. She couldn’t even see across the street. She shivered and turned away from the window. “Never mind that now. Mrs. Brunelli is sick and there’s no one here but us. People are going to need bread. Why haven’t you started shoveling the steps?”
Tommy shrugged. “I can’t find a shovel. I thought Mr. Brunelli kept one behind the door, but it’s not there.”
One more problem, Lucy thought wearily. “All right, come downstairs and help me with mixing dough. We’ll get that going and then see if Mr. Schwartz has a shovel."
“Sure thing, Sis.” Tommy followed her downstairs. “But don’t ask me to talk to him. Last time I knocked on his door I thought he was going to take my head off. I think he hates me.”
“Nonsense,” Lucy answered automatically. But Tommy was right. Mr. Schwartz had a terrible temper, though Lucy thought his bark worse than his bite.
With Tommy’s help, Lucy checked the oven, mixed the dough and set the loaves to rise. The she went and pounded on Mr. Schwartz’s apartment door. There was no answer. She pounded again. This time a tiny stooped old woman inched the door open a crack. “Ja? Wath ihtt?" she said.
It was Mrs. Schwartz, Mr. Schwartz’s mother. She had no teeth left, and she spoke little English. She was also half deaf. Lucy was never sure if she hadn’t understood or simply hadn’t heard.
“Hello,” Lucy shouted. “Is Mr. Schwartz home? We need to shovel the stoop.”
“Nein, Nein. Everybody shouting. Too much snow.”
“I’m sorry.” Lucy felt bad about yelling. ”I know there’s too much snow. That's why we need a shovel.” She mimed shoveling.
Mrs. Schwartz gave her a blank look.
“Mr. Schwartz?” Lucy tried.
Mrs. Schwartz shook her head. “Too much snow last night,” she repeated.
Did she mean Mr. Schwartz had been gone since last night? Lucy couldn’t understand Mrs. Schwartz, so she went to check on Mrs. Brunelli again. The woman hadn’t moved out of bed and was still moaning and rocking. Lucy fixed her a cup of tea, but Mrs. Brunelli refused it. As she was leaving, Lucy spotted the steel snow shovel leaning against the wall in a puddle of melting snow by the door. She wondered what it was doing there. Mrs. Brunelli was usually very picky about putting things where they belonged. If she hadn’t scolded Joe for bringing the shovel inside, she must really be very sick. Lucy wished there was something she could do to help her, but she couldn’t think of anything other than the tea, so she just took the shovel out to Tommy, wondering again where Joe had gone. He really ought to be here for the deliveries. It was hours past when he usually went out.
Tommy could only shovel for 15 minutes before he had to take a break, but he kept at it even though the wind kept blowing the drifts back. Lucy checked on him a time or two between finishing the bread and trying to help Mrs. Brunelli. The storm gave no sign of lessening all afternoon. Lucy saw one man blowing down the street, looking like he was flying, until he caught hold of a lamppost to stop himself.
The smell of bread baking must have risen through the stairwell or ventilation shaft because by late afternoon, people from the upstairs apartments began trickling in to purchase rolls or loaves. Few had ventured out in the storm, and those that did talked about the empty shelves at the grocers on the corner. “No trains made it into town at all,” one of the men from upstairs told her. Lucy set a second batch of bread to rise. Mrs. Mellon, who lived in the flat behind Brunelli’s, came in with an empty basket on her arm. Lucy knew her well, since she usually came into the bakery in the late afternoon to pick up bread for her six children, brother, and husband.
“I’m so glad to see you here,” she told Lucy as she picked out a loaf of rye and a half dozen rolls. “What with all the shouting last night, I thought sure there would be no bread today.” She handed Lucy a coin.
Lucy counted out the pennies in change. “What shouting?” she asked. “No one’s home except Mrs. Brunelli, and she’s laid up in bed.”
“Well, no wonder! She must have shouted herself sick last night. What can she expect, ranting like a harridan at her son and her husband that way?” Mrs. Mellon leaned forward, delighted to share her gossip. “It started early last night. Woke us up with all the uproar, it did. I think it was Joe, yes, Joe, shouting about going his own way, and both parents taking a turn at trying to shout him down. I tell you I had to stuff cotton balls in my ears to get any sleep. The cotton fell out near dawn, since they woke me again, still shouting. They must have been at each other all night." Mrs. Mellon leaned over the counter and spoke in an exaggerated whisper, "Mr. Schwartz was fair put out. He was part of all that shouting too; I'm sure of it!”
As Mrs. Mellon went out the back, Lucy ran downstairs to check on the bread. It wasn’t easy working upstairs and down at the same time.
“Lucy! Come quick!” Tommy screamed.
Lucy raced back up the steps, lifting her skirt high to keep from tripping on it. Tommy’s panic was contagious.
“What is it?” she said.
Tommy leaned on the battered shovel, breathily heavily, his face as white as the blowing snow.“Mr. …Mr. B…B…B…." Tommy stuttered, but in the end he only opened the door and pointed.
Lucy leaned over Tommy’s shoulder. There, at the top of the steps, rising from the drift, a cold white hand reached upward.
“Holy Mother of Mary, Saints preserve us!” Lucy crossed herself and then shoved past Tommy. “We’ve got to get him out of there.”
Working frantically, alternately shoveling and digging with bare hands, Lucy and Tommy uncovered the stiff body of Mr. Brunelli. His eyes were open in a wide, vacant stare, and his skin was a mottled blue.
Lucy pried his frozen fingers off the railing. Then with Tommy’s help she dragged him inside.
He lay on the bakery floor, his jacket frozen solid and ice encasing his eyebrows and mustache. Bright red crystals of icy blood covered half of his face, and his nose was smashed to one side. Lucy brushed the snow off his eyes, and tried warming his hands. She leaned in close, but no breath passed his frozen lips.
“Is he dead?” Tommy stood back.
Lucy nodded slowly, reluctant to admit the truth.
“Frozen?” Tommy whispered. “Outside his own door?”
Lucy nodded again, but hesitated. How awful to die within inches of safety, but that was not what made her hesitate. "Look at that gash on his head,” she said.
“Golly,” Tommy breathed. ”Someone must have hit him.”
“Maybe he slipped in the snow,” Lucy countered. “And hit his head on the steps.”
“Then there wouldn’t be bruises on both sides of his head.”
Lucy knew Tommy was right. Besides, if he had slipped, wouldn’t he be at the bottom of the steps? And if he had come back up the stairs after falling, why hadn’t he come inside? The door had been unlocked. She bent to close Mr. Brunelli’s eyes, but they were frozen open, as hard as balls of glass. With a shudder, she took a clean dishcloth and covered his face.
“What do we do?” Tommy asked. He hadn’t moved from his spot beside the front door. “We ought to call the police.”
Lucy agreed, but the storm still raged outside, and by now the drifts were as high as Tommy’s head. A man might be able to bull his way through but not her or Tommy. “There’s a station only six blocks from here,” Lucy said,” but we’ll never make it. I suppose we’ll have to lay him out in the Brunellis’ back bedroom.”
They couldn’t lift him, so they each took an arm and dragged him back to the second bedroom. They covered him with a sheet. Then Lucy went to Mrs. Brunelli.
Mrs. Brunelli sat up in bed staring straight ahead when Lucy told her. For a moment, Lucy wondered if she even heard. “We’ll get help just as soon as this monstrous storm is over," she promised to fill the silence.
Mrs. Brunelli started wailing, “Joe, Joe… Why? Why?”
“Did they have a fight?” Lucy asked. Could Joe have gotten so angry he hit his father? Maybe he had used the shovel and brought it inside afterward to hide it. Lucy couldn’t really imagine Joe, with his winking and teasing, would ever get that angry, but Mrs. Mellon said she'd heard him shouting.
A great commotion started up in the outer hallway with doors slamming and boots clomping. Without knocking, Mr. Schwartz barged in and stood in the doorway like the abominable snowman, with snow blanketing his shoulders, hat and eyebrows. Icicles dripped from his black mustache.
"Where is Brunelli?" he demanded. "That man promised to keep the walks clear as part of his rent."
“It’s his fault,” Mrs. Brunelli screeched, trying to untangle herself from the sheets.
Her distress was so obvious that it stopped even Mr. Schwartz's angry blustering.
"What's going on here?" he said, apparently noticing the topsy-turvy room and wild-eyed woman for the first time.
Lucy stepped forward. "Mr. Brunelli is dead. Frozen on his own doorstep."
Mr. Schwartz grabbed the doorframe as if for support. "Dead?" he repeated. "What do you mean, dead? I was just talking to him yesterday."
He looked so shocked Lucy couldn’t believe he had anything to do with Mr. Brunelli's death in spite of Mrs. Brunelli’s accusation. But she had to ask. "Where were you last night? Mrs. Mellon said you were shouting too."
“Preposterous. I haven’t been here since Sunday morning."
"Liar!" shrieked Mrs. Brunelli. She struggled free of the bedclothes and grabbed the overturned wooden backed chair. She swung this at her landlord, screeching all the while, "You did it. You made him go out in that…"
Mr. Schwartz put up his hands and backed away. "That woman is crazy," he shouted.
Mrs. Mellon elbowed her way into the crowded room, dodging the chair that Mrs. Brunelli swung like a scythe across the tangle of bedclothes and debris on the floor. Mrs. Mellon wrestled the chair away from Mrs. Brunelli, and motioned for Lucy and Mr. Schwartz to leave. "I'll give her some laudanum," she said.
Lucy and Mr. Schwartz retreated and Lucy showed him the body. “Someone should tell the police,” she said.
"Pshaw! They've got more important problems right now. Don't you know the whole city is starving? Trains are stuck out in the snow, and there's not likely to be any deliveries until this blasted storm is over and the tracks cleared. It could be days. Where's Brunelli's boy, Joe?"
"I haven't seen him all day." Lucy headed back to the bakery.
“Probably run off after bashing in his father’s head!” Mr. Schwartz stomped his heavy boots to shake off more snow. Lucy grabbed a rag to mop up the icy water. She wasn't so sure Joe was the guilty one here. Mrs. Brunelli clearly blamed her landlord, though Lucy felt sure he’d been surprised to find his tenant dead.
“You two better get out there and clear off those steps,” Mr. Schwartz went on. “Nothing more anyone can do for Brunelli just now, poor sod. But chances are you're going to have a hungry crowd coming in here as soon as they find you're open. Heck, you could charge double and no one could complain. And,” he added as he left the bakery, "I can't open my shop if no one can get to it."
“No one is out buying things today,” Tommy called to his back.
“Except shovels! Have you thought of that? A lot of people are going to want shovels!"
By evening, Lucy was exhausted. There had been no more shouting, and the few times she had time to check, Mrs. Mellon sat with Mrs. Brunelli. Lucy baked as many rolls and loaves as she could, taking out the last batch long past closing time. She came upstairs and handed a warm roll to Tommy. “You’re letting me eat the stock?” he said in amazement.
Lucy nodded. “Mrs. Brunelli can take it out of my wages if she likes. Or maybe Joe will be in charge now." She wasn't sure she liked the idea of Joe as her boss. She never could tell when he was teasing.
"If he ever comes home." Tommy took the roll and breathed in the warm yeasty scent. "Do you think he did it?"
Lucy shook her head. "I don't know what to believe.” She didn't want to think about Joe Brunelli, with his devil-may-care smile. She looked out the front window. The sidewalk was buried under a snowbank so high she couldn’t see over it, and in spite of all Tommy’s efforts, snow had blown into drifts covering the steps, and it was still coming down. "We're going to have to spend the night here." Lucy wished she could send word to Mama, but there was no phone in the tenement building. Anyway, with the phone lines down, she couldn't even make a call to the grocer across the street.
Tuesday morning it was so cold Lucy could see her breath misting in the air in the bakery shop, and it was still snowing. She got up early and fired the oven. Then she used the last of the flour to mix more bread. All morning, customers came in the front door, wading through the drifts, or from the back if they lived in the floors upstairs. Everyone had a story to tell about the “Great White Hurricane,” as the papers were calling the storm. As the morning wore on, the stories got more and more exaggerated. One boy bought six rolls with a couple of nickels he said he earned helping people walk across the East River. “There’s even women and dogs out on the ice,” he claimed. A young woman from upstairs said her father had seen a horse so tangled in downed wires that it was shooting off sparks, even after it died.
Just after noon, Joe walked in, whistling Oh my darling, Clementine. "Hey, Lucy." He threw his cap on the counter, and shook off his snowy overcoat. "You look like you’ve been busy. Where's Pops?"
"You better talk to your mother." Lucy brushed the back of her hand across her eyes.
"Is she still mad?" Joe laughed. "Just like a bulldog, always growling at something." He went out the back door of the shop, calling, "I'm home, Ma."
Lucy followed. With Mrs. Brunelli out of her mind, and Mr. Brunelli dead, Joe was her boss now. She'd better figure out what he expected. She found him bent over his father. He looked up, his eyes moist. "What happened?"
Mr. Schwartz burst in the room, carrying a rope. He grabbed Joe, spun him around, and punched him in the gut. Lucy screamed as Joe fell to the floor.
Tommy ran in, carrying the shovel like a club. “Lucy, are you all right?” he demanded.
Mrs. Brunelli, followed by Mrs. Mellon, crowded past Mr. Schwartz. "Joe," Mrs. Brunelli shrieked, throwing herself on her son.
Mrs. Mellon pulled her away as Mr. Schwartz planted a knee in Joe's back, and tied his hands behind him, before dragging him to his feet. "You won't get away with this one," Mr. Schwartz said with satisfaction.
Joe struggled against his bonds. "What's the matter with all of you?"
No one answered. The only sound in the room was his mother's sobs.
He stared at the hostile faces surrounding him. Lucy could see realization slowly dawning. "Are you thinking I killed him?" His face drained of color, and all hints of teasing were gone. "You gotta believe me." Joe's gaze flicked from Lucy to his ma, and back to Lucy. "Sure, we had a fight. Ma can tell you that. He was always trying to get me to work in the shop. But I swear, I left long before the snow started. I swear on the holy cross, I never hit him. My own dad? You’re crazy even to think it. Tell them, Ma. Pops was fine when I left."
Mrs. Brunelli was sobbing too hard to say much of anything.
"Where have you been all this time?" Lucy asked. "You knew everyone was counting on you for the deliveries."
“I couldn't get here. I was in Brooklyn. I was angry and thought I’d stay with Cousin Georgio. I’d show Pops he couldn't ride me like that. And then, well you know, the trains are all closed down. I was stuck.“
"So how did you get back? There are still no trains running and the streets are closed."
“I walked across the river.”
"Pshaw!" Mr. Schwartz said sarcastically. "Now you're saying you can walk on water."
"No, really. It’s a sheet of ice. Some youngster charged me a nickel to use his ladder to get down the bank. Then I walked across slick as you please."
"Tell that to the police." Mr. Schwartz grabbed Joe's elbow and shoved him toward the door.
"Wait," Lucy said. She remembered the boy in the shop talking about people walking across the ice. Maybe the East River had frozen over. "You both argued with Mr. Brunelli, and you both admitted you were angry. Mr. Schwartz, you said you left on Sunday, right?"
Mr. Schwartz glared at her. "Everybody already heard that. And my mother will tell you the same.”
Lucy held up her hand in a conciliatory gesture. “I know. I’m just going over it again.” Mrs. Schwartz undoubtedly could corroborate her son’s departure time. She was half deaf, but not senile. Lucy turned to Joe. "You left later Sunday night, right?"
"That's right." Joe said. "Pops and I argued, and I went to Brooklyn. He was still alive and yelling when I walked out."
"They can't both be right," Mrs. Mellon said. “I know I heard shouting long after it was dark.”
Lucy took the shovel away from Tommy, and examined it. It had a good wood handle and a flat steel scoop, wet with melting snow. Just like when she had first seen it. “If Joe left before the snow started, why was the shovel back here? Someone used it and brought it in,” she said.
"What are you getting at?" Mr. Schwartz said impatiently.
"Well I don't think anyone is lying. Mrs. Mellon, you heard the fight, but you can’t be sure exactly who was shouting. You said you stuffed cotton balls in your ears."
"I did. I couldn't sleep for all the racket."
Lucy held the shovel out to Mrs. Brunelli. The woman hadn't stopped crying since her son arrived. “So, what happened, Mrs. Brunelli? Why did you bring the shovel in after the snow started? You’re the only one that’s been here all along. You had a fight with Mr. Brunelli, didn’t you? You threw the water pitcher at him. What else did you throw?"
“Ma, what is she saying?”
Mrs. Brunelli fell to her knees. “I never meant anything," she said. "We argued. He said he had to start clearing the snow and I told him to wait. He wouldn't listen."
"Did you hit him?” Lucy pressed. “Swing the shovel at him like you swung the chair at me?”
“No!” Mrs. Brunelli stood and reached for the shovel. For a moment her dark eyes blazed angrily. Lucy backed away, alarmed at the sudden change.
Then Mrs. Brunelli crumpled. “He made me so mad. I might have pushed, just a little. Then he just lay in the snow where he fell, whining for help. I meant him to learn a lesson. I meant him to listen to me for once.”
“So he was still alive when you took the shovel inside. Did you mean to clean it off?” Lucy asked. “Why didn’t Mr. Brunelli come in after you?”
Mrs. Brunelli hid her face in her apron, her voice breaking on the sobs. “He could have come in. I unlocked the door.”
“But not soon enough,” Lucy said. “Not till it was too late to do any good."
Mr. Schwartz untied Joe's hands, apologizing gruffly as Joe helped his mother to a kitchen chair.
Joe reported his father's death to the police who brushed it off as one more victim of the worst blizzard they'd ever seen.
“Not the only chump to freeze these past two days,” the copper at the station said and told Joe he didn’t have time to come round. He waved his arm, indicating the twenty or so ragged children cluttering the office of the police station. “They spent the night here. We’ve got more urgent business cleaning up and getting the streets open.”
The snow stopped by three Tuesday afternoon. Joe and Tommy cleared the steps in front of the bakery and the hardware, and cut a tunnel through the snowdrift to the street. Tommy dug a tunnel part way down the sidewalk too, but he gave it up after about 15 feet.
“You can’t just leave it as a dead end like that,” Lucy said, as she wrapped her shawl around her head, preparing to walk home.
Tommy grinned as he put on his jacket. "Why not? It’ll be a good joke on someone, don’t you think?”
“You better take that boy home before his mama comes out in this mess looking for him,” Joe said. He looked about ten years older than that morning when he’d come in whistling.
Lucy buttoned up her coat. “I suppose you’ll close the shop…” Her voice trailed off, unsure if she had a job anymore. Joe had never shown much interest in the bakery.
“For a few days,” Joe said. “For the funeral. And I’ll need to settle things with Ma.” He took a deep breath. “But I’ll expect you back first thing Monday morning. Now the neighbors have tasted your rolls, we can’t disappoint them, can we?"
For a moment, Lucy thought he winked, but surely not. “Monday it is,” she said, and followed Tommy outside. The streets were still piled high with snow and littered with broken electrical poles and downed wires, but the wind had stopped at last, and the sky was clearing. The city was coming back to life again with everyone pitching in to speed the clean up. Maybe Mr. Whitman’s poem wasn’t so far wrong as she thought. Spring would come after all.
Early Edition New York Herold
Monday, March 12, 1888
The First Dandelion
Simple and fresh and fair from winter's close emerging,
As if no artifice of fashion, business, politics, had ever been,
Forth from its sunny nook of shelter'd grass--innocent, golden, calm as the dawn,
The spring's first dandelion shows its trustful face.
WALT WHITMAN
